Sentinel of the valley. [volume] (Woodstock, Va) 1841-1848, 1845-06-26

the organic and municipal laws of the
government, and country, and which
relations and rights, in more than two
thirds of the slayehoding States, are
not under individual control in any
sense or to any extent.
Both portions of the church are pre-
sumed to act from principle and con-
vlctlon, and cannot therefore recede
and hoac under such circumstances, is
ut possible to prevent the most fearful.
dlsunion, with all the attendant evils Of
contention and strife, except by allow
ing each section separate and indepen-
dent jurisdiction, the same in character
and purpose with the one to which both
have been hitherto subject. What fact,
truth, or principle, not merely of hu-
man origin, and therefore of doubtful
authority, can be urged, as interpcsing
any reasonable obstacle to change Of
jurisdiction, merely modal in character,
and simply designed to adapt single
principle of church government, not
pretended to be of divine obligation or
scripture origin, to the character and
features of the civil government of the
country? Nothing essential to church
Notwithstanding essentially dis
tinctive of Methodism-even American
Methodism, is proposed to be disturb.
ed or even touced, by the arrangement.
1t is a simple division of general juris-
diction, for strong moral reasons, aris-
ing out of the civil relations and posi-.
ton of the parties, intended to accom-
| plish for both, what it is demonstrated
by experiment, cannnt be accomplish
ed by one common jurisdiction, as now
constituted, and should, therefore, I'M
der the stress of such moral necessity,
be attempted in some other way.
The question of slavery, more or less
intimately interviewer with the ;n.er.
ests and destiny of nine millions of hu.
man beings, in the U. States, is GER
tainly of sufficient Importance, coming
up as it has, in the recent history OF
the M. Z. Church, and as it does in the
deliberations of this Convention, to au-
thorlse any merely modal or even orga.
mic changes in the government of the
church, should it appear obvious, that
the original and avowed purposes Of
the church, will be more effestually Sc
cured and promoted by the change pro-
posed, than by continuing the present
or former system. The evidence be.
fore the committee, establishes the fact
in the clearest manner possible, that
throughout the Southern Conferences,
the ministry and membership of the
church, amounting to nearly 100000,
in the proportion of about 95 in the
| 100, deem division of jurisdiction in.
dispensable to the welfare of the
church, in the Southern and South
western Conferences of the slavehold.
ing States; and this fact alone, must
go far to establish the right, while it
demonstrates the necessity of the sepa-
rate jurisdiction, contemplated in the
plan OF the General Conference and adj
opted by that body in view of such ne
cessity as likely to exist. The inter-
ests of State, civil law, snd public o.
pinion, in the South, imperiously re-
quire that the Southern portion of the
Church, shall have no part in the dis
cussion and agitation of this subject in
the chief councils of the Church. In
this opinion, nearly universal in the
Sourh, we concur.
Christ and his Christian;-
ty and its inspired and early teachers,
found slavery in Its most offensive and
aggravated forms, as civil institution,
diffused and existing throughout nearly
the entire field of their ministrations and
influence; and yet, in the New 1esta-
ment and earlier history of the Church,
we have no legislation, no interference
no Remuneration with regard to it,
not even remonstranee against it,
They found it wrought up and vitality
intermingled with the whole machine
ry of civil government and order of So
! ciety-so implicated with "the powers
that be-" that infinite wisdom, and the
early pastoral guides Of the Church,
saw just reason why the Church should
not interfere beyond plain and urgent
enforcement ofthe various duties grow
ing out of the peculiar relation Of mas
ter and slave, leaving the relation itself,
as civil arrangement, untouched and
unaffected, except so far as it seems
obviously to have been the Divine 3ur-
pose TO remove every form anSsHegree
Of wrong and evil connected With the
Institutions Of human government, by
faithful incubation of the doctrines
and duties of Christianity, without
meddling in any way With the civil po-