Sectarianism is the mother, rather than the daughter of High Churchmanship. For instance, the question of polity was hardly raised, hardly had a meaning in Catholicism, until the Reformation. Thus, whether the bishop and presbyter are two orders or one, whether episcopal superiority, or even the papacy, is of Divine or human right, whether the pope has a universal bishopric or only a supreme archbishopric, how far national churches have indefeasible national rights, whether the papacy and the Roman bishopric are or are not inseparable, were leisurely debated, but rather as a theological luxury than as necessary to be decided. That which exists in conscious strength, is not apt to be too much troubled over the theory of its own existence. But vulgar proselytism does need some show of higher dignity wherewith to cover its nakedness.

Congregationalism, however, has one peculiar glory: it may spread far and wide, but it cannot be effectively propagated without ceasing to be itself. The Greek cities, in their municipal distinctness, extended themselves, of their own unconscious force, from Sinope to Marseilles. But had the Greeks abstracted this municipal autonomy as a substantive principle, the propagation of which was to be the salvation of the world, and compacted themselves into a unity, represented by triennial councils, assisted by usurping Amphictyonies, soon claiming authority to decide as to the legitimacy of municipal magistracies, and to supervise pretty much all that was done in the world of Hellas, then this new federal commonwealth might have been a very excellent thing, and might have received many admirable features of the elder order into itself. But it would certainly have been something else than that elder order. Once make Congregationalism a denomination, and if you have not killed it, you have hopelessly scotched it. Nothing is funnier than to see the Presbyterian spirit of the founders of Massachusetts Bay resuming its rights, and yet testing the phrases of genuine and original Congregationalism to see how far they can be stretched without snapping. The present writer, however, freely avowing a defect of metaphysical power, would rather turn to the more palpable and easily resolvable problem of how many souls can dance on the point of a cambric needle.

But are these unfruitful questions, and tenth-rate aims, to be extended to the heathen world? It seems they are. Hitherto Congregationalists have been content to say that Japan needs the gospel of Christ. This must be carried to it. Everything else the quick apprehensions and eager energies of its people can easily secure. And really, if there are newly converted people anywhere in the world who can be trusted to care for Christian interests in forms of their own activity, borrowing just so much or so little from foreign usage as they are inclined, it is the Japanese. One would think that when an Hellenic form of church administration, accepted by the apostles but nowhere enjoined, re-emerges after near two thousand years, under the partisan exegesis of a time of stress, in England, to be profoundly modified there, is then transported to New England, to undergo all the sharp local differentiations of her necessities, and then emigrates to the interior, to become no one yet knows exactly what, it would have by this time pretty well worn off the gloss of imagined sacredness. It might surely then be left in peace, when conveyed to Japan, to find its affinities, and to resolve itself into any new composite which might in the judgment of these new brethren best serve the great end to which all these merely instrumental ends are but as the small dust of the balance. And these brethren do actually meet together, of their own motion, with other brethren, of identical doctrine, worship, and principles of Christian living, and of closely related methods, and prepare to unite their forces under a scheme which does honor to all that is peculiar to each company. Unity is the great need, and unity is attained under a plan which allows the Congregationalist to be still a Congregationalist, and the Presbyterian still a Presbyterian. It may be that the scale would ultimately turn somewhat more heavily to the Presbyterian side. What if it should? Is there reason to believe that the angels would shed one tear over snch a thing? Are we to suppose that the large-hearted Congregational Christians of America would lose their interest in the evangelization of Japan if it were uncertain whether the souls brought in might not possibly hear the name of John Knox five times where they heard that of John Robinson three? In either event they would be brought up in vital

godliness, sound doctrine, evangelical freedom, and manly care of their own affairs. And American Christians must needs throw an apple of discord into the feast of their happy union! Yet why should we wonder? Is it not an apostle who says, even of his own fellow-laborers: "For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's "?

I know it is said that Mr. Neesima disapproves of this new arrangement. It is easy to say so. It is not to be supposed that its details are beyond criticism. And it is sagacious to endeavor to cover the unhandsomeness of sectarian interference under the name of this admirable man, whose natural modesty, and reluctance to fall out with old friends, will probably keep him from contradicting this assertion, particularly in his precarious condition of health. But the outcry was anterior to this assumption of Mr. Neesima's dissent. It would be uncharitable to say that the opponents of this happy scheme of union are copying Beza, and feel that it is hardly worth while for Japan to become Christian unless she can be Congregational too. But the comparison will suggest itself, though it needs to be greatly tempered in the application. Those, however, were the golden days of American Congregationalism, when she cared little whether or not she was dissolved in outward form, if only she could be found to rise again in that sweet and strong spirit of Christ which the fathers brought hither.

