any branch of the Christian church is a truth which has cost centuries of suffering to work out as a theory, and to embody in practice. There are many who scarcely know that it has been wrought for them at all. Many an ecclesiastical organization which, after many struggles, now rejoices in it as its joy and defence, will be disposed to say, "With a great sum obtained I this freedom." The churches of New England as they look back on their own history, may certainly say with truth and thankfulness, "But we were free born."

We do not urge in honor of the Congregationalism of New England that it gave power and effect to the democratic principle, and lent it the sanction of Christ's authority. To assert this of it would, in the judgment of many, be to condemn it, especially in these days when democracy in the church is not in the highest favor, and when faith in spiritual resources seems to be growing weak, and deference to ecclesiasticism runs every where so rankly to seed. For the decay of faith and reverence in our American church life, Congregationalism is also very largely held to be responsible, and not a few who find themselves within its pale are half disposed to renounce it, or are seeking in some way to rear new buttresses against its tottering walls even if they must construct them by digging up the great stones which were laid as the foundations of the building. To allay the fears of such and to save the honor of the system, it is worth while to notice that Congregationalism most reverently recognized the authority of the church and its officers, and attached the highest importance to church organization and church life. The Congregationalist disdained to ask leave of Bishop or Presbytery, when he would originate a church, but when the church was once organized he acknowledged it to be the dwelling-place of the Comforter and the ora cle of Christ. He claimed, indeed, for this church the right to ordain its own Pastor and teacher, but the moment these were set apart, he recognized them as the ambassadors of Christ, to whom the most heartfelt reverence was due. We should also remember that the government of the church was at first very far from pure democracy. A modern church meeting of minors and female voters has scanty likeness to the pattern churches which were organized by the first Congregationalists.

The local Presbytery or board of ruling Elders, was an essential element in the original model, and to this was committed the duty of first initiating and sanctioning every measure before it was referred to the brotherhood. The church in its capacity to come into being was indeed untrammeled by any other society or officer, and was responsible only to Christ, but in the act of coming into existence it furnished itself with all the organs that were essential to its life. A human body could almost as easily be conceived to exist and perform the functions essential to its life and growth, as a church could exist without its Pastor and Elder. To the Pastor and Elder were accorded all the deference and honor which their offices required, and so it happened that those who were the boldest and the fiercest against every kind of priestly domination or external dictation, were the most reverent in demeanor and in feeling towards their own magistracy in church and state. Similarly, its sacraments needed no priestly consecration, if by priest was meant one ordained by another priest, for the baptismal water and sacramental bread were hallowed by the spirit that moved the brotherhood to set apart one truly called of the Master to minister in these simple but sacred Christian rites. But to the eyes of the original Congregationalist not Moses as he descended from the mount could shine with a brighter luster than the Pastor of his own choice, as he ministered at the altar which had been consecrated by the faith and prayers of the flock which had been organized in the name of Christ. The discipline of the church also bespake its authority, and the boldness with which this was enforced and the deference with which it was received, attested the reality and earnestness of its church life as contrasted with that individualism now current which neither cares for the communion of the saints nor suffers for the want of it. Whatever may be true of Congregationalism in these days, it was eminently untrue of it in its first days, that it was individ ual or isolated in its spirit or theory. It should ever be remembered to the honor of our fathers, that it was not primarily for their individual salvation that they came into the wilderness that each might build a hermitage for himself, but it was to make real an ideal of the Christian church which would make it a tabernacle in which God might deign to dwell with men.

