Facts for Baptist Churches

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1850 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. Correspondence Between The English And American Baptists--Disingenuous Conduct Of The Acting Board In Suppressing The English Letter Providential Development Of Their Secret Workings--The LetTer--The Board's Secret Reply--An Open Reply By A Baptist Convention. Desiring that the reader may clearly understand the bearings of the following correspondence, the compilers, in introducing it, deem it necessary to present a brief description of the parties by whom it was conducted. The Baptist Union is a body in England composed of members elected by the churches. These representatives elect annually an Executive Committee which performs various duties connected with the interests of the churches, among which is the presenting of an epistle descriptive of their moral and religious progress. This body holds slavery to be always and everywhere a sin. To use its own words, Slavery is a sin to be ahandoned--not an evil to be mitigated. It had lent its powerful aid to the glorious work of West India emancipation. This body commenced the correspondence. The correspondence on our side of the Atlantic was conducted by the Boston Board of the Triennial Convention, wiih whose his? tory we shall suppose the reader to be somewhat familiar. To one feature of this Convention we shall invite special attention. Under its Constitution slaveholders and non-slaveholders united on terms of social and moral equality. Thi9 was the fatal error. It cansed the Convention, from its birth to its dissolution, to sanction as Christian a slaveholdSlaveholding Presidents. 15 F ing religion. Observe its operation in the election of Presidents. The first was Richard Furman, a slaveholder of South Carolina. He filled the office till 1820, when another slaveholder, Robert B. Semple of ...