Year: 1873

EVangellzatl0n OF the Freedmen
REPORT TO THE SYNOD OF MISSISSIPPI, NOV. '73


A brief notice of this report was inserted las


week. The committee appointed last year consiste


of Rev. Drs. Palmer, Stratton, and Lyon. The re
port made occupies nearly four pages of the South


Western Presbyterian. 1t is drawn with much abili
ty, and as the subject is engaging the attention o
the Church. and will be brought before our mex
General Assembly it may be of general interest t.
publish here an outline of the paper referred to -
Cen. PREs.]


After citing the resolutions of the Synod o.
Mississippi last year, as an indication of its
interest in the subject, and recognizing the
embarrassments connected with it, a re
sumo is given of the first action of our
General Assembly beginning with 1865, and
extending through successive years to 1869
There was first the idea of retaining the ne
groes in our churches just as they always
had been; next separate congregations, but
under the exclusive jurisdiction of session
of white people; next giving them their own
officers, but connected with congregation
under white pastor, through whom they
we're to be represented in the church courts
The failure of these schemes is admitted,
and almost universally these people have
formed separate organizations. Whatever
views we may have, it is useless to oppose
this movement, for it has been influenced
"by one of the most controlling sentiments
known to the human heart-the instinct Of
race" This very separation presents the
solution Of the question: "The Presbyterian
Church will accomplish little or nothing in
the evangelzation of the colored people, un-
til this fact is inteligently and cheerfully
admitted as the basis of all her operations.
" We must abandon the idea of making them
a constituent part of our church; or by any
process of agglutinatiOn, making them sort
of attachment to ourselves"


What hope is there for any results from
Che line of policy we have been trying in
vain these eight years to inaugurate Let
our Church then change Der front and ad-
dress the colored people substantially in this
language-"yOu have, as race separated
yourselves from US, preferring to have your
ecclesiastical organization distinct from ours,
with your own churches, pastors, rulers and
guides. We recognize and respect your
position, as taken under the impulse of one
of the strongest affections of our common
nature, and as being the position we ourselves
would have been likely to assume under the
same circumstances; we do not therefore ask
you to change it, and we come before you
simply to say that we desire honestly, in the
fear of God, to assist you in that process
of self development, upon which, perhaps
without fully comprehending its import, you
have cast yourselves. 1t is natural to sup
pose that some of your number from previ
Gus association and training will prefer to be
Presbyterians; it is natural to suppose that
the same differences of opinion on religious
subjects will obtain amongst you which oh
tain among us; and that you will become
Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc.,
under the same convictions which divide the
Whites into their respective denominations
we d5sire to say therefore to Ill who 81
PreSbyterially inclined that we will aid you
in every possible way, and to the extent of
our power, in building you up into separate
and independent Church, with your own
Presbyteries, Synods, and the like; and will
rejoice to maintain with you as thus devel-
oped, the same Christian and ecclesiastical
fellowship which we wish to hold with every
other branch of the great Presbyterian fam
lily throughout the world"


There are many considerations which urge
upon us the adoption of this policy. Let us
glance for moment at some of them.


l. 1t is the course to which we seem shut
up in the providence OF God; having ex
hausted all intermediate measures, and this
being the logical result to which we have
been drifting through the whole of our pre-
vions legislation.


2. 1t settles finally the policy of our
Church, and terminates that vacilation in
our plans, which has been not discreditable
to US, simply because We could only by ex-
pertinent discover the true path amidst the
perplexites of such problem as this.


g. 1t is the ground already taken by the
colored people themselves, which we only
expect as determined fact. Our approaches
to them on their own platform, are therefore
likely to be acceptable, as soon as they be
come convinced of the integrity and simpli
city of our aims.


4. 1t lays quietly on the shelf without
discussion, all those tborny questions which
arise from the commingling of two diSsinilar
races, and which no amount of diplomatic
skill can harmoniOusly adjust.


5. 1t frees us from the temptation of
bending our constitutional principles to meet
particular exigencie8; form of compromise
which the whole history of the Church shows
to be the fruitful parent of contention and
trouble.


6. 1t places the colored people distinctly
upon the principle of development from
within-the only true and sound principle of
expansion and growth, in spiritual and &C.
cesiastical life.


7. 1t affords them the opportunity of so
modifying our system in some of its minor
details, as TO meet the necessities of their
position. For example-the promise we
have held out of licensing and ordaining
their candidates for the ministry, as soon as
they come up to the requirements of the
standard we have fixed for ourselves, is de-
lusive both to them and to US. In the ma
ture of the case, it is equivalent to the de-
NAL Of a native ministry for an indefinite
period and by the in8uficiency Of our own
supply, holds them in state of tutelage
from which it will be long before they can
emerge. perfectly clear that no Church
can grow without ministry springing from
its own bosom; and though the teacher
should be in advance of the taught, it ought
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