Thus, too, as to the third point, questions will and must arise as to anomalies and inconsistencies, real or imagined; as to the ights of country members, and the privileges of district committees. It may be said that all the subscribers to the same society should be placed as nearly as possible on a par; that it is strange for an association to recommend the formation of district committees, and yet allow them no collective voice in the association itself, and no representation by chosen delegates. It may be urged that some suggestion like Mr. Perceval's should be tried; or some other plan adopted for the satisfaction of men who may think that the religious excitements of a vast city, and the number of proprietary chapels, and the ambition fostered by large and fashionable congregations, and almost unnumbered circumstances of time, and place, and personal interest, may engender a somewhat different tone of divinity from the tenor which prevails in the quiet and more obscure ministrations of country parishes. But if the theology was definitively settled, how many of these questions would fall at once to the ground; how comparatively little could the most distant subscribers object to intrust their interests to the London clergy; and how soon would that discussion, or that controversy, in the district committees, which is now so much dreaded, be found to be a healthy vent, rather than a dangerous inconvenience.

We might pursue these remarks into many smaller details; as, for instance, into the question, which has been sometimes raised, as to the right or competency of any committee, or any society, to tamper with an author's productions after his death, or in any way alter a publication without the knowledge and consent of the writer, continuing nevertheless to put it forth under his name. Now this inquiry, and all similar inquiries in reality, take their sting from a latent or avowed suspicion, that the theology of the association is unhinged, or likely to be unhinged. Wherever there is the very narrowest opening, religious disagreements will insinuate themselves into the crevices; and we might confirm our position by illustrations drawn from the pecuniary, and commercial, and mechanical transactions of the Society; nay, even by the question, whether it should be its own bookseller, or employ, as, heretofore, the publishers, with whose house it has been so long connected. But on this subject we forbear from adding a word.

The first thing, then, and the second, and the third, is for the Society to follow up its circular-address, and take its stand upon the adamantine basis of its ancient doctrines. We do not mean that no expressions are to be modified, no slips and inadvertencies corrected; but we contend that the inviolability of the fundamental tenets of the Society, recognised as its presiding principle,

will be the auxiliary, nay, rather the lever or moving power of all other improvements; but without such recognition, neither will other improvements be found practicable, nor can harmony be ensured from month to month. It is for the sake of the Standing Committee, and in sincere respect for the Standing Committee, that we speak, when we declare that there are malcontents who will speak of them in terms like the following, as long as their minds are clouded with one shadow of distrust:

"They must put out, not a guarded, dubious, vote-catching manifesto, ambiguous as a Delphic oracle, but a clear, straight-forward, specific guide to the subscribers, about which there can be no mistake. They must take a decided tone; they must fix a standard. If it is never fixed, what tranquillity, what order, can there be in the meetings of the Society, or what efficiency in its operations? If they mean ultimately to fix it, there is almost bad faith in not fixing it at once. And what but eventual enmity can exist in the breasts of the very party which they would propitiate, if they advance only to draw back, and open the door only to shut it, and excite hopes only to disappoint them ?"

So there has been a complaint-probably a well-grounded complaint that the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has been lately turned into a debating society; at least an arena on which the gladiators might descend with the net prepared, and the sword sharpened; or a tilting-ground on which the champions and knight-errants of controversy might enter the lists. The evil is apparent; but, until things are put upon a sure footing, it is inevitable. Vanity is much; but stronger and better feelings have been called into action than vanity. As long as some men desire changes, and think that they can achieve them by declamation, declaim they will at the top of their lungs, and to the extent of their eloquence. As long as other men apprehend that subversive projects are in contemplation, what room is there for blame or for surprise, if they lift up their voices in self-defence, and seize every opportunity of protesting against them?

So, again, the country subscribers were for years_quiescent, because they reposed confidence in the London Committee. Let that confidence be once shaken; and either they must be admitted to something like a full and equal voice in the proceedings of the Society; or their subscriptions will be withdrawn ; or their remonstrances will be perpetual, and their expostulations peremptory. As long as there is doubt, there will be always uneasiness; as long as there is uneasiness, there will be always agita

tion.

In offering these sentiments, we would speak as moderate

men, having the cause of moderation warmly at heart. We ought not, perhaps, to fear that moderation will be confounded with pusillanimity; for inward constancy and self-repose, free from timidity, because assured of its own purposes, and the legitimacy of their scope, and the practicability of their execution, is the only basis and best guarantee of a genuine moderation; whereas pusillanimity is altogether destructive of it, because for ever oscillating between the extreme points of violence and fear.

But there is some danger that moderation may be confounded with an irresolute and vacillating policy. Yet, if a moderate line of conduct means an undecided, wavering, shifting line of conduct, moderation is a poor and contemptible quality: if a moderate line of conduct means a time-serving line of conduct, that turns and changes with the ebbs and flows in the patronage, of the few, or the caprice of the many, then moderation is a base and dastardly quality; and, instead of being lauded as a virtue, ought be driven out of society with the curse and brand of every honest mind upon its name. But by moderation we would signify that mild and even, yet courageous wisdom, which takes a calm and practical survey of the objects and interests of human life, not under a single aspect, but in every possible or rational point of view, which preserves the equipoise between opposite extremes, because it discerns the narrowness or partiality of perception from which they severally spring, which estimates aright the value of things, and the feasibility of their adoption; and therefore proceeds to act upon its determinations without flurry, without bluster, without precipitation, but still without fluctuation and without delay. It is the steadiest and firmest of all principles; precisely because it has weighed and deliberated well; and, therefore, nothing can occur to take it by surprise, and disconcert its measures; no new elements are likely to spring up, of which it has not calculated the existence and the force.

