the territories and dominions to them belonging." They were, it seems, driven to this measure by a fierce warfare brought against them by the Kussoos, a tribe of the interior, who having successively trodden down their neighbours, had at length reached the Sherbro Bulloms, in their devastating progress, and threatened them with destruction or slavery.

The country thus unexpectedly ceded to the British, lies directly south-east directly of Sierra Leone and comprises a line of sea coast of 120 miles in length, and upwards of 5000 square miles of the most fertile land in this part of Africa, being watered with seven rivers of considerable extent and importance. The produce of these rivers has always been very great; and will rapidly increase in quantity, as the property of the natives is now rendered secure from plunder and devastation. The principal articles of lawful export have hitherto been ivory, palm-oil, camwood, and rice: of the latter, the Bagroo river alone furnished 600 tons in one season.

However the good people of England may be disposed to congratulate themselves on account of the commer

cial advantages which they will derive from this acquisition, there is another point of view in which they will deem it still more important, and on account of which the philanthropic of all countries will make them welcome to their new possession. The traffic in human flesh can no longer exist in the ceded territory. "The slave trade of the coast between Sierra Leone and the Gallinas" says the editor of the London Missionary Register. " is for ever annihilated. We may fairly compute, that from 15,000 to 20,000 wretched beings were annually exported from the territory lately acquired: it was to support this horrible trade that the surrounding nations were constantly engaged in sanguinary wars; which have nearly depopulated the once rich and fertile countries of the Sherbro."

Mr.

precedence. The Panama question was discussed in the Senate chiefly with closed doors. With what politi cal logic and foresight, therefore, our southern statesmen, so long withstood the measure, we have not been permitted to see, nor have we room, or time, to digest what we have seen. Randolph, in a very discursive speech, endeavoured to embarrass the subject by connecting it with negro emancipation: it would affect, ultimately, the condition of slavery in the United States. By what process his erratic mind reached this conclusion, we cannot tell; except that the sable skin of those who will compose the congress at Panama, the emancipation acts of the South American governments, the character of Bolivar, Cuba, Hayti, and the Colonization Society, were links in the chain. The question was finally settled by a small majority in favour of the mission. The vote was taken at two o'clock in the morning, the majority having resolved not to adjourn without a decision.

The subject is now before the House, with whom it remains to provide for the expense of the mission.

Of the multitude, we had almost said, of proposed amendments to the constitution, some have had the merit of requiring little discussion, and most have furnished evidence of the ambition, retrospective or prospective, in which they had their birth. Some may have been dictated by honest, perhaps enlightened patriotism. Those introduced by Mr. McDuffie, have been zealously supported and ably opposed. We are sorry to find Mr. Everett, in his eloquent speech on this subject, straying from the principles in which, as a citizen of a free state, he had been educated, broadly to avow his approbation of negro slavery, and justifying this avowal by arguments which would go equally to support the Holy Alliance or whatever other form of political despotism, the orator may have declaimed against on other occasions.

A project for the colonization of the aboriginees has been submitted by the Secretary of War, to the Committee on Indian affairs. In its general features it resembles the plan proposed last year by Mr. Calhoun. But we have no room, we find, for this or other topics on which we intended to remark.

is the same, therefore, as a bishop; and before there arose by the temptation of the devil, preferences in religion, and it was said among the people, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, the churches were governed by a common council of presbyters. But afterwards every one esteeming those whom he had baptized as his own, not Christ's; it was decreed through out the world, that one chosen from the presbyters should be placed above the rest, to whom the care of the whole church should belong, and the source of all discord be removed. If it be supposed this is not the sense of the scriptures, but my own opinion, that bishop and presbyter are one, and that one is the name of age, the other of of fice; read again the words of the apostle to the Philippians Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace to you, and peace, &c. Philippi is a single city of Macedonia, and certainly there could not be in the one city many bishops, in the present meaning of the term. But because at that time they called the same persons bishops whom they called presbyters, on that account he spoke of bishops indifferently as of presbyters. This may still seem doubtful to some, unless it be proved by another testimony. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that when he had come to Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the presbyters of that church, to whom he afterwards said, among other things, 'attend to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath placed you bishops, to feed the Church of the Lord, which he has gained by his blood.' And here observe more particularly, that in

viting the presbyters of the one city, Ephesus, he afterwards calls the same bishops. If that epistle which is written to the Hebrews under the name of Paul, be received, there also the care of a church is equally divided among many; forasmuch as he writes to the people, Obey your leaders, and be in subjection, for they watch for your souls, as rendering an account, lest they may do this with sorrow; since this is to your advantage.' And Peter, who derived his name from the firmness of his faith, speaks in his epistle, saying, Wherefore the presbyters among you I entreat, who am a co-presbyter, and witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also an associate in the glory which is hereafter to be revealed; feed the Lord's flock, which is among you, not from necessity but choice.*

