The General Assembly [pp. 545-580]

The General Assembly.
to refer to in every emergency, it may do for the Assembly to
conduct all its operations by simple Committees. But, in a
body as large and as widely extended as ours, a division of labour is absolutely necessary. You cannot send a great army
on a foraging party, or to build a bridge.
In the third place, the abolition of the Boards would throw
a responsibility and power on the Executive Commitees and
Secretaries which they ought not to be entrusted with. Their
accountability to a body like the General Assembly, which,
from its nature, is incapable of effective inspection, would be
merely nominal. The whole work would really be in the hands
of a very few men, without any real supervision and control.
Our complaints against the management of the American Home
Missionary Society, whose whole power was in the hands of a
few men in New York, should make us sensible that any irresponsible power is a dangerous thing. And, not to prolong an
unnecessary discussion, it may be remarked, that our Boards
serve the purpose of break-waters. In calm weather they seem
unnecessary and an incumbrance. But, when a storm comes,
they are an essential protection. So long as everything goes
on well, the responsibility of the Executive Committees to the
Boards seems merely nominal; and one might be disposed to
think they might as well be out of the way as not. But let any
thing go wrong; let any emergency arise in which long examination into details is necessary, the existence of a body intermediate between the Committees and the Assembly becomes allimportant. As to the objection that the Scriptures know
nothing of Boards; that they are not church courts, &c., we
would only say, this is the jus divinum theory in its dotage.
God has not sent his Church into the world as an infant in its
swaddling clothes, without liberty of action; he has given her a
work to do, which requires the free use of her limbs; and it
will be found hard work to bind her with split hairs.
Board of Publication.
Rev. Mr. Smith presented the sixteenth annual Report of
the Board. The Report commenced with a general review of
the importance of the Board, and the influence which the publication of books and tracts had upon the interest of the
VOL. XXVI.-NO. III. 71
561
1854.]