The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-11-13
w-we lay before our readers to-day short

i give lay before our readers to-day shor
and succinct statement of the cause of the schisn
between the Northern and Southern portions o.
the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1t is taken from the Southern Christian Adro.
cate, the chief organ of that numerous and power.
full denomination in the Southern States
From the Charleston Is. c. Christian .1duocate.
4 DIVISION OF THE nj. Il. CHURcH-Irs True
i CAUsE.-A pamphlet has recently been publish.
ed in this city by Dir. GraysoD, collector of the
port of Charleston, in which he gives to the pub.
lie his opinions in regard to the existing excite
ment in political affairs. 1t would certainly claim
no notice from us the writer had confined his
remarks to the civil and political aspects of his
subject. lie has however made Il direct allusion
to the separation Of the Methodist Church, and
attributed this important event to causes utterly
Insufficient to account for it, and widely. aside
from the real facts of the case. He will permit
US to put him right If statesmen and PAM
pheteers Judge it necessary to refer to ecclesas-
tlcal commissions, 1t strikes as only fair to the
parties thus brought before the bar of secular
opinion, and as certainly due to their own self
respect that they should make themselves ac-
quainted with the true history of Church dis
putes, before they venture to dogmatise. Mr..
one knows that of all assemblies of men, the
most pertinacious and uncompromsing in opinion
are those OF the clergy, and that above all other
meetings under the sun, they are most prone to
exhibit, not charity, forbearance, and brotherly
love, but the absence of those vrtues.n
Ihis IS rather hard lecturing from good lay
brother, but we take the rebuke meekly and
only demur to the application of his general
principle to the case in hand. He thinks it is
not wonderful that disputes should arise in the
churches OF the United States they are found
to exist In the churches of other countries. They
'prove nothing but the promptness of theology.
ans to wrangle. The odium theoIogicum has
long been proverbial. Do we expect to escape
1t In this country! Or shall we regard its exist
ence rs proving anything more than certain
idiosyncrasy in excellent but irritable class of
men, which is continually turning discussion
into dispute"
Perhaps this is deserved Let the censure,
stringent as it is upon the teachers of religion,
pass. IL is aside from our purpose to defend
the cloth just now. But is this precious NOR
ceau of faultfinding philosophy brought forward
to account for the disruption Of the largest most
tlrmly-banded of the Protestant churches of the
United States? 0 lame and impotent conclusion!
For the credit of a Carolina man of letters and
quondam statesman, we hope that the writer's
reasoning on political facts is of q somewhat
better texture We beg leave to say to Mr.
Grayson that before introducing into his PAM
phlet reference to the separation of the Metho-
dist church, he ought to have looked little into
the affair. The odium heologicum had as little
to do with it, as it had in the late souabbles in
Congress, or the admission of California into the
Union.
The difficulty from first to last, gre,o ont of The
slavery question; turned on The hinge of equaltv
or 'ertOrity T.! ecclesiastical status bet,ceen The
Northern and S0uthern sections of The Church :;
came up IN the practical form of a uniied re-
ststance on Tue part Of The South, covered by the
ecclesmst1cal constitution, 10 fanatical onslaught
on The part Of the North against the constitution
and against bishop pre-emi,,em in rirlues, pub
TIC services, and ability ,ohose only sin ,cas that
he had married a lady o,cning slaue-praperiy.-
The North meant to degrade and punish him for
thaS; the South declared general government
attempting such an outrage could not be sus-
tanned in a slave-holding country. The North
maintained that slave-holding bishop should
not be allowed to discharge his episcopal func-
lions in their section; the South us firmly
maintained that submission to such injustice
would put to hazard all that was precio us in the
peace or the Southern portion of the Church,
and all that was hopeful in the undisturbed ex-
erclse OF the christian ministry in the section
they represented They filed declaration, SOL
EMMY setting forth their conviction that the
continued agitation of the slavery question in
the Northern portion of the Church, made
separation of the correctional union desirable.
A provisional separation was accordingly agreed
upon, and subsequently ratified and carried into
effect by the unanimous voice of the Southern
membership and ministry.
This IS the briefest possible outline of the
| - n N @ liHh lad b.. Il. Al
Church. Does the reader discover in it any
peculiar features of theological rancour? viii
the clerical idiosylcracH so delicately touched
upon by the writer of the pamphlet before us,
an idiosyncracy which is always pushing discus.
sion into dispute, will this explain away the
matter-of-tact and inSuperable difficulties which
sensible and conscientious men found to be
crowded into u case which had to be met and
adjusted! Not a word of it? The solemn
truth OF the matter is, that the spread of fanati-
cal viruance, not in respect to speculative, theo-
logical points, but touching matters which would
set the Church against the State, which would
make Individual conscience override the civil
constitution, which in a word would, unarrested,
turn over to desolation large portion of Gods
heritage in the Southern States-this produced
the MISUNDERSTANDING if the ecclesiastical
council whose fate it was to decide this grave
| iossIoi, hhu oeeh eHlBhteHcu Will W.T.. uray-
sons superior wisdom, might have found the
Ariadnes clew to guide its deliberations through
the inextricable labyrinth of difficulties by which
it was surrounded. And perhaps not How
far, in sphere more germane to his studies, he
will succeed in enlighteaing the Governor of
South Carolina time will show
A new Species Of Martyr.
We find the following very odd announcement
| in onp nj onr nychunone No tam ut lace
enthusiastic than the Gallo, would display such
devotion to scientific research.
SCIENTIFIC DEvoTIoN-An account is given
in the Continental papers of great Congress of
medical men which it is proposed to be held in
France, for the purpose of testing by experiment
the virtue of a newly discovered cure for mad
ness and for the bites of venomous serpents by
means of 'cedrone' seed. 1t seems that two
subjects, NJ. Auguste Guiemin and NJ. Hppolyte
Fourier, Professor Of Mathematics of the de.
partment Of Aveyron, have offered themselves to