CHURCH UNION AND COOPERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 143, 18 June 1891, Page 2

CHURCH UNION AND COOPERATION.

THE subject of practical Church Union, which was recently brought into prominence in Auckland by the Rev. T. F. Robertson of St. Stephen's Church, Ponsonby, has excited a large amount of interest among the ministers of the various denominations. The Ministers' Association accordingly invited Mr. Kobertson to read a paper expounding his views, which he consented to do, and at the meeting of the Association on Monday last he delivered the following able address, which we publish at the request of a deputation appointed by the Association to wait upon us with that object.

Mr. Chairman and Brethren,—lt is with sincere humiliation of heart I attempt to address you on the great question of Church Co-operation and Union. I should have liked some abler and more influential minister in my place to-day. I can only promise most willingly to fall into the background, and even to go entirely out of sight, if need be, in this question when it may have become, as I believe it is bound to beconio, an urgent public question among the Churches.

Since coming to New Zealand, I have avoided publicity as much as possible, and had almost made a vow never to write a letter to the newspapers. I am glad that that vow was not made, for our newspaper press can be of greatest service in any good cause. Its Christian tone and sympathy with Christian work, compared with the leading newspapers at Home, and even of some other towns of New Zealand, should make us really grateful. Though not blind to the needs of improvement in the Press, as well as in the Church, yet the above feature of our leading newspapers impressed me highly when I lirst came to Auckland. I should have wished to have been longer in the country before speaking upon any national question. But one with eyes and ears open can learn something of Church life in two years, especially if the heart, from early Christian fellowship in university and college unons, has always gone beyond the denominational paddock to the larger iields of Christian fellowship.

The facts that touched the heart and compelled me to break silence were not sought for. They were met with in the path of duty. I found, as a deputy of the Auckland Presbytery, various settlements in the country deplorably neglected by the Churches. I found also, on careful inquiry, that this neglect is not local or limited in its range, but exists to a painful extent all through the laud. Alongside of this alarming fact we hud another almost as painful. We find many places manifestly, by our denominational methods, with too many churches. The waste of men and money is serious enough, when the supply of both is altogether inadequate for the religious interests of the land ;■ but the injury to the pure and loving Gospel of Christ is still more serious to all of us. The struggle for existence of various sects, where one or two churches might be strong and influential in the work of Christ, brings about, not a healthy or useful rivalry, but a rivalry altogether hurtful to the highest aims anil efforts of Church life. Feeling these facts keenly I felt impelled to try the experiment of Church Union on a small scale. This, lam grateful to lind, is not a new experiment. The people in various places in their willingness to sink denominational differences seem in advance of the ministry. Instead of thinking simply of the exclusive interests of the Presbyterian Church, I thought of how to serve best the Kingdom of Christ in a new settlement, and the interests of all the Churches, by forming a committee of Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan church members, with power to add to their number from any representatives of the Congregational and Baptist denominations who might attend the services. The Auckland Presbytery, to its credit, did not reprove its deputy for this conduct at its last meeting, and I am very hopeful that its united voice may be heard at next meeting in favour of Church co-operation. lam hopeful, too, that brethren everywhere will not look upon any effort to bring the question of Church co-operation and union before the public with suspicion, as a presumptive effort on my part, undertaken without due conference with them on the subject. The fact is, when we begin to confer all round, even with our own ecclesiastical ilesh and blood, we aro apt to get wonderfully cooled down upon any matter burning in our souls. It is better sometimes firmly and prayerfully to take up " the burden of the Lord " laid upon the heart, and even at the risk of being esteemed imprudent, declare openly what seems to us the Lord's message. The humblest minister of Christ, when musing by the sea-shore of Troas or of Kuoatunu, may hear the cry for help not only from the foreign mission Held of Macedonia, but from the home mission iield around him.

