The following is the treasurer's re- and black, and while other organiza port for 12th mo. TREASURER'S REPORT. Mill Creek Monthly Meeting.... Bloomfield... Bridgeport. West Union. White Lick.. Beech Grove. Sugar river.. Sugar Plain. Poplar Ridge. Westfield.. Greenwood. Kenkle's creek. Plainfield... Total....... .$ 17 70 45 00 20.00 85 00 tions, similar in character to our own, may profitably continue their labors here for several years to come, our committee are seriously considering the subject of extending or removing their labors into Indian Territory. Our General Agent has once visited that section of country on our behalf, and apprehends the time has nearly come when our attention should be directed thitherward. Should the 123 25 committee not deem it advisable to 27 00 take action in a concern so important, they will doubtless bring the whole matter before our next Yearly Meeting for directions. By our treasurer's report, herewith appended, it will be seen that our twelve teachers now in the field cannot be supported additional pecuniary aid. Friends of through the present season without Iowa, will you come to the rescue? Send your contributions at once to Henry P. Ninde, Treasurer, Oskaloosa, Iowa. 37 12 .$716 95 JOHN P. WOOD, Treasurer. Plainfield, 1st mo. 4, 1867. IOWA YEARLY MEETING. At a meeting of the committee of Iowa Yearly Meeting, held on the 6th of 1st month, 1861, our General Agent being present, informed us that there were twelve teachers actively engaged in the field. He had spent considerable time in visiting Government officials, and men in high political standing to aid him in opening the way to establish these schools with safety to our teachers, and advantageously to the colored people. He obtained several interviews with the State Superintendent and Governor of the State of Missouri, who have kindly given us the benefit of their influence, by recommendations to County Superintendents and District boards, through whom, in several instances, we are likely to obtain a share in the distribution of the public school fund. This we regard, not merely on account of present pecuniary aid,though Bureau of Refugees and Abandoned Lands. FOR ARKANSAS AND INDIAN TERRITORY, THE following important order has our success depends in a great meas- been issued by Major General Ord, ure on the available means placed the Assistant Commissioner for Arwithin our reach, to sustain these kansas, &c. schools; but we do feel especially thankful to see, through the darkness hitherto enveloping the Slave States, on this subject, a glimmer of light, which, in itself, is an advance toward civilization; and in view of the fact that the authorities of the State of Missouri are becoming awakened to the cause of education, both of white OFFICE ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, Little Rock, Dec. 6, 1886. I. The immediate and earnest attention of all Superintendents of this Bureau is called to the establishment and progress of schools in their re spective districts. They will, with- this necessarily the case? Must not out delay, ascertain and report if new he that watereth, be himself also waschools can be established with ad- tered? And again, must not he who vantage on plantations, what encour- has himself found the way to the agement planters are disposed to give heavenly city, be ever earnest to show such, and what measures can be taken others the road? I often feel thankthat school privileges may be extend- ful when I see the blessing which ed as generally as possible to both flows to my own soul from any little colored children and adults. In their service for my Lord, that he has monthly reports Superintendents will thought well so largely to employ state the name and number of pupils, human instrumentality in accomtheir progress, the interest taken by plishing the purposes of His grace, whites and freedmen in them, and if when He could have done all by the the teachers seem to understand the sole and immediate work of His children and secure their affection. Holy Spirit. In making contracts for the ensuing year, care will be taken to inform the freedmen of the school facilities at or in the vicinity of their future homes, and in the District generally, so that those seeking employment can act knowingly on this subject. The Assistant Commissioner is aware of the general desire of the colored people for education, and efforts will be made to meet it with all the assistance the Bureau can render. II. Contracts for labor for the ensuing year will not be approved with those planters who have defrauded their employees, or with employers well known to be cruel to their hands. E. O. C. ORD. CORRESPONDENCE. WE have received a very interesting letter from Isaac Brown, Superintendent of the Flounders Institute, near Ackworth, England, enclosing a draft for £40. from Ackworth meeting. He writes: A letter is received from Achilles Pugh, of Ohio, inquiring why so much money is called for to sustain orphan asylums, when, as he states, it is reported that 200,000 colored people starving. We would reply that we have established these asylums at the urgent and repeated request of the Bureau, believing that in so doing we have snatched many of these destitute and forsaken children from an untimely grave, and who, whilst they are under this care, are being educated both morally and religiously. And let it be remembered in regard to those suffering and starving people alluded to by our friend, that the Bureau does provide food for them as well as for the children, at the asylums. They design to save life, and will not let any perish for want of food, if they can reach them ; but they require reliable persons to look after this destitution; and these institutions not only afford a home for the poor little orphans, but are centers from which much physical relief is extended to both whites and blacks. "How little did we suppose when your sad civil war commenced, that it would terminate in the emancipation of four millions of slaves, and W. W. Wales writes, 1st mo. 12th: thus open to religion and philanthro- "We are doing well with that old py a field of labor of almost appal- army clothing, both for