We supposed it to be our duty to organize the Church in China with reference simply to its own welfare, and efficiency in the work of evangelizing the heathen around.  Believing (after due deliberation) that the order of our own Church in America would best secure this end, of course we adopted it.  We did not suppose that we were sent out to build up the American Dutch Church in China, but a Church after the same order, a purely Chinese Church.  How much the growth and efficiency of our Church in this country has been promoted by retaining (rather inserting) the term “Dutch” in her name, I will not now attempt to discuss.  I suppose the principal argument in favor thereof is found in the fact that our Church, in the first instance, was a colony from Holland.  The Church in China is not a colony from Holland, or America.  We must not, therefore, entail on her the double evil of both the terms “American” and “Dutch” or the single evil of either of these terms.  Your Missionaries will never consent to be instrumental in causing such an evil.

We had already adopted the order and customs of our Church at home, so far as they could be adopted in an unorganized Church.  The English Presbyterian brethren had adopted the same.  They found that there were no differences of any importance between us and them; the churches being gathered under our care and under theirs—­growing out of each other and being essentially one—­neither we nor they could see any sufficient reason for organizing two distinct denominations.  Especially had we no reason for such a course, inasmuch as they were willing even to conform to our peculiarities.  We most cordially invited Mr. Douglas to unite with us in the organization of the Church, and he as cordially accepted of the invitation.

In reference to this subject Mr. Douglas wrote to their Corresponding Secretary as follows:  “I need hardly say that this transaction does not consist in members of one church joining another, nor in two churches uniting, but it is an attempt to build up on the soil of China, with the lively stones prepared by the great Master-builder, an ecclesiastical body holding the grand doctrines enunciated at Westminster and Dort, and the principles of Presbyterian polity embraced at the Reformation by the purest churches on the continent and in Britain; it will also be a beautiful point in the history of this infant Church that the under-builders employed in shaping and arranging the stones, were messengers of two different (though not differing,) churches in the two great nations on either side of the Atlantic.”

The course of Mr. Douglas met with the decided approval of their Secretary, and, as he had reason then to believe, and has since fully learned, with the approval of their Church.