inconveniences which either one party or the other must submit to. In the mean while, we shall be most happy to meet with our brethren in the evening at the temple, whoever may occupy the pulpit; and, in whatever object or pursuit co-operation is required, we trust our activities and diligence shall never be wanting to our friends, fellow-laborers, and brethren in the new vineyard of the Lord's spiritual church. The Majority of the First New Jerusalem Society of Cincinnati, to their Brethren the Minority. DEARLY BELOVED Brethren,-Your communication has been received, and deliberated on and the spirit of conciliatory charity which it breathes throughout duly appre. ciated. Convicted that our strength consists in harmony, and that the prosperity of the Lord's New Church can only be promoted by the united exertions of its members, we are disposed to approve of the measures that you have taken, and, whatever may have been the fears of any of our brethren, we are satisfied that you are actuated by correct motives, and rejoice in the assurance that you are disposed to unite with us in all measures calculated to advance the cause of the church. We cordially approve of your assembling in the manner you contemplate, until such arrangements can be made as shall be satisfactory to all. Meantime we hope that our respected and beloved Brother Hurdus will continue his pastoral duties; and that, in the administering of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, we shall all feel it our duty to participate. Although it appears to us that Brother Atlee is best qualified to address a popular audience, yet we are far from underrating the services of Brother Hurdus; on the contrary, we consider him as eminently qualified to instruct those who have passed the outer courts of the temple, and are directing their views to those spiritual things which lie within the veil. As it is not unlikely that Brother Atlee may sometimes be absent from the city for the purpose of preaching in the country, it will give us great pleasure, on such occasions, if Brothers Hurdus and Kinmont would occupy the pulpit at the temple; and as. by a late resolution of the society, Brother Atlee will in future preach at 11 o'clock. A. M., and at 3 o'clock, P. M., we hope that one or other of the above named brethren will feel disposed to fill the vacancy in the evening. Resolved, That three orders of ministers be recognized in this society; and that they shall be known by the name of pastor, minister and teacher. On motion, Resolved, That it shall be the duty of the pastor to ordain ministers agreeable to the rules of the General Convention-to perform the ordinances of baptism and the holy supper-to celebrate nuptials, when called upon-to preach or instruct from the pulpit when his pastoral office shall seem to require it; and generally to superintend the spiritual interests of the society; and to administer consolation to the distressed and afflicted, leading men to the good of life by the inculcation of truths from the Word, either publicly or privately, as he shall see fit opportunity and occasion. Secondly, Resolved, That it shall belong to the minister, or the next in order, to administer the ordinances of baptism and the holy supper, when the office of pastor may be vacated by resignation or otherwise, or the pastor unable to attend to those duties; to celebrate nuptials, when called on and when legally qualified-to preach or instruct from the pulpit regularly, some portion of each Sunday-to visit the sick-and to per form such other active duties as a faithful minister and spiritual instructor shall judge appropriate and suitable to his function. Thirdly, Resolved, That it shall belong to the teacher, or the third in order, when requested by the society, and duly authorised by the pastor, also to instruct from the pulpit, by written discourses or otherwise. (94) On motion, Resolved, That we go into an election of pastor, minister and teacher. When, on counting the ballot, the following brethren were found to be duly elected: Rev. Adam Hurdus, Pastor. On motion made by Brother Chesebrough, it was Resolved, That a committee of six be appointed to inquire into the causes of the differences existing between the members. ministers and teachers; and to endeavor, if possible, to prescribe a remedy, and report at the next meeting. (105) The Rev. Adam Hurdus was duly elected pastor. Carried. On motion, Resolved, That we omit going into the election of minister. On motion. Resolved, That the committees which made report this evening be continued, with the exception of Brother White, who declined serving, and whose place was supplied by Brother Chesebrough, whose duty was assigned to fix the time when the ministers and teachers were to perform their services in the church. On motion, Resolved, That we adjourn. (123) JAMES A. AUSTIN, Clerk. On motion, it was Resolved, That the committee of ways and means, appointed at the last meeting, be authorised, provided they deem it expedient, to open a correspondence with Mr. Kinmont and Mr. De Charms, and ascertain on what terms and conditions each can be procured to serve the society as minister. To the Committee, Messrs. Watson, Silsbee, &c., on the subject of the ministry. BRETHREN That you may be the more fully in possession of my sentiments on the subject of a ministry, on which you consulted me to day, I deem it proper that I should state them to you in writing, that you may lay them before the society. I have never felt it a burthensome, but, on the contrary, a delightful duty, to explain to my brethren, as myself one of the many, the doctrines of the new church. I have never looked upon myself as a clergyman, and I do not relish either the name or the function; but while Mr. Hurdus would be able to