indeed to produce Independent ministers who have no title to the name. It has been asked at another Union-What are we to say if some man chooses to get his wife and a few others to elect him pastor? What are we to say, as here would be a little Church? What are

we to say, brethren? This-that we are not going to be indebted to our imagination for our facts. Show us such cases as these admitted into the fellowship of our County Associations, and we will argue with you but we protest against this tendency to press what is supposed to be the ultimate issue of our Independency. We think that a sustentation fund would help in quite the opposite direction; that such a Board, aided by the Associations, would help to show that the existence of an accredited Independent Church must be conditioned by circumstances; that there are many places which ought to be preaching stations, supplied by earnest laymen, willing to preach the glad tidings, and that in some cases, so far as one Church is concerned, several small assemblies should be gathered into one. By no Church court law, but by the awakening of an earnest common sentiment, we believe a sustentation fund would not work for unworthiness, but for worth. It has been objected that it would not be acceptable to all, that here and there would be one who would feel himself aggrieved by it. But how do you harm him? His liberty is unaffected. If he receives no grant, if he

"I

is ineligible for a grant, he is only in the status quo ante, neither better nor worse. It has been objected that it is injurious to the manliness and selfrespect of the ministry. Is it so ? Surely Paul was not unmanly. rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again." Unmanly! Sustentation is a confessed right, and who is going to brand as unmanly those who are already aided by some £30,000? If it be finally objected that the scheme is not minutely drawn, I admit the fact; but the principles are there, and it would be impossible for this Union to debate more than the leading features of the scheme. I am sure that brethren who raise these objections are as sincerely anxious for the well-being of their brethren as any of us. I am sure they have studied the question as earnestly. And I am equally sure that we are as sincere Independents as they are. Are they Independents? We more. As we would have every minister independent, and that in more than name, independent of wearing anxiety and depressing care, we would not fetter his freedom by any carking anxiety of spirit.

A speaker at the Baptist Union said it was not exactly in harmony with the genius of their system; and again and again that mysterious word was made to do duty for all the difficulties. The genius of a system! Well, I have studied the expression. It seems there is a system, and genius is generally conceived of as inconsistent with a system. But the genius of a system which confesses that multitudes of its pastors are ill-paid, and their homes are scenes of a prolonged and perpetual battle with necessity, is genius for which I do not care. The genius of a system which confesses

its inability to provide for the general health is a genius very much akin to what Carlyle would call "other than that I think." I have travelled through many towns and villages in England, and I am free to confess that the genius of the system which often presides over pastors' incomes is not a gladdening genius, nor I think a Christian one; and I have travelled through all parts of Scotland, and I am free to confess that I should desire above all things to see the day when we could behold every recognised Independent minister enjoying the means and occupying the status of a Free Church Minister; it is their glory, and I think a righteous one, that there is a minimum below which the income of the humblest of their brethren shall not fall.

I entreat brethren to remember that the modus operandi of raising means is only a subordinate question. I hope we shall not be drawn aside into a discussion about weekly offerings, that is manifestly a department of Church finance not vital to the elaboration of this scheme; it may be quite true, as has been said, that just giving in the Church can only be secured by making giving systematic, and as you cannot make by any other means than that moral influence which is silent and slow, you cannot hold out much hope to the pastors who have to wait for the weekly-offering millennium, however beautiful the system may be, and I for one hold it to be Godlike and glorious. If therefore we are turned into a debate upon weekly offerings we shall run the risk of considering an incidental question of Church finance. There are benefits incidental to the scheme I have no time to more than touch upon. If it helped to lift us more out of that my Church life, growth, and success, which is to some extent the bane of Independency, and create more joy and interest in the common life, it would be a most blessed end. And surely we can see that it will tend in this direction, that it would tend also to check the removal from pastorate to pastorate in the hard endeavour to turn existence into life, that it would remove that awful sense of isolation which many a Congregational pastor in his heart now feels, they complain sometimes of the cold air of some passing iceberg of criticism, how they would rejoice in the warm rays of neighbouring sympathy and help and that it would all tend to the increase of a ministry fitted for their work, and able to look forward to the pastorates o as spheres where cares will be lightened and work be enjoyed.

