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dism, a grievous delinquency, — and the doctrine preached in 
some at least of the pulpits of Baptists, or Congregationalists, 
or Methodists, especially by the least instructed and refined 
among the preachers of these sects, may appear as perilous an 
extreme as the most highly developed and emblazoned 
ritualism appears to be to an old-fashioned Protestant Dis- 
senter, yet, on the whole, earnest and thoughtful Churchmen 
cannot but thank God for the Christian work done by such 
men as Thomas Binney in the last generation, as Dr. Stough- 
ton through a life still happily continued among us, as the 
powerful preacher of the Surrey Tabernacle, strong Dissenter 
though he may be, during the last five-and-twenty years. In 
our controversy with infidelity the Christian union of forces, 
virtually represented by our Victoria Institute, for ours is an 
omni-denominational, or else an undenominational, union, 
cannot afford to ignore our common Christian basis of faith, 
or the common Christian life which’ ramifies through all our 
various organizations and developments, and which leavens 
with Christian conviction and feeling the different classes of 
our English population. 
In the presence of the common foe of us all — the terrible 
blight of agnostic unbelief which has withered so much fair 
promiso in our Universities, which has so strongly infected 
our civil service all over the world, which makes so consider- 
able a figure in our social circles, which seeks to inspire all 
our periodical literature, and has deeply tainted not a little of 
it — it seems as if there were just now a special need for cul- 
tivating in all Christian circles, and among all professors of 
faith in Christ, a liberal and loving spirit ; for seeking, apart 
from mere forms, to realize “ the unity of the Spirit in the 
bond of peace and in righteousness of life.” 
My object, however, in this address is not, even incidentally, 
to read a homily on Christian charity, however brief, and 
however noble may be the theme, but to attempt a sketch of 
the progress which Christianity has made in this country since 
the time of George II. and his favourite minister Walpole; to 
note, as I said awhile ago, the agencies which Providence has 
employed during the last century to raise up the power of 
Christian faith and religion in the country ; to mark 
the successive waves of force and influence which have 
carried Christian energy and life into all parts of the land and 
into all sections of society, and which serve, in a general 
way, to indicate, to register, the interval between the Chris- 
tianity of to-day and that of the first half of the eighteenth 
century. It is for this reason that I have referred specifically 
to different sections of the Church of England in their several 
