to work together in such harmony.  It is also gratifying to us that these Churches and this Classis have been organized according to the polity of our Church.  Inasmuch as the Synod of the English Presbyterian Church has approved of the course of their Missionaries in uniting with ours in the organization of the Church at Amoy, after our order, therefore, this Synod would direct its Board of Foreign Missions to allow their Missionaries to continue their present relations with the Missionaries of the English Presbyterian Church, and the churches under their several care, so long as the present harmony shall continue, and no departure shall be made from the doctrines and essential polity of our Church, or until this Synod shall otherwise direct.

Some, after reading the foregoing discussion, will be ready to say to us:  “Your views are in the main correct.  It would have been better if Synod had decided otherwise, but the decision has been made, and we must put up with it.”  We answer, Not so.  We must obey Synod, but may not the Church change or improve her decisions?  Here is one of the good things we hope to see come out of this mistake of the Church.  Jesus rules, and he is ordering all things for the welfare of his Church and the advancement of his cause.  Sometimes, the better to accomplish this end, he permits the Church to make mistakes.  When we failed in former days to get our views made public, it gave us no anxiety, for we believed the doctrine that Jesus reigns.  So we now feel, nothwithstanding this mistake.  The Master will overrule it for good.  We do not certainly know how, but we can imagine one way.  By means of this mistake the matter may be brought before our Church, and before other Churches, more clearly than it would otherwise have been for many years to come, and in consequence of this we expect, in due time, that our Church, instead of coming up merely to the standard of liberality for which we have been contending, will rise far above anything we have asked for or even imagined, and other Churches will also raise their standard higher.  Hereafter we expect to contend for still higher principles.  This is the doctrine:  Let all the branches of the great Presbyterian family in the same region in any heathen country, which are sound in the faith, organize themselves, if convenient, into one organic whole, allowing liberty to the different parts in things non-essential.  Let those who adopt Dutch customs, as at Amoy, continue, if they see fit, their peculiarities, and those who adopt other Presbyterian customs, as at Ningpo and other places, continue their peculiarities, and yet all unite as one Church.  This subject does not simply relate to the interests of the Church at Amoy.  It relates to the interests of all the Missionary work of all the Churches of the Presbyterian order in all parts of the world.  Oh that our Church might take the lead in this catholicity of spirit—­instead of falling back in the opposite direction—­that no one may take