doubting that which Christ lays down as the first condition of His Church as a success in the world.

HOW THIS UNITY IS ACCOMPLISHED.

He tells us the mode by which this unity is accomplished, and its ratio formalis. Like all the works of God, it is beautiful for its simplicity, "I in them, and Thou in Me. . . . . I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given me out of the world. . . . . The words which Thou gavest Me, I have given to them. ... .... and they have received them . . . . and they have kept My Word."

Here then is the ONE SPIRIT,-the Divine Mind of the Father communicated to the human Mind of the Son, and then passed on by Him in all its integrity to several, while each receives the impression whole and entire. Each is therefore a reflection of the Mind, i.e., the revelation, of Christ, as He again reflects the mind of God His Father, and each is consequently a reflection of the mind of all his brethren, and unity absolute and transcendental is the result spontaneous and effortless. It is the unity of the seals impressed by the one and self-same impressing seal. Christ the impressing seal engraved by His Heavenly Father, and they the seals impressed. Each one is the exact image of the active seal, and therefore the exact image of all his peers, on the axiom that things equal to the same are equal to one another. Given this entire acceptance by all of the one doctrine as it emanates from Christ, and all are one, even as the Son is one with the Father; the Son in them, and the Father in Him; and Jerusalem is built as a city at unity within itself, and the Temple of God raised without the sound of axe or hammer.

HAD ONLY HE APPEARED!

Let this one teaching as a divine message to man run through the entire body of those who invoke the name of Christ, and before the going down of the sun the schisms which divide Christianity would be healed. If to the Conference at Lucerne the Master had appeared in the midst with the wounds which are His credentials, and had once more, with clear enunciation, declared in the ears of all that "word," that deposit of Faith, the sum of revealed truth which he whilom revealed to the first Apostles-in the twinkling of an eye all differences would have vanished; all denominational terms would have become obsolete words; there would have ensued an amalgamation, not of" some sort," but that which God prescribes. The Conference would have become "One Body and one Spirit."

If, while neither sun nor stars appear, men on board a ship are asked to indicate the north, they will point to every quarter of the compass. There will be no unity of declaration. But let their judgment be guided by a magnetic needle true to its polarity, and perfect unity will be thereby engendered and rendered permanent. Every man board, looking at the needle, can point by its pointing, and know the north infallibly.

THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE.

on

Go through the world asking what is Christianity, the genuine truth of Christ; and each individual answering out of private judgment will give a different answer. But

let one man be kept true to the "word," like the needle to its polarity, and all can conform their faith to his, and so be orthodox in unity. Our divine Lord foresaw the divisions of Christendom, their cause, and their perpetuity. He devised a means for their suppression stronger than their cause, and as perpetual. "Simon, Simon!" he exclaims, addressing Simon Peter, "Satan hath desired to have you (vuâs) that he may sift you (vμâs) as wheat.” The illustration comes from the threshing-floor and represents the flock of Christ as tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine like this our Britain, at the present day. The sifting is Satan's work. "An enemy hath done this." It will be his constant aim to scatter and render disunited while the world lasts, and well he has succeeded. But there is a "but." The next clause brings in the adversative particle, and when our Lord says that word onlythat "but "we know without further waiting that a cause of unity is introduced, and a remedy has been found for all disunion. "But," He says, "I have prayed for thee (de): prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." From the plural He has descended to the singular. It is the provision of the compass, the needle true to exact polarity: it is the provision of the sealed pattern, from whence all else can be faithfully copied and end in uniformity. Peter's faith shall never fail, for He who is heard for His reverence has asked in that strong petition which, equivalent to a Divine decree, can never pass away, though heaven and earth should vanish. It needs no further word to express the effect of this infallibility of Peter's faith secured by Jesu's prayer. He will be the Rock, the stable Rock, and all who rest upon him shall be established by his stability. But the Teacher was explicit, and expressed the consequence in those enjoining words, "Stablish thou thy brethren.” All thy brethren : even thy brother Apostles; all the flock, both sheep and lambs, shall be fed by thee!

UBI PETRUS IBI ECCLESIA.