Now, it might be better this morning to confine our attention to the question of co-operation, upon the need and desirability of which we may be all agreed, than to introduce any questions upon which we may differ. I hope the question of cooperation may take some practical shape and be much advanced before we separate. But I have publicly urged the need of a, patriotic demand for a comprehensive union of the Churches, and I cannot llinch from this position now, even at the risk of differing from the brethren. We can agree to differ. The following are some reasons that seem worthy of consideration : I.—The chief end of the existence of the Church in the land is seriously defeated by our denominational methods. I havo already referred to this, but as this plain practical reason forced this question of union before my mind, I give it as the first weighty reason for my addressing you now. No division of the Church can feel a responsibility in providing Gospel ordinances for the whole land. No one division is strong enough to accept this responsibility, and the result is, that settlements grow up without the public means of grace, without their hallowing and purifying influences, and under influences of the most profane and degrading kind. Can we expect the population of the land to become Christian under conditions of this kind ? A united Church, or even aChurch composed of several of the existing divisions, with a larger life and responsibility, and with the larger supplies of men and money union would bring, could keep its eye upon the map of New Zealand, as it is being filled in with new townships, and centres of population, and make some provision for their spiritual welfare. At present this chief end of our existence, as Churches in the land, to preach the Gospel to the whole population, is not only defeated by our divisions, but is not even kept in view. Co-operation may be a real help here, and let us at once give it a trial, but the practical difficulties arising out of divided interests, and the jealousy of divided hearts, must compel veally Christian Churches, on patriotic grounds, to face the question of union. 11. But even though we were capable in our divided state to give Gospel ordinances to the growing population, the spirit, and teaching of Christ and His apostles compel us to seek after unity. We should not require to seek weighty reasons in favour of union ; we should demand of each other what substantial ?-cctsons hinder our obedience to the teaching of Christ and His Apostles in the New Testament. It will not do to sooth our souls with the delusions that our Lord and His disciples cared only for a spiritual unity — the invisible unity of the invisible Church of the redeemed on earth and in heaven. We can rejoice in this spiritual unity, and feel the highest inspiration from it, but our Lord, in his loving, tender prayer before Gethsemane' and. the cross, prays for a unity thai may I

