their own showing, they cannot even urge the plea that the greatness of the work they had in hand excused them for the disquietude and pain they have unwillingly given to those with whom they were still on terms of Christian brotherhood. They must have been shortsighted indeed if they did not foresee the agitation and turmoil which have resulted from their action. If they risked all without having in view any object at all commensurate with the evil which was sure to accrue, it is not easy to see how they are to be defended. Too zealous friends have injured them by injudicious advocacy. In their anxiety to convict the Union of having yielded to unreasoning one of them has been kind enough to talk of artificially stimulated '-panic, they have not seen that they were exposing their flank to a new, and, if possible, more fatal attack.

But whatever view be taken on this particular point, all true friends of Congregationalism must rejoice not less in the tone of the discussion than in the decisive issue which was reached. Theological controversies are apt to become unduly heated, for where men feel deeply they speak strongly; and earnest utterances, which really show nothing more than strong convictions, are easily mistaken for outbursts of passion. Happily there was little if anything of this kind to explain in the lengthened discussion in the Union, which was as creditable for the moderation and dignity which were preserved throughout as for its sustained ability. Yet it must be confessed that there were not lacking elements of a provocative character. When the Chairman of an assembly engaged in such a controversy abandons his position as a moderator, and himself enters the lists as an eager and able partizan, it is superfluous to point out that the situation necessarily becomes one of extreme ten

sion.

as the Speaker of the House of Commons is muzzled.' The restraint imposed upon the latter is indeed far more serious than any to which the Chairman of the Union is required to submit, and the Speaker has the additional disadvantage that he is a representative of a constituency, which may desire to have its views set before the House. Very occasionally, not more perhaps than once in a generation, a Speaker may feel himself bound to engage in debate, but when the rare necessity arises he leaves the chair for the time, and speaks from the floor as an ordinary member. The House of Commons only requires what is necessary in the president of every deliberative assembly, and though any honour which the Congregational Union may have to confer is very slight as compared with that which the Speaker enjoys, it must be trivial indeed if silence on the burning questions' of the assembly during the session over which he presides is too heavy a price for its Chairman to pay.

The interposition of Mr. Brown had not even the excuse which might have existed if his opposition to the resolutions of the Committee had proceeded from any vital difference of principle. The prominence which he gave to the subject, the ability with which he supported his view, the ring of passionate earnestness which sounded through his appeals, might easily produce the impression that the points at issue were very serious. But when, on careful analysis of the speech, we find that the Chairman was at one with the Committee as to the theology of the Resolutions, and agreed with them as to the necessity of such an Evangelical basis to the strength and prosperity of a Christian Church, the difference which remains seems too small to evoke such intense feeling. The opposition, it may be well to say, consisted of at least three sections. The first was composed of the few who were not in accord with the matter of the Resolutions. There was a second class, consisting of men who, though themselves believing in the doctrines enunciated, were not prepared to regard them as a basis of fellowship in the Congregational Union, which they think might include a Rationalist as well as an Evangelical party. This, too, was a small section, and those who belonged to it must have evolved their ideas of Congregationalism out of their own consciousness rather than out of its history. The two parties combined would have made a miserably poor show even as compared with the small minority that actually voted if they had not been joined by a third section, which regarded any declaration as in

opportune and undignified. This was the party whose views found expression in Mr. Brown's address. He urged that the declaration was not demanded by the circumstances; that it bore a dangerous resemblance to a creed; that it revealed an undignified apprehension as to a movement which might safely be left to run its own course. Now all these are points of policy which might very fairly have been urged in committee, and which, if we are rightly informed, were carefully considered there, but unfortunately without the benefit of Mr. Brown's presence or advice. We cannot regard any of the objections as involving any principle so grave as to justify a course so unusual and inconvenient as that which he adopted, especially if he had not at some previous stage of the proceedings sought by means of protest and private conference to avoid the necessity for taking a position of antagonism, which must have been as painful to himself as it was embarrassing to the assembly.

There must have been a very deep and wide-spread feeling that action was imperative, or the plea for forbearance which the Chairman so powerfully urged must have met with more extensive support in the assembly. His personal influence and his official position alike gave additional weight to an argument which could hardly have been presented in a manner more fitted to captivate the imagination or move the hearts of Congregationalists. It appealed to them alike on their strongest and their weakest side, on that dislike of creeds which has been their glory, and on that individualism which is one of their greatest perils, and which, if pushed to an extreme, renders all common action impossible. Nevertheless it failed to secure its end. It was heard with admiration and respect, but it did not satisfy the hearers that any confederation of Churches, even one so loose and informal in its organization as the Congregational Union, could exist without a clear understanding as to its own fundamental principle. The continuance in it of men admitted to be of high character and unsullied honour, who nevertheless repudiated the doctrines asserted alike in the Chairman's own utterances and the Resolutions proposed by the Committee, was the most conclusive answer to those who asserted that as to the Evangelical character of the Union mistake was impossible.

