Yes,

there; his thoughts will lead him further on." it will lead you further on. I believe that no one studies Christ as the Son of man without becoming filled with reverence and love for Him, and reverence and love grow into worship, and we exclaim at last with the centurion, "Truly this man was the Son of God," and then we submit our hearts and wills and our whole life to His Divine will, and find that peace which passes all understanding. We shall see (as we heard in the second lesson of this morning) “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

May I yet add one final word? This belief in Jesus Christ as the first fruits of a Divine humanity, such as we ourselves are, yet without sin, fills us with boundless hopefulness for the world, with toleration for others, with charity for all. We cannot despair of a human nature which Christ shared. None may be despaired of; for all are the brethren of Christ. Here is the true fount of the ever-flowing stream of Christian charity. And this belief gives us self-respect as well as hopefulness. As we cannot despair of others, so we cannot despair of ourselves. Whatever are our weaknesses or our sins, we share the human nature which Christ glorified. It is this thought which gives us that spring of joyful and bounding emotion, that sustained cheerfulness and confidence in God's everlasting love, which carries us through all times of sorrow and depression, and over all impediments of faithlessness and dulness, till we come to that eternal world where we shall see Him on whom our thoughts have so often dwelt— Christ, the Son of man and the Son of God.

XIII

THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN CHURCH

LIFE DURING

FIVE YEARS.1

THE LAST TWENTY

IT is of course an unusual occurrence that a minister of the Church of England should deliver an address in a Congregational chapel. And I think it may be best to preface my remarks this evening by saying a few words upon the reasons which have led Mr. Thomas to invite me, and have led me to accept his invitation. It is a very simple explanation. It is because we are both convinced, and I know that many Churchmen, and I trust that many Nonconformists are equally convinced, that the right relations between the Church of England and the Nonconformist bodies are those of friendliness and hearty co-operation, and not of aloofness, still less of disparagement or hostility. My being here must not be understood to imply the slightest wavering in Mr. Thomas's principles or in mine. It is possible to combine a wide divergence of opinion on second*ary matters with an earnest unanimity in primary

1 A lecture, given in the Redland Park Congregational Chapel, Bristol, 29th September 1886.

matters. I hold that episcopacy is a form of Church government which has high Scriptural and primitive testimony in its favour, and has been proved by experience to have been suited to its work. I hold that the parochial system under an episcopal government has been the best method ever devised for the education of a whole nation in Christianity. I hold that an Establishment-though not our present Establishment, unmodified and unextended-and religious endowments have been and are very desirable for a Church that is charged permanently with the religious teaching of a whole nation, and is not only concerned with the spiritual edification of its own voluntary members. But it seems to be God's will, to speak with all reverence, and to be a result of deep-seated historical causes, that there should for the present exist, side by side, different associations which hold the negatives of all these propositions, and yet work effectually within their limited lines in spreading the faith and spirit of Christ. And, therefore, I cannot but believe that if Christ could stand among us He would say that nothing should separate us from one another which does not separate us from Him.

If I were addressing Nonconformists only, this is all I need say. But one1 for whose goodness I entertain great respect, while not denying the legality of my action, about which I consulted him, has asked me "whether my addressing you to-night may not be deemed to involve some measure of overt spiritual communion with that which in our Litany we disavow and deprecate-in a word, whether toleration, ever rightful and commendable, may not be regarded as 1 The Lord Bishop of the diocese.

having fringed off into formal approval and sympathy." My reply is that "it may be so deemed," and "may be so regarded," but from what I believe is a mistake as to the essence of schism. When I pray in the Litany to be delivered from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism, I pray to be saved from holding unworthy views of Christ or His Church, and to be saved from that spirit of faction and sectarianism and party which so terribly spoils the Christian life. I pray that this spirit of party may never again so infect our Church as to make us split into sections, each existing to proclaim their own opinions. But when in God's providence we have been and are split into sections, what is the right attitude? It is certain, if anything is certain, that neither argument nor compulsion can produce unanimity. Let us try the more excellent way. When the Samaritans invited our Lord "He abode with them two days." Let us also try whether the spirit of aloofness and hostility, that is, the spirit of schism, cannot be got rid of, and thus the evil of separate organisations minimised. You are members, as we are, of the body of Christ; and in that body there should be no quarrel; all should be peace and harmony. If separate organisation does not separate you from Christ, it cannot separate you from us. In coming to speak to you I am acting wholly in the spirit of our Church's prayer against schism.

The subject on which I have been invited to speak is "The progress of Christian Church life during the last twenty-five years." By Church life we mean something different from individual Christian life. Could we venture to speak of the progress during the last twenty-five years of individual Christian life?

Is the type of the Christian man or woman finer than it was a generation ago? Are we better than our fathers? I think not. It seems to me as I recall the sweet lives I have known, lives now hid with Christ in God, that they attained a holiness and rest and purity, a calm, unagitated, undoubting trust, a conscious repose in God, that is not given to many men now. I do not see any one now like my father; and there are others among us who would say the same of their fathers. It is not merely filial piety and reverence for age that makes men say so. It corresponds to a real difference. The ideal of life set before men by religious biographies and otherwise I can well recall it was to have experiences: it was to be "an eminent Christian"; and to be an eminent Christian meant a life of much retirement, much introspection, and conscious spiritual experiences. The type has perhaps somewhat changed. Our generation desires less self-consciousness, more work for others. W. Wilberforce used to be warned that he was imperilling his own soul by so devoting himself to his cause. No one would now so warn Ellice Hopkins.

This change in the ideal of individual life is the key to the progress in Church life. There is a greater activity in almost every religious community taken separately; certainly in the Church of England there is more consciousness of joint relations to the world outside. It almost amounts to a new sense, this feeling of the public conscience that every member of a religious community should be doing something for others. Not that it was not preached before, or recognised as a duty. No one ever put it better than Bishop Butler, the great Bishop of Bristol,