foundation of Presbyterial order.  A full discussion of this subject will come up most naturally when we discuss the evils of the course now required of us.  I will now allude to only one fact.  The Board of Foreign Missions was formed on this principle.  If the Classes at Arcot and Amoy are to be considered integral parts of the Church in this country, related to General Synod like the Classes in this country, then the Missionaries at those stations properly should come under the Board of Domestic Missions.  Suppose, according to the new plan, the Missionaries form themselves into the kind of Classis now required of them; what will be the relation of the Classis of Amoy to the Board of Foreign Missions?  Is the Classis, in evangelizing the heathen around, to operate through the Board, or the Board through the Classis?  The Classis at Amoy decide on a certain course of ecclesiastical procedure, or evangelistic labor, and the Board decides on another course; how is such a matter to be settled?  Will it be said, there is no danger of such difficulty?  The Classis and Board will both be composed of men with infirmities.  Ask the Board whether there have not already been incipient difficulties, in the supposed clashing of the powers of the Board and the powers of the Classis of Arcot.  But the Classis of Arcot as yet is little more than an American Missionary Classis.  What will be the difficulties when it becomes an Indian Classis?  But we are told, “keep the Mission and Classis distinct.”  Is the Mission, then, to attend to all the evangelistic work, and the Classis to do nothing?  Or are there to be two distinct evangelistic policies carried on at Amoy, the one by the Mission, and the other by the Classis?  Or is the Classis first to come over to the Synod, and so get to the Board in order to carry on the work around?  Instead of this new plan being the settled policy of our Church, we believe it to be a solecism.  When a Church is established among the heathen after our order, then is the true policy of our Church carried out.  Let the present relations of the Missionaries to the Board and to their several Classes remain, and there will be no occasion for the clashing of the powers of the Board with those of any ecclesiastical body.

So much for the advantages.  They are really disadvantages, leading to serious evils, which of themselves should be sufficient to deter the Church from inaugurating the policy proposed, or, if it be already inaugurated, to lead her to retrace her steps, and adopt a better and a consistent policy.

Now let us consider the real or supposed Evils (in addition to the above) of carrying out the decision of Synod.

1.  It will not be for the credit of our Church.  She now has a name, with other Churches, for putting forth efforts to evangelize the world.  Shall she mar this good name and acquire one for sectarianism, by putting forth efforts to extend herself, not her doctrines and order;—­they are not sectarian, and her Missionaries esteem them as highly as do their brethren at home—­but herself, even at the cost of dividing churches which the grace of God has made one?