On the other hand it is clear that the very question of literal slavery has ceased to be a practical question.* Ten years hence it will be a mere ethical abstraction; a shadowy point mooted only among our college classes in moral philosophy over their books. About whatever else we quarrel and divide, that must disappear. Northern anathemas and unchurchings on that ground are already obsolescent, and will soon be out of date. Southern books in defense of slavery are already waste paper; and their writer's grandson will never boast of his grandfather's authorship. Who knows but in the day of that grandson's manhood the Cotton States may be asserting ultra-unionism over some other discontented section, and the Episcopal Methodist Church be proclaiming trumpet-tongued her right of moral control over the politics of the country? What the South more than the North now needs is peace; the soothing of old strifes; the dismissal of the false political guides that have ruined her; and the adoption of those principles that may tranquilize. For her highest interest it is to furnish to the North just grounds of confidence that she renounces both rebellion and faction. For the interest of all it is that the North, in whose possession is the control, should truly understand her, and equitably exercise the power. The South needs the revival and creation of industrial

* Our tardy prohibition of "slaveholding" in our General Rules is of slender value either as an honorable record or a churchly test. 1. Had we made the change in 1856, or even in 1860, there would have been some honor in the record. But to wait until slavery had received its death-blow and then cut it off, was simply "shooting a dead duck." It looks sadly as if our controlling power considered the terms of the kingdom of grace and glory to be changed by a political or military event. It seems quite as sadly like cowering before slavery while it was strong and menacing, and trampling upon it when it was weak and dead. The North Church hung on to slavery about as long as the South Church, with not a quarter of the same excuse. If "repentance " is called for by our Northern brethren, we think that both Churches had better (as our telegram suggested) go on their knees together and let God decide which is the greater sinner. Brethren of our Methodist Episcopal Church, let us repent of our persistent proslaveryism! 2. As a churchly test, we may say that with half as much inconsistency as our controlling power seems to have incurred, the whole Southern Church could come in under the General Rule. The reason is this: Doctrines must be believed; Rules must be obeyed. The South Church heartily believes our doctrines; and she can obey our Rules. The Rule against "slaveholding" she not only will but must obey, for the national Constitution makes disobedience to it impossible. For that matter then the South Church both believes our doctrines and keeps our rules. And she got rid of "slaveholding" about as quickly, and hardly less reluctantly, than we. Suppose both Churches join in a concert-prayer of repentance.

enterprise; the tranquillity that can invite the investment of outside capital and the incoming of a virtuous and industrious immigration; the extension of just and equal laws and impartial enfranchisement to all her sons; the establishment of educational and religious institutions, and the development, under a policy of freedom and regulated justice, of those wonderful resources which may put her on a new course of prosperity unknown and impossible to the old dynasty of slavery. To that career of freedom and that result of prosperity, the whole North, radical and conservative, would with one voice cheer and welcome her. And toward these results, if we rightly interpret the signs, the South is already slowly yet encouragingly tending.

And here is our reply to those one-idead philanthropists who tell us: "If you harmonize with the Church, South, you forsake the negro." Not so. We harmonize with the Church, South, for the benefit of the negro. They are virtually the worst enemies to the negro, who proclaim with a voice that rings through and maddens the South, that friendship for the negro is hostility to the Christian white South. To assert the rights of the negro, yet gain the hearts of the Church South, are two ideas that should blend into one. Our main, though not sole, remedy for our evils is CONCILIATION-conciliation of both sections, and both races; yet conciliation on the basis of that broad Christianity, embodied in the Golden Rule, which seeks to qualify every man for his rights and then gives his rights. There is work enough for all, all working together. And the truest, briefest, most effectual method to accomplish the vast complex work is the heartiest possible harmonization of all into a working unit.

Happily significant is the excision of the old affix "South," and the adoption of the name "Episcopal Methodist Church." It marks the wise abandonment of old sectionalism and an enlargement into a broad nationalism. It is the virtual, half unconscious renunciation of secessionism for the future, (however, as matter of pride it will be defended for the past,) and a pledge of perpetual unionism. As from their invasion of the North we fear no "disintegration," so if they will here gather a Church from the raw material of the wicked world, we would cheer them on, in no defiant spirit, to the shores of the great lakes. At

