shall we? If you say you are to select him, there is an end of the matter. Why, sir, if you will allow me to get your chief men into a discussion, and then select from your body the man whom I may choose to consider eminently polite and accomplished, &c.; I can demolish your cause at any time. I can select a man, as you insist on doing, whose want of health makes it impossible for him to do justice to it; or who from some other cause, is inadequate to the work. I have never known a man who had not courage enough to fight, if he might be permitted to select his man. You may very safely propose to wait till Mr. Young's health may enable him to go through such a debate, since he has long been in feeble health, and more than once at death's door; and since there is no probability that at any early day he will be able to encounter such labors. But if you say, we are to select the man, who shall defend our cause, we are ready for you.

But you desire "at least another witness or two," that he is our strongest man; and the reason you assign for this wish, may constitute a part of the evidence of the propriety of your claim, to meet no man who is not exquisitely courteous and polite! I cannot so far forget what is due to myself, as to reply to your remarks. But, sir, we are five in number, and the gentleman who is ready to debate with you, has been selected by four of us, of whom Mr. Young is one. So you have quite as many witnesses as you desire. If you say, you will not condescend to meet the man of our selection, you at once close the correspondence. The matter may as well be settled at once. We have selected the man, to whose hands we think proper to commit the defence of our cause. His standing is well known, both in Kentucky and out of it. We will not select another. You can either debate with him, or retreat from the discussion.

As to the propositions for discussion, whilst we should have been pleased to see you willing to defend your doctrines, as stated by yourself; perhaps, however, we ought to give you some advantages-we will, therefore, accept of your proposition on the design of baptism, and on the influences of the Spirit-with a slight verbal alteration of the latter, reserving, of course, the right to explain the meaning of the questions by your publications. The proposition on the design of baptism, which we accept, is as follows: 1. Christian baptism is for the remission of past sins.

The question on the influence of the Spirit, we accept, as follows: 2. The Spirit of God operates on persons, only through the Word.

I hope you will not shrink from the defence of your doctrine, in regard to the administrator of baptism. It involves the validity of the ordinance. How you can consider it as " a very small affair" I do not know. The Presbyterian church certainly regards it as of very great importance. From a remark in my last letter, your deduction relative to the comparative merits of Rev. Mr. Young, if at all allowable, is not such as I intended. Unaccustomed to polemic correspondence, I may have expressed myself ambiguously or incautiously, in many respects. I recognize no man as his superior. Tis true, his experience in oral controversy is not equal to some others, yet if his health would justify, the cause of truth could not be committed to abler hands.

You seem in a late publication to congratulate yourself, in view of the fact, that the discussion has not been procrastinated by any delay on your part, (one instance only excepted, and that unavoidable,) but that the delay is wholly attributable to me. I presume the correspondence, (if ever published) will present the facts. However, I do not suppose that even Mr. Campbell himself, would expect one who is neither a president, nor the occupant of a point more prominent than Paris, but only a village Pastor, inexperienced in ecclesiastical polemics, to compete with him, either in despatch, or any thing else involved in such a correspondence. But, sir, if the discussion has not been delayed by you for this reason, the community may yet have the opportunity of judging whether other, and more important reasons, of delay are not attributable to Mr. C. himself.

I do not think it important to reply to your tedious remarks, in defence of your offensive language in a former letter. Perhaps I ought to be amused at your gravely talking about rumors, that I never intended to debate with you. Rumors about what I intend!!! I rather think you are pretty thoroughly convinced, that the rumors about my intentions, so far as the debate is concerned, are untrue. Respectfully, JNO. H. BROWN.

ELDER J. H. BROWN:

Bethany, Va., June 25, 1843.

Dear Sir-Yours of the 16th lies before me. Our college examination prevented my reply on the day of its arrival. I hasten, however, to respond before our next mail.

