Franklin Repository

A new solution of the causes which prevent the great debating club at Washington from organizing into a House, will be found in the fact that all the antagonism which blocks the organization is in reality the insidious beginning of that scheme of Disunion so repeatedly threatened by Southern ultras. It would seem that under cover of hostility to Republican heresies they are seeking to break up the Government by legislative dislocation.--Northern Democracy is the supple tool for aiding in accomplishing the treason. The discordancies which seem to prevent an organization are mere shams, purposely maintained for Disunion objects. What a weight of responsibility rests on the handful of men who unwittingly lend themselves to promote them, by refusing to coalesce with the only real Union party which now exists. The people of the North are unanimous that Sherman must be adhered to, come what may. Opposition to him because of his endorsing Helper, is too shallow a pretext to be seriously entertained. Had he refrained from doing so, some other caveat equally fallacious would have been put in. The Disunion conclusion being evidently a foregone one, some pretext must be found. Anything would serve the purpose, and Helper happened to turn up first. All glory in the compact brotherhood displayed by the Republicans in this struggle, and believe that as Sherman has stood the brunt of the battle, to him should be awarded the honors which are always the share of the leader.

If our brethren in England propose to sustain or to supplement with pecuniary aid every church in the United States which regards the holding human beings as property as a sin utterly incompatible with church-fellowship, they have on hand a larger work than is furnished by the field of any Missionary Society, or the congregations of any denomination of Christians in the British Empire. While some ministers in Great Britain, with an ignorance of American churches which is almost unpardonable, have put forth an appeal for money to support at least one thorough anti-slavery church in the United States, there are actually many thousands of such churches, which sustain themselves without the least extraneous aid!

The recent allusion in our columns to Rev. D. Worth, now a noble confessor of the faith of Georgia, has brought to us two communications on this subject, which we gladly lay before our readers.

"Editors Independent; In the able and interesting editorial headed `Deliverance through Martyrdom,' in your issue of Jan. 5th, are one or two mistakes, which, with your permission I wish to correct.

"In the article alluded to you say: `In North Carolina there is a case of persecution pointing towards the same result. Rev. D. Worth, who, like Mr. Fee, is a missionary of the American Missionary Association, is one of the most eloquent and powerful preachers in the Methodist Church,' etc.

"Now, so far as I am aware, there is no church in America called `the Methodist Church.' There is the `Methodist Episcopal Church,' and the "Methodist Episcopal Church, South,' but Rev. D. Worth could not consistently nor conscientiously be `one' even `of the most eloquent and powerful preachers, in either of these churches, seeing that both of them fellowship slaveholders. You say most truthfully that `he has taken ground openly against slavery as contrary to the Gospel of Christ;' but for so doing he has arrayed against himself many bitter enemies, not the least of which are found in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"There is also `the Methodist Protestant Church of America,' which, at a Convention held at Springfield, O., in September, 1858, renounced all complicity with the `sum of all villainies, and is now known as one of those ecclesiastical organizations whose testimony against slavery is decided and fearless. That Church, however, has never been known as `Methodist Church.' Moreover, Rev. D. Worth is not a minister of that Church.

"There is another ecclesiastical organization to which it seems The Independent has been quite oblivious, known as the `Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America.' This organization is not, however, a church, but is a connection or union of local churches, each independent of the other, although governed by the same general rules, and founded on the same doctrinal basis. The more prominent features of the Connection are these: Congregational in polity -Methodistic in doctrines and general usages- non-fellowship with slaveholders, their aiders or apologists and the maintaining of a decided protest against the buying or selling of men, women or children, with an intention to enslave them; or holding them as slaves; or claiming it is right to do so. This Connection of antislavery churches has been in existence nearly seventeen years, and was the result of a secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church on account of the notoriously pro-slavery character of the Church. There are now in the Connection nearly three hundred ministers and licentiates, and churches or pastoral charges amounting in the aggregate to twenty-five or thirty thousand members. Rev. Daniel Worth is numbered among these three hundred ministers, and is considered as `one of the most eloquent and powerful preachers in the' Wesleyan Methodist Church, to which perhaps you alluded in giving the church relations of our persecuted brother, would not feel flattered in being named in connection with him, neither would he feel at all complimented in being published as a minister in that Church, therefore this explanation may perhaps be deemed as not inappropriate, considering all the circumstances of the case.

