lands and honours, hurled his huge sword upon the floor. That was not the act of a mere ruffian. It was with his sword that he served and defended his country; and on his service to his country was founded his claim to rank and wealth. So every English institution must from time to time show by what right it exists. It must show that it has served the country well in times past. It must prove also that it is able still to accomplish the object for which it was created, by adapting itself to the new wants and wishes of the people. No other title will, in the long. run, avail anything, or be found solid enough to bear the crucible of modern criticism, and to resist the eager rush for half-considered innovation.

ADDRESSES.

The Rev. CANON HOARE, Vicar of Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells, made the following address :

I would be a very happy thing for us all if our facts always agreed with our theories. There cannot be a more beautiful theory than that of a parochial ministry, which provides, by national authority, that there shall not be one man, woman, or child throughout the length and breadth of England, without a pastor's care, and a pastor's instruction in the Gospel of the grace of God. Alas! our facts do not always agree with our theories. Sometimes we have overwhelming populations beyond the reach of any man, and sometimes, I fear we must admit, we have pastors in charge who seem to be scarcely competent to supply the needs of any population. You never can secure a sound table made out of rotten wood. So, wherever you find human nature, and whereever you have to deal with the human heart, there you are perfectly certain to come into contact with defect. Construct any theory you please, make any new plans you can devise, alter everything, or overturn everything, you will still have to deal with the old difficulty, the rotten wood in the human heart, and you will still meet with defect. I do not intend, however, this afternoon to speak of the defective side of the parochial system. I wish rather to consider the case of a parish where all is as it ought to be, where there is a holy man of God meeting the wants of the people; and I wish to consider for a few moments the position of such a man and such a parish! What do you find in such a parish? In the first place you will find a large body of devcted men gathered around him, and helping him in all his work. What else do you find? You find a large body of persons outside both church and chapel, whose only meeting place is the public-house or the street corner, who despise your worship, who despise your church, who despise the parson, who despise Christianity, and who are living without God in the world. You will find again when you come within the church a large body of persons in the midst of the congregation, some of whom it is impossible to believe are living by faith in the Son of God. They adopt the principles of the world; they are living for the world, and in the world; and they are unconverted men. You will find another class of persons eager, anxious, and conscientious, but with their souls ill at ease.

C

And over the whole you will find a tendency to settle down and subside into a quiet, orderly, respectable form of Christianity. I believe the great beauty of our parochial system is in its permanence; the great danger of it is in its tendency to settlement. Men settle down into their places. They all know one another, they are used to one another, and all expectation of a change begins to die out little by little. When the leading farmer, or the leading squire, or the leading manufacturer, has sat under a thousand sermons from the same rector; has sat there shielded and protected by a little sleep, a good deal of inattention, and a great mass of dogged prejudice-I say, when he has sat on untouched, when he has weathered a thousand sermons without altering his tack or shifting a sail, it is very difficult, either for squire, or rector to expect that the thousand and first sermon shall produce a revolution in his whole soul, and scatter all his prejudices to the winds. Hence, there is a great deal of truth as to nature in the old story of the parish clerk-that genus, now scarcely existing--who,, when asked by the rector why it was that he kept awake when a stranger preached, but always went to sleep when his rector preached, answered, Why, you see, sir, when a stranger comes I don't know what he is going to say, and I am obliged to be on the look-out; but when you preach I always know what's coming, and I know it's all right, and so there is no occasion whatever to keep awake." Now, when we have to deal with cases of that kind, we want to consider how we may counteract this tendency to settlement. We have to consider what it may be that will introduce variety without disturbing order. I remember my dear first rector, a man beloved by all who knew him, and remembered, I have no doubt, by many in this room, the Venerable Francis Cunningham, of Lowestoft, used to say, "You must have a system of alteratives." Believing in that, I would ask, in the first place, Is there not great power in missionary meetings and deputations? I believe there never was a greater mistake than to urge on clergymen that they should preach these special sermons themselves, instead of, if possible, procuring help. Let them stay in the churches when the sermons are preached, and not run away for a holiday; but let them get the help of zealous men, in the hope that by this means their own earnestness and zeal may be re-kindled. Is not the name of Charles Hodgson honoured and revered, as a missionary deputation, from one end of Yorkshire to the other? Again, do we not want an order of evangelists as well as an order of pastors? The difficulty, however, is that, those evangelists will be least welcome where they are most wanted. If I may speak in homely terms-the drones will never wish to have a disturbance in the hive. Then, might not great good often result from the interchange of ministerial work amongst brethren? Why should not two clergymen who are of one mind change places for a month or six weeks occasionally-not with a view to recreation, but for work? I am persuaded that both parishes and both clergymen would in many cases be the better for the change. It is the same principle in human nature that gives its great value to parochial missions. Those agencies began about fifteen years ago in S. Martin's Church, in Birmingham, under the care of Dr. Miller, and were carried on by two honoured friends, the Rev. John Ryle, and the Very Rev. Dr. McNeile. The movement