I know not whether the imputation of my insisting on "extraordinary and unequal terms of fight," or the evidence by which you would sustain it, be the more eminently amusing and ridiculous. You cannot, Mr. Brown, make even one Presbyterian in a hundred believe it. That you gave a pledge that I should have Mr. Young for an opponent is just as certain to me as that I saw you in Richmond last August; and you have not brought, nor can you bring, one particle of evidence to disprove it.

The passages quoted from the November and April Harbinger are most illogically applied. No passage of Scripture, alledged in proof of transubstantiation or infant affusion, was ever more glaringly perverted and misconstrued than those two passages. In the general and passing notice of your call upon me at Richmond, to which you allude in the November number, is it not distinctly stated that I specified Mr. Young as, in my esteem, the most prominent man in your denomination, and named him as a condition of my attendance on the proposed discussion? And had you quoted in your epistle, evidently designed for the public eye, the whole passage, it would have been an evidence of, and not against, the truth of my present position. The very next sentence says, "To all of which Mr. Brown most readily assented." To have been more definite or precise in such a notice would have been wholly out of place. It seems to me, at least, rather singular, amongst candid and honorable men, that Mr. Brown, while denying the pledge, should so accidentally suppress the sentence that affirms it. But to make out of this a contradiction from any thing written in my April number, would seem to require the genius and the daring of Ignatius Loyola himself. Without note or comment, the words themselves clearly indicate all that I have constantly affirmed. "And," said I, "in the event of the conference not coming to an agreement, I would go into single combat with a gentleman then named." Now I ask every candid man of every party, in what terms could I have more perspicuously affirmed the essential provision, that I should have Mr. Young, and your assent to it, than in the words above quoted, in all the circumstances which called them forth?

The recklessness of these attempts at constructive contradiction is only surpassed by the still more glaring attempt to make my November letter read as though it had been written before the meeting of synod. My statement of what was agreed upon on a prior occasion, is converted into a new proposition then presented!! Surely, Mr. Brown, you do great injustice to your own understanding. Why, sir, it looks more like the trick of a schoolboy than the grave and self-respectful product of a Presbyterian clergyman. Yet you are constrained to admit that you suffered the illusion to deceive me till in your March letter, written after full two months' deliberation! But you get out of the dilemma by breaking its horns: you deny that either Mr. Rice or Mr. Young was selected at the meeting of synodabsolutely, you must mean; for that such was the understanding you will not certainly deny. All reflecting persons will understand how you get out of this dilemma:-It is one thing absolutely to say that Mr. Rice or Mr. Young should be the man; and another, to have an understanding that in a eertain event he should be the man. Is not this the truth, Mr. Brown?

You have been most singularly unfortunate in every attempt, in this most elaborate apologetic epistle, to extricate yourself from the unenviable attitude in which you must appear to stand before a discerning community. Your uncalled for quizzical allusions to the "very politest gentleman" in your ranks, is worthy of the ingenuity that placed allusions to antecedent matters, in my November Harbinger, in the attitude of present history. Every thing else being equal, I do certainly prefer, in an antagonist, a courteous well bred christian gentleman, and I care not who knows it. If such be the character of Mr. Rice, or any one else elected by your church, I shall be happy to meet him. If he be not, you are just as much disgraced as I may be annoyed by his rudeness.

The perfection of your climax of suicidal aberrations, as it seems to me, is your representation of me as seeking a weak man instead of a strong one. Mr. Young must certainly be indebted to you for the new honors you have added to his doctorate. I choose a weak man then, it seems, like a coward, in choosing Mr. Young! and you want to give me a strong man!! As I before said of Mr. Young, if withdrawn on the ground of ill health, I sympathize with him, and am willing to wait his recovery. But recollect, sir, the plea of physical inability will not stand in the presence of a proposition to await his restoration to such health as he enjoyed when first you offered him. The public will no doubt properly estimate the matter.

