' HIpP ma m m 't THE DISSENTING WORLD. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, >Y THE iW. BREWIN GRANT, B.A M .*&£&&: ■ FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON T ZOLOGICAL SEMINARY -I ^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://archive.org/details/dissentingOOgran & t/yZsiATv^ ■ CEMETERY-ROAD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. BUILT IN CONNECTION WITH THE REV, BREW1N GRANT'S EFFORTS TO FOUND A MISSION CHURCH. THE /<$> ' v ( JAN 22 1933 "'• DISSENTING WORLD: ^ AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. // BY THE REV. BREWIN GRANT, B.A, Congregational Minister of Twenty-five Years' Standing. " Some of the Pharisees said unto Him: — ■ Are we blind also V (John ix. 40.) " Tile igitur numquam direxit braehia contra " Torrentem : nee civii erat, qui libera posset '• Verba animi proferre, et vitam impendere vero."— Jdvenalis Sat iv. " Sapienter vitam instituit namq ; hoe tempore " Obsequium amicos, Veritas odium, parit." — Tkbentii Andbia. THIRD EDITION, WITH PORTRAIT. NEW YOEK: THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 119 & 121, Nassau Street. 1869. THE DISSENTING WORLD : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ADDRESS TO THE READER. "When I began this life I did not know how it would end. A critical lady posed me at Christmas with the question — How I should put an end to my life ? The assumption being that I ought not to conclude with a semicolon, like the one described by T. Carlyle, who died with an unfinished sentence onhis lips — " Aber " " But," — Indeed, as even a novel requires a catastrophe to render it absorbing, something of this kind seemed required to put a period to my Autobiography. This was provided by the officials of the Congregational Union, by an act which Dr. Parker described to the Assembly of that Union, in Sheffield, 186G, as " amounting to ministerial deposition ; in fact, a species of excommunication, and fraught with the gravest consequences to indi- vidual ministers." That act was "the removal of a name" from the list of accredited Con- gregational Ministers, which, so far as can be done by the Union, deprives the minister of status and usefulness, and his children of bread. If at the time when the axe falls he is out of a pastorate, as I am, it is next to impossible to get into one again. His reputation is gnawn at, and his persecutors are bound to malign him in honour to themselves, as their only safe and consistent course : and all that is said, like all that is done, is, " What the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark." (Ez. viii. 12.) As the Kev. Dr. Falding, of Rotherham College, observed of a similar case — in which he was accused by the editor of the Year Book of being the executioner, — though this term is properly applied to one who acts by legal authority — •' The other side of this case had never been made public." The reason for avoiding publicity is founded on a text of Scripture : — John iii. 20. I was not aware that this act had been perpetrated, at the very time I was asked what end I should put to my life ? I learned my ministerial execution by obtaining, through the post, a copy o the " Congregational Year Book for 1869." It was a secret execution by the Congregational Inquisition — it executed Congregationalism. If any should wonder that I place my death before my life, the answer is — that this is the style of the noble army of martyrs. Undoubtedly it is in every sense reversing the ordinary course of events, and contrary to the usual literary construction of a book, which should leave the IV. ADDRESS TO THE READER. interest to accumulate to the end, to see " how it will turn out." But then it may awaken a new sort of interest, namely, the curiosity to learn why it should turn out so ? The reader is therefore requested to examine the course of my life, in order to account for the manner of my death. Providentially my passport has been viseed, — examined and signed as correct, — at every frontier through which I have passed in the tour of this world. Living witnesses and documentary evidence can be adduced for every fact alleged in this history. If any shall say that it is egotistical they must consider that this is an Autobiography, and that wherein I am praised it is generally by others, and therefore is not properly to be charged with this sin ; though in "self- defence one may defend one's self. The highest praise is that afforded by my enemies in the " removal of my name from the list of accredited Congregational ministers ; " since it not only acknowledged that I could not be answered, but that I was important enough to be persecuted, and that it was necessary to silence me by the only possible process, that described by De Foe, whose life is very much like mine, for he lived in the same collision of interests, and was treated as all wits are by dull people ; his defences of Dissent and Protestantism against the astute- ness of Jesuits and the simplicity of Dissenters, were sometimes resented by those who, being blind, were also unwilling to be defended and guided by a man who could see. " He saw the men who could not answer Algernon Sydney's Book erect a scaffold to take off his head." • It was truly said of James the Second — " His unwearied sole endeavour was to establish the Roman Catholic religion in England. When the church that had declared resistance unchristian" did resist, " The dissenters became his hope. If he could array dissent against the church there was an entrance yet for Rome." This is Rome's only door still — in the name of liberty and equality — which she waits to destroy. " De Foe understood both game and gambler. "We could name no man of the time who understood them so clearly as this young trader of Cornhill. He saw the false position of all parties, the blundering clash of interests, the wily complications of policy."* " He exposed the conduct of the King, as in plain words a fraudulent project to create a feud between Dissenters and the Establishment, and so to destroy both in the end." " This advice and warning were urged in two masterly publications. The Dis- senters condemned them and took every occasion to disclaim their author. De Foe had looked for no less." He said, " He that will serve men must not promise himself that he shall not anger them. I have been exercised in this usage even from a youth. I had their reproaches when I blamed their credulity and confidence in the flatteries and caresses of Popery, and when I protested against addresses of thanks for an illegal liberty of conscience founded on a dispensing power." " He was thus early initiated in the transcendant art of thinking and standing alone. Whosoever can do this manfully will find himself least disposed to be alone when any great good thing is in progress. De Foe would have worked with the meanest men opposed to him in the busi- ness of the nation's deliverance." * * Edinburgh Review, October 1845. Broomhall Park, Sheffield, October, CONTENTS PAGE. Chapter i. — Birth and Training, up to getting ready for College, 1821-1837 9 Chapter ii. — Preparing for and going to College, 1838-43 .. 15 Chapter iii. — Studying for, and at Glasgow University, first session, 1843-4 26 Chapter iv. — Summer vacation and Second Session at Glasgow University, 1844-5 ... ... ... ... 39 Chapter v. — The opening Campaign of Life — Seeking a " Settlement," 1845-7 55 Chapter vi. — Removal to Birmingham, and acquaintance with Dr. Newman and his Three Shams, 1848-52 61 Chapter vii. — "A great door and effectual is opened to me" for a three years' " Mission to the Working Classes ;" recommended by the Rev. John Angell James, sup- ported by Samuel Morley, Esq., but contrary to the express desire of Mr. G. J. Holyoake, 1650-54 65 Chapter viii. — Method of conducting my three years' Mission, with specimens of Infidel Questions and Christian Answers 75 VI. Chapter ix. — Discussion with Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, in Cowper-street, London, 1852 ... ... ... ... 81 Chapter x. — The 'Rivulet' Controversy: "What's it all about?" 1855-6 ' 96 Chapter xi. — What is negative Theology, and what does it lead to ?. or, the. Transition period from " Baptism in the Rivulet" to New College "Christian Faith," 1856 ... 109 Chapter xii. — The Glasgow Debate and its Lectures, 1854 ... 119 Chapter xiii. — Candidating .for a re-settlement at the close of my public Mission — Letters of Commendation, 1856 ... 130 Chapter xiv.— The midnight Telegram — Our first Disappoint- ment — Our first great Sorrow — and Settlement in Sheffield, 1856-7 ... 147 Chapter xv. — "The Rescue of Faith"— "New College" Theology— The Godwin Controversy, 1862 153 Chapter xvi. — The Commotion in the Patriot Office, and a Council of War to put down criticism ; or, the Revenge for the " Rescue of Faith " 171 Chapter xvii. — The Patriot Office barricaded and forced ; or, calumny deferring to Law ... ... ... ... 178 Chapter xviii. — What I said when I got into the Patriot Office — Vindicatory Letter 185 Vll. Chapter xix. — The Atheist and the Patriot — The new Evangelical Alliance ; or, how the Editor tried to get out of it 189 Chapter xx. — What is the Congregational Union ; its pro- fessed Constitution and Objects ... ... ... ... 191 Chapter xxi.— The Absolutism of Union Officials, and the power of Arbitrary Ministerial Decapitation ... ... 197 Chapter xxii. — The Congregational Union Meetings in Shef- field, 18GG 205 Chapter xxiii. — The Committee assumes absolute Dictatorship over the Union and the Denomination ... ... ... 213 Chapter xxiv. — Dr. Smith's Recantation of his answer to me about the Year Book ; and the Committee's two now Shuffles 225 Chapter xxy. — The Cherrytree Orphanage ... ... ... 232 Chapter xxvi. —Building the Congregational Church, Cemetery road, and Resignation of my charge for a Temporary Public Ministry, for Special Sunday Services, and Week- night Lectures, against Ritualism, Rationalism, and Romanism ... ... ... ... ... ... 235 Chapter xxvii. — The Rev. General Picton, B.A., and his Leicester Brigade ... ... ... ... ... ... 246 Till. Chapter xxviii. — What Mr. Gladstone said of me, and -what I said in reply to him ... ... ... ... ... 250 Chapter xxix. — The Unpardonable Sin ... ... ... 256 Chapter xxx. — Wherein Dissenters have been misled; wherein they are in danger of being used for what they dislike : and how they are losing the moral power to oppose it ... 267 Chapter xxxi. — Kev. Dr. Falding, District Secretary ... 273 VENVOl 282 Appendix — The Trial of the Congregational Unionists before the Spiritual Trades-Union Outrage Commission 286a... 287 Concluding Chapter. — Summary of Kesults : showing the Kapid Progress of Independents in the Abandonment of THEIR PRINCIPLES ECCLESIASTICAL, POLITICAL AND THEO- LOGICAL : solving all difficulties by holding all opinions in solution, that in this suspensory state they may lead the Liberal Thought of the Age 364 THE DISSENTING WOULD AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Chapter I. BIRTH AND TRAINING, UP TO GETTING BEADY FOR COLLEGE, 1821-1837. Taking the south side of Leicester as the starting point and travelling on by Aylestone and Blaby, continuing the journey some six miles in all, we arrive at the village of Countesthorpe, at least it was a village then, when I was born in it, on the 3rd of April, 1821. As it now lies pictured in my memory you would enter by the " Horse road" at "Little End," where the village roughs "did congregate." Passing down the main street, which was rather zigzag in the first part, you would find, at that time, on the right, a place called, not originally out of respect, the " Ranter's Chapel," and on the other, nearly opposite, a public house ; the first bend to the right a little further on, would bring you to the " Meeting;" at the top of that lane or road was an open square, by the side of which was a school and the " Church." This square is marked in my recollection by a "Plough Monday" scene. On that day the labourers on the adjacent farms visited the chief inhabitants for " Plough Monday" contributions ; they were dressed in " mummer" fashion, the plough was drawn by some of the company, driven by a plough-boy, to the thong of whose whip was attached a blown bladder, containing peas, which fre- quently rattled on the backs of the yokels. I was astonished to see " the causeway'' at the front of one of the houses rise like waves under the ploughshare ; the inhabitant of that house was a small manufacturer, and had no sympathy with the agricultural interest; the dislocation of his pebbles was the magnificent revenge of the plough boys, for disloyalty to their leader, who seemed to me to be not inferior to the Caliph of Bagdad, either in power or splendour. We must however not stop at the comer of this square, but turn to the left if we are to reach the cottage in which I was born. The church-yard on our right hand as we pass down the street, is marked by another circumstance still more peculiar. — On winter nights, when the snow lay lightly on the earth, greyhounds were B 10 distinctly seen in the dark leaping over the gravestones, and gam- boling round the church ; but if you looked in the morning, even though there had not been a new fall of snow to cover up the marks, not a trace of a footstep could be seen ; from which sign, or absence of one, it was rationally inferred that the greyhounds were ghosts. As we pass along, still to the left, we come after some distance to the turn of the main road to the right, emerging out of the village ; the short straight lane affording this outlet is formed on one side by the ba,cks of cottages, which have gardens in front in a sort of enclosure, and the other side is formed by farmer Hall's house and barn walls. This lane is marked in my memory by two occurrences ; the first is, that some persons having praised my facility in reading, one of the young ladies at tins farm house seeing me pass with a Testa- ment in my hand, put me to read some chapter, and charmed with my juvenile fluency in that exercise, — for one who could read was a " scholard" in those days, — called her father to witness the feat of an " infant phenomenon.'' The old gentleman was " not to be caught with chaff," and suspecting that I was reciting instead of reading, turned over to a new place, and when I gabbled through the selected portion with equal readiness — reading faster than he could talk — it nearly took his breath away, and he dismissed me with a eulogium and an apple. When I told my father of the old gentle- man's scepticism and the test to which I was put, he laughed immoderately, after saying "so he thought you could not read in another place, my boy !" The second circumstance that distinguishes this lane in my recol- lection, is, that of being set with other children with knobsticks to strike at any rats which a ferret might drive out of a hole in the barn wall, when instead of a rat the ferret's nose protruded and was rudely greeted. The poor creature was astonished, and we were rebuked for this sin of ignorant zeal. Passing out of this lane we come into the country, the debouchure being a wide " horse-road," that passed round by some orchards on one side and fields on the other. This was the Peatling road, leading to that village. If instead of turning down that road to the left, we go straight on, we come to a lane at a right angle with it, and at the head of this lane are two or three cottages standing by themselves, in the middle one of which I was born. Not far from this was a horse-pond, with brick-built sides, for the benefit of such as drove or rode into the village by the high road just mentioned. I remember that pond by having fallen into it when playing on the sides; I was fished out once by the " Thirdboro," a sort of con- 11 stable, and carried home dripping but not quite drowned. As I was going through the process of being stripped, my socks were adhe- sive, and I slided from the stool to the ground, which made a serious impression on my memory. Opposite to our house were the fields alongside the Peatling road, separated from us by the head of the lane, a dyke, and a hedge, and entered by a broad flat stone or slate across the dyke, on the other side of which was the stile and a foot road. It was the general opinion in those days, that certain bogies or kelpies lodged or lurked in the evening under bridges and such like stones ; and therefore, though I could very bravely cross this flatstone in the day- time, it required some courage and a quick pace even to pass it at dusk when going home alone. This however was a part of my outside and not of my cottage education. The rustic lane is rendered familiar by the circumstance of the whole village coming out for several evenings by our cottage, to hear the nightingale, which gave a concert in that direction. It was at last determined by some of the baser sort to kill or catch this songster, which had charmed so many, — a thing which sometimes happens in principle in the larger world, from ingrati- tude and enwy. A process called " yaeking" was resorted to, a nocturnal exercise in which a number went on each side of a hedge, some carrying a lantern to confuse the birds, and all armed with stones to throw at any that appeared. It was said that one person lamed the nightingale, and by the more respectable and moral of the villagers he was considered to have committed a great sin, for by a superstition which takes the place of virtue, the nightingale was regarded as sacred, whatever was allowed as to other birds. The alleged perpetrator of this outrage was therefore looked upon as having reached the climax of wickedness ; but when everybody had given him up, he got converted by the " Ranters," whose reli- gion, though not so quiet and respectable and theologically intelli- gent as ours, was more efficient for rougher work. Many rumours ran through the village as to the difficulty of getting this sinner on his knees, to accomplish which, physical force and moral suasion were said to have been energetically and successfully applied. I believe that what were then called " Ranters," from their liveliness and loudness, are now called Primitive Methodists, and I hope they will never become so respectable and quiet as to forget their original fervour and zeal. My father and mother were attendants at the " Meeting," and were "members of the church" worshipping in it. " We lads" all of b 2 12 course attended and were in the Sunday School. There were other villages not far off, to which the respective parties attending the ''Meeting" — which was a " Union" place, comprehending Indepen- dents and Baptists, — went to worship on special occasions, the Baptists I believe to Arnsby, and the Independents to Wigston. I can distinctly remember crossing the fields trotting after my father as we trudged over to that village for some Sunday service. My father was a great admirer of the Rev. Robert Hall, the deservedly famous Baptist minister, and often talked to us of that strange eloquence which charmed so many, saying how he was " lost and wrapt and absorbed in his subject." I just remember the minister who baptized me, though not the occasion of that service ; he was a mild, intelligent, kindly looking gentleman, named Hunter, I believe, and probably was the Wigston minister, occasionally visiting his Countesthorpe flock, which at the " Meeting" had not the advantage of a "settled minister," but was " supplied" by lay preachers generally. My father however was the priest of his household, a man of deep earnest religious spirit, and as well acquainted with the Bible as any one I have ever met with. I have no doubt I can say for my four brothers, who live in Leicester, that if ever in some unhappy mood we were disposed to say with the Psalmist, " all men are liars," and to doubt the reality of personal religion, the remembrance of this sterling example would silence our sceptism. I believe my father's early religious awakening was produced in connection with the sermons of some Calvinistic clergyman. I remember him speaking highly of I think two names, Vaughan and Robinson, of this class, who were greatly instrumental in guiding him in his early youth to the Saviour, in whom he believed, with a faith and cheerfulness which no sorrows nor troubles ever be- clouded ; for though no man enjoyed life more, or more overflowed with constant thankfulness for " temporal mercies," and a serene joy as to his future inheritance, on which he constantly drew, so that if he had been in a prison or a workhouse he would have felt that his palace was next door, and that he was only waiting his Father's time to enter ; — still he had his sorrows and bereave- ments and struggles, as all men have. His greatest anxiety was to " see his children walking in the truth ; " and if he had had in one hand the gift of a splendid fortune and in the other the gift of God which is eternal life, to bestow only one or the other of them on us, we should have had the latter. I have two distinct early pictures of him, in this respect : one, as we walked alongside him in the fie]ur jovial steamer panting along, and waving adieu with columns of smoke. Che commencing of the Clyde from here is rather narrow, and the low stone nounds, raised as an apology for banks, were washed by the swell caused by our iteamer. In a narrow river a pleasure boat seems of some consequence, and nakes considerable stir (like a country squire among clowns), but in a main sea lie finest vessel may be lost amidst the billows whilst the eddies of its own path ire unperceived. The best description of our fellow travellers is that they were a motley group, the most distinguished being an old blind fiddler and his vision- *The Rev. Howard Hinton, II. A., in the Grant & Holyoake Cowper-street Discussion. 48 gifted companion, the rest were composed of one of a sort from all the circum- stances, shapes, and conditions of human life. Their effects and general baggage were thrown into one general heap, an indiscriminate assemblage of deal boxes and hair trunks, reticules and market baskets, band-boxes and brown paper par- cels ; some of the good housewives had evidently studied domestic economy under Mrs. John Gilpin, and were taking bread and cheese with them to make up a wedding dinner. The river gradually widened, and we ascended the paddle-boxes to gain a more extensive prospect. The scenery at first was not very striking, yet soft, green, and lovely, as the first footsteps of spring. The interest and beauty deepened as the surrounding plain lifted itself into gentle slopes, here and there variegated with clusters of trees, sometimes a gently rising hill appears clothed with wood, and through this sylvan veil a princely mansion looks forth; at others, a mountain cultivated to the very summit promises, like a true Ceres, to meet the coming autumn, having his brow crowned with yellow corn. Through all this, the noble river marches in his daily ebb and flow, meekly bearing all the burdens man may lay upon him; nay, on that day he seemed peculiarly joyous, greeted us all with a mild beaming countenance, gathering up his face into an eddyirjg smile, and reflected the brightness of the sun as he bore us gaily along. In most of the towns and villages alongside, you might see an unpretending "free church," its roof not quite covered in. In Bowling, about twelve miles down, on the right bank, the new church reared its front at one end of the village, and thb eld one at the other. A little beyond, and above this village, as an introduction to Highland scenery, a lofty mountain stretched upward its huge mass, sleeping in the sunlight. Some distance further, on the same side, stands a sturdy, rugged, rock-mountain, frowning on ail around as if placed there to keep in check its neighbour. Dumbarton castle. This latter place is a huge heap of rock, exca- vated into a fortress ; an enemy would think it a dumb solitary place until he heard the cannon roar from their concealment. There are a few lines of wall along some parts of its base, and some houses standing within them bearing all appearance of serenity and peace. A kind of bannister leads up to its peaking summit, by which some were ascending as we passed; it guides to a little tower crowning the castle and giving the only appearance of a military fort. Beside this castle, flows the river Leven, which, leaving its fertile vales, joins the Clyde in his march towards the ocean. Between this castle and its rugged neighbour, mentioned before, is a neat little pyramidal monument " to Henry Bell," the first steam navigator in Europe; and who introduced steamers on the Clyde, some years before our own gloiious Thames heard their panting. Around this monu- ment is a trim little garden, enclosed by a stone wall, itself apparently a time- hallowed ruin, and the bright green ivy mantling its stones seems to cover its decay with the youthful garland of spring. This unique and charming assemblage appears placed between these two growling monsters, as an emblem of the arts of peace, and, by separating such ferocious combatants, gives us the promise that wars shall cease when man grows better and wiser. A few miles further down, on the opposite side, is ' Port Glasgow.' It has a strong well laid out harbour, and was once a very flourishing mercantile station, its chief business consisting in ship building ; but since the Clyde has been deepened and made navigable for sailing vessels as far as Glasgow, this port has considerably declined. It is a substantial, well-built place, and its harbour is still visited by many ships. The next place of consequence is Greenock, an enterprising, bustling town, in which the celebrated "Watt was born. On the quay is the custom house, a very noble building, and looks as if made to command the submission of reluctant vessels. From Greenock the Clyde opens into a wide space, the left leading out 49 into the sea, the right leading to Loch Long and Holy Loch, lying beside each other like two twins, with an immense mountain range to keep the peace between them. On before us, opposite the Clyde, lay Dunoon, a pleasantly situated vil- lage on the coast, having hills stretching away behind. It is a nest for Glasgow- summer swallows, and certainly is a pleasant place to flit to, being studded all along the beach with elegant modern cottages and mansions. We touched at this place and then, turning to the right, sailed up Holy Loch, at the end of which is another pretty village, called Kilmun, and having still more splendid hills behind it. Our destination was not far from this, a lovely vale, surrounded by what seemed to us to be nature's wildest sublimities. We were not satisfied with the -wonders which the day revealed to us, but must wander forth to meet the " glimpses of the moon." The mountains seemed to throw a thicker shadow around us in the vale below, whilst their summits were lost in gloom and silence, adding a solitary and solemn grandeur to the scene. We heard also the murmuring of mountain torrents and the harsh screeching of the owl, making ' night hideous ; ' but as we returned, the moon arose from behind a mountain, up whose steep sides she seemed to have been climbing laboriously, and with her broad disk shone full upon us, casting a transient brightness on the smooth streams winding through the valley. The next morning had far advanced before we were admiring the beauties of Scottish mountain scenery ; our first visit was to Loch Ech. a few miles from where we were staying ; it is a still, beautiful lake, opening at each end into a valley, and defended on each side by lofty mountains stretched into repose by these still waters. From this we returned home to fortify ourselves for another journey — this was to the Massen waterfalls. The road to it was picturesque, we might almost say sublime. The mountain separating the falls from Loch Ech is called Ben Hohr, a noble height, and planted to its front with fir trees, many of them seeming almost inaccessible ; you can scarcely look at them without thinking of the danger which must have been incurred in planting. The whole gives to the mountain a rich and beautiful appearance, these firs con- trasting with the rugged and barren rocks which they scarce conceal, and from which they seem to draw their sustenance. At the foot of this mountain is a very pretty mansion and plantation, adding the finish of home to this splendid combination of nature and art. But we must hasten to the falls. They are in a ravine, and at some distance seem lost in the grandeur of the scenery; but as you approach, the deep murmur of the waters awakens something like awe, and when you stand on the masses of stone which nature seems to have hurled together in the sport of her boundless power, and see the streams almost carving their im- petuous passage through these vain obstructions', and look up from this tierce contest to the mountains, lifting their heads aloft, undisturbed by this murmuring, listening to no sound but the rushing tempest or the pealing thunder, the im- pression is magnificent and overpowering. I must conclude. If this letter is too tedious you must pardon it since it comes from your own most affectionate ." But, as Mr. Godwin once said to me, as he met me returning from Stoke Newington to college, we " must attend to severer studies :*' let us go back to the university, and finish the business of the session. At the risk of mixing dates, I may mention here what occurred at an earlier period of this session, but the result of which I was now beginning to look forward to with anxious curiosity. At the end of my first Glasgow campaign I was so eager to get the boat for Liverpool, that after receiving the class prizes I did 50 not attend the meeting in the Common Hall, where other honours were awarded, and announcements made of subjects to be competed for the next session, and at which the students could work during the vacation. I was entirely ignorant of this important business forming a part of the concluding ceremony, and only found it out afterwards, when there was little chance of competing, since many had had the opportunity of working eight months at the subjects, and there were now but about the same number of days left, before the papers were to be given in. At the same time there was the Installation of the Lord Rector to be attended, and a breakfast the next morning with him at Pro- fessor Thomson's, who invited some ten of the more