be seen by the world, and that may become to the world a proof of His divine mission. Paul, through all his life and letters, longs and prays for unity in the visible Church, and is pained and shocked by sectarian divisions, James and Peter share his feelings, and we need only fancy how the aged apostle of love would feel if he returned to earth and found the disciples of Christ ranged under diverse names, and sometimes under opposing banners, and, what is more painful stilly quite content to be so. " What difference!' exclaimed the King of Italy sometime ago, when the representatives of the various sections of the Protestant Church of Italywere introduced to him ; the Papal power united as a rock, the Protestant, by sectarian division, breaking round it too often as-the feeble spray. We all feel keenly and deplore this state of things, found everywhere; but we do not feel, as we should, that the Scriptural reasons for union are far more weighty than any reasons that can be given now to the world for the separate existence of any section of the Protestant Church. That the beat tilings in every Church, and the noblest features of their testimonies, have been fused into the common life of Christianity. Shat even episcopacy with "holy orders,' and the orderly government of the Church by bishops, under loyal supremacy, as opposed to the supremacy of the Pope, is no longer in violent opposition to other Churches; for not only is its power limited and position changed, but its more liberalminded upholders find in our opposition to papal supremacy, in our loyalty to the Throne when rightly occupied, in our love of Church order and oversight, and in our Scriptural conceptions of the Christian priesthood and ministry, the substantial part of their testimony. That Presbyterianism has no monopoly now of the grand truth of the supremacy of Christ alone in the Church, of the presbyter as Scriptural bishop, and of those profound mysteries of the faith associated with the names of Augustine and Calvin. Then do we not all love Christian freedom from the tyranny of the priest, or of " the priest writ large in presbyter," as dearly as Congrejjationalists? And do we not all rejoice in the mighty impulse given to evangelistic Christianity by the Wesleys, and proclaim, Avith the Wesleyans, a free, full, salvation to the world in Christ Jesus. And though some of us, working on the best terms with the Baptists, and welcoming Mr Spurgeon, may (irmly believe that no Christian Church should bear their distinctive name; that Christ avoided it by not baptizing with his own hands, and thaiPaul would not look at it, hut says, "I came not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel"; and' though we dare not forbid water in introducing the ideals of Christ's kingdom into His visible school, yet we have no bitter feelings of opposition, as in days past, to the ideas and methods of Baptists. Who among us could not immerse child or adult if Christian conscience demanded this of our hand ? And who among us does not rejoice in a testimony against " Baptismal Regeneration," as taught by many, and in the clearer revelation of the spiritual meanings baptism, as taught in the glowing metaphors or Paul, and made emphatic by our Baptist brethren ? There is room for Baptist ideas, methods, fervour, within a liberal-minded Christian circle, and it would save Baptists from the narrow seclusive spirit of some of their ministers and members, and give greater influence to their teaching, to be united to a patriotic Christian Church, than to be outside of it as a feeble, or as the most successful sect. A large-hearted liberal Church of this kind —the only Christian Church worth contending for now—for which it would be worth while sacrificing on the altar of brotherly love all our petty personal fads and fancies -would not suiter even "the Society of Fi-iends " to feel as a peculiar people. As a large society of Christian friends, it would rejoice in their special testimony to our dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and raise in the future, as they have nobly done in the past, a clear protest against the demon-like 2>assions and horrors of war, until the way of peace becomes known the nations ; until, by Christian arbitration, they shall Coß.se from the manifest hypocrisy of professing to follow Christ, while they proudly walk in the footsteps of the Cresars. Clearly, then, we have, under the growing light and love of the Gospel, found much of the unity of the Spirit; and if Scripture required no more, and no great evils resulted from our divisions, we might rest and be thankful. But we da.ro not do so in face of the teaching of Christ and His apostles, and we dare not do so in face of the failure of our denominational methods to fulfil the ends of the very existence of a Christian Church in the land. Indeed, the time has passed for mere words about Christian unity. We have been prating about it on a thousand platforms, and praying for it in private and public through the lifetime or a generation, until our peorjlo have ceased to believe in our sincerity. "Words! words! nothing but word 1" until earnest, thoughtful souls turn away from our praying and preaching about brotherly love and unity, as from unreality and sham. For they see us at case in Zion in our disunited state, or active only for the upbuilding of our own particular sect. lll.—Then arc we not fast becoming alien Churches in the land? The Fathers who loved, from old world associations their special denomination, must die. The rising generation cannot share in their feelings. What does the youthful New Zealander, however earnest and Christian, care about our denominational church names ? They are foreign names to him. They recall old world controversies, which, from our upbringing and reading, may have a grandeur in our eyes, or which even we may deplore, but to the young colonial they suggest nothing really interesting. If he loves, as he should, his beautiful land, -he wants a Christian church in sympathy with its great future. Churches living upon old world memories cannot satisfy him. Even their poverty and his love of money might he overcome, and instead of overcrowding the profession of law and every form of business, Christian youths might look toward the Churches if the Churches were more in sympathy with their history and their hopes. It is not mere sentiment to affirm—and though it were we know what a power for good patriotic sentiment has had in the Churches of England, Scotland and Ireland—that if we could forget our old world differences and form a patriotic Christian Church of New Zealand, we might soon find, even in our brief life, a brighter present, and be able to die in hopes of a grander future for Christianity in the land. We cannot always depend upon even a limited supply of educated ministers from the old country. The Churches there, hearing of the growing wealth and commerce of the colony, are listening chiefly to the loud cry for aid from the millions of heathendom. Our demands, however urgent, cannot move them as in days past. They expect us to to train up a New Zealand ministry. Can we do this in our divided state ? United as a national Church with national sympathies and national influences, we might find both men and money for this absolutely needful work. At present, I understand the students in training for the ministry by the Wesleyans are few in numbers, and far too few in the Presbyterian College of Dunedin, to which a stv.denu now and then from the North Island finds his way. But even should he with difficulty find his way there he may never return, or return only for a brief time. He forms connections and fellowships in a separate and wealthier Presbyterian Church that naturally draws him away from the Church of the North Island. This separation of the Presbyterian Churches of New Zealand is a disgrace in the land. Many of the older ministers in the South try to hide the failure of past efforts toward