Thus was unity provided for, at least for Peter's lifetime. And shall we say that afterward, when Peter died, the work of Satan met no check, but, while his sifting went on day by day, no Peter was there with unfailing faith to stablish the brethren in unity? Away with the foolish irreverent thought! So long as Satan seeks to scatter the flock, so long shall Peter live and rule, not indeed in personal existence, but by a long line of succession, patent to the whole world, like a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid. One after another they should succeed to Peter's Chair and to Peter's Faith. All the flock in union with that Chair shall manifest the note of

unity. If millions take their Faith from Peter's teaching

voice all those millions shall be as one man in their religious unity. If the whole world would take its doctrine from that Chair the one world would be the one Church, and every jarring note would die away in silence. Let men seek for any other cause of unity and they will look in vain. Like the men of Sodom, they weary themselves to find the door. There is no foundation laid but this, which has been laid by Christ Jesus:-"Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;" "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; . . . stablish thy brethren." (To be continued).

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADMISSIONS.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S Romanes lecture seems to be greatly exercising the minds of students of evolution. Himself a high priest of that famous hypothesis, he has declared that "The practice of that which is ethically best-what we call goodness or virtue-involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest as to the fitting as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence."

This important declaration seems to indicate some measure of defection from the orthodox evolutionary creed. The formula of "the struggle for existence" and "the survival of the fittest" is apparently deposed from its place of almost Nicene authority in the world of science. There is consequent jubilation in the heretical and dismay in the orthodox camp.

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S VIEW.

Mr. Leslie Stephen hastens in the Contemporary to defend the universal validity of the traditional dogma. But, as has often happened in ecclesiastical parallels, the apologist in the very act of defending modifies, or at least re-states, the dogma. We have, it appears, construed the struggle for existence too rigidly, as consisting solely of internecine strife. We are now reminded that "the struggle necessarily implies reciprocal dependence in a countless variety of ways. There is not only a conflict but a system of tacit alliances." "The struggle is so far from internecine that it necessarily involves co-operation. It cannot even be said that it necessarily implies suffering." "Not only are species interdependent as well as partly in competition, but there is an absolute dependence in all the higher species between its different members which may be said to imply a de facto altruism, as the dependence upon other species implies a de facto co-operation."

A NEW VERSION OF "THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE." These are refreshing statements. Nature after all is not simply "red in tooth and claw with ravine." Rather, should we say, "yearnings she hath of her own natural kind," and "even something of a mother's mind;" for parental care in animals is Mr. Stephen's great instance. Our views of nature are, it seems, to be changed as were our views of human society. In the former as in the latter we had exaggerated the individualism actually present. "The struggle for existence" is now even in the lower orders of life, just as on the plane of modern economics, being qualified by "tacit alliances," "reciprocal dependence," altruism"!

Having thus humanized and ethicized the evolutionary doctrine, Mr. Stephen proceeds to ask: "What is the

difference which takes place when the monkey gradually loses his tail and sets up a superior brain? Is it properly to be described as a development or improvement of the 'cosmic process,' or as the beginning of a prolonged contest against it?"

He answers: "I should rather say that it is a develop. ment of the tacit alliances, and a modification so far of the direct or internecine conflict. Both were equally implied in the older conditions, and both still exist." "The struggle for existence rests upon the unalterable facts, that the world is limited and population elastic, and under all conceivable circumstances we shall still have in some way or other to proportion our numbers to our supplies, and under all circumstances those who are fittest by reason of intellectual or moral or physical qualities will have the best chance of occupying good places, and leaving descendants to supply the next generation. It is surely not less true that in the civilised as much as in the most barbarous race, the healthiest are the most likely to live, and the most likely to be ancestors. If so, the struggle will still be carried on upon the same principies, though certainly in a different shape." "The more moral the race, the more harmonious and the better organized, the better it is fitted for holding its own." The charge is not that it has ceased to struggle, but that it struggles by different means. It holds its own, not merely by brute force, but by justice, humanity, and intelligence, while it may be added, the possession of such qualities does not weaken the brute force, where such a quality is required."

In fact, according to Mr. Leslie Stephen, "the struggle for existence" becomes in the case of man an elevated endeavour to do justly and to love mercy.

FROM A CHRISTIAN STANDPOINT.

