tion of a settlement, we are as far from a settlement as ever. It is sad that it should so be; but in the circumstances of our Transatlantic kinsmen, if the toleration of slavery has been a great evil, the intolerance of it may be a greater."

In July of the same year, we have this comment from the same pen, on our trials and sacrifices, when the best blood of our churches was being poured out in behalf of our common humanity:

"The United States have not only been known as Christian States, but their Christianity has been largely of the Puritan type. Recent events, however, have shown that other elements have found their home and place of rule among the American people. . . . The vine was a goodly vine when planted there, but the soil about it has changed greatly, since that day.

"Such, at least, are our unwelcome impressions. Most earnestly for the sake of liberty, humanity, and religion, do we long to see an end of this war in which the very language spoken should suffice to suspend hostilities, by reminding the combatants of their common stock and brotherhood. . . . Let them not suppose that the civilized world is bestowing any admiration on their achievements. It is not doing anything of the sort. To all rightminded men, it is a spectacle which is simply painful."

These views were uttered in the second summer of the struggle; but we have searched in vain for evidence of that gradual emancipation from this mistake, which the address of the Delegate to the National Council at Boston induced us to expect.

Thus he discourses on the state of affairs in this country more than a year later, October, 1863:

"Popular principles and the good name of Puritanism have suffered injuries during the last two years, which the next half century will hardly suffice to retrieve. It is with deep sorrow that we thus write. The hoarded miseries for humanity with which the Northern States of America are charged, will be felt in their time."

Did not this solemn accusation against the religion and vir tue of our suffering people, demand something beyond the mere acknowledgment of limited information, in one whose position enabled him to ascertain more exactly than any other man in England, the facts as they were? The victories of Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, had somewhat opened the eyes of the editor to the probable results of the conflict, but we do not after another year, discern that

improvement in judgment which he declares. This is his recorded opinion, January, 1864:

“In America, the war scale is in favor of the North, and we are summoned to rejoice. No doubt the resolve to perpetuate and diffuse slavery has been the great motive of war on the part of the Confederates, and it is as little doubtful that the preservation of the Union, and not the extinction of slavery, has been the grand motive of the Federals. The motive of the Confederates is a deadly sin, and the frown of heaven seems to rest on it; the motive of the Federals is natural, but acted upon, in the face of such costs, it has become monstrous. We cannot wish success to either side. To free some millions of blacks at the cost of making corpses or slaves of a greater number of whites, can be no pleasant spectacle in the eyes of religion or of humanity."

When General Grant had driven the stubborn foe back to Richmond, and laid his iron hand on the very throat of the rebellion; when Sherman had seized Atlanta; this editor had. only condemnation for Northern freemen battling for a lawful liberty. October, 1864:

"Slavery has ceased to be the great difficulty, even with the slave power. The issue is narrowed to a single point. Independence is the one word, comprehending everything to the South. Submission is the one word, comprehending everything to the North; a submission, however, which means the future rule of a vanquished minority, by a conquering majority. Wise men must be as alien from the spirit of the invaders in this struggle, as from the slave element of the invaded."

Sherman marched through Georgia to the astonishment of Europe, and our friends in England, taking heart, pointed to the atrocities of the rebels in their treatment of prisoners, in their attempt to burn the innocent in their houses, and proclaimed their desire for the triumph of the Republic; yet Dr. Vaughan, from his watch-tower of observation, had even last January only a sharp rebuke for those who sympathized in our behalf; a denial that slavery ought to be removed at such a cost, or that the Union should be restored in this method, and a bitter denunciation of us as neither lovers of liberty nor true servants of Jesus Christ. These are the words, January, 1865:

Perplexed indeed we are to find the men who preach peace at any price in Europe, preaching up war at any cost in America. We covet the solution of this mystery, but it does not come. It is said to be to put down slavery—that hell upon earth-admitted—but where is your warrant for putting down one hell, by perpetrating another no less horrible? If to cut down the last white man on the

soil of the Confederates, be the price of restoring the Union, restored we are told it shall be. These are not words proper to men, least of all to Christian men."

*

"Popular liberty and Puritan Christianity have gone back many degrees in public estimation, within the last three years."

We submit whether such assertions from a delegate to a Council of the Puritan Churches thus accused, did not deserve to be noticed, and whether something more than the apology of erroneous information would not have been becoming? Was not the mistake of so intelligent and influential a man, in such a position for obtaining knowledge, and who claims to understand English Congregationalists better than any one beside, something more than an accidental error, even a sin against the House of God, the Church of the elect, whom he thus assailed? We say it not in any unkindness, but because we cannot, and should not forget that these harsh and unjust condemnations have enhanced the terrors of this struggle, and the sacrifice of most precious lives; and, while we forgive, we demand a recognition of the grievous fault.

