frank, kindly, and Christlike condescension to the lower orders of the people, they have far too often been conspicuously lacking. In warm and helpful social fellowship with one another as Christian churches, they have also been lacking. Their head has been cooler than their heart has been warm. They have exercised their great social influence in too much apparent aloofness from the real men and women who have indirectly been most largely blessed by this influence.

I close this Lecture with three suggestions concerning the improved application of the principles of a true church polity to the social well-being of man.

Congregational ministers must cultivate a larger and more efficient service by means of all the various legitimate social connections with all kinds and classes of men. They must learn to be winsome as well as wise, facile as well as faithful, genial as well as just. They must regard their work as lying with all classes of men, and their church order as adapted, not simply, nor perhaps even best, to the native New-Englander on his own soil, but also to all men on all soils of the wide earth. They must be convinced that the true church polity, as known in its principles, is adapted to man as man, and to man everywhere as a social being. As a system of customs and rules, of precedents and authorities, as learned from manuals, and debated in ministerial associations, Congregationalism is too often apprehended to be a somewhat which will work only. under the most favorable social conditions, and which, even when thus working, results in alienating the common people socially from its church life. The power to adapt principles of church polity to the exigencies of various trials amidst all classes of society taxes the feelings and sentiments of the pastor and the people

quite as severely as their judgment. "Dearly beloved," says Rev. Mr. Watson,1 nonconforming minister of England, in his Farewell Sermon to the flock he was leaving for conscience' sake,-"Dearly beloved, there are two things in every minister of Christ which are much exercised, his head and his heart; his head with labor, and his heart with love." This condescending love for all men, and the manifestation of the condescension in most inoffensive and winning intercourse with the lowly and ignorant, is Congregational; for it is something better than Congregational: it is like Jesus Christ. The ambition of being the minister of the educated and of the socially considerable classes will destroy the genuine power of the pastor: it is subversive of the most sacred principles of our order, and it will, if wide-spread and unchecked, subvert the institutions, and ruin the thrift, of Congregationalism. Schiller's maxim "Not one alone, but man as man, thy brother call"- would be for us the best social precept, had we not the far higher and authoritative injunction of an apostle: "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate."

Again: Congregational churches must give themselves to the propagation, by social means, of their church order, regarded as a matter of principle and as a source of social blessing to mankind. The obligation toward the lowly, the degraded, and vicious of their own neighborhood, is one which Congregationalists share with all followers of Jesus Christ. To relegate that portion of the community who occupy a certain social grade to the Methodists, or the Freewill Baptists, or the Roman Catholics, is a confession of weakness, if it be not also a proof of an unchristian mind.

1 Volume of Sermons in the Library of the Maine Historical Society.

All grades of society, and all nationalities, belong to Congregationalism: its polity is, when handled with sharp decision and yet with tender love, adapted to them all. I can testify, from several years of personal experience, that a united and successful Congregational church can be made up of original Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Disciples, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics; of Americans, Canadians, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Dutchmen, German, Bohemian, and Scandinavian; of all degrees of wealth and grades of culture.

And Congregational churches must provide means for manifesting their love toward one another as autonomous and yet fraternizing churches. Money will not serve as the sole efficient means. Personal attention must accompany the pecuniary.gift. Fellowship meetings, friendly visits and letters, communion in consultation over common interests, all the spontaneous as well as the more carefully studied manifestations of fraternal regard, are indispensable means of social intercourse amongst Christian churches. One bishop-a man with wise head, warm heart, and open hand — is worth as much to the feeble churches of any State as fifty per cent. increase in their home-missionary appropriation. Must we, then, have bishops? By all means: let us have as many as can be found of such bishops. Let every pastor be such a bishop. And let a way be found, in accordance with our principles, to have and to support such other personal activities, agents rather than machinery, as shall make our mutual love and common interest abundantly felt.

For the Church of Jesus Christ should be a chief source and centre of social forces: it is, moreover, the greatest means for communicating the social divine life

to all classes of men. And that particular form of church order, which, having been established by the apostles, is distinctively adapted to promote the social well-being of man, surely cannot, without fault and shame, fail of actually pronouncing a yet larger social benison upon mankind.

LECTURE IV.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CONGREGATIONALISM APPLIED

TO MAN AS A CITIZEN.

THE two fundamental principles of a true churchpolity, viz., the formal principle and the material principle, should determine the relations which members of Congregational churches sustain to the civil government of which they are also members. The Christian must inquire of both the Scriptures and his own spiritually-enlightened consciousness as to right conduct in civil affairs. He must find that point of union at which the principles of the Bible and the dictates of reason may be seen to coincide. The formal principle requires that he shall not violate the provisions of the Scriptures in his relations and conduct as a citizen. The material principle requires that he shall not go contrary to reason, which, in the soul of the believer, is to be regarded as the throne and organ of the Holy Spirit. The Bible and spiritually-illumined reason must be so consulted and interpreted in unison with one another, that the Christian citizen may obey both in the obedience which he renders to civil authority, may be faithful to these two forms of his one spiritual guide as a pledge and impetus to fidelity toward all forms of governmental control.

"The Word of God in the Scriptures is designed to