ties in 1812 and 1816, believed that after the adoption of the Constitution the General Conference could not constitutionally provide for the election of Presiding Elders, is preposterous, and implies an impeachment of their intelligence or integrity.

It has been repeatedly but erroneously stated that while the third Restrictive Rule was under discussion the question was postponed on motion of Mr. Cooper till the Conference could determine its action on the proposition to allow the Annual Conferences to choose by ballot their Presiding Elders. Now let it be observed that the third Restrictive Rule was only one of several regulations presented for consideration, and that the whole report was before the Conference, and, as a report, was postponed. There is not the least evidence either that the third Restrictive Rule was opposed, or that it was considered as in any way affecting the question of electing Presiding Elders. The opposition to the report had reference to other provisions which were named in the discussion.

The argument that Mr. Cooper's motion for postponement of the discussion on the Constitution, showed that in his opinion his proposed measure could not be adopted after the Constitution should be passed, is an old one, being used by Bishop M'Kendree, by the author of an article in the April number of this Review for 1876, and being prominent in the debates of the General Conference of 1876. It is strange that the fallacy of this argument did not occur to those who have used it. As Dr. Wise states, the Constitution was wholly prospective in its bearings. The Conference of 1808 possessed unrestricted powers up to the hour of its adjournment. It could pass or overthrow any measure as it might deem advisable. Dr. T. E. Bond says of it, "It was invested with powers of government limited only by the laws of the Supreme Lawgiver."

But it is said that Bishop Soule, who was the chief author of the Constitution, believed that this third Restrictive Rule rendered the election of Presiding Elders unconstitutional. Is there a shadow of proof that, either in 1808 or afterward, Bishop Soule entertained this opinion? If so, let it be produced. That Bishop Soule believed the elective principle we advocate unconstitutional, we grant; but, so far as we know, he has not left to us the nature of his argument. We have already given reasons for supposing his opinions agreed substantially with

It is, moreover, a well-known

those of Bishop M'Kendree. fact that every deliberative body interprets its own rules, and while the opinion of the author of a rule will have great weight it has no binding force. We would not seem dogmatic, but having diligently and vainly searched for the evidence on which the important assertions made by the other side rest, we respectfully call for their production. In his attempts to sustain the argument based on the word plan, Dr. Prentice praises highly the severe taste and the simplicity of the style of Bishop Soule as a writer. We make no objection, but would simply remark that a part of the modifications of his report were changes to render its style more simple, and the pruning it of redundant words.

As the election of Presiding Elders had been brought so prominently before the General Conference, had there been an intention to deprive the General Conference of the power to authorize the measure, would not the prohibition have been expressed in language too plain to be misunderstood? Is it not utterly preposterous to suppose that it would have been expressed in language so cumbrous and vague that a large part of the body that adopted it, including many of its ablest men, did not understand it?

We consider it a very strong point in favor of our interpretation of the Constitution that Jesse Lee, one of the ablest members of the General Conference of 1808, and one of the strongest and most persistent advocates of the election of Presiding Elders, moved the adoption of this very third Restrictive Rule. Of course, he did not understand that it prohibited a measure unto which he had given so much time and earnest attention. Dr. Prentice is so hard pressed by this fact that he alleges Mr. Lee made the motion from motives of policy, and intimates that he did it insincerely.

In reply to the assertion that if Messrs. Lee and Cooper had understood this rule as prohibiting the election of Presiding Elders, having voted for the Rule, they could not afterward, in the General Conferences and elsewhere, have advocated their favorite measure, he says: "We answer that men are pretty apt to find ways of doing what they wish to do." We protest that this is monstrous and shameful. Jesse Lee and Ezekiel Cooper were honest Christian men, who would have

held the conduct ascribed to them in contempt. They sincerely supported the third Restrictive Rule, and honestly advocated the election of Presiding Elders, believing that these measures are not inconsistent with each other. They would neither lie nor act under false pretenses.

Dr. Prentice must have higher ideas of the motives that govern good men than he shows in his article. Having to his own satisfaction accounted for the conduct of Lee and Cooper, he affirms that we can give no reasonable account of the conduct of Bishops M'Kendree and Soule. He asks triumphantly, as though he were making a conclusive point:

Why did Soule object to the constitutionality of the action of the General Conference of 1820 in making the Presiding Elders elective? His brethren had just elected him Bishop, and his friends were anxious to put such a man as himself into the episcopacy as a protection against radicalism; the Bishops were ready to ordain him. Why does Joshua Soule take the decision to protest against the unconstitutionality of an elective Presiding Eldership at the very moment when his protest may arrest his ordination, or lead to the resignation of his new honors? Do men who desire a good work commonly throw away such a position when it has honorably come to them? Do they act thus upon a whim, upon uncertainty? Why does Bishop Soule wait four years longer before accepting consecration after a first election? Why does M'Kendree pursue his remarkable course on the question unless he knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the legislation he denounced as unconstitutional really was so? Such conduct upon the part of these men cannot be explained upon the theory of our good friends without extreme violence to all reasonable probabilities of the case.