gradually spread out into the Westminster Abbey and S. Paul's services, and latterly it has become embodied in these weekly parochial missions. I believe there cannot be a doubt that those missions have been blessed by God. I believe that all the three classes I attempted to describe can bear witness to the success of the missions. Some of the utterly ungodly have been brought to God, and many of those who were serving God in bondage and anxiety have been brought to a happy peace as justified believers in Christ Jesus the Lord. I cannot doubt it. Now what do we want? We want to have our own spirits stirred. We want to be moved. O, my Lord, we must not rest whilst those souls within our charge are wandering far from the Saviour and far from God. Therefore it is that we welcome such agencies as those missions. But let us all remember one great truth; no organisation can save souls. The ordinary parish minister cannot save souls; the mission preacher cannot save souls; it is not external work that will give internal life. We cannot have a more beautiful picture in illustration of this than that of the golden candlestick; our parochial work and our parochial mission may be like that golden candlestick, in beautiful symmetry, and every part of it of gold. There may be all the branches of your parochial organisation, aye, and all of gold; a holy man of God at the head of a holy family, and helped by a holy and devoted help-meet in the Lord-and all of gold; but, remember, gold never emitted light. It has often quenched light. Gold may reflect light; it may make the candlestick that is to be the light bearer, but gold never emitted light. So it is with the work of God. There must be the oil in the golden branches of the candlestick; there must be the Spirit of the living God moving every branch and every department of our work. Oh, that that Spirit may be breathed throughout all the parishes of the dear old Church of England! Oh, that every branch of the candlestick may be holding forth its light, a light springing from the very light of the Spirit of God within the soul, that so where there is darkness there may be light, where there is death there may be life, where there is doubt there may be peace, where there is sin there may be holiness, where there is dulness and languor there may be a holy zeal for God, moved by the love of Christ, and prompted by the power of the Spirit of God within the soul!

The Rev. W. D. MACLAGAN, Vicar of Newington, Surrey,
made the following address:-

WHEN the Committee of this Church Congress were kind enough to ask me to take part in the proceedings of to-day, I considered that I should better serve the purpose for which they asked me to speak if, instead of preparing any formal address, I rather reserved to myself the liberty of taking up any point that had been omitted or only lightly touched by previous speakers. I shall, therefore, make a few suggestions, which seem to me to be important in connection with the subject which occupies our thoughts this afternoon. I am thankful for all that has been said by my reverend brethren with