"† These things are recorded that we may show, that the ancient presbyters were the same as the bishops, but by little and little, that the roots of dissensions might be torn up, the whole trouble was devolved on one. Wherefore, as presbyters know that they are subjected to him who shall have been placed over them by the custom of the church, so the bishops may know that they are greater than presbyters, rather by custom than by the verity of the Lord's appointment; and that they ought to govern the church in common, imitating Moses, who, when he had it in his power to preside over the people of Israel alone, selected seventy, with whom he might judge the people."*

Jerom imputes the origin of episcopacy, not to the preference of one apostle to another, in the church of Corinth; I am of Paul, &c.; for no one of them became superior in office to the rest; but to the capricious favouritism of the people for particular presbyters, and to the ambitious efforts of those officers, who aimed to promote themselves rather than to advance the cause of Christ, which he asserts produced the general consent, by little and little, to transfer the responsibility of superintendence from the council of presbyters to a single presbyter in each church, for the prevention of divisions. From his expressions, "Beforeit was said among the people, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, &c." which obtained at Corinth many years before the death of Paul, it has been inferred that the authority of the presbyteries was devolved on bishops before the deaths of the apostles. But this quotation was a mere accommodation of scripture language to the evils of after times, for he speaks not of the transfer of authority from many apostles to one, but of that of the presbyters of a church to one of their number. When Clement wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, which all acknowledge genuine, they had no bishop, and this was a little before the death of the last apostle. It has been also justly answered to the strange inference, that the date of the letter to the Corinthians, which has thus been assigned as the time of the introduction of episcopacy, was prior to the call of Miletus, to the letter to the Philippians, to the epistle to the Hebrews, and to the first epistle of Peter; and that Jerom would not have placed the introduction of

episcopacy at the period of the schism at Corinth, and then pro ceeded to the argument for original presbyterial parity from four different facts, all of which must have occurred subsequently to the time which he had just before assigned as the termination of such equality among presbyters. Had Jerom said, that because of this schism at Corinth, it was decreed in all the world to devolve the power on one, the four instances which immediately follow of the identity of the presbyterial and episcopal office, would have been palpable contradictions of himself. Equally futile is the position that since there were neither synods nor councils to pass the decree which he mentions, Jerom must have supposed it was ordained by the apostles. His language fairly implies, that the decree was the general adoption of the expedient, of the responsibility of one presbyter, by the churches throughout the world; which agrees with his representation of this change as a custom, which came on radually till it universally prevailed. Jerom's legitimate inference of original parity, from the identity of the commission, qualifications, and duties, and the promiscuous use of the names of presbyter and bishop, in the apostolic times, excludes also the idea of an inferior order of presbyters in his day; for otherwise his terms should have been restricted. The sameness of order in the apostolic age, which Titus was to establish in all the cities of Crete, is clearly evinced to have then existed at Philippi, Ephesus, Pontus, and at the place of the destination of the letter to the Hebrews; and it may be presumed, until an exception can be shown, in all other Christian churches. The opposition of the terms bishop and deacon is obvious, but none exists between the words bishop and presbyter, which may well signify the same officer. And the omission

of presbyters in Phil. i. 1., and of their qualifications in other letters, where those of bishops are given; the promiscuous use of the terms, as well as the historical fact of the accumulation of the power of the προεστως, or ruling elder by general consent, all show that they were at first identically the same. The inference of Jerom that since this preference of one was by the custom of the church, and not by the appointment of the Lord, that therefore the bishops ought to govern in common with the presbyters, was not only an appeal to their consciences, but the clear expression of the opinion of this learned man, that episcopal preeminence was destitute of apostolical and scriptural foundation. From the words, "imitating Moses, who, when he had it in his power to preside over the people alone, selected seventy with whom he might judge the people," an inconclusive argument has been elicited for a divine right in bishops, because Moses had such right. But that bishops, otherwise than as presbyters, are destitute of such right, is the very thing which Jerom has proved from their scriptural identity, and confirmed by fact; founding modern episcopacy on custom and general consent. He can, consistently with himself, have meant no more by the example of Moses, than that if the Jewish lawgiver, whose commission was immediately from God,so condescended in dividing his power, a fortioribishops should remember the original administration, and that their preeminence was merely established by custom.

That Jerom was favourable to the three orders of clergy existing in his day, often appears in his works: so when he speaks of deacons as in the third degree, he alludes to their condition when he wrote; and so far was he from desiring a change, that he affirmed, "The safety of the church depend

ed upon the dignity of the high priest." But that its original condition when left by the apostles was otherwise, he knew and has shown. Against this, his catalogue of illustrious writers is cited, where James the author of the epistle is said to have been ordained (ordinatus) bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles. The genuineness of this passage has been often disputed, and standing among numerous interpolations, it is probably a corruption. But if received, it concludes nothing, because bishop may be taken in its appellative sense, overseer, and there may have been an understanding among the apostles that he should remain there, having, with the presbyters, the oversight of that important station. But if the aposthe James was ordained a bishop by the other apostles, it was a mere nullity, if the offices be the same ; if diverse, the apostles either exalted him to a higher office, for which they had no power; or they degraded him to an inferior, without a fault, and for no purpose which he might not effect as an apostle.* Also, if Jerom said this, he contradicted himself.