It is this sort of moderation, we are well assured, at which the members of the middle party in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge--that party which has been usually victorious in the Standing Committee-have been aiming throughout. Yet we also think that they have hitherto missed the mark-we will not say by following where they might have led, and swimming with the current which it was their business to direct-but from not defining their views with a line sufficiently broad and clearfrom leaning first on one side, and then on the other-from showing an alternate bias to incompatible theories, in the vain hope, as we apprehend, of conciliating conflicting opinionsfor conflicting interests there are none-and from borrowing, by turns, here a bit from one system, and there a bit from another, NO, XXXI.—JULY, 1834, ૨

instead of grasping and retaining a stable and open policy of their own. And what has been the consequence? They have in some cases neutralized their influence, and exposed their principles to suspicion, by instilling a natural, if not reasonable, doubt as to their motives and designs. The members of the Society throughout the country have been precluded from placing in them that full and cordial reliance which their station and character deserve; for uncertainty, we say again, is the deathblow to confidence. Cautious and reflecting men have held themselves aloof until they could see their way; and, unless a firm hold is gained on the one side or on the other, the champions at the opposite extremities will endeavour to use them as instruments for defeating their immediate antagonists, with the same ulterior intention-the only sentiment, perhaps, which they hold in common-of turning round and crushing the middle, or liberal, party at the first convenient opportunity.

The guiding principles, then, of the Tract Committee, and of all the other committees, must be accurately marked out by the Society, and not left to individual discretion, whatever be their constitution, and whoever their members. And if they are already marked out, they must be sacredly observed. But here we stop at once-for it would be an unpardonable imprudence to suggest a doubt, which we are not ungenerous enough, or unjust enough, to entertain.

Another thing wanted, as it appears to us, is a more perfect organization of the government and direction of the Society. That unity in variety, which is the great law of nature, must not be overlooked in the midst of its multifarious concerns. It may be requisite that the division of labour should be still more complete than it has hitherto been; but it is more requisite to bear in mind, that the division of labour can never be mapped and planned with accuracy, until the boundaries of the Society, as a whole, have been adjusted; and the entire sweep of its operations has been made known. We are therefore of opinion, that the Society should possess a federal constitution more regular and better understood. Some of our readers would perhaps be more pleased, if we said that the principle of centralization, which is now so fashionable, might be applied with advantage. But the word would not express our meaning. We are far from desiring that all the business should be taken out of the hands of several co-ordinate committees, and thrown into one central board. Our wish is, that there should be a Tract Committee, a Financial Committee, and as many more committees as may be needed for the multiplicity of transactions; but that, in addition, there should be some General Committee, to which they should all be subor

dinated; while that committee would be itself responsible to the Society at large: some great regulating committee, composed of the most experienced and dignified members of the association; a body, not so much to be burdened with the trouble of originating measures, or taking the initiative part, as to form a supreme board of revision, of appeal, of reference, of superintendence, of control; which would command the confidence of the subscribers; which would check and keep together the other agencies at work; and so preserve something of consistency, order, and sameness throughout all the ramifications and proceedings of the Society.

If some such measures are adopted, we shall ourselves anticipate "a new era" for the Society, and discern in it the most powerful of instruments for diffusing Christianity and for strengthening the Church. As to the continuance and extension of partial changes, without some general scheme of survey and regula tion, serious doubts may be felt on the score of safety or of expediency; but if such measures as we have mentioned be adopted, the directors will have a sure fulcrum for their future undertakings; they will have no need of that adroitness of tactics, which has conjured up points of form in moments of emergency, and stopped the mouths of speakers by some bye-law of the association;-for all will be contented, except the very few whom nothing can content-and these few, not persons who possess, or can possess, influence in the Society; but others, who, not satisfied that their minds have been steeped and salted in prejudice, are never happy, unless their prejudices can be kept constantly in soak.

But unless the theology be fixed, and there be some systematic revision of the Society as a whole, what is it likely to become? It is likely to become an assemblage of disjointed and discordant members without a head;-a thing, which, from a too rapid growth, has shot up out of all symmetry and proportion;—a motley and miscellaneous collection of incongruous features, an almost promiscuous jumble of contradictions, or, at best, a rocking Bable of loose and unmortared structures- a Society, with a hundred projects on the anvil, but none dovetailed and cemented together, the transactions laughing at the rules, the immediate proceedings striving to undo and nullify the past history and original constitution; and the last amplifications only a revival, under other names, of the very designs, which had been previously dropped, as too unwieldy for the management of a single association, according to the express declarations of the last report.

The present arrangements, it is evident, cannot be the final arrangements. This Society, like the whole world around it, is