Mr. West's Letters: For The Signal Of Liberty: The Unity Of ...

jljui nrst one wora more as co the discipline of the cliurch ín reference to admkting elaveholders to the communion. Mr. West insis ts Ihat slaveliolding is not necessariiy sinful, that it may be involuntary. This I think can only mean elaveholding in appearance, but not in renlity. If there be such acaso (out of the land of abstractions and drearns,) it would form no ezception to the principies wc have been stnling, for no one would attach a penalty to a mere name. An imaginary slaveholder need not give much trouble to those who are dealing with real ones. VVhen the non-holf3ing slaveholder presents hhxself in bodily shape, it will be time euougli to de1 with his case. Let us not leave the proven or confessed slaveholder in order to chase their phantoms or Jikenessee,or any other willo'the-wisp meleors. With regard to r.he uniiy of the church, does Mr. West's plan secure this object? - Seven members, about one-fourteenth of the Assembly, represented the sluveholding interest?; thirty -three or one third, the slavery sentiment of that body, while the remaining members occupied for the time bcing a neutral position. Is it plain that harmony was secured by the uniting with seven against Ihirty-three - in other words, that seven malcontents were more liable to break up the church, than three? Or did Mr. West and his coadjutors rely on the moderation, forbearance and peacefulness of the abolitionists? They do not always give them credit for these qualities. It does seem a Httle hard that the unity should be all on one side, and that the venerable and good men from the South should not be willing to relinquish their connection with, and defence of slaveholding, which even they do not hold to be a dnty, and much less a religious duty, for the sake of maintaining their union with those who regard it as a sin, and a very great one too. Is it hard to say from which side concession should come - from that which concedes only opinión, or from that which concedes opinión and principie both? But whot is this unity to whic! so much is to be sacrifleed? Whatever it is theoretically it is in practice little more than the privüeg of meeting once in three years soma eig-lit o ten Southern Clergymen in an assembly o ten or twelve times tbeir number from the North . It is to pass a few days in public am private intercourse with suppose a hundrec gifted men, inetead of ninety. Is the weighl of the Assembly with the church or the public materially Ieesened because six or eight members witlidrew from it? What important interest of the church would suffer, if Mr. W. or some other representa! ive from Michigan should not interchange civilities three years henee with Doctors Hill and Ely at Philadelphia? How much agrceable intercourse would there have been betvveen these tvvo gentlemen, if the latter had heard the speech of the former, delivered at Ann Arbor, or if the former had re-delivered that speech on the fioor of the Assembly? May we not go still farther, and maintain that in order to keep up an ontward, seeming and hollow unity with the Southern church, the real unity of ihe Northern church is sacrificcd, her peace endangered.and hertestimony against a foul corruption smothered and extinguished? Slie cherishes the viper in her bosoni, instead of casting it from her wilh scorn and lonthirg. Wns it slavery, or merelr some knotty pñnts of thpology thnt so lately rent the Presbyterinn church in sunder? Let those who know teil what was at the bottom of that rrmarkable schism. Let them teil us, too, why sincc that act did in effect gready mar northern infiuence over slave churche?, the Northern churches should not take off the load of slavery, a Joau that is weighing thtm to the earth. Not only is their peace endangered; it is to be fcared their purity will be made a sacrifico. Church discipline and church unity forsooth! Shall these form a screen between the church and slavery? Can they not be maintaincd at a lesscos-tly sacrifico (han that of our two millions of Jienthcns? What argument can 5he Reverend writer bring forward on this hcad that would not apply with much greaterforce to the States, and even individual families? - Is not the union of the States of the last importance, says the politician. Why then cndanger it by condemning ihe institution of slavery? Is notfamily peace a blessing? Why hazard it by finding fault in ense one member of a family clioose tö engage in any way in slaveholding? Did the church of Rome in the days of Luther enjoin or allow any greater enonuity than slaveholding? Was he wrong in breaking the unity of the churca? Were indulgences, nnd saint-worship, and the niass and forced celibacy grealer crimes orgieater evils than the whip, unpaid labor, violent separation of families, and compulsory prostitution? Was ihe Bible a more sealed Book to the people then, than to the slaves now? Was the spiritual condition of the poor in the sixteenthcentury worse than that of American slaves? Yet to remedy tliese evils cost the unity of hechurch. Superficial remedies canbeap-, püed only to superficial evils. If a member be o diseased as to endanger life, it must be cut off. May we not bere apply the words of lhO )ropliet: "Wherefore oomo out from among liem, and be ye separate, and touch not the uriclean thing, saith tlie Lord of Hosts."