Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1838-09-05
Saxton's River, Aug. 20, 1888.
Elder ELI Ball's Adore IS and tho Vermont
Telegraph.


At the last annual meeting of the Yer
mont Baptist Convention, a circular on
the subject of slavery, addressed to the
Southern Churches, was adopted by that
body. This circular urged in strong lam
guage the sin of slave holding, and the ex-
pediency of its immediate abolition. Di-
rections were given to send a copy to all
the Baptist Churches in the Southern
States. Several copies were accordingly
sent into this State. One Of them having
come into the possession of Elder Eli
Ball, was answered by him through the
columns of this paper, with request that
the Editor of the Telegraph, the Baptist
organ for Vermont, would give it an in
sertion. The insertion of this article in
the Telegraph was delayed for several
,,.vho, to~usso rtTE herald containing 1t
failed to reach the Editor, and we had to
forward duplicate copy.
The Address of Elder Ball has been
PUBLISHED according to his request, and
answered-First by the writer Of the Cir
cular, the former Editor of the Telegraph,
and secondly by the Editor. The an
swers occupy space of four or five COL
umns in the Telegraph.
The Editor OF the Telegraph hopes that
we will present those documents to our
readers. This, after thinking maturely
on the subject, we must beg leave 10 de-
cline The Circul ar was public property,
and brother B. had an undoubted rig ht to
reply to it. if he pleased, Our inserting
this reply did not necessarily bind US to
the insertion of any answer to it, whether
suitable or not to our columns. % In the
second place we know that the insertion
of those articles would be obnoxious to
large portion of our readers, and therefore,
not productivesof good. (2) In the third
place, we would rather leave such discus
sions to the political journals, as it is a
matter more pertaining to their iurisdic-
ton than ours. (3) And lastly. the
spirit of the articles and and the language,
would forbid their insertion flour north
ern brethren expect to convince US, they
must lay aside their dictatoriaI tone, their
harsh, and denunciatory language; we
shall then be better prepared to listen to
their exhortations. Brother Balls ad-
dress was mild and conciliatory. The re-
plies, in several instances, are harsh and
unjust This of itself would be suffi-
cent apology for our not acceding to the
proposition of the Editor of the Tele-
graph. az
Ga any other subject, we should be
glad to extend to him the use of our col
umns (5)-Religiows Herald.
Cd Look at 1t again, brother Sands. The
Vermont Baptist State Convention publish
ed remonstrance against slavery as exist
ing in the Baptist Churches at the South
that remonstrance was refused place in
your columns-and yet was replied to thro
your columns and then you refused admit.
lance TO an answer to this reply. If there
be Christian magnanimity and fairness in
all this, confess my obliquity of vision.
~ How can you know that it will MOI
be productive Of good2 There is a non Sc
quitur in your reasoning. 1t does not fol
low, that, because "those articles would b.
obnoxious to large portion OF Eyour7 read
ers, therefore [they would not bel product
i've of good" This doctrine would hay,
stopped the mouths of every pioneer G
truth since Christ was cruci6ed and Stepher
was stoned. Was it not obnoxious to III,
Jews-and more or less so to the Gentiies-
that our Lord and his Apostles set forth hi
claims to the Messiahship And was thei
preaching OF this doctrine therefore produc
tive Of no good? Has not Professionalism al
ways been obnoxious in those regions wher
Papacy prevails2 and has the preaching q
II il, therefore, in those regions, been produc
tive Of nogooda Like questions might b
asked IN regard to Temperance, Moral Re