every great advance a narrowness, an insularity, or an ism would slough off. Second, the adoption of Lay Delegation is similarly a blessed advance from old exclusiveness toward individualism. It announces the demise of the spirit of the oligarchy, and nobly moves in the direction of that universal education and impartial enfranchisement which constitute the true modern democracy. Third comes the large concession of ecclesiastical rights to the colored race. In this direction, impelled not only by the awakened spirit of humanity, and by the spirit of the age, but by a pressing competition, they must rapidly onward. Finally, they commit themselves freely and boldly to negro education, religious and secular, Sabbath and week-day. Negro education will demand a periodical press, which will create a negro political power, from which political rights cannot forever be withheld. We could wish there had been frank loyalty enough to give public thanks to our beneficent government, especially our National Congress, for its care for the safety and the rights as well as aids to the education of the freedmen. And we think they might magnanimously have tendered their gratitude to the Christian liberality of the North in the much it has done for that needy class. We think they might well have uttered some bold and ringing rebukes upon the spirit of oppressive and murderous cruelty toward the colored race, exhibited, not, indeed, we believe, by the Christian and cultivated classes of the South, (however much it may result from the neglect of those classes to protect,) but by the lower and lowest strata of the Southern population. And, lastly, we think, in view of the vastness of the field and of the work, and of their own poverty by the terrible calamities of war, they might have courteously invited the Christian people of the North to aid in the education and the elevation of the colored race, cheerfully proffering their sympathy, protection, and cordial co-operation. Yet, without these doings, how wonderful and how cheering is the advance since the educating of a negro was a penal offense! Let us applaud and rejoice in what the Southern Conference has done, and patiently wait for its next quadrennial session to see how rightly and rapidly "the world moves." And in order to this blessed "net result," be it, in conclusion, hereby cordially and fraternally "Resolved that it be earnestly recommended to our ministry and membership,

both in private and in our public congregations, to offer frequent and special prayer for the spiritual prosperity of our brethren in the EPISCOPAL METHODIST CHURCH, and for their attainment of such a state of heart and mind, as that outspoken loyalty, impartial justice to the oppressed, and equal rights for all our fellow-men, may become constituent parts of their religion."

ART. VIII.-FOREIGN RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

PROTESTANTISM.

GREAT BRITAIN. COLENSO-SENTENCE OF EXCOMMUNICATION-LETTERS FROM THE BISHOP OF CAPETOWN TO ALL THE ANGLICAN BISHOPS OF THE WORLD-PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY.-In the last number of the Methodist Quarterly Review we continued the history of the Colenso case up to the beginning of the present year. The Metropolitan of Capetown had offered to Colenso to have the sentence of deposition revised either by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or by the Bishop of the United Church. As Colenso refused to avail himself of this offer, the metropolitan issued a formal sentence of excommunication, reading as follows:

In the name of our Lord Jesus ChristWe, Robert, by divine permission, Metropolitan of the Church in the province of Capetown, in accordance with the decision of the bishops of the province, in synod assembled, do hereby, it being our office and our grief to do so, by the authority of Christ committed unto us, pass upon John William Colenso, D.D., the sentence of the greater excommunication, thereby separating him from the communion of the Church of Christ so long as he shall obstinately and impenitently persist in his heresy, and claim to exercise the office of a bishop within the province of Capetown. And we do hereby make known to the faithful in Christ, that, being thus excluded from all communion with the Church, he is, according to our Lord's command, and in conformity with the provisions of the XXXIIId of the Articles of Religion, "to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as a heathen man and publican." Matt. xviii, 17-18. Given under our hand and seal this 16th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1865. -R. CAPETOWN.

The sentence was read on Sunday, January 7, at the cathedral of the diocese at Maritzburg, at the early service. In the evening the dean of the cathedral appeared in the chancel before the bishop entered, and desired all Christians to depart; but no notice was taken of it by the adherents of Colenso, and the service conducted by the latter was continued as heretofore. The metropolitan communicated the sentence to the bishops of Great Britain, of the British Colonies, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, all of whom expressed a cordial approval of the measure.

An important discussion on the relation of Bishop Colenso to the Church of England took place at the session of the Convocation of Canterbury, which began on May 1, and sat for four days. The Archbishop of Canterbury had received letters from the Metropolitan of Capeing in substance the following questown and the Dean of Maritzburg, asktions:

1. By the Metropolitan of Capetown: Whether the Church of England holds communion with Dr. Colenso and the heretical Church which he is seeking to establish in Natal, or whether it is in communion with the orthodox bishops who in synod declared him to be ipso facto excommunicated?

2. By the Dean of Maritzburg: Whether the acceptance of a new bishop on the part of the diocese of Natal, while Bishop Colenso still retains the letters patent of the crown, would in any way Church of England? sever the diocese from the mother

3. By the Dean of Maritzburg: Supposing the reply to the last question to be that they would not be in any way severed, what are the proper steps for

the diocese to take to obtain a new nent and Reverend Father in Christ, the bishop? Lord Cardinal Patrizi."