In the Episcopal Church, a large majority of the clergy hold strongly to the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession, as something the defect of which destroys the regularity, or even the validity, of a church-order. But no clergyman can be brought to account for rejecting this theory, which we know to have been rejected by many great Anglican divines in almost every generation since the consecration of Parker. High Church and Low Church fight vigorously, but in Convocation and Convention each knows his own standing to be perfectly safe. And even the mischance of an indecent rebuff from an overbearing bishop disturbs the whole country. This is the way the Apostolic Succession behaves. Does the Apostolic Polity do as well? Until lately we should unhesitatingly have said, Yes. But an extraordinary occurrence, some years back, in a Boston Association, makes me hesitate. My voucher is

the Rev. Frederic Palmer, rector of Christ Church, Andover, who was then a member of the Association, and who authorizes me to use his name. A member of the body, who had left better prospects elsewhere for very much worse in Congregationalism, on account of his preference for it, had to read a paper on the choice of the seven. He incidentally remarked, that the apostles were guided by wisdom for their present need, but that he did not suppose that they meant to establish a norm for the church of all ages—an opinion, I may remark, respecting the Diaconate, which is freely allowed in both the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic Churches. As soon as he had ended, a leading clergyman of the Association rose, and remarked, that the brother must certainly see the impropriety of his remaining any longer in a Congregational body. He hoped he would not, being only one, compel his brethren to resign their membership, and thus break up the Association. A second leading clergyman supported the first, and thus it went round, a small fraction only, Mr. Palmer says, venturing on a feeble defence. Note, the essayist had not said a word impugning the most exclusive theory of High Church Congregationalism. He had merely propounded a variant opinion respecting a subordinate point. He sat astounded under the avalanche of denunciation, but at length recovering himself ventured mildly to suggest that perhaps none of his brethren had given quite so convincing a proof of attachment to Congregationalism as he. This recalled them to a certain sense of their behavior, and the matter dropped. But imagine the stiffest Churchman from Lambeth to Sacramento proposing the virtual excommunication of another Episcopalian for maintaining that the Episcopate itself, not to say the Diaconate, is simply of human right! No wonder that of four successive scribes of that Association three have seceded into the Episcopal Church. They reasoned, or might certainly very well have reasoned, that if they must live in an atmosphere of High Church opinion, they would do well to go where Low Churchmen had ascertained rights.

But this explosion of furious folly, though happening in a Boston Association, may have been a mere unexplainable portent, from which nothing can be inferred. Yet after Dr.

Newman Smyth's installation in New Haven, a Congregational paper of the farthest West-quoted disapprovingly in the Independent-passing lightly over his theology, insists that it is unworthy of Congregationalism to place over one of its great churches a man who avows that he asks nothing of a particular church-polity, except that it shall work easily. Then any one who comes from another denomination ought to be required to make a solemn Act of Renunciation, and if his coming is also a return, the Act of Renunciation ought to be made likewise an Act of Repentance. Are the East and the West, as two great arms, to close and smother every man who accepts Congregationalism as a legitimate fact, but refuses to profess it as an Article of Faith? Then they ought to have begun with Hartford, for in a letter to me the late beloved Professor Karr avows himself "a Low Churchman of the most abandoned description." Indeed, Hartford and Yale, Andover and Oberlin, and Bangor, may be expected to stand together here. When was this poisonous seed of High Church intolerance planted in Congregationalism, this seed whose growth has since done so much to kill within it its original and proper character? Apparently somewhat before 1852. Not far from that date, and so far as I know for the first time, a violent attack was made upon those sons of New England who had left their ancestral polity for the wealthy benefices of Middle State Presbyterianism. This attack was seen to be pointed mainly at Dr. Henry B. Smith, and was accepted and resented by him as it deserved. The evil impulses then set in motion have since propagated themselves to the very shores of the Pacific, and, as we see, are now swelling to send themselves in a mischievous tide over the islands of Asia. But this spirit of arrogant assumption and greedy proselytism is so foreign to the genuine tone and noblest traditions of American Congregationalism, that it is not to be believed but that, however destructive it may be for a while, it will finally be subdued and cast out into some more congruous and congenial home.

CHARLES C. STARBUCK.