CONGREGATIONAL1STS. 



159 



toral charge " ; together with 136 ministers in 

 Scotland and Ireland, 24 of whom were without 

 charge; 175 lay pastors; 435 students in theo- 

 logical colleges ; and 300 native students in 10 

 institutions in heathen lands belonging to the 

 London Missionary Society. 



Congregational Union of England and 

 Wales. The sixty-second annual assembly of 

 the Congregational Union of England and Wales 

 was held in London, May 7. Dr. G. S. Barrett 

 presided. The report of the committee showed 

 that, of 33 counties and 133 towns from which 

 returns of church accommodation had been re- 

 ceived, an excessive provision existed in certain 

 small towns and holiday resorts ; but 45 large 

 towns included in the reports were not furnished 

 with religious accommodation for 40 per cent, 

 of their inhabitants. The committee was not at 

 present encouraged to prepare a national scheme 

 for church extension, but it recognized the need 

 in certain places for immediate and strenuous 

 local effort. Reference was made in the report 

 to the Council of Congregational Guilds, the na- 

 ture and scope of its work, which was to include 

 hereafter a department to introduce young peo- 

 ple away from home to Christian friends, and to 

 the development of a close and helpful relation 

 between the Union and Congregational Sunday 

 schools : to the increasing use of the Congrega- 

 tional Library and Reading Room in Memorial 

 Hall, London : and to the opportunities for use- 

 fulness afforded by the newly established parish 

 councils. The year's income of theUnion, includ- 

 ing money received from the sale of publications, 

 had been 15,518, giving a credit balance of 

 604. A report was made recommending that 

 the Pastors' Retiring fund, the Pastors' Wid- 

 ows' fund, and the Memorial Hall trust be put, 

 as soon as practicable, into the hands of a single 

 secretary, and that the Irish Evangelical Society 

 put itself in communication with the Irish Con- 

 gregational Union with a view to amalgamation 

 with that body. An amended constitution for 

 the Council of Guilds was reported, embodying 

 the new provisions mentioned in the report of 

 the Committee of the Union. The Guilds' Union 

 is to be placed under the control of a council 

 appointed annually by the Congregational Union, 

 with power to add not more than six members 

 representing work among the young. A modifi- 

 cation was effected of the organization of the 

 Congregational Church Aid Society, in order to 

 bring it into closer relations with the Union. 

 Resolutions were adopted recognizing the jubilee 

 of the Liberation Society; in favor of the "for- 

 ward movement," by which is meant more active 

 missionary and evangelistic work ; and condemn- 

 ing lynching in the United States. Papers were 

 read appropriate to the approaching centenary 

 of the London Missionary Society. 



The autumnal meetings of the Union were 

 held at Liverpool, beginning Oct. 9. The open- 

 ing address of the chairman, the Rev. Dr. Bar- 

 rett, was upon the secularization of the Church. 

 In the course of his address the speaker dis- 

 cussed the question of reunion of the Churches. 

 He said that he saw no prospect of reunion with 

 the Episcopal Church, even after disestablish- 

 ment. The real obstacle to all practical reunion 

 at home was not the Establishment ; it was the 

 doctrine of apostolical succession. If reunion 



meant the unchurching of the great company of 

 saintly men and women who had drawn nigh to 

 God in nonconformist communions, the ac- 

 knowledgment that their ministry was not a 

 true and apostolic ministry of Christ, that their 

 celebration of the Lord's Supper was heretical 

 and invalid, and that they had no real presence 

 of the Lord with them when they met around 

 his table, then he, for one, said reunion would 

 never come had better never come. 



The report of the Church Aid Society showed 

 that 38 county unions were associated in its 

 work, 9 of which contributed to the funds, in 

 addition to what they did for their own weak 

 churches. Nineteen county unions had been 

 aided by the society during the year to the 

 amount of 3,000, which was divided among 

 421 churches and mission rooms, with 239 pas- 

 tors and eyangelists. Besides this direct aid, 

 the society had done much to stimulate the weak 

 churches by deputations, and to bring them into 

 sympathetic touch with stronger and wealthier 

 churches. Progress was reported in the raising 

 of money to replace the amount withdrawn from 

 the reserve and to keep the grants. A report 

 was made of the work of the Colonial Mission- 

 ary Society, the purpose of which was to under- 

 take the supervision of the native churches gath- 

 ered out of heathendom, but left in the second 

 or third generation by the London Missionary 

 Society to stand alone. The mission carried on 

 by the Irish Evangelical Society had established 

 18 churches and 70 out-mission stations, having 

 about 1,000 church members. For their own 

 support these churches had raised about 1,200 

 during the past year. A meeting was held in 

 anticipation of the celebration of the centenary 

 of the London Missionary Society, which will 

 occur in September, 1895. Sixty-seven out of 

 the 100 new missionaries it had been proposed 

 to send out had gone, when proceedings were in- 

 terrupted by the commercial depression. A full 

 and complete history of the society was in prepa- 

 ration by the Rev. Richard Lovett. A penny 

 " Historical Summary " was published by the so- 

 ciety-; and " The Story of the L. M. S., 1795 to 

 1895," by Mr. C. Silvester Home, would be pub- 

 lished soon. Resolutions were passed refusing 

 to regard any scheme of secondary education as 

 satisfactory which did not, so far as is possible 

 by legislation, secure in all public schools full 

 freedom from religious disabilities, " so that it 

 shall no longer be any disqualification in name 

 or in reality for governors, masters, mistresses, 

 or scholars, that they are not members of the 

 Established Church " ; favoring the Welsh Dis- 

 establishment bill, and advising co-operation 

 with the Liberal party to carry it ; urging upon 

 the churches a steady opposition " to the attempt 

 of a reactionary party to* disturb the existing 

 arrangement for religious teaching in board 

 schools, and to substitute in its place a sectarian 

 system " ; and favoring ampler provision for the 

 training of teachers in the training colleges of 

 an undenominational character. A commission 

 was appointed to present the views of the Union 

 to the Royal Commission on Secondary Schools. 

 The subjects were discussed during the meetings 

 of "Parish Councils," "The Pleasant Sunday 

 Afternoon," " The Place of the Bible in Devo- 

 tional Life," " The Nourishment of the Spiritual 



