New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-06-03
RFOUJESCAT IN PACE.

The General Assembly OF tne 1TesDytClldh
Church, now in session at Philadelphia, have
been engaged during the present week In con-
solidating the Boards and Committees of the
Missionary organization, and compacung ana
perfecting the financial machinery of the
united body, in order that its future conduct
may be easy and effective. One OF the most
important improvements made is the removal
of the consolidated Boards of Home Missions
from Philadelphia to New York-the vote III
favor of this city standing 306 to 153 Such a
result was only to be expected. The delegates
to the Assembly are men of wide-awake intel
ligence as well as piety, and shrewd enough to
perceive the importance of finding leverage
for great religious operations in the center of
both commercial and mental enterprise. There
is certain force, freedom, and sweep in the
very air of New-York, that gives to every
business undertaking based here a strong pro-
pulsion to success New-York has rank vigor
enough to spare for the help of a dozen slug
gish places such as Philadelphia or Chicago,
and is equally ready to send missionaries to
lead their sleepy inhabitants to Heaven, or re-
peaters to do their voting for them, as occa-
sion may require.
But while cOngratulating our reverend friends
of the Assembly upon the acumen displayed
in their choice, we feel constrained not to al
low the occasion to pass without addressing
grave word of warning to our staid Quaker
sister city. 1t has always been supposed that it
was against her will that the currents of trade
and enterprise of every kind steadily ebbed
from her to New-YOrk. When her capitalists
were forced to come here to establish bases of
operations, even to start a line of steamers,
we gave her credit at least for viewing the
secession with wry face. We held it to be
her misfortune, and not her fault, that she was
always left high and dry on the lee-shore;
that not only Trade but even empty-headed
Fashion, passed her by. We deemed her
worthy of sympathy when, year by year. trades
people, brokers, artists, journalists, everybody,
in short, in whom was breath OF energy, fled
precipitately from under the cloud of stagna-
ton that involved her, as the righteous of old
from the unhappy, befogged cities of the Plain.
But we learn with surprise of late that this
desertion is looked upon with cOmplacency by
our sister city. She has looked so long and
steadfastly at her own image that, like Mar
cissus she has fallen in love with it. What
can taste, refinement, culture, ask more in a
city than her comfortable boxes of dwellings,
faced by Paramount water works and backed
by her markets. Nothing in human nature,
of course, can surpaSs Penn. Perfection being
thus reached in every count, she has resolved
to lie down, inexOrably finished for all time,
lapsing into state of as utter passivity as
Buddha himself. The Treaty Elm throws its
shadow of torpidity to her uttermost limit
She has set UP the image of Penn on all her
public places, upon her streets, even unto the
bakers wagons that roll therein Woe to him
who jars her rest now with vulgar motions of
trade or REFORM BE he capitalist man of
genius, or cOlOred lecturer, she sends him to
New-YOrk snubbed and silenced.
Is it worth while to try to rouse herr Has
she determined like the drowning Frenchman,
that she will be dead and nobody shall save
hers After all, may not this utter torpor be
wholesome spectacle in the hurry burly of
American life, and serve the same purpose of
Indictment to solemn and melancholy thoughts
of death and the decay of all things as a Gene
terry in the midst of crowded city Such,
doubtless, is the useful end designed for our
comatose sister. We stand aside, therefore,
and regard her with respectful silence. Peace
to her slumberS