We see no difficulty in the case. We have not impeached the sincerity or questioned the motives of these good men. Their conduct was such as good men ought ever to manifest. They did not weigh personal considerations of advantage against the convictions of duty. We believe, however, that Bishop M'Kendree was a man of too good sense to avow that his opinion on the constitutional question, opposed as he was to so many men of pure character and high intelligence, was true beyond a shadow of doubt. And we regard him as a man of too great piety to refuse to suffer for conscience' sake unless he had so strong an assurance of the correctness of his convictions.

We think the opponents of an elective Presiding Eldership

do not consider the meaning of the strong terms "destroy" and "do away" in the Restrictive Rule. Such terms allow great changes in the institutions to which they are applied; but, in forgetfulness of this, it is urged that all changes are forbidden. In the General Conference of 1876 Dr. Reynolds, having affirmed that in the plan of our itinerant General Superintendency there were secured to the Bishops, beyond the interference of the General Conference, "the appointment of the Presiding Elders, the appointment of the preachers, and every thing else connected with the itinerancy," urged that the right to take away or destroy any part of this plan would involve the right to destroy the whole. His words are: "To say you may take away a part and not the whole is an absurdity in reason, as it is absurd in fact. It is a maxim that you cannot do by piecemeal what you cannot do at once and as a whole."

According to this view it would appear, using substantially Bishop George's illustration, that if permission was given to any one to take a twig or a graft from a tree, or a direction given to remove useless limbs, he would have authority to cut down the tree and take the stock, branches, and roots away, as the power to prune implies the right to destroy. Or we may ask, with more direct application to the case in view, does the prohibition to a gardener to destroy a tree prohibit him from so pruning it as to give it better shape and increased fruitfulness, or from removing superfluous branches or limbs that endanger its safety? A modification of an instrument often, so far from destroying it, renders its meaning clearer and its force more effective. A modification of a house, in a new arrangement of rooms and halls, may better secure the design for which it was built. A chartered road between two cities may have needless and dangerous windings and steep ascents, which a modification may remove, and render it, as a means of communication, more direct and less difficult. A machine may be needlessly complicated, and require much power to secure its action; a modification may remove useless parts and make the action more simple and direct; as a consequence of the change it may be stronger, more rapid in movement, and every way more effective, and at the same time less expensive in construction, and requiring less power in operation. It is evident in many cases, when the design of any document or institution is considered,

a change is neither an utter nor a partial destruction. It is an act of injustice and a willful wrong to allege that the friends of an elective Presiding Eldership are striving to destroy the institutions of the Church, or to revolutionize its government. They do not seek to destroy the episcopacy or do away with the plan of our itinerant general superintendency. They believe that by their plan the highest efficiency would be given to the itinerancy of the ministry, and the best interests of the Church would be preserved. We have endeavored to show that the election of Presiding Elders by the General Conference is constitutional, but we must regret that we have not now space to discuss the expediency and desirableness of the measure.

ART. VI. THE NEGRO EXODUS.

THE migration of Negroes from the Southern States of America has been going on for many years. As slavery came to be permanently established in these States, it was only natural that the victims of that institution should desire to live somewhere else. That desire was intensified, and the efforts to gratify it became more persistent, as the slaves multiplied in numbers and became more intelligent; and, also, in proportion as they were aided directly, as far as could be, by the enemies of slavery, and indirectly by the humane and Christian efforts of slave-holders whose interest made them such in spite of their conscientious scruples. Every thing that was done to better the moral and intellectual condition of those in bondage only the more fully revealed to them their deplorable condition, and intensified their desire and determination to be free; and freedom was impossible, except in rare cases, only as they could escape from the South. Slave-holders always said it was the agitations of Northern abolitionists which made their bondmen discontented. Not so. The North had been party with the South to the sin of slavery, until, in part because that institution was found to be unsuited to Northern industries, but chiefly because it was wrong, its total abolition in the Northern States was decided upon. But, unfortunately, what the North considered wrong for itself, and would not have, it was willing the South should