The individual church when organized was complete in itself, taking its right to be from its Master, and developing from within itself its officers. But it did not thereby cut itself off from other churches. Its relation to these churches was that of Christian fellowship, under which it might give and receive every benefit which such fellowship would involve, and yet retain its churchly independence. The bonds of this fellowship might be woven of as many strands and drawn as tightly as the sympathy and needs of either should make agreeable or needful. They never could be wholly relaxed or broken as long as the neighbor church in the nearest settlement or the remotest church on the other side of the globe could need or share either counsel or sympathy. This followship, according to the original theory, might even be organized into a Synod or Council, provided the independence of the local church were not threatened or interfered with, or it might be maintained by arrangements less formal and permanent. In either case the relation existed, and its duties were acknowledged. Hence it came to pass, that these churches though independent in theory and self-originated in fact cherished for one another the warmest and tenderest love, bore one another's burdens, and rejoiced in each other's joy. They grew into an organization of Christian sympathy, and were trained into those habits of universal Christian love and sacrifice, that taught them to embrace in their prayers and their cares, all Christian churches of whatever name, and to pray with earnest supplication for all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. We are not disposed to justify all the principles or the measures of the founders of these churches is respect to fellowship. We do not contend that their theory of the independence of the local church did not carry them to illogical and unpractical extremes, but we insist that they never from the first to the present time have failed to recognize all the obligations of the closest fellowship with one another. How else can we explain that traditionary spirit in their descendants, that brings upon them daily the care of all the churches that are included in the visible kingdom of God? The needs of united action for the provision of the ministry, for the assertion and defence of the common faith, and for united action in propagating the gospel, have greatly modified

their original theory of the independence of the separate church and the limitation of the ministerial office to pastors in office. But this only shows that the duty and privilege of fellowship was recognized from the first, even when it was not fully formu lated into a consistent and working theory. These changes bring no dishonor to our mother church. Every one of them. is a sign of progress. A church whose theory does not admit. of growth and change is doomed to decrepitude and paralysis. It is not the least of the excellencies of our system that it can change with time, and need not be outgrown in the progress of time. That it has neither been outgrown nor overgrown will be more strikingly manifest as we proceed.

Let us next look at this self-constituted and self-governed church in its relations to those other social institutions which are essential to human well being, viz: the State, the Town, the School, and the Family. It is its glory to have recognized them all, as having been ordained of God as truly as the church. It is the glory of Congregationalism to have recognized them as in some sense coördinate with the church itself, and having in themselves independent authority. That is a very ignorant and unjust conception of the Congregationalism of New England which thinks or talks of it as recognizing men as individuals, except in their relations to the church. Congregationalism never could have been the mother church of New England on such a theory. It was emphatically through the family, the school, and the State, that its special energies have been exerted, and it was able to exercise this energy because of the distinctness with which it recognized all these institutions as permanent conditions of the prosperity and well-being of the church and of man, and also because it recognized as distinctly that in order to serve the church they must in some sort have an independent life. To study any system of church polity without considering its relations to these institutions were to fail to understand it. Were we to overlook these relations, we should do scant justice to what was a distinguishing feature in the mother church of New England. This church made New England to be what it was and is, not simply as it acted directly on the individuals within and without its pale, but as it reached them through those institutions by which man is a political

and social being, that is, by which man is man. They were all recognized from the beginning. As each of these institutions was developed into an independent life, its separate rights were acknowledged by the church, and the church recognized the claims of each to an organization separate and distinct from itself. First of all, the jealous scrupulousness with which the New Englander, insisted on the independence of the self-originated church, compelled him to distinguish it as sharply and strongly from the State. He could not avoid doing this, so long as the State to which he acknowledged allegiance insisted that his church was a treasonable society, and that the assertion of its right to be was a political heresy as well as a deadly sin. When the necessities of his colonial life forced him to originate a quasi political society, under the privileges of royal patent or charter, he was careful not to entrust the regulation of the church to its authority. While he demanded from this inchoate State protection and support for the church as the ark of the Lord, which and which alone could bring a blessing to its own interests, he forbade the State in the name of the Lord from reaching forth its hand in officious interference to steady or defend it. It is true that for a while the church practically controlled the State, but it is also true that the original theory of the relations of the two provided for their final separation. The Reverend Thomas Hooker and John Davenport were both law-givers and prophets to the magistrates of the infant colonies of Hartford and New Haven, but at the same time they recognized that a separate and independent sphere of judgment and action belonged to these magistrates with which as spiritual leaders they might not intermeddle. For the first century of the existence of these New England churches, the condition of the churches occupied a large share of the time and attention of the Colonial Courts, but it was not because these bodies presumed to possess or exercise ecclesiastical authority as such, but because of the conviction that a State could not pros per in which the churches did not enjoy peace and prosperity. It was on this theory that the State supported religion by taxation, giving the preference to the Congregational churches in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, for nearly two centuries. But when the conviction was reached that the