active spirits whose exertions and eloquence had contributed to secure the election. I had the honour to be amongst the " upper ten." Writing to Dr. Legge about these events, I gave an account of my discovery of the announced University prizes, and my attempt to secure two of them. It was by obtaining a copy of the Glasgow "University Calendar" that I made the discovery ; and having fixed upon two subjects as most suitable, I determined to try chiefly for one of them — the best essay on " Poetic Diction, its Use and Abuse by the Orators," to which the University silver medal was to be awarded. This required some amount of reading for facts and illustrations, and would need to be written in a somewhat ambitious style : at any rate " composition" was of more consequence in this than in the other, which I reserved for the shorter space of time, should any be left. The second essay was to be on — " the Difference between the Aristotelian and Baconian Methods of Logic." I secured the services of my Highland host to call me at a fixed time, and went to bed two hours before the time fixed for being called. The next morning I was called upon by a fellow student with whom I was going through the Greek and Latin for B.A., who, perceiving me to be specially engaged and disposed to decline our customary walk, enquired what I was at, when I showed him the " Calendar" with the list of prizes. He said that there was one of them which he thought he could manage, and fixed on my reserved theme, — the difference between Deductive and Inductive Logic. I thought it would be a pity to awaken any delicacy in his mind, by saying that I had intended trying for that also, after finishing the other ; and as I was " going in" for two, he would, so far as my share in the com- petition was concerned, have a very fair chance. So having lent 51 him Stuart Mill's "System of Logic," in two volumes, which I had lately bought, I next borrowed a copy for my own use in writing on the second subject. I remember the last time my tormenter came to call me up, I listened to his footsteps across the outer room towards my dormi- tory with no feelings of Christian charity ; I rejoiced when he half stumbled over a chair ; I hoped he would never find my door : but when he did, I sprang out in desperation, and, said he, — "May be I've waked you too soon, shall I give you a licht ? " I hesitated a moment, he lighted the gas, and left me to break the ice, to get thoroughly awake by a very cold water process. After this, with the exception of half an hour's walk, and a subsequent half hour's effort to shake off a kind of stupor or coma, I wrote and made notes and copied, from two o'clock in the morning till after eleven at night ; when my second essay was despatched for competition ; the first having been sent in a few hours earlier. So ended that work ; — as hard a week as I should wish to endure. We had in the University a kind of debating society, I forget its name. I read in it an essay on the Crusades, which was borrowed by the student referred to in the preceding chapter. It was with great satisfaction that I found among many other lost papers, the following note : — " My dear Grant, I return your oration on the Crusades, which I have read with very great plea- sure. I owe you a great many apologies for not having returned it sooner : but I have been looking for you a long tine, with that purpose, without having been able to discover you about the college. I have great pleasure in congratulating you on your honours in the Moral (Philosophy class) ; and on Thursday I expect to have the pleasure of doing so upon your having gained several of the University essay prizes. I am sorry that the last session in which our old University will number you among her sons has now come to an end : and I regret much that any abominable politics should have kept me from sooner having the pleasure and honour of your acquaintance. One thing I can honestly say : — I have been in several schools and colleges in Scotland and England, but I never met with any person for whose talent and genius I had the same respect and admiration, that I have for yours." "lam morally certain that at some future ime your name will be one which men ' will not willingly let die,' — and 1 hope that you will not in those days be surprised if you find your Glasgow friend claiming the honour of your acquaintance. I wish yon all manner of happiness, whatever your future cours; in life may be ; and short as the time of our acquaintance has been, I assure you I shall not soon forget the appearances which I have seen and heard you make. With every good wish; I am, my dear Grant, yours very sincerely, A. K. H. B." This from a political opponent, and a conservative, is an example to my liberal friends. There are still more handsome expressions in the letter, which I have suppressed in order not to awaken the envy of some ; and " I do remember my faults this day," and ex- ceedingly regret, that the immediate changes and new roads of life, on leaving the University for a different part of the kingdom, pre- vented me keeping sight of so worthy a friend ; and that I had not an opportunity of acknowledging so generous a recognition ; but trust that if this should, as I believe it will, come under his notice, he will not feel that his kindly prognostics should make him ashamed. I had enjoyed the " Recreations of a Country Parson" and some other productions of the same pen, as I take it, before identifying in my own mind the author with my University friend. The " honours in the Moral" referred to, were the first prize ad- judged by the students, and one by the professor, "Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind," in three volumes, stamped with the University arms, and inscribed by the professor: — "Brewin Grant, A.B. In classe Ethica Discupulus. Ingenio ac Labore Insignis. Praemium Hocce Merito Consecutus est. Apud Coll. Glasg. Primo Die Maii, 1845. Geo. Fleming, Eth. Prof." This already anticipates that I passed in the B.A, examination, as the professor appends that title in his certificate. At the time of receiving this acknowledgment I was still uncer- tain whether I had succeeded in either of the University prizes for which I had written, and which were, as usual, to be distributed in the Public Hall, where we waited to hear the result. I had the satisfaction of hearing announced " the University Silver Medal for the best Essay on ' Poetic Diction, its Use and Abuse by the Orators' — Mr. Brewin Grant, of Leicester." I went forward to receive this, and waited to learn respecting the other, when I had again the satisfaction of hearing the prize awarded to me for the best Essiy on " The Difference between the Aristotelian and the Baconian Systems of Logic." This was a small money prize of I think two and a half guineas. The professor of Moral Philosophy gave me the following certificate in addition to his inscription in the prize volume before mentioned : — 53 " Glasgow College, May 1, 1845. Mr. Brewin Grant was a student of Moral Philosophy during the Session 1844-5. He was regular in his attendance and exemplary in his conduct, and in the examinations and exercises of the class uniformly acquired himself so as to merit the highest approbation and esteem of his fellow students and myself. It will give me great pleasure to hear of his happiness and success in life. " WILLIAM FLEMING, Professor of Moral Philosophy." Afterwards, in 1847, when I was desirous of giving occasional lectures in connection with Philosophical, Literary, and Edu- cational Institutions, Professor Fleming added to the above : — " He (Mr. Grant) applied himself with so much ability and success to the business of the class that by the votes of his fellow-students, and with my cordial approbation, he obtained the first prize awarded for general eminence throughout the session. It is also consistent with my knowledge, that at the close of that session he received two University Prizes for essays on topics connected with Mental Philo- sophy, which were thought by the judges to be of very superior merit. His abilities are naturally good, and they have been care- fully and successfully cultivated. He is quick, acute, lively, and ingenious, and possesses many of the qualities which should fit him to be popular and interesting as a public teacher or lecturer." The Logic Professor was also kind enough to furnish me with a supplementary testimonial on the same occasion : — " The Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., entered the University of Glasgow as a scholar on Dr. Williams's Foundation, in 1843-4. During that session he attended the Logic Class, in which he so eminently distinguished himself by his readiness, acuteness, and ingenuity, in the written compositions, extemporary criticisms, and public examinations of the class, that by the votes of his, fellow- students the Breadalbane Prize was awarded to him as the best logician of his year. While attending the University Mr. Grant carried several public prizes for essays on subjects connected with the departments of Lo^ic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics, all of them composed with much ability and characterised by a power of vigorous and original thinking. I may add that during the whole period of his connection with the University of Glasgow, Mr. Grant conducted himself as a zealous and exemplary student, and that on taking his degree in Arts, he passed his examination in Logic with marked approbation. ROBERT BUCHANAN, M.A., Oct. 16th, 1847. [Prof, of Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. 54 It was gratifying to me to receive at the end of my University course a kindly recognition from my old college, Highbury, London, in which were still one half of those who were fellow -students with me ; and these, with the others who had entered since I left, sent me the congratulations of the united brethren, by the senior stu- dent, who thus wrote : — " Highbury College, May 4, 1845. My dear Brother, — It is with very sincere pleasure that I forward to you, in accordance with a motion passed the other morning at the breakfast table, the hearty congratulations of the brethren here, for the honourable attainment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Glasgow University, and likewise for the successful competi- tion for the prize for the best essay on the subject of a Christian church (the Anti- State Church Prize Tract.) I hope you will be long spared to enjoy the honours you have already reached and to attain others of yet higher importance and distinction. I remain, my dear Grant, very truly yours, J. FLEMING, Senior Student." It only remains to complete this part of my history by the approbation I most prized, namely of my father, and my pastor : — " Leicester, June 1845. My dear Grant, — I received your last note a few days ago. I had been apprised before of the result of your Glasgow career by your dear father with his sparkling eyes and swelling heart. It is late to tender you my congratulations thereupon, but you may believe that no one rejoiced more sincerely in your success than I did. I trust it is the earnest and foreshadowing of more brilliant successes jet to come, in the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. I wish I had it in my power to introduce you to a sphere where you could find yourself in congenial element and have scope for the exercise of your powers. "Do write to me at your earliest convenience, and believe me, my dear Grant, yours affectionately, V GEORGE LEGGE." 55 Chapter Y. THE OPENING CAMPAIGN OF LIFE. SEEKING A " SETTLEMENT." 1815—7. Hitherto I had been highly favoured by providential opportuni- ties of education and health to achieve moderate success ; and now, though in one sense the whole world was before rne, and was " a wide, wide world," I seemed to have a very narrow entrance into it, or rather into the church ; and what was a greater exercise of faith, the entrance was so narrow that I could not at first discern it. Neither did I, but was led to it by a way I knew not. I was driven into three ports : the first was Gainsboro', where the minister might possibly leave, but where he eventually for some time remained, so that this " opening" was not an " opening" at all ; but continued to be closed by the former occupant of the pulpit, an old Highbury fellow-student, the Rev. David Loxtox, who had kindly endeavoured, in case of his removal, to prepare the way for me to be his successor. In a letter to one who would share in and complete my " settle- ment" wherever that should be, I stated the efforts made at this time, July 17, 1815, by the friends at Gainsboro' to induce Mr. Loxtox to continue amongst them, though they regarded their church more as a training ground for a minister of his abilities, than as a per- manency for life ; since Gainsboro' was a rather decaying than a flourishing town, and the chapel shared in the general fortunes. Mr. Loxtox, in a very friendly letter of September 12, 1815, writing from Gainsboro,' respecting my previous visit there, and I think before his own movements were quite decided, was good enough to say: — "Most of the intelligent people here were very much pleased with you ; but you are too good for the ignorant mass. Don't think about , but look for a better place. If I can in any way serve you, you have only to tell me how." Mr. Loxton afterwards removed to Liverpool, and thence to Sheffield, where he has laboured with fair success fori believe about sixteen years. He is now our senior minister, having been in the town longer than any other of the brethren at present ministering there. My next port was Woodside, Birkenhead, but that opening was also closed, inasmuch as during my preaching there the good people were waiting for an answer from one whom they had invited rather ambitiously, — the Rev. J. G. Miall, of Bradford, whose position I find described thus, in a letter dated, August, 1815 : — " He has a flourishing church, and would find it difficult to leave.' ' 56 However, knowing as I did that the people were looking in another direction, I could not in these circumstances be deemed a " candidate" but only a temporary " supply." This opening, therefore, was not one. I ought to state here that I do not for a moment imagine that the Eev. J. G. Miall was " candidating ;" it would be extremely improbable that he could have for a moment entertained the idea of leaving Bradford, — where his character and abilities were so highly and deservedly appreciated, and where he still abides in honour and usefulness, — to undertake a cause so shattered and unpromising as Woodside was at that time. My third port was Prescot, near Liverpool, where I expected nothing, and got what I wanted — a " settlement" and training ground; for I was too immature for a large " sphere," and as Dr. Legge told me, I should be most advantageously placed among disadvantages, to bear the yoke in my youth, which is as good as it is sometimes galling. I rested and was thankful. I found many very kind friends there, though "the cause" was small, and had become " smaller by degrees and beautifully less" for some time past. It was nursed by the " County Union," but this cir- cumstance, which in itself is generally irksome to an Independent minister, was considerably relieved to me by the respectful and considerate treatment which I invariably received from the minis- ters who presided over the contributing churches, and with lay delegates managed the affairs of the Union. Dr. Raffles was a prince among them ; he was urbanity itself ; and always treated an obscure brother with marked respect. It is true he could give a dignified rebuke, but always good-naturedly, as when once I apologized for not calling upon him when I visited Liverpool, excusing myself on the ground that the place was in such a whirl that I got confused, and turned back to Prescot as soon as possible, he wrote to say that as he had no hope of Liverpool ever becoming any quieter, he was afraid he must abandon the hope of enjoying a visit from me. To the end of his life he evinced a kindly interest in me. I have a letter in which he writes of me to another, as " my old friend ;" and a little before his decease he wrote a kind apology for not bem able to repeat the obligation I was several times under to him, of taking some public service in my church. No man ever more cheerfully aided the brethren. The Rev. John Kelly, equally eminent, though less popular, was always equally kind ; and my occasional relations with him always inspired me with that respect in which he still lives in the general estimation. 57 These two, with other ministers round and some from a distance, took part in my " Ordination," — a dedicatory service publicly set- ting apart and recognizing one as devoted to the work of the ministry. This was in January, 1846. The Rev. J. L. Poore, formerly of Salford, and afterwards actively employed in connection with the Colonial Mission, facili- tating the settlement of English ministers over Colonial churches, and whose decease lately was a cause of wide-spread sorrow, was present on the occasion and took part in it. He was somewhat personally interested in me, as being uncle by marriage to the one whom I was hoping would soon share my labours and fortunes. From a letter to that one, dated January 23, which with many other letters constituted the only "worldly goods," except myself, with which I " endowed" her, I quot9 the following brief reference to my ordination : — "Everything went off well, and what was very cheering to me. Your aunt was there ; Mr. Poore brought her. He read and prayed after the first hymn ; several ministers gave out hymns. I was rather nervous, but got through. Your aunt borrowed the papers that I read, (giving an account of religious experience, doctrines, and church polity.) One question I had to answer extemporaneously, so it is not down (on the papers) ; the whole was written in haste the day before. Dr. Raffles presided at the dinner ; was very kind and cordial ; we had about fifty to dine. My father was there, and is increasingly pleased with the place and people, — says we have more reality than show. At first he was frightened by our fewness till he knew the worth of some of them. Last Sunday was the best attended yet, though still of course very thin. Mr. Poore did very well (at the ordination meetings) and praised me largely at the dinner. Dr. Legge of course did the same, and Dr. Raffles assured me and the people how cordially I should be received into ministerial confidence, and by the Association of the County, (which ' gave a grant' to the place.)" On April the second (to avoid the first) of the same year, another ceremony was performed by the Rev. John Jefferson, in his chapel, Stoke Xewington. London, when the eldest daughter of Francis Homan, Esq., one of Mr. Jefferson's deacons, became Mrs. Brewin Grant. That occasion was unhappily overshadowed, as all joy is, by a painful circumstance, the sudden illness, a few months prece- ding, from a paralytic stroke, of our father, who had been my true and kind friend for some seven years ; but who had now become — " In power of others, never in his own,'' as Samson says of his incapacitating blindness. We knew, however, 58 that though bereaved of speech, so as not able to originate a pro- position, and unable to communicate with man except in mono- syllables, as "yes" or "no," as much signified by looks and signs as expressed by the tongue, he could still hold heavenly converse, and retained all his faculties of understanding what was spoken or read to him. Though henceforth dead as to " business," in which he had been " diligent," as he had been " fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" in both, he still took an interest in passing events ; and for ten years with general cheerfulnes, though suffering occa- sional depression, enjoyed life with gratitude and resigned it with the certainty of a better. In our little flock at Prescot we had three representative men, who may be reckoned upon in most congregations : " Father Doke," now in heaven, whose large lustrous eyes gleamed as he " led" with heart and soul and voice in Ebenezer vestry prayer meetings, such lines as — Stand up, my soul, shake off thy fears, And gird the gospel armour on — represented the simple, hearty, humble worshipper, to whom the plain gospel was "nectar," drunk in with eager delight and thank- fulness. The second representative man was Mr. Somerville, then "forester" to Lord Derby, managing the trees in the noble " Knowsley Park;" and afterwards, perhaps still, sustaining the same office under Lord Harewood, near Leeds : he was brother to " One who Whistled at the Plough," and who found brains for the Anti-Corn-law league orators. Mr. Somerville was of the Scottish covenanter class, a rigid theologian, and as conscientious as he was intelligent in his religion. The third was my personal friend, who will perhaps forgive me naming him here, Mr. Henry Walker Lucas, then of the Liverpool, now of the London, Stock Exchange. He lived out at Prescot, where his sister kept a select boarding school for young ladies, and in whose house we spent many happy and profitable hours. I took him to be a representative of the more cultivated and intellectual class of our hearers, whileat the same time sympathizing with what is suited to the more simple and theological. I felt that as a matter of mere criticism a style of preaching that should meet the simplicity and fervour of the first, the soundness and spirituality of the second, without violating the taste of the third, would be the perfection of sermonizing ; though too great a regard for the last might produce tameness and inefficiency. Prescot upon the whole was a dull and stagnant town, from wbiih w 7 ere many migrations, and sometimes those who w T ere most 59 benefited and useful were removed by " tbe logic of events :" still we enjoyed our sojourn there, and believe it was not wholly lost on ourselves and others. Exactly two years after my ordination in Prescot, I received a letter from Mr. Thos. Short. Jun., Birmingham, — one of the deacons of Highbury chapel, Graham-street, in that town, whose father was then a deacon of the Rev. John Angell James, and is I believe still in the same office in that church. This letter stated that I had been named to him by one of my old Highbury fellow- students as a likely minister for the above-named chapel. I had also been described to him as " moveable,'' which unhap- pily is a large category, though it is dangerous to be known (at home) to belong to it. I was invited to preach " in the capacity of probationer," and was asked whether in case they gave me an " invitation," I would accept it. Several Sundays were mentioned on which I could if convenient " supply the pulpit." Not knowing the place or the people, and not prepared to accept a " call" which might not be given, I agreed to " supply," that we might have an opportunity of knowing each other. I was very heartily received, and found " the young people," and especially " the young men," exceedingly anxious to manifest that ray services had made "a good impression." But whether from habit or affection, it was always my lot to form an attachment to the place and people with whom I had been asso- ciated, and any change seemed like a funeral : so much so, that I as naturally call a final discourse a " funeral" as a " farewell ser- mon." I could scarcely endure the idea of "facing" my "old people " with a tale of our probable separation ; and my friend Mr. Lucas, having heard through his mother and sister from Mrs. Grant that I was urged to stay a fortnight longer in Birmingham, wrote me a letter which only increased my embarrassment "betwixt the two," feeling much as the apostle did in reference to that final " removal" by a " call" that must be answered. Not to dwell on these scenes, I give here the ultimate decision, as sent to my first flock, after many an anxious consideration as to my duty under the circumstances. "Prescot, March 30, 1848. To the Church of Christ assembling for "Worship in Ebenezer Chapel, Prescot. My dear Friends, — You will be somewhat prepared for the painful task which now devolves upon me to intimate my resignation of the pastoral office among you. The many severe losses we have sustained by the removal of one and another stated worshipper from our midst, and the little advance made in 60 securing others as permanent attendants, have heen long painfully felt by me, as no doubt by yourselves : had this not been the case no inducement would have led me to discontinue my services with you. Nor have I come to the present conclusion without great reluctance, and being driver by considerations which amount to necessity. I shall ever consider my stay here, though brief, as an important period of my life, and shall look back at those who have been the steady attendants on my ministry with feelings of peculiar affection. I am sorry that my efforts have been productive of so few prominent results ; and yet would fain cherish the hope that they will leave some permanent traces at least in the minds of a few. If you stand firmly together in unity of affection and purpose, (as I doubt not you will), and obtain the services of one possessing more of the peculiar energy required for the place, you may yet be blessed with a success which I ardently desire, but have failed to secure. Desiring for you all spiritual and temporal blessings, I remain, with fullest affection, Yours very truly, BREWIN GRANT.'* On the evening of the same day a meeting of the church was held, of which the following account was transmitted to me, and is highly prized. The conclusion especially indicates a kindly Christian spirit, well worthy of imitation in similiar cases. At a Meeting of the Members of the Church assembling at Ebenezer Chapel, Pkescot, held on Thursday, the 30i/i day of March, 1848, H. Walker Lucas, in the chair, It was moved, seconded, and unanimously resolved : — " That this meeting has heard with the deepest regret the intimation of the retirement of their esteemed pastor, Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., as communicated in ills letter read this evening. That they sympathize with him in the necessity that has compelled this resignation, and feel assured that nothing but a sense of duty and obligation has dictated so painful a determination on his part. That in accepting his relinquishment of the pastoral charge over them they desire to express their appreciation of his labours amongst them, and the individual advan- tage which they have derived from the instructions that they have been privi- leged to enjoy. At the same time they would pray the Great Head of the Church to grant that in the sphere to which he is about to be removed greater apparent results may accompany his ministry than have been permitted to attend it here. H. WALKER LUCAS, Chairman." It was further resolved : — " That a special prayer meeting for the future prosperity and usefulness of Mr. Grant be held on Sunday eveniag next, at the close of the service." We had in Prescot a Mechanics' Institute, with which was con- nected a day school for hoys. I was on the committee, and took an active interest in the up-hill work of education in the town. In reply to my letter of resignation, (I think of the office of president), the following resolution was forwarded to me, by the very promising, but not highly encouraged, master of the school : — 61 •■ Prescot Mechanics' Institute, April 6th, 1848. Dear Sir, — I am desired by the committee to convey to you the following resolution, passed unanimously at their meeting of the 5th instant : — ' That this meeting has learned with regret the resignation of the Eev. Brewin Grant ; that they return him their grateful acknowledgment for his varied assistance in advan- cing the interests of the institution, and that they sincerely hope his efforts in the cause of education may meet with more marked encouragement and success in the large and promising sphere to which he is about to remove.' By order of the committee, THOMAS MARTIN, Assistant Secretary." " Eev. Brkwih Grant, B.A." P.S. — " As I am only officially (as master) connected with the committee, allow me to say that with the whole of the resolution I warmly sympathize, and shall ever remember with gratitude the kind and respectful treatment I have at all times received from you as my superior in office. T.M." " The resolution ordered that your note of resignation be entered on the minutes." Chapter VI. REMOVAL TO BIRMINGHAM, AND ACQUAINTANCE WITH DR. NEWMAN AND HIS THREE SHAMS, 1848-52. Having been invited to the pastorate of the church worshipping in Highbury Chapel, Graham-street, Birmingham, I sent the fol- lowing acceptance : — " Prescot, Lancashire, March 28, 1848. To tee Church of Christ assembling for Worship in Highbury Chapel, Graham-street, Birmingham. Christian Friends, — I shall not detain you by a long formal letter in reply to the invitation received by me to become your pastor. There are many deeply rooted associations connecting me with my present sphere of labour which would prevent me hastily abandoning it for another, but I am emboldened to hope that my removal to Birmingham would, under the blessing of the great Head of the Church, be more conducive to my usefulness and to His glory. This is my great reason for accepting — as I do herewith — the call you have sent me. I trust it is not without some wiser arrangement than our own that the peculiar combination of circumstances occurred which brought me amongst you and led you to seek my further services. Tour prayers and exertions, and consistency and character, must give efficiency to my labours, or they will be in vain. The pulpit must be seconded by the pews — supported by the cordial sympathies and earnest efforts and supplications of the church members especially. Could I not rely upon this I would not consent to pre-ide over any people. Do not forget then your own part in the contract, and then, I trust, God will seal it with His blessing. The cause is weak, but if it be a seed with the element of life, though no larger than a grain of mustard seed, it will grow into a tree. 62 My great work will be in the pulpit, to bring forth from the treasury of God's Word things new and old, and I trust that whatever doubts or difficulties any may feel on religious subjects will be freely communicated to