who have given us these arguments, but we want really to come to the practical working of this question. We want to know, What are we to do? I take it for granted that all of you are willing to do some work for the Church, and that you wish particularly to take a hand now in her defence when she is especially attacked. I think that what was said by one of the previous speakers was perfectly true, that in the rural districts the ignorance upon Church questions is perfectly lamentable. I am not quite certain that this is due to the apathy of the clergy. I think that it is a great deal due to over-sensitiveness on their part on this subject. I quite appreciate that view. I have myself never encouraged discussions or controversies upon the Church, because I know that we have a great number of Nonconformists in our parishes, and we do not want to tread upon their toes unnecessarily. But I say that that controversy can be carried on perfectly well without treading on their toes. I have myself given addresses in rural places upon the subject of the Church, and when they asked questions, which really were absolutely ridiculous, and I proved them to be so, they went home, as was said before, much astonished at the information which was given to them. I wish that some person who is really better qualified would give us some hints as to the best way in which we should work. We all want to work. We only want to know how we should do so. And now I would make a suggestion which applies to all of us. I do not wish to speak particularly to the clergy, because I have the opportunity which a layman very seldom has, of being able to lecture the clergy or tell them of their faults. The layman has, perhaps, this one only opportunity of lecturing the clergy to about fifty-two opportunities that they have of lecturing laymen; but I would ask the clergy to put aside that sensitiveness, and to come forward amongst their people. I am perfectly certain that there is hardly a parish in the kingdom where you will not find a layman ready to come forward and help you on the platform, deliver lectures and hold conferences with the people, and the Church Defence Institution will help you with every information that you can wish to have put into your hands. I do not hesitate to say that if a man would only take the literature of the Church Defence Institution into his hands and go upon any platform, with a little preparation he need not have the slightest fear of meeting anybody whom he could not controvert and contradict. Let us, then, do what we can do; and it is not a moment too soon. It is of no use to think that we have got plenty of time to do it. Alas! too much time has already passed. The battle has begun. It has begun in Scotland, and it is going to follow us down into this country; and if we do not inform our Church people and our Nonconformist friends of the danger and injury which it would do to both of them to disestablish the Church, disestablishment will come. The wreck will be stranded on the shore, and there will be nothing but to pick up the pieces. I would say one single word more, and that is, let this discussion to-night bring forth that actual result. Let it send us all home to work-to work at once to work daily-to begin, if we have never begun before, and to continue if we have already begun, the work of the defence of that dear Church of England to which we all are so much attached.

The Rev. JOSEPH M'CORMICK, Vicar of Hull, and Canon of

York.

CANON CREIGHTON this afternoon, in the admirable paper that he read, said that it was very important that there should be lectures given throughout the country upon the history of the Church of England. When I was in Japan, in the outlying country villages, I more than once went into large lecture-rooms that were crammed from one Ι end to the other, and I asked what the gathering was for? The answer was, "These are Government lecturers who are sent throughout the length and breadth of the land to teach the people the history of the country, and so to keep alive in them the spirit of patriotism." Now, I think that we may learn a lesson from the Japanese, and, on the ground not only of the benefits conferred by the Church and the spiritual work of the Church, but, on the ground of patriotism, make known what are the principles that animate us, and what has been the history of our great Church. Now, my lord, there are several points of importance. The first that I should like to touch upon is the work of the Church in connection with philanthropy. And there is one person whose name I should like for a moment to mention for two reasons, who has certainly