The war ended, and then what congratulation came from the Editor of the British Quarterly, what thanksgiving that righteousness had triumphed, and the Puritan principles been maintained after so abundant sacrifices? In April, 1865, he says:

"America-what of America The captive Samson, blind, laboring at the mill, has been avenged. The long connivance of the North at his hard lot has brought its retribution, and the deeper guilt of the South is bringing its heavier penalty. Even a passion for independence, it seems, must be a failure, when the freedom claimed, is a freedom to be used at the cost of freedom elsewhere."

ance.

That is all! Carlyle said at the beginning, "It is a dirty chimney, let it burn itself out." Dr. Vaughan, at the close, calls upon Englishmen to congratulate themselves that the United States have suffered so much in the travail of deliverThese Englishmen, agreeing in nothing else, coincide in cool indifference to the pangs and burdens of the terrible fight, by which we on this continent have preserved for humanity, the cause of liberty, and the right of self-government. Entertaining high respect for Dr. Vaughan, we can apply his language before the Council to himself: "I have never said a word that could be painful to you, that

was not connected with much more pain in my own mind, than it was likely to bring to you." Yet his position in the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and his being chosen as a delegate to the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States, constitute him a representative of the class in England, from whom we had a right to expect sympathy; and if he failed egregiously in comprehending the merits of the quarrel, we cannot be surprised that the majority of those, who had far less opportunity of informing themselves, and far less reason to wish well to our cause, should have been hostile to our success. Indeed, the sentiment of these English Congregationalists, was expressed in a remark to one of our ministers two years ago: "Sir, to be frank, we have long felt that your Republic was too strong, and must be broken, and are glad that the South has taken you in hand instead of ourselves." The keen and prophetic reply is fulfilled to-day: "My friend, when we have finished this war, you will be happier than you are now, that the South undertook the job instead of yourselves."

Educated Englishmen are still, with their dogged obstinacy, cherishing the mistake, that the loyal citizens of the United States are infatuated with a thirst for carnage, and, like a maddened bull, are raging for another victim. They will not believe that we are not eager to find a pretext for a trial of strength with their nation, and the idea may be sustained by a secret consciousness, that the occasion could be easily discovered. They do not understand the reverence for law, and the love of peace, which has dispersed our citizen soldiery so gladly to their homes, as waves sink when the gale has passed. They will not improve the golden opportunity, unless they imitate the readiness with which the exasperated people of these States subdued passion at the calm statement of their rulers, in the case of the Trent, and say frankly, "We have erred, we have wronged you unintentionally, and we will cheerfully make reparation." That acknowledgment would hush feuds, and vitally unite the two nations in a friendship more binding than treaties. We do not anticipate such frankness, but when

our government insists on reparation, the matter will be submitted to an umpire, and while we shall yield to the decision if contrary to our interests, Great Britain must also promptly fulfill the obligation required.

Retaining our attachment for England and our love for British Christianity, we do not occupy the same relation which we held four years ago. Dr. Raleigh uttered a historical truth of deep significance in his opening address to the Council, when he said, "If you have found in England less help or sympathy than you might have expected, the fact has taught the North self-reliance, and has shown the world your resources and power." Many felt from the commencement that this would prove, as it has, a war in which we should win social, intellectual, and religious deliverance from the Old World, and especially from our mother country. The Jacob, who had been accounted only an industrious herdsman and shrewd trader, has become Israel during this terrible wrestle and night watch, and now the elder must serve the younger. There is no arrogance in claiming for ourselves the leadership of the world in the defense of those grand principles which are the noblest endowments of society, and which are the only permanent sources of true progress for humanity.

The sympathy and comfort which we anticipated from those allied to us in language and in a heroic past, would have shortened the conflict and have saved many sacrifices, but might have lost us this crowning gift of a true liberty, under righteous law, guided by wisdom and guarded by invincible power. Yet, though it soften our indignation, this does not lessen the fault of our brethren abroad, to whom we can address the language of Joseph: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, as it is this day.'

While the facts sustain the address of the Council in its discriminating rebukes, the report also breathes a Christian charity in its grateful recognitions and its generous forgiveness. Although the bearing of the Congregational Union of England and Wales has been inimical to the Congregational churches of the United States, the Welsh have stood up our fast friends, and even among English Congregationalists many