speech. In my first, I proposed rules of conference similar to those framed at Mount-Pleasant, to expedite our interview, and regulate our discussion. To those you object as inequitable. I proposed in my last, that if the rules I had proposed, should not meet your approbation, as your's had not met with mine, the three moderators should decide, both the questions to be discussed, and the manner of discussing them, and pledged myself to abide by their decision. Of this you take no notice; but very gravely and gener. ously proceed to accuse me with departing from my challenge; as offering you new conditions; and appending a sine qua non to them. This, I was about to say, is worse than the quibbling of school-boys. You should anticipate that there is a probability of our correspondence meeting the public eye; and that whatever your design may be in throwing obstacles in the way, it will, perhaps, appear as if you wished to be off from the conference forever. It certainly strikes me so. Otherwise, why, in the name of common sense, would you object to me, as proposing terms of conference, as a sine qua non, when I proposed to refer the whole matter to men, and to submit to their rules? If this is inequitable, all arbitrations and references are inequitable. If this is inequitable, and my rules are also inequitable, then it follows that your rules are equitable, or that they must be so considered: at least, they are such as please you better than those you would expect from a committee.Moreover, while you talk so much of my proposing questions and theses for you, you should remember that you began by proposing questions for me; for had you, at first, proposed to meet me on the ground of my challenge, and the subject matter of it, I should ne ver have proposed any questions at all. You have, or appear to have, the rare talent of committing faults, and of charging them on another. You project a course, and when I follow you, you gravely censure me as departing from my printed challenge; and, as leading you off to worse ground than you occupy. As to the latter, instead of leading off, my proposal was to lead you on publicly to assume, and if possible to defend the precise ground you occupy in contradiction to Anti-paido-baptists; that is, that infant Rantism, or superfusion is a Divine ordinance; for, surely, there is no dispute between us and you about believer's Baptism. This, I grant you, includes both the subject, and the very action itself, which the law of Christ specifies and ordains. This therefore Being the very point at issue between us, I suggested to you the propriety of assuming it as such, and, if possible, of proving it to be a Divine or dinance; which it certainly behoves you to do, so long as you continue to practise it in the Divine name. But, perhaps, your objec tion against assuming this ground, in the first instance (for to this we must come at length, as the alone question at issue) is, that it would Icad to take the affirmative; for it seems you are quite averse you to this, and are determined, if possible to be on the negative; as I think you must be convinced that it behoves the affirmative to open the discussion. As to what you say concerning my references to Du Pin, being at present from honie on a journey, have not that book at hand but if you are willing to rest the matter upon my proving from that writer, and others, that the affirmative has usual

ly opened every discussion, where theses were so limited, I will en gage to do it, or to concede to you the closing speech. But why you should have dwelt so much on this topic, as a sine qua non, when I consented to be governed by the rifles of the moderators, without even so much as noticing this important concession, this just and reasonable alternative, quite astonishes me; it seems to argue something very forbidding in a religious antagonist. When you will not agree to have the matter referred, it is evident you look for an advantage. If I must give you an advantage I will do it gratuitously, not under the semblance of a right. I will, then, to obviate all dif ficulties on my side, if possible, propose to meet you at Augusta, or rather at Mays-Lick, on Wednesday, the 15th day of October next, the day before, or the day after, as may best suit your conveniency, at 11 o'clock, A. M.; and that you shall have the privilege of both opening and closing the discussion, and of speaking twice for my once that the words of my challenge shall be the subject of discussion, and that the moderators shall act as aforesaid. I wil either meet you there, or I will agree that the moderators, on the day before our meeting, after having heard all our correspondence, make the rules hy which we shall proceed. If I must give advan tage, I will do it all at once, and manifestly. Talk no more then, if you please, about sine qua non. I will meet you as aforesaid, if the Lord will, either on your twenty-one questions and mine; or on the words of my challenge; or on the four questions proposed in my last; or on the decision of the three moderators that shall be chosen. I have mentioned Mays-Lick, as by letters sent me from Kentucky, I understand it to be a much better place than Augusta for accommodating the country in general, and that many move could attend. I request you, if determined to meet me, to inform Dr. Keith, on receipt of this, and to let him know, to which of the proposed terms you choose to accede; and also to have our intended meeting made as public as possible. You will also please to write me immediately on the receipt of this. Please also to recollect, that the challenge which elicited mine, came forth from your armies; and talk no more of the stripling David; nor of the Philistine, Goliały. How good soever the analogy may be between you and the tender stripling; for our part we disclaim comparison with the mighty Philistine.