attend to the ordinances of the church, I also am willing to explain the doctrines as a teacher, without fee or reward, as I consider myself called upon to do, since the Lord graciously enables me to supply my temporal wants by temporal labors during the six days of the week. If, however, it be the wish of the society, as I understand from you that it was, that they should have a minister after the model and the fashion at this day prevalent among the different sects in the christian world, who is exclusively to make preaching and its collateral duties his business and profession, and from thence to draw his principal or entire pecuniary support; such a function I decline, as I am by no means satisfied in my own mind that it is after the model of a perfect and orderly church, however convenient or even necessary it may be in the present stage of human society, and the but very partially liberated state of the human mind. Yours truly, A. KINMONT. The committee beg leave to report, that in the performance of their duties relating to a minister, they have called on Brother Kinmont, to ascertain whether he would be willing to accept the office of minister on any terms. His reply was, that he would notbelieving that the interest of the present state of the society required that he should not. If this society, therefore, can unite on Richard De Charms as minister, then, in order to bring the subject before them, this committee guarantee to the society the sum of three hundred dollars as a remuneration, for his services for one year, should Richard De Charms accept it. The committee will not be prepared to report in regard to the erection of a new temple until the point is first settled about a minister. Signed on behalf of the committee. Cincinnati, February 11th, 1833. Oliver LoveLL, President. The foregoing document displays, in a manner that no verbal explanation could show, what were the difficulties that any minister of the church would have to encounter, who might go from a distance to Cincinnati to officiate for the society there while Messrs. Hurdus and Kinmont were ministers in connection with it. All know the hard fate of Dr. Atlee. That of Mr. De Charms was not less hard-though it was not quite so easy to prostrate him. His greatest sin, perhaps, was his stubbornly standing bolt upright, when he ought to have been lying flat-in not allowing himself to have been killed off as easily as he should have been! It may be his duty to give, in another place, a more extended historical sketch of the church in the West during his ministry there. This has been his intention; but he may not do it. If he should, he will want the foregoing document for reference elsewhere. He will only state further here, that, when his pastoral connection with the First Cincinnati Society was dissolved, said society very unkindly seemed to impugn his motives, or principles of action, in the course which he had felt obliged to take in sundering that connection. That society, in reporting the fact to the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Western Convention, say-" At a special meeting of the society, held July 3d, 1837, brother R. De Charms, through the trustees, tendered his resignation as pastor of the society-a movement sudden and unexpected to many; causing fears, anxieties and doubts, as to the TRUTH of a PRINCIPLE which could actuate the measure." All the troubles which Mr. De Charms had experienced in the West put together, did not give him so much interior pain as this imputation on the truth of the principle by which he had been actuated, cast publicly and officially upon him by the society, whose spiritual interests he had so faithfully, under the Lord, endeavored to serve for four years! Truth, integrity, honor, every personal virtue, forbad his officiating for that society in any clerical capacity while that stigma remained not washed out. And he never could, and never did, preach in the pulpit of the First Cincinnati Society, even when the Western Convention was holding its sessions in its temple, until the imputation contained in the above report, was disavowed by an official act of the society which made it. In the autumn of 1842, he was called from Philadelphia to Cincinnati to officiate at the marriage ceremony of the Rev. N. Ĉ. Burnham. The First Society, through the Rev. M. M. Carll, at that time its pastor, tendered to him its pulpit, and invited him to preach in it. He declined, for the reason stated above. Whereupon, the society sent to him, by the hand of Mr. Carll, the following: Cincinnati, Nov. 8, 1542. Rev. M. M. Carll, Pastor of the First New Jerusalem Society in Cincinnati. SIR-Below I send you a preamble and resolutions from the minutes of the proceedings of our meeting last evening, as directed by said meeting. At a quarterly meeting of the First New Jerusalem Society in Cincinnati, held at the temple, Nov. 7th, 1842, On motion of Brother Jas. S. Glascoe, the following preamble and resolution was adopted: Whereas this society has learned, with regret, that the Rev. R. De Charms has misconstrued the meaning of an act of this society, passed July 3d, 1837, in meeting, in their report to the next Western Convention, respecting his resignation as pastor; therefore, Resolved, That this society, individually and collectively, in passing the resolution referred to, did not intend to censure Mr. De Charms or impugn his motives. On motion, Resolved, That the clerk be directed to place in the hands of the Rev. M. M. Carll, a copy of the above preamble and resolution. A true copy, CHAS. S. CHEEVER, Clerk. On receiving the above, Mr. De Charms preached according to invitation. He had no personal wish to, but charity constrained him. The above resolution says "motives." But the writer of that preamble