wrought with an increasing measure of proof of the confidence with which our smoothness and efficiency-that its Church is looking forward to the future, ministry is earnest and evangelical- and of the determination with which it that its institutions and operations, both is aiming at making itself a more worat home and abroad, are obviously at- thy successor and representative of that tended with a blessing from on High-great Presbyterian community which and that it is rising up, not only in its suffered so much from the Act of Uniown measure of industry, but also of formity 200 years ago, I may mention, importance aad influence, in the noble that within the last few weeks a sum and inviting field which the English approaching no less than £3,000 has nation presents to it. And when that been cheerfully subscribed for the encan be said in the words of truth and dowment of our Theological College in soberness, I feel that as a Church we London. (Applause.) This movement have reason to thank God and take has been made, Moderator, not merely courage. For, when we say that, it that we might celebrate this Bicentenary must not be forgotten that for the last year, by raising a monument to show 200 years Presbyterianism in England that we have not forgotten those illushas been almost entirely either a pro- trious men of 1662, whom we as justly scribed, or a degraded, or a neglected regard and as proudly regard as our thing. Where the blame of that lies, Presbyterian forefathers in England, as and how that blame is to be distributed, you regard Knox and Melville, and HenI stop not now to inquire. But I do derson and Rutherford, as your Presby. say, that when that evil is borne in terian forefathers in Scotland. But it mind, and when all the disadvantages has been made because of the deep and springing out of it are taken into ac- universal conviction in the Church, that count, we cannot resist the conclusion one of the greatest wants of our Church that our present position is eminently is a ministry trained within itself—a fitted to call up gratitude for the past ministry composed of men whose tastes, and hope for the future. (Applause.) and habits, and feelings, and associa In illustration of what I have just said, tions, are all of England. We believe I would specify simply one or two that the movement will succeed. We facts. As a proof of our growth in the believe that its success will go far to soil of England, take the fresh in- secure such a ministry to our Church, stances of two congregations we have and to provide a power which will just planted in the most promising cir- come to tell with happy effect on the cumstances. One of them is in Tiver- theological opinion and the theological ton, composed exclusively of English literature of the country at large; and people, and receiving countenance and therefore we feel special pleasure in support from no less a personage than announcing the fact of it to this General the noble Lord at the head of her Ma- Assembly. (Applause.) Moderator, jesty's Government. (Loud Applause.) whether we look at our home field or at The other is in Torquay, consisting our foreign field, we see at this moment partly of English and Scottish residents that wide doors and effectual are open there, and most likely to prove a great to us. We feel that we have at present boon to the invalids from this country special opportunities of usefulness which who resort thither at a certain season we should not let slip. We feel that of the year. Already £1,000 have been we have present advantages for the subscribed for the erection of a church, prosecution of our work which we and there is every prospect of doing all that is needed for the establishment of a flourishing congregation there. As a proof of the regard which is paid to the ministry of our Church, I may point to the fact that the Church has created within the last year or two, with the greatest heartiness, and with most pleasing liberality, an Aged and Infirm Ministers' Fund, which cannot fail to prove of great service.* And as a * The sum which this fund has reached as its starting point is £2,000.

should not forego. The discussions with which you have been occupied this morning, and which have been going on during the year through the length and breadth of England, are calling attention to us, and carrying a knowledge of our principles and ways into quarters which could not have been otherwise easily reached. And it may be said without offence to any one, that the present state of doctrine and of discipline in the Church of England, and the acknowledged and lamented

want of unity and authority in some of the Nonconforming Churches in the land, make a system like ours really a necessity. But, although this be so, we are in straits and difficulties. We are unequal to the exigencies with which we are surrounded. And this, not so much from the lack of material means as from the lack of living agencies. We want men for the foreign field. At this moment we could send out two or three missionaries to China, and one to India, but we cannot find them. We want men to break ground in large centres of population and influence at home, where our Home Mission Committee is ready to send them. But we have them not. We therefore appeal to you to come over and help us. We appeal to you to consider whether, in view of our relation to you as a neighbouring and sister Church, whether, in view of the calls which we, alone, are unable to meet, and whether, in view of the fact that we minister to the spiritual welfare of many of the most promising sons whom yonr country sends forth,- it be not your call to lend us some effective aid in building up our Church in England, by putting some of your best ministers, either absolutely or conditionally, at our disposal. We would hail such a mark of your regard for us with profound gratitude; and we would promise that the effect of it, in a land which is after all one of the very highest places in the field of moral and religious influence, would soon return in blessings tenfold upon your own heads. (Applause.) We rejoice, Moderator, with great joy in all the success with which God has crowned your labours as a Church. We give thanks to God for what this Assembly has shown of the continuance of the Divine favour in the midst of you; and we fervently pray that He who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and who hath the seven stars in his right hand, may make his goings seen amongst you yet more and more, and raise yourself, and the fathers and brethren of this venerable Assembly, to the blessedness of those who shall shine as the sun, and as the stars for ever and ever. (Loud applause.)

