at Springfield." Miss Annie Harvey played two pianoforte solos, "Lorelei" and "La Napolitana.' Miss Harvey was loudly applauded for her two songs, "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls" and "My Heart and Lute," whilst the other items in the programme included a well rendered song by Mrs. Marshall, the sister of Mr. Santley. Altogether a very enjoyable evening was spent, those present expressing great satisfaction at all the arrangements.

TUESDAY MORNING, 15TH JULY.

The morning session commenced at ten o'clock, and was well attended. The subject for consideration was

SECTION A:

"THE CHRISTIAN AND OTHER RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION OF PEACE AND WAR."

The PRESIDENT: Ladies and Gentlemen,-Sir Wilfrid Lawson, whose name is so well known to you, has been good enough to say that he will relieve me from the duties of the chair for this day, for which I am very much obliged to him, and I am sure you will be very much obliged to me. Sir WILFRID LAWSON, M.P., then took the chair amidst applause.

OPENING WITH PRAYER.

Mr. W. EVANS DARBY: Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen, -The Report of the Procedure Committee on the resolution that was submitted yesterday will be presented later on. It has been felt, however, that as the special subject for discussion this morning is a religious subject, an appropriate opening of the meeting, without anticipating the report which will be presented, would be that a few minutes should be given for silent devotion. I suppose, Mr. Chairman, that will follow immediately.

1

The meeting then engaged in silent prayer, after which

MINUTES.

Mr. W. E. DARBY read the minutes of the business meeting on Monday, which were confirmed.

REPORT OF PROCEDURE COMMITTEE.

Mr. W. E. DARBY, presenting the report of the Committee on Procedure, said: There were two questions yesterday referred by the Congress to the Committee on Procedure, the first relating to the opening of the meetings of the Congress by devotion, and the second in connection with the resolution that was moved-that a letter should be sent to the Queen. The Committee have very carefully considered the first question, and they have felt that there was a great deal of difficulty connected with it. Probably the majority of the members. of the Congress would prefer-I think there is no doubt they would prefer that the meeting should open with devotion-(hear, hear)-but a by no means inconsiderable minority would prefer that no such exercises were adopted. The Committee, therefore, felt that it could not recommend that any formal devotion should commence the proceedings of the Congress, but they would respectfully suggest that inasmuch as devotion does not consist in forms but in the spirit, those who are anxious to begin the meetings in that way should assemble five minutes before the time and spend that interval in devotion. They could not break the unity of the Congress. Some of our friends would be compelled-they were represented on the Committee, and their views were put before us-to remain away until that opening procedure,

if it were adopted, had been got through; consequently, we felt the unity of the Congress was involved, and that it would be far better to keep the unity of spirit in the bond of peace rather than have any formal expression of devotion. With regard to the second question, the Committee report that they recommend the Congress to appoint a sub-committee, selecting the members from themselves, who should prepare a Memorial, not to our sovereign only-for it might possibly be invidious to select one sovereign out of a number-but to all the heads of civilised States. If the Congress accepts that report, it will be your duty first of all to appoint this Committee to prepare such an address.

The report having been adopted,

COMMITTEE ON MEMORIAL.

The CHAIRMAN said the next business was to appoint a Committee to draw up the Memorial referred to, and requested that nominations be now made.

Mr. HOWARTH (of Liverpool) moved, and a delegate seconded the resolution, that the matter be left in the hands of the Bureau.

Mr. WIGHAM moved an amendment, seconded by Baron DE ST. GEORGES ARMSTRONG, that the names might be suggested by the Procedure Committee, and be brought to the next sitting of the Congress.-The amendment was carried.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON, M.P.

The CHAIRMAN: Ladies and Gentlemen,-I got a letter this morning from a constituent. He said :- "Will you kindly give me a ticket of admission to the House of Commons ? I have never been in London before, and I am anxious to see the place where they make so many mistakes." Well, I don't know whether I am not looked upon as one of the mistaken people, and whether you have not made a mistake in asking me to come here-if only for one reason-a reason that you have already seen manifested-that I am not able to speak any language except my own, and that very indifferently. I assure you that I feel it a great deprivation not to be able to express my feelings of good-will towards my fellow men from other countries who are here to-day in a manner which would be quite intelligible to them. There are no people who ever existed to whom I owe so great a grudge as the people who tried to build up the tower of Babel. Every day of my life I hate them. For I feel that they have brought upon us one of the greatest inconveniences which this world is subject to. I wish we had something like that language which I have heard recommended-I think it is. called Volapük-by which we should all be able to communicate with one another. But, ladies and gentlemen, although there may be different tongues here to-day, I feel that our hearts are one. We all feel and admire that sublime sentence which says, "God has made of one blood all nations of the earth to dwell together in unity." But, unfortunately, they don't dwell together in unity; and it is to try to make them live in unity, to carry out the will of God, that this Congress has assembled. I said that I came from the House of Commons. In the House of Commons we are supposed to be all politicians. Now that puts me in a difficulty again, because when I read over the rules which you have decided on to regulate the meetings here, I find that "Speakers are: requested to avoid in their addresses any direct allusion to the political