the asylum ling extent, yet deeply interesting and the needy freedmen and whites and elevating to those who engage in around. We furnish some exceedit. We have been interested in hear- ingly destitute ones. Such destituing from our dear friend John H. tion as we see here, the Committee or Douglas, that he considers from what other Northern men will be likely he has observed, that this labor of never to realize." J. D. Christian love among the freedmen is reacting very beneficially upon the churches of your land. But is not SPRINGBORO Monthly Meeting, Ohio, has paid its proportion of the $16,000. OBITUARY. DIED, on the 10th of 12th mo. 1866, at Baltimore, Md., DANIEL H. HUTCHINS, a minister and member of West Branch Monthly Meeting, Ohio, in the 55th year of his age. Our dear friend had gone to Baltimore in the latter part of 10th mo., intending to make a religious visit to the Yearly Meeting there, and also to North Carolina Yearly Meeting, but most of this service was prevented by his illness. WILLIAM TANNER, of Bristol, England, whose interesting lectures have been read by many, died 11th mo. 8, 1866, in the 52d year of his age. He was untiring in his efforts to bless others. paralleled in history, for the injustice of its motive, and the disastrous nature of the consequences which must ensue if it should have been triumphant. Now I wish to be very far indeed from endeavoring to unsettle, in any mind, the ground or the establishment of the necessary and most important testimony of the Christian Church to the peaceable and peacemaking nature of the kingdom of Christ, and the clear design of God's providence and grace to bring all the kingdoms of the earth at last into subjection to the reign of the Prince of Peace. But vagueness of apprehension never strengthens any conviction of duty; we are enjoined, mentally, at least, to try all things, holding fast that which is good. Whatsoever things are of good report, we are told, we are to "consider these things. WHAT THINGS ARE CAESAR'S? Ar all times, but especially in critical seasons, such as that experienced in the presence of a wide-spread civil A question, therefore, asked recentconflict and national convulsion, it ly, as to the language in Friends' behooves all Christians to be assured Discipline in treating of the subjects of the ground they stand upon. In of "militia fines," and " war taxes," view of two especial dangers, viz: has suggested the view that perhaps 1st. That they do not weakly abandon somewhat might be gained to the under trial well established duties cause of charity, at least, if we should and testimonies; and, 2nd. That they consider, briefly but carefully, the do not judge others too harshly, for- real extent under an unbiased congetting that each is accountable to struction of the teachings of the "his own Master;" and that, while Gospel, of the principle of Friends the intrinsic principles of morality of the resistance to all countenance are eternal as the gospel, many duties whatever of the use of mortal force are individual, many requirements between man and man, in view of the and prohibitions special and adaptive, fact that Friends, at the same time, and that a wise and Christian liberal- have always most strenuously upheld ity demands leniency of judgment the duty of submission and obedience towards such as differ from us upon to the powers that be, "as to the orthe construction of commandments dinance of God." fairly open to difference of view. In the Epistle of London Yearly Meeting, for 1732, (Proud's History of Penn. Vol. 1, p. 51), it is said, that "we are as truly conscientious to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsars, as to support any other branch of our Christian testimony." As to the totally unchristian character of the "war spirit,” all must be entirely agreed. It, certainly, in our day, needs no discussion. All christendom has begun to regard it and many of the evils of war, in their true light. But there are questions The purpose which alone I believe over and above this, peculiar to our I have before me in dwelling upon times for example, when a Christian government, the selection of the most generally enlightened people in the world, was maintained by the deliberate consent and action of that people, against a rebellion, almost un this subject is, to endeavor to distinguish between the true, simple testimony to the Christian peace principles, and any phase of ultraism which must be injurious, and, moreover, to ascertain the ground of charitable judgment of those who may differ candidly in their construction of their duty as Christian citizens. Emphatically disclaiming any intention of sophisticating away an iota of Friends' essential principles, I beg attention to the following remarks: The question of purely defensive war is placed by Dymond and others upon the basis of self-defence; with the implication that, if it is lawful for a Christian to take the life of a personal assailant to defend his own, it may be upon this ground, and this only, lawful for a nation or community to defend itself from assault by arms. But these are not necessarily identical questions. Giving up at once the supposition that upon the plea of the law of nature, or on any other plea, a man has the right to kill an enemy who threatens his own life; abandoning this there remains the inquiry, what is our duty in the defence of others; of our wives and children; of all innocent and defenceless people; and of the security of our country, and society at large? The application of the precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," does not immediately dispose of the question;-since "our neighbor" is certainly rather the weak and inoffensive woman, or the harmless man, than the felonious burglar, or the invading enemy. Though we are to love our enemies, yet are we to love them more than our friends? If life is to be the sacrifice in a conflict or attack, should we promote or allow with as much indifference the death of those justly near and dear to us, as that of malignant and hostile invaders? It is quite obvious that to prevent injury and crime is a Christian duty, the magisterial office typified