me, either through the medium of such classes as may be formed, and which I hope most of you will avail yourselves of, or by private communication. With reliance on your active co-operation and entreaties, I entrust myself amongst you, praying the Great Teacher to enlighten and sanctify me throngh His Truth for our mutual edification, for the enlargement of His cause in High- bury Chapel, and the general extension of pure and undefiled religion in your town and neighbourhood. Believe me yours, in the bonds of the gospel, BEEWIN GRANT." At the end of about two years' labour amongst the people here, during which we enjoyed undisturbed harmony, — though when I " took to" the place " the cause" was much shattered and in ill moral repute from previous circumstances, which greatly retarded our pro- gress, — I received a token of esteem and regard, which I still wear near to my heart, — in my watch-pocket. Before referring further to this circumstance, I may make a remark here, which will be defensive of many a worthy minister who works against wind and tide, and whose want of palpable success in his church and congre- gation militates unfairly against his promotion to some less barren ground, and in some instances diminishes the estimation in which he is held by his more fortunate brethren and the denomination generally. It is too commonly imagined that the town in which a minister " settles" is the " sphere" of his labour ; and that his efficiency is to be measured by this extent of opportunity ; whereas, it may be, and too often happens, that the chapel or " cause" with which he is connected is the boundary of his sphere ; and instead of standing on his own merits, he is regarded as the representative of that place ; and if it is reputable, he may be powerful, but if it has an ill odour, and a miserable history, as too often is the case, he will be clothed in popular estimation with the character of his place. In ordinary circumstances, any church would be successful if its members were honest, earnest, and active : but when they do not help a minister, but on the contrary weigh him down with the dead weight of their traditional reputation, acquired perhaps before he " took the oversight" of them, his want of success is from their want of religion. I speak this for others : it in no way applies to my old friends in Birmingham ; nor were they responsible for any odium which rested on the place when I went to it. This resulted, from what I feel pleasure in saying very seldom occurs amongst us, a stigma on 63 the pulpit : — though whether even that was deserved, or was greatly the result of exaggerated gossip against the previous occupant, I do not decide. No doubt we have some ministers, whom some would irreve- rently call " muffs," though perhaps it would take a very able man to preach better, under the circumstances in which these ministers are placed ; and the brightest intellect and warmest heart would become dull and saddened, by the absence of that hope and practi- cal sympathy which are the main-springs of even spiritualized genius. I write this for my brethren as I have always defended their honour, interests, and liberty. It is for the churches also, that they should consider more intelligently the conditions of suc- cess, and that in looking for "a man that will draw," they should take care that he is not surrounded by those who will repel : for people outside do not so much trouble themselves to examine our principles in the abstract, as to point to specimens in the concrete. But this is " episodical," as Mr. Miall said, — my prayer was at the end of an Anti- State Church Tract, — "considering the main object of the Association." I will therefore keep my friends no longer waiting, but permit them to read their address on presenting me with a valuable gold watch and chain, at our Christmas tea meeting, being the close of my second year among them. That address, which is as follows, like many other elements of this history, was found among my providentially recovered papers : — " Birmingham, December 24th, 1849. Dear Pastor, — We, the members of the Church and Congregation, avail ourselves of the present opportunity of returning our sincere thanks for the* valuable instruction you have been instrumental in imparting to us : the classes you have formed, the works you have written, the lectures you have delivered, (independently of your numerous ministerial, duties.) have all tended to our mental advancement. Participating in these, and observing the disinterested- ness with which you have ever sought to elevate our minds and defend truth, has often led us to wish for an opportunity of evincing the high esteem with which we regard your instruction. We therefore embrace the present one, by requesting you to accept the accompanying Testimonial as a mark of the same." Some of the lectures referred to in the above address were of a literary and philosophical character ; but the greater part were in relation to Infidelity and Romanism, against both of which I have been " a man of war from" my " youth," and I hope to die in harness. Amongst the various subjects publicly treated of, I may mention a careful analysis of the Rev. H. W. Wilberforce's " Thirteen 64 Reasons TT for Joining' the Church of ; Rome which u reasons" he declared satisfied, the conscience of one Rev. Mr, Swallowell, a long time ago : and therefore I called my answer : — " The Swallowell Family, &c," showing what their capacious receptivity could take down. During my Birmingham pastorate 3>r. Newman gave his famous Lectures to the Brothers of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, on " Catholicism in England," to which I replied weekly, under the title of " Orations to the Oratorians, a Supplement to the Rev. Dr. Newman's Lectures on Catholicism in England." The substance of these I printed in " The Bible and the People," a sixpenny monthly periodical, which I began to edit in January, 1851, and carried on for several years, till the end of my " three years Mission to the Working Classes." The lectures just referred to, — " Orations to the Oratorians," I republished, in a separate form. The effect of these four orations may be understood from the fact that Dr. Newman was obliged to horten his publicly announced twelve Lectures into nine. People who had paid for tickets on the whole course were allowed to receive their money back for the unfulfilled part of the contract. Having thus silenced this great gun, I finislied his course by giving the three lectures which he ought to have given, and pub- lished them under the following title : — " The Three Shams : — the Sham Peter, called the Pope : — the Sham Church, called the Infallible : and the Sham Bible, called Douay and Tradition." These were delivered in the Birmingham Town Hall, to vast over- flowing audiences. We Dissenters had a little before seemed to favour papists, by not accepting " The Ecclesiastical Titles Act; " as we ignorantly thought it was a question of words and names of their law, and not an insidious advance of power. This our compliance was considered a favourable opportunity for introducing Romanism in rose colour by the effeminate and plau- sible pervert, who imagined that we were in an impressible state of mind ; so I gave him my impression of the whole affair, in replies that silenced him, and in the " Three Shams," which shut him up safely in his Oratory. The short preface to these lectures will sufficiently explain their nature, and the occasion of my delivering them. The following lectures were occasioned by the recent movements of the Papal party in Birmingham, who endeavoured to take advantage of what they expected would be a reaction of public feeling; and, accordingly brought forward their pervert, Dr. Newman, to parade before the town, under the guise of lecture to the 65 " Brothers of the Oratory," the rights and the wrongs of Romanism, in a series of lectures on " Catholicism in England." The Eomanists seem to reckon noon the silence or neutrality of those dissenters -who had opposed legislative measures against the impudent aggression ; whilst in their attack on Protestantism they ignored the liberal services of their presumed allies, and, indeed, appeared for- getful of their existence, as these champions of the Pope advanced against "Elizabethan Protestantism," expecting by dead history and obsolete formalities to storm the stronghold of the national church. The author of the following lectures felt bound, therefore, to spoil the calcu- lation of these wise men from the Vatican, by coming forth from his corner to open the masked battery against which the Church militant had so conveniently closed her eyes. He first refuted and effectually exposed the pitiful device of Dr. Newman in the vain attempt to repaint the Roman Jezebel by blackening Elizabethanism. This he did in a course of " Four Orations to the Oratorians, — a Supplement to Dr. Newman's Lectures." And since during the delivery of these, Dr. Newman took down his flag, and lessened his course from twelve to nine lectures, the author of the following, determined to expose the very foun- dations of the Papal fraud, by three lectures on the Sham Peter, &c, being ac- cording to announcement, the "three lectures Dr. Newman should have de- livered, to finish his twelve." The vast, intelligent, and enthusiastic audiences with which he was favoured, induced him to publish the lectures in a permanent form, as a short, simple, and unanswerable exposure of the Romish cheat. These Lectures, with others on Romanism, Ritualism and Rationalism, can at any time be re -delivered, by arrangement with the Author. Chapter Vii. « A GREAT DOOR AND EFFECTUAL IS OPENED TO ME," for a " Three' Years' Mission" to the Working Classes; recom- mended by the Rev. John Angell James, supported by Samuel Mop.ley, Esq., but contrary to the express desire and advice of Mr. G. J. Holyoaee.— 1850-54. The nature of my efforts and the recognition I received at this time, as contributing to the public good by the defence of religion against superstition and scepticism, may be seen from the following selection from " the contents" of "The Bible and the People" for 1851, and from the "Opinions of the Press." These are given for two reasons, first to fulfil the purposes of an Autobiography, by letting the reader see in what line my thoughts and actions were engaged ; and secondly to show what I am still prepared to advocate by tongue and pen. 66 CONTENTS OF "THE BIBLE AND THE PEOPLE," for 1851. I. 1. Christianity a Seasonable Beligion. 2. The Keys of the kingdom ; what they are and who stole them. 3. Free Thoughts for Free Thinkers. 4. The Provinces of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. II. 1. The Inscription on the Cross ; its three Languages and their Lessons. 2. Peter's Keys and the Pope's Picklocks. 3. The House of Merchandise. 4. The Atheist's Box; or the Arguments from design. 5. Mind and Matter ; their Evidences and Distinctions. III. 1. Reason not Rationalism ; or true Methods of Interpreting the Scrip- tures. 2. Ecclesiastical Polity. 3. Infidels' candour and knowledge of the Scriptures. IV. 1. The Bible our true Magna Charta. 2. Rome's Logic, scheme the first. 3. The Ecclesiastical Marriage Bill. 4. Infidel Tactics. 5. The Nature of Faith and Science. V. 1. The Permanent Test of Relicious Truth in the Written Word of God. 2. Kor:ih, Dathan, and Abiram. 3. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. 4. Passages from the Life of an Enquirer, o. The Nature of Faith. VI. 1. The Gathering of the Nations. 2. Church Extension. 3. Passages from the Life of on Inquirer. 4. Mind and Matter ; their Evidences and Dis- tinctions. VII. 1. The Basis of Human Brotherhood in the Bible Doctrine of " One God and Father of all." 2. The Reformation Reformed. 3. The Theory of Intolerance involved in Words and Names applied to Religious Parties and Doctrines. 4. Passages from the Life of an Inquirer. 5. Autobiography of an Atheist. VIII. 1. The true Apostles' Creed ; or the New Testament Canon of Life and Doctrine, in the Person of Jesus Christ. 2. The Rev. George Shallowell and his Family Connexions ; (or, Reasons for submitting to the Church of Rome.) 3. The Theory of Intolerance, &c, &c, concluded. 4. Autobiography of an Atheist continued. IX. 1. The True Apostles' Creed; or the New Testament Canon of Life and Doctrine, in the Person of Jesus Christ. 2. Roman Oratory, and Protestant Logic. 3. Autobiography of an Atheist. 4. Passages from the Life of an In- quirer. 5. The Evidence of Testimony and its Special Application to the Truth of Christianity. 6. Mind and Matter ; their Evidences and Distinctions. X. 1. The True Apostles' Creed ; or the New Testament Canon of Life and Doctrine in the Person of Jesus Christ. 2. St. Philip Neri, Founder of the Oratorians; " his Maxims and Sayings." 3. The Rev. Robert Nares, A.M., on the character of Christ. 4. Mind and Matter ; their Evidences and Distinctions. 5. The Vision. 6. Labour and Capital, or Men and Masters ; their Rights and Duties. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "The Bible and the People." — A very good idea, very well and very ably executed. It promises to do excellent service against more than one class of adversaries. The divisions of the work are 'Christ's Religion,' the 'Priest's Religion,' the ' Statesman's Religion,' the ' Infidel's Religion,' and ' the Philosophy of Human Nature.' Under these five heads, the two numbers now before us supply a batch of excellent specimen articles. We wish the publication all possible success." — British Banner. "The department of labour here undertaken is, we believe, unoccupied, and is one in which great service may be done : this first number contains much food for 67 thought, and acute clever "writing. We shall he glad to find the Editor's boldness and energy appropriately rewarded. There is much suggestive matter throughout the [II.] number." — Tlie Nonconformist, " The first number is varied in its contents, sound in its principles, and healthy in its tone. It is a great step taken towards attaining the object aimed at. " ' Free Thoughts for Free Thinkers,' for the great body of the working classes, these 'thoughts,' clearly expressed in plain terms, addressed to their reason and experience, are peculiarly valuable. — Birmingham Journal. " We cordially recommend it. The popular forms of infidelity are here met in a bolder and better way than we have seen in any periodical. There is no mistake about the heartiness and ability with which the Editor advocates his views. " The paper on ' The Keys,' &c, is inimitable, both as a polemical piece and an exposition." — Hastings and St. Leonard's Netcs. " In these times, when all principles are being sifted, and the minds of many are unsettled, especially in regard to the fundamentals of Christianity, such a popular publication as this is much needed, and on these grounds ' The Bible and the People' is calculated to make its way. '• Sceptics' Eeligion' contains excellent arguments, and will be read with interest by the class for whom it is intended. The ' Infidel Press' is manfully grappled with. The work is calculated to lead the reader to think deeply on the most important subjects," &c. — Birmingham Mercury. " The Bible and the People." — " This new monthly magazine aims to be popular without being feeble ; adapted to the unlearned readers, without coming down to the level of those who wish to be saved the trouble of thinking. It has begun well. We know not when we have met, in a periodical of the same class, with so much solid matter so clearly and vigorously expressed. We should rejoice to know that our young men, and intelligent mechanics especially, were exten- sively availing themselves of the helps here afforded to the right understanding of the great religious questions of the age. It icill now be their own fault if they do not become well grounded in the principles and evidences of Chris- tianity, and prepared to deal alike with the pretensions of priestcraft, and the objections and schemes of infidelity. On all these topics valuable instruction is conveyed in these pages. The last, especially, we would mention as treated in a candid and intelligent spirit, rendering the work very suitable to be placed in the hands of the doubting or unbelieving, and Chris- tians may do good service to the cause they advocate, and to the souls of men, by promoting its circulation amongst them. — The Bristol Examiner and Bath Record. " It is almost original in its plan, and it is bold and effective in its execution. Its permanent contents range under five heads : — I. Christ's Eeligion. II. Priests' Eeligion. III. Statesmen's Eeligion. IV. Sceptics' Eeligion. V. The Philosophy of Human Nature. " The first head in both numbers is ' Christ's Eeligion, 1 which is admirably discussed, so far as the subject has as yet been carried. The second in both is ' Priests' Eeligion,' of which, as of the other, we can only at present express our strong approbation. ' The keys of the kingdom' are found, though to great num- bers who claim to be of the kingdom, they are still at the bottom of the well ; and found they are here dexterously applied, and many who have boasted that they are in the exclusive possession of them, are actually shut out. " The fourth head, the ' Sceptics' Eeligion,' containing in the two num- bers, 'Free Thoughts to the Free Thinkers,' and the 'Atheist's Box, or the Argument from Design,' is exceedingly seasonable, and will greatly aid the stu- 68 dent in unravelling the sophistries of the sceptic. The l Philosophy of Human Nature,' in both numbers, opens up a fine field to the metaphysical mind, into which the Editor has entered with clear perceptions, fully prepared to instruct those who follow him, by means of plain language and powerful reasoning. " We cannot leave the subject without saying to students and young ministers — see how you are surrounded ! Here is a quiver, from which you may draw at pleasure well winged and sharp arrows, by which you may wound systems, and reduce their supporters to hold parley with you, while you propound to them the glad news of a Saviour's love. We have here a Scriptural Theology, healthy and vigorous philosophy, and an unsophisticated logic, united with searching inquiry, and a masculine love of the good and the great, which render the magazine of great value in our estimation. And solely, for their own sake and the truth's sake, we advise our readers to give early orders. — The Christian News. These public appearances led some to consider that it might be useful to engage my services for more public work than the pastorate of a single church. It was moreover considered that some such general advocacy of religion as I was supposed able to conduct was peculiarly required by the signs of the times. Samuel Morley, Esq., ever foremost in works of benevolence, was prepared to aid in its support, and the Kev. John Angell James, of Birmingham, wrote to the British Banner, urging that I should be induced and enabled to enter upon a work for which he was pleased to say I was peculiarly fitted. It was eventually arranged that I should be so engaged in a "Three Years' Mission to the Working Classes ;" and I was left entirely without control by any committee or individual : I do not even know who contributed towards my salary, but only that Mr. Moeley regularly sent it, and I understood that he was one of six who secured it for three years, and gave me the country for my diocese. I believe that George Moore, Esq., of Bow Church-yard, London, was one of the contributors, as I believe it was at his request, through Mr. Morley, that I visited Cumberland and lectured and preached extensively there, as a part of the country in which Mr. Moore felt a special interest. I often lectured six nights a week, and preached three times on & Sunday, in all sorts of chapels, and for all sorts of occasions, Sunday schools, anniversaries, &c. The regulation was, that parties who invited me paid the expenses, and received my services gratis. During this tour I received much kindness and consideration from clergy and ministers, and the laity of all denominations. Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who then had the run of the country, was extremely jealous of this Mission ; and seeing the 69 recommendatory letter of the Rev. John Angell James, wrote to warn the Christian public against supposing that there was any necessity for it, or that the agent proposed was suitable ; and while publicly engaged in demanding : — " Why the Clergy avoid discus- sion ? " he professed to be just about caving in, offering to work in " parallel" lines with the clergy whom he perpetually insulted, and with his usual adroitness he nattered Mr. James, and abused the agency proposed, as not likely to exhibit the meekness and respect which the infidel would assume on occasions towards those whom he had most frequently outraged. " To the Editor of the British Banfief: Sir, — The letter of your venerable and distinguished correspondent, the Eev. John Angell James, has been read by me with great interest. I may smile at its strange statistics of free-thinking resources ; but I am not insensible to the be- nevolent feeling which breathes throughout the letter — a feeling which I can appreciate, though I deem it misdirected." " Let me tell Mr. James, that I am so far from looking back with ' contempt' on past relations with him, that I am disposed to pay great deference to the notice he has done me the honour to bestow upon me ; and I will therefore say to him, what I would not say to mem- bers of that " Mission' ; he proposes : — Why is it that we are still addressed as * infidels,' though we are not so (!) in the sense in which either the public, or Mr. James himself understands that offensive term ? Why does he speak of our views as ' Atheism,' while we choose another name, more truly (!) expressing our convictions? ' The young minister' has a position to win, and he proposes(?) to make himself felt by obnoxious epithets — thinking that to make himself felt is to make himself a power. He mistakes harshness for faithfulness, imagining that when he has denounced he has conquered, and that when he has irritated, he has persuaded. But the eminence of the Rev. Mr. James, renders these arts as unnecessary to his distinction as they must be incompatible with the dictates of his wiser experience, which must teach him that the people will naturally ask, ' How can we expect truth when we do not find courtesy?' The tone the Christian Spectator has of late manifested towards free-thinkers would command the patient attention of a thousand auditors, who would not give half an hour to a biting sarcasm, and a nibbling logic. If the proposed mission proceeds on the assumption (!) that we paint the Clergy as the enemies of the working class, it would do us injustice. (!) "We do not doubt the good intention of Christian ministers, though we dispute the wisdom of their means. If the * Mission' assumes that we ' subvert the faith of the people,' it will fail (!) We do not subvert faith ; we systematise opinion, and direct practical issues which might run parallel with Christianity, if you would let them. But history will one day tell with astonishment (! !) that in the hour when scepticism laid down Its antagonism, Christianity took it up. I have the honour to be, Your obedient servant, Nov. 14, 1852. GEO. JACOB HOLYOAKE." In exhibition of this gentleman's peculiar courtesy, the following reply to his " laying down antagonism" was sent to the same paper : — 70 " To the Editor of the ' British Banner.' Sir, — Mr. Holyoake declared in your last that he was " far from looking back with contempt" of Mr. James' Sunday school, and expressed great admiration and respect for Mr. James in order to exhibit bitterness to one who had a position to win. Mr. Holyoake has a position to lose ; he enquires : — How can there be truth when there is no courtesy ? Now it is certain we may not look for truth where there are lies and hypocrisy. These are plain words. I flatter no man : that may be left to the Christian Spectator. Please to print the following pre- face, by Mr. Holyoake, to an insolent tirade on Mr. James' Anxious Enquirer, which Mr. Holyoake inserted in the Reasoner, No. 70, p. 527, vol. hi. The following is a copy, and your readers may judge how far a mission is requisite to open the eyes of the working classes to the practice of these truth-seekers : — 1 Five years of my youth were wasted in the Sunday school of Carr's-lane Chapel. Every Sunday once, and generally twice, during that long period, it was my mis- fortune to sit under the Rev. Angell James, a believing recipient of such pernicious trash as that in the Anxious Enquirer, to which Mr. Chilton usefully draws attention. If ever I and the Rev. John Angell James meet at the bar of Cod, and justice is there afforded for those who have been wronged in life, I shall de- mand at the hands of the Rev. John Angell James the restitution of the buoyant years of my youth which he so clouded with melancholy and anxious early thoughts. Next to the evil to which I thus suffered was the misery inflicted on many near and dear to me. Distinct before me at this moment are the agonising expressions of those who believed or feared they had committed the redoubtable sin against the Holy Ghost. Without fear of contradiction I venture the opinion that if the Holy Ghost has a particle of humanity in Him there is no sin against Him like writing Anxious Enquirers. Devoutly thankful am I to stand where I do, looking down on the dangers, the traps, the gins and pitfalls of evangelical piety which I have escaped. Rightly did Shelley exclaim, ' I would rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon than go to heaven with Malthus and Paley;' (that is, Mr. Holyoake would rather be damned than go to heaven with John Angell James.) If in Birmingham I should think it my duty to distribute a copy of Mr. Chilton's article (on the Anxious Enquirer) to every member of Mr. James' congregation, and to the teachers in the Sunday School. I hope some friend will do it to the Sunday school teachers, as a matter of conscience, to save them, not only from the wrath to come, but from the wrath that is come wherever Anxious Inquiries have gone. I shall send Mr. James a copy.' — Ed. — i.e., George Jacob Holyoake. The above is word for word ; and I ask whether Mr. Holyoake can pretend to truthfulness after this and his letter of last week. ' THE YOUNG MINISTER.' " * The Secular advocate got out of this fierce attack on a minister whom " for the nonce" he professed to respect, by saying that for this coarseness he is called " rude," and that when he shows good feeling instead of bad, this "form of good feeling is made an offence." But it was not the "good feeling" that was condemned, but the hypocritical pretence of it by one who had shown the opposite. It would take up too large a space to enter upon all the details of my Mission ; but the following description of one portion of it, * Both these letters were quoted in the Cowper-street Debate, pp. IS— 20. 71 accidently picked up, as I was beginning to write this chapter, may be appropriate here. I do not know the writer of it, and anxjr wonder at his acquaintance with some details of my life. It appeared in the Rochdale Sentinel, in which there had been ten previous descriptions of clergymen and ministers, under the title of " Clerical Portraits." It was reprinted in "the Bible and the People," in November 1854, and serves as corroborative testi- money as to my engagements about this time. " The subject of to-day's sketch, though not a Lancashire man, is probably well known by name to the majority of our readers. He has been engaged during the present week in delivering three lec- tures at the Corn Exchange, Manchester, on the new phase of infidelity called secularism, in reply to the arguments of its chief advocates, Messrs. G. J. Holyoake, Joseph Barker, and Charles Southwell. The lectures were well attended. The audience on all three occasions consisted almost wholly of working men. We have rarely seen a speaker followed with deeper interest. His remarks told with very powerful effect. For full two hours his addresses, racy, witty, sarcastic, and convincing, were listened to with unflag- ging attention, relieved at intervals by hearty applause. Believing, as we do, that the spread of atheistic views is fraught with the utmost peril to the interests of the commonwealth, which are neces- sarily bound up with those of religion, we cannot but rejoice that they have found an antagonist who is endowed with the very talents which are requsite to unmask their sophistry, and hold them up to the scorn of the people. Ministers of religion are often reluctant to meet the advocates of infidelity upon the platform, and the feeling is not without some measure of justification. Christianity has stood its ground for eighteen centuries, and is too old a veteran to be bound in honour to take notice of every vapouring puppy who may aspire to win a little prestige by essaying a passage-at-arms. If it is, as it claims to be, eternal truth, it can well afford to let its assailants exhaust, without interruption, their small stock of enmity and ingenuity. The chief motive to an opposite course is supplied by the apprehen- sion that error may do much damage before it confutes itself. This is true, but perhaps still greater damage would flow from an eager haste to confute it. When we know that our doors and windows are well bolted and barred, we can lie down to rest in peace. To sit on the watch all night would betray a suspicion that our defences are weak. But though we are not among those who censure ministers of religion for their reluctance to engage in platform cis- 72 cussions with the advocates of infidelity, we admit the nuisance which such a course will occasion, if persevered in too long. Mr. Holyoake has imputed the silence of the clergy to their fears, forget- ting that confidence or contempt would produce the same result, and has gone everywhere proclaiming himself a champion they dared not encounter. It was high time to put a stop to this nuisance, and Mr. Grant has done it most effectually. He has sought every op- portunity of meeting Mr. Holyoake, or any other antagonist, and when an opportunity for open discussion has been denied, he has tracked the steps of the recusant, addressed the same audiences, argued the question on the same grounds, and generally with the happiest results. Mr. Grant is quite at home in controversy. Its dust and heat have no terrors for him. The hotter the furnace waxes, the more comfortable he appears. He can lecture well under the most pacific circumstances, but an assailant is necessayto put him quite at ease. Nature made him an intellectual combatant, and he has improved upon her gifts, by very careful training. He carries all sorts of weapons, both offensive and defensive ; a keen Damascus blade for those who are worthy of it, and a stout heavy mallet for wooden heads. His fire arms are revolvers, each charged with half-a-dozen balls ; the first discharge may end with a flash, or the ball may miss the mark, but no matter, three or four more follow in as many seconds, so that a thousand to one if he does not floor his man. In addition to these weapons for disposing of materials more or less solid, he carries about with him a pleasant phosphoric apparatus for burning men of straw. Mr. Grant has some disadvantages on the platform. He is not of a stature to undervalue the well-known mode of measurement approved by Dr. Watts. His voice, too, is neither musical nor of a wide compass. Sometimes very close atten- tion is required to catch his words ; though this is due in some degree to the rapidity of his enunciation. Still he is capable of making him- self heard by very large audiences, and the want of easy inflection in his voice is not felt as a great loss, where strength, not beauty, is the accomplishment chiefly requisite. His mode of thinking is very clear, and his style of speaking very sententious. His words are well chosen, always weighty, and to the point. His argu- ments are short, often compressed into a sentence, and so put that it is next to impossible to miss their full scope. In all cases of diffi- culty he has an unfailing resource in an abundant stock of mother wit. This enables him to keep an audience in constant good humour. How can they feel angry with him when he makes them laugh ? 