decade, I have once more the honour of saying a few words in your Assembly It gives me infinite pleasure to see around me still so many old familiar faces, the intimate friends of earlier days, and associates in the memorable struggle of nearly twenty years ago; to see you, sir, occupy the most honoured place in that House; to witness the wisdom and energy, the zeal and harmony, with which your proceedings are conducted, and to hear of the signal success with which, at all points, your labours continue to be crowned; but pleasure mingled with sadness, at missing well known forms and voices; sadness in recalling how frequent and how severe have been the bereavements you have suffered, how many a bright star has set, how many a clarum et venerabile nomen no longer stands upon your roll, but lives only in the memories undying of a grateful Church and country. and country. (Applause.) It is but little that, on an occasion like the present, we can do, but tender to you, in the warmest terms we can adopt, the assurance of our continued deep and affectionate interest in everything that concerns your welfare, acquaint you with the leading features of our own progress, and ask you to give us what help you can, in prosecuting the difficult work allotted to us in England. On the former of these topics, I trust I need not say a syllable. It is to the latter -our position and its claims that I would venture for a little to address myself. Very few, indeed, even of our own people, and still fewer in Scotland, have any idea, how small and weak, I had almost said how insignificant a body, we English Presbyterians are, while great things are expected of us, and disappointment is often expressed at the little progress we make. I have the honour to be the convener of a committee on statistics, and, whether it arises from an unwillingness to show the nakedness of the land, or from any other cause, there has been some difficulty in getting at the facts. Now, however, we have in our possession pretty accurate results; and you will be surprised to be told that the whole number of our communicants, over the length and breadth of England, is The Rev. W. CHALMERS, said:-under 20,000, and that the average Moderator, fathers, and brethren, it number of worshippers, high and low, is with mingled feelings of pleasure and rich and poor, young and old, on the pain that, after the lapse of nearly a Lord's-day, in all our Churches, is not

more than 30,000—not so many alto-like without let or hindrance on its gether as you have in several of your part. Partus sequitur ventrem; and largest towns, and in many of your such a title, therefore, is only fitted to larger counties; so that our communi- mislead. But to a policy in former cants are about one, and our worship- days like that announced in our own, pers one and a-half in every 1,000 of we may fairly ascribe a large measure the population of England; and even of the decline of Presbyterianism in that is a very great improvement on the England. Sir, I count it a happy thing state of matters as they stood twenty that wiser counsels prevailed at the years ago. How Presbyterianism in the period of the Disruption. Then, when south has been reduced to so low an ebb, the question was raised-"Shall Presis a subject on which I cannot now enter. byterians in England attach themselves The history of its decline from its palmy to, and become a pendicle of the Free days in England has yet to be written, Church of Scotland (much in the way and when written it will furnish, I as the United Presbyterian Churches doubt not, very interesting and im- in England are connected with their portant practical lessons. But, among own body here)?-the advice was: the causes such as the want of"No: be it yours to assume an indethorough organization, the absence of pendent position, to take upon yourany institution for training a native selves the responsibility of an English ministry, and the low state of evan- Presbyterian Church, to set it before gelical religion in the last century-a you as your aim, not merely to be a great deal of the decline, especially in refuge for the destitute,' and to gather later times, is unquestionably due to together the fragments of Scottish Presthe policy pursued by the Church of byterianism in the south, but to estaScotland of those days-a policy which blish yourselves as one of the ecclesilimited any efforts made in England to astical institutions of the country, which the mere supplying of expatriated shall embrace within its pale EnglishScotchmen with Christian ordinances- men as well as Scotchmen." This I a policy which has been emphatically believe was a wise advice; and the announced as that of the Established longer I live, the more I am persuaded Church of the present day, in connec- of it, and satisfied that in proportion as tion with that mysterious body entitled our Church becomes English, it will "The Church of Scotland in England." make progress; and that the more it is -(Laughter and applause.) In a speech recognised as one of the institutions of made only this week by a Reverend the south, and the more Englishmen Principal, it is said "The Church of that are found worshipping in it, Scotland is no proseletysing Church. the more certainly will Scotchmen Its whole object in England is simply connect themselves with it, and to minister to its own children, accord- make it the object of their attaching to the form of worship to which ment and support. (Applause.) I do they have been accustomed. We have not mean to say that we are all no sympathy with the aggressive atti- at one in our Synod in this way of tude taken by other Presbyterian thinking. There are some of us who Churches in reference to the Church of still hanker after an incorporating England. On the contrary, we, as a Union with the Free Church; some national Church, look on the Church of who, in the language of the apprentice England with a most brotherly and in "Peveril of the Peak," have "bought warm feeling of regard, as a bulwark watches to count the hours since they of Protestantism and evangelical reli- left Berwick behind them;" or, like gion." I know no such body as the James VI., are haunted with a "salChurch of Scotland in England," for mon-like propensity to return to the the Presbyterian congregations there, waters in which they were spawned;" not connected with ourselves, are as in- but there are others of us who have dependent of "the Church of Scotland" resolved to make England our home, as we are. It exercises over them no and that to build up in it an English jurisdiction or control of any kind. The Presbyterian Church; and we believe Presbyteries with which they are con- that we cannot make progress by calling nected order all things without con- our churches Scotch Churches, or simsulting or appealing to the Scottish ply reproducing in a miniature scale on Establishment, and can do what they English soil what exists in Scotland.

