In our former pastoral letters, we have freely delivered our opinions on the various points which were considered by us, at the several times, as the most interesting to our communion. They are still held by us in the same grade of importance: but at present, we rather refer to those addresses, as records of the sentiments which we are still desirous of sustaining, and of impressing on the minds of all degrees of persons within our Church; in order that we may, at this time, invite your attention to two institutions, which were matured and solemnly established by the late special convention, held in the autumn of the year 1821. We mean the Theological Seminary, located in the city of New York, and the Society for Domestick and Foreign Missions, the seat of which is the city of Philadelphia.

Although our more immediate motive to the combining of the two institutions in this address, is, their being coincident in regard to the period of their respective organization; yet we also consider them as having a bearing on one another. The theological seminary may be expected to increase the number of labourers in the Lord's vineyard; and it is owing to deficiency in this particular, added to there being so many destitute congregations in the long settled states, that so few have felt the calls of religious ardour, or conceived of it as a duty, to give their personal agency, in extending the influence of religion over states recently organized and settled. There being a central point, around which there will be congregated young men from different sections of the Union, will be a mean, not only of binding to diligence in study, but of the excitement of religious zeal.

For some considerable time, the design of a theological seminary wavered between the scheme of its being constituted for the whole Union, and that of its being left entirely to the discretion of any of the authorities in the different dioceses, in which there should be felt competency combined with inclination. The latter principle was favoured by considerations not unworthy of attention, but yielding to the advantages considered as attached to the other scheme of a general seminary; which, it is to be hoped, will be more and more developed. It has been thought not likely, that for the purpose of accommodation to sections distant from one another, there could be a sufficient number of dioceses, the schools of which could raise fund adequate to the giving of scope to the talents of professors in the various branches; and provide, in other respects, for what would be requisite for the supporting of them with reputation and usefulness. Besides, in proportion to the number of students, there may be expected a correspondent measure of excitement to study, and of information arising from the mutual exchange of sentiment in religious conversation. Under either of the schemes, and within the sphere of such communications, there may arise differences of opinion issuing in controversies, sometimes verging either to the generating of uncharitableness, or to the opening of a door to real or supposed errour. If the issue should be the obtruding of dogmas alien from the great truths of religion, and threatening the peace and the orthodoxy of our communion, they will be more likely to be borne down by a board of pro

fessors, and by a competent number of trustees, enjoying the confidence of the representative body of the Church, than in circumstances under which an equal weight of opinion is not generally to be expected. In cases, more likely to occur, of variety of opinion not endangering the essential interests of religion; and to which, therefore, the exercise of authority should not extend, we suppose-and our opinion on the point is independent of all considerations besides the nature of the subject that intolerance would be more apt to show its head within a very limited, than within a very enlarged sphere. It were much to be apprehended, that on subjects on which latitude is designedly tolerated by the Church, opposite instructions would be the standards of orthodoxy in different places; the opposing parties affirming of their respective sentiments, that they are fundamental.

For these reasons, and for others less prominent, preference has been given to the general plan which has been established by the special convention; and which carries to our minds a great weight of recommendation, from the improvements which bave been made by that body, at the cost of the sacrifice of local partialities. We are aware, however, of the cases which happen, of young men, who can be supported under parental roofs, and within the reach of instruction, while their means may be incompetent to distant journeys and residence. The wants of our Church are too many and too pressing to permit the discouragement, in reference to the ministry, of any persons possessed of the requisite qualifications; who may have been under the tuition of some learned and pious clergyman of our communion.