union with plausible reasons. But not a few of the younger ministers are ashamed of it. They see the unbrotherly, unpatriotic spirit of their Church. They feel keenly the money-grasping heart disclosed to the whole land. That makes their most earnest sermons against the idolatry of gold pointless, and almost becomes a bone m the throat of the deputies when uttering live brotherly sentiments in our Assembly. It may not be easy for the Church in the North to move again in the matter, and yet conscious of seeking nothing for ourselves, save the spiritual good of New Zealand, resulting from the strength and sympathy of union, we should not scruple to earnestly stir up our brethren in the South to wipe oil' the blot of unchristian division from our Presbyterian name. And yet, even apart from the South Island, the Church of the North Island is not so poverty-stricken as some fancy, in men and money. Some congregations are behind in sending in returns, but in the imperfect returns as they stand for 1890, I find 75 ministers in ordained charges, not countingministers out of harness, licentiates and missionaries, ministering in 12b churches and 140 preaching places, with an attendance of 22,546. She_ has 7,879 members on the roll of communicants ; and 1,264 office-bearers—elders and members of committee ; 13,274 Sunday scholars ; and 1,723 at senior Bible classes. The income is £32,485. The stipends £13,717. The average about £250. The seat rents £4,781. The ordinary collections £13,863. I shall not mention now the debt upon the property. That is always understood in New Zealand. I can only sincerely hope that it may be less than the debts of other 'denominations. I mention these figures to show that if our hearts were enlarged to seek the consecrating and refreshing blessing of a larger Christian unity, we need not be altogether ashamed in approaching other denominations, and the other denominations need not, in the vanity of their minds, altogether despise US. With our present resources and strength united, the denominations of even J;ho North Island might become a patriotic Christian Church, attractive to Christian youths of ability ; eager, as they should be, to win their fair island to Christ. And here, I may repeat that the absorption of one Church by another, as the Wesleyans by the Episcopalians, would not be union. The free-born Wesleyans can never he enclosed in an old ecclesiastical paddock with fences too high for patriotic vision and effort. And here too, I may point that unity cannot mean uniformity. That is a foolish and wicked dream of the past that brought great mischief to the world; and that tao warnings of Mr Berry in public print, drawn from England, Scotland, and Koine, refer to State Churches independent of the people. These warnings, however useful, can have but a very limited application to any united Church that can ever exist in New Zealand.

IV. The letters and leaders in the public press, and the address of Mr Berry, who knows Now Zealand well, drawn out by the brief report of the lectures I felt constrained to give, and the sympathy expressed by my ownoflice-bearcrsandpeople, and by the ministers and members of various denominations, prove to me that I did not overstate, but really understated, the evils of our denominational methods. Instead of provoking unto love and good works, as some comfortably fancy, they provoke too often to real mischief and to all manner of sectarian rivalry. No sooner has cms denomination found an open door for ser-. vice in some promising township, than others crowd in, overlapping and frustrating the efforts of one another. Sectarianism' in the city, with its miserable methods of obtaining money, and its anxiety to draw a crowd and gain a collection, is painful enough ; but its influence for evil, even with all its whisperings and backbitinga, is not so keenly felt as in village life. There, enclosed in a narrow circle of interests and activities, it becomes a very petty, hateful thing, abhorrent to every noble