Dr. Talmage also sent a communication to Dr. Thomas De Witt, then Corresponding Secretary for the Reformed Church in co-operation with the American Board.  It reads: 

“Oct. 1, 1856.  There are some other facts arising out of the circumstances of this people, and of the nature of the Chinese language, which have a certain importance and perhaps should be laid before the Church.  No part of the name of our Church, peculiar to our denomination, can be translated and applied to the church in Chinese without inconvenience or great detriment.  The words, Protestant and Reformed, would be to the Chinese unintelligible, consequently inconvenient.  The only translation we can give to the name Dutch Church, would be Church of Holland.  This, besides conveying in part an incorrect idea, would be very detrimental to the interests of the Church among the Chinese.  The Chinese know but little of foreign nations and have for ages looked upon them all as barbarians.  Of course the views of the native Christians are entirely changed on this subject.  But our great work is to gather converts from the heathen.  We should be very careful not to use any terms by which they would be unnecessarily prejudiced against the Gospel.  It is constantly charged upon the native Christians, both as a reproach and as an objection to Christianity, that they are following foreigners or have become foreigners.  The reproach is not a light one, but the objection is easily answered.  The answer would not be so easy if we were to fasten on the Christians a foreign name.”

At the meeting of the General Synod, held in the village of Ithaca, New York, June, 1857, the following resolutions recommended by the Committee on Foreign Missions, Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., Chairman, were adopted: 

The memorial of the Amoy mission.

“Among the papers submitted to the Synod is an elaborate document from the brethren at Amoy, giving the history of their work there, of its gradual progress, of their intimate connection with missionaries from other bodies, of the formation of the Church now existing there, and expressing their views as to the propriety and feasibility of forming a Classis at that station.  In reply to so much of this paper as respects the establishment of individual churches, we must say that while we appreciate the peculiar circumstances of our brethren, and sympathize with their perplexities, yet it has always been considered a matter of course that ministers, receiving their commission through our Church, and sent forth under the auspices of our Board, would, when they formed converts from the heathen in an ecclesiastical body, mould the organization into a form approaching, as nearly as possible, that of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Churches in our own land.  Seeing that the converted heathen, when associated together, must have some form of government, and seeing that our form is, in our view, entirely consistent with, if not