Prof. St. George Mivart enters the field in the Nineteenth Century from quite another side. He exults with perhaps too much controversial glee over what he terms, "evolution in Prof. Huxley." "I have always maintained," he cries, "that the cosmic process, since it often favours the ill-doer more than the virtuous man, could never by any possibility have evolved the ethical ideal." He goes on to draw from Prof. Huxley's statements inferences concerning the spiritual nature of man which the Romanes lecturer would scarcely accept. He exclaims: "A nature must be wonderful indeed which demands for its existence the reversal of that great cosmic process which, so far as we know, has ever and everywhere prevailed antecedently to its advent. The difference between a being of so transcendant a nature and every other must surely be something altogether different from the difference between mercury grass and a field buttercup, or between a wolf and a badger! "So great, indeed, is the contrast and distance between man and the world of irrational nature, that it suggests now, as it suggested of old, a contrast and difference on the other side-I mean, it suggests the existence of a 'real supernatural'-of a mode of being which is raised above all human nature, as man himself is raised above all infra-human nature. And so I come to one of the corollaries which I think results from such a change of

view with respect to man as the words above quoted from Professor Huxley would seem to indicate—namely, the recognition of a Divine All-perfect Creator of the world and man."

High as man is raised above the rest of Nature, "the very limitations of his reason, considered in the light of the highest ethical aspirations of his being, demand something beyond Nature-a Divine revelation. This is what the higher races of mankind seem to me to have, consciously or unconsciously, sought and striven for, from the dawn of history till the advent of Christianity. The acceptance of that revelation (of course without the surrender of a single truth of physical, biological, historical, or any other science) is, I believe, the logical outcome of the Theistic corollary implied by that power of ethical intuition which so forcibly proclaims both the responsibilities and the dignity of man."

These corollaries "Prof. Huxley seems as yet indisposed to admit "; but Prof. Mivart hopes his mental evolution will not fail of ultimately reaching them.

10

THE ANTI-SACERDOTAL CAMPAIGN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR'S vigorous polemic in last month's Contemporary Review has roused Canon Knox-Little to contribute a counterblast to the August number. We fear that neither friends nor foes will consider that he has materially advanced the controversy. The Canon's aim seems to be not so much to reply as to retort. Half of his sixteen pages is taken up with personal recrimination. He charges the Archdeacon with adopting "a tone of infallibility," with "violence," "hectoring," with writing "controversial rubbish," with introducing "ferocities," with at once "playing to the gallery" and "posing as a martyr," with indulging in "sneers and innuendos," with "fury," "unchristian temper," "gross unfairness," and so on and so on, until the most sympathetic readers turning over page after page of this kind of thing are driven perforce to recall the familiar instruction “No case; abuse the plaintiff's attorney." But at length they begin to be reassured by finding the Canon in the latter half of his essay condescending to argument.

"A LARGE QUESTION."

He insists (1) that "there is a real priesthood in the Church of England." "Priestly powers in their fulness

dwell in the Incarnate Christ." "Thou art Priest for ever." "We have a High Priest." He had " an unchangeable priesthood." Priests on earth, ordained according to His will, in succession from His apostles, have a ministerial but real priesthood, not vicarious. They present one sacrifice (once for all offered on the Cross as a sacrifice of blood and sorrow) before God the Father "as a perpetual memorial of His Passion" sacramentally on every altar of the Church. They minister in the power of the Priesthood of Jesus Christ." This he avers is the "teaching of Holy Scripture." The Archdeacon's saying, that "the Lord Christ was not a priest by birth and never in His life on earth performed a single priestly function," fairly takes away" the Canon's breath. On recovering it, he affirms that "the Scripture proofs of the Priesthood of the Lord are innumerable; yes, and of the handing on of His Priesthood for ever; but these are large questions, and cannot be dealt with in a moment." He prefers to limit the discussion to the formularies of the Church of England. And this is practically all the answer which the

Canon presents to Dr. Farrar's well-supported contention that the New Testament knows no priestly order in the Church! The interests of truth and of serious controversy would surely have been better promoted had the Canon brought forward his Scriptural evidences for a Christian sacerdotal order. Eight pages of angry "remonstrance with the style of an opponent's argument, and not eight lines, nay, not one line, in answer to his principal argument -the proportion is hardly likely to convey an impression of the Canon's controversial strength. To say no more than that the question of Scriptural warrant for modern sacerdotal claims is "a large question," is almost amusing in its evasiveness. Even in dealing with Anglican precedent, where Dr. Little seems to feel himself on surer ground, he adopts similar tactics. “It would be easy,” he remarks, "to show that the Archdeacon flatters himself too much when he thinks from the evidence of "our greatest divines" English Presbyters are in no sense of the word sacrificing priests; but quotations would be wearying and take up too much room." He contents himself with citing four, and then adds: "But readers would be wearied and space would be outrun, if one went on to quote the multitudinous testimony from the great divines of the Church of England, falling in with the plain teaching of the Prayer-book, that not the Presbyterian idea but the Sacerdotal idea is the teaching of the Church of England, and part of the Gospel of Christ."

