Richmond Palladium

The first public demonstration in the United States on the part of a movement of momentous importance to the religious world took place last evening at the Green street Methodist Church. This movement first took form and assumed definite aim and purpose in August last, when a Conference of upwards of a thousand Delegates from all parts of the Christian world met at Freemason's Hall on the 19th of that month. These delegates belonged to all the various sects of Protestantism (excepting the established Church of England, and the English Episcopal Church in the United States and the Unitarian and Universalist Churches;) and on the 25th of the same month, after much debate and consultation, the Conference resolved itself into the 'Evangelical Alliance,' for the promotion of union and the breaking down of the barriers of sectarianism between the different Protestant Churches therein represented. A constitution, containing eight Articles was adopted and subscribed by the Alliance, and provision made for organizing Auxiliary Establishments in various parts of Christendom. The American delegation consisted of eighty-seven members, mostly ministers, and representing all the various Protestant sects with the above exceptions, in obedience to the general plan and constitution of the Alliance, the American Delegation appointed a Committee to carry out and complete the organization of the American branch of the Parent Institution. This Committee, called together for service a few days since, has been actively employed during the past week upon the duties assigned it; and will report its proceedings in detail to its constituents (the eighty-seven American Delegates to the London Conference) on Tuesday, the 2nd of February next--at which time the Delegates are invited punctually to attend.

Meanwhile the movement is ripe for giving the plans of the alliance to public discussion; and the meeting last night was called for the purpose of a free and popular explanation of the fundamental principles, plans, designs and hopes of the alliance. The attendance was naturally very large--the speakers able, and evidently sincere and warm with their subject--and the occasion altogether was one of equal novelty and interest. In the pulpit were seven or eight Clergymen, each (with an exception in the case of Drs. Cox and Skinner, who have been, as the former feelingly and playfully said, almost as one for thirty-four years,) belonging to a different denomination of Christians. A Methodist preceded a Lutheran--a Congregationalist followed a Baptist, and a Presbyterian gave way at length to a Dutch Reformer. The addresses were of varied but well-sustained interest, and were all brief, perspicuous and charitable. There was no difficulty in ascertaining from any one of them a very clear and definite idea of the objects of the new Alliance; and yet each speaker seemed to strengthen and make more striking what had already been said. We had only opportunity for listening to Reverend Messrs. Schmucke (Lutheran, of Pennsylvania,) Kirk, (Congregationalist, Boston,) Cox, (Presbyterian, Brooklyn,) Peck, Methodist, Pastor of the Church where the meeting was held,) and Mason. Our crowded space positively forbids our noticing the addresses in detail, and we must therefore content ourselves with a brief enumeration of the plans and principles developed by the speakers.

The grand idea of the Evangelical Alliance--the groundwork upon which it is to be built--is that the differences of belief among all Protestant sects, save the Unitarians, Episcopalians, Universalists and Quakers, are fewer and of less importance than the points upon which they agree; and that those differences are not essential to the conversion of the unregenerate man. The Puseyites are declared to be, for all practical purposes, identical with the Church of Rome; the Quakers are said to be necessarily excluded by their adherence to silence in their worship and their peculiar belief respecting the Scriptures; the Unitarians are declared, in the judgment of the Alliance, not to belong to the Christian family and to be entirely out of the pale of the Christian Church; and of the Universalists nothing whatever was said.

It will be seen, even by these imperfect statements, that this is a movement of no common importance, and that these churches are about to avail themselves of the vast and incalculable advantages of association for the purpose of effecting certain grand common objects.-- Those objects are simply the spread of Protestantism (or that portion of it represented by the Churches engaged in this movement.) and the overthrow of Romanism and all the faiths which hang upon it or lead into it.

We must not neglect to state, however, that the Evangelical Alliance is not avowedly an Anti-Roman league; nor is it identified in form with the Anti-Slavery or the Temperance or any other particular movement of the age. It merely professes, generally, to promote Christian love and unity among the churches taking part in it and to extend the religion of Christ and the Bible throughout the world. It would give us pleasure to present, instead of this meagre and dry outline, a full report of the able and eloquent addresses to which we listened--but we must positively refrain.--N. Y. Tribune.