73 He lias sufficient dogmatism, but not too much for his vocation ; and, moreover, it results from the strength of his argumentative powers. He is confident, not because he cannot give a reason, but because he can give twenty ; not because his strength lies in mere bluster and emphasis, but because he is conscious of being able to prove everything he says. He is not very courtly to an assailant, but he is fair and honest ; his roughest words are on his tongue ; the atmosphere becomes more genial the nearer you get to his heart. It was not quite of his own accord that Mr. Grant entered upon his present career. It was felt that a stop should be put to the vapouring of Mr. Holyoake ; and from Mr. Grant's previous charac- ter it was thought difficult to find a man better suited for the task. For several years he has been the conductor of a monthly serial entitled The Bible and the People, most of the articles in which are from his own pen. The line of argument adopted in that journal suggested a comparison with the Reasoner, and brought him into collision with Mr. Holyoake. These circumstances led to his being requested to make this department of labour more fully his own — a request with which he complied. His reputation for controversy was, however, fully established before he took that step, and descends from his college days. He was quite a " crack man" at Glasgow ; he carried off the head prizes in the logic and moral philosophy classes, together with, if we mistake not, a University medal, besides winning one of the prizes which were offered, about the same time, by the Anti-state Church Association, for essays on the Anti-state Church question. He was also a leading orator of the ' Liberal party ' in the University, in great request at Lord Rector elections, and meetings for agitating the question of University tests. His reputation lingered behind him, among two or three generations of students, as a generally clever fellow, and especially a redoubted polemic. On leaving college his first charge was at Prescot, near Liverpool, where he remained several years, till he removed to Bir- mingham. His success at Bh-mingham has been considerable. The titles he has given to some of his printed lectures are richly humourous: 'The Swallowell Family,' — how descriptive of the present generation of the "Wilberforces ; * Orations to the Oratorians,' — here Brewin Grant takes his stand side by side with the Very Pcev* Dr. Newman, and each waxes lovelier by contrast. Mr. Grant's lectures at the Corn Exchange, Manchester, treated largely on matters relating to the personal character and sentiments of the leaders of the Secularist movement. On Monday night, his object was to show that Christianity is the only true Secularism, 74 selecting for his text the words of Christ, ' How much is a man better than a sheep ! ' and showing that the high value which Christianity sets upon the individual man lies at the foundation of all the humanising ideas of the present age. His argument was, that Secularism, by denying man's higher nature, is fatal to man's dignity. The subject of Tuesday's night leeture was, ' The last trial by jury for Atheism.' It was a searching analysis of Mr. Holyoake's conduct, in reference to the prosecution which he under- went for blasphemy. Mr. Grant undertook to prove the following propositions. — ' That the language for which Mr, Holyoake was prose- cuted was foolish, illogical, and blasphemous ; that it was foolish, nevertheless, by bringing him to trial for it, to give him the prestige of a martyr : that, after all, it was not Christianity that sent him to gaol ; and that his conduct in gaol, as well as the conduct of his disciples towards him, constituted a miserable illustration of infidel principles.' Under this last head a very powerful contrast was drawn between Holyoake and John Bunyan. The former pro- nounced a few months' durance hardly tolerable, and anticipated the possibility of losing his reason, by an arrangement for commit- ting suicide. Poor John Bunyan sustained an imprisonment of eleven years without despair, and almost without repining. His happiness was a problem which his honest gaoler could not under- stand ; the latter did not know that the genius and piety of his cap- tive made him the freest man in all England. While Bunyan's fingers were busily employed in making tags for the support of his family, his fancy was bounding along the narrow path beyond the Wicket Gate ; feasting itself in the house Beautiful ; descending the valley of Humiliation ; vanquishing Apollyon ; walking with the shepherds on the Delectable Mountains, or crossing the Black Kiver, and ascending with the shining ones to the Celestial City. Mr. Grant concluded a parallel, beautifully and powerfully drawn, by exclaiming — ' You may imprison an Infidel, but you cannot imprison a Christian !' The Wednesday lecture, which we had not an opportunity of hearing, related to the American ' Confessions and Correspondence' of Mr. J. Barker." At the commencement of my mission I gave the lecture to the working classes, in connection with the Congregational Union meetings at Bradford, for which occasion I composed the basis of my subsequently celebrated lecture on " How much is a man better than a sheep : or, Christianity the true Secularism ; as the best security for man's rights and duties in this life." Aiterwards I gave, by appointment, an address to the Congregational Union on the relation of tli3 working classes to religion, with some account of my misson. 75 Chaptek VIII. METHOD OF CONDUCTING MY THREE YEARS' MISSION, With Specimens of Infidel Questions and Christian Answers. If a shorthand reporter had gone round with me and taken a verbatim report of each sermon and lecture, and of the questions and answers at the close of my week evening meetings, it would have formed a volume that would have paid his expenses and mine. I took notes of some, and published them in " The Bible and the People," of which I have, unhappily, not a complete set left ; but a few specimens from notes and memory may be interesting and useful. My two most favourite ''travelling sermons" were on ''The Barrel of Meal, and Cruise of Oil" and on "A Place of Repentance, or Esau's Birthright." In the first I especially dwelt on those tem- poral straits of distress and poverty, to which all are occasionally reduced ; and on those providential deliverances by which, somehow in general, we get through. I divided the subject into three parts. I. — God's Providence for man's temporal wants and the necessities of all inferior creatures, in that " barrel of meal and cruise of oil," — the teeming and fertile earth, from which, out of the remnants of the last year's growth, on which the world could not live a month, God works this annual miracle of making a little into much. II. — Man's Providence, by which we, out of our poverty, like that poor widow, help a neighbour who is poorer, and get no loss by it. While the help being given to a prophet, suggested that the poorest have the honour of aiding in religion, which in turn takes their children — like the prophet with the widow's child — into an upper room and breathes new life, a divine life, into them, in some Sunday school, and takes them back to their parents, saying — "See, thy son liveth," both for earth and for heaven. III. — God's Providence for Man's Spiritual Wants, in that " cruise of oil and barrel of meal" — the Bible, which we cannot empty, where the few loaves feed thousands and there is still bread enough and to spare for thousands more : — as a little fountain by the road- side fills some hollow or trough, at the bottom of which, through the clear water, we may perceive a little sand just moved, as the stream quietly issues from some inexhaustible source ; so this crystal fountain is placed by the dusty road of life, and one and another drinks and goes on refreshed, leaving it full, flowing, pure, and free, till the latest travellers on earth's pilgrimage shall have passed by and found it springing up into everlasting life. d2 76 The other sermon, " on Esau not finding a place of repentance. " dealt more directly with Bible difficulties and religious fears ; those darker views of passages, darkened by words without knowledge, and by traditional misapprehensions, as thus: — " Many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able :" on which some say that this is their case, whereas they put a full stop in the wrong place, — for they shall not be able, — "token once the Master of the House hath risen up and shut to the door." But now he has risen up and opened the door and no man can shut it. Strive to enter in now, at the gate of salvation, while you may, for many will try in vain afterwards in the next world, when the opportunity is closed. These were some of the points in my second favourite "travelling sermon." I remem- ber giving it in Surrey Chapel, to working people, one Sunday afternoon. At the close of the service the Rev. Newman Hall, minister of that chapel, thanked me greatly for my well-adapted address, but this was before " the Rivulet controversy." About the same time, at the request of the London " Christian Instruction Society," I gave a series of lectures in the back slums of London. I think one place was called Little Hell, from its great ignorance and wickedness. I remember that at one of these I gave the lecture on " How much is a man better than a sheep :" when one very smart fellow got up and told me that God " Had made the sheep better than man, for that the former had their clothes grow on their backs !" I answered that some men, like some books, were bound in sheep- skin ; but that it was very ungrateful to reproach the Creator for not making our coats grow on our backs, when He had given us the capacity of making our own clothes after shearing the sheep, which we could also eat into the bargain. The audience agreed with me that man had the best of it, even secularly considered ; as to chances of a grand immortality, of course there was no comparison. One very clever London fellow posed me this way : — " You said that a monkey could learn tricks till he could beat the man that led him; then does not this show that a monkey is equal to a man ?" I could not deny the possibility of such a case, but said I, ycu should remember that I told you the man taught the monkey and not the monkey the man ; aid in this point of being original the nan bore the palm. All these things were taken very good-humouredly, and rather heightened than diminished the moral and religious imrression, while they took conceit out of small infidel leaders and gave good 77 Christian people confidence, no more to fear a jibe which they could not answer ; for as Mr. Robert Stark, secretary to the Glasgow Young Men's Association said :— " Thousands of working men in Scotland answered their old tormentors, by saying, ' Aye ! but you could na answer Brewin Grant ! ' " These London audiences were composed of very poor people mariy of whom came to shake hands with me and thank me, some with tears and devout blessings, as they left the rooms. Part of this time I was accompanied by the Rev. Robt. Ashton, editor of the Congregational Year Book, at whose house also I stayed a few nights. He was then secretary of the London " Christian Instruction Society." Other lecturers were also engaged to fill up the course, which while the society continued was repeated annually. Professor Godwin was on the list of lecturers at this time, and he came to one of my appearances to form an opinion before-hand of the kind of audience he would have to address. He came to me at the close, expressed his interest in my lecture, said he had come to see how it was done, and concluded by saying that he " had watched my career with interest and satisfaction." At the close of one of my lectures in the provinces, a man got up and asked " If I am as honest as you are, why should you go to heaven and me to hell ?" To which I replied that he began modestly with " if," and certainly I doubted whether he was honest, for if he was, he was the only one of his sect that I had found to be so ; and his question proved that he was not. I asked if any of the people present had attended a Sunday school, and I was met with replies of "yes." Then were you, I asked — "taught in any Sunday school, as a part of Christianity, that you went to heaven for being honest ? Was that the ground of going to heaven?" "Xo," they replied. " Then what was the ground ?" I asked. " Through Jesus Christ, " they said. Then you go to heaven as sinners forgiven ? " Yes " was the answer. "Not as honest men deserving it, for your honesty ?" said I. " Xo." Yet this man knowing this asks — " Why, if he were as honest as I am, he should not go to heaven as well as I ; whereas we all know that it is not for being good, but on condition of our confessing and acknowledging that we are bad, that we are forgiven, and that we have a title for heaven through faith in Christ." And that title, I added, is open for him, and if he goes to heaven he will not go for being an honest man, but he will be an honest man if he through faith in Christ gets in the road for heaven. This incident gave me an occasion for explaining to the audience the nature of the atonement. d3 78 At another meeting, an adroit and sensible question was put of this sort — "If I am an honest enquirer after the truth, and am not able to find it, and still disbelieve in Christianity, shall I be lost for being an honest enquirer because I am unable to learn the truth ?" I complimented the questioner upon his question, but I put it honestly to him whether he was an honest enquirer, or whether in fact, while I had been giving my lecture, he was not thinking of his objection instead of thinking of my arguments — whether he did not say to himself every now and then " I shall puzzle you when you have done ?" The man smiled as if in acknowledgment that this was the fact, and I said, in that case you were not an honest enquirer after the truth, but you were holding this up before your eyes to hide the truth which I was stating ; you know your little finger will hide a mountain if you only hold it close enough to your eyes. Further I added, as a frank solution of his question, that I did not believe such a case ever really would happen ; that there might possibly be honest infidels— I did not say there were not — but whoever icas an honest enquirer after the truth would be permitted to see the truth, as sure as he was an honest enquirer ; and if my questioner was an honest enquirer himself, he would yet become an earnest believer in Christ, for " he that seeketh, findeth." Balaam's ass is a favourite topic with some of the objectors to the Bible. On one occasion, in the theatre at Sheffield, a gentle- man from among the "gods" put out his head and enquired what I thought about the Bible saying that Balaam's ass spoke ? Several other persons also made objections, which I took in the reverse order, beginning with the last. My questioner in the gallery evi- dently felt his dignity hurt, and he called out eagerly that I had not answered him. I replied, "I reserve you for the last — a good one for the last, you know." When his turn came, I said to him, "Now what is your question ?" He answered, "Does Mr. Grant believe , that Balaam's ass spoke?" I replied pointedly to him, "Why shouldn't I ? It might have been a miracle in those times ; but it is a very common thing now-a-days." Another gentleman observed to me in the street, " Mr. Grant, I am told you say I am as stupid as Balaam's ass." I said, " No, I did not say that." " Well," said he, "I thought you would not say such a thing of me." " No," I replied, " I would not mention you and Balaam's ass in the same day. Do you know why ? " " No," said he, feeling rather relieved, but scarcely flattered. " Well," said I, " the miracle was not that Balaam's ass spoke, but that ass spoke sense, which makes all the difference in the world." , 79 Speaking of Balaam's ass reminds me by contrast of Mr. Robert Cooper, then a very great card among the Free-thinking brethren. He wrote " The Infidel's Text Book," which served as the basis for a very good lecture. This learned Theban found St. Paul out in a contradiction, for the apostle said in one place that he was a Phari- see, and in another that he was a Roman : " such," exclaimed this logician, " is the consistency of Paul ! " On which it was observed, "I heard Grant once say that he was an Independent, and at another time that he was an Englishman ! " Such is the stupidity of the Infidel's Text Book scribe. When I was lecturing on this book in Newcastle-on-Tyne I unconsciously gave some expressions of contempt — as " ach ! " — when reading this gentleman's quotation of an insult on the Redeemer, and on the working classes — as " only the son of a carpenter : " and to my " ach, " a person in the audi- ence responded in mockery; whereupon I enquired, " Don't you know that it is only a hollow place that makes an echo?" The ship carpenters saw it and broke out. The next best there, was that a person having rather vehemently abused me, the audience cried out to stop him. I begged them to "let him go on, as I always liked people to see what was inside these men." On this he apologized in this fashion : he was only retaliating, as I had " called him a fool the night before." This was denied by the audience ; and I observed that I generally spoke English, but " did not remember calling the gentleman by that name : besides," I added, " it was so perfectly unnecessary." At the same place a curious scene occurred. One Mr. J. C , the secretary of the Secular Society, whom on a previous evening I had complimented as an apparently honest enquirer, came forward to reply to my lecture on Cooper's Infidel Text Book, in which I had pointed out the author's blunder in talking of Professor Somebody's "admirable iwcdilections ," and made merry with his learned pedantry. Mr. J. C came forward with great gravity to the front of the platform, and described my whole lecture as founded on the criticism of a word which, said he, was a printer's mistake, for that he had a later edition in which " predilections" did not occur; and he read the passage as amended : however, he did not put in "prelections" for " predilections," but simply omitted that part of the sentence. I quietly asked him to favour me -with a sight of his later edition, and begged him to go on with his speech while I glanced at the amended page. He did so, concluding with remind- ing the audience that my lecture was only a joke on a misprint which had been corrected. As he passed by me to leave the plat- 80 form, 1 (still seated by the table) directed his attention to the passage he had read, saying quietly, — " Do you see this ?" He stooped towards me and seemed rather blind, saying, — " What ? M I said, — " Do you see it?" The audience perceiving this panto- mime, began to call out for some explanation. I told him in a very low voice to go back and tell the people that the word I had quoted was in his book as well as in mine. He was in a fix, but obliged to obey ; and advancing said : — " Ladies and gentlemen, it-it-is here." The effect may be imagined. I simply told the people that from this incident they must learn to believe me " to the very syllable," •whatever their " predilections" might be : though I acknowledged to one mistake in believing and saying the night before that the gentleman who had just retired was an honest enquirer. The conceited author of this " Infidel Text Book" was lecturing in Blackburn one night on my arrival there ; and contrary to my custom — not to give interest to infidel meetings by my presence, to relieve the dull monotony of their lecture by importing foreign wit, or the interest of an important visitor — I went in to see the affair, and should have come out without speaking, but the chairman having been told of my presence graciously invited me to reply. Mr. Cooper said it was scarcely fair to mention me personally if I did not intend presenting myself before the audience. I accepted both the invitation and the apology ; and having spoiled his lecture invited him to try and answer mine the following evening, on his " Text Book" in Park school-room, when I engaged to prove that a greater numbskull never wrote, and that no author ever told more — of both sorts — black and white ones, — in the same space except Mr. J. B. Mr. Cooper did not accept the offer, and I told his audience that he " was wise," but that I knew they would all come ; that they could not help it ; that they would also be obliged to believe me and never would believe him any more. The large Park school was crowded, and I put this proposition to the vote, — " That nobody could hereafter pretend to believe ' the Infidel's Text Book,' and that its author was no more blessed with courage than with truth." I could not get one to hold up his hand against the proposition ; so it was carried unanimously, in an audience composed almost exclusively of working men. 81 Chapter IX. DISCUSSION WITH MR. GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE, IX COWPER-STREET, LONDON, 1852. Towards the close of the socialistic agitation headed by Mr. RoBEEr Owen, some of his disciples or agents started in other lines of infidel advocacy ; the chief of them was Mr. G. J. Holyoake, who pressed the war with great vigour and adroitness. Like that saint who " shone in the dark," this gentleman managed, among the lot with which he associated, to be distinguished for comparative gentleness and a tearful solicitude to find out the truth. He sus- tained this character very well at times, and was quite a card on show days : extremely polite where he could not be advantageously insolent, and "tame" when it was unadvisable to be " rancorous." Among the more fastidious friends of free theology who combined the respectability of religion with the luxury of a " little latitude," Mr. Holyoake was " the pet of the whole brigade." He could sneer at a parson and jeer at the Saviour, and mock the saints ; but then, like Uriah Heep, he was " a numble individual " who would gladly believe, if the Almighty would not persecute him into it by pains and penalties which infringed on his liberty as an "eclec- tic" philosopher. He was a great hand at being persecuted, but he considered that to be criticised was a greater injury than to be imprisoned ; and he made a market out of both. As for his impri- sonment — for such sayings, as" I flee the Bible as a viper," "Revolt at the touch of a Christian," and " Don't believe there is such a thing as a God" — he willingly brought it on; since when it was explained in court that he simply meant that parsons were too expensive, he was told that if he did not mean to insult the Creator, but only to reproach the clergy, he might escape. On this point I demonstrated in numerous meetings, in a lecture on his book, "The Last Trial by Jury for Atheism," that "he willingly put his neck into a noose, and refused to take it out when the judge told him how." This was a famous proposition of mine, which I maintained against all comers in hundreds of meetings, which spoiled the market of " carrying that scar about" to gain sym- pathetic coppers. Besides his imprisonment for a time, which was a mistake on the part of those who prosecuted, his great misfortune was to be criticised : he liked to jibe at a good, dull soul, and was quite merry over a serious Christian ; but if ever he fell in with one who was as sceptical of the sceptics as they professed to be about Christianity, and who knew more of them than they did of it, he 82 took a serious turn, and was shocked at this irreverent treatment of an anxious enquirer. The disaster of his life and the termination of his secular career was the permission to his admirers to invite me to discuss with him. He had already published his admiration of me as a model parson, liberal, fair, and rational in the pulpit ; more than just, even generous to infidels, in the press ; and in an evil hour : — expecting me to be as gentle as I was simple, if not softer than I looked, ready to abandon Christianity as a compliment to liberality, or at any rate to aid in erecting a half-way house ; — taking it for granted that geniality was next door to infidelity, and that a man who could laugh, would not stand up stiffly for am^thing solid and solemn, the party was induced to challenge me to discussion. It is but fair to say that Mr. Holyoake altered his opinion of me during the discussion, and not only repudiated all his former names and sen- timents, but retracted his recommendation of my spirit and writings, which he intimated were nearly as bad as his own. He could quote, he said, many illustrative passages, but would not stoop to it. So I reminded him of his former laudations in these words : — " However any may dislike these assertions, every one must admit that I have given plenty of proofs — that I can prove what I say to the minutest particular. Mr. Holyoake never quotes a passage I refer to, to prove me wrong ; he has not done so all through the discussion. The statement that he had praised The Bible and the People more than any one, he did not meet by reading his notice : that would have doubly confounded him. In his Cabinet of Reason, "Why do the clergy avoid discussion ?" a title to make one merry, he says, — 'I am bound to say the Rev. Brewin Grant, of Birmingham, is an instance (of exceptionable liberality.) I have heard him read one of our books from the pulpit. The Bible and the People, edited by him, gives the freest insertion to opposing views, and has in some instances uttered generous words of the writers.' (Vol. ii., pp. 26, 27). In his Reasoner, vol. xii., No. 24, Mr. Holyoake says of my review of his Trial for Atheism, — 'The same monthly (The Bible and the People) contains careful reviews of this work, by a writer who is more than impartial — he is generous. Another number contains entire ' The last days of Mrs. Emma Martin,' with critical remarks by the editor, we suppose, as in the former case. The remarks commence by the admission that ' death and sorrow are sacred,' which the critic does not violate in spirit. Some reply seems due from us, which we hope to be able to write.' This has not happened yet, though the article he thus praises is printed as a twopenny 'Finger Post,' by Ward and Co. 'We have placed The 83 Bible and the People,' he says, 'among our weekly list of literature for the people. It appears as a monthly, edited, we believe, by the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. , of Birmingham. Judging from the contents of the first sixteen numbers, it is the best of the controversial pub- lications devoted to the maintenance of evangelical principles. Our readers will find it well worthy of their perusal. Its tone is superior to anything we have encountered in the same Christian school. The numbers, as far as we have examined them, are critical, as well as instructive.' " The secular invitation to me to discuss was given June 16th, 1852. The debate occurred on six successive Thursday evenings, com- mencing January 20th, and ending February 24th, 1853." " The Publisher's Preface" to the Cowper-street discussion says : — " on« of Mr. Holyoake's friends wrote (June 16, 1852,) to Mr. Grant, saying ' The friends with whom I act would like to bring Mr. H. in contact with some one of acknowledged ability, so that we might have a foot to foot encounter. It occurs to us that you are a fit and proper person to engage in such a discussion, and if you would do so in this town (Leicester), we would do all in our power to expedite the arrangements.' " To this Mr. Grant replied a fortnight afterwards : — ' I should prefer discussing the value as well as the truth of Mr. Holyoake's whole mission, in some such theme as the following: — ""What would be gained by mankind in general, and the working-classes in particular, as to this life, by the removal of Christianity and the substitution of Atheism in its place '? in other words, wherein con- sists the superiority of the Atheist's Gospel over the Gospel of Jesus Christ." ' " This letter being forwarded to Mr. Holyoake, he replied to the writer of it, July 16 : — ' The first proposition you name as the subject of our debate, strikes me upon the first reading as a useful one with the change of one word (Secularism for Atheism). The proposition would then stand as follows : — " ^Yhat would be gained • Mr. Reed, an admirable reporter, took down this debate, and it was revised by the ci-putants and published by their mutual consent. Some ten thousand copies were sold. I was so well satisfied with Mr. Reed's accuracy that I secured his engagement for two subsequent debates, one of six nights, in Glasgow City Hall, with Mr. Holyoake ; and the other often nights, in Halifax, on the Bible, with Mr. Joseph Barker. I hope some time, when sufficiently encouraged, to select, condense, and re-arrange, from these and other reports, the permanent, useful matter contained in them for the perusal of enquiring and thoughtful peo- ple ; and am convinced that few works would be more advantageous to the public. I once thought of doing this under the title of " A Hand-book to the Bible." 