feeling in human nature. Mr Berry speaks of it as " cut-throat competition," and Mr Lewis sxys of it, and of the whole system of competitive ecclesiasticism, it is " a caricature of Christianity," and adds a conviction, which, I believe, millions of Christian men share in, " The rivalry of the sects has done more to spread infidelity than all the arguments of Atheistic teachers." And I felt keenly the fact, when I said in public, "The hosts of unbelief lauglr the sects to scorn. They are not afraid of them. They at least do not regard them as separate, regiments—the chosen simile of the platform sectarian of our great advancing army. To the proud enemy they are simply harmless, marauding bands preying on each other." How feeble, for example, we are, as sects, against any crying social evil. How powerful we might be if united in a patriotic Church. " The Bible excluded from the schools !" cry some religionists with horror. Who, or what excluded it? Not the vote of infidels, but the intolerence of dernouinational ecclesiastics. But for this, I believe, selections from the Scriptures—from its wonderful history, psalms, prophecy, gospels and espistles, suitable for children, would soon find even on moral and religious, as well as on literary grounds, a place in our national schools. I do not dwell upon the terrible injury to the Maori Mission and missions to the islands by our Church divisions ; upon the utter perplexity of the heathen in seeking gospel truth ; nor upon the confusion of ideas in the minds of the youthful about what Christianity really is—a daily fact that should touch every parent's, every pastor's, everypatriot'sheart. But why dwell thus at all upon evils we are all familiar with. Yea, we are familiar with them,and yet they do not fire us with fearless resolutions to rise up against them. If we felt them as we should they would become as a fire in our bones. We could not say our prayers calmly or give sleep to our eyelids to-night without resolving, by the help of God's loving spirit, to do something decisive against them. Until Church ministers and members feel thus, little progress can be made toward union. Every mole-hill will seem a mountain. Every worldly-wise shake of the head against vissionary efforts will frighten us ; every Laodicean criticism reveal a fresh hill of difficulty. V. 'But surely it is visionary, , says one, ' to expect the Episcopal Church here, more exclusive than theMothevChurchofEngland, to come down from its high places of sacerdotal pride, even at the call of Christian patroitism, to form, on equal grounds with other denominations, a comprehensive Christian Church for New Zealand.' I sadly fear So. I fear, even with some faith in the almighty power of the Spirit of God, I have never been able to be so visionary. But shall we also be exclusive in our turn ? Can we not offer to co-operate with her for the good of the country ? If she refuses we cannot help it. The fault ■will be manifestly her own. But what hinders other sections not only co-operating but, looking beyond this, firmly and calmly towards union ? The Baptists may have some conscientious scruples; we can sympathise with these while trying to remove them, and we can ask them to remember that we, too, may have our difficulties in even contending that their special views should be left as open questions in any united Church. Eut what practical presentday difficulties exist 'between Wesleyans, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians? If they exist let us hear of them. Principal Rainy, a Presbyterian Professor of Church History, who knows the whole history well of church government and doctrine, declared in Auckland that not a substantial reason could be found against a union of this kind. Congregationalists feel the need of brotherly council in their union. The Wesleyans call the " union " by the name of " conference," and the Presbyterians name it " assembly." The appearance of more ecclesiastical powei about the "conference" and '.'assembly."

