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most eloquent voice in all the South will be hushed. That event, happily, however, seems far in the distance.

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The English Congregational Union Among the May meetings of the religious world in England, that of the Congregational Union of England and Wales has lately been held in London. From the reports in the English papers seems to have been of great interest. The present Chairman is the Rev. Charles A. Berry, D.D., of Wolverhampton. The Rev. Alfred Rowland, of the Crouch End Church, London, was elected to succeed him. An interesting feature of the meetings was the appearance and address of the Rev. L. D. Bevan, D.D., of Melbourne, Victoria, who responded to the welcome given to the representatives from the Colonies. He spoke of the loyalty of the Victorians to the Mother Country, their loyalty to the great principles of English righteousness, and their loyalty to the old faith. In the course of his remarks he said: "In Australia there are no heresy-hunts. I don't think it would be possible to get up one. In the first place, we have no heretics; and if we had, we have not got the other fellows to hunt them out. I question whether any of us is orthodox enough to be a heresy-hunter." Happy colonies! May America some day attain to their state of universal heterodoxy-or universal tolerance!

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The interest of the meetings centered, as usual, in the address from the Chair. Dr. Berry chose for his subject "Congregational Churchmanship: Its Privileges and Obligations." emphasized those distinctive traditions and principles which are associated with his branch of the Catholic Church, and held that "the Church that is truest to itself has most and best to communicate to others." He repudiated the "one fold heresy," and said that "without finality and uniformity in organization, every Church of Christ should possess the elements of the common faith; should bear witness to the mission of the common Lord; and should loyally work for the common kingdom." To speak of "Congregational Churchmanship" is to assume and assist other possible types of churchmanship. The fundamental belief common to all the Free Churches was the acceptance of the Lord's assurance that "where two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst." Where Christ is, there is a Christian church. The affirmation on which Congregationalism is founded is that personal salvation is essential to churchmanship, not churchmanship to personal salvation. Commenting on Dr. Berry's address, the "Christian World" says "that it is Christian men, become such by conviction and conscious union with their Head, who make the Church, and not the Church which makes men Christian; that the individual, religiously considered, is not complete in himself, but becomes such only by union with the spiritual community; and that the communi

ties so formed are directly related to an unseen Lord, by whose laws they are governed, and in whose constant inspiration they live and grow; these were truths belonging to the very quick and center of Free Church life, which it was good to hear so eloquently expounded and so powerfully driven home." In closing, Dr. Berry made a strong plea for the church prayer-meeting. He urged that business matters be kept subsidiary to the exercises of devotion. They had been neglecting what he called their " power room." There should be more fellowship in prayer, quiet communion with God, and mutual converse and encouragement in spiritual things. In speaking of this portion of his address the "Christian World" says:

By all means let the church-meeting be made a more interesting and a more profitable function than usually it is. There is room for improvement! Let there be more spontaneous utterance in it if that be called for, though even here it must be remembered that the readiest speakers are not always the best Christians, and that "liberty of prophesying" means too often the unmuzzling of the bores and cranks who infest religious societies. But... as the community grows more and more into the mind of Christ, the tendency will be less and less toward the word spoken than to the deed done... The Church is already a past-master in the art of expressing its every phase of religious emotion; it is yet a mere tyro in the business of obeying Christ's law and getting it obeyed in the world.

The "Diamond" Jubilee meeting was full of enthusiasm and interest. The venerable Rev. Dr. Guinness Rogers presided. Addresses were given by Dr. Berry on "Some Notable Religious Movements of the Reign;" Dr. Mackennal, on Reign of Victoria ;" Dr. Parker, on "The Great "The Development of the Social Idea in the Congregational Pastors of Her Majesty's Reign;" and by Mr. Augustine Birrell, M.P., on "The Relation of the Free Churches to the Hanoverian Dynasty." Of the Queen he said: "There has been in her manner towards Nonconformists a royal breadth of sentiment and feeling well befitting her dynasty." After the singing of the national anthem the meeting closed by the audience rising, at the Chairman's invitation, to give unanimous assent to a resolution of loyal congratulation being forwarded to her Majesty.

