part in the persecution of the Puritans, reproaching Cromwell for his having tolerated the seceding Independents, the progenitors of the Plymouth Rock church. Such are among the best specimens we can recall to mind, of "distinguished and judicious reformers of every age," who did not secede. Along with these, we must place the thousands who, for sixteen hundred years past have remained in the Romish and Episcopal churches to reform them. Who are they, and what and where are their trophies?-the wiser ones, who remained in the old church to reform it, while Novation and his successors, the Waldenses, the Albigenses and the Protestants seceded?

D'Aubigne has preserved the names and characters of some of these "most distinguished and judicious reformers " -such as Erasmus-Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, and many other prudent gentlemen who might be named? What became of them, and where are the fruits of their wisdom? They saved themselves much persecution. Some of them saved their lives. But did they save the church—or even themselves? Some of them we may hope were "saved, yet so as by fire."

Perhaps, along with Baxter, Whitefield, and Wesley, we should have mentioned Fenelon, Massillon, and Thomas a Kempis. Well, add them to the catalogue, and let them have all due praise. But, were they more" distinguished and judicious reformers," remaining in the Romish church, than Luther, Calvin, Zuingle, Melancthon, Lefevre and Farel were in coming out of it? No marvel that "Tendimus in Latium" (We are moving towards Rome) is inscribed on the banners of every Protestant sect, when sentiments like these prevail and are issued from all the high places of Protestant learning. If it be true that the "most distinguished and judicious reformers of every age, the exception, if any, being very rare," have followed the "policy of remaining in a body in order to reform abuses in it," then Puritan secession, Protestantism, and the previous kindred secessions, are very likely to have been sad mistakes. How, in fact, could it have been otherwise? By these movements, the question of secession or of "remaining in a body in order to reform abuses in it," has been presented to the friends of reformation "of every age" and the statement says that the "most distinguished and judicious reformers "have chosen the policy of "remaining," "the exceptions being very rare." Of course we are to look for these "most distinguished and judicious

reformers" in the the bosom of the Anglican and Romish Communions. And the present state of religion in those "bodies" vindicates the sound wisdom of their policy.

But Prof. Thome could not have intended to include these? We presume he did not. Of course, we must seek for his "most distinguished and judicious reformers" some where else. Whoever they may be, they are not the Puritan or the Protestant seceders-nor those of the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Paulicians, the Donatists, the Novationists. And consequently they must be, (if not Romanists nor Anglican Episcopalians,) a very lean minority of" reformers " of any description-" from age to age."

Marvelous, we have said, is all this. The marvel vanishes, when we consider, that the writer had undertaken the task of persuading men to "do no such wicked and foolish thing" as to come out immediately, and have no more connection with churches" and ecclesiastical bodies "called pro-slavery, because they are composed in part of slaveholders." If, after a fourteen years' agitation of the subject, it is not time to come out of such bodies, where else, but to the Romish and Anglican Churches can we look for the right kind of "distinguished and judicious reformers" to guide us? And, since it will not do for Puritans and Protestants to look exactly there, we are left to hunt after our exemplars where we can best find them! Shall we recognize them, in the scores of prominent anti-slavery clergymen who have so long "remained in pro-slavery bodies to reform their abuses" as to swim down the current with them, to cease pleading for the slave to apologize for the slaveholder?

That bad men, eluding detection, might "creep into " christian churches, and hide themselves there, we do not deny. A Judas was among the twelve, and Christ did not then, any more than he now does, supersede the vigilant watch-care of his disciples, by revealing to them miraculously, the character of their associates. He means they shall learn to know the tree by its fruits-the man by his deeds -(not by what they think his deeds would be, if he only had as much light as the heathen!) Had Judas survived his apostasy, and had the brotherhood still retained him in their fellowship, with the divine sanction, a precedent adverse to excommunication and secession might have been made out from his case, (so often cited for the purpose,) though it would have been in harsh discord with the rest of the New Testament. "The tares and the wheat" might be cited to

the same end, more plausibly than they now are, if Christ had said" the field is the church"-instead of saying, "the field is the world." That " Judas and the tares," so available to the Romanists in Luther's time, and to the church of England, in the times of the puritans, should be called upon for similar services now, seems a matter of course. We miss them from the argument of Prof. Thome. He did not mean probably, to occupy exactly the ground of those who daily adduce them. Yet without a passing notice of them, in this connection, we should fear our readers, or some of them, would suspect us of incivility to those potent champions of the churches" Judas and the tares." Rid us of these, or let it be understood and felt that Christians have no right, with their eyes wide open, to sit down quietly at the communion table with these, and there will be no further trouble with the naughty "Come-outers " and their" Come-outism." These will have done their work, or rather, the only species we care for will have quietly taken possession of the field, and that without resorting to any "ex post facto laws." The Christian's statute book was completed eighteen centuries ago, and no church member should be arraigned for any thing not prohibited therein, nor tried by any other court than is there constituted, or by any other rules than are there laid down, or ascertained by reported precedents, in the same volume.