P. S. I wrote this hastily, while stopping for dinner on a journey, you will therefore please excuse inaccuracies of style, and wart of method. Your's respectfully,

A. CAMPBELI

Augusta, Sept. 15th, 1823.

MR. CAMPBELL-If, as you intimate, I am afraid to meet you, it should be matter of regret, when we consider the goodness of my cause, the power of Christ, and the experience which I have had of his faithfulness and condescending goodness. You are mistaken, however, in one statement which may encourage you in this belief. It is that I try to force you to give me the last speech. If this were true, it might be an evidence of fear of something worse,

assertion of the fact is as improper, as your manner of giving me an unsought privilege is impolite.

Although to be afraid of so formidable an antagonist would be, in some measure, excusable, I am not willing to lie under your charge of unrighteous behaviour for omitting to notice your proposal for a theological arbitration. In your letter of July 21st, you propose that the moderators "after having heard read in their hearing, our whole correspondence, decide both what questions shall be discussed, and in what manner. I will pledge myself to comply with their decisions." This I omitted for the want of room because you had already my opinion twice on such measures, and because I did not wish to expose every inadvertency of which you might be guilty. If I were, in haste, to offer such a proposal, I would thank my correspondent for passing it in silence. In my letter of July 2d, I expressed an opinion that such a proceeding was nothing better than theological Quixotism. In a letter of July 21st, I considered that to promise a debate at random arose from ambition or ostentation. When you, in your pledge copied above, commit the very fault here reproved, did decorum require that I should repeat my condemnation? or was it necessary for me to insinuate that you chose ground which you knew had been abandoned, for the purpose of giving to your candor and bravery a more illustrious and uninterrupted display?

Concerning this proposal you say, "if this is inequitable, then all arbitrations and references are inequitable;" and you insinuate that a refusal on my part is an indirect impeachment of the ability or integrity of a committee. The third rule proposed in your letter of June 16th, and in the system adopted at Mount-Pleasant, is, that these moderators shall merely keep order, and not pronounce judgment on the merits of the debate." Did you, by this rule, mean any insinuation of ignorance or corruption? Did you, by this proposal, mean to make war upon all arbitrations and references, which are intended to decide upon the merits of causes? It is well for school-boys to receive subjects for composition and declamation. It is well for students of theology to receive subject for trial exercises. In both these cases, however, as well as in arbitrations and references, the merits are decided by the committee. This, which is really the most innocent part of the business, and which has been the practice of the literary and theological world, time immemorial, does not please you; but you are delighted with the thought of returning to a state of minority, of engaging in a sort of polemical fencing, on a subject arbitrarily dictated by others, and conceiving the tendency of which to good or evil we are utterly ignorant. If the long parliament of England which you hold in such contempt, had been men of your liberal conscience, they would have given Archbishop Laud less trouble about the et cetera oath. But they complain, "We are here to swear to we know not what, to something that is not expressed; by which means we are left to the arbitrary interpretation of the judge." You and men of the same spirit often accuse us of a slavish adherence to the Assembly of divines convened by this Parliament. This correspondence,

should cause you to inquire again who it is that is most disposed to servile compliances. Is it the man who cautiously and prayerfully examines and compares the Westminster articles, and then adopts them because he finds that form of sound words consistent with the word of God.-Is it he who, in sacred things, is unwilling to make a leap in the dark or is it that man who pompously pledges himself to abide by the future decision of an unknown and mixt committee? and who takes frequent occassions of ridiculing the tender consciences of those who would rather know a matter before they answer it.

This alternative of your proposals is of course rejected. I must treat your four questions in the same way. On the three last of them we can come to no immediate issue. Lest a silent concealment of my disgust should again incur your resentment, I must tell you that the first of these four, and some others from the same quarter, are only calculated to darken counsel by words without knowledge.