PRIEST=SACERDOS, NOT PRESBYTER.

As to the sacerdotal teaching of the Prayer-book he observes that " Sacerdos-i.e., sacrificing priest-was used in the Latin service books up to the time of the English Reformation. The popular English expression for this word was 'priest'; it was definitely fixed in the minds of the English people as the word accepted by them to express a sacerdotal ministry. Had our Reformers intended to abandon the idea, they must have abandoned the word. They might have called ministers either 'pastor,' or 'minister,' or 'presbyter,' and they deliberately would not. They knew what they were doing. The Presbyterians at the same moment rejected the term 'priest,' for they knew what they were doing, and they had abandoned the sacerdotal idea." "Lest any appearance of truth should be allowed to remain for the Archdeacon's contention that 'priest' only represents 'presbyter,'-i.e., elder'—and never sacerdos ie., sacrificing priest in the article on the Marriage of Priests,' the Church takes care to write in the Latin copy-which is of equal authority as (sic) the English copy-not De conjugio presbyterorum,' but 'De conjugio SACERDOTUM.' "THE REAL PRESENCE."

The charge of accepting Transubstantiation the Canon flatly contradicts. He does not regard the doctrine as a heresy. Archbishop Bramhall described it as an opinion of the schools, not an article of the faith." The Church of England, in fact, teaches emphatically and distinctly 'the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under the form of bread and wine.' What our part of the Catholic Church does is this: she refuses to say how that mysterious Presence is given, and she declines to accept the teaching of the Roman part of the Catholiè Church, that the how' of the Presence is to be defined

by the term 'Transubstantiation.' I will venture to say that no Ritualist,' if I must use the Archdeacon's insulting term, believes in Transubstantiation."

IN PRAISE OF THE CONFESSIONAL.

As to auricular confession, he declares, "The Church of England teaches confession of sin (1) and always to God, (2) to God, and if the soul needs it, to God in the presence

of His minister. Confession according to her teaching is a privilege allowed to her children if they choose to use it. She directs her priests to offer to her children the opportunity of making confession to the priest if they choose. She encourages confession to the priest in certain cases.

It is

a matter of liberty, not of absolute necessity. The Archdeacon makes much of the abuse of confession. Everything has been abused." Usum non tollit abusus. He adds, "Far from none of any manliness and intelligence' adopting the abject thraldom' of confession and absolution, some of the noblest men I have ever known, in every rank, from the highest to the lowest, and with an intelligence, uprightness, and manliness not inferior to the Archdeacon himself, have found and find in the use of confession and absolution-as taught and sanctioned by the Church of England-gifts of supernatural grace, powers to fight against the encroachments of sin and a greater nearness to the tenderness and strength of Christ."

THE WORD "MASS."

"The Archdeacon is very angry at the use of the word mass.' Does he or does he not believe that Roman Catholics receive the Sacrament? If he does believe it, does he believe that our Lord instituted one rite for Roman Catholics and another for Anglicans? If not, then, in the name of common sense, what does it matter what name you give it? Christians may call it Eucharist, Communion, Sacrament, Lord's Supper, or Mass. And why in an enlightened age may they not call it what they please?"

The Canon winds up his polemic with the Johannime exhortation, "Beloved, let us love on another," etc.

ISLAM IN INDIA.

FORECAST BY AN EX-MOSLEM.

THE World's Parliament of Religions casts its deepening -shadow over the magazines. The Church Missionary Intelligencer, as though to show that the chief agency of Anglican missions does not share the scruples of the Anglican Primate, gives prominence to a paper which is .contributed to the Chicago Parliament on "Christian Efforts among Indian Mohammedans." The writer is the Rev. Dr. Maulvi Imad-ud-din, a descendant of Persian royalty, whose family has stood high among the saints and scholars of Islam, but who abandoned Islam for Christianity in 1866. His essay, to which we also refer in our Missionary page, is full of hope. Christ, he says, "will conquer in India now, even as He has conquered in other lands in the past. This is the intense conviction nowadays of us Christians here, and our expectation from God is that some day our land will certainly be Christian even as Great Britain now is. However much our enemies, Hindus, Mohammedans, Dayanandis, and others, may oppose and revile, the time is most assuredly coming when they will not be found even for the seeking. We shall have only two sorts of people then-the people of God and the people of the world who serve their own lusts. The trend of national life amongst us is now setting swiftly

and surely in this direction."