"W.W. Lyle.

"Troy, O., Jan. 10th."

Another correspondent in the same ecclesiastical connection, writes:

"The Wesleyan Methodist Connection has been in existence more than sixteen years, having been organized in May, 1844, and has formed its churches, and administered church discipline, under a General Rule prohibiting

"'The buying or selling of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave them; or holding them as slaves; or claiming that it is right so to do.'

"Recent events in the South justify allusion to the missionary labors of this body on slaveholding soil. In 1847 a Wesleyan church was formed in Guilford county, N.C., consisting of fifty members, Rev. A. Crooks, of Ohio, volunteering to act as pastor. A `great and effectual door was opened, and so successful were the labors of Mr. C., that another minister was called for. Rev. J. M'Bride responded, and reached the Southern field in September, 1849. These young men, in connection with Rev. J.C. Bacon, in Grayson county, Va., succeeded in gathering over 500 members into the Wesleyan churches. This aroused the fears of the slaveholders; they were harassed by legal prosecutions and mob violence during one year, and at length were forcibly driven away from the churches they had established, in 1851. Rev. D. Worth, the Wesleyan Methodist preacher, who writes from `Greensboro Jail, December 26, 1859,' is the successor of these men. I will add one suggestive fact for the benefit of the Tract Societies. The origin of this anti-slavery movement in North Caroling has been traced directly to the circulation of an anti-slavery tract.

"The statistics of the Wesleyan body, as copied from The Wesleyan in The Congregational Quarterly for October, give the following result; Members, 21,000; traveling preachers, 340; unstationed preachers, 225; total, 21,565. J.H.

"West Middletown, Pa., Jan. 12, 1860."

We ask our Christian brethren in Great Britain to ponder these facts. The British Standard, The Patriot, and other papers which have given currency to the ridiculous statement that there is on this side of the Atlantic but one church in which God's Word is applied with fidelity to the guilt of American slavery, owe it to their own reputation, to the cause of truth, and to the honor of the churches here, to publish the fact that there are in the United States thousands of churches which make it a disciplinable offence to hold human beings as property. For their convenience we recapitulate what has already appeared in The Independant upon this subject.

The United Presbyterian Church of North America (formed by the union of the "Associate" and "Associate Reformed" Churches) has formally declared "That slaveholding -that is, the holding of unoffending human beings in involuntary bondage, and considering and treating them as property, and subject to be bought and sold -is a violation of the law of God, and contrary both to the letter and spirit of Christianity." This communion now numbers 422 ministers, 77 licentiates, 676 churches, and 55, 453 communicants.

The Free-Will Baptists have a like declaration, and these now number over 500 churches and 60,000 communicants.

The United Brethren in Christ declare that involuntary servitude shall not be tolerated in their communion. The Church numbers 1,278 ministers and 82,000 members.

Thus in these four denominations we find nearly 3,000 ministers, and upwards of 200,000 church members formally pledged against the sin of holding human beings as property. But this enumeration does not represent the half of the numerical strength of the ministry and churches equally committed against the sin. Few Congregational churches are accustomed to legislate upon specific sins in the way of church rules. For instance, we do not find in the rules of the Church of the Puritans any declaration of the sentiment of that church against the iniquity of holding men as property, yet who believes it possible for one guilty of that sin to gain admission to the fellowship of that church? Now there are hundreds of Congregational churches having no specific rules upon this subject, in which it is no more possible that one guilty of this sin should be admitted to fellowship than for a rum-seller or brothel-keeper to be so received. There is no lack of testimony in multitudes of churches against this sin. The Congregational churches have no organic connection through which to make such declarations as are cited above from other bodies; but several General Associations have taken decided ground upon this subject. That of New York, for example, which virtually, though not formally, represents some 180 churches with nearly 18,000 members, has declared that "the holding human beings as property is an immortality, the renunciation of which ought to be made a condition of membership in the Christian Church." There are several particular congregations among the Presbyterians which take similar ground. We are sure that English Christians will be glad to be disabused of any false impressions that may have received as to the real strength of Christian antislavery sentiment in the United States.--New York Independent.