tiate of many year's standing, of excellent gifts and character, who should have been ordained already, and whose application for orders is pending. Now, Mr. Moderator, will you not be surprised to hear this statement, which I derive from the most unquestionable source, that this coloured man, although an excellent man, was undoubtedly licensed without the constitutional qualifications; that he certainly has not yet acquired them; that he is not an applicant for ordination at all, but is perfectly satisfied with his position; that there is no coloured Presbyterian Church to call him as pastor; and that there is not even a Presbyterian mission field for him; but he is labouring among the coloured Methodists. If this statement is disputed, the authority is ready. But I advise the contestant not to demand it, unless he desires to be put to confusion. There is manifestly an unhealthy restlessness about the ordination of black men. Let this overture pass the Assembly, and you will soon see it made the occasion for violating our standards, at the prompting of quixotic and romantic generosity towards this unfortunate race, and for introducing some into our ministry, as much unfitted for it by attainments and character, as by colour. My point then is this, that if the action proposed is wholly unpractical, it is neither candid nor dignified. But if it is destined to have any practical effect, its operation will be only mischievous, just to the extent it is operative.
Fourth: I oppose the entrusting of the destinies of our Church, in any degree whatever, to black rulers, because that race is not trustworthy for such position. There may be a few exceptions; (I do not believe I have ever seen one, though I have known negroes whom I both respected and loved, in their proper position) but I ask emphatically: Do legislatures frame general laws to meet the rare exceptions? or do they adjust them to the general average? Now, who that knows the negro, does not know that his is a subservient race; that he is made to follow, and not to lead; and his temperament, idiosyncrasy, and social relation, make him untrustworthy as a depositary of power? Especially will we weigh this fact now, unless we are madmen; now, when the whole management to which he is subjected is so exciting, so unhealthy, so intoxicating to him; and when the whole drift of the social, political, and religious influences which now sway him, bear him with an irresistible tide, towards a religious faction, which is the deadly and determined enemy of every principle we hold dear. Sir, the wisest masters in Israel, a John Newton, an Alexander, a Whitefield, have told us, that although grace may save a man's soul, it does not destroy his natural idiosyncrasy, this side of heaven. If you trust any portion of power over your Church to black hands, you will rue it. Have they not done enough recently, to teach us how thoroughly they are untrustworthy? They have, in a body, deserted their true friends, and natural allies, and native land, to follow the beck of the most unmasked and unprincipled set of demagogues on earth, to the most atrocious ends. They have just, in a body, deserted the churches of their fathers. They have usually been prompt to do these things, just in proportion to their religious culture and to our trust in them. Is not this enough to teach us, that if we commit our power to that race, in these times of conflict and stern testimony, possibly of suffering for God's truth,