From the concerns of the theological seminary, we pass to those of the society for domestick and foreign missions. The objects contemplated by it, had engaged the attention of our Church, at an early period of its organization. In the year 1789, and in the first convention held after the obtaining of the Episcopacy, there was brought forward and adopted a plan for the carrying of the design into effect; and in some places, there were incipient proceedings under it. So depressed, however, at that time, was the state of our communion generally; and in very many and very large tracts of country, so destitute had the population become of the means of grace, after having formerly enjoyed them agreeably to the ministry and the services of our Church, that without intermediate revivals of our institutions, where they had become dormant, there was wanting a sufficient basis on which to construct a machinery, the operation of which might be expected to be felt in districts recently subjected to cultivation, and in large states rising into existence. In the mean while, the field for Christian zeal was continually enlarging, not without exciting deep feeling in our minds for the wants of our distant brethren; but without the prospect, until lately, of undertaking their relief with a sufficient degree of confidence of success.

The time is at last come, when, in the estimation of the representa. tive body of our Church, her energies should be put forth for the effectuating of the object. At the meeting of the directors in the month of May last, there was appointed an executive committee, with limit

ed powers, but competent to the appointing of agents for the obtaining of funds; to be in readiness for the choosing of missionaries at the next annual meeting, determined by the constitution to be coincident with that of the present convention.

The agents of the executive committee have been industrious in the discharge of the duties of their appointments: but, although their enendeavours have not been without the fruit of pecuniary contributions, paid into the treasury; yet we depend, principally, on the zeal which they have been the mean of exciting in various places; and on the measures which have been consequently put into operation, with the fairest prospects of success. Although the success of the executive committee, constituted in May last, has fallen short of their expectations; yet it is partly owing to a cause not to be regretted, because answering the same purpose in other lines of direction-the instituting of missionary societies in several states, in which they had not before existed, for the supply of the wants of destitute districts, in the said states respectively. So far as this provision extends, it is proportionably a relief of the general society; and although it is earnestly wished and hoped, that wherever there exists a local society, there will be the concurrence of aid to the object contemplated by the general convention of our Church; yet we do not undertake, in regard to any part of the Union, to calculate the comparative weights of the different claims of which, in every case, the church in question should be considered as the proper judge. Be the determinations on those comparisons what they may, we trust that wherever there may be bestowed benefactions for the sending of missionaries to people destitute of the means of grace, there will not be denied a portion of the benefit to the inhabitants of those extensive districts, who have especial claims from the recency of their settlements, and their distances from the ministry which they look to as legitimate.

Our western brethren stand to us in a relation like that in which the elder states were to our parent church, before the severance of the political tie connecting them or rather, the community of interest is stronger in the present case, on account of the nearness of neighbourhood. Of the aids which were extended to us, under the excitements of the venerable prelates of that Church, there are imperishable records. The bishops of the American Church are anxious to follow the honourable example, which has been transmitted to them with the Episcopal succession; and they hope that the Episcopalians throughout the Union will adopt the measure of showing themselves worthy of the beneficence which was extended to their forefathers, and that they will repay the benefit, not in the quarter from which it came, and where it is neither wanted nor demanded; but to bodies of our fellow-members of the same communion; who possess claims similar to those which we know to have not been made in vain.

It may be a question, whether, in default of this, the vicinity of the old states to the new, do not only not profit the latter, but operate to their loss In England, there have lately risen societies, some of them composed wholly of members of the established Church of that

country; and others considerably under the influence of persons of the same description, which extend their Christian beneficence to many and very remote realms. The most distant parts of Asia and of Africa have felt the effects of their zeal. What should prevent their taking of our western settlements under their fostering care? It may be supposed that nothing would prevent it, were applications made, and were supplies despaired of from a nearer source, more reasonably looked to. God forbid that so foul a stain should attach to the American Church and to her children.

