In conclusion, let the inquiry be raised for a brief answer, How may the self-propagation of a true church. polity be rendered more efficient? In reply I ask you to supplement with your own thought the following elements of an answer:

1. The true church polity must be propagated as a matter of conviction and of adherence to principles. In as far as Congregationalism is such a polity, it must be thus propagated. The motive of expediency or of sectarian zeal is not a sufficient, trustworthy, and abiding motive. As a sect or an expedient, Congregationalism is not worthy of propagating at all. The government of Christ's churches is not a matter left to expediency. The principles of church government are to be understood as principles, valued as principles, propagated as principles.

2. We must educate our ministry, and, through the ministry, all the members of our churches, in the knowledge and love of these principles. Congregational ministers should be Congregationalists, if at all, then, from principle. To aid toward this end is this Lectureship, as I suppose, constituted and perpetually to be employed. Let the usefulness of this present Course of Lectures be to convince at least a few Congregational ministers that their church order is worthy of deepest researches, most ardent love, most efficient and selfsacrificing labors. The members of Congregational churches should be trained to intelligent convictions regarding the spiritual worthiness of this their church order. This is the only possible substitute for a sectarian zeal which is intolerable to our church order, and impossible to obtain from its members.

3. Greater pains should be taken to avoid losing so large numbers of our own sons and daughters. The

members of our congregations, on changing residence, should be definitely commended and directed to Congregational churches in their new places of residence. They should not go from their old homes to their new ones under the impression that it is matter of indifference what their church connections may become. They should even be kindly remonstrated with for ill-considered changes.

4. A more hearty, unfeigned, and effective communion of churches should confirm those which are feeble, lest our self-propagation be diminished by their passing from the face of the earth. This office of the communion of churches in the self-propagation of Congregationalism has already been sufficiently considered.

5. The specific means for a wise multiplication of churches of this order in our own land should be more vigorously used and thriftily supported. Among such means are the American Home Missionary Society, the American Missionary Association, and the Congregational Union.

6. The missionary work of the churches in foreign lands should be recognized as a work of self-propagation. To this most important of all the considerations now before us, we return in the next Lecture.

7. All appropriate means for promoting and expressing a real unity in a manifest oneness of organization are in place for the purposes of self-propagation. Only must we always remember that the result of enforced oneness is schism, and that the organization needed is not organized power other than the power which is in organized fellowship and organized work. On the other hand, they must cease provoking schism who would. divide our churches upon irrelevant issues, or drive them together into a semblance of denominational compact.

8. Finally, we must give more of our manhood to the study of these principles and to their propagation in the concrete form of New-Testament churches; we must do this in the conviction that the true church polity is worthy of study and labors, to the end that it may prevail throughout Christendom. To the complaint, so hackneyed, so disagreeable, so much trumpeted within our own lines, so true, that Congregationalism has shown a great lack of definiteness, pith, grip, and skill in meeting emergencies, I make the following reply. Congregationalism has indeed shown a certain great and lamentable lack. It has exhibited an obvious need of improvement. The need is not, however, one of new principles. It is not pre-eminently the need of many new ways of applying the old principles. Doubtless we are called from time to time to venture upon new expedients as new emergencies arise: this venture we may freely and bravely make. But the great and permanent need of our polity is the need of Christian manhood in our ministry and in our laity, cultivated and brought to bear upon the working of our polity. The type of manhood in our church order has been superior rather than inferior; but it has not been given to the churches under the forms instituted by Congregationalism. need our Christian manhood put into our polity. We need that the highest wisdom, skill, courage, kindness, and devotion should be consecrated to and used in the administration of our church order.

We

A machine will run of itself until its communicated force is exhausted. If it needs drivers, a few men will drive machinery enough to do the work of scores of other men. But Congregationalism is not an ecclesiastical machine. An organism, however, must grow in every part and by the co-ordinated motion of all its con

stituent vital particles. Vital particles in our organism are all our sons and daughters. If the ministers and laymen of Congregational churches will give generously of their manhood, their time, their thought, their money, their faithful and kindly painstaking, to the cause of a true church polity, its one only alarming and comprehensive need will be met. But if they so spend, lavish, and squander upon other causes, or so hoard for them their Christian manhood, that little or none can be given to such a polity, will it be a cause for wonder that the polity languishes toward death? In the event of continuing such neglect, one of two issues will surely result: either because the multitudes refrain from her conventions, conferences, councils, and benevolent boards - her work of self-propagation will fall into the hands of the willing few, or it will wholly cease. When the few, the ready clerical or lay manipulators, assume control, Congregationalism will be no longer a true church polity, although, perhaps, continuing to bear a once honored name: it will become a new ecclesiastical denomination among the others which now exist. It will be an organization, another sect, and it may for a time work well; but it will be reserved for others to establish yet again a principled church polity. In the event of universal neglect, however, the indwelling life of an order bearing the name Congregational will more and more retreat upon its centres, only at the last wholly to disappear. But, should that which has been called Congregationalism cease to propagate itself according to recognizable ancient forms, there would still arise a larger and larger number of New-Testament churches upon the earth. For these principles will not die: they will rather live in concrete forms. We do not, then, despair of the self-propagation of the true church polity

by the multiplication of Congregational churches in their forms of institution and communion essentially the same as the so-called Congregational churches in this country have thus far always been. For to despair of the propagation of Congregationalism- meaning by this the growth of New-Testament principles of church order as embodied in particular visible churcheswould be to despair of a progressive, free, and abiding organization of the Christian Church itself.