may alarm some Congregationalisms, but really they need not be afraid. Much of the supposed supervision of our Presbytery and Assembly is very nominal. We wish it could he more real. Presbyterian congregations are left very much to the freedom of their own will. St. Stephen's, I know, is almost a Congregational as Eeresford Street congregation. Perhaps, too, we might get some'helpful hints from the Wesleyan Conference and Wesleyan methods and might be better able, by acting on them, to leave our city pulpits oftener to visit neglected parts of the land ; and I found before leaving Scotland not a few free Church ministers and leaders beginning to look upon the Wesleyan method of rotation with great favour. If the period of service in our congregations could be extended, not a few Presbyterian ministers might be quite captivated by it. For what minister can retain freshness of thought through a long life among the same people? And what minister does not feel fresh impulses in new fields of labour ? •Butthereareserioiisdoctrinal differences, say some, 'between the above Churches.' Is this really so? Are these differences really practical present-day differences 1 Do they not exist in ancient'documents rather than in daily life? Have we not to rake them out from the darkness, as the embers of old lires of controversy, as completely burnt out as the volcanic (ires of Mount Eden ? At least, wo fondly hope, these destructive fires are both extinguished. Presbyterians and Wcsleyans alike, have become more Scriptural in their presentation of the Gospel, and less theological. This has, inevitihly, drawn them nearer m this teaching. The Presbyterians—except in some solitary instances—shrinks from the ultra-Calvinism of the Westminister Confession as truly as the Wesleyan. And the Wesleyan is compelled to feel the presence in Scripture of mysterious transcendental truths, which men have not yet been able either to expound fully or to explain away. The Westminister divines tried, lip to their light, to give utterance to these truths in their theology, and to define them in their dogmatic creed. The best proof of their failure, and of the fac\ that seventeenth century teachings i:i theology are not suited to th« nineteenth, any more than ancient ideas in science, in commerce or in practice of medicine—is seen in the almost complete absence of these dogmatic deiiniiions from the pulpit, and from the Christian literature of the day. Occasionally they appear, but the ! preacher or writer who indulges in them i? felt to bo out of date, not simply by the thoughtful, but by his most earnest Bible-loving, Christ-loving hearers and readers. Ke is at best ail anachronism ministering to a fast diminishing circle of sympathetic Christians. Do not fancy that we cannot admire the grandeur of many of our Westminster divines. They were the Christian giants of their times. To many of them we modern ministers, in learning and dialectic power, seem as pigmies. Henderson and Gillespie for example, our Scottish Presbyterian representatives were magnificent men, and even Baillie, the principal of Glasgow University, with his pleasant sketches of the Assembly, is to be held in reverence. Yet they were men of their own period in Church history. They could not, as apostolic men, under the immediate inspiration of Christ rise above their times, and become authorities for ail the ages. And these times were very harsh, bitter, intolerant times of religious conflict and controversy, times in which Christian liberty of thought was regarded as sinful license, and the most godly Christians who dared to breast the streams of prevailing popular opinion, as godless heretics. The very fact that our Confession calls upon the civil magistrate to use the power of the sword, in ecclesiastic controversy, shows the spirit of the age in which it was composed, and how very far away it seems from the Christian spirit of our times, and still further from tho spirit of Christ, and of His disciples after they had received from the risen Saviour thefull baptism of spiritual love and power. We have long repudiated in the Presbyterian church this intolerant and persecuting spirit of the Confession, and men cannot bear much longer with the imposition of its minute and one-sided dogmatic opinions, as a confession of the Scriptural faith of the Presbyterian Church. They see everywhere, that the Westminster divines were so eager to present a mighty bulwark against Arminianism, the special terror of their lives, that they pushed to the front the great mysteries of predestination and election, which all men admit, in whatever way they explain them—in the conditional or unconditional way—lie in the back ground of the gospel. So earnest were these divines in heaping up a sandhill against a sea of errors, tbat they actually forgot to put into their creed, and what is worse, into their noble catechism for the young, which might bo greatly improved by simplification, the supreme revelations of Christ and his apostles for old and young. Omitted in their wonderful yet most laborious and unsympathicdefinition of the most High, the repeated words of him who leant upon the bosom of God Incarnate, " Cod is love," omitted even Christ's own Avoids, " God so loved the world," and overlooked the missionary aim of the grand commission "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all'the nations." Some Presbyterians at times are anxious to patch up the confession with these and other gospel and apostolic words. But the old garment cannot really stand this. The rents in its one-sided and transcendental Theology must become worse. The fact is however able and interesting this great document is, so superior in many points to the thirty-nine Articles, it is not so venerable as we sometimes fancy. It does not represent aright Reformation Theology. That Theology, I find in "Calvin's Institutes," is generally fresh and scriptual. But it is the scholastic and ultra-Calvinistic dry-as-dust forms of thought and expression of the 17th Century that chiefly appear in the confession. We cannot be always chained to the Westminister Confession, and nothing would break the chain so quickly as am earnest recognition of the supremacy of Christian love, above the grandest doctrines of Christian faith and hope, to be found in Christian union. Men in every church feel deeply that the teaching of the Christian scholar Arminius, was a needful re-action against ultra-Calvanism, even against the severe logic of the great Calvin himself, And they feel certain that these good men, so imperfectly and exclusively followed by parties, have longagosettledin Heaven—where alone they can be settled—the questions of conditional and unconditional grace. Wesley, we all know followed Arminius, and Wesley's noble companion, Whitfield, like the Presbyterians, followed Calvin. The hearts of these two men of God, longing for brotherly fellowship, were needlessly rent asunder by philosophical and metyphysical problems in Theology, which no one has, and which no one can settle. It was the fashion of the day to fall out about them, and the spirit of the age was toe much even for these great Christian men. The coming together of Wesleyans and Presbyterians would be like the re-union of Wesley and Whitfield. And if these grand saints, and noble souls, long re-united, and long ashamed of their differences, couid revisit ep.rth, would they not beseech us, even with tears, to lay aside the contentions of the past, and unite in the love of God and man for tho good of the country? Hearts fired with this Christian and patriotic devotion will find the question of creeds one of minor importance. They will not seek to impose ancient one-sided documents upon the Christian conscience, that have perpetuated old divisions and originated new ones, until the churches through this and other sectarian evils have become the grief of the wise and godly and the song in the street of the thoughtless and profane. I read again lately in three