The Color Line

Evidences are multiplying that our colored citizens are meeting the question of the color line in the very best way that it can possibly be met, namely, by studying the conditions in which their people are living, and by seeking to improve themselves socially and physically, as well as morally and spiritually. The Conferences at Tuskegee and Atlanta have been steps in this direction. Another conference of the same kind has lately been held at Straight University in New Orleans. The rate of mortality among the colored people has become so great as to excite general attention, and the fact that there is not sufficient school accommodation and that a large number of children

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of school age are not enjoying school privileges has also attracted attention. These facts led to the Conference, which considered at successive sessions three questions: first, the causes of the death-rate among the colored people; second, the industrial condition and the progress of the people; and, third, education with special reference to the condition of the public school. These questions were treated in a practical way by specialists. For instance, we notice in the programme such questions as these: "Parties Responsible for the Sanitary Condition: the City, the Landlord, and the Tenant;" "Facilities for Buying Homes through Loan and Homestead Associations;" "Causes of Non-attendance of a Large Proportion of Children of School Age, and Suggestions as to Its Remedy." Our colored citizens are taking hold of practical problems far more swiftly than could have been expected, and they have been fortunate in having among them some leaders of splendid gifts, among whom may be mentioned the late President Price, of Livingstone College, and, pre-eminently, Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee. They are fast winning for themselves the recognition which never could have been won in any other way.

Another Summer School in England We have received many inquiries concerning the possibility of a summer school this season in connection with Mansfield College, Oxford. No such school has been announced, but one under the care of the Friends is to be held at Scarborough, the famous English watering-place near the cathedral city of York. It will be held from August 4 to 18. The director of the school will be Professor J. Rendel Harris, D.Litt., University Lecturer on Paleography in the University of Cambridge. Professor Harris will deliver lectures on the Life of Christ and on the SubApostolic Age, and will also give general lectures on the New Testament. Old Testament lectures will be given by Mr. G. Buchanan Gray, of Mansfield College, Oxford; another course on the Monumental History of the Old Testament by Professor Rogers, of Drew Theological Seminary in this country; and still other and more popular lectures by Professors R. G. Moulton, George Adam Smith, Dr. R. F. Horton, Mrs. Lewis (the discoverer of the Lewis Syriac Codex), and by others equally well known in England and the United States. Scarborough is one of the most attractive of all the English watering-places. It is not far from Whitby, and is near the center of a counA summer school in try rich in historic interest.

England has one advantage over any which might be held in this country: it may be attended in the consciousness that the temperature will not make study a burden to the flesh. We are not able to give further information concerning this school, but presume letters addressed to Professor J. Rendel Harris, Cambridge, England, would receive attention.

A Singular Library

Different people place very different estimates on the same thing. The Library Committee of the Woman's Christian Association of Philadelphia has decided that Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward's "A Singular Life" shall not be admitted to the library of that institution. We are informed on good authority that the decision is made on the ground of its alleged heretical tendency. An inquirer for the book was recently informed that there was no copy in the library and that "there would be none." ." Almost simultaneously with this announcement comes the news that the book has been selected by the Library Committee of the Sunday-school of one of the larger suburban evangelical churches and placed on the library shelves with a recommendation as good and wholesome reading. Many who have read this book have felt that the title might well be changed to" A Consecrated Life ;" and, so far as we know, no book has been written within the last few years better calculated to inspire the young to consecrated living. The Philadelphia library referred to is not large, but has on its shelves Scott's novels, some of Hardy's, and all of "Pansy's" books, and yet the Committee feel that they have no place for this book which touches the life and problems of to day more deeply than any of the others. If the young hero was an alleged theological heretic, his spirit was the kind that makes the true hero, and his life came much nearer than the average to the life of Him who died that we might live.

Notes

Dr. Cheyne, of Oxford, the well-known student of the Old Testament, will deliver a course of lectures at the Union Theological Seminary in the autumn on "Israel After the Exodus." He is also to lecture in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and perhaps at other points,

According to the report of Secretary Hazen, the total number of Congregational churches that will appear in the forthcoming Year-Book is 5,428. One hundred and seventy-six were added during the year. The church members number 615,220, the net gain being 12,663. The additions on confession during the year were 32,137. The number of Sunday-school members is 687,575. The benevolent contributions were $2,129,456.

