"Resolved, That we affectionately and earnestly urge upon the Ministers, Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods, connected with this Assembly, that they treat this as all other sins of great magnitude; and by a diligent, kind, and faithful application of the means which God has given them, by instruction, remonstrance, reproof, and effective discipline, seek to purify the church of this great iniquity."
This resolution they declined. They passed the following:
"Whereas there is in this Assembly great diversity of opinion as to the proper and best mode of action on the subject of slavery; and whereas, in such circumstances, any expression of sentiment would carry with it but little weight, as it would be passed by a small majority, and must operate to produce alienation and division; and whereas the Assembly of 1839, with great unanimity, referred this whole subject to the lower judicatories, to take such order as in their judgment might be adapted to remove the evil;—Resolved, That the Assembly do not think it for the edification of the church for this body to take any action on the subject."
They, however, passed the following:
"Resolved, That the fashionable amusement of promiscuous dancing is so entirely unscriptural, and eminently and exclusively that of 'the world which lieth in wickedness,' and so wholly inconsistent with the spirit of Christ, and with that propriety of Christian deportment and that purity of heart which his followers are bound to maintain, as to render it not only improper and injurious for professing Christians either to partake in it, or to qualify their children for it, by teaching them the 'art,' but also to call for the faithful and judicious exercise of discipline on the part of Church Sessions, when any of the members of their churches have been guilty."
Thus has the matter gone on from year to year, ever since.
In 1856 we are sorry to say that we can report no improvement in the action of the great ecclesiastical bodies on the subject of slavery, but rather deterioration. Notwithstanding all the aggressions of slavery, and notwithstanding the constant developments of its horrible influence in corrupting and degrading the character of the nation, as seen in the mean, vulgar, assassin-like outrages in our national Congress, and the brutal, bloodthirsty, fiend-like proceedings in Kansas, connived at and protected, if not directly sanctioned and in part instigated, by our national government;—notwithstanding all this, the great ecclesiastical organizations seem less disposed than ever before to take any efficient action on the subject. This was manifest in the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church North, held at Indianapolis during the spring of the present year, and in the General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church held at New York at about the same time.
True, a very large minority in the Methodist Conference resisted with great energy the action, or rather no action, of the majority, and gave fearless utterance to the most noble sentiments; but in the final result the numbers were against them.
The same thing was true to some extent in the New School Presbyterian General Assembly, though here the anti-slavery utterances were, on the whole, inferior to those in the Methodist Conference. In both bodies the Packthreads, and Cushings, and Calkers, and Bonnies, are numerous and have the predominant influence, while the Dicksons and the Ruskins are fewer, and have far less power. The representations, therefore, in the body of the work, though very painful, are strictly just. Individuals, everywhere in the free states, and in same of the slave states, are most earnestly struggling against the prevailing corruption; but the churches, as such, are, for the most part, still on the wrong side. There are churches free from this stain, but they are neither numerous nor popular.
For an illustration of the lynching of Father Dickson, see "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," Part III., Chapter VIII.