large, not always wise volumes, the noble life of John Wesley, but his sermons, however good, never attracted me. I may b? wrong in my estimate of their great value. They seemed far superior to the poor productions of Whitfield in print, yet they seemed to lack the great soul, and fervour of the truly apostolic Wesley. So that, if Wesleyan brethren are alarmed about the Westminster Confession, I must confess to a perfect horror for old sermons as a bond of union. And this mutual feeling in many representatives of the two denominations may be of greatest service ; may lead them, with the uniting influences found among Congregational brethren, who sometimes lean towards Calvin and sometimes to Arminius, to seek after a simpler bond of union, a creed of a gospel and apostolic kind, in harmony \vith the Christian light and lore of the Nineteenth Century, that would secure to all Christians liberty of thought. We are not afflicted in New Zealand, as in Germany, France, and Holland, -with any alarming divergences of thought in the •teachings of the churches. Even the troubling critical questions in the Old Country about the history and composition, of the Scriptures have not become burning questions with us. In times of peace, and ere storms arise, we should make for the haven of Christian unity.

VI. The real difficulties in the way, men say, .sometimes with scorn for the real or supposed money-grubbing propensities of the churches, are financial. Let us hear clearly about these-difficulties. Are they really so great that men in earnest could not overcome them ? Are the trust) deeds of church like the laws of the Medea and Persians ? I don't believe. it. I find the British Parliament) changing deeds of endowment for educational and ecclesiastical purposes. No ancient financial arrangement seems an enduring obstacle to Christian men in the path of diity. And though we had no higher motive than to wipe off reproach from our churches, we slipuld make a real effort to show that the love of God and man is superior to the love of money. If we fail here, >ye fail as that young man in Gospel_ history _ whose fine professions were tested in the simplest! way by the Master, and found delusive. Yes, it is very saddening to find churches refusing to follow Christ in Great Britain and America because they are " very rich." Churches live long and gain possessions, and as they grow wealthy, a greater isolation comes to them, and greater difficulties arise in the way of union with other churches. While we are comparatively, poor, and feel the sympathy of a common poverty, we should draw nearer and help each other in the work of Christ.

VII. But suppose we are convinced of our duty to seek''after unity, what immediate steps should be taken by ministers and members of churches? Suggestions have already been made in public print. I would humbly and earnestly say now :— Ist. We might endeavour, by the pulpit and press, to wake.up church people everywhere; yea, to reach the heart of the whole nation. For the question is not one simply for ministers and church members, but for every man, woman and child with a spark of religious feeling or patriotism in the bosom.

2nd. We might stir up the churches ia Conferences, Unions, and Assemblies, and plead with ministers and other officebearers of the church to face the question frankly, and deal with it earnestly as patriotic Christian men. 3rd. Meanwhile Aye can set about cooperation in the nearest way at hand. If we cannot form at once a large council of the influential men of the various churches, we could form ourselves into a committee, suggesting names of men in sympathy with us, or requesting them to send in tlieir names.

4 th. In this way we might take steps at once for the supply of services in the most] neglected parts of the country round us. We might also study the map and gather information about places overlooked by the churches, and about places where too many agencies are at work, sth. In brief, we might begin prayerfully the work of co-operation now, and invite all who sympathise to join in the work. The most lasting works have usually small beginnings. A word in conclusion. On the keystone of a bridge over a stream in a beautiful Scottish parish, we have read the words "God and we." The tale is interesting. A humble girl in danger of perishing in a storm, when the stream was in flood, vowed that if God would save her life and help her in the future, she would build a bridge over the dangerous chasm. Her prayer was heard. She lived to build the bridge and to leave an endowment for the poor of the parish. The inscription on the bridge gives the secret of success. It is not "God " alone, that would mean human idleness; or "we" alone, that would be human presumption. It is not even "we and God," that would be human pride; but " God and we" gives the scriptural way of success. "Fellow-workers with God," yet depending on him. If, in this Scriptural way, we could become bridge-builders intheChristiaa churches, so as to span the dark chasms and the iloods of evil that roar between the denominations, we might do a work that generations unborn would bless us for. A work worth living for and worth dying for I