A conference for the comparison of views on moral, social, and economic questions was held last summer at the home of the Rev. B. Fay Mills at Fort Edward, N. Y. Another conference will be held this year, June 23-30, for the consideration of the same subjects. Among those interested in the conference we notice, in addition to Mr. Mills, President Gates, of Iowa, Professor Commons, of Syracuse, Professor Parsons, of Boston, Professor Bemis and Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, and the Hon. Ernest H. Crosby, of New York.

It is said that the Rev. Chauncey B. Brewster, rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn, is likely to be chosen as Bishop Coadjutor of Connecticut. Mr. Brewster is a direct descendant of Elder Brewster, of the Plymouth Colony. He is a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale. He has been rector of Grace Church since 1888, and is now President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Long Island. Bishop Williams is known to favor Mr. Brewster, and the latter, his friends think, would not be unwilling to allow his name to be used for the position.

RELIGIOUS MEETINGS

In 1897, as in former years, the meetings of national and international scope held for purely religious objects will be among the largest gatherings of midsummer. Thus, at San Francisco the Christian Endeavorers will assemble by thousands in the second week of July, while in the following week the Epworth League will hold its third International Conference at Toronto. So far as climatic conditions are concerned, both cities are regarded as desirable convention points in July. Another largely attended convention will be that of the Baptist Young People's Union, at Chattanooga, Tenn., July 15-18.

But even more attractive to many young people will be the quiet of shaded Northfield, in Massachusetts, which has been made famous as the home of Mr. D. L. Moody and the seat of his well-known schools. There will be no great mass-meetings here; the gatherings will rather take the form of a series of conferences and schools for Bible study. The Y. M. C. A., and especially the college students' branch of that organization, will have an important part in these conferences, and the Young Women's Student movement will also be represented. Similar programmes of summer study have been projected for the annual Lake Geneva (Wis.) Conferences.

The first International Convention of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, representing an important movement among the laymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church, will be held at Buffalo, N. Y., October 13.

No missionary meeting of the next six months will equal in importance that of the American Board at New Haven, October 12-15; the two chief speakers on this occasion will be Dr. Storrs and Dr. Meredith, of Brooklyn. In the following week, at Minneapolis, will occur the annual meeting of the American Missionary Association.

During the year two or three very important meetings in behalf of temperance will be held by religious organizations. The Roman Catholic Total Abstinence Union will meet at Scranton, Pa., August 27. Our readers do not need to be reminded of the excellent results accomplished by this society in the past, largely under the efficient direction of the Rev. Father Doyle, of New York City.

October 23 there will assemble at Toronto the World's Convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in which most of the forty countries where the W. C. T. U. is organized will be represented by delegates. This great world's meeting will be followed by a convention of the National W. C. T. U. at Buffalo, at which Lady Henry Somerset and other delegates to the

Toronto meeting from beyond the seas will be present.

EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONS

The great gathering of teachers for the year will be the annual meeting of the National Educational Association at Milwaukee, July 6-9. It would not be surprising if the attendance at this meeting should exceed 20,000, as the railroads have offered special inducements. All departments of public school and higher educational work will be represented in the various programmes of the general, section, and committee meetings announced by Secretary Irwin Shepard, of the Minnesota Normal School at Winona.

Of quite a different character, in one sense, will be the smaller meeting of the American Institute of Instruction at Montreal, immediately after the close of the N. E. A. sessions at Milwaukee. The attendance at this meeting is generally confined to New England and the Eastern States, but eminent speakers are always present, and the broadest themes are discussed. It is expected that the Hon. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, will address the Montreal meeting.

At the New York University Convocation in Albany, June 23-25, the allied interests of secondary and higher education will receive special

attention.

The American Manual Training Association will hold a meeting in New Haven on the first of July, and at the same time and place there will be an extensive exhibit of the work of manualtraining schools.

The Music Teachers' National Association will meet in New York City, June 24-28. This body is interested in promoting the introduction of systematic instruction in music in public schools and colleges.

In this forecast of educational gatherings it would not be proper to omit mention of the college commencement season which is just upon us, although it is probably true that the typical college commencement is less an occasion of serious conference on educational problems than it has been in the past.