terian wealth, and a magazine of Presterian influence. Well, the whole communicants in all our Churches are under 3,000, and the number of our worshippers is about 5,000; and yet, every week in the year, from Scotland, from Ireland, and from all parts of England, our members are solicited for pecuniary aid in building churches, manses, and

though we are comparatively few in number, to undervalue or depreciate the liberality of our people; for in the Presbytery of London alone, during the

We can never forget that we are deal-numbers, with our unaided strength, ing with the English people, and we we are quite unable to overtake the think that we must not present to them field. Take London, for instance. It as Presbyterianism what is character- is supposed to be a mine of Presbyistic only of the Scottish type, or anything but a distinct and independent Church, adapted to their circumstances, rooted in their soil, and not at variance, in things indifferent, with their most cherished associations. We must not, for instance, tell them that sitting in singing is essential to Presbyterianism, when they have always been accustomed to stand. We must not tell them that schools. When we consider that the hymns in worship are an abomination, numbers I have given, comprise high when their spiritual life from childhood, and low, rich and poor, young and old through maturity, to old age, has found together, it is matter of surprise that, its nourishment, its utterances, its de- nevertheless, we enjoy so large a mealight in sacred songs. (Hear, and ap- sure of public respect, and possess so plause.) We must not insist on an large an amount of public influence, and absolute and rigid uniformity. If ever really stand so well among the Churches we are to become a power in that of broad, rich, and populous England. country, or a blessing to it, our Church (Applause.) I do not mean, however, must be constructed on a somewhat broader basis than your circumstances in Scotland would admit of. We must allow large amount of freedom of action on the part of our congregations, past year, there has been raised for so as to represent against the English local, missionary, and other purposes, Establishment on the one hand, the from this handful of people, nearly principle of liberty and growth, whilst £19,000; and over the length and we uphold against Congregational inde- breadth of the Church their contribupendency on the other, the principle of tions were above £40,000-(applause)rule and order. I do not say that these a sum which, when it is considered that views are actually in the ascendency in our communicants are under 20,000, our Synod, but they are steadily ad- and that we have not had more than 90 vancing to it. (Applause.) And I am congregations to draw upon, shows the sure that those of us who have our contributions of our people to be at a home in England, and are resolved to rate, not, I think, very far below that make it the scene of our labours, and measure of liberality, which, by the to build up a strong and useful Church blessing of God, your Church has suethere, will, sooner or later, be per- ceeded in drawing forth at the hands of suaded that the course we are pursuing your people. (Applause.) I think, is the right one. We have been making therefore, we are enabled to ask for some steady, if not rapid, progress. your aid, if not in money, at least in Seventeen years ago, the whole number men. I have my friend Dr. Bonar in of our charges was 70; it is now up- my eye, for I believe he has obtained wards of 100. The most northern of more ministers from us in England for our Presbyteries seem to be stationary. the colonies than we have received from It is mainly in those of London and Scotland for ourselves. Now, we have Lancashire that the additions have been no objection to educate and furnish you made. And yet, with all our growth, with men for the colonies, if you will you will be startled to hear that there admit our claim upon you in return for are 24 English counties in which Pres- men of experience, and fitted for the byterianism is altogether unrepresented, difficult work we have to accomplish. while some of the ministers of our (Hear.) With such a plethora of Church are as far removed from their ministers and means of grace as EngPresbytery seat as Aberdeen and In- land contains, we cannot expect the verness are from Edinburgh. With demand on us to be so urgent as to regard to our future progress, it is easy enable us, like the colonists, to double to see that, from the paucity of our and quadruple the number of our minis

