such acceptance they should be formally recognized as such by a distinctive religious ceremony. This increase of the scope and doings of Conference had very tangible results. The necessity for common funds was sensibly felt, and with those common funds came also the necessity for a central administration. The question as to what should be that central administration suggested its own answer. The officers of no one society could well be burdened with that duty; and therefore it was generally felt that the Conference, as being the representative body of the whole New Church, was the only central administration which could be fixed upon. Therefore subscriptions, endowments, and bequests began, for specific purposes, in the full faith that Conference, which must annually reflect the mind and temper of the whole Church, would be the most permanent and impartial seat of administration. Beyond these subscriptions, endowments, and bequests for general Church purposes, such as pensions to aged or unfortunate ministers or leaders and the widows of such, funds for missionary purposes, Students' and Ministers' Aid and Sustentation Funds, Educational Funds, Church and School Building Funds, others began to be added having relation to single societies. The donors of money, land, or buildings for the use of special societies perceived that their gifts or bequests were more certain to be permanently devoted to New Church uses if vested in the trustees of Conference than if vested in private trustees, who might neglect or be unable to fulfil the task assigned to them, or might die without appointing their successors. Thus the Conference has increased its range of duties, and its powers have proportionately widened, until it has become a large religious corporation, capable of immense good if properly constituted and directed by the noblest aims; capable also of sad neglect of great privileges if the elements composing it are not true to themselves and to their cause.

We now come to the leading question: What, under such circumstances, and with such a constitution as I have described, should be the policy of the New Church? The very word "policy" in Church matters may at first have an unpleasing sound to those who have been accustomed to attach special ideas to the word. But while in using the word we dismiss from our minds all those sinuous endeavours to govern and to lead men by the arts of diplomacy and intrigue, which have gone under the titles of statecraft and priestcraft, yet there is a sense in which the word "policy" expresses a necessary guide of conduct. Policy, in its best sense, is the wise

method of putting good principles into practice,-it represents the well-adapting of what we know to be right to the states, tempers, and habits of those around us. And as every New Churchman is aware that there are times and seasons for all things, so he will soon gather, from a candid looking at the subject, that there must be a policy in the conduct of the General Conference.

The Conference may be said to suffer at once from too much and too little policy. On the one hand there are those representatives who are elected to put in an appearance for a society, not because they are most fitted to perform the duties, but because they are the only ones who are willing to sacrifice a week's holiday, or to bear the expenses of, it may be, a long journey. Such representatives are often the most amiable of men, but their ideas are generally very hazy as to the duties they are required to perform; and, very likely, if they seriously examined their own convictions, they would find that they cherished a lurking impression that, instead of having undertaken a solemn responsibility, they had really conferred a favour upon the society which they had consented to represent. The result often is that the week of Conference session becomes with these members a pleasant holiday among friends, a place of reunion with receivers from a distance, formerly known, and an opportunity of hearing able speeches, rather than what it ought to be. On the other hand there are some representatives, not to say ministers, who are the victims, one might almost say, of special ideas, and who regard Conference only as an arena for the display or the enforcing of those ideas. These members look at every question through glasses of their own particular colour, and treat every proposal brought forward with favour or disfavour, according as it tends to advance or retard their principles. These friends are certainly more useful than the former, as they work, and they work with an object. But their very mode of pursuit tends to render them narrow, exclusive, and dogmatic. The former attend Conference, but do not work; the latter work, but their work is to agitate. Both stand in need of a truly broad New Church policy.

There are two kinds of work performed in Conference, which, for want of a better mode of distinction, I will call positive and negative work. The positive work I would describe as that which consists in the applying of the functions of Conference to the various institutions, funds, and Church organizations over which it has supervision or influence. This may be more definitely stated by mentioning the various Committees always appointed who have in charge sections of

this positive work. These Committees are those-(a) on Education; (b) on Addresses to the Members; (c) on Applications for Ordination, Licenses, Pensions, etc.; (d) on Church Statistics; (e) on Letters; (f) on the Magazine. The negative kind of work in Conference is that which affects its constitution, its rules and regulations, and is represented by the last Committee (g) on the Rules. I call this work negative work, because, while it is on all grounds necessary that Conference should work in orderly modes-while it is true that Conference, from its short annual sitting, from its want of permanency (every year witnessing a different gathering of members), is likely to be often moved to set aside its own regulations,—while all these causes render the negative work important, yet it must be regarded as negative. It is not so much doing the work of the Church as making fresh machinery by which, if properly used, the work may afterwards be done. While, therefore, it is always desirable to improve the constitution, where proved to be requisite, yet we must always remember that the best and truest work of the Conference is to strive by means of its constitution to serve the neighbour, and to enlarge the borders of the Lord's New Church. I recollect a remark of an able statesman with whose general opinions I must confess I often differ, but who in this instance, I venture to believe, expressed a correct idea. He said that "those whose sole object was to be constantly making important changes in laws were much like a man, while in good health, having a constant anxiety about his constitution, and continually making changes in habits and modes of living in order to secure the health he already possessed." In the case of a Parliament whose only object is to make laws which are compulsory on the nation it represents, there may be a fallacy underlying this statement, however true to a certain limited extent. But the New Church Conference is not a parliament summoned to make compulsory laws. It is summoned to administer many trusts, to help the individual societies into a larger and more permanent success. It makes laws only for its own guidance; and while these laws have a certain influence, and its recommendations have a moral force, yet such force and influence are the result of a general approval of and respect for Conference doings rather than from any fear of a tangible effect arising from refusal to obey its decrees. Also it is a constant observation with those who have regularly attended Conference, that what is more required than organic changes is, that during the session the members should consistently act within the limits of the laws already in existence at the

