Southern Christian Advocate

The PROPERTY Question.--We are pleased to witness any demonstration of sound, Christian views on the part of Northern brethren on the subject of the pecuniary rights of the Southern Connection. Such views are presented in a communication recently published in the Christian Repository of Philadelphia, from which we copy the following passage.

" I would consider it a blot," says the writer, "on our ecclesiastical existence, and a reason for the diminution of future prosperity, if we were to withhold from the Southern brethren their share of the Church Stock, which in common with ourselves, they helped to accumulate. Prior to the last General Conference, they had equal rights with ourselves, to all that the Church could render, and surely these rights could not be annihilated in forming a separate organization by the authority of that Conference ; and being therefore completely covered in their proceedings by our highest ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and not having been deprived of their standing by any Disciplinary process, I must therefore consider them, in the most legal sense, a true part of the great whole of Episcopal Methodism; and on that ground, can have no hesitancy in saying that they have an indisputable right to their full share of all the funds and property of the Church, to which the Discipline and moral honesty give them access. But if an unauthorized separation had taken place, it would be quite different, for then the Church would not be bound in such a case to distribute her funds in rewarding a mere secession ; but in the present case, and under existing circumstances, it would be an awful exhibition of selfishness, and mistaken zeal for a General Conference to prevent the Southern annual Conferences from a just proportion of the annual dividends."