our Churches

Amongst the unknown heroisms of life, I take it that the self-abnegations of many Congregational pastors occupy no small space. Remember to-day that hundreds of them could not afford the luxury we enjoyed on Tuesday, in hearing our Chairman's brave and beautiful address. How that address has stirred all our hearts! Think what they have missed! To outvie it in intellectual acumen I challenge the philosophic culture of the literary world—to excel it in classic power and beauty I challenge the noble scholarship of the Episcopal Church-and to surpass it for Evangelical life and holy influence I challenge the noble history of our Independent forefathers! Yet multitudes of our brethren heard it not. In the great revealing day

many a submissive martyrdom to circumstances will put great tenderness into the Master's "well done." It is considered undignified in them to complain now, or to be foremost in the invention of a remedy. Independency is too dear to them for them to desire even better days at its expense. They would to a man say, Long live our principles, rather than save us at their cost. But it cannot in the nature of things be that Independency is not elastic enough to meet all confessed emergencies. It is too noble in itself, and we have fought through too grand a history for it to be ashamed of it now, or to kiss it on the cheek whilst we betray its life. But Independency is not to be the honoured name covering every mistaken isolation and separation. That man is but a pirate of its flag who waves it above some little schism which is an offshoot of bitterness, or who complains of circumstances in a ministry which he may have entered without sufficient claim to discharge its trust. No. Congregationalism as a system means. the confederation of Independent Churches whose right to that claim has been confessed by their admission into Associations. If it be objected that this is claiming too much for it, we answer that as much is already claimed and done in the name of Independency by the fact that such admission or exclusion is already practised in every County Association in the kingdom; and who shall say that any Independency worth the name has been outraged by such common action? Independency can surely never mean isolation; it must to be divine have in it the idea of a true unity, and a unity that is as efficient for practical help as it is for sympathy. If Independency meant that we could not preserve all that is practically helpful to each other with the honourable independency of each Church, there would be a missing link somewhere which we must search our New Testament to find. But there is no such missing link; we have it here-"Even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity." Brethren, in this matter let us act in the line of our already existing organisations; they are simple enough, but strong enough to bear the burden of this work. I for one do not believe from what I have read of County Associations that this scheme of augmentation cannot be carried out through them without perpetual "heart-burnings, jealousies, and dissatisfaction." God forbid. "I speak as to wise men ; judge ye what I say." Does your present system of augmentation in Lancashire and elsewhere breed these things? Do you not in your associate capacity weigh, judge, and adjust your affairs, increasing your love by mutual help rather than creating jealousies? It is too much to hope that this or any other scheme will give satisfaction to all. It is still more to hope that this paper has put in the best light the principles it desires to commend. We are to discuss the subject now, and brethren steeped high with facts will speak to us. We have no foregone conclusions. Brethren, may the wisest counsels prevail; may He whom we all love baptize us all afresh with that brotherly charity which "hopeth all things," and which may enable us better to fulfil the unrepealed command, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," for "we are members one of another."

