45



  In 1836, a clergyman in North Carolina, of the name
of Freeman, preached in the presence of his bishop (Rev.
Levi S. Ives, D. D, a native of a free state), two sermons
on the rights and duties of slaveholderg. In these he
essayed to justify from the Bible the slavery both of
white men and negroes, and insisted that " without a new
revelation from heaven no man was authorized to pro-
nounce slavery wrong."  The sermons were printed in a
pamphlet, prefaced with a letter to Mr. Freeman from the
bishop of North Carolina, declaring that lhe had "listened
with most unfeigned pleasure" to his discourses, and
advised their publication as being " urgently called for at
the present time."
  "The Protestant Episcopal Society for, the advance-
ment of Christianity in South Carolina"' thought it expe-
dient, and in all likelihood with Bishop Bowen's approba-
tion, to republish Mr. Freeman's pamphlet as a religious
tract !"
  The Churchman is edited by a Doctor of Divinity, late
an instructor in a theological seminary, and enjoys the
especial patronage of the Bishop of New York, and was
recently officially recommended by him to the favor of the
convention. The editor has frequently assailed the abo-
litionists in his columns in bitter and contemptuous terms.
He has even volunteered to defend the most cruel and
iniquitous enactment of the slave code. In reference to
the legal prohibition of teaching the colored population to
read, the editor says:
  " All the knowledge which is necessary to salvation, all the
knowledge of our duty toward God, and our duty toward our
neighbor, may be communicated by oral instruction, and there-
fore a law of the land interdicting other means of instruction does
not trench upon the law of God."
  A certain congregation in the diocese of New York is
said to hold its cemetery by a tenure whiclh forbids the
interment of any colored person; so that if an Episcopal
colored clergyman happen to die in that parish, he would
be indebted to others than his Episcopal brethren for a
grave !
  There are instances of regularly ordained ministers,
rectors of parishes, men fiaving as valid a commission to
preach the gospel as any other presbyters in the Episcopal
church, who are virtually denied.a seat in her Ecclesias-