Among the important commencement dates of 1897 are the following:

June 9, Vassar College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Catholic University of America; June 10, New York University; June 11, Johns Hopkins University; June 12, United States Military Academy: June 15. Rutgers College; June 16, Brown, Colgate, Princeton, Vanderbilt, and Washington and Lee Universities, and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; June 17, Cornell and Northwestern Universities, the University of Virginia, and the Stevens Institute of Technology; June 22, Smith College and Western Reserve University; June 23, Hobart, Lafayette, Mt. Holyoke, Oberlin, and Williams Colleges, and

Washington and Jefferson University; June 24, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Hamilton, Kenyon, Trinity, and William and Mary Colleges; June 29, Union College; June 30, Amherst and Middlebury Colleges, and Harvard, Wesleyan, and Yale Universities; July 1, Bates College and the University of Michigan; August 5, the University of the South.

SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES

It happens this year that several scientific conventions of more than ordinary interest will be held on American soil. The British Association for the Advancement of Science is to meet in Toronto, August 18. (The Detroit meeting of the American Association will have been concluded a few days before that date.) Eminent British scientists, led by Lord Lister, Lord Kelvin, and Sir John Evans, the President of the Association for the present year, will take an active part in the proceedings at Toronto, and hundreds of Americans will embrace the opportunity to see and hear these men.

The British Medical Association, another learned body of great dignity and influence, has also decided to hold its meeting in Canada this year, rather than in the British Isles; Montreal has been selected as the place, and August 31 as the time. This will permit many of the English delegates to the Toronto meeting to be present at both gatherings.

The American Medical Association has just celebrated, in Philadelphia, its golden jubilee.

The American Bar Association will assemble at Cleveland, August 25-27; the President for the current year is the Hon. James M. Woolworth, of Nebraska.

The Conference of Charities and Correction at Toronto, July 7-14, will be international in representation. Nearly all the States of the Union, Mexico, and the Dominion of Canada will send delegations. The subjects of charity organization, social settlements, juvenile reformation, and child-saving work will receive special attention in the general sessions of the Conference, and sec. tions will be organized for the more detailed dis cussion of these matters.

Kindred topics will have place on the programme of the American Social Science Association's Saratoga meeting, August 31-September 4; and at the Conference of the National Prison Association at Austin, Texas, October 16-20, the problems pertaining directly to the science of penology will be discussed.

A special interest attaches to the general meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, July 26, because of the fact that the sessions will be held at Greenacre, Me., the home of the late Moses G. Farmer, and will mark the semi-centennial anniversary of his career as an electrical inventor. Other conferences at Greenacre will discuss Evolution, Psychology, Sociology, Education, Music, Comparative Religion.

The joint meeting in London next month of the Library Association of the United Kingdom and the American Library Association will attract

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a number of American librarians. This meeting will be preceded, however, by a Conference of the American Library Association at Philadelphia, June 21-25, which will doubtless be attended by many whose limited vacations will not admit of the transatlantic journey.

A few American geologists have arranged to attend the sessions of the International Geological Congress at St. Petersburg in August.

SUMMER SCHOOLS

The summer instruction now given in the United States is most varied in character. A dozen or more of the leading universities offer courses for about six weeks of the summer which differ in no essential respect from those offered during the rest of the year; the same professors conduct the work, and the same facilities are afforded the student. In thirty or forty other universities and colleges the work is less pretentious, in some of them being quite elementary. There are perhaps one hundred summer schools not connected with other educational institutions, and as to these no generalization whatever would be safe. Of the special schools the most important are those organized and equipped for teachers. The Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute and the National Summer School at Glens Falls, N. Y., are examples of this class. These have been long established. In very recent years a few institutions here and there have begun to offer superior advantages for advanced work in pedagogy. Colonel Parker's Chicago Normal School, the Teachers' College in New York City, the New York University, the University of Buffalo, and Clark University have made special efforts in this direction. All of these give summer courses for teachers, providing instruction of the very highest order.

Of the summer schools devoted to natural science the one most widely known and most firmly established is the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Holl, Mass., which is just opening for the tenth annual session. This is said to be the largest summer school of biology in the world (there were about two hundred per sons in attendance last year), and next to the Naples Station it takes first rank in the number and importance of the contributions to knowledge which have gone out from it. It is, too, an excellent example of successful intercollegiate cooperation. The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences maintains a similar laboratory, on a smaller scale, at Cold Spring Harbor, and on the Pacific coast the University of California and Leland Stanford University offer like facilities in summer to biological students.

