the first Congregational churches evinces that both the individual theologian, and the denomination as a whole, craved a distinct, and publicly adopted, rule of faith and practice, as that which should help them to study the Scriptures understandingly, and should bind them together ecclesiastically. Reverence for a common denominational creed belongs, then, historically, to the Congregational church, as it does to all those well-compacted churches whose career constitutes the history of vital Christianity upon earth. In seeking to deepen and strengthen this reverence, we are not going contrary to the primal instinct and native genius of Congregationalism; we are not engrafting any wild shoots into the church of our forefathers; we are simply inhaling and exhaling, their pure, their exact, their thorough-going spirit.

1. Passing now to the discussion of the theme itself, we remark, in the first place, as a reason for a stronger symbolical feeling in Congregationalism, that an intensely free system, like our own, is the one that derives all the advantages, and escapes all the evils, that result from the organific power of a symbol.

Were the church which we honor and love already rigid and solid by reason of an inherent tendency of its own to centralization, there might be reason to fear any and every consolidating influence. But Congregationalism is made up of dynamic forces and flowing lines, and its intrinsic tendency is to liberty and diffusion. There is no church that has so little of form, and figure, and organization, as our own. Like the church gathered in the upper room, its constitution is almost invisible. We are vastly nearer to pure spirit, than to pure matter. Our body is nearly as immaterial as some souls. There is little danger, therefore, that Congregationalism will receive detriment from a centripetal force, particularly if that force does not issue from polity, or judicatories, but from doctrine. And there is no danger that it will proceed from either government or ecclesiastical mechanism. The political structure of our denomination is as well defined and settled as that of the Papacy itself, and stands even less chance of alteration. No centralizing force VOL. XV. No. 59.

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can be brought to bear from this quarter. The very attempt to establish judicatures within Congregationalism, and to unify and consolidate the denomination by means of polity, would be suicidal; and therefore, though there may be secessions and departures from it, there can be no internal change of the denomination as a whole, unless we sup pose an entire transmutation and transubstantiation of it into something that is not Congregationalism.

The only power, then, that can unify the denomination, and make its various atoms and elements feel that there is a deeper life and bond of union than that of polity, is the power of doctrine; the power of a common faith; the power of a self-chosen denominational creed. And this is both a salutary and safe power, in reference to a system so highly republican as our own. For in this exuberance of democratic life, and this expansive freedom, lies our danger. The centrifugal force, if unbalanced, will shoot the star madly from its sphere. Considering that our natural tendencies are those of growth, progress, and liberty, and that all natu ral tendencies perpetuate themselves, our watchfulness ought to have reference to such traits as unity, solidarity, and harmony. That which is spontaneous need give us no anxiety; but that which is to be acquired, which is the result of effort and of self-education, should be the chief object in the eye.

We may derive an illustration from the province of polit ical philosophy. The question whether conservatism or progress shall be the preponderating element in the state, will be answered by the wise man in view of the general condition of things in the commonwealth. He whose lot is cast among the hereditary prerogatives and orders of the English state, if he follows the wise course, will side with the Liberals; while the very same man, if called to live and act in the midst of the fierce democracies and conflicts of a new and rankly growing nation like our own, will side with Conservatism. For there is little danger, in the early and formative eras of a nation's history, particularly if there be an immense fund of vital force, and vast continental spaces to

spread over and work in, of too much regulation and education. The training is more liable to err upon the side of laxness than of strictness, when the thews and muscles of a giant are forming, and the gristle is hardening into the bone of a Hercules. Besides this, in a republican commonwealth, if the tendency to centralization does become too strong, and power really begins to steal from the many to the few, the remedy is close at hand, and in the hands of the citizens. In a monarchy, if the just equilibrium has been disturbed, it cannot be restored without a revolution; but the adjustment in a republic takes place by an inevitable law and a tranquil movement, like that which equalizes the pressure of the atmosphere. In all free systems, therefore, where the instinct and the spontaneity runs to liberty and diffusion, the hazard is not in the direction of conservative methods and influ

ences.

