after having escaped from human bondage, are now in great fear, anxiety, and distress, on account of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. We also recommend them to use all the means to preserve their liberty, that religion, conscience and reason will justify, under their harassing and distressing circumstances.

The report was discussed for nearly four hours by gentlemen from eight or ten different States, and unanimously adopted.

The crowded audience that had, at times, hung in breathless anxiety upon the lips of the speakers, and then again breathed the indignant sigh, as the revolting features of the law were presented, was called upon for an expression of opinion. With scarcely an exception, that immense throng approved the report.

This action of the Conference did not originate in any disloyal or disorganizing spirit, but in an impressive conviction of duty. It was a purpose to "obey God, rather than men," that led the denomination to say, in the language of one of its deliberative bodies, "the only obedience we will render to the Fugitive Slave Law, shall be to suffer its penalties." The people, by a very large majority, acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850, because, they said, it will give quiet to the country. But antislavery men of the North could not accept such a proposition of peace, and the "fire-eaters" of the South would not, as it did not give to slavery all that they claimed. For a time there was comparative quiet, save when the arrest or kidnapping of colored people under the Fugitive Slave Law, produced the most intense local excitement. But Satan could not rest as things were, and the whole nation was soon boiling with agitation by the repeated encroachments of the slave power. The opening of Kansas to slavery, and the effort to plant it there; the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott Decision, and some less important measures by "the powers that be," removed the agitation almost entirely from the Christian pulpit to the political forum. But the same principle that led Freewill Baptists to take prompt and decisive action against slavery as Christians, led them as citizens to vote against it. And from the time that James G. Birney was first before the American people, till Abraham Lincoln-blessed be his memory-was triumphantly elect

L to be round. An enort to ascertai the number of ciel

en, and the sons of clergymen, that volunteered in the Un ny was not altogether successful, but the names of fifty-ei nisters, and two hundred and eleven sons of ministers st the roll of honor on the minutes of the General Conferen d not one in a hundred of those ministers at home, but outspoken and faithful laborer in the Union cause. Th riotic sermons and unceasing prayers, their sympathy for dier in the field, and with the disconsolate families at hon re in keeping with their former action against oppression. When the slaves began to come within the lines of our arr protection, we were ready to contribute to their wants a in their instruction. Resolutions to arise and help the re at once adopted in all the Quarterly and Yearly Meeting which the following is a specimen :

Resolved, That the physical relief and religious instruction men and women who have come to us, and may yet con us, from the house of bondage, are objects which speciall amend themselves to Freewill Baptists for sympathy and co eration; and we gratefully accept the opportunity for whic have long waited and toiled, to enter the field of active labo behalf of the poor and despised, for whom we have lon ed up the voice.

In June, 1863, the Home Mission Board agreed to establish nediately, a mission among the Freedmen. The appoint nt as missionary, was accepted by a prominent minister in ine, but a most distressing sickness in his family detained him home till the winter following. In the meantime, a missionand his wife were sent to Roanoke Island, N. C., where they ored for nearly three years.

In Jan. 1864, Rev. Mr. Knowlton received his commission as General Missionary Agent to the Freedmen, and soon left for the south. He went to Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, where his labors in that enervating climate, as summer was approaching, were too much for his health. After an absence of three months he returned home little thinking that his general prostration, and continued sickness would suspend his active labors for a period of two years. But his mission was a success, and the result may be stated in the concluding words of his own report. He says,

I have travelled about 3500 miles, attended 38 religious meetings, preached 25 sermons, visited and addressed 7 Sabbath Schools, with 1570 scholars, and 28 day and common schools, with 3930 scholars. I baptized 35 colored persons, and organized two churches, leaving them with an aggregate membership of 208.

These churches were in South Carolina, where another was soon after organized. To supply the church at Beaufort with a house of worship, an appeal was made to the denomination, and $1800 were immediately raised, with which all the necessary materials for a house 40 by 60 feet, were purchased in Portland and shipped in October.

The Mission to the Freedmen became an important work, and in it the denomination was most deeply interested. The Home Mission Board took the Shenandoah valley as its field of culture, and in that garden of Virginia concentrated all its labor. Schools were soon established in all the important towns from Harper's Ferry to Lexington, and under the direction of Rev. N. C. Brackett, as Superintendent, they were a blessing of untold worth to the colored people. A Committee was organized in the west for collecting funds and carrying on a distinct part of this work under the General Agency of Rev. A. H. Chase. Cairo, Illinois, is their centre of operations, and this department of missionary effort has rendered most efficient service. The aggregate efforts of the denomination to benefit the freedmen, at the time of our writing, (Jan. 1868) may be stated thus: Thirty-three ordained ministers have been employed as missionaries, and sixty-six pious and well educated persons as teach

om the Bureau for the Freedmen. A charter has been ned in west Virginia, and Storer College is located at I r's Ferry.

In surveying the field of anti-slavery action, on which en won many a hard fought battle, the record of the Free ptists is found to be honorable, and one of which fu nerations will not be ashamed. But they have d ly their plain and imperative duty. That duty, howev is often performed when the way seemed dark and the str è severe. But the Lord was with those faithful men, m whom now rest from their labor, and, during those years al, there was great denominational progress. Since mmencement of the anti-slavery struggle, the denominat s greatly enlarged its borders and increased its streng uring the ten years of warmest conflict,- from 1834 to 1844 nearly doubled its numbers. The list of subscribers to t orning Star has increased, since 1832, from 1300 to abo ,000; and the Christian Freeman a weekly journal, has be cablished at Chicago, to meet the wants of the west. The i rest in the various causes of benevolence, and the donations issions and education, have increased a hundred fold. ew of this prosperity while laboring for the oppressed, and ew of the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of th edmen, we all have reason to exclaim, "What has Go -ought?"

ART. IV.-CHRISTIAN GROWTH.

People often look back towards the first centuries of Christianity with a reverence that seems to recognize there the model of all excellence; to believe that every departure from the characteristics of the church of that day is an apostacy, and to desire nothing higher for the churches of the future than that they may become what those were which John and Paul and Peter planted.

It is natural-this admiration with which we turn to the past. Men climb mountain tops to see the sun rise, not because the sun has more glory or displays greater power then, but through the earthly vapors that diminish his life and hold back the noonday splendor, they can look undazzled upon his face, they can see him scattering shadows from the valleys and gilding the clouds which he will afterwards drive away.

So it instructs us to study the early ages of the Christian church, not because Christianity displayed more of its power or beauty then, but because we see it contrasted with the darkness of heathen night on which it is dawning, with the clouds of ignorance and persecution, which it is struggling through and dispelling.

The apostolic letters in the New Testament are most valuable to us, not as a testimony to the strength and the purity of the primitive churches, but as a warning against their disorders and corruptions. The inspired prescriptions for their moral and social infirmities set before us the laws and conditions of Christian life and growth.

The human mind has not only a natural tendency to reverence the past, but also to regard whatever has been known as an object of interest, whatever has been contemplated with enthusiasm or affection as superior to what has not been so known. This tendency, uncorrected by instruction or experience, makes every one regard the country in which he lives, the age and state of society in whose spirit he sympathizes, and the institutions by which he has been influenced, as superior to all others. Hence he is naturally averse to change. The customs he has