from its very existence?" one of
the "old truths maintained through blood and flame?" If the doctrine be
true, the Church in Holland had no right to relinquish its authority
over the Church in America. If this doctrine be a "principle" of our
Church, never, _never_ could your Missionaries consent to be
instrumental in bringing the Church in China, which now has liberty in
Christ Jesus, into such _perpetual_ bondage. Once bring the Chinese
churches under the authority of the Church in America, and it matters
not how great may be their growth, and how many centuries may pass away,
the Church in America can never relinquish her authority over them! But
this is not an "admitted principle" of our Church. The Dutch Church is
_protestant_, not _papal_. Instead of the principle being one of the
"_old truths_ maintained through blood and flame" by her, it is an _old
error of the Papacy_, for rejecting which she poured out her blood so
freely, and would do the same to-day. Yet in the Report of the Committee
this error of Romanism, guilty of the blood of thousands upon thousands
of the saints of the Most High, is made to lie at the basis of the
action of the last Synod!

The Committee next proceed to the statement of "certain historic facts."
As with the "admitted principles," so with the "historic facts." With
some of them we have no dispute. But when they come to describe the
present condition and relations of the churches at Amoy, their language,
to say the least, is very unfortunate. "These six Churches," say they,
"have grown up together under such an interchange and community of labor
on the part of our own Missionaries, and on the part of those belonging
to the English Presbyterian Church, that all are said to have a two-fold
ecclesiastical relation--one with England--one with America, and still a
third, and economical and domestic relation among themselves, which is
covered and controlled by what is styled 'The Great Presbyterial or
Classical Council of Amoy.'"

We do not know by whom these native Churches "are said" to have a
two-fold or three-fold _ecclesiastical_ relation. It is not so said by
the Missionaries. They contend that the native churches are neither
English, nor American, but _Chinese_ churches. They are ecclesiastically
related to each other, and ought to remain so. But the effort is now
made to sever this ecclesiastical relation to each other, and bring half
of them into ecclesiastical relationship with th