To-excuse yourself for so long persisting upon the right of prescribing what I should defend, you say that I first dictated twentyone questions to you. I can find no excuse for this statement, except that you were on a journey when you made it, and had not my first letter with you. You will there find that they were "respectfully submitted for your consideration, and (if you please) for your adoption or rejection, amendment or selection, enlargement or diminution." Did I then, or have I ever since, made your adoption of them a condition of our meeting? So far was I from acting the part of a dictator, that you have more than once commended the spirit of that letter. 8o far from insisting upon their adoption after they were trammelled by your obscure and ambiguous questions, I have incurred the censure of inconsistency by abandoning them without a struggle. This I did in silence, not, as Dr. Keith has Said, because I was afraid to meet you, but because I was afraid to tell you my opinion of your questions, lest it should prevent a meeting, by raising too high that magisterial indignation which has been manifested in several of your letters, and which, from a long habit of domineering without control, has become quite ungovernable. This same motive induced me entirely to suppress the first letter which was penned for your address, because, on reading it to my friend, Major Morris, he gave it as his opinion that, by irritating your feelings with severe animadversions upon your book, it would prove an obstruction to our meeting. To the same cause you may ascribe my silence hitherto concerning your character, although mine occupied the introduction to your first letter. Whatever may have moved you to magnify my reputation and standing, I am sorry that I cannot praise your orthodoxy or piety. The numerous, respectable, and almost uniform reports against you in these respects are corroborated by your various writings. It is said that you are polluted with the theology of your favorite author, the disciple of Dr. Priestly, whose Socinian and infidel pravity has been so completely exposed by his Baptist countryman, the excellent Andrew Fuller. If this be a mistake, you will rejoice to correct it; and be assured that such a favor will give me no less pleasure than your

self. Until this is done, no devoted minister of the DIVINE SAVIOUR can desire any other intercourse with you than as an adversary.

Your declaration that I am convinced that the affirmative should open, (and of course, the negative close,) notwithstanding my as surances to the contrary, is a much more modest insinuation than you are accustomed to making. In this respectit resembles a very deli cate remark in your first address at Mount Pleasant. It is in the following words; "I cannot persuade myself to lieve that they who affirm that Baptism came in the room of circumcision, really think so." A real Christian who could utter such things, not from hasty passion, or settled malignity, but from sincere conviction, could hardly wish to see me, except as an antagonist. In this en pacity I am inclined to meet you; not from any favourable opinion of your piety or sincerity, but because you are allowed (and I sup pose justly) to be the greatest champion of Anabaptism in America; because you have charged the Paido-baptist world with administering a factitious and pernicious ordinance ;-because you have publicly challenged hem to stand on their defence ;-because you have publicly gloried in their silence, as arising from guilt, timidity, or incompetency--and because your partizans have bantered me, and thus given a particular direction to your general invitation.

To this invitation I at first objected, because, although it brings us to a speedy issue, yet it confounds things quite distinct, and it is clothed in unbecoming language. True, its exceptionable phrase, infant sprinkling, is not so low and profane an expression as David Jones' watery hocus pocus, yet it is intended as a sneer, and of course will never, by the lovers of piety and courtesy, be made a member of a question in debate. This proposition, however, with all its confusion of points and vulgarity of expression, is still preferable to any other alternative which you have offered. My former repeated acceptance of it is now confirmed. As you were mistaken about the superior eligibility of Mays-Lick, was reluctant to comply with your wish. Your friends and correspondents, Dr. Keith and Ma, jor Davis undertook the responsibility of requesting on your behalf that Washington might be the place of meeting. As this was to your advantage, I consented, A copy of our joint publication is enclosed.

MR. MACCALLA,

W. L. MACCALLA.

Sept, 27th, 1823.

SIR-Your long looked for favor of the 15th inst. came to hand last night. It assures me that you are now disposed to meet me, at Washington, Mason county, on the 15th of next month, on the proposition printed in my general invitation. But under what regulations, I know not; as you have declined referring the matter to the three moderators, and have said nothing, in your last, on