All this holds true in its full force of the democratic church, as well as of the democratic state. As there is no lack of inward energy in Congregationalism, and as there is no external restraint from its political structure and arrangement; as there are no judicatures, and nothing, consequently, but good advice by which to hold the denomination together; there is little danger of an excess in the moral and spiritual forces that must do this work, if it be done at all. As that individual who stands up isolated, and independent of all outward restraints, ought for this very reason to feel the strongest possible inward limitation, so should that ecclesiastical body which has least of mechanism and of polity, subject itself to the strongest possible doctrinal and spiritual constraint. Let then the symbol be melted into the soul of the free and vigorous churches. Let it permeate them as quicksilver does the pores of gold. Let the clearly defined, and the accurate dogma become the sinew and fibre of the otherwise loose and slack organization.

2. Secondly, Congregationalism needs a stronger confidence in creed-statements because, as a denomination, it is unusually exposed to the sceptical influences of literary culture and free-thinking.

It so happens that the simplest form of church polity is the dominant one, the "standing order," in the oldest and most highly educated portion of the United States. The Congregational churches of New England are planted in the midst of the most artificial civilization upon the Western continent, and their membership is more exposed to the good and bad influences of secular refinement, and literary cultivation, than is that of any other denomination in the land. The first-settled, and most densely-settled, part of any country always contains more of irreconcilable varieties of social, literary, and religious opinion than the newer regions. There may not be more apparent and superficial variety, but there will be vastly more of the latent and profounder differences of sentiment. There are, it is true, a much greater number of sects in our Western states than in the Eastern, but then these sects themselves are founded in religion of some sort, and not in scepticism. The pioneer, though illiterate and rude, it may be, is characterized by religious sensibility, and he is continually thrown into circumstances and emergencies that cause him to feel his dependence upon his Maker. As a consequence, he is like the ancient Athenians, to whom Paul spoke, very much inclined to religion and worship. The older parts of our land, on the other hand, may exhibit fewer external marks of difference; fewer sects may come into existence, and to the eye of the superficial observer, there may seem to be a very general sameness in the external phenomena of the region, and yet there be forming, and formed, beneath, in the hearts and minds of a class of community, a disbelief in all that is properly called religion, that throws them "whole equinoxes apart" from those who are living, thinking, praying, and dying by their side. This radical divergence of the parties from each other is seen whenever any great religious movement takes place. The motley and mottled population of the new region, being only superficially separated, flows together when the common Christian faith and truth is set home with unwonted power and by unwonted influences, while the seemingly homogeneous population of the educated and refined

portions of the country only have their latent and irreconcilable antagonisms elicited by such influences. Hence it is that the extremes of faith and unbelief will always meet, in their severest conflict, in the older and more highly cultivated portions of a country. And that church which is called to defend and propagate the faith amongst such a population, is consequently exposed to unusual temptations and needs uncommon aids and appliances.

Such, if we are not mistaken, is the position and the function of Congregationalism. The most careless observer must acknowledge that there is more of radical conflict of opinion in New England than in any other portion of the United States. That scepticism, which invariably springs up out of belles lettres, when belles lettres is divorced from deep thinking, is more rife and forth-putting here than anywhere else. These older states contain more of that religious indifferentism which always arises when literature is separated from philosophy and theology, and which exhibits its opposition to New-Testament Christianity, sometimes by the elegant languor of its over-refinement, and sometimes, when exasperated into some emotion, by a bitterness that borders upon malignity. The Congregational churches are set for the defence and spread of the humbling doctrines of guilt and atonement, among a population which is feeling in an increasing degree the stupefying influences of wealth, and the inflating influences of earthly culture. The structure of society around them, like that of England or France, is growing artificial, and, in so far, irreligious, by the very lapse of time, and the influx of a more elaborate civilization. Loose thinking, and radical differences of opinion upon fundamental subjects, are the natural attendants upon such a social state and condition, and it becomes much more difficult for Christianity under such circumstances to overcome the antagonisms and mould society internally and from the centre. The newer states, and the less sophisticated populations, are much more plastic, and, in all their internal characteristics, much more homogeneous, and hence the church that is planted in them, only needs to enunciate