With these views of the doctrine and duty of" Come-outism" as ascertained in the light of New Testament church order, and the essential idea of a christian church, let us next approach the churches of this country, in general, and ask how they compare with that constructive principle, that essential idea? Are they in the main on the model? Or so near it, that they can be made to square with it without a breaking up and re-organizing? If so, very good. We shall thus be saved no little labor. If not, we must either" come out" of them," and re-organize or contrive to do without christian churches, the best way we can. The question is that of church or no church. To cling to bodies that are not christian churches is to be out of christian churches. It is to occupy "no church" ground. Many who retain a nominal connection with their old churches understand this to be their position. They say they have no confidence in their churches. They expect no benefit from them. They understand that whatever they do for God, for humanity, or for their own souls, must be done against the influence of

their church, and in spite of it. They do not pretend that, morally or spiritually speaking, they have any church.— Nay, they feel it incumbent on them perhaps, to protest that the connexion is a mere nominal one- -that they have no religious fellowship with those to whom they are ecclesiastically bound! And this is their excuse for not being "come-outers." This is the case with many professedly anti-slavery ministers over pro-slavery churches" personally devoted to the interests of the slave," but most uncharitably charged with being "ex relatione pro-slavery," and contending in defense, that "ecclesiastical connection will never, in a sane mind, be construed into sympathy with the body on the question of slavery, or any other, when sympathy is disclaimed." Such an one, if he knows his own position and is an honest man, understands that for the time being, he occupies a "no-church" position, in practice. He has only to continue in that position till practice ripens into theory, (the way most theories are formed,) and he comes out an open and above board "no church " man. Thus it comes to pass that our most prominent and zealous apostles of "no-churchism" are commonly men who have been antislavery ministers or church members, attempting to stand up straight, in pro-slavery churches. We know a number such, and have in our mind's eye many more, who are in the process of training, and making progress. In conversation, a year or two since, with one of the strongest and most faithful and influential anti-slavery ministers in the country that can be found, (as he is,) pastor over a pro-slavery and part antislavery church-a man far enough from favoring our ideas of secession and re-organization, we found him, unconsciously to himself, perhaps, very far over, in his feelings, and habits of thinking, towards the "no church" ground. He thought there was little use in attempting to maintain any church discipline-did not care to know exactly who among the members of his congregation belonged to the church, and had entirely given up the idea of ever having the church become a reformatory or even a reformed body. The work of human progress must be done up by the voluntary societies, composed of Christians and worldlings, and by political action! An hundred ministers, perhaps, and thousands upon thousands of laymen, are nearly on the same ground. Political abolitionists, connected with churches not actively anti-slavery, raising a higher moral standard for the state than they attempt or expect in the church and seeking to christianize politics with

out any help from the institutions of religion, what can these men be preparing themselves for, but "no-church" men? The minister, unconsciously influenced by his support--the layman dreading the odium of secession, or not knowing how to meet the expenses and sacrifices of a new church organization, may hold on to their old church organizations for a time, and in many cases till the bad example before them constantly, has led them to look on all religious institutions in an organized form, with more than indifference-with distrust. This process has been going on, rapidly for the last three years, especially in regions where secession and re-organization have not been commenced or in contemplation.

This question of" church or no church" has got to be met and settled in some way. Only three alternatives present themselves to our mind. Abolitionists, ministers and laymen, may continue in their pro-slavery ecclesiastical connections and thus be led to give up all their abolitionism, as so many thousands have already done. Or they may hold on a while, and come out "no church" abolitionists. Or they may promptly secede and honor christian institutions by re-organizing. We see no other possible course, so far as abolitionists are concerned.

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As for retaining anti-slavery principles or activity much longer, in the bosom of pro-slavery churches, it is out of the question. Equally futile is the notion now, of staying pro-slavery churches and ecclesiastical bodies to reform them. Those who exhort us to that measure, should be respectfully informed that all that ground has been gone over long ago--that the experiment has been tried, in thousands of instances, and has almost uniformly failed—that the prospect in that direction has been growing more hopeless, for four years past-that thousands and thousands who three years ago, were prosecuting that experiment, have given it up in despair-that, of these, large numbers have now ceased to manifest any activity for the slave, that many others, either with or without retaining nominal church connections, are in reality becoming " no church" men. No arguments from any man living, can convince them that churches not actively engaged in the work of reformation and the cause of freedom, are christian churches. The mass of the community, pro-slavery as well as anti-slavery, rum drinkers as well as temperance men, do not and cannot believe it, in large sections of the country. The time for earnestly be lieving this, with thinking men, is rapidly going by, if not