That Mr. Picton, at all events, was not prepared to admit that the Union must be an exclusively Evangelical body, was apparent throughout his speech-a speech which was touching in its pathos, though nothing

could be more unsatisfactory in argument. It was a frank admission that the doctrine by which his own spiritual life had been quickened and his character formed had ceased to command his intellectual assent. But so far from admitting that this change of view must enforce his retirement, he pleaded with all earnestness that the Union should not only still retain him as one of its members, but should allow him and his associates to carry on a movement for undermining its fundamental truths without protest or remonstrance; and in support of his argument he adduced the counsel of Gamaliel, and advised the Union to imitate it. There is nothing in the counsel of this ' worldly-wise Pharisee which under any circumstances should commend it to a Christian assembly, except as a warning against the employment of coercion to repress new opinions. It was meant to dissuade the Sanhedrim from using force against the apostles, and the objection to it is that it rests upon the ground of the merest expediency what ought to have been based upon an eternal principle of right. But defective as it is, even as an exhortation to magistrates, it assumes a far worse character when addressed to a Christian assembly as an argument against its maintaining a definite ground of principle. If an act of excommunication had been contemplated, the reference would have had more show of appropriateness. As an objection to a proposal that the Union should, in reply to a challenge which was really as distinct in Mr. Picton's own speech as in the language of Mr. Wilks at the Conference, reaffirm its own principles, it was absolutely beside the mark. Gamaliel was so far from counselling that the Sanhedrim should conceal its own attachment to the old faith, that he does not appear to have objected to its action in enforcing silence upon the apostles. The parallel, indeed, utterly fails when it comes to be examined. The Union was perfectly prepared to carry out the policy of the old Rabbi in relation to the Leicester Conference. The idea of preventing its members from doing their own work in their own methods is too absurd to have suggested itself to the wildest imagination of the most excited partizan. It was not the liberty of Mr. Picton which had to be maintained, but that of the Congregational Union. The right of the Conference to group men on the principle of 'selective spiritual affinities' was not questioned, and it might have been supposed that the right of the Congregational Union to adhere to another principle of association

that on which it was originally constituted

-would have been equally recognized. But though the right might not actually be denied, Mr. Picton's argument assumed that it could not be exercised without some grievance to him and those who think with him. For it was this and nothing more which he so earnestly deprecated, and in opposition to which he appealed to the example of Gamaliel. Practically he asked that a small minority should be allowed to work a complete revolution in the basis of the Union, and by his argument implied that if this modest request were refused its members would be ungenerously, if not unfairly, dealt with. Had his wish been granted, the Union would in fact have been transformed into another Conference, where all points of belief were held to be matters of indifference. To suggest that if his old associates did not comply with his desire they would show themselves narrower than Gamaliel himself, was more ingenious than fair.

The laissez-faire policy would, as Mr. Picton's speech abundantly proves, have been the surrender of the whole position. Mr. Brown argued in favour of the same course as Mr. Picton, but the latter unquestionably took the true view of its significance, and his arguments might well have led Mr. Brown to distrust his own conclusions. The difference between them was very marked. The one evidently thought the time was come when so much stress should not be laid upon doctrine at all. The other contended that the theological character of the Union was so firmly established, that not even its enemies could suspect it of such latitudinarianism. They were allies as against the Resolutions, but they were in just as decided, though probably unrecognized, antagonism to each other. The appeal of Mr. Picton was, in truth, an answer to that of Mr. Brown. The one asked to have his position tolerated, if not sanctioned, on the ground that he was still in spiritual sympathy with the Union, though he had abandoned some of its doctrines; and had his wishes been complied with, it must have been inferred that those doctrines were no longer esteemed of vital importance. The other, on the contrary, insisted that it was so notorious that the contrary was true, that the Union might with perfect safety keep silence, and leave both its own members and the outside world to interpret that silence as they pleased.

The principle on which this advice proceeds is doubtful under any circumstances. A society as well as an individual is bound to take care of its character, and it is not always wise or right for either to stand upon

dignity, and disdain all explanation of appearances that may appear suspicious. Even if a denomination feels itself able to brave the taunts of enemies, and leave events to vindicate it against their assaults, there are occasions when its members owe it to its friends in other Christian communities not to allow needless misunderstandings to arise as to its position. Congregationalism is a branch of catholic Christendom, and there are numbers who are attached to other systems who nevertheless feel that any weakness or faltering loyalty to its well-known principles on the part of its members would be an injury not only to it, but to the Church of Christ as a whole. Is it expedient, is it in accordance with the true catholic idea of the Church, is it courteous or right for Congregationalists to affect a lofty indifference to the opinions of such men, and to insist that the history of their Churches ought to save them from the unfavourable judgment which some unfortunate appearances might seem to warrant?

But there is a fundamental error in Mr. Brown's reasonings on this point. are,' he said, too fearful of our reputation. We have but to work for God and preach the gospel and God will take care of it.' The fallacy here lurks in the word 'we.' Doubtless God will care for those who do His work and preach His gospel, but the question raised was whether the Congregational Union as such was to fulfil this mission. The Resolutions were a simple preaching of the gospel and nothing more, and if the Union for some reason or other was to be prohibited from a declaration of the truth, it could not appropriate the consolation given by its Chairman. In that case each individual would stand alone, and the Union, composed of men uttering separate and contradictory voices, and giving no distinct testimony of its own, would be simply powerless. 'I have no faith,' says Mr. Brown, in the ultimate outcome of any communion which regards as secondary conditions the Incarnation and the redemptive work of Christ Jesus my Lord.' But his argument means that the Union should lay down no conditions at all, and that even on points admitted by himself to be vital it should be silent, because 'we' (that is, many of its members) are speaking in a hundred nobler and more effectual ways.' He overlooked the fact that there might be, and indeed that there are some (be the number more or less) who are doing their utmost to overthrow the authority of the truths which he holds most precious, and who in public conference have asserted that the spiritual life is independent of belief in them. When