66

THE CONGREGATIONAL PASTORATE IN CHANCERY. I.-STATEMENT OF THE READING CASE.-FROM "THE TIMES,” MAY 29. THIS case, which raises the important question whether ministers of Dissenting congregations have, in the absence of any special agreement or of any misconduct on the part of the minister, a life interest in their appointment, or whether they are mere tenants-at-will of their offices, and liable to dismissal by a vote of the majority of their congregations, was argued during four days last Term and fully reported in The Times of the 27th of April. The plaintiffs are the trustees of an Independent Chapel at Broad Street, Reading, founded in the year 1707 by deeds under which it was vested in 20 members of the congregation as trustees for the private church or congregation meeting there "during such time as the assembling. of Protestant Dissenters for religious worship should be permitted by law." In the following year a house was provided for the minister's occupation, the rent of which was directed to be paid to him in case he did not occupy it, so long as he should continue to be the minister or pastor of the congregation." Thus the house and the pew rents constituted the endowment of the chapel. In the year 1865 it was considered desirable by the members of the congregation assembling at the chapel that a second minister should be appointed to assist the Rev. William Legg, who had for more than 30 years officiated as pastor; during that and the ensuing year candidates for the co-pastorate were invited to preach in the chapel. In April, 1866, Mr. S. C. Gordon, who had been one of the candidates, was unanimously invited to become, and became, co-pastor. A year afterwards dissensions arose in the congregation, a large party, including a majority of the trustees, being dissatisfied with Mr. Gordon, while another party, including a number of ladies, were just as decidedly in his favour. The grounds of dissatisfaction may be inferred from a paper handed to him with the following eight reasons for his resignation:-1. That his sermons were too argumentative, containing trains of reasoning which the people could not carry away with them. 2. The sermons were above the level of the great mass of the people, not being sufficiently simple. 3. They were too Arminian in doctrine. 4. They set up too high a standard of Christian life, not taking sufficient account of the influence of trials, &c. 5. There was a deficiency of unction, of Gospel power, and Christian experience. t. The motives from which Christians were exhorted to act were not those of Christian love, but of dry, rigid duty. 7. The work of the Spirit was not sufficiently dwelt upon. 8. In some of the sermons there was nothing said to unconverted sinners.

Ultimately, on the 8th of September, 1868, a meeting was held, at which a resolution was passed, dismissing him from his office, every person present excepting one, who remained neutral, voting in favour of the resolution. The total number of the congregation [? church] was 212. Mr. Gordon's

supporters protested against their regularity of the meeting and abstained from attending it. It was also alleged, and was not disputed, that upwards of 30 out of the 116 present who voted in favour of the resolution were members of a chapel at Twyford, some three miles from Reading. Other meetings, smaller in number, were afterwards held by the supporters of Mr. Gordon, at which equally unanimous resolutions in his favour were passed. He was then requested by two of the deacons to resign his office. On his refusal they themselves resigned, and it was alleged that several families who had previously been members ceased to attend the chapel. After considerable correspondence this suit was instituted.

The case turned principally on the question of usage, on which the evidence was most conflicting, the plaintiffs alleging that it was universally recognised and held as a fundamental principle by the Independents that, in the absence of any special usage or agreement to the contrary, the power of electing and dismissing their pastor or minister resides entirely with the body of Church members assembling at the chapel who have partaken of the Lord's Supper within three months, to the exclusion of mere scat-holders who are not in communion with the Church, and that any congregation could at any time, at their discretion, dismiss their pastor from his office; that this power was exercised by the vote of the majority of the members, and that the minority were bound by the decision of the majority, unless it were inconsistent with the cardinal doctrines and principles held by the whole body. While on behalf of the defendant it was alleged that (in the absence of special agreement) all appointments as pastor or minister were for life, so long as the person appointed abstained from preaching doctrines at variance with their tenets, and was not guilty of immorality or other gross misconduct; and it was further stated on his behalf that for more than two centuries no case has ever occurred of a pastor or minister having been dismissed by the congregation of that chapel. At the conclusion of the arguments last Term, the Vice-Chancellor, after pointing out that in the interests of religion as well of the parties themselves, some compromise was most desirable, reserved judgment, with an intimation that if he had to decide the case he must do so, but he wished both parties to remember that in that event he must also deal with the costs of the suit.

II. THE VICE-CHANCELLOR STUART'S JUDGMENT.--FROM "THE TIMES."

"On a careful re-consideration of the evidence and the arguments in this case, I can find no just grounds for the claim of the defendant, the Rev. Mr. Gordon, to continue to perform the duties and enjoy the emoluments of minister against the will of the trustees and of the majority of the congregation. There is nothing in any of the written instruments to countenance the notion that the choice of a minister by the trustees and the congregation is an irrevocable choice, or that he is to continue the officiating minister for life, or during his good behaviour. Indeed, considering the nature of the