events of the day; should they persist in so doing, the president shall call them to order, and, if necessary, withdraw the right to speak." But as I am president to-day, 1 don't know exactly how that will work. But I shall carry out the rule. I shall make no "direct" allusions to political events, but make some indirect ones. Now we are met here this morning, according to the programme, specially to consider the religious aspects of this great Peace question. I remember-I think it was during the Anti-Corn Law Agitation somebody wrote a tract entitled "Should Religious men be Political?" And somebody wrote another tract, and I think the name of it was quite a sufficient answer, "Should Political Men be Religious?" That settled the question, to my mind. If you are to have politics at all you can't do without them. I think they should be joined to your religion, or else your politics are not much worth. But there is a kind of idea abroad that religious people ought not to meddle with politics--one of the most mischievous ideas. that ever injured the human race. What did the great Times newspaper say the other day when we were carrying on an agitation, with which we have nothing to do to-day, an agitation against what we thought was wrong? The Times said, "What does it matter what the great religious associations say! The House of Commons is not going to be influenced by them." Ah! but the House of Commons was influenced by them. The man who wrote that forgot the great maxim of John Stuart Mill, who said that " one man with a belief is equal to a hundred men with only interests." And so we, who had a belief in that matter, were triumphant over those who were only interested. And, ladies and gentlemen, so it has always been. I say that all the great triumphs of the world in political and public matters have arisen from the great religious feeling at the bottom of all those movements, and when I say religious feeling, I mean the great moral feeling, the great principle of obedience to the moral law which lies at the foundation of all real religion. What was it that did away with slavery? Why, it was the great moral feeling that it was wrong to rob your fellow man of his liberty. What gave us Free Trade? Why, it was the moral feeling that it was wrong to starve your fellow men for the benefit of a class. What gave us Reform? The great moral feeling that it was wrong to set one man up politically over another. And now I suppose all you who are here believe in the great moral doctrine, that it is wrong to settle disputes by the arbitrament of force, instead of by the arbitrament of reason. In fact, you believe in the great principle laid down by my ever-revered friend Mr. John Bright when he said, "Force is no remedy." But that is not the doctrine of the world exactly, and is not the doctrine of many so-called religious people of this country. I am always very much surprised at the way religion is carried on in this country. You send a boy to the Sundayschool, and you tell him, "My dear boy, you must love your enemies; if any boy strikes you, don't strike him again; try to reform him by loving him." Well, the boy stays in the Sunday-school till he is 14 or 15 years of age, and then his friends say, "Put him in the Army." What has he to do in the Army? Why, not to love his enemies, but whenever he sees an enemy to run him through the body with a bayonet. That is the nature of all religious teaching in this country. I do not think that that is a very good way of carrying out the precepts of religion. I think if it is a good thing for the boy to love his enemy, it is a good thing for the man to love his enemy. It is nearly nineteen centuries now since the foundation of the Christian religion, and all this time what have the Christian nations been doing? An account was published the other day, I presume tolerably correct, which showed that in Europe the great Christian nations keep among them-they are almost all Christian except Turkey-the nations of Europe, the great powers, keep among them,

considering the reserves as well as the men, who are always ready for action, somewhere about 28,000,000 of armed men to settle quarrels by killing one another, instead of by arguing. That is what the Christian nations of the world are doing at this moment. It is a very expensive way also; for this publication which I saw-I believe it was correct -made out that since the year 1872 these nations had spent the almost incredible amount of £1,500,000,000 of money in preparing and settling their quarrels by killing one another. Now it seems to me that with that state of things one of two positions must be accepted, either that Christianity is a failure, or that those who profess to expound Christianity have failed in expounding it properly. You may take your choice of those two positions. I have not much doubt in my own mind which one you will think is the correct one when you have thought it over. As to the religious aspects of this question-well, the religious people in this country, a great number of them, seem to rejoice greatly when they hear of any slaughter of the people whom they are pleased to call their enemies. When a man commits murder in this country, if they catch him they hang him, but this country sends out soldiers and great generals to kill thousands and thousands of people, and when they come home, instead of being hanged they are sent to the House of Lords to govern us, and the religious people have great services in their cathedrals and churches thanking God for the slaughter which has been accomplished. When I read of these thanksgivings I am reminded of Burns's lines. When he heard the bells ringing and the services going on in thanks for a great victory, he said:

Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks
To murder men, and then give thanks?
For very shame, proceed no further:
God won't accept of thanks for murther.

But of course there is great excuse in this country for that sort of thing because a great number of those who take a leading part in religious performances are connected with the State and the Sovereign; and the Sovereign, the head of the State in this country, is also the head of the Church, and of course those who are in a church of that sort are obliged to obey the head of the Church, which is the Sovereign, and the Sovereign acts through the will of the Parliament of this country. I do not look for much change for the better from that sort of people; I do not look for the great success of our peace movement to the high and the mighty, not many great, not many rich, not many noble are with us. I do not know that they ever will be; but I look to the democracies of England and of Europe to carry out the great principles which we are here to advocate. Whyshould we despair? Why should we think things are going on so badly? It is only a very few years since the democracies really got any power in this country at all. Government before that had been of the classes, by the classes, for the classes; but now a change has come over the spirit of our nation, and here in England, Government is of the people, for the people, and by the people. And when we get the people right, all will be right. When they once understand this question, they will sweep away this vile system for ever. We may be encouraged. I speak with great delicacy concerning foreign countries, and with ignorance, too; but from what I can gather, I believe in France there has been a strong condemnation of what has been called the adventurous colonial policy, which is, I believe, the great motive power in French politics at the present day, so far as I can understand it. Look at Germany, supposed to be the greatest military power at the present that we have. There is evidently the greatest discontent with the burdens which the people are bearing in that country. And in England, look back at the General Election of