ber,
one hundred and fifty-seven, were subscribed, and ordered to
be published. The secretary was also directed to furnish Rev.
John A. Collins, with a copy for insertion in the Globe and
Intelligencer, of Washington City.

Whereas great excitement has pervaded this country for some
time past on the subject of abolition; and whereas such
excitement is believed to be destructive to the best
interests of the country and of religion; therefore

1. _Resolved_, That "we are as much as ever convinced of the
great evil of slavery."

2. That we are opposed in every part and particular to the
proceedings of the abolitionists, which look to the immediate
indiscriminate, and general emancipation of slaves.

3. That we have no connexion with any press, by whomsoever
conducted, in the interest of the abolition cause.

As to his own Connection, the Presbyterian, he would go as fully as
his materials permitted, into the proof of their past principles, and
present posture. And in the first place he was most happy to be able
to present them with an abstract of the decisions of the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
He found it printed in the New York Observer, of May 23, 1835,
embodied in the proceedings of the Presbytery of Montrose, and
transcribed by it no doubt from the Assembly's digest.

As early as A. D. 1787, the Synod of N. York and Philadelphia
issued an opinion adverse to slavery, and recommended
measures for its final extinction; and in the year 1796 the
General Assembly assured "all the churches under their care,
that they viewed with the deepest concern any vestiges of
slavery which then existed in our country;" and in the year
1815 the same judicatory decided, "that the buying and
selling of slaves by way of traffic, (meaning, doubtless, the
domestic traffic,) is inconsistent with the spirit of the
gospel." But in the year 1818, a more full and explicit
avowal of the sentiments of the church was unanimously agreed
on in the General Assembly. "We consider, (say the Assembly,)
the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by
another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred
rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law
of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves;
and as totally irreconcilable with