under the expression "the sword of the magistrate," especially involves this duty, and delegates it to those who yield obedience to the magistrate. Active performance of this duty, then, necessitates no participation in those evil passious, emphatically condemned in Holy Writ, as well as in our own consciences, which are sum marily indicated in the words "the war spirit." The argument upon the armed defence of communities, and the use of armed force to maintain civil order (in the last emergencies,) should rather, I think, be considered parallel to that upon the right or wrong of capital punishments. No one will assert that the appointed executioner of the law, in taking the legally condemned life of an individual, violates, "in foro conscientiæ," the spirit or intent of the command, "Thou shalt not kill." He may even love, with a most Christian feeling, the unhappy victim of crime and law. I trust I shall not be thought to have strained a point in thus asserting a parallelism between judicial execution and purely defensive war; or even in considering them as essentially and intrinsically differing no more than as one case differs from many. When enacted under the same spirit, the one is merely the multiple of the other. We may remember that, like the abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery, the abolition of capital punishments did not present itself immediately and as of course to the founders of our Society. Its advocacy belonged rather to that developing apprehension of the relations of pure Christianity to the affairs of mankind, the end of whose development I believe not yet to have been reached. And owing to the almost total withdrawal of Friends in England at the beginning from all affairs of government, it was only in the newly founded State of Pennsylvania that any question whatever of magisterial or purely defensive municipal force could have been raised amongst them. Upon this topic I shall have a few words to say presently. It will be seen from the above remarks, that I consider an entirely defensive war, and the armed enforcement (when demanded by an emergency,) of lawful magisterial authority, to rest upon the same moral basis. Incidentally it may be observed, that the conflict in our country out of whose immediate presence, so to speak, has arisen our renewal of interest on this subject, is, in our judgment, emphatically one of lawful magisterial authority against aggressive and destructive rebellion; while the question of armed defence grows out of it also, on account of its very aggressive character. We may, with safety, look to the views and practices of the early Friends as more nearly suited to the circumstances of our day; and especially is this true of the early history of Pennsylvania, while its government was in the hands of Friends. I have referred with much interest to the pages of that history. Let me preface my allusion to it, however, with a quotation from Sewell's History of the People called Quakers. (Vol. 2, p. 411.) "They judge it not lawful for them to make war, and for all that they think that they may very safely be tolerated by the civil government; not only because they are willing and ready to pay taxes to C'œsar, but also that since they cannot fight for the government, neither can they fight against it." "Concerning the sword of magistracy, they do in no wise assert, that it is unlawful for some Christians to be magistrates: for to say so, what doth it imply, but the unchristianing of magistrates whom they truly honor; magistracy being the ordinance of God.' The precepts of our Savior, and the spirit of his teaching and that of his Apostles, all agree, as we have said, in condemning and opposing the spirit of mortal warfare. Yet Christ paid tribute to Cæsar, and Cæsar was a warrior, upon an extensive scale, and aggressively. From this it is to be inferred, as well as from the absence of a specific prohibition of actual war from the mouth of the Prince of Peace himself, that the Gospel was to triumph by degrees; as over other greater and lesser evils in the world. No one thinks, in the present condition of mankind, of applying the precepts "If a man smite thee, &c.," or "If a man take away thy coat, &c.," to the detailed regulation of municipal affairs; else police, law, magistracy, were null. That the spirit of those precepts should apply, to international intercouse, as well as to that between all individu- "This, speaking of the Holy als, is undoubtedly a sound principle. Spirit, "brings them into well-doing, Now, as to the practice and views and from that which the magistrates' of the early Christians, we know that sword is against which eases the for nearly 300 years many Christians magistrates, who are for the punishrefused to follow the vocation of ment of evil-doers. People being soldiers. In regard to that vocation turned to the spirit of God, which or professioa, I think we may, as brings them to mortify the deeds of Friends, consider it a settled point, the flesh, from under the occasion of that it is incompatible altogether with the magistrates' sword." the mind and life of the unsophisticated Christian. This is confirmed by the words of George Fox, (Journal, p. 371): It is a natural inquiry, and pertinent to the subject in hand, how did George Fox, and other early Friends, interpret the language, "the sword of the magistrate? In all candor, however, we ought not to overlook the difference between war as a natural habit or individual pursuit or profession, and the Looking to the early history of extempore use, by non-military citi- Pennsylvania, we may find William zens of a community, of a force in Penn's understanding of it illustrated defense of government and social in the fact that, in the first code of order, and of their own families, this laws of the State, prepared by or last being the case of volunteers, in under his own hand, murder was an instance like that of our own made punishable by death. In the country during the late war. No cliarter, also, by which Penn was instance I think is recorded as occur- originally made proprietor of the ing during the early Christian times. territory, he obtained the power to |