From the tenour of the reasons given in favour of the domestick branch of the missionary society, it cannot but appear, that we contemplate it as the more prominent object of the institution. We however consider the foreign department of it as not only enjoined on us, and on all the members of the Church, by the terms of the constitution; but to rest on our consciences, as the exaction of Christian charity, and issuing out of the high command-" Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Other denominations of professing Christians have been before us in this work. Is it, then, that our standards of doctrine, or that our modes of worship, are less worthy of propagation, or less likely to conciliate the understandings, or to interest the feelings of persons in the darkness of heathenism? We trust that neither of these is the fact. Why, then, should we be backward to take our share of labour and of expense, in the great field lately opened to the zeal of the Christian world? In regard to bodies of professing Christians, whose principles differ from those of our apostolick Church, we respect their zeal, and rejoice in any good which may be achieved by it. But we submit, as a subject of very serious consideration, whether their laudable endeavours may not have a pernicious effect on the credit of our religious institutions; so as to lessen the probability of their being received within any sphere where they may be promulged. For although we do not concede that zeal is an exact measure of the truth which it may be called forth to propagate; yet there may seem cause to doubt of the validity of tenets, which, not merely from peculiarity of time or of place, but generally, and among a widely extended population, do not excite to the spreading of the knowledge of what is supposed to be connected with the highest interests of mankind.

We are not strangers to the inefficiency of many attempts, in former times put forth, for the extending of the religion of the Redeemer : but we detect the principal cause of failure, in the incompatibility of the means with the end. When the sword and the cross have been beheld in an unnatural union, for the subjecting of nations to crowns having no title to their allegiance; and to a supremacy in the Church, having no foundation in the scriptures; it is not surprising that there should either be generated deadly hatred, or that there should ensue a profession decorated by the name of Christian. but having little else to constitute a title to the character. When attempts have been made under better auspices, and with purity of motive, but under such mistaken views of the subject as to substitute evanescent feeling for " the

demonstration of the spirit and of power;" that is, evidence of prophecy and of miracle, with which the apostles made their extensive conquests within the former dominion of heathenism; it is no matter of wonder that there should be but little good accomplished, and no lasting effect of that little. It is to be hoped that the time is come, when not only a more righteous, but a more intelligent zeal has found its openings, and is in successful progress.

Although we have placed this matter in the second degree of importance; yet we cannot but be of opinion, that there are two claims of the kind, which ought to press on us with great weight. One of them is that which comes from the western coast of Africa; and the other is that which reaches us from our aboriginal neighbours, in the western regions of our continent. It is not enough that we witness increasing conviction and abhorrence of the iniquity of the slave trade. There should be acknowledgment of past errour, in energy to be now put forth, for the redeeming of the injured country from idolatry and barbarism. As for the Indians on our borders, it is notorious that besides the frauds sometimes practised, and the wars provoked, for the obtaining of the possession of their lands, the circumstance that the first settlers among them are often of the dregs of our population, has infused into their moral character many poisonous ingredients, to which they were strangers until their intercourse with emigrants from Europe. Shall the time never come, when the injury done and still doing to them, shall receive a counterbalance, in a benefit which could not fail to bind them to us in an everlasting chain of friendship?

If there be any who still contend that the more distant claims should be entirely lost sight of in the contemplation of those who have sprung from the same community with ourselves; let such persons be aware, that there are very many of their fellow citizens, of the same church with themselves, who, without being insensible of the claims of the nearer duty, are convinced that something also should be done for the accomplishing of the decree of God, "giving to his blessed Son the heathen for his inheritance." With us, the question is, whether zeal of this description shall have an opportunity afforded to it, of contributing the stream of its beneficence through the channel of our own Church, or shall be poured through some other less acceptable, yet tending to the accomplishment of the object. It would not be unnatural, if, with many, on a comparison of the merits of different systems, the matter now treated of should turn the balance to our disadvantage.

While we press on the attention of the members of our Church the interests of two institutions, in the success of which, as we conceive, her reputation, her increase, and her usefulness very much depend; we are sensible of the merits of several other species of association, which, of late years, within her bounds, as within those of other societies, have been formed with the view of cherishing and of extending religious belief and practice. Such are Sunday schools, societies for the distributing of the bible, of the book of common prayer, of the homilies, and of instruction in the form of tracts, suited to ordinary