“As all the elements of Presbyterian organization thus existed [each church having native elders], a further step was taken last April [1862], when a Presbytery was constituted at Amoy by mutual consent, consisting of all the American brethren and our own, as well as representative elders from the several congregations.  Its name is neither the Greek ‘Presbytery’ employed in this country, nor is it the Latin ‘Classis,’ which has long been used in Holland; but it is ’Tai Tiong-lo-hoey,’ or Great Meeting of Elders, genuine Chinese, and a hopeful earnest of the facility with which our representative and consultative system of polity will find its way among a sensible and self-governing people.  Of course it is not intended that this Presbytery should in any way come between the Missionaries themselves and the Committee or Board by which the respective Missions are administered at home; but for the management of local matters, for disposing of questions which may arise in the several congregations, and in regard to which a session may require counsel or control; and for the very important purpose of exemplifying in the most legitimate way ecclesiastical unity, it is essential that Missionaries and native office-bearers should come together in some such capacity.  The proceedings are conducted in Chinese, which is the only language understood by all the members of Court, and it is in Chinese that the minutes are kept.  Three meetings have already been held.  At the last, held in January, important business was transacted affecting the 1st and 2d Congregations of Amoy, both of which are under the immediate superintendence of the American Mission.  Each congregation is desirous of the settlement of a stated pastor, and each has agreed to call a minister, the one congregation promising a stipend of $14 a month, and the other $13.  The calls were sustained, and the Presbytery agreed to meet on February 21st, to proceed with the ‘trials’ of the brethren thus elected.  As these proved satisfactory, Sabbath, the 29th of last month, was appointed as the day for their ordination.

“Dr. Peltz, the esteemed Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the R.P.D.C. of N.A., has apprised the Committee, that it is possible that a Presbytery of this composite character may not secure the approval of their Synod.  In separating from the A.B.C.F.M., and in setting up a separate and ecclesiastically organized mission, that Synod was anxious to introduce into its different Mission fields a system of Church government which it believed to be scriptural, and adapted to all lands.  Consequently, in these Mission fields it sought to form Classes or Presbyteries which should be connected with Provincial and General Synods in the same way as are the Classes on the American continent.  And Dr. Peltz is apprehensive lest the General Synod in America should regard as a deviation from this plan the amalgamation in one Presbytery of their own agents with those of another Church.