During the month of July the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, at Philadelphia, will provide lecture courses in psy chology, mathematics, Latin, and mediæval history.

Passing to the less formal and more popular

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schemes of summer instruction, we note that Chautauqua this year takes up German and Roman history and institutions, together with current social and industrial problems, while in the department known as "The New Education in the Church" a course of lectures is to be given by President W. L. Hervey on the principles of Sunday-school teaching.

Space is lacking for mention of the scores of lesser "Chautauquas" throughout the country which will reproduce more or less perfectly a great many of the important features of the parent institution.

The American Institute of Sacred Literature has for years conducted Summer Bible Schools. These are not religious conventions, but are actual schools for the teaching of the Bible, both in the original tongues and in the English. The work is in most cases associated with some Chautauqua or other Assembly. A moderate estimate places the number of students who received instruction in these schools in the summer of 1896 at five thousand. It is probable that a still larger number will be enrolled during the coming season. It will be remembered that all the work of the American Institute is under the direction of the Council of Seventy, a body of Biblical instructors from the leading universities and seminaries of the country.

OTHER IMPORTANT GATHERINGS

The National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic at Buffalo, August 23-27, will be an interesting occasion. The maximum of attendance at these reunions was attained several years ago, but there are still many thousands of survivors of the war, notwithstanding the thinning of the veterans' ranks by death. A large number of these survivors will gather at Buffalo, where elaborate preparations are now under way for their entertainment.

The United Confederate Veterans will hold

their annual reunion at Nashville, June 22-24, and in connection with this gathering the surviving members of Terry's Texas Rangers and of several other Southern organizations will hold meetings. September 21-23 the veterans of the Mexican War will gather there.

The Tennessee Centennial Exposition will attract to Nashville during the next few months a great many conventions of one kind and another. It will be a favorite meeting-place of fraternal orders. There will also be several labor meetings. The National Association of Labor Commissioners will meet there June 20, and the National Conference of State Boards of Health August 18. In October the American Society of Religious Education and the Liberal Congress of Religions are announced to meet at Nashville, and also the National Congress of Women.

Two gatherings of significance in relation to the industrial and commercial development of the West will be the Trans-Mississippi Congress at Salt Lake City, July 14, and the Farmers' National Congress at St. Paul, August 31-September 6.

Of less serious purpose than most of the conventions announced in this article, but not without its importance as a social institution, is the National Meet of the League of American Wheelmen. This unique assemblage will have Phil adelphia as its headquarters from August 4 to 7.

The fourth International Press Congress will meet at the end of this month in Stockholm, in connection with the Scandinavian Exhibition, which will attract other gatherings during the summer, while the twenty-fifth jubilee celebration of King Oscar's reign, in September, will be a national event of hardly less significance to Sweden and Norway than is Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee to her British subjects. Brussels, too, with its exposition, is now a center of artistic and industrial interest. The Bayreuth Festivals will be attended by large numbers of American music-lovers

Correspondence

Excursions in Miniature

To the Editors of The Outlook:

I notice that the Recreation Department of The Outlook hospitably offers its free services in helping those who want to escape the winter's cold or the summer's heat of these regions; and the thought has struck me of throwing out some hints to those who are compelled to stay at home at all seasons, and who do not quite appreciate the many excellent advantages for short, cheap recreation trips in our immediate vicinity. Now, I am between sixty and seventy years of age, and have traveled considerably both in this country and in Europe, but I confess that for real enjoyment I prefer the brief trips which I can manage with.

out interference to my business, early on Sunday mornings or afternoons, or occasionally on weekday afternoons; and I want those who are debarred, from lack of means, or for business or for other reasons, from making tours to the North or South of our country or to Europe, to take courage, and to get in the habit of enjoying the pleasures which are so freely offered at our very doors, at scarcely any cost at all.

In a general way, I would say that foot tours in the very early mornings are those which I appreciate the most. There is at all seasons, when it is not stormy, something indescribably attractive in nature very early in the day. Everything is so fresh and bright; the birds fly about unmolested

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