time. The intense desire for change which marks a certain number of members in all assemblies of this kind arises from one or two causes. One cause is a very distinct theory as to the exact form of government and mode of administration which should exist there. The other is an inward conviction that the tendency of present legislation is in the wrong direction. The one arises, in other words, from an intense love of an ideal Conference whose image is formed within the mind; the other is the expression of as intense a fear of a future Conference the reverse of what it should be. Now, in regard to the first cause, the desire for an ideal Conference,-such a desire is in itself essentially laudable, and its presence in the mind may be a use and a blessing to the Church. But such a desire should always be tempered by a due regard to the mental states, tempers, and circumstances of others; and every good man whose heart is warmed by a genuine love for the neighbour will always restrain his mental impulses in one direction when he looks round circumspectly, and with a broad survey of the situation notes in how many cases the undue pressure of his point will injure rather than advance his cause. What, let me ask, is the reason why so many good and honest men have the unenviable reputation of being Don Quixotes, always tilting at impossible windmills, and why so many who are genial enough in private life are always voted intolerant, obstinate, and irreconcileable when they appear in public assemblies as advocates of any cause? The reason lies, not in the cause itself, which may be noble and destined to ultimate victory, but the answer is to be found in the relentless spirit of their advocacy. These agitating friends go too often upon the Old Church theory that the human mind is a kind of tablet on which a certain number of errors have been written, and that all that is necessary is that this writing should be effaced by any means, however forcible and severe; while, when such an effacement is effected, their own ideas should be as legibly incised there. But all this is in exact opposition to the New Church conception of what a human being really is. He who reveres the image of the Divine Being in every human creature wherever found, how defaced soever that image may be he who recognizes the infinite forbearance of the Creator with every error and folly of His creatures, is soon led to think and act differently to this. He looks upon men as an indefinite variety of feelings, states, and powers, moved by impulses called free-will, and as a New Churchman he feels bound to ask himself, not what is the truth best suited to his own moral condition, but what are the general

Use is the

principles best applicable for the use of the neighbour. distinguishing principle of the New Church, and the true policy of the New Church in regard to the making of laws is not what is theoretically best but what is most serviceable now for the great body of the members. Let every man hold high his principles, but let him not neglect the work of to-day nor let him wage a worse than useless war against Society because it will not be persuaded to move at his pace.

In reference to the second cause for constant agitation, the fear that Conference is going in a wrong direction, and that the New Church may have a future the reverse of what it should be, there is really a wholesome phase of that mental attitude. It may produce a watchfulness of Conference doings, tending to check many a mistake, and to prevent things being done which it might take years to undo. But those who watch the general tendency of Conference proceedings must be struck by one thing which should certainly calm unnecessary fears. This is the fact, that year by year, as the representative character of Conference is better understood by the societies, and as the members are chosen to sit there, not merely because of their willingness to go, but by reason of their fitness, and of the principles they advocate, Conference is to that extent answering to the wishes of the societies with a breadth and genuineness of intention quite accordant with the spirit of the New Church. Some of the fears referred to have doubtless arisen from the tendency and policy of the American New Church Convention. But it must be remembered that the American Convention is nearly thirty years the junior of the English Conference, and moreover, the very social wants of the great American Government and people cause an amount and an extent of law-making quite foreign to us in Great Britain. Partly from the character of its Republican system, partly from the fact that it has been for years the scene of a constant influx of persons of many nationalities, ignorant and careless of its laws, often evaders of their own; the tendency in the United States has been for every man to consider himself above the law. In England, however, the settled habit of a law-abiding people has been that every dweller in the land, from the Queen on her throne to the peasant in his cottage, is under the law, which is the ultimate, august, invisible sovereign. The social results of such a state of things in each case are patent and remarkable. In England social organizations are lightly bound by self-made laws, as the national law is strong. But in America, where the national law is comparatively weaker, the more educated and respectable citizens become a law unto themselves.