Well, now, as you have finally tendered your grand ultimatum, an unequivocal sine qua non, uncommitted and untrammeled as I am, I cannot but feel the responsibility in which you place me. The case, as you now make it, is: Five men were chosen by the ministers of the Presbyterian church of Kentucky, met at synod last October, and these five have chosen one of themselves, by agreement of said ministers at synod, to represent the denomination, supported by themselves, in council assembled, in a discussion of the leading points at issue between Presbyterians and our brethren in that state and elsewhere. And this arrangement, or no discussion, being now tendered, I have to choose between these alternatives. In view of all my responsibilities, I resolve, the Lord willing, to meet said representative of that church and conference, (my brethren in Kentucky so concurring,) to discuss those points at issue, as comprehended in the following six propositions, four of which are now agreed upon, viz.:

I. I affirm that immersion in water, of a proper subject, into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the action ordained by Jesus Christ as the one only christian baptism. This you deny; affirming that sprinkling or pouring water, on a suitable subject, is scriptural baptism.

II. You affirm that the infant of a believing parent is a scriptural subject of baptism. This I deny; affirming that a professed believer of the gospel is the only proper subject of baptism.

III. I affirm that, to a believing penitent, baptism is for the remission of past sins. This you deny.

IV. You affirm that baptism is to be administered only by a bishop or ordained presbyter. This I deny.

V. I affirm that the Spirit of God, in conversion, operates on persons only through the word of truth.

VI. You affirm that the constitution of the Presbyterian church is the constitution of Christ's church: or, you affirm that a human creed, such as the Westminster, is essential to the existence, unity and peace of the church. Both of these I deny.

Thus, sir, I have conceded to you the proposition concerning the administration of baptism, and have arranged them in the natural and logical order of debate:-1st, the action, or thing to be done, in the name of the Lord; 2d, the person on whom; 3d, the design for which; and 4th, the person by whom it may of right be performed. To this order I presume no person can object. I have also, to expedite an issue, conceded another point, viz. the omission of the question about the Lord's supper. I have,

in thus drawing them out, supplied the ellipsis, but have not changed a single iota known to me in our respective positions to these great questions.

As the arrangements concerning the taking down of the discussion and the publication of it, are not only important, but may require some time, may I expect a speedy answer to the above. I must moreover decide upon my course of action during vacation in a few days. I therefore earnestly request an immediate answer. If it arrives not in the same space of time occupied by my reply to your last, I cannot possibly attend to the discussion during vacation. Meantime I will write to my brethren in Kentucky, for their acquiescence on the first subject as aforesaid. Other preliminary rules are to be adopted, and arrangements made for conducting the debate with all decorum, which will require some time.

Respectfully, your friend,

A. CAMPBELL.

Richmond, Ky., July 7, 1843. ELDER CAMPBELL-Yours of June 25th is received. If you should ever be able to reconcile the statement, that of five men, one was to be selected to meet you in debate, with your recent declaration, that there was to be no selection at all, but that a certain individual then named, was to meet you, I shall be constrained to acknowledge, that you possess some original powers of mind! That I agreed that you should have Mr. Young, as one of the five individuals on our side, is not denied; but to prove that, without ever having conferred with him on the subject, I pledged him to go through such a discussion as the one contemplated-a kind of employment in which he had never engaged, and for which his feeble health would, to a great extent, disqualify him-will require more evidence than you will ever be able to produce. When you represent me as intimating or admitting, that in choosing Mr. Young, you chose a “weak man," can you imagine, that any one, on reading this correspondence, will believe what you say? My remarks in previous letters, flatly contradict it; and his reputation makes a defence of his talents and scholarship wholly unnecessary. Your willingness to await his recovery, after what you knew of the state of his health, only proves your disposition indefinitely to postpone the discussion.

Since your fancied "dilemma" disappeared upon the statement of the facts, in reference to the selection of Mr. Rice or Mr. Young at synod, you resort to a most singular expedient to sustain your position. You say "That such was the understanding, [that Young or Rice should meet you] you certainly will not deny. Is not this the truth, Mr. Brown?" When a gentleman undertakes to place another in a dilemma, by assuming things to be true of which, in the nature of the case, he can know absolutely nothing, and when, on finding his mistake, he resorts to catechising in order to elicit something favorable to his wishes; I rather think, he is, if not in a "dilemma," at least in an unpleasant predicament!

