States, there is room enough for every hearer that could be
crowded into the churches of New England, and then enough left to
accommodate more than a million of slaves.

Including slaves, these five Southern States have a population of seven
hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and ten more than New England;
yet while there are seven hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and
ten persons less in New England to provide for, there are two hundred
thousand more persons in New England who can't find a seat in the house
of God to hear the gospel, than there are in these five slave States.

The next fact set forth in the census, which I will examine, is equally
_suggestive_. These four thousand six hundred and seven churches in New
England are valued at nineteen million three hundred and sixty-two
thousand six hundred and thirty-four dollars. These eight thousand and
eighty-one churches in the five slave States are valued at eleven
million one hundred and forty-nine thousand one hundred and eighteen
dollars. Here is an immense expenditure in New England to erect
churches; yet we see that those New England churches, when erected, will
seat one million three thousand and twenty-two persons less than those
erected by the slave States, at a cost of eight million one hundred and
thirteen thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars less money. What
prompted to such an expenditure as this? Was it worldly pride? or was it
godly humility? Does it exhibit the evidence of humility, and a desire
to glorify God, by a provision that shall enable _all the people_ to
hear the gospel? or does it exhibit the evidence of pride, that seeks to
glorify the wealthy contributors, who occupy these costly temples to the
exclusion of the humble poor? We must all draw our own conclusions. A
mite, given to God from a right spirit, was declared by the Saviour to
be more than all the costly gifts of wealthy pride, which were cast into
the offerings of God. The Saviour informed the messenger of John the
Baptist, that _one of the signs_ by which to decide the _presence_ of
the Messiah, was to be found in the fact that the poor had the gospel
preached to them. When we exclude the poor, we may safely conclude we
exclude Christ.

It is legitimate to conclude, therefore, that all the arrangements found
among a people, which palpably defeat the preaching of the gospel to the
poor, are arrangements which throw a shade of deep suspicion upon the
character of