84 by mankind in general and the working classes in particular, as to this life, by the removal of Christianity and substituting Secularism in its place." By Secularism is meant giving the precedence to the duties of this life over those which pertain to another world. The leading points with respect to Secularism that I undertake to ex- plain are : — 1. "That attention to temporal things should take precedence of considerations relating to a future existence." 2. " That science is the providence of life, and that spiritual dependence in human affairs may lead to material destruction." 3. That there exist (independently of scriptural religion) gua- rantees of morality in human nature, in intelligence and utility." ' " Mr. Holyoake nominated as his committee Messrs. James Watson, Richard Moore, Austin J. Holyoake, and the Rev. Ebenezer Syme, (Unitarian.) "Mr. Grant's committee were the Revds. J. Campbell, D.D., Robert Ashton, and Messrs. Samuel Morley, Samuel Priestley, and J. S. Crisp (of Ward and Co.) " The Rev. Ebenezer Syme acted as chairman for Mr. Holyoake, and Mr. Samuel Morley for Mr. Grant ; the Rev. Howard Hinton being nominated as umpire. " The proof sheets of this report have been read by both dispu- tants and the report is published with their joint consent. " 27, Paternoster-row, April, 1853." The preliminary correspondence forced Mr. Holyoake to lower his flag in his first speech, and the criticisms on his vague " bene- fits" of Secularism, forced him to repudiate the subject of debate as early as the second evening. The rest of his time was taken up mainly with appeals for pity, and attempts to fasten a charge of great wickedness on his opponent, for the sin of free criticism. He evidently repented before he began, and for all the impudent boasts and challenges with which he and his party had pestered and insulted the clergy and the ministers all over the country, he assumed the most modest, humble, and servile tone, to gain a pitiful sympathy as his shield in an encounter that he had invoked and dreaded. He abandoned and repudiated all his old words and methods in his first speech, saying, "The secularist applied himself to the re-inspection of the general field of controversy, and the result was, the adoption of the following rules : — ' First, to disuse the term atheist;' second, to disuse the term infidel;' third, to recognize —(for the first time) not (!) as a matter of policy (!) merely, but as 85 a matter of fad — the sincerity of the clergy, and the good intentions of Christians generally." This was whitewashing for the occasion. Only think of those Jesuitical words : — " to recognize not as a matter of policy merely but as a matter of fact!" This was from the most atrociously abusive writer that ever maligned the Christian world, and who got a testimonial from the Christian Spectator, a dissenting organ of congenial "liberality" in abuse. Besides this " re-inspection" of old titles and accusations, to start with a new character, the entire former method of action was ignored and the " doctrine of reserve" was openly advocated. " We believe in relative truth and discretionary silence." " We say ' dis- cretionary silence,' because publicity without discretion involves pre- mature utterances ; instead of always serving, it sometimes endangers truth." That is, it does not do to let out too much ! "To keep the truth back when it can be serviceable, is indeed a serious fault ; yet to suffer it to be dragged forward to be destroyed is to betray the truth." Now why it should be " destroyed" by being " dragged forward" is very curious, and my work in that and subsequent dis- cussions was to " drag forward" what he tried to veil in a " discre- tionary silence." " He who without conditions {i.e. suppressions), exposes truth to unwilling ears and prejudiced minds who seek its destruction, may be guilty of the murder of truth ." So he took to a " mask" which I pulled off, and he screamed fearfully. For he began by Baying : — " We claim the right of discretionary silence, — of profiting by our experience, and choosing when we will speak, to whom we will speak, and, — out of all the truth we think we have mastered, — how much we will speak." This included " how much" it might be " discretionary" to suppress. But I had tracked them all through, like a detective and "murdered" their " truth" by " drag- ging it forward" into daylight. This he anticipated, saying: — "No sooner did we betake our- selves to the more practical part of our advocacy than ' a Mission' was bespoken against us." This was his horror, and he wisely but ineffectually all through endeavoured to convince the patrons of " the Mission" that General Grant was the worst man they could employ. My opening speech indicated the spirit in which I con- sidered such questions should be treated ; the knowledge of the adversary's course, which his " discretionary silence" was not per- mitted to conceal, and the anticipation of that natural revenge that would be excited, as against " epithets," by any just criticism of these pretenders to truthful free enquiry. I still agree with every 86 word of the following, and consider it useful and applicable to all times : — "It is impossible for me to convey an adequate idea of the heavy weight of responsibility under which I commence, and with which I have anticipated this discussion, knowing as I do, that whatever others may say against our responsibility for belief, we cannot escape the consequences of our actions, and of those dispositions and opinions in which actions originate ; believing, as I do, that if there be any human duty, this is the first and foremost, to seek the truth honestly, to inquire with fairness, and search with scrupulous conscientiousness. Whatever may be the carelessness with which we write or speak on other occasions, when we presume to guide or oppose others on important questions, there is a grave responsibility resting on speaker and hearer. When I consider the many readers who may ponder the words uttered, if there be any justice or injustice, if a man may benefit or injure another, if there be any social duty, there is no more sacred obligation than to refrain from misleading, and to do all in our power towards helping men in those things in which we may do them the most harm or the most good. My anxiety is not on this occasion lest Christianity should be overthrown, that is settled in my own mind as an impossibility ; I am anxious only that my fellow-men should not be misled into the rejection of that which I believe is for their benefit, the truth of which is not at all interfered with by their acceptance or rejection of it, but the acceptableness of which may be interfered with by the imperfections of its professors, and by the unskilfulness of its defenders. The proper and best defence of Christianity is, that it be understood — as the best refuta- tion of infidelity is an exposition of it, which, if truly done, amounts to an exposure. My main object, therefore, will not be so much to defend Christianity as to show you how often it has been misre- presented, and especially to show that Secularism is not worth having, whether Christianity be continued or not, and that therefore no " benefits" can come from its introduction. It is enough to show this ; and if in doing so I advance opinions for which secularists are not prepared, they have to consider two things ; first, that I have carefully read and marked every page that has issued from the JReasoner office, and therefore may be presumed to know as well as any one, the proceedings and writings of that section of infidels. Nor is any original lecturer on Socialism better acquainted with the opinions of Robert Owen, from which Secularism sprung, than I am, and have been for the space of twelve } T ears. Some opinions may therefore be advanced which, to those who look only at modified 87 sentiments and statements, may seem extreme and unjust, but may still be very well maintained by unquestionable facts. Secondly, any who are surprised at some assertions, are requested also to consider the possibility of my being able, after a consideration as extensive as they who believe in Secularism have given to the subject, to give a conscientious and intelligent opinion as to my conclusion on the matter. If I employ any epithets, let them not be taken as a reason for not examining whether the epithets are not just con- clusions from previous arguments. Nor let it be set down as bigotry or personality, if I do not take the cheap professions of any men as to their justice or liberality, but proceed at once to disprove their pretensions. We make a grave mistake when, respecting matters of opinion, we speak of toleration or charity. We owe all men the justice (not the charity or toleration) of conceding all the liberty we demand for ourselves, according to the golden rule of Christianity, — which need not be ' removed' to secure freedom, — ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' If this be immoral or illiberal, it is my adopted rule of morality, and standard of rational freedom. But as to opinions themselves, if false we are to oppose them ; they have no claim to charity, and justice consists in removing them by all reasonable means ; whilst in relation to individuals we are to pursue a course of impartial justice. It is not illiberal to prove that some teachers are deceivers. It is bigotry to charge men with faults without proof: it is justice towards the leaders of opinion, it is justice and kindness combined towards their followers, to unmask whatever is deceptive ; for they cannot be truly the friends of any man, least of all the friends of truth, who are not the friends of honesty." "These remarks being general and applicable to both sides, will we hope, be satisfactory to those whose opinions we shall call in question. We hope to say nothing about either the advocates of infidelity or any other system that we shall not be able to make good ; and all that is asked of those who differ from us is, — to consider, not whether they like what we say, but whether it is true." The close, logical, unsparing criticism with which I exposed the secular proposals of " preferring the duties of this life to those of another," — when first, the duties are identical, and we are not in another life yet, and secondly when another life is denied, under the cloak of preferring this, and "service to humanity" recommended, to cover a denial of Divinity and to withdraw from the service of God ; and a care for the body recommended, as a veil to hide the neglect of the soul ; and the immoral and absurd position of preferring this 88 life to another, if there be another ; and the hypocrisy of the talk of this preference, by those who believe only. in one: — all this cruel ratiocination and persecuting criticism quite disturbed the placid conceit of the infidel party which had altered its name to conceal its principles. Pressed by these arguments, Mr. Holyoake screamed at epithets and retracted the proposition which he so cheerfully accepted ! Thus, in his second speech on the second evening, Mr. Holyoake, after saying, as was his custom whenever he felt that even his own party would feel the logical force of his opponent's statements, — - " If this is the kind of opposition to which our views are to be sub- jected, I see no objection to it," he added, — "First, however, I ought perhaps on this night to make an announcement. In our last night's debate we were several times told that I proposed to remove Chris- tianity and substitute Secularism in its place. These were the words of the general proposition which was read from the chair ; but that proposition was of Mr. Grant's own writing, and the extra- vagant element in it was of his own invention. Why I accepted the proposition Mr. Grant drew up was this, — that he told me it meant in other words, ' Wherein consists the superiority of our gospel over the gospel of Jesus Christ ?' This is a reasonable enquiry ; but the words ' removal of Christianity and the substitution of Secularism' are words which he has put into my mouth, and for the extravagance of which I did not foresee that he intended to make me responsible." (p. 60-1 Cowper-street Discussion.) This adroit retirement from the proposition which he had come to maintain, and the insinuation that it was not what he willingly adopted after mending it to suit his taste, called up Mr. Morley, who was my chairman, and who at the close of Mr. Holyoake's speech is thus reported : — " I am anxious for one minute to set myself right with Mr. Holy- oake. I was a party, as one of the chairmen, last week, to the reading of the following sentence — it was read by Mr. Syme, Mr. Holyoake's chairman: — 'What advantages would accrue to mankind generally, and the working classes in particular, by the removal of Christianity and the substitution of Secularism in its place.' Now, on my honour, I would be no party, if I knew it, to any proceeding in connection with this discussion that was not perfectly fair and perfectly straightforward. I understood Mr. Holyoake to say that this sentence is Mr. Grant's, and not his. Now I was present at a meeting at which Mr. Syme (Mr. Holyoake's chairman), and Mr. Holyoake's brother, were present, and I distinctly understood that 89 the phrase as it was read was adopted by Mr. Holyoake. I wish to have that made perfectly straight and clear ; otherwise I have been a party to misrepresentation. I beg to insist on an answer to this. Mr. Holyoake's brother will do me the justice to say whether I am right or wrong in what I have said." 11 Mr. Holyoake : — It is my place to answer the question. I accepted the proposition. I said so in the words I used. I said, * Why I accepted the proposition Mr. Grant drew up was because he told me it meant in other words, wherein consists the superiority of our gospel, or views, over the gospel of Jesus Christ.' I thought it was in that sense that he would use them, and that he would not make me responsible for the extravagant element in them — that of wishing to remove the whole of Christianity." " Mr. Moeley: — I am bound to say I recognise these words as having been used by Mr. Holyoake — I say it frankly. But the impression surely teas that the proposition was Mr. Grant's, and that there had not been a clear understanding." M Mr. Gkant : — Mr. Chairman, I quite understand the nature of Mr. Holyoake's indirect disavowal and direct avowal of the statement that he has come this evening to discuss. It would have been very much better if he had plainly made any opposition to it when we discussed it in letters beforehand. However, I need say nothing upon that subject, but simply tell you that as Mr. Holyoake agreed that the correspondence should be the preface to this discussion, you will quite understand the whole of that question. I think in nearly every speech Mr. Holyoake has commenced by saying — If this is the sort of opposition we are to have, we need not fear much. Invariably he has commenced with some disparaging observations of that kind. He does not now propose to ' remove Christianity,' and if he did, he could not remove it. The proposition which he calls my extravagance, he was extravagant enough to adopt, and not wise enough to complain of it till now that he cannot maintain it." Mr. Holyoake, who had been petted, and toadied, and spoiled, and been begged to believe, and had jeered at the good souls who prayed for him, was much excited and fretted by a more inde- pendent sort of treatment, in which the scepticism which he so boastfully entertained respecting the claims of Jesus was entertained as to his own. This was a sin against free enquiry. Hence, on the last evening, he complained that, " Throughout this discussion our adversary has addressed us in the tone which marked our previous correspondence." (219.) This should have been a warning to him 90 to withdraw from an encounter with " nibbling logic and a biting sarcasm." The whole tone of his party was checked ; and from the ridiculous triumph with which they grinned at good men who wasted solemnity on them, felt quite astonishment and anger at my free handling of their high priest, who himself took to the solemn line. He also dealt considerably in appeals to the pity of spectators, and wanted very much to induce my friends to excommunicate me for my daring criticisms. Every argument against his professed principles was treated as a personal accusation. " I have a right to ask " he says, (page 183) " that everywhere in this country we shall no longer be represented as preaching doctrines injurious to mankind." But while he considered it persecution to represent his doctrines as injurious, one of his propositions for that debate was " The Atone- ment unsatisfactory as a scheme, and immoral as an example." This, however, he was driven out of; and said he did not mean " immoral " in the English sense of the word. But what is here insisted on as a lesson is, that Free thinkers of all sorts loudly claim freedom to denounce other people's sentiments, and resent criticism of their own, as an infringement of their rights. He told the people that my way of treating him was worse than imprisonment, and I believed him ; for to put him in prison would properly awaken sym- pathy, while to answer and expose his assertions would put him in the pillory of criticism, which he pretended to ask for and did not like. A favourite phrase of his, to relieve his feelings, was to call argu- ments that troubled him "The art of making Christianity disagree- sble," (page 250) as if he rather liked it, till he could not answer its advocates. After applying this phrase emphatically to me, he went on in this furious fashion: — "And while you stand with one hand on the Bible, and the other thus at our throats, and cry ' Believe! or we denounce you as infamous in life and deserving perdition in death,' you deepen the conviction on my mind that the ' glad tidings of the gospel ' merely mean good-will to those who believe as you believe, and ill-will to all who do not. It was my duty the other night to show that Christianity justified persecution.* Now what is the difference between the spirit in which we are addressed and that of the persecutor ?" (page 25G) This was slightly "personal ;" but directly after, he says of his " persecutor " — " I have nowhere called in question his sincerity, or the purity of his motives ;" as if he were not doing it then, in a meek kind of way. * He failed to show it, and this makes him so gentle. 91 • In my next speech I observed, " if Mr.Holyoake does not 'question my motives' he cannot blame my conduct ;" and " if what I have said is not true, Mr. Holyoake should disprove it." (page 258.) These are points which those men never think of. But to return to our ruffled debater, he declared passionately : — "Why, during my six months' imprisonment in Gloucester gaol, for answering a question of a local preacher in Cheltenham, neither by the crown lawyer, nor by Mr. Justice Erskine, nor by the chaplain, the Rev. Robert Cooper, was language used to me half so bad as that which has been applied to me* during this discussion ; and I now see that less injustice is done to me by a legal persecution by the Church of England, than in a discussion with an Independent Dissenting minister. Mr. Grant will see in this only another 'grand compliment to his argument;' but the public will see in it something very different. In discussions with other ministers, when I have pointed out the spirit of acerbity which Christianity seemed to me to justify, they denied my conclusions, and I have said, — 'Wait till we meet some accredited Evangelical minister, and then you shall see ;' and when Mr. Grant's attention was drawn last night to his own conduct, you heard the reply, which ought not, and which shall not be soon forgotten, ' I shall justify the conduct of Christ, Whose example justifies my own course.' And Mr. Grant is right. The Scriptures fully bear him out." " That whatever treatment we have experienced in this discussion is scriptural, we have the further testimony of the British Banner, which last week declared, on the part of the intelligent and numerous body of Evangelical Christians who put Mr. Grant forward, that 'he completely meets their views as to the manner in which the thing ought to be gone about.' " (P. 257.) My constant plan was to keep reviewing the ground gone over, and hold up the main point of debate ; as on the same evening, I observed : — " It becomes my duty once more to see that the object and conditions of this discussion shall be clearly understood. The general proposition is now well known, — ' What benefits would be gained by mankind in general, and the working classes in particular, as to this life, by the removal of Christianity and the substitution of Secularism in its place.' Mr. Holyoake adopted and signed this, having altered it by omitting the term Atheistic, that 'our religions might' not ' come into collision,' for he has kept his own out of • Mr. Holyoake regarded every proof of the immoral tendency of his doctrines as a personal accusation ; and applied it all to himself, whether properly or not. sight. Whatever has not tended to establish this general propo- sition has been beside the mark. But Mr. Holyoake disavowed this proposition on the second evening, and therefore virtually abandoned the object of this discussion, as too extravagant even for him to maintain : and he adopted the course, not of removing Christianity, but of stealing from it, to adorn his own barren annals with the spoils of ' the Charlatan Christ.' He advanced two pretexts for this evasion ; first, that the proposition he adopted was explained away by the proposition he rejected, and that whilst Christianity is to be explained literally, in all its figures, he is not literally bound to a signature that was not figurative." " The second pretext for his evasion was, that the proposition originated with me ; therefore, though he signed it, he does not pretend to maintain it ; and this course would render all debate impossible, since the proposition must originate with one side, and Mr. Holyoake has taught the other side to repudiate what they sign, because it did not commence with them. The main proposition, signed by both disputants, and agreed upon by two committees, Mr. Holyoake did on the second night abandon, and decried the assertion he came here to maintain." The great point secured in this debate, besides carrying my side of the proposition, was to abate the nuisance to which clergy and ministers had been exposed of perpetual challenges. As I observed: — " This point then is securely gained, in con- nexion with this discussion, that, whereas Mr. Holyoake commenced with me in my chapel, and all over to country openly defied the clergy, and lectured on their avoiding discussion, till his corre- spondence with me ; I have now silenced that cry ; and they have set up another, changing the boast of ' opposition their opportunity' into silence their safety ; and for the policy of forcing debate, they have retired into the fastness of ■ discretionary silence,' whilst, further, every principle and every name held in connexion with the Eeasoner, as a positive denial of God, or Christianity, or another life, up to the time of settling the proposition of this debate, is retired from and abandoned ; for Secularists now only profess what nobody ever denied, namely, the importance of this life and science, which they illogically call the 'positive side' of those negations which Mr. Holyoake refused to recognize in this discussion. His com- mencing repudiation of the Eeasoner was intimated in the fact, that he wished me to confine my reference to two years ; and then wrote by the next post to declare, that he did not mean what he said. Now, if he has been safe only two years, may he not find, at the 93 end of two more years, that his followers had better imitate those who, in the Acts, burned their ' curious books ' at the approach of the Gospel?" Mr. Holyoake for this discussion adopted a work, called " The Task of To-day," as one of the "advised and revised" standards of the new Secular Faith; in this work, the "Task" is to destroy and remove Christianity, as now the obstruction to progress. The writer of it acknowledges that Christianity was the only bridge by which the world could pass over to a better state ; but asserts that it now stops the way. The second half of my concluding speech — which follows, and with which I conclude this chapter, was founded on this "Task of To-day " — to dismiss Christianity, which is acknowledged to have done the world some service. The Atheist secular author had said : — " 'When Jesus appeared, the world was ripe for change. Beginning to be sick of mythology and Judaism, but still clinging to many deep-rooted prejudices, and incapable of discovering the whole truth, it wanted supernatural authority for every great moral and social innovation." In other words, nothing short of Christianity, a religion claiming Divine authority, appealing to the natural awe of mankind, was capable of improving the world ; or, in Secular dialect, nothing but lies were of any service. Then, if the present improved state of the world could only be attained by this religion, the present elements of pro- gress are due to Christianity, since this ' lie hath abounded ' to the world's hope and advancement ; and its continuance and cultivation may be as useful as the helpless and pitiful pretender which declares that it could not have done any good, in the deranged condition of the world when Christ came ; but now that He has set the egg on end, if He will but stand aside, these boastful reformers will manage the world for the future. And now Christianity is dismissed with these grateful words : — ' Whatever share the Christian religion may have taken in the work of civilization, was finished long ago — its errand is done.' "Well, yours is but just begun; you have done nothing. Nor can Christianity have ' finished its work long ago,' when you admit that the Reformation, the re -assertion of Christian liberty, freed the world from spiritual serfdom. ' Protestantism,' he observes, was ' certainly an advancement on Papal Christianity, as far as liberty, humanity, and honesty are concerned.' Again, he writes, ' The Reformation claimed for mankind the right of private judgment, and opened the road for every man's escape from the shackles of spiritual despotism.' Now, this was the benefit first introduced by Christianity, and renewed in the Reformation, whose work is surely not yet performed, since there are still many countries 94 in which men are not free ; they are free nowhere, except where the Bible is free, and where it has achieved freedom for the Infidel who rejects it. And here the ' Secular Standard ' declares the value of Christianity to every man, as the source of every man's freedom. This 'errand' of freeing men from slavery is 'not done;' and the same reason which existed all over the world, requiring Christianity at its origin, now exists in all those parts of the world where Christ- ianity has not been published or received ; and in those parts where it has been subverted by priests, for a means of despotism ; so that it has work enough yet, and is required as much as ever, in Pagan and Popish lands ; whilst Christian lands know it too well to abandon it at the request of men who, like priests, misrepresent it. Chris- tianity has begun and advanced a good work, which is not yet finished ; so it is still required, to move the heathen and to move the Romans, who are heathenized Christians, and ' who,' as of old, ' cannot possibly be saved without a supernatural religion ;' there- fore that which justified its introduction, justifies its continuance. The author of the 'Task of To -Day,'' who has thus dismissed Christianity, addressing his reader, very solemnly declares — ' You are no prophet, none of us are prophets ; but let us be well assured that no bad consequences will arise from truth, and no good from submission to falsehood.' This is when he is giving a reason for abandoning Christianity; but at the period of its introduction, good came out of its falsehood ; now, however, the great ' task ' he sets men, is, to repudiate the only system which has done men any good. This consistent Rationalist has written an epitaph for Christianity before it is dead, and eulogizes Secularism before it is born. ■ Christianity,' he writes, ' once a green and flourishing tree, is now sapless, pithless, and rotten ; nothing but the bark is left ; it totters to and fro. Let thinking men quit its shade, lest it crush them in its fall.' Did he not rightly say he was no prophet ? Let no man be in haste to get out of the road; the tree is in no hurry to fall; if * only the bark is left,' it must be very tough, to keep up- right, and to rock to and fro ; there was never such a spectacle seen before — it is another of the miraculous lies of fire-eating scepticism. Beside Mr. Bell may be informed that if ' only the bark is left,' the fall of the tree would break no man's bones ; so that the danger is as imaginary from the fall, as the danger of likelihood of a fall. When the sky falls we shall catch larks ; but heaven and earth will pass away before the tree of life falls ; which the freethinker con- fesses did once heal the nations, when his gourd had not sprung up, and which will remain to give immortal fruits and cooling shade to the hungry and weary traveller through this pilgrimage. 