CONVERSION OF CULTURED MOSLEMS.

"It is evident that learned Mohammedans are coming in larger numbers into the fold of Christ than the unlearned, because they are better educated." "There was a time when the conversion of a Mohammedan to Christianity was looked on as a wonder. Now they have come and are coming in their thousands. Compared with converts from amongst Hindus," he admits, converts from amongst Mohammedans are fewer far. Where there are

ten thousand from amongst Hindus, there are a thousand from amongst Mohammedans. This backwardness to come into the Church of Christ is but part and parcel of Mohammedan backwardness and sluggishness in all other matters. Backwardness seems to be their fate in all things."

REFORM RISING FROM WITHIN.

The ex-Moslem's confidence receives support from an article in the Contemporary, by Mr. Edward Sell on "The New Islam." The more intelligent among the younger Indian Moslems have revived the tenets of the Mutazalas, a liberal sect of the second and third centuries after the Hegira, who defended the use of human reason in religion. "Our schools and colleges are turning out, year by year, numbers of young men to whom the old orthodox position seems untenable men who hope to find in a reformed and purified Islam a religion which will meet their spiritual needs and conserve their patriotic and devout admiration of Muhammad." "The educational department of missionary schools and colleges is a great solvent of ancient unreasonable dogmatic beliefs." The position these reformers take may be summed up thus, "the Shariat, or Law of Islam, is not necessarily a binding one, it may be set aside or changed when new conditions require fresh developments. The teaching of the Quran on moral questions is not to be taken as a permanent positive injunction, but as a mere temporary measure. Rightly interpreted, the Quran teaches the exact opposite of what the canonical legists have formulated as its law." They contend "that the Quran keeps pace with the most fully and rapidly developing civilisations, if rationally interpreted, and not as expounded by the Ulama in the Common Law Book." They repudiate the dictation-theory of Divine inspiration, and allow that the inspired one is "neither immaculate nor infallible." Hence they strive to make Islam progressive and to free it from the long curse of immobility.

POLYGAMY AND SLAVERY REPROBATED.

They essay a difficult task in finding a Moslem basis for monogamy. Yet Syed Amir Ali says, "The conviction is gradually forcing itself on all sides, in all advanced Muslim communities, that polygamy is as much opposed to the teachings of Muhammad as it is to the general progress of civilised society and true culture." For my own part," he adds, "I look upon polygamy in the present day as an adulterous connection, and as contrary to the spirit of Islam, an opinion which is shared by a large number of Musalmans. Mahomet's nine wives are explained on the ground of his "self-sacrificing" desire to support them, and his policy of uniting the warring tribes. Another Moslem writes, It remains for the Muslims to show the falseness of the aspersions cast on the memory of the great and noble Prophet by proclaiming in explicit terms that slavery is reprobated by their faith and discountenanced by their code."

These reformers are enthusiasts for their religion. By them "the growth of the spirit of chivalry, the revival of

learning, the improvement of morals, the development of

art and science, the Renaissance, and even the Reformation, are all traced to the influence of the life and work of Muhammad." It is however remarkable that the reformers congratulate themselves that the movement set on foot is conducted under a neutral government." This tribute to a Christian government suggests deeper obligations to other Christian influences.

Mr. Sell himself believes that the movement "will elevate individuals and purify the family life of many, yet that it will, like all reform movements of the past, have very little real effect on Islam as a polity and as a religion."

GENERAL BOOTH'S SKETCH OF HIS MOTHER. THE family interest which helps so powerfully to keep the Salvation Army together, is further ministered to in the August number of All the World. General Booth there tells the story of his mother, of whom a coloured portrait is also given. As the mother makes the man, it is interesting to ascertain the creative features of the old lady's character.

"I had a good mother," says the General. "So good she has ever appeared to me that I have often said that all I knew of her life seemed a striking contradiction to the law of human depravity. I loved my mother. From infancy to manhood I lived in her. Home was not home without her. I do not remember any single act of wilful disobedience to her wishes. When my father died I was thirteen years old, but so passionately was I attached to my mother that I can recollect that, deeply though I felt his loss, my grief was all but forbidden by the thought that it was not my mother."

