native churches, their relation to each other, their absolute unity--things of the utmost consequence_--are not at all regarded, are entirely ignored! It would have occupied too much space to have quoted the whole of the Report of the Committee. The preceding part of it occupies nearly six pages of the Minutes of Synod. Yet we may not pass that part over in silence, for, while with much of its contents we have no dispute, it contains some grave mistakes of fact, and, as we think, some very grave errors of doctrine. It grieves me to say thus much, and also to feel compelled to add the following strictures. But, in order to discuss this subject, duty required the careful examination of the whole of the Report, and, finding in it such errors, the clear statement of them. It might be easy, perhaps, to account for the fact, that mistakes, in a report, unprinted, and of such length, should escape the notice of Synod, but an attempt to apologize for that body might give occasion to infer more disrespect than simply to point out the mistakes. After some introductory remarks, chiefly concerning the difficulty of their task, the Committee "begin with the assertion of principles." These they make three in number. The sum of the first principle is that _a Church, by divine arrangement, has government_. The essential idea of their second principle, so far as we can understand it, is, that _the Dutch Church has a clearly defined government_. The Missionaries at Amoy, as well as the ministers in this country, admit both these principles fully. But they do not affect the question in dispute. Not so with the third principle of the Committee. Lest I might be supposed to misrepresent, I will quote their own language: "No government can, voluntarily, relinquish its powers, and abnegate its authority without thereby inviting disorder, disquietude, and, in the end, its destruction." Is this, indeed, as the Committee assert, one of the "admitted principles" of our Church? one of the "convictions in the mind of our Church, hardly separable in idea 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