added dignity to her Majesty's throne by the work that he carried on-I mean the late Lord Shaftesbury. And the reason why I touch upon that subject is that in the first place he was a churchman and a strong upholder of the union of Church and State, and in the second place he belonged to the House of Peers, and was an aristocrat of aristocrats, and that is no slight circumstance in this age of democracy. If you listened to a certain class of persons who are in the habit of attacking the Church you would imagine that all the good that was ever done in England was done outside the pale of the Church, and was certainly not done by the upper classes. Lord Shaftes bury is the answer to the calumnies that are cast against the upper classes. The next point is the social work that should be carried on amongst the working classes. My lord, somebody has said that the Church of England is the Church of the poor. No; she is the Church of the rich and of the middle classes and of the poor alike. She knows no distinction of classes, and if we want to have Church defence work done wisely among the working classes, particularly at this period of the Church's history, we must maintain that if there are faults and if there are virtues amongst the upper class of society, there are faults and there are virtues likewise in the lower orders, and that the principle that is laid down in the Bible is the true principle, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." It is just because we are independent on account of the endowments that we have in the National Church that we are able to speak with trumpet tongue to the highest ranks in life as well as to the poorest. Another point to which I would allude for a moment or two is the social work in connection with Nonconformity. My lord, a great change has passed over the feeling of the church people with reference to Nonconformists since I was a boy. There was far more fraternisation with Nonconformists when I was young than there is now. Some persons may not care for that, but I for one regret it. But this I can say, that the change that is now passing over the feelings of all sections of the Church, not omitting the Evangelical portion of the Church, is owing to the action of the Liberation Society; and, what is more, some Nonconformists themselves are feeling that this is the case. A great movement is taking place amongst certain classes of Nonconformists which gives us some measure of hope, that if only we have time, the disestablishment of the English Church will never take place. What is this movement? The movement has been pourtrayed by the admirable articles that have been written by Mr. Statham, a leading Nonconformist minister of London, and published in the Fall Mall Gazette, and I am glad to say that the National Church paper has put in his last article. In that article there are the statements of a man who has thought carefully over the subject and who, I may mention, was at one time a very strong opponent of the Church and went in for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, which I maintain was a political blunder. He has completely altered his ground and he comes forward now and says that he believes that the disestablishment of the English Church will not be for the benefit of religion, or for the benefit of the nation at large. There are different opinions upon the social question in connection with the matter amongst the Nonconformists. What has taken place in Ireland? The Irish Church was disestablished. Have the Nonconformists risen in the social scale by the disestablishment of that Church? The Irish churchmen have banded together, and the laity have been more friendly than ever with the able and industrious working clergy of the poor Church of Ireland, and the gap between the ministers of the Church in Ireland and the Nonconformists is greater than it ever was. But, my lord, if that took place in Ireland, what would it be in the disestablished English Church-the rich Church in some aspects-the aristocratic Church-the Church that has immense power and immense influence? Why the laity would rally round the clergy because they would think that they had been most unjustly and unfairly treated, and the gap between the Nonconformists and the Church ministers would no longer be bridged over by a slight bridge, but there would be an immense gulf, and I believe that there would be no rising at all in the social scale amongst the Nonconformist ministers of England. I believe that if the clergy of the Church of England show by their ability, their learning, and their devotion to work, and show before the whole country that the welfare of the people at large is the great thing which they have at heart, they will never go down one iota, whether the Church is disestablished or not. And now I hope that according to the advice that has been given to it, every effort will be made to maintain our Church. I have hope for the Church of England, not only on the ground which I have just specified-not merely because she is the old Church of these realms-not merely because she has cast out all abuses and maintains at the present moment all the principles and doctrines that she maintained at the time of the Reformation settlement, but because the Church is holding up the lamp of

truth in this great country, and the members and ministers of that Church are preaching the everlasting Gospel of God's grace. The Church is doing a great and glorious work, and maintains and will maintain to the last, as far as it lies in her power, the recognition of God by the Sovereign, by the Houses of Parliament, and by the public Acts of the Realm. And further-and this is a most important point-she is the great Missionary Church of the world, the greatest Missionary Church which the world has yet known in the history of Christendom; but if, after all, there comes the disestablishment of this Church and the overturning of the Throne, which will follow sooner or later, and the destruction of old and valuable and beneficial institutions and the secularisation of all public Acts, and, lastly, the damage of religion, no persons would more mourn over the disruption of the union of Church and State than the pious Nonconformists of this country.