and resolution was not remarkable, either for great accuracy of thought, or for much precision in the use of words. He meant principles; for these, as they move men to action, are their motives. It is remarkable, however, that he was the writer of the report of the First Society to the Western Convention, which cast the imputation on Mr. De Charms of having acted from a false principle in having suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved his pastoral connection with it. The same person also wrote the letter to Dr. Atlee, then in Michigan, giving the account of the "blow up" in his society, by which Mr. De Charms was thrown sky-high; and assigned as the principle of Mr. De Charms's action, the truth of which was called in question in the report,-his having regarded his pastoral relation with the First Society a conjugial one; so that, when said society wished Messrs. Hurdus and Kinmont to preach again in its temple, and actually invited the former to administer the sacrament of the Lord's holy supper to it, in his brief absence at the Eastern Convention, only two weeks after it had been administered in the Western Convention, he, as a pastor, abandoned his flock, because "his heart was troubled to the core, and lamented that there had been adultery committed with his wife during his absence"! Thus it was believed, and told throughout the whole United States,-even echoed from Boston,-that Mr. De Charms, in dissolving his pastoral connection with the First New Jerusalem Society of Cincinnati, had acted on the principle, that such relation was a conjugial one, and had been grossly violated by the society. And there was direct allusion to this in the society's report to the Western Convention. In 1812, developments had been made which satisfied the First Society in Cincin nati that their imputation upon Mr. De Charms of his having acted from a false principle were unfounded; so that it could pass in good faith the above resolution: but there can be no question that that society, or some of its leading members, did intend to impute to him that bad principle of action in 1837, when its report to the Western Convention was made. Cannot, then, any one see, that the imputation of that report would be in Mr. De Charms's mind a serious matter? Is it not clear, from what is here stated, that he was compelled to vindicate himself from so foul a charge thus officially made to a general body of the church? And can any one now condemn him for having been the innocent instrument of agitating this matter again, although it has led to such searching exposures, and such signal confutations of the errors of others? Well, his vindication has required the publication now of the foregoing extracts from the Records of the First Cincinnati Society; for it was impossible, without the display of the proceedings therein detailed, to show the state of that society for some time before his connection with it, to explain the nature of his difficulties in that connection, and thus to make manifest the true grounds of his action in then dissolving his pastoral relation.. And to make this fully manifest now, it is only necessary to state, that, in his view, the First Society were endeavoring to bring about again that connection of Messrs. Hurdus and Kinmont with it, which he had expressly stipulated against on becoming its pastor, and which he then saw, and which the whole church may and should now see, had produced such irreconcilable divisions and difficulties in the case of other ministers in former years. He regarded the transaction during his absence, as an entering wedge to such a final result, and therefore he felt it his duty to act against it. This matter is introduced here, because it is intimately connected with that subject of church order and government which has been supposed, on all hands, to be involved in the question of trinal order in the ministry-the history of which in this country we are now endeavoring to sketch. The order of the trine has been opposed in this country because it was supposed to involve necessarily the peculiar notions of order and government of our eastern brethren. Hence, in advocating the trine, as a principle of true newchurch order, we have to disentangle it from those notions, which have flowed into or enveloped it in the minds of such as are opposing it, as well as from the organic changes which our eastern brethren have produced in the general body of our church in this country. In fact, as the conjugial theory has pervaded the actual application of the trinal principle to the ministerial arrangement and the ecclesiastical government of the new church of our country, it has been necessary to notice that theory in this history of the trine. And the writer of this historical sketch has been obliged to bring into view his difficulties in the West, and to explain them here, because certain persons have very industriously talked in secret of those difficulties to his disparagement, as a fractious, unruly and disorganizing spirit, who deserves to be rebuked by the whole church! Let the whole church now judge righteous judgment. No. LVI. MR. DANIEL ROE'S LETTER, Or a Communication from the Cincinnati Society to the Seventh General Convention in 1824. Cincinnati, May 21st, 1824-68. DEAR BRETHREN--As the Lord's New Church is beginning to obtain a considerable extension in the world, and very much of the peace and happiness of its members depends on its external relations and duties (in which alone it can exist in ultimates), we feel ourselves bound, because of our peculiarity of sentiments, to call your attention to a subject of vital importance as connected with so desirable an end. We trust that a candid and fair discussion of any point not settled by the plain mandate of the Lord, |