" of October 31,
1835, addressed to the Presbyterian Clergy of Virginia; written to
warn those ministers against pursuits calculated to injure their
spirituality, destroy their usefulness, and prevent those revivals of
religion with which other portions of the Church of Christ had been
favored; also to account for an apparent declension in piety in the
State generally. It is proper to remark, that the letter from which I
make the present extract, was not written to promote the cause of
abolition; that the writer never imagined it would be used on such an
occasion; and that the newspaper in which it appears is _pro_-slavery
to the very core.

"In one region of country, where I am acquainted, of rather
more than THIRTY Presbyterian ministers, including
missionaries, TWENTY are farmers, viz. (planters and
SLAVEHOLDERS,) ON A PRETTY EXTENSIVE SCALE; three are school
teachers; one is a farmer and a teacher; one, a farmer and a
merchant, and joint proprietor of iron works, which must be
in operation on the Sabbath; and one is a farmer and editor
of a political newspaper. These farmers generally superintend
their own business. THEY OVERSEE THEIR NEGROES, attend to
their stock, make purchases, and visit the markets to make
sale of their crops. They necessarily have much intercourse
with their neighbors on worldly business, and not
unfrequently come into unpleasant collision with the
merchants."

O, Sir, what a revelation of things is here! These are not the
calumnies of George Thompson, but the confessions of one, striving
earnestly to awaken the attention of the Virginia clergy to a sense of
the degradation and barrenness of the church, and to direct their
attention to the main causes of such lamentable effects.

Next, permit me to request your attention to an extract from "An
Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the
instruction and emancipation of their slaves; by a Committee of the
SYNOD OF KENTUCKY. Cincinnati: published by Eli Taylor, 1835." We
shall, in this document, get at the opinion of men, sensitively
jealous for the honor, purity, and usefulness of the Presbyterian
churches, from which Mr. Breckinridge is A DELEGATE. What say they of
slavery in general, and the practice of THEIR CHURCH in particular:

"Brutal stripes, and all the various kinds of personal
indignities, are not the only species of cruelty, which
slaver