HER LOVE-STORY.

"Both my mother and my father were Derbyshire people. They were born within a few miles of each other, the latter at Belper, a small town, and the former at Somercoates, a small village within a mile or two of Alfreton. My mother's father was a well-to-do farmer. Her mother died when she was three years of age, and her father marrying again she was taken to the heart and home of a kind uncle and aunt, who reared and educated her, giving her at the same time a good sound religious training.

"Years passed of which we have but imperfect knowledge, during which by some means she drifted and became resident of the small town of Ashby-de-la Zouch. Here she met my father, who was availing himself of the waters as a remedy for his chronic enemy rheumatism. He offered marriage. She refused. He left the town indignantly; but returned to renew his offer, which was finally accepted. Marriage followed.

"My father's fortunes appear to have commenced waning almost directly after their union. At that time he would have passed, I suppose, as a rich man, according to the estimate of riches in those days. But bad times came. My father... was ruined. How bravely my mother stood by his side during that dark and sorrowful season is indelibly written on my memory.

HER APPEARANCE.

"In person she was tall and slender, gathering flesh somewhat with growing years. Her features were original. forcible and agreeable, commanding confidence at the first glance. Her grey eyes were soft and piercing, bespeaking strength of character and intelligence as well as benevolence of heart. Her nose was prominent, and her hair, for her age, my daughters tell me, was somewhat remarkable. At seventy it reached to her knees, and two of them, when children, often amused themselves by plaiting it, one on one side and the other on the other. On the whole, while regarding herself as the most unnoteworthy of individuals, she had a grace and dignity by nature which secured for her the respect and confidence of all who knew her.

HER CHARACTER.

"What religious light she possessed in her early days she obtained, I imagine, largely amongst the Baptists, of which church, I rather fancy, she must have been at one

time a member, although from my earliest recollectionswe were brought up to consider ourselves as members of the Church of England.

"After my conversion, which did not take place until after my father's death, she with other members of our family joined the Wesleyan Church, in union with which she lived and died.

She was certainly one of the most, if not the very most, unselfish of beings it has been my lot to come in contact with. . . . To remove misery was her delight. No beggar went empty-handed from her door. The sorrows of any poor wretch were certain of her commiseration, and of a helping hand in their removal if this were possible. The children of misfortune were sure of her pity, and the children of misconduct she pitied almost the more, because they were the cause of sorrow to those who had reason. to mourn on their account."

From which maternal traits presumably may be traced in gradual evolution the “Darkest England” scheme.

REV. CHARLES GORE ON NONCONFORMITY. IN an address on "The Apostolic Succession," recently delivered before the Norwich branch of the English ChurchUnion, Rev. Charles Gore referred to the work of English Nonconformity in terms which, coming from such a quarter, will be hailed with hope by all lovers of true Christian union. Dealing with the chief objection to the Christian episcopate, namely, its mistakes in the past, he said, according to the Church Times report, that if they asked what was the origin of the vast Nonconformist body opposed to the Apostolic ministry, there was no doubt it lay not in any deficiency in the principle, but in extraordinary deficiencies in the past use of it. The people to whom Wesley preached were in fact Pagans, through the scandalous neglect of the Anglican clergy. If they recalled the time when there were no Welsh Bishops resident, and thought of the incredible scandals which then prevailed, the disastrous condition of things in which they now found themselves would be seen to be through their own fault as a corporate body to a large extent. As

A PENITENT CHURCH

they must feel profoundly and deeply that their sins. and shortcomings in the past had brought about this state of things. They owed to Nonconformity a debt they could not exaggerate for having kept alive in many ways outside their influence a knowledge of the gospel in some real form, and they must feel that the wrongs of many generations were not to be removed or lost ground recovered by a few years of increased activity. Then God had astonishingly blessed the Nonconformist ministry, and this must have an immense effect on the minds of those who had been brought up under it. The great massof hereditary Nonconformists knew how really the Spirit of God had been at work amongst them, and it would be blasphemy on their part to deny the reality of His work. amongst them because they believed it to be outside the covenant of God. Knowing this, it was ridiculous to suppose that they would be acknowledged and recognised assoon as ever they began to do their duty again. What they had to do was not, on the whole, to be controversial, but to be positive. They knew the commission they had received; what they had to do was to teach the truth in its fulness and in its human application.