I am truly gratified, however, that you have at length felt constrained to withdraw your extraordinary claim to select your opponent in debate, and to agree to meet the man of our selection, without further testimonials in regard to his ability, or his extraordinary politeness!!

We will endeavor to accommodate you with 66 a courteous, well-bred, christian gentleman "-one, who we trust and believe, will not mortify us by so far disregarding the established rules of courtesy, as Mr. Campbell has repeatedly done in this correspondence.

In regard to the selection of the individuals on our part, my statements have been so repeated and so distinct, that I cannot imagine any thing more necessary on that point, however objectionable some of your representations may be.

Your 6th proposition, in both forms, is decidedly objectionable. We choose to debate it as presented in your letter of Dec. 15th, viz: "Human creeds, as bonds of union and communion, are necessarily heretical and

schismatical"-unless you agree to the modification already suggested, viz: "The using of creeds, except the Scriptures, is necessarily heretical and schismatical." We prefer the modified form of it; but if you object, we will not insist upon it. Then, in order to give an equal number of affirmatives and negatives to each party; the first question can be thrown into the form already agreed upon, viz: “Sprinkling, or pouring water, upon a suitable subject, is scriptural baptism."

Your fifth proposition is not quite satisfactory. We are willing to take it as presented in your last letter, with a slight verbal alteration suggested in my reply, and which you have made. Then it will stand thus: "The Spirit of God operates on persons only through the Word."

Now, since you have all the propositions, in almost the precise language chosen by yourself, I hope this matter may be considered as settled.

Brother Rice will withdraw from the committee of arrangements, and brother J. K. Burch and myself will constitute that committee. This change is made in view of remarks made in your letter of May 24thand in view of the fact, that Mr. Rice will be your opponent in debate. We are prepared to meet your committee, at any time mutually agreed upon, and to make all necessary arrangements. Respectfully, &c.

ELDER BROWN:

JNO. H. BROWN.

Bethany, Va., July 13, 1843.

Your very courteous letter of the 7th inst. lies before me. Your reiteration concerning Mr. Young, and your polite allusion to my reasonable demands for a respectable opponent, I shall hereafter expect as a part of every epistle for the next six months. To these matters I shall hereafter pay no attention. If any testimony is wanting concerning your promises in reference to Mr. Young, I have recently learned that such testimony (living and unexceptionable) to all my allegations can be had.

I have said, for the next six months; for it appears nothing is yet fixed. The arrangement of the propositions concerning baptism, it would seem from allusions to the first, found in your letter before me, is yet to be made. In endeavoring to find our relative positions to points at issue,-what you affirmed and what I affirmed,—and thus to ascertain the subjects and number of topics, I did not imagine that either the order in which these subjects were named, or the affirmative or negative forms in which they were expressed, was to be that of discussion. Hence, in my last, after hearing all the explanations, statements, amendments and objections, I drew out in order and form the propositions, and our positions to them, which fairly exhibit our standing before the community on these points.

These six propositions were:

I. I affirm that immersion in water, of a proper subject, into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the action ordained by Jesus Christ as the one only christian baptism.

II. You affirm that the infant of a believing parent is a scriptural subject

of baptism.

III. I affirm that, to a believing penitent, baptism is for the remission of past sins.

IV. You affirm that baptism is to be administered only by a bishop or ordained presbyter.

V. I affirm that, in conversion and sanctification, the Spirit of God operates on persons only through the word of truth.

VI. You affirm that the constitution of the Presbyterian church is the constitution of Christ's church.

To the last you object, and prefer an expression of my views of creeds found in former communications. That expression covers not the whole ground of my dissent from creeds ecclesiastic. You will then affirm your views of your creed as essential to the unity, purity and peace of the