H. H. BEMROSE, Esq., Derby.

It was not in my mind to speak this evening, but I felt, as the discussion went on, that a sense of the importance of the subject weighed upon me, and that, if it was desired that the voice of laymen should be raised upon this question, it was my duty to send my name up to the chair. The subject we have before us, as set forth in the programme, is the nature and the history of the Church endowments and property, and the social and philanthropic work of the Church. As to the endowments and property of the Church, we have had to-night their ancient character and date abundantly proved beyond all contradiction. They were endowments given to God-one party being the man who gave them, the other being the Lord Himself. I take it that before that bargain can be annulled, both these must be parties to the change. To rob the Church of those endowments which were given to her, not for herself, but as trustee and servant of our Lord and Master, will be an act of robbery which will be disastrous in its results to those who perpetrate it. But further, we are talked to on this subject as if the endowments were given by some act long gone by, of kings, or of the nation, or of individuals, and that the act then and there ceased, and has not been repeated for centuries. But the act of endowment has been a continuous act of the whole life of the Church in this country. I was last week in a church in the diocese of Lichfield, which church was built about the year 1840, along with the parsonage house and the schools, by a lady of the Church of England. She also left a sum for the endowment of them. That I take to be just a typical example of how the Church has come to be possessed of her endowments, whether they were given a thousand years ago, or given to-day. They represent the spontaneous and natural act of the children of the Church of Christ. As the life of the nation has developed and expanded, so has the Church in her mode of action. In the old days there were no Consols, or property of that character, which one could give, and land presented itself as the one thing which could be given for the service of Christ, and there we have it. But, as I said, the act of endowment has become continuous along with the life of the Church. But the second portion of our subject is the social and philanthropic work of the Church. As times have gone on the Church has stood pre-eminent, not merely among the religious bodies of the country, but among the Churches of the whole world, in her social and philanthropic work. Take the case of education, which has been mentioned. She has been the nursing mother of the children of these realms. Long before the State entertained the idea of acting in loco parentis, the Church, in her several parishes, by the aid of her clergy and her laity, built her fabrics and found her teachers; and not until the spirit of the nation had been aroused to call for education, did the State set her hand to that great work which has now risen to such gigantic proportions. As to the philanthropic work, it is invidious to compare the work of the Church of England and that of other bodies; but we are challenged by them, and we accept the challenge with the utmost confidence and boldness. The social work and philanthropy of the dissenting bodies bear no comparison as to their extent and ramifications, or as to the amount of money which they subscribe for these objects. Take the sums which are given to the Hospital Sunday Fund. We have seen it often. It is with them as with the question of education. The Church not merely equals, but she doubles what is given by the dissenters. I think, in the case of the Hospital Sunday Fund, the subscriptions in London and the large towns, show that the Church of England gives

two-thirds of the whole of the money that is given. (A voice, "Four-fifths"). Fourfifths. I am corrected. Then it is a question which we might naturally ask, How is it that this onslaught is made on the Church? There are various reasons given, but I think that it is very clear that they are of the most flimsy and cobwebby character. We are told by the political dissenters that disestablishment will lead to unity; but I think the commendation of unity and that prophetic voice come with a very ill grace from a body which is split up as are the dissenters of this kingdom. I think that those who are split up into nearly two-hundred sects, which increase each year, are the last persons to stand up and tell the Church of England that they can teach her a lesson of unity. They tell us that we have divisions. We have divisions. They date from the Garden of Eden. But I have yet to learn that, with all the divisions of the Church of England, she is less broad than I hope and believe the Church of the living God is. A national Church must be broad. She must have at times divisions which seem to threaten her existence; but we look not to the day which is passing before us now. We look to her long history, and see that the hand of God has been upon her, and has led her through all her troubles, and we feel that the same God will be with her to the end if her sons are faithful to her. May I venture to say one word to my clerical brethren? I do it with some reluctance, but I think that the word should be said, and therefore I shall venture to say it. I have been pained to see in this town, as I have in other places, that there is an asssociation of churchmen who band together for the purpose of procuring or aiding the disestablishment of the Church. (Shame.) I do not say that. I know that there may be men chafing under a sense of anomaly-chafing under things which ought not to be. I am free to admit all that, because the Church is administered by human hands, and the imperfections of humanity must belong to her, and they must be apparent. But I put it in this way that this movement against the Church of England is but part of a great scheme; and though there may be some religious, and thoughtful, and patriotic men who join in it, the mainspring of this movement lies far deeper than that. It lies in the infidelity of the country; and those who are most actively to the front, are only helping to bring about a state of things which would crush them more than it would crush the Church of England which they seek to destroy. The Church has been the life-blood of the nation through all centuries. For a long time she was the one exponent of unity in this kingdom. When this island was divided into many kingdoms, she was the only exponent of unity in the land; and when the realm became united, she did but maintain that position which she had held all along. By her doctrine, by her teaching, by that invaluable catechism of hers, taught in the homestead of the farmer, and in the little room of the labourer, through long, long centuries, in the days when books were rare, and the books of devotion of the Church were almost the only books which could be had, or which could be read where they were possessed-by these means the Church of England has given its true life to the nation; and whatever there is of greatness, whatever there is of probity, of fidelity to duty, whatever there is that has gone to make the word of an Englishman his bond throughout the world, I maintain that it is due to the teaching of the Church of England, which for centuries was the only Church and instructor within this realm. And truly it seems to me, then, that while citadels have fallen by means of the enemy within the gates, it ill becomes the sons of the Church of England, in this hour of her need, to be apathetic and to be silent. It ill becomes them to forsake the mother which has nourished them. It ill becomes them to be confederates of Moab and the Hagarenes, and to cry, "Down with her! down with her even to the ground!" If the Church of England falls, I venture to think she will fall, not for her shortcomings, though they are many; not for the imperfections of her ministers, though they are many; not for the imperfections and inconsistency of her laity, though they may be many; but because a nation has become apostate from the faith of God, and because God sees fit to allow that nation, scorpion-like, to wound herself in her very heart.