regard to the work of parochial missions, and above all, for the testimony they have borne to them as being the work of God the Holy Ghost, and as having been largely blessed by God in the conversion of souls. Specially am I glad of this, because I did not intend to dwell at length upon that subject myself. The truth is I feel that there is little need in these days to encourage the desire for parochial missions, but rather to repress it. I see on every side a tendency in men to take to missions as an infallible panacea for all the evils and miseries of their parishes, and lightly to embark upon them without the preparation needed for them, or without duly considering the causes for which missions are held. Therefore, I should be sorry by any word of mine to-day to encourage the idea that a mission will do all that the loving minister of Christ should desire to be done among his people, although it is an agency that has been mightily blessed by God. I should like to make one remark upon what fell from my reverend brother, who has just sat down, as to parochial missions. There is one arrangement which he did not mention, the omission of which I confess has somewhat surprised and grieved me. I mean the celebration of the Holy Communion. If I may venture to speak from the limited experience I have had in mission work, I feel that nothing is more important, in order to maintain that calmness and soberness of feeling which are so essential throughout a mission week, and to guard against the excitement and sensation of which there is a very real, though a very necessary danger, than the daily celebration of the Holy Communion, and the gathering of the faithful of the parish round Our Lord's own altar, there to plead for the souls whom we are endeavouring, by the help of God's Holy Spirit, to influence by our teaching. I should wish also to make a remark on what fell from Mr. Salt, in reference to the parochial system I protest altogether against what is so commonly said, that the parochial system has broken down. Even in our largest towns (and it has been my lot always to minister in the diocese of London), I believe it has in no sense broken down, but it has never had fair play. The parochial system never meant the kind of arrangement which prevails in our great cities, of leaving a large population under the care of one man; and, above all, the parochial system was never meant to work without spiritual life in those who worked it; and with the revival of spiritual life in the Church, there is every hope that the parochial system would do its work. But whilst I do not intend directly to encourage parochial missions by any remarks of mine to-day, I would plead for more of a missionary spirit in the ordinary ministrations of our church. In every large parish there ought to be something of a continuous mission going on. The missionary side of our work is too often lost sight of. We may be preaching converting sermons in the pulpit, but they do not reach the ears of men in the public-house, and until we have more missionary work from day to day, we shall never accomplish what we all desire. I would further suggest that we should make our spiritual ministrations more continuous and real than they have been in past days. We must have no churches closed from Sunday to Sunday. Although I know how unwelcome the suggestion may possibly be to many of my brethren before me, yet I would plead, as a most important matter, for

the restoration of the daily services of the Church. I speak here as one to whom the objections to such a course might be supposed specially to apply, for it is often urged that it encroaches so largely upon the time of the parish priest that it does not produce a commensurate result. I can only say from experience that there is nothing in all the arrangements of my parish which I should be more unwilling to sacrifice than the daily service. It gives to a man over burdened with spiritual cares and anxieties (to say nothing of secular duties) a time of enforced quiet, when in the House of God and in the service of the Church he may calm his mind and restore that equanimity which is so often disturbed amongst the trying incidents of every passing day. Again, what a knowledge of scripture it helps to give not only to the people but to the parish priest himself! In reading the lessons-where they are distinctly read, and I pray God the habit may not increase among us of reading the lessons as if the great object were to go over them in a minimum of time-wherever Holy Scripture is thoughtfully and reverently read, it cannot fail to bring home to the parish priest himself, as well as to the people, new light, and strength, and comfort. The daily service also affords an admirable opportunity for that personal dealing with individual souls, which is, after all, the great end of our ministry-the bringing of men one by one to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the bringing about a real conversion in individual souls. There the people know that they can find their parish priest, and when the service is over, they can take their turn to go in and receive from him the comfort and help they desire. I believe that by thus making our ministrations more continuous and less spasmodic than they have been, we should not only gain the direct benefit. which is gained by these daily services, but we should better secure the beneficial effects of the teaching on the Lord's Day. Again, we must arrange all our services more definitely on the system of the Church; in order that we may carry out all that the Church has prescribed in reference to its times and seasons. The teaching of the Church in those seasons is a continuous preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a continual holding up of Jesus Christ Himself; and the more closely we follow that system the more surely shall we be guarded against extravagances of opinion, or against one-sidedness in teaching, and the more fully shall we be able to declare the whole counsel of God. Once more I would plead for making the Holy Communion the great centre round which all our services should gather; that one service, the one only service enjoined upon us by our Blessed Lord Himself; that great service, which is to the believer the memorial of the one grand central fact in the world's history upon which his salvation depends. I believe that, by thus constituting the Holy Sacrament the centre of all our teaching and services, we should best guard against that danger which I should be unfaithful to my Lord if I did not speak of here-the danger of making that Holy Sacrament a mere act of worship at which men may attend, and not an ordinance by which they may receive into themselves the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once more I am thankful for the response which came to your Lordship's appeal for more elasticity in our arrangements and more freedom from the bands of acts of uniformity. We want more teaching and