95 We cannot but marvel at the eagerness of our cabinet-maker to fell this tree ; it is falling, and people are to run out of the way ; and yet he follows up this assurance in the imperative mood : — ■ ' Let all help to make it fall in a safe direction.' This we imagine will require ' a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether ;' but infidels never pull together, they pull away in different directions, and so counterbalance each other's efforts ; when they shake and tug they naturally imagine the tree rocks to and fro, as drunken men upbraid the earth for reeling. They not only cannot pull together, but none of them pull very long -at the same rope ; they are always for progress, that is, for changing the direction of the pull, and their progress is like that of an infant, — from teething to hooping-cough, and from hooping-cough to measles, and from measles to consump- tion, and from consumption to the grave ; and then as one rope rots they bury it, and think the tree is rotting ; as from the death of one form of sceptical development they go to the birth of another pro- mising child, like Mr. Holyoake at Bradford, who on the 24th of August last, gave ' a new development of the principles of free enquirers,' and so they take a new voyage, in a new balloon, to see which way the wind blows, which rocks our tree into increased power, as a giant sapling, already the king of the forest. With all their progress they come round to the old place, like a horse in a mill, or a squirrel in a cage, or a weathercock on a steeple — always progressing and never getting on. They would do well if this tree did not stop them; but now let them start one of their own, with a seed out of their Cabinet, and let it compete fairly in the great exhi- bition of all magnificent products. But these new ' developments,' that is, digging up the old seeds to sow new ones, are very satisfactory acknowledgments of dissatis- faction with all that they have attempted. Meanwhile, this tree of ours is still a ' hale green tree,' after two thousand years, and pro- mises to remain so when a thousand more shall have gone. It grows in the soil of human affections and intellect, it grows in a free atmosphere, it makes the atmosphere free and wholesome, it confessedly alone could heal the bitter waters of the old world, when Christ planted it ; and the renovated part of mankind having grown up with it, and been fostered by it, in the infancy of the world's improvement, still guards it jealously, singing — 1 ! woodman spare that tree, Touch not a single bough ; In youth it shelter'd me, ^nd 1 : 11 protect it now.' 96 It was planted in suffering, it has been watered with blood and tears, it has grown up under the oppression of the combined forces of dark- ness, priests, and tyrants, — it has become strong, and now stands calmly defying all oppressors, healing all who taste its fruits ; and after all the fitful efforts of a variable philosophy, guided to the attack with dark lanterns and Will-'o-the-wisp ' developments,' it will still remain for the healing and preservation of the nations." Chapter X. THE RIVULET CONTROVERSY : " WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT ? "—1855-6. The above controversy raged very fiercely in our denomination, and its effects are still felt among us. The Rev. T. Binney, who was somewhat prominent in the affair, in a letter to the Congrega- tional Union on a question into which he sought to merge " the controversy," — observed : — " The facts of the case with which you will have to deal, will in their circumstances and moral aspects be the same six months hence, or six centuries." Those who wish to understand the growth of opinion and method of advocacy amongst Independents, — who directly and indirectly affect other denominations, — will find some useful lessons in a suc- cinct review of that animated discussion in which the brave old Dr. Campbell stood forward with zeal and fidelity, in defence of what he considered to be the truth of the gospel, and was well abused for his pains, by those loftier spirits who consider that all freedom of opinion should be confined to the self-styled liberal thinkers. Seeing that by the activity of his foes and the number of organs at their disposal, the veteran defender of the gospel was liable to be almost overmatched, and that a combined effort was made to extin- guish him ; and believing that a more terse and logical handling of the matter might present the whole subject in a short narrative, I determined on writing " What's it all about ? or both sides of the ' Rivulet' controversy, with a fourth appendix to Mr. Binney's letter to the Congregational Union." Being about this time lecturing at Cheltenham, I read the sub- stance of my statement to the Rev. Morton Brown, LL.D., who sent word to Dr. Campbell that I had achieved " a miracle of 97 logic." The pamphlet was published by Mr. W. H. Collingeidge, City Press, 1, Long-lane, and some ten thousand of it were said in a fortnight. The facts of the case were as follows : — " The Eev. T. T. Lynch, a minister of some individuality and genius, published a book entitled — ' The Rivulet : Hymns for the Heart and Voice ; ' which work not only professed to be poetry, but was incautiously put forth by its author as a Hymn Book, which led to a theological criticism of it, as a specimen of devotional psalmody, in the columns of the Morning Advertiser. The editor of that paper expressed a decided opinion that the book was theo- logically defective for its avowed purpose, and, perhaps, few ministers, however much enjoying this poetry in their private moods, would like to give out these hymns two lines at a time, to 'peculiar metre,'' and look the congregation in the face while singing — ' The dewy flowers more beautiful For tears upon their open face, Gaze on us as from hearts brimful Of tender pity for our case.' But every one to his taste ; the point now to be observed is that it was a mis- take to put forth this poetry as hymns for Christian congregations. As poetry, the book might have passed ; but being unfortunately described as hymns, and professedly sung in the author's congregation, gave rise to suspicion and comment: thus originated this ' Controversy.' " The Eclectic Review then criticised the same production, praising it especially for " giving utterance, and not unworthily, to those aspirations of the Christian's heart, which have the Saviour for their object." This number of the " Eclectic " being sent to the Morning Advertiser for notice, the reviewer in that paper animadverted on the lofty praise bestowed on the Rivulet's high spirituality ; and remarked that, " with the solitary exception of the Rev. Newman Hall, no one of any note has ventured to vouch for the theology of this volume." There must have been some force in these anim- adversions, as they provoked the parties referred to, into a peculiar method of replying to a criticism. Their reply became celebrated under the title of "the Peotest," a paper addressed to the editor of the Eclectic Review, partly to console him for his sufferings in the encounter, and chiefly to protect one of the signers of the " Pro- test ; " the whole of whom became known as a body by the name of " The Fifteen," to which the adjective " immortal" was occasionally prefixed. The following is a copy of the remarkable document : — "THE PROTEST. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' ECLECTIC REVIEW.' Our attention has been called to a matter of controversy between the Eclectic Review and the Morniny Advertiser, on the subject of a book of Christian hymns, recently published by the Rev. T. T. Lynch. 98 We are slow to intrude into such controversies, but there appears to us reasons ■which, in this instance, justify a somewhat unusual course. We have read the reviews with pain and shame ; and feel called upon to express our utter hatred of such modes of dealing with either a book, or a man. The Reviewer has invoked so solemnly the sacred name of evangelical truth to consecrate his criticism, that ■we, loving the gospel, feel bound to enter our Protest ; and one of our number, Mr. Newman Hall, having been severely blamed for his public commendation of Mr. Lynch's poems, we, sharing his convictions, gladly place ourselves at his SIDE. In a book of Hymns for the Heart and Voice, we did not look for didactic theological statements, but -we found in a measure, that greatly delighted us, a spring of fresh and earnest piety, and the utterance of an experience eminently Christian, and of no ordinary complexion and range, with a clear recognition of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the divine Spirit. We feel no call to review the Reviewer of the poems. We content ourselves with simply ex- pressing our conviction that the spirit of the review, and the conclusions and judgments of the Reviewer, and the manner in which Mr. Lynch is personally referred to, are most false and unrighteous, and that, if this is suffered to pass current as a specimen of Christian reviewing, then Christian reviewing w r ill soon become an offence unto all good men. Concerning the doctrinal beliefs of Mr. Lynch we are not called upon to offer a judgment. It were to place ourselves and him in a false position, to set up ourselves as his judges in this matter. Some of us have no personal knowledge of Mr. Lynch, and know him only by his works ; most of us know him well, having frequent opportunities of meeting him in close Christian intercourse, and ■we simply declare that we love him as a Christian brother, and hold him in high honour as one who, by severe and patient thought, has gained a great hnow- ledge and understanding of that truth which is held in common by all evan- gelical churches — ' the truth as it is in Jesus.' Though in our mode of stating many things we should probably differ from him and from each other, we know that we have ' one Lord and one faith.' We find ample evidence of this in the book under consideration, and cordially underwrite your recommendation to your readers to study it and judge for themselves. We do not imagine that the sentiments of the articles to which we allude can have any influence over your subscribers, but if you think the frank statement of a few Christian brethren can help you in maintaining the standard of true Christian reviewing, we, believing that you have been most unjustly assailed, place it heartily at your disposal. Henry All on, Thomas Binney, J. Baldwin Brown Jas. Fleming, Newman Hall, J. C. Harrison, Edward Jukes, Benjamin Kent, Samuel Martin, S. Newth, John Nunn, Watson Smith, James Spence, R.Alfred Vaughan Edward White." The peculiar circumstance in this protest, besides its wild and general accusations, as a specimen of " true christian reviewing," is, that "the fifteen" resent the Morning Advertiser s " mode of dealing with a man" — and say, that "the manner in which Mr. Lynch is personally referred to is most false and unrighteous," when the only thing that had been said of him " personally" was, — that he was " an amiable and certainly an intellectual man, of cultivated mind, largely imbued with a poetic spirit." 99 The protestors had either forgotten what had been said of their friend, or thought nobody would enquire, but all would implicitly believe that such " utter hatred" as they expressed must be occa- sioned by some enormity. It is the custom however of this class of men, to draw largely on the faith of their disciples. Whatever they cannot answer, they protest against with assumed horror, which they hope will be infectious. Even the defence of the author of the " Kivulet" seemed deprived of all grace and magnanimity, by the anxiety of the pro- testors to defend " one of" their "number," Mr. Newman Hall, by " gladly placing" themselves " at his side." Another reviewer now entered the field, the Rev. Dr. Campbell, who thundered in his British Banner, till Mr. Binney acknowledged in his first appendix to a letter printed for private circulation, that " the author was in error to call his poems hymns," and that it " would be an error to use them as such. In the next place," he added, " there were errors on the part of ' the fifteen.' It was an error to issue a protest at all, things had better have been left to take their course. It was an error for the protest to say all it did, because some of it would be known only to persons on peculiar terms of intimacy with the person defended ; and further there were words, if not expressions, incautious to say the least." People generally would imagine that after so handsome a recan- tation, the penitent would walk softly and that the matter would end ; but this was only an appendix to an attempt to injure the " moral character of Dr. Campbell," in revenge for his forcing the oldest of " the fifteen" into this acknowledgment. Having re- pented, or at least recanted, he could with a better grace commit another fault. It having been announced that Dr. Campbell was about to re- publish, with additions, his British Banner articles on " the Rivulet," Mr. Binney introduced the matter into the Congregational Union meetings, May 17, 1856, protesting against this reproduction, and urging the Doctor not to carry out his promise to the public. In a fit of generosity the Doctor gave way, but only to find afterwards that this act of his was not regarded as a concession of grace, but a pledge that nothing of the kind should appear in the Banner again. This gave it the appearance of a condemnatory suppression, as if the critic and not those whom he criticised had been in the wrong, or as if the Doctor had recaated the gospel and taken to negative theology ! But though he was thus entrapped into a pro- mise which he kept, Mr. W. H. Collingbidge from his own interest 100 in the subject determined that the articles should not be suppressed, and re-published them on his own account. Whereupon the cry was raised that Dr. Campbell had broken faith, and those who had been driven by him out of their defence of bad theology, sought by every method, open and clandestine, to fasten on him the charge of bad morality. It was at this stage that I came in and analysed the proofs adduced for this extraordinary charge. Before the question was so changed — from the theology of "the Rivulet" and its suitableness as a hymn-book for Christian worship to what Mr. Binney called " the moral character of Dr. Campbell" — the real point originally at issue had been given up. But this is the perpetual course of our more liberal thinkers ; when foiled as to the subject in hand they invariably attack the spirit and character of those who put them down in argument. As to this charge, that " Dr. Campbell had broken faith" by republishing his articles, I wrote the following dialogue, which specially excited the anger of the Nonconformist, which took the side of gentlemanly taste in this matter. The following dialogue was supposed to take place between Mr. Binney and the writer : the speakers are distinguished by their initials. All the words in inverted commas are Mr. Binney's, either as spoken in the Union or as written in his letter to the Union, with prefix and appendix to the pages of which the numerals refer: — B. — Dr. Campbell has broken faith with the Union. G.— How ? B. — He promised not to publish his " Rivulet" articles with preface and additions, as he had engaged to do. Gk— Well? B. — But he has done so. G. — Indeed ! "Where is the preface, and what is the additional matter ? B. — This is mere evasion; "the thing" is done, and if there are no " addi- tions," at least Dr. Campbell has republished the articles themselves. G.— Who told you ? B. — " The thing" " assumes such a shape in my mind." G. — Suspicion is shapeless till it is fashioned by design. But how do you make out that Dr. Campbell has violated his promise ? B. — The pamphlet has appeared. G. — Did the Doctor put it forth ? B. — " What the meeting deprecated was," not merely Dr. Campbell's " autho- rizing," or putting it forth, but its appearance at all, *' by -whomsoever put forth." G. — Then you think the Doctor guilty for not preventing " whomsoever" doing what he promised not to do ? B — Certainly ; "it never occurred to the meeting that Dr. Campbell had not the power to secure this." (4.) 101 G. — " I am not aware that I am doing yon injustice when I cay that I think you are not very clear or connected " (1) : for observe, we are not speaking of what " did not occur to the meeting." but of what did occur at the meeting — in fact, of Dr. Campbell's promise. What was it? B.— That the pamphlet should be suppressed. G. — Was that what you asked of him when you said it was announced that he was going "to publish his letters with some new additional matter ?" and " I entreat Dr. Campbell to suppress such intended publication ?" B. — We did not merely mean that he should not do this, but that no one should do any part of it. G. — I am not inquiring what you meant, but what he promised, and what you actually requested. B. — '• It was the general understanding" that he could and would prevent all others. G. — But you say you do not know whether this understanding was " right or wrong." I want to know whether you argue from "the general understanding," or from the particular promise ? B. — The promise is to be interpreted by the general understanding. G. — Whether right or wrong ? B. — This is trifling. " In common, I believe, with most of the assembly, I understood that before that day terminated the printer would have received the promised prohibition" (3). G. — But why did you " believe" that they " understood" he would write to the printer, if you thought it was "the general understanding" that he was bound to stop all printers " whomsoever ?" Have you not, then, evidently enlarged your " belief " of their " understanding" — that by stretching the Doctor's promise he may seem to have broken it? B. — I " simply express my conviction," and " confine myself to a severe statement of dry facts." G. — Do you mean sly guesses and inuendoes? B. — That is an inuendo. G. — Yes ; but it is also a " fact," that when you expected the Doctor to write to a particular printer you were thinking only of his special engagement with that printer, and of his promise to agree with your desire that he would not reprint with additions. It is, therefore, impossible that you could have had then the interpretations of "the general understanding," which you now state " severely" as " dry facts." B. — This amounts to doubting my word. G. — It is founded on your xoords, and proves that you " are not very clear or connected," in inferring understandings that contradict one another. B. — I distinctly recollect what I "thought" to be " the general understanding.'* 11 The case is not only not cleared, but the defence breaks down in every part, and the whole thing comes out very much the worse for comment and explana- tion." (Preface.) G. — That is a forcible style of speaking, but a feeble way of answering. Your best plan is to reiterate your statements, not noticing whether they agree with each other, and, above all, speaking with a dignified contempt of "all counter- statements and views." There are some who will take it for granted that you are right, though they will in time begin to wonder that you do not make it as clear in argument as in assertion. It would be difficult to find a more palpable instance of changing a great controversy into a little personality in no way related to it, 102 whilst the scheme, thus foiled and exposed, became as unfortunate for its managers as it was unworthy of their position and pro- fessions. The Nonconformist and the Christian Spectator entered much into this controversy, and while secretly sympathising with the Neology that was exposed, pretended to be anxious only for the spirit in which the truth should be defended. I could give many grotesquely atrocious utterances of these advocates of meekness towards error, and exhibitors of " utter hatred" towards those who honestly exposed it, but content myself here with another dialogue, which explains itself and them. The conversation is between a thorough Independent a particular Baptist, and the editor of the Christian Spectator ; it is to expound the true nature of liberty, and shew what party can lay claim to it. The speakers are marked by their initials. Thokough Independent. — The point of the Nonconformist is, not the Tight- ness of heterodox opinions, but the right of holding them. P. B. — And the right of opposing them ? T. I.— Of course. P. B. — Then what do you complain of? T. I. — The spirit in which it is done, of course. P.B. — Bather general, and the usual resort of people whose temper fails with their argument, and who think it must be a very bad spirit which vexes them. Can you give us a specimen which excited your good-spirited rebukes ? T.I. — We do not read the " wash ;" he blusters and abuses, and sets himself up for the standard of theology. P.B. — And you set yourself down for none ? T.I. — Not of theology, of course ; that is the Nonconformist's peculiarity ; it regulates the spirit of controversy. P.B. — Then you are the standard of good temper and of a Christian spirit ? T.I. — That is what we profess mainly to look to. P.B. — And display it by accusing others of the want of it ? Cheap, rather. T.I. — We only denounce unfairness, and recommend an insinuating gentleness. P.B. — Do you mean in the " Bloodhound" article, where the defenders of orthodoxy are insinuatingly represented under that amiable title, and the hete- rodox described as " runaways ?" Have you a patent for this ferocious ; gentleness ? , T.I. — That was only a general title to the article, it was not directly applied to any-one. P.B.— Only gently insinuated? This is the charity that begins and keeps «fc» home, or never goes over the threshold, except to scold everybody into a good spirit. T.I. — This is banter, and leaving the question. P.B. — The question is a good spirit ; you do not enter into theology, and you think it worse to display a bad spirit than to have a sorry creed. T. I. — Exactly ; that is the extent of our assertion. i P. B. — Then on your own showing, you are more calumnious than the ortho- dox whom you denounce. •* 103 T. I. — I cannot see that ; we do not M hound a man down" for a difference in doctrinal beliefs. P. B. — Because, you see, you have no doctrinal beliefs, and therefore can- . not denounce any on that point — except indirectly ; but if you have a weakness it is in the matter of temper ; you advocate a kindly spirit. T. I. — And is there anything to be said against that} P. B — No ; only it would be as well to display it. T. I.— So we do. P. B. — Yes, to yourselves, and to those who agree with your creed — that gentle ways and winning methods are better than theology. T. I. — But how are we more calumnious on our principles than those whom we accuse ? P. B. — Is it not your principle that a good spirit is more than a good creed? and that consequently a bad spirit is worse than a bad creed ? T. I. — Yes, and is not this true ? P. B. — It may be ; but if so you are the greater calumniators ; for Dr. Campbell and his orthodox friends attack only men's false creed, which you say is a slight matter', whereas you attack their "spirit and moral character,'' which you say is of more consequence ; so it is you who are the " Bloodhounds," though you know Dr. Campbell is not among the '• Runaways.'''' I hope you see now, that on your own showing your party is the more calumnious, because it attacks what it considers a more vital part in a man's reputation — his spirit or moral character. T. I. — But you must confess that Dr. Campbell is very bitter against those who differ from him. P. B. — I believe he is very bitter to them ; not against them. Is it true, that when the editor of your paper was condemned in costs and damages for a libel, and likely to lose a thousand pounds, Dr. Campbell, who had had many a brush with him, went straight to him, and declared he should not lie under this loss ? Did the Doctor then show his bitterness further by calling a meeting, presiding over it, and raising a large sum to relieve his general opponent ? Have you ever seen anything like this on the other side? Is not " bloodhounds" the answer? I would rather lose this right hand than join in a personal fight against a man who had proved a generous opponent, when generosity was scarce and was needed. [Exit T. I. Editor Christian Spectator. — Well, but, friend, this has nothing to do with public matters. P. B. — But it shows who has the right spirit. And as to public matters, you of course are liberal ? C. S. — That is our creed ; we started for a liberalizing of religion, + and free discussion of matters excluded from the ordinary religious magazines. P. B. — Do you remember a series of articles on " Cant Terms," in which you ridiculed phrases used by " the holiest members of Christ's body on earth ?" C. S. — We did not ridicule them, we only criticised them. P. B. — Do you remember refusing to let a Baptist Minister criticise the cant terms and Carlylcisms of your articles on humble Christian dialect ? C. S.— No. + This Christian Spectator is being revived this year by the liberal publisher, who suppressed my pamphlet on Gladstone, and wrote me "a threatening letter for having as heretofore used his name as my publisher. I mean Mr. Elliott Stock, of Paternaster-row. 104 P. B. — Well, I saw the correspondence, and then learned practically, that your review was liberal to the liberals, but insolent and offensive to those whose language, though by you called " cant terms," is as true to them, and more pro- found, than all the terms in which you canted against them. [Exit C. S. Mr. Lynch himself lays down a safe principle by which to judge of the real spirit of these men ; for in reviewing " the controversy" in that organ ludicrously styled The Christian Spectator, he both accounts for the origin of that title by contrast with its character, and also explains the titles by which men of a like spirit, denomi- nate themselves and their party; for he says: — "I know not whether the reader has ever observed, as I have, a singular antago- nism of pretension and character. The few people whom I have known to obtrude love in their discourse have all been either stingy or ill-natured. And I have heard of a most unjust man who had continually in his mouth the words " Fiat justitia mat caelum."* — (Christian Spectator, November 1856, page 699.) The abuse which people heap on you when you have both con- vinced and convicted them, is equally well explained by this writer in the same article : "Demons shriek loudest when they are departing from their victims. Let us not think that vaunt and calumny and Phariseeism are conquering because they cry. They cry because they are over- come."— (p. 708.) How this liberal party in theology cried " because it was over- come" by the Morning Advertiser articles which forced the fifteen- voiced cry of the "protest;" and Dr. Campbell's Banner articles, which hushed it by crushing them ; and " What's it all about ?" that swept the smoke off the field and showed the dire condition of the vanquished, may be seen by a few specimen illustrations. Mr. Lynch took a prose revenge, in a work called " Ethics of quotation," which I " quoted to death" and as he signed it " Silent Long," I taught him the wisdom of being Silent Longer. He also published a poetical revenge, called " Songs Controversial," which nobody could sing. However this greatly delighted Professor Godwin, of New College, who, as we shall see in the next chapter, took lessons in Neology at the feet of Silent Long; it was said he greatly enjoyed the recita- tions of Mr. Lynch's second poetical effusion, which recitations were sweetly given at a nocturnal seance held at the Rev. Newman * " Do justice, though the heavens should fall." This was histrionically repeated by a Rev. Doctor at Cheltenham, as the climax of an appeal, after the most grotesque distortions called " facts" about the poor Irish Church. 