The Venerable W. EMERY, Archdeacon and Canon of Ely; Permanent Secretary of the Church Congress.

I WANT for two or three moments to have the privilege of addressing you on this most important question. I was one of the original members of the Church Defence Institution, or at least aided in its being established. I had to do with Mr. Henry

Hoare, and I can say that what is upon the placard which has been alluded to-that the Church Defence Institution in its origination was nothing but a Tory organisation --is untrue. But, at any rate, now it is open to all, and I am glad to say that leading men of both political parties are joining it under the present circumstances of the Church of England, so that the Dean of Manchester and others think it now their duty to come forward and put, as I trust you all will, Church before party. Shall I read you a sentence from that paper, which has sometimes been complained of as not having taken quite the view which many have of the dangers which we have been in during the last two or three years, as to what has now come to pass? Shall I read to you the comment of the Guardian upon the speech of Mr. Chamberlain with respect to education as well as disestablishment? It is the inference which Churchmen of all classes, young and old, laity and clergy, should take to heart. This is it-That the object is to disestablish and disendow religious education as well as religious worship. Now, then, after the efforts that the Church of England has made-and thank God hitherto they have been successful-in keeping the Bible in our schools, and in educating, as she now does, in her voluntary schools more than half the children that are educated at all-are we to have all these schools practically disestablished and disendowed, and are we to have after all nothing but what our foes are aiming ata secular system of education with no Bible teaching, and, if possible, the Church of England broken up into sects, for that is what it has come to? Read the Nonconformist of a month ago. Read the Radical Programme. Read the comments of the Guardian thereupon. They show that now the secret is out. There are no more Liberation phrases about unity and improving the spiritual power of the Church; but the great object is to break up the Church into bits. Are you prepared to submit to this? Are you prepared to see this grand old National Church of England which the late Prime Minister in so many speeches has praised and declared to be the greatest institution in the land, thus treated? Are you prepared that this should happen to your old National Church, which has been established, or at least been in union with the State for more than a thousand years, blessing it, making the nation Christian, teaching it love to God and love to man-a Church which now in this country and throughout the world, is the great defender of the Christian Faith and the upholder of primitive Christianity and Apostolic practice and order. Whether you be Whigs or Liberals, or whatever you are, will you put your secular politics before religion, before the Church of Christ? No; I do trust that a voice will come forth from this Congress, and go throughout the country, that every one, rich and poor, who loves God, and loves his neighbour, and loves his Bible, and loves his Church, and loves his country, will, so far as he is able, forbid any to disestablish and disendow the National Church, which practically will be, as a nation, to deny God and to deny Christ.

The Rev. P. F. ELIOT, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bournemouth, and Hon. Canon of Winchester.

THERE is one view of Church defence which has not, I think, been brought before the Congress this evening. A great deal has been said about the necessity of all English churchmen being well posted up in the knowledge of the history of their Church; and, of course, every one admits that it is right that all Englishmen should know that the origin of their Church dates a great deal farther back than three hundred years. It is also very necessary that English churchmen, and Dissenters, too, should know that the bishops and clergy are not a burden on the taxation of the country; and, as somebody said, we should get up all Mr. Moore's books. A great deal, too, has been said about the social and philanthropic work which the Church has done, and I have no objection whatever to that being taken as one great line of defence. But it seems to me that the chiefest line of defence of all has been omitted from every speech which has been spoken from this platform this evening. It seems to me that the chief defence of the Church is that every member should make his contribution to that which was the great work for which the Church was founded and sent into the world-namely, the spiritual work of winning souls to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we of the clergy are perfectly ready to hear from any of the laity how we can better do our part of this work. If laymen stand