probably in the haste of winding up the business which always crowds the Assembly towards the close of its sessions. For, it hardly requires a "second thought" to perceive, that it would have been in the highest degree indelicate, improper and inexpedient, for any five Congregational bodies to assume to themselves to act for the whole seventeen; and especially unbecoming and unwise for the East, to take into its sole hand questions in which the West had a more vital interest than any other part of the country, and, on many points, a more intimate knowledge. Such an assumption on the part of the five New England Bodies would have been in the highest degree improper; and could hardly have failed-if attended with any results at all—to be fruitful of additional complications. We are stricken with amazement, when we see so many of our Presbyterian brethren seemingly blind to the strange infelicity of such a proposal. This infelicity was hightened by the fact, that the Ecclesiastical bodies had no jurisdiction in the premises; and also by the lack of definiteness in the proposition itself: which indefiniteness was in no degree diminished by any verbal message or explanations from the lips of the Assembly's delegates. Rev. Dr. Mills-of whose visit, very pleasant recollections are cherished,-with all his instinctive frankness and courage, and his well-known familiarity with the general subject, could only answer, when asked, repeatedly, the object of this conference, by reading portions of the Assembly's resolutions: which (he will pardon us for saying it) thanks to our excellent system of Common Schools, Connecticut boys were able to read for themselves. No definite topics having been assigned for their consideration, the Committees, had they met, must have exclaimed, in consternation, "The whole boundless continent is ours!"

Within the past few months the idea has been gaining currency, that the purpose of the proposed Conference was, a discussion relative to an equitable division of what are spoken of as "the assets" of the American Home Missionary Society. Now, we must be allowed to say-in view of the fact that, during the past quarter of a century, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been received by Presbyterians, through the

Home Missionary Society, over and above their contributions to the same that an undue solicitude and heat has been shown by some of our brethren in reference to this "division of assets;" which agitation is the more striking, when we reflect, that the Society possesses no property-having, from the first, committed itself to the principle of making its sole investments in the affections of God's people; that nothing that can be called "assets" exists, save such legacies as remain unpaid; that the only known legacy, of any amount, concerning which a question has been raised, is one made by a Presbyterian of Congregational birth and education, (and in all probability, therefore, quite as "bogus" as the other New England born Presbyterians, against whom such suspicions and complaints are rife ;) that this legacy is yet in the hands of the courts, may never be paid, and is not yet due; and that, meanwhile, at this present hour, as for long years past-the much-suspected Executive Committee of the American Home Missionary Society is still appropriating* to Presbyterians so much more largely than the Society is receiving from them, that no very long period would be required to make up the amount of the legacy that our friends are so fearful of losing. If, under such circumstances, a division, to the last ounce, be insisted on, wherefore should not Congregationalists say: Render back, then, the wealthy city churches and the hundreds of weaker ones, over all the land, that our contributions have founded for you; and raise our dead, who have gone to premature graves in your service! But we know that our old friends are not capable of meaning what some precipitate ones have said for them. This loud cry of " assets comes

from a lack of consideration and of needful information on the part of individuals. All legacies must be expended, if received, by the Society itself, for its own proper ends and uses. Any other disposal would work a forfeiture. We venture to add, that, in our judgment, there is very little likelihood that Presbyterians will not get from the Society all that by the most generous computation they could claim.

See "REPLY of the Executive Committee" to the Assembly's Commission.

And now, one word, ere we close, to our brethren of the PURITAN name and heritage. Presbyterians are leaving us. Individuals, churches, possibly some presbyteries may continue to prefer the old paths to the new; but the denomination is bidding us Farewell! New nets of entanglement are weaving, and sooner or later, in Foreign Missions as well as in Home Missions, we are to be left alone. While Episcopalians are becoming dissatisfied with their church-system for missions, and are toiling at the foundations of another Voluntary Society; while Old School Presbyterians are contending together over their frame work of Ecclesiastical Boards, and a powerful party are striving-with flattering omens of success-for greater centralization, and a purer ecclesiasticism; while our New School brethren-still beloved, and long to be missed are wrenching themselves from us, and concentrating upon the identical system of strictest church-control, that Dr. THORNWELL, and other jure divino Presbyterians of the Old School, are striving for,-we, the sons of the Puritans, hold evenly on our way-by the falling off of many friends, compelled to walk solitary under our ancient banners;-solitary, if so it must be, but reluctant; rejecting and abhorring, as ever, the domination of a partisan spirit; cherishing, with instinctive warmth and with scrupulous care, a spirit of bounteous Christian love for all who love the Lord, whether they walk with us or not; remembering, with peculiar regard, the noble company of Believers with whom it has been our privilege so long to labor in the vineyard of our common Master; holding fast to all old friends who are willing to go with us still; resolved, in the Lord's strength, that, come what may, we will not consent to be made a sect, dividing the Body of Christ. Whosoever among our still lingering allies, gives his heart to the strict Presbyterianism of this new movement, will go-as he ought. Let our kindest Christian wishes go with him. Whosoever, on the other hand, retains his old love for the Puritan name, and the Puritan principles, and the old Puritan home and friends, will, naturally and necessarily, as Providence opens a way, return to the bosom of the an

cestral household-to find there the old love and the familiar liberty. Already, Divine Providence has made New England strong at the West; and if her children and her friends are but faithful to the service and the opportunity now forced upon them, the time must come when there shall not be a county or a city in all this broad land that will not know, from its own experience, the beauty and the power of the pure Word of God, in its wholeness and its freeness, and of-APOSTOLIC CHURCHES. Thus the hand of the Lord draws us-on! We will be in no haste, except to follow as He leads.

ARTICLE VIII.-THE HOME HEATHEN, AND HOW TO REACH THEM.

Report of the Committee on Home Evangelization, presented to the General Association of Connecticut, convened at Rockville, on the third Tuesday in June, 1860.

THE document, the title of which is given above, treats in a specific way, as pertaining to the state of Connecticut, of a subject of universal and widely felt importance to the Christian church and ministry. It is in this specific manner that the subject can, in this day, be treated to the best advantage. Vague talk about general facts and principles, and platform exhortations about duty to our unbelieving neighbors, have been not without their use, but that use seems to have been pretty well fulfilled. The public mind of the church has been effectually aroused to the consideration of the exigencies of "the home-field," and is pretty well convinced that something ought to be done. The questions remaining are, What is to be done, and How to do it. And these questions need to be answered in particular and in the concrete.

We accordingly take the subject stated at the head of this Article, and propose to discuss it in a plain and practical way, as it comes before us in the above-named document of the General Association of Connecticut; being sure that we cannot reach the practical questions pertaining to the general subject in any other way so well.

The "

Report of the Committee on Home Evangelization," which is contained in an octavo pamphlet of ninety-six pages, gives the results of a minute, and approximately complete inquiry into the religious condition of the people of the state of Connecticut.

That such an inquiry should be a novelty, is a strange fact, and one not at all honorable to the zeal and conduct of the various religious bodies that concern themselves with the wel