105 Hall's residence, where a live Dean has since been exhibited. This exhibition may perhaps come in at the proper chronological stage of our history : it excited great delight and chagrin, delight on the part of the gentleman who entertained his company with this vara (iris, and chagrin on the part of one who is generally the lion himself. The protesting party was however ashamed of publicly endorsing " Songs Controversial," but took great interest in circulating the prose revenge, called " Ethics of Quotation." The following advertisement appeared at the time, and among other papers, in The Freeman : — " The Rivulet Controversy. — At a committee of gentlemen held at the Milton Club, on Monday evening, October 27, 1856, it was moved by Edward Miall, Esq., M.P., seconded by the Rev. Basil Cooper, B.A., and unanimously resolved — That this committee deem it expedient and right to give the widest cir- culation to the ' Ethics of Quotation,' by Silent Long, published in reply to the charges brought against the Rev. T. T. Lynch, (i.e. Silent Long,) by the editor of the British Banner. Donations in aid of this object will be received by the treasurer, &c." In addition to this, various attempts were made to expel the British Banner from the reading rooms of societies ; and the Non- conformist (Nov. 19th, 1856) did not scruple to insert " a good example " of this sort, namely, a manifesto of bigotry, " which was going the rounds of the Young Men's Christian Association" at Plymouth "for signature." " The correspondent" who sent a copy of this to the congenial editor observed, " It may possibly give the ' cue ' in other localities for similar action, discountenancing unscrupulous bigotry [he was exhibiting it] to serve the cause of truth." These are the terms in which such men describe their methods of persecu- tion for orthodox opinions. I am happy to say that the bigots were beaten, and that the Banner continued to wave over the table of the society in question. But this is the " cue" of our more liberal- minded pharisaical Sadducees. The Rev. S. M'All, then of Nottingham, now of Hackney College, London, having sided with Dr. Campbell, a meeting of " ten" was got up in Nottingham to protest against that gentleman's opinions and warn people not to adopt them. This impudent personal attack was thus admitted into the Nonconformist, which was trying to draw out of the affair : — " Although you announce your intention to insert no more letters on the ' Rivulet Controversy,' we trust you will give us permission to express in your columns our extreme regret that one of our ministers, the Rev. S. M'All, has felt it right to place E 10G himself at the side of Dr. Campbell." This great meeting of ten, like the clique of "the Fifteen," says, " It is not for us to discuss the theological questions involved in this controversy;" and then having confessed their incompetency, which was not necessary, like "the Fifteen," they decide that Mr. Lynch was theologically sound, which supported their estimate of their capacity. Having said, as most bitter persons do when about to say something offensive and impertinent, that " the truth should be spoken in love," they go on to contradict the truth, and display their love by begging " very earnestly and respectfully to guard friends throughout the country against the error of supposing" that Dr. Campbell has more than one friend in Nottingham. This liberal trash was of course accepted by the Nonconformist, especially as "we enclose five pounds in aid of the fund for distributing the 'Ethics of Quotation,' and are Sir, yours, William Cripps, chairman." Mr. Miall not only inserted this attack on a minister for a free opinion, but added this note : — V The letter to which reference is made in the above communication appeared in the British Banner. Mr. M'All quotes various de- tached passages from Mr. Lynch's ' Ethics ' with a view of showing hat he is not sound on the question of the atonement. We only notice Mr. M'All's letter, to make the above communication intelli- gible to our readers ; otherwise we should have deemed it beneath -ur notice. — [Ed. Nonconformist.] " Now if this editor did regard the rev. gentleman's letter as " be- neath notice," why did he insert a protest against it which, to be intelligible, necessitated this " notice ?" The editor refutes, contra- dicts, and condemns himself in this hysterical affectation of contempt. The ~ame Mr. Cripps, of Nottingham, referred in his letter to the " disgraceful special pleading of Mr. Brewin Grant:" and when I wrote asking him " to point out what parts of the pamphlet" he "so designated," he replied that he " would gladly comply, but then it would involve the necessity of transcribing almost the whole :" but when told that he was asked " to point out, not to write out" the offending passages, so that he might now " gladly comply" by mark- ing the parts on the margin, he said, " you ask me to point out 'passages:' this is all nonsense. It is not a question of parts and passages ; one part is so connected with and dependent on another, that to select would not be to make a fair exhibition of the spirit and contents of the whole !" This is the way with them; when they come to " select" they meet a line of bristling bayonets, and because they cannot touch a part, they "cry" out about " the spirit of the whole." But this 107 gentleman, not satisfied with confessing my logical connectedness and impregnable position, had the audacity to write and say : — " I am told you got twenty pounds for writing that book :" and when I asked him who told him that I " got twenty pounds," he was like all these base traducers of honourable men — silent. The Nonconformist, whose pages this Mr. Ceipps so suitably adorned, gave the following notice " To correspondents. An ad- mirer of Grant almost tempts us to deviate from the line which our judgment [he means " our cowardice"] has laid down, for the treatment of that gentleman." In other words his " judgment had laid down the line" of silence, as his only safety ; but he was so troubled that he was near committing himself by the infelicity and temerity of pretending to deal with anything said by " that gentleman." The witty element of this correspondent's letter was the suggestion that " Dignity and Impudence*' should be put as the heading of the dialogue between me and Mr. Binney. I advised them to try it. About the same time another respectable number, " The Forty," met at Norwich, to steal Dr. Campbell's reputation, and to get him turned out of his situation as editor of magazines in connection with the Congregational Union ; by which papers he had by amazing industry and vigour accumulated large funds for widows ! These " Forty," who advertised themselves as if comprising two large con- gregations, were assembled by private circular. Mr. J. H. Tillett, the great Norwich " Liberal," figured in this persecution meeting. The perpetual annoyances to which Dr. Campbell was exposed from the friends of freedom to persecute any who differed from them led him to announce a really free paper, The British Standard, saying that " for the exigencies of these times" " he must be entirely independent of all proprietary bodies, committees, and con- tractors, and rest exclusively on the direct support of his own nu- merous friends and the friends of truth, of every section of the church throughout Great Britain." Right nobly did he fill his task, and right heartily was he seconded, but no thanks to the Norwich Forty, and their gentle abettors, the pretentious friends of specula- tive freedom ! The " amiable" Mr. Lynch, addressing the Congregational Union in his introduction to " Ethics of Quotation," wrote in the following delirious style : — " Your editor is a person whom no Christian society can retain as their representative without incurring the reproach of being utterly careless about the Christian principles which should govern the us© of tongue and pen." e 2 108 As a specimen of those " Christian principles which governed" his " pen" he said : — " Murder is murder, even though it is Mr. Lynch that is killed. Reputations may be killed as well as lives," and he goes on to sug- gest that — " the end maybe that the murderer's own reputation may be ' shot' with due military dishonour amid public abhorrence." "You have evidence enough before you to warrant you hence- forth to disown the editor of the British Banner as your editorial representative." This was the sort of thing that Mr. Miall conspired with others to circulate gratuitously, in the interests of freedom, truth, and love, — and all that ! " It may be," concludes the gentle author of " the Rivulet," " you will see that your editor, being the foe of truth, is the foe of Christ," so he advised the Union " indignantly and peremptorily' to " repudiate" the Doctor. This class of men has now the ASCENDANT IN CONGREGATIONAL UNIONISM. Dr. Campbell has gone to his reward, and we have no organ of opinion that would admit of any criticism of the present heresy and despotism. The immediate results of "the controversy" was that the publi- cations of one of " the Fifteen" subsided considerably ; and he had to make earnest protestations about "the truth as it is in Jesus" — which no doubt he and the other protestors regard as a passage of Scripture, and so give it as a quotation. The oldest of " the Fifteen" was said to have tried three hydropathic establishments, and not getting cool, tried change of air in Australia, and returned improved in everything but temper : for when asked by one who had spoiled his "facts," to officiate in his church on a public occasion, this rare opportunity generously offered, for showing mag- nanimity, was taken advantage of to display that petulance which is the distinguishing mark of those who ostentatiously write only for " Christian gentlemen." However, I got well rewarded for my temerity on this occasion, by subsequent opportunities afforded to the "protestors" of remem- bering me ; a circumstance which throws a light on many otherwise dark passages in their career. Namq; hoc tempore, Obsequium, amicos, Veritas odium, parit. 109 Chapter XI. WHAT IS NEGATIVE THEOLOGY, and what does it lead to ? or, the Transition Period from "Baptism in the Rivulet" to New College " Christian Faith," 1856. The preceding chapter explains the origin and general course of the " Rivulet Controversy." This is to exhibit the real theological sentiments and tendencies of the party of progress : the religious doctrines, if they may be called so, which this class of free enquirers entertains and favours. The Rev. Newman Hall, to the last of the conflict, stood sponsor for Mr. Lynch's substantial orthodoxy. Thus, in a letter to the Nonconformist, Dec. 3rd, 1856, he wrote : — " While I do not pledge myself to all his utterances, while the style in which I preach the gospel differs greatly from that which he thinks proper to adopt, I repeat my conviction that he is a sincere believer in the funda- mental articles of the Christian faith." " The Fifteen " in their "protest" said that they have "frequent opportunities of meeting him in close Christian intercourse," that they " love him as a Christian brother, and hold him in high honour as one who, by severe and patient thought, has gained great knowledge of that truth which is held in common by all evangelical churches, ' the truth as it is in Jesus.' " — (" Protest.") Now let us see : — " Speaking after the manner of men, how daringly does God manage the world ! How can He — how will He solve the doubts and satisfy the yearnings of all the good, and make the saved world see of the travail of its soul with full satisfaction ? " —(Ethics 19.) This '•' daring" description of the Almighty's management, in which it is implied that the Governor of the Universe went to the extreme verge of what public opinion would allow, and so made it difficult to secure the moral approbation of these reverential critics, prepared the way for Mr. Godwin's method of man being " reconciled to God by the death of His Son," in the sense of being no longer alienated by the " daring management" of Providence, which is now cleared up, since "the saved world" sees, in the reward which Jesus re- ceived, ground to expect the same reward for " the travail of its soul." The same passage also prepared for Mr. Godwin's new way oi salvation "by the service of suffering ; " that is, not of Christ's sufferings, but our own, which are to be equally handsomely rewarded. In the same " Ethics of Quotation" (29), we read that. "We e 3 110 must know Christ by becoming 'one spirit' with Him." "This is not the propositional knowledge of the head, but the experimental knowledge of the total humanity" — (29.) This "experimental know- ledge of the total humanity" is beyond any individual capacity to experience or to understand ; while this depreciation of "the pro- positional knowledge of the head" wa*s the provision for Professor Godwin's belief in Christ as a person, apart from any " propositions" about Him. The same writer, still in the character of " Silent Long," says, "He [Mr. Lynch,] has often found that 'heresy' is the precursor of spiritual insight, and 'orthodoxy' a cloak for transgression, and a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones." — (" Ethics," 34.) These wicked orthodox people are called upon to repent for their sin against Mr. Lynch in the following graphic fashion : — Some of you Independents have subscribed money to circulate Dr. Campbell's pamphlets. It is the price of blood. The Lord will make inquisition for blood. The blood of innocency is in your skirts ; it stains your purses, ye men rich in cash, but poor in faith and charity. Kepent, and do works meet for repen- tance (p. 29). This is a solemn burlesque of the words respecting Judas and the price of betrayal — i it is the price of blood' (Matt, xxvii. 6). And the other passages of Scripture (Ps. ix. 12, Jer. ii. 34) are either intended to convey the most atrocious accusations, or are the most ridiculous abuse of Bible language. The ' works meet for repentance' are, of course, beginning to subscribe for the gratuitous circulation of this gratuitous absurdity, called ' Ethics of Quotation.' 'Repentance,' demanded by Mr. Lynch, is to be followed by 1 baptism' in his Rivulet. Well were it if the critic who has, in the waters of Marah — the bitter waters of controversy — baptized Mr. Lynch with this false name [Destroyer] would repent, and suffering himself to be baptized in the Eivulet, hear, and that to his good, a sermon from Mr. Lynch (p. 17). As a forerunner of the new gospel, Mr. Lynch consistently invited men to a baptism of repentance, after telling people pretty plainly how much they needed it on account of their orthodox rebellion. But the height, or perhaps depth, of this wickedness can be seen only in the following solemn warning which "this contemptible and yet singular young man," (25) as he affectedly calls himself, addressed to one of his presumptuous critics : — " Oh ! Doctor Campbell, beware lest, in maligning the stranger [Mr. Lynch] whom you despise, YOU BLASPHEME THE HOLY SPIRIT OF God" (p. 7). It is painful to transcribe such blasphemy ; but it is necessary in order to show what kind of doctrines and language the more elite Ill and pretentiously intellectual of our ministers fostered, and for which Mr. Miall, of the Nonconformist, "deemed it expedient" to secure a wide gratuitous circulation, out of mere love of good taste in controversy, which he affects and violates more than any jour- nalist in the kingdom. The unhealthy and profane comparisons by which Mr. Lynch perpetually likens himself to our Saviour, and likens ckiticisji to crucifixion, is seen in his observations on a proposal for arbitration between Dr. Campbell and Mr. Binney, which is likened to a com- promise by which the cross might have been avoided. As in the Christian Spectator, Nov., 1856, Mr. Lynch, in his " Eeview of the Controversy," wrote : — " Perhaps the cross, after all, was not necessary. Perhaps troth and lies might have settled matters by ' arbitration.' Perhaps the universe is or ought to be governed by ' accommodations.' Perhaps the sad story of the ' Master ' is a warning to us not to be ; righteous overmuch.' Perhaps the Lord was not con- ciliatory enough to the Pharisees, and might have escaped by a little ' compro- mise.' Perhaps there were ' errors on all sides ;' and if Caiaphas after the Crucifixion had sent for Peter, given him a ' situation,' and married him to the ' maid that kept the door,' there might have been no Christianity !" This is comparing small things to great, as a way of making great things small ; as a matter of taste it is negatively theological ; as a question of perso- nality it is a hit at Mr. Binney, who said there had been " errors on all sides." " The maid that kept the door" might possibly have brought an action against Peter for bigamy, if Mr. Lynch's ludicrous " perhaps" had been carried out. Whether, if Peter had got a second wife and a good " situation," we should have had " no Christianity" is a question we have not to decide ; but that with Mr. Lynch's method there soon would be no intelligent belief in Christianity is evident. Again he says : — " The Union was content, Pilate -like, to scourge me and let me go (!). They did not wish to press matters to extremities. But then, why should I be scourged ? Why should I be beaten openly uncondemned by any lawful authority ; nay, after having been justified and honoured by such authority ? The firmest front should have been shoicn against Dr. Campbell's whole pro- cedure. It was not. And in this — I say it regretfully and respectfully — Mr. Binney. I think, teas not ' himself " (p. 701). It is this constant, profane egotism, this poetical licence of an irreverent taste, in putting himself in Christ's place, likening all his negative controversies to the scourging and crucifixion of the Redeemer, which shocks all decency, and plainly indicates the tendency of such writers to diminish the greatness of Christ's work and sufferings, and to exaggerate their own. They reverse that saying, " He must increase, I must decrease,'' and practically say, " We must increase, He must decrease." The like absurdity, bordering on blasphemy, is displayed in the following sentence, where, praising Mr. Binney, he says : — " He has been strong, and oj his ' FCLNESS ' many have received" (p. 702). This shocking comparison is founded on John i. 14—17; "And we beheld his glory." " full of grace and truth ;". " and of his fulness have we all received." 112 •'We must believe in ourselves (says this theologian) because we believe in Emmanuel — God with us" (709). This is the transition stage — a border dialect — removing our neighbours land-marks, so that orthodoxy is gradually led into heterodoxy by the sliding scale of varying senses. " Emmanuel — God with us," a reason for " believing in ourselves ;" "because (!) He is v,l-h us" (!) This extraordinary " fulness" of Mr. Binney, and " believing in ourselves," was the dawn of the new " Christian faith" in Professor Godwin. The same Silent Long, quoting his own " Letters to the Scattered," says : — " The good moral effect of punishment on the man, the effect upon his character as distinguished from his actions, is greatly due to his recognition that the vengeance was a right thing." " The penalty must be, as thank God it is, administered redemptively." In fact the place of torment, if there be one, is simply a reformatory, so far as this theologian teaches. Mr. Godwin afterwards founds the " forgiveness of sin" on the distinction between " character and actions," as stated by Mr. Lynch. We have already seen Mr. Binney described as " strong, and of his ' fulness' many have received ;" and this " free handling " of the Gospel of God concerning His Son is exercised in another sacred direction, as Dr. Campbell was thus warned: — "Beware lest in maligning ' the stranger' [that is, criticising Mr. Lynch's new theo- logy] you blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God." This also was a preparation for Mr. Godwin's theory that the Holy Spirit is a good disposition in human souls ! Hence to contend against Neology is to despise the inward light of these new prophets. I know that many persons will be shocked on reading these things ; nor do I wonder : for if these almost blasphemous perversions of Scripture are not proofs of a new revelation in our modern thinkers, Those deepest speculation is a daring if not dexterous juggling with language, at least this exposure will reveal a state of things for which outsiders are not at all prepared, and of which many in our denomination are ignorant, though I exposed them ten years ago. I was not answered then and never shall be ; but I was abused, and I hope I always shall be by the same parties. The Rev. Newman Hall, in his letter to the Nonconformist, Dec. 3, 1866, declaring that " Mr. Lynch is sound in the fundamental articles of the Christian faith," warned all persons that : — " it is not by harsh dogmatical censures, it is not by intolerance of the free thoughts and free words of others, still less by abusive epithets of wilful misrepresentation, that we recommend the religion of love. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." It would be a great mercy if the writer of this, who, in the very act was re- 113 fleeting on other people's " free thoughts and free words," were inspired with the sentiment which he so wrathfully recommends. I have never received any answer from this class of men except " abusive epithets and wilful misrepresentation," and " intolerance of" my "free thoughts and words:" there is nothing in which they so much excel as in " the wrath of man ;" nothing which they more unctiously recommend, than — " speaking the truth in love." In that same letter, which was a defence of Mr. Lynch's ortho- doxy, and a malevolent diatribe against Dr. Campbell, for criti- cising the pretence, Mr. Newman Hall, speaking of one whom he represents as " once" a " friend," " long a Christian minister," " many years my elder," " who formerly occupied such a position of esteem," — oils his razor after this fashion : " I shall endeavour to do it in a spirit of meekness, not rendering railing for railing, avoiding all harsh expressions;" then after the most virulent abuse which generally follows such loving protestations, he says : — " We (the Fifteen) do not simply defend ourselves against the charge of a negative religion. "We bring that charge against others ; but we bring it in hue." Of course ! And the charge was, that whereas Dr. Campbell doubted the doctrinal soundness of Mr. Lynch, this loving critic doubted the moral character of the orthodox advocate. This was done unblushingly in that letter which professedly repu- diated what it perfectly exemplified. The gentleman whom Mr. Newman Hall defended so meekly against the proof of his heresy, himself frankly confessed and denied his liability to the charge. Thus, as Silent Long in "Ethics of Quotation," he says : — " Mr. Lynch is not the commander of that scarecrow army of perversions to which Dr. Campbell gives the name of negative theology." " This of course, here and now, is but my assertion. But you will remember that some of our most ESTEEMED MINISTERS, Ml*. SAMUEL MARTIN, Ml*. NEWMAN HALL, and others, — bore witness (!) to the ■ severe and patient thought' by which" he "had sought, and as seemed to them, not unsuc- cessfully, the knowledge of the truth. Their assertion should be evidence. (But it was not.) To you personally (Congregational Union) I presume it is. It was no kindly-meant falsehood that they uttered, but sober testimony that they offered." (! !) Yet in the same pamphlet in which he denies that he is charge- able with that " to which Dr. Campbell gives the name of negative theology," he said : — " Scripture appears to me to be full of what Dr. Campbell calls negative theology," (p. 17.) So that if he believed the Scriptures, he was a negative theologian ; and 114 if he did not believe them he was an infidel, — which is much the same. In his " Review of the Rivulet Controversy, Christian Spectator, Nov. 1856," — a month before Mr. Newman Hall gave a second testimonial (Nonconformist, Dec. 3.) to his orthodoxy, — Mr. Lynch wrote : — " I have learnt the whole trick of the religious newspapers. I could set up ODe myself if I were only wicked enough." This is recorded as a hint for Mr. Miall, of the Nonconformist, and Mr. Turberytlle, of the English Independent, and Mr. Robert Leader, of the Sheffield Independent. "The religious world I abhor" (p. 683 Christian Spectator.) " The ■ religious world,' that odious compound, must yield to analytic spiritual forces." He was of course speaking of " the Dissenting world," of which again he asked, in Ethics of Quotation, (27-28) :— "Has he, (Dr. C. like me, Mr. L.)with the gentleman's heart and lineage, borne sorrowfully with ' Dissenting' vulgarity, for the sake of Nonconformist principle ?" This was too meek, patro- nising and genteel. But to proceed with his Christian Spectator " Review" : — " I firmly believe that religion, in many self-styled Evangelicals, is no better than a blind blaspheming superstition." (685). " It is orthodoxy itself that is the great heretic. Yes, and in the full sense of the word, orthodoxy is heretical." (704.) " Orthodoxy is often a mere city of tombs, and its angry defenders, the maniacs, that dwell there, and who cry ' We live among the tombs, why cannot you ?' and then they rush on us." — (705.) Now I do not see why such a man should object to join his fellow " maniacs." It may, however, be considered rather serious that "some of our most esteemed ministers" take a liking to this sort of thing, and object to " exorcism." " The propositions of our creed," says this calm theologian, "must be as stone steps to advance, not as stone cells for imprisonment ; cells in which the liege servants and champions of great liberty lie manacled like felons." — (708.) So he would be free. His "pro- positions" are stepping-stones to cross over, and " advance" from — but, whither ? — Why, out of " the cell " of definite religious opinions, to hold to which is to be " manacled like felons." This is the one whom the truth had made free from believing in it ! So joyfully did he rest in " the truth as it is in Jesus," which " by severe and pa- tient thought" he had found to be his sorrowful imprisonment. How far he and his " Fifteen" were " champions of great liberty " is seen in the great liberties they take with scripture and common sense, and the rights of free criticism. " But I will not, oh reader," 115 cries he, " offer to you any creed whatever as my ultimatum, or as what I recommend for yours." " I have much yet to say, but I must not now say more." — (708.) "Well, he had not said " much," and has left us in the dark as to where he was. But Mr. Newmas Hall knows all about it. In that fatal letter, written a month after those ravings against evangelical orthodoxy, this gentleman speaks of " heart utterances of a deep spiritual life," with which this " amiable " critic refreshed Mr. Hall and other " maniacs," as he went to "dwell with them among the tombs." 11 We still meet for prayer and religious conversation," says Mr. Hall, though the leading saint in this paraded' exercise, was only applying his "analytic forces" to "that odious compound, the 1 religious world,' " in the course of this " religious conversation." The writer of that extraordinary letter rebukes our unbelief in his testimony as to the gospel according to the " Rivulet," saying : — " Instead of receiving with thankfulness (!) our testimony to the soundness of Mr. Lynch, you charge heresy not only on him but on us also." This, though doubtless dreadful obduracy on the part of any orthodox freethinker, could scarcely be wondered at when Mr. Hall himself not only received such deep inspirations from " the heart utterances" of his friend, but himself fell into the spiri- tual cant of his client against " propositional knowledge," as in that very letter he says, " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, and verbal statements of doctrine, and the shibboleths of even an evangelical PARTY, not doubtful disputation and bitter strife about modes of utterance, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." — (Nonconformist, Dec. 3, 1856.) By what right this commentator thrust his "verbal statements of doctrine," "modes of utterance," " and even the shibboleths of an evangelical party," between the two parts of the Apostle's statement (Rom. xiv. 17), I never could tell. It is certainly an interpolation and a serious vio- lation of the spirit of the text and the context, which is not to depreciate doctrinal purity but to remove ceremonial scrupulosity. This use of scripture seems to me to be an abuse of it, and a very dangerous and reprehensible perversion. This medley of "meats" and "doctrine," " drink" and "the shibboleths even of an evangelical party," is more profane than witty, and is certainly no special mark of respect to that Apostle, who would not abandon the plain " verbal statement of doctrines" — - since there are no other statements than verbal ones : — nor would the apostle muffle up the denial of the doctrines under the equivo- cating phrase " modes of utterance ;" all which is simply an affected 116 latitudinarianism ; nor would he insult that cross which he preached, by an offensive fling at " the shibboleths of even an evangelical party." This kind of trimming is an attainment beyond that earnest and profound Apostle who lived only to exercise his " modes of utter- ence," and to instruct us in " verbal statements of doctrine." Mr. Hall might well find it necessary to hide himself behind his Missionary Sermon, which had lately been done into a book to show that the author could still utter " the shibboleth of an Evangelical party." His retreat behind that sermon to escape the charge of heresy, — which his strange use of, or rather parody on, Scripture, seemed to confirm, — shall be given in his own words, out of that letter : — If you suspect them [the Protestors] also, you can easily satisfy your doubts by examining their works. The last missionary sermon preached at Surrey Chapel has been published under the title of " Sacrifice," and, as that subject is the one in which, of all others, we are most in danger of a negative theology, you can readily ascertain whether you are warranted in the fear that Ichabod may be written on the walls of Surrey Chapel. But what is the value of this sermon on " Sacrifice," if the write* now says that " verbal statements of doctrine " are to be ranked with the indifferent matters of " meats and drink," and to be de- nounced as "shibboleths?" This question may be answered by Mr. Hall, or his friends, when he again joins in a private meeting to sign this sentimental effusion, so far beyond the matter-of-fact verbal utterances of St. Paul : — " Heart of Christ, cup viost golden, Brimming with salvation's wine." Of this and similar varieties Mr. Hall assures us : — I had, nevertheless, in private meetings for ivorship, much enjoyed singing several of its [the Rivulet's] compositions, which breathe a deep-toned spirituality, and ought to be taken as interpreters of all the rest. Permit me to refer you to No. LXXV. — " Heart of Christ, cup, &c." Now, if these specimens of Rivulet poetry " ought to interpret all the rest," so, in like manner, Mr. Hall's protestations of orthodoxy, even in his " missionary sermon," are to be interpreted by this negative comment, — " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink — not verbal statements of doctrine, and the shibboleths of even an Evangelical party." For, as Mr. Lynch's style takes all meaning out of Scripture, so this absurd comment and protestation of Mr. Hall falls into the same course, and also takes away all logical value from any of his " verbal statements," and " modes of utterance," to which he may refer us, in proof of his still holding " Evangelical Shibboleths." 117 But perhaps he will require us to adopt his own method of interpretation, as, in the same unfortunate letter, he repeats Mr. Binney's lesson, saying — " I interpreted the book by what I knew of the man;" and adding, "I also interpreted the book by what the book itself contained." This last method, if it have any meaning, is rather original ; but in the same letter we have a third mode of interpretation, namely, by taking " several of its compositions" as " interpreters of all the rest." We are not told " why all the rest" should not be the interpreters of these " several " favourites. This see-saw style of criticism is another specimen of the danger we are in of losing all logical meaning of language in this contempt for " propositional knowledge," and " verbal statements of doctrine." So mystified is Mr. Hall that he has already three canons of inter- pretation; first, interpreting books by their authors; second, by what the books themselves contain; and thirdly, interpreting the greater part of a book by any favourite passages. This author, when in a spirit of Christian meekness, trying to get the Congregational Union to turn off Dr. Campbell for the wicked- ness of supporting the Evangelical shibboleth, put the matter in this dreadfully effeminate or gushing style : — " I ask the members of the Congregational Union whether they feel happy in being repre- sented by such a writer?" Perhaps the "religious world" may have some qualms on the subject of being represented by that enquirer. I will at least give this gentleman credit for logical acuteness, and a variety of schemes for drawing an inference, and getting at the meaning of a book; especially that device of the chief of "the Fifteen," — " to judge of the book by the man," by which Mr. Hall said he had the extraordinary felicity of " seeing in it many things not obvious to others," — because they were not there. This preliminary stage, or transitional period, of negative theology, to be developed into the New College Dispensation, may thus be summed up : — Christ is God, to fight with, us, and for us ; He " hleeds with us, and for us." " Thy hlood was his, his hlood was thine." All specific teaching is decried, and the Gkt.man cloudland advocated, in the profession that our knowledge of Christ is " not the propositional knowledge of the head, hut the experimental knowledge of the total humanity.'' This is that vague rule, "the spirit of the age," which is a sprite, or "Will-o'-the-wisp dancing over a hog. Following this unsteady lamp, our Negationalist plays some pranks with religious phraseology — " love can atone the selfish ; " " God can bring from the dead perishable inno- cence, as a spirit made perfect ;" "the world has a beauty of holiness, and a wisdom of holiness." " It is divine in itself; " we, " by yielding to good,'' which means anything in general, " enter a celestial marriage " to Swedenborgianism, 118 through the aid of this Regenerator of Orthodoxy, who " re-inspires the letter of our religious speech" with irreligious nonsense. We are invited to a feast of the new moon, as "such a deliverance from darkness " as lands us in "full lustre and rule of the night." Our teacher, who leads us into the dark, brings hell into this world, "cools" his tongue with a few drops "from the Psalms," and so prepares us not to be frightened at hell in the next world ; since the Rivulet can quench it, aided by Letters to the Scattered. All belonging to Mr. Lynch is increased, and Christ is decreased. Is the Saviour crucified, so is Mr. Lynch, with "heavy hammer and blunt nails ;" was Christ scourged by Pilate, so is Mr. Lynch by the Union. The circulation of criticisms is paid for, and is the " price of blood," for which God "will make inquisition." The only escape is to " repent " and circulate the Ethics, and " be baptized in the liivirtet." Let no man despise this " contemptible, yet singular man," for this is a " climacteral instance of iniquity :" it is be;\ ond redemption even in the Piedemptive Hell : — " Beware, oh Dr. Campbell, lest, in maligning the stranger (Mr. Lynch) whom you despise, you blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God." " We must believe in ourselves, because we believe in Emmanuel — God with us ;" and as one specimen, besides Mr. Lynch, who is the Holy Ghost, or quite as binding in obligation, Mr. Binney "has been strong, and of his 'fulness' many have received." So does Mr. Lynch empty Scripture of meaning to fill men with pre- sumption. And, while all this is before the icorld, Mr. Newman Hall vouches for his substantial orthodoxy, boasts of the edification from Mr. Lynch"s private heart utterances; invents three canons for interpreting books, which will turn Scripture into a nose of wax; cries up love, and joy, and peace; and cries down "the shibboleths of an Evangelical party," mixing " meats and drink" with " verbal statements of doctrine," as -natters of indifference; as if, like Peter, in Mr. Lvnch's supposition, he had "married the maid that kept the door," and so given up that Christianity, which as an objective and historical religion, is a matter of "verbal statements of doctrine," a revelation of " propositional know- ledge," to guide the hopes, and form the experience of humanity. All this is turned into " dissolving views," or grotesque imagery of a distorted imagination, by the magic lanthorn of Negative Theology. These are the " stone steps" that afterwards sink into the Ser- bonian bog of a " Christian Faith" which does not include belief in Christianity. Till we get to that stage, we may sing Mr. Lynch's liii. Hymn : — Where is thy God, my soul ? Confined to Scripture's page, Or, does His Spirit check and guide The spirit of each age? Of course we give up the second line as a narrow authority, and fall down before the mixed " spirit" described in the fourth. Nay, verily, for " we have also a more sure word of prophecy, wheremito ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." — ii. Peter, i. 19. 119 Chapter XII. THE GLASGOW DEBATE AND ITS LESSONS— 1854. Mr. Holyoake having retired from Cowper-street with the con- fession that he preferred going to gaol to meeting me in discussion, was afterwards forced upon the more dreaded alternative, by the Kev. Dr. William Anderson, of Glasgow, who in reply to the cus- tomary impudent challenge of the secular party, said: — " Send for Brewin Grant." Nor could I complain of the preference, inasmuch as I had intimated in Cowper- street that if these people should pester any body else I was prepared to deal with them again. The challenge to Dr. Anderson by John Wright, secretary of the Glasgow Eclectic Association, or picked lot, was as follows : — Glasgow Eclectic Association, 14, Garthland Street, July, 29 1053. Eev. Sir, In my official capacity as Secretary of the above Society, I beg most respectfully, in accordance with their instructions, to state that Mr. George Jacob Holyoake. Editor of the •' Eeasoner.' has made arrangements to visit Glasgow in a few days, for the purpose of delivering a course of lectures on Secularism. The Freethinkers of Glasgow, as well as in other places of Scotland and England, are, I believe, almost unanimous in considering Mr. Holyoake as their most distin- guished leader and efficient advocate. And as you, rev. Sir, have acquired a widely-spread celebrity by your eminent controversial abilities in defence of what you deem Protestant truth against Popish error and delusion, the members of the above society, desirous that truth, and truth alone, by whomsoever taught or wheresoever found, should reign and flourish everywhere among men, and that falsehood, whatever form or aspect it may assume, may speedily be detected and overthrown, deem this a most opportune occasion for a collision of sentiment between two such gentlemen of unquestioned ability. The Freethinkers of Glasgow are emboldened to address your reverence more especially, from the circumstance of your having very recently challenged Dr. Cahill to meet you in public controversy ; and as it is believed by the Christian world that Infidelity, no less than Popery, is a system of delusion, subversive of morals, and fatal to the noblest instincts of humanity, a public controversy upon the merits of the two systems, between persons of acknowledged ability, would inevitably, we think, tend to beneficial results. Mr. Holyoake is a man of unblemished moral reputation, and held in high esteem by many persons in every sphere of life, even venerated by many who are altogether opposed to his doctrines. He has also held more public controversies with distinguished divines than any other advocate of Infidelity. To this Dr. Anderson replied : — Glasgow, August 14, 1853. My first impression, on reading your communication, was, that I should embrace the opportunity which it offered of exposing to public abhorrence a system — if system that may be called, which is ^ mere mocking negation of all that is divine and venerable. On reflection, however, I found I must deny myself. 1st, I am greatly exhaus- ted in strength by my exertions in another controversy, and for liie carrying 120 forward of which I must reserve such strength as remains. I would fail in duty greatly were I to permit the temptation of making a spectacle of Holyoakery to seduce me from my present vocation to make a spectacle of Popery. 2ndly, Although I am prepared to enter at once on the discussion of the general ques- tion, yet, to meet Mr. Holyoakewith the efficiency desirable, it would be necessary that I should study minutely his various publications, that I may be ready, by prompt quotations, to show his dupes, from the ever-changing state of his opinions and manifold self-contradictions, how disqualified he is for being a guide. This study would require more time and labour, I am persuaded, than I have expended in making myself master of the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent. For this I have neither leisure nor inclination. The Council of Trent has occupied my head with quite enough of jargon, immorality, and impiety. But, 3rdly, I might have got over these objections had there been no other person ready to accept of your invitation, and able to do it justice. Gentlemen, send for Beewin Grant, and if he refuse to meet Mr. Holyoake in Glasgow, and I be not satisfied with his reasons of refusal, in consequence of what he may con- sider unfavourable terms which you propose, then it is not impossible that I should overcome all reluctance to submit myself to the labour and excitement of a new controversy, and enter the field. This rather staggered the infidels, who, after debating with any one who learns to beat them, always tried to damage his character, and to get Christians to repudiate him, while they advanced to the conflict with some other person, whom they first praised and finally denounced, in order to escape a second encounter with one who knew their tactics. Dr. Anderson, who had referred the Eclectics to me, as at present more in training on that subject, soon found how disagreeable his suggestion was, and therefore thus wrote to the Christian News, September 8, 1853. I deeply regret that there appears to be no hope of Mr. Holyoake meeting Mr. Grant face to face before Glasgow loose thinkers ; for admirably as Mr. Grant acquitted himself in his first encounter, now that he has had experience of Mr. Holyoake's tactics, he would have met him a second time with still greater force of exposure^ The Glasgow YouDg Men's Association was good enough to take up Dr. Anderson's suggestion, and the secretary, Mr. Robert Stark, wrote thus to Mr. Holyoake : — 33, Glassfoed Street, Glasgow, October 22, 1853. The Directors of the Glasgow Young Men's Christian Association have directed me to write to you as follows : — On your visit to Glasgow recently, the Eclectic Association here, of date 29th July, invited the Eev. Dr. Anderson to hold "a public controvery with you upon the comparative merits of the two systems." That gentleman replied, desiring that Association to " send for Brewin Grant," and stating, that if he would refuse to meet Mr. Holyoake in Glasgow, it was not improbable that he should do as that Association requested. 121 As Mr. Grant lias not been sent for, the Directors have instructed me to invite you to a discussion with him in this city, at any early time that may he convenient. This was the last thing that Mr. Holyoake expected or desired, so in reply, he quoted the Coventry Standard, and made it say — that I was an infidel myself : of course the quotation was a perver- sion, as the editor of that paper wrote and showed me, but it was a clever trick to frighten the orthodox people of Glasgow into repudi- ating the representative whom they had chosen and whom the infidels naturally objected to. The following is Mr. Holyoake's " liberal" evasion: — Your communication has somewhat surprised me. My Scottish friends wished Secularism to be debated with a Scottish Presbyterian minister; but I do not see how this end is to be answered by referring them to an Independent minister of Birmingham, of uncertain religious principles, with whom the subject has already been debated — who has said whatever he had to say on the subject, and whose'speeches, revised by himself, are already in the hands of my friends. From the Kev. Dr. Anderson, a very different order of minister, and of national reputa- tion, some new criticism or some instruction is to be hoped, but from Mr. Grant, for ever wading in a pool of personalities, nothing. May I ask in what sense your colleagues put Mr. Grant forward? Does the "Rev. Dr. Anderson, do the Rev. Dr. Buchanan, the Rev. Dr. King, the Rev. N. M'Leod, the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, advertised " Extraordinary Directors " of your Association, put forward the Rev. Mr. Grant as their representative? You enclose with your letter the " Lecture List " of your Association for 1853-4. I observe that from this list you omit your •' Fundamental Rules," the second of which is, I believe, that "None shall be eligible as lecturers" to your Association, " except such as hold the doctrines of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the Deity and Atonement of Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and sanctification of the sinner, and the justification of the sinner by Faith alone. No remark shall be permitted at any meeting, or in any publication of the Association, in opposition to any of these doctrines." Sir, has your Association ascertained that Mr. Grant holds the doctrines stated above ? The Coventry Standard, a paper which (though not to my taste) you icould consider sound in the faith, reviewing the debate between Mr. Grant and myself, wrote, as I am informed, to this effect : — '"This is a discussion between the Rev. Brewin Grant and another Infidel, Mr. G. J. Holyoake." Throughout my con- troversial intercourse with Mr. Grant, I solicited in vain a copy of his creed. In certain propositions I have expressed, for Mr. Grant's instruction, what I take to be the leading principles of Secularism. Before I debate with that gentleman again, I require, a least, to see him express, in so many propositions, what he regards as the leading principles of Christianity. You are young men, seeking. I doubt not, as sincerely as my own friends, the vindication of public truth in the discussion you propose. Do not therefore dis- qualify yourselves by denying the equal intentions of others, or by putting forward a minister who will do it in the grossest language. In what way is it possible for me to listen deferentially to such a representative ? Why should I believe in the man who arbitrarily disbelieves in my word? I counsel my friends that they are exonerated from attending to either Apostles or Preachers who 122 address them as " deceivers" or "hypocrites." If they acquiesce in this language, the public will have a right to conclude the imputation true. I can never be so sure of another's veracity as of my own. If, therefore, a minister denies my truthfulness upon supposition, what reason can he give me for believing in his ? When he has taught me to distrust his word, he can speak to me no longer — he can bring me no message from God — he has justified the gravest doubts as to whether lie believes in Christianity himself. I am, dear Sir, Kobert Stark, Esq., Yours respectfully, Secretary to the Glasgow Geo. Jacob Holyoake. Young Men's Christian Association. This v/as written from "the Reascner office, London," Nov. 5, 1853. Mr. Holyoake's liberal freethinking libel, accusing his op- ponent of heresy and inconsistency as a compliment to his ability, did not blind the directors, who were not disposed to let this vaunting challenger escape a second opportunity of learning " the art of making Christianity disagreeable." Accordingly, after telling him that it was Ids side that obtruded the challenge on Dr. Andekson, who desired them to transfer it to the Rev. Bkewin Gkant, as at present a more efficient advocate than he, of Christianity against secularism, they proceed to remove his delicate scruples as to my soundness in the faith, saying : — " The Directors attach little importance to the words you have been informed were inserted in the Coventry Standard, as, even if correctly quoted, they are evidently either a verbal mistake, or easily enough understood when taken in connection with the previous context. " The Directors cannot see how you and Mr. Grant, having already had several nights' discussion, should prove that either has no more to say to the other ; indeed, they rather think that, by means of that preliminary discussion, both will be better prepared for still further argumentation, and that without a long-con- tinued preparatory correspondence. "The Directors do not think that either the Eclectic Association or they could be held responsible for every word or statement of the disputants, such a selection implying only a general confidence, which might afterwards be found to have been misplaced. " The Directors are surprised at your referring to Mr. Grant as " an Indepen- dent minister of uncertain religious principles," when he has distinctly stated to you, in a printed letter of 27th July, 1852, " I am concerned to defend the general doctrines of ' the orthodox,' more especially of the Independents, with whose opinions you are well acquainted." So that, if Mr. Grant's religious principles are uncertain, the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw and the Rev. John Angell James must also be • Independent ministers of uncertain religious principles.' " To Mr. Holyoake's perpetual and feeble wail about personalities, while he is himself at the same time libellously personal and accu- satory, the Directors gave this straight cut : — " As to Mr. Grant's language in reference to you, the directors think that the easiest way of enabling the public to judge of its propriety would be to afford 123 yen an opportunity of proving its inapplicability. If found inappli- cable, Mr. Grant will suffer and not you." This was particularly cruel : nor were the Directors more merciful when they added : — " We understand that Mr. Grant is not less sparing in his language of Mr. Southwell and Mr. Robert Cooper, and that you, notwith- standing, recommend them to meet him in debate, while you say, ■ I can never be so sure of another's veracity as of my own.' " To relieve his mind on the score of my orthodoxy, they assured him that " Mr. Grant is willing to assent to nearly all the statements made in ' the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.' " After four or five days' consideration, and seeing no clear way out of the fix — in which he no doubt said many times, "A plague on all challenges ! " he wrote : — " 147, Fleet-street, 11 mo. 17, 1853. — Dear Sir, — Would you oblige me with the Assembly Catechism with Scripture proofs ? I hope in a few days to be able to answer your letter of the 10th inst. — Yours faithfully, G. J. Holy- oake." He was soon provided with this help to discussion, ac- companied with this note : — " Sir, — As desired in yours of the 17th, I enclose the Assembly Shorter Catechism with Scripture proofs. Waiting your reply to ours of the 10th, — I am, respectfully yours, Robert Stark, Secretary." It took Mr. Holyoake just five months to learn his catechism : his friends were greatly disheartened, for they saw their standard- bearer faint who had promised to disturb every saint in the kingdom with incessant attacks on Mount Zion ; and now he is silent. No doubt they roused him up ; hence he broke out in April of the next year, saying that he had been very busy, but added, " Seeing my way clear at length to leaving town at intervals, I inform you of my consent to meet Mr. Grant in Glasgow. My opinion of the inconsistency of our being requested to meet again remains un- changed, but I defer to the judgment of Dr. Anderson and the rev. directors on whose behalf you write." After some further boggling, which secured a few more months' delay, up to July 19, he was brought into the field Oct. 2nd. The discussion was for six nights, on successive Mondays and Thursdays, and took place in the City Hall, Glasgow. During this time and for three more weeks my family resided at " the Kirn," near Dunoon, at the foot of the Clyde, that my wife might compare the scenery with the description of it in my love letter, given on page 47. The question for discussion was — "Is secularism inconsistent with reason and with the moral sense, and condemned by expe- rience? By ' secularism' is meant that phase of modern freethought 124 represented by Mr. Holyoake 's writings, and in the publications edited, recommended, or approved of by him." I spent several weeks beforehand in culling specimens, which I strung together, with date, page, and volume, to an extent that astonished the infidels as much as Christians. This debate finished Mr. Holyoake and his party, so far as reputation for ability, honesty, reason, and philosophy was concerned, and he never recovered any hold on the general public. To revenge himself he added — to his introductory warning res- pecting my alleged heterodoxy, which he wished to make into a penalty — the declaration that somebody in England doubted my conversion. A thing that infidels do not believe in. I got a letter from the gentleman he referred to, and he was forced to retract publicly at the close of the discussion. To these absurd but malicious accusations, he added that the religious press had not reviewed our Cowper-street debate, and in- sinuated that in this quarter I was given up. I referred him to two handsome recognitions of my success, that appeared in the Eclectic, Review and the London Quarterly. Instead of defending his own productions, which was his foolishly accepted " Task of to-day," he declared that my own denomination had discarded me, which if true, would have been base and wicked on the part of my denomination. I was able, however, then, to give this answer as to my standing with the Congregational Union, which I recommend to the consi- deration of the committee of that grave assembly. The passage referred to occurs on page 123 of the printed report of the Glasgow discussion, taken by the same reporter as the Cowper-street one, — Mr. Reed, — and published with the "joint consent" of the disputants. When Mr. Holyoake states that in England I am commonly regarded as not orthodox, he declares what is false. For I have now an engagement to go over to the Congregational Union, which holds nearly the same opinions in reference to church rule as the Scotch Presbyterians, and the same doctrines as yourselves. I am just now engaged next week, between the fifth and sixth nights of this dis- cussion, to give two lectures under the auspices of the Congregational Union. At its annual May meeting, a plan which I proposed for influencing this country was adopted and recommended to a committee ; and I am invited to go and speak upon it at Newcastle. I am quite ashamed to say these things, but I only mention them to p \t you on your guard, and to show how these men who com- plain, that if you don't accept the theories of a freethinker, you are bigoted, will try to fasten on any Christian advocate the charge of being heterodox. If they can't answer his arguments, they will try to injure his professional standing, and all under the name of the literty of thought. There is nothing more pitiful than that sort of warfare. 125 The infidels having been beaten out of the field, professed Christians have taken up their poisoned weapons, and in some cases have, like the infidels, been most bitter in revenge when completely foiled in argument. There is no calumny which they will not secretly circulate, and no cruelty which they will not perpetrate, as far as is permitted. I speak now of those, to whose recognition of me I referred in reply to Mr. Holyoake's passionate slanders. It will be remembered with how great deference the Eclectics approached the Rev. Dr. Anderson, and how Mr. Holyoake joined them in respect for that gentleman and out of disrespect for me ; but even that able and excellent man was insulted coarsely by the secular apostle in this very debate. This led me to make the following observations : — It is not for me to eulogise Dr. Anderson : I will only state that I have never heard any but Mr. Holyoake — who abuses all good men — speak of Dr. Anderson with anything else than the deepest respect and admiration. It is not merely in Scotland that he is a minister of national reputation, but in England a gentleman ■wrote to me, saying, '• You never had a higher compliment than when Dr. Ander- son said, in reply to the challenge of Holvoake's party, ; Send for Brewin Grant.' " And so much personal kindness have I received from this gentleman — (though a young man and a stranger) — that I feel as if egotistical and praising myself when praising one who is so generous, simple-hearted, and noble a friend. It was by the accident of the obtrusive infidel challenge that I was thrown into his society ; but I shall always retain the highest respect and affection for him : and if I had not known him, it would be the best recommendation to know that Mr. Holyoake insults him, for then he must be a good man in those respects in which this moralist condemns him. The first' part of the following passage describes the course which I pursued in this discussion, and the second part contains a very important argument, which effectually annihilates the preten- sions of those who object to supernatural religion, since all the wickedness of all religions, is, on their own principles, the product of that very naturalism on which they rely. Or, as I have elsewhere expressed a similar sentiment : if the Bible is false its authors were infidels, for those who invented it did not believe it. In reference to the Glasgow discussion, I said in one of my cus- tomary summaries of the points gone through : — I have had one object in view, and have kept steadily to it, and have demo- lished all pretences to reason or morals in the works of these infidels, and this is their condemnation from experience. Mr. Holyoake has questioned whether he wrote one of the passages on " Salutary Ridicule," and I have read it to him with additions. He has not even denied any other passage, but only explained that he was not the author of that about the Tract Society, which contains the gross libel on St. Paul ; but I gave him another as bad, from his own pen, about the Tract Society as the " depository of sacred calumny," and two about St .Paul, in one of which this meek Jesuit calls the apostle "that pious ruffian." So that his 126 denial of the authorship of one passage does not escape the sin of the slander and wicked falsehood contained in what he did write; whilst his acceptance of the other passage, his selection of it to adorn his organ, makes him guilty of its crime, since " the receiver is as had as the thief." The infidel having thus left every quotation untouched, undefended, to lie in print before the eyes of many thousand readers, as the demonstration of the vile- ness of this party, what has Mr. Holyoake done to retrieve himself and his wretched fraternity from odium ? Simply this last resort of an abandoned and prostrate cause, to indulge in "recrimination," and try to prove that others are as bad as himself ; which, on the 49th page of this debate, he declares he will not stoop to ; but he always does what he says he will not. Does that incon- sistent, repudiated, and practised recrimination prove his cause good, even if he makes out the case against others ? No : it confesses that his cause is bad, and he adopts the — " you are another" argument. If this retort were true, it would be no answer ; it would not exonerate him, but only condemn both sides. He is sinking, and he wants this poor satisfaction — to be drowned in company. He shall go down by himself. " We disclaim the wicked fraternity," as he observed when he was sinful enough to say he " was not a sinner," which he forgets when he asks others, " who have the grace of God," to be better than himself ; since it is because we " are sinners" that we accept this " grace ;" and, therefore, he who claims to be perfect should have pity on " publicans and sinners," and not expect us to equal his unmatchable perfection. This very doctrine of " grace" shows that he cannot retort our sins on our principles, since we teach that we are " frail by nature," which is secular, and good only by " grace," which is Christian ; and therefore our virtues belong to our principles, and our vices, and his own vices, and the vices of all men, are instances of the insufficiency of that moral nature which is his adopted standard. I do not think Mr. Holyoake can understand this. I am sure he will not fairly restate and answer it ; for it sho^s that all he or others can say against any man, Christian or Infidel, is an argument for the insufficiency of morals as founded on human nature; whilst all he says against the Bible, enormously wicked as his slanders are, would, if true, only make him sink the sooner ; for if the Bible is such a wicked book — who made it ? Did not men make it — according to his principles ; is it not a human production, and therefore the outgrowth of those secular morals founded on human nature ; and is not the same true of grosser religions that prevail ? Do not these, therefore, all prove that man is vile, if he can make and almost worship vile books ? Or will Mr. Holyoake say our book is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ? He denies this ; therefore he admits it is the immoral production of that nature which he says is a sufficient basis for morals. So that if he is right in his assertions, he destroys his own cause ; for the Bible, looked at as a human production, is like all human wickedness — purely " secular" — the outgrowth of human nature, which Mr. Holyoake says has " sufficient guarantees for morality ;" and yet which he accuses of producing this enormity, as he libellously describes oar Bible to be. Nay, more : since this book — so very wicked in the eyes of one who loves " morality," — at least who finds it absolutely necessary to repeat this profession and to add asseverations of his "sincerity," of which none would