cord, and separating those who when united can but just maintain the institutions of religion. At least, I know this to be the feeling of much the larger proportion of our friends. I know it to be the principle and actual operation of some of our associations for the spread of the gospel. That none have acted on different principles, I pretend not to say. We may have done wrong as well as others. I fear we have. In a few instances the exclusiveness and denunciation of the opposite party have driven us to do some things which may have looked like abandoning our old ground and avowed principles. But even in these cases, the aim has been to prevent rather than to cause division, and such has been the result.

It was not my purpose, when I began these hasty remarks, to give them so much of a party character. It was not my design to defend ourselves or assail others, but to make an appeal to all of every side in behalf of the great principles of charity, honesty, peace, and piety. I would ask if it be not worth an effort, worth almost any sacrifice, to see if these cannot be saved from the peril and wreck to which the mad dissensions of the day are exposing them. I would ask if it be not the solemn duty of every disciple of Jesus and friend of society, to stand up in the breaches that are making in all our religious communities; to resolve for themselves, and to beseech others, all, forgetting their names, putting off their badges, to hold fast to RELIGION; to be content with half their christian privileges, rather than relinquish or endanger the whole; to consider nothing so important as the quiet and uniform ministrations of the gospel.

H.

THE BROOKFIELD CASE.

Every one may know in general what this case is and how it has been decided. But every one may not know the particulars of the case or the grounds of the decision. These we will attempt to give in as condensed and clear a form as we

can.

The church in question was the Church in the Third Precinct in Brookfield.' The facts which led to the present legal reference were agreed upon by both parties and submitted to the court as follows. This Church was formed in 1756. In 1772 a Mrs Bartlett bequeathed to it certain furniture for the communion table. In 1801 Mr Stone was ordained pastor of this Church and Society. In 1827 Mr Stone's civil contract with the Society ceased by mutual consent; he reserving the right however of being regarded as the Pastor of the Church, and having occasional use of their meeting-house until it should be occupied by some person engaged by the parish; and to this the parish acceded. A majority of the church then withdrew from the meeting-house with Mr Stone, and had worship and ordinances in another place near. In August of that year the parish invited Mr Noyes to become their pastor. The next day after this invitation was given, the majority who had withdrawn from the church, with others, formed themselves by a written agreement into a new society, called the 'Evangelical Religious Society in the South Parish or Precinct of Brookfield.' In September Mr Noyes was ordained, the ecclesiastical council recognizing the remaining members as the church of this society. This church, consisting then of but two male and several female members, proposed to Mr Stone to call a mutual council to dissolve his relation to them. Mr Stone declined, refusing to recognize them as the church. In December the seceding major part of the old church invited Mr Stone, who had since May acted as their moderator and pastor, to settle over them in the ministry, they having now regularly united themselves with the new Evangelical Society.

The parties being so situated, the question arose, to whom does the church property belong to the church formed out of the adhering minority, now under Mr Noyes, or, to the church formed by the seceding majority under Mr Stone? The property was claimed and held by the deacon of this last church, and Heman Stebbins, who had been elected sole deacon of Mr Noyes' church, brought an action against the deacon of the other for the recovery of the property. Hon. Samuel Hoar, acted as counsel for the plaintiff, and Hon. Lewis Strong for the defendant. In the pamphlet before us we have their arguments in full, and the decision of the court.

The whole question in controversy is allowed by both parties to resolve itself into this: 'which of the churches, namely, the one represented by the defendant, or the one represented by the plaintiff, is beneficially entitled to the property thus claimed ?'

Mr Hoar, for the plaintiff, enters into no argument at first, but only appeals to the decisions of the Sandwich and Dedham cases, considering this as fairly brought, by the admitted facts, within the authority of those former decisions.

Mr Strong, for the defendant, undertakes to prove that the church to whom the property was first given was not dissolved by the withdrawing of the majority, but that they were still the church, having the right to remove and take their property with them. He does not adinit that the Sandwich and Dedham cases are precisely in point, or that they are authority in this case. The principal questions here, he maintains, are these 'did the establishment of a new religious society, in August, by a major part of the members of the church dissolve their connexion with the church? and if not, was the church dissolved by its vote to unite with the new society in November ?'

To establish the negative of these questions, Mr Strong goes into an elaborate, learned, and very able argument. We profess to know nothing of law, but he seems to us to have come as near making out his case as possible, without actually doing it. We cannot follow him through. His main positions are these: 1. The Congregational Church of Massa

chusetts, regularly gathered, are, and always have been, entirely distinct from the towns, parishes, and congregations, with which they have been associated in public worship. 2. To some extent, and for some purposes at least, the churches sustain a corporate character. 3. A church may be dissolved by the death of all its members, or the destruction of an integral part, as perhaps the death of all its male members, or its own voluntary determination to that effect; but, except in case of a forfeiture of its privileges by non user, in no other way.' The greatest labor is bestowed upon the second position, to show that churches are corporate bodies, or possess some corporate capacities. The proof of this is drawn from the fact, that such authority was given and such exclusive power exercised by the first churches in New England for a century as imply a corporate existence and capacity-power given them by law and usage to elect their teachers and contract for their support,-power to establish and perpetuate themselves indefinitely, power to exercise certain civil privileges not granted to any out of the church,-power to hold property by means of their officers or deacons, to appoint, advise, and call to account these officers, and to commence and prosecute any suits, using their own records in evidence. Having thus attempted to prove that churches are corporate bodies, Mr Strong states and answers several objections, of which the most important is, 'that it is essential to the existence of a church that it should be connected with a parish, or some other distinct religious community' and then applies the argument to the case before him; showing that the church in Brookfield, being a corporate body, and not having been dissolved by the removal of a majority to another place of worship, is still the church to which the property in question was originally bequeathed, and therefore the defendant, as deacon of that church, can hold and retain the property.

Mr Hoar replies by a few clear and strong statements, occupying but five pages, to Mr Strong's twenty-seven. His whole view of the case is thus succinctly stated. If the court believe the donor intended this property to be so vested in the church to whom it was given, that a majority of iss

members at any given time, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, might leave the place of worship used for the purpose by the parish, join or form another society, carry with them the furniture, and thus deprive a minority remaining with the parish, and all such church members worshipping with the parish, as in any future time should become communicants, of the use of the property-judgment should here be given in favor of defendant. If, on the contrary, the court consider the donation to the church in the third precinct in Brookfield to be equivalent to a donation to the church connected with the parish in question, plaintiff is entitled to recover.'

Mr Hoar does not admit that any judicial decision or legislative provision has been cited by the opposite counsel, which expressly authorises a church to carry property thus held to any other parish or place. On this point the case chiefly It seems to be of the nature of

turns, so far as we can see. all church property, that it belongs to the church only as connected with the society with which it was connected when the property was given or procured; just as the officers of any other society or the officers of a city, may hold and use certain property while they remain such officers, but no longer. They can carry nothing away; neither can the officers of a church, or a majority, or even the whole church; the property vests in them no longer than they hold the office or relation which they held when they came into possession. If, says Mr Hoar, 'this property cannot be divided among different societies, and if the church in the third precinct in Brookfield cannot be a church actually in Boston or New York, it would seem that the church in question can be no other than the one emanating from and worshipping with the parish.' Once admit that a disaffected majority may leave the parish and carry with them the property, and they can do it at any time, with reasons or without, for they must be their own judges as to the validity of the reasons.

Mr Hoar's concluding position is, that even admitting the defendant to have proved incontrovertibly that churches are corporations in the strictest sense, and allowing all his other positions to be correct, it will not answer his purpose, for this