ters and churches in a very few years; nisters of that Church, and they come but I believe that, if we place within to see that by their separation from the the reach of Scotchmen, when settled in parent, there will be no alienation of England, the Church in which they have affection, that their influence will not been trained, it will secure their pre- be weakened but strengthened, and ference and their affection; and that they that they will become more serviceable will serve as a nucleus to gather around to the cause of Evangelical Presbytethem the warm hearts and intelligent rianism in the south, I am persuaded heads of Englishmen. (Applause.) It that, acting on that principle of selfis upon this principle that the United sacrifice, on which the Secession and Presbyterians have lately been acting. Relief Churches were founded, their And yet, though they have pursued a ministers and elders and people will wise course-although they have raised see their way to unite with us on money for establishing new charges and sound and Scriptural grounds. (Apbuilding new churches-although they plause.) But I have already exceeded have sent to occupy them some of their my limits. (Hear, hear.) Sir, when I best men, men of worth on this side of look around me at this magnificent hall, the border, upon their own confession, and contrast it with the bare and shedtheir resources in England are utterly like building at the bottom of the hill, inadequate for the task they have un- in which I last had the privilege of addertaken, and their enterprize would dressing you, it is to me a sign that you have been arrested in its course and have risen in the world, a token of your have fallen to the ground, but for the rare stability, an assurance of your having liberality of a single member of their become one of the fixed and permanent body. It is not every Church, how- institutions of the country. We have ever, that has the resources or the heart often been told in England that you of such a man as Mr. Henderson of were going to split, to fall in pieces, to Park, to draw upon. (Applause.) come to an end. (A laugh.) We never Something of that sort might with great believed it. The wish was father to the propriety be done, sooner or later, by thought. But all must now be satisfied the Free Church; for with our own that you are not destined soon to die; numbers, I do not see how it is possible and we are convinced that you are refor us to overtake the necessities of solved to live, and to show that you England, and build all the new churches have a great work before you, which, which are required-churches which in the strength of Divine grace, you are are no sooner built, and have an effi- determined to accomplish. The princient ministry settled in them, than ciples on which your Church is based they become self-sustaining, and bear are imperishable. So long as the their part in the progress of Presby- Church's Head lives and reigns, he terianism. (Applause.) We have a will have those who do him homage. Committee of our Synod on the subject So long as there is a Christian people, of Union with the United Presbyterians they will own him as the only Lord of in England. There are difficulties in the consciences, and assert their right to way for all such unions involve diffi- hear his voice only, and be subject to culties-though I think they are gene- his laws. In these the principles on rally magnified, and, when faced, are which the Free Church is based—you found to be comparatively small. These have laid the foundation of an impedifficulties I hope and believe will be rishable existence. Whatever overcome. The main obstacle evi- forms, whatever new organizations, dently lies in this-that our United unions, or even disruptions, may in Presbyterian brethren have to undergo future times produce, you will never an amputation before the junction can cease to leave on Scottish soil, Scottish be effected. (Hear.) The union, in character, and Scottish religion, the their case, involves a previous sever- imprint of those principles which were ance, and there are many who naturally so nobly asserted in Scotland twenty shrink from the operation. Neverthe- years ago. Well would it have been less, I am persuaded that, as their con- for England had the fidelity to connection with the mother Church renders science exhibited 200 years ago-in them less self-reliant and progressive 1662-been more largely exemplified in than they would otherwise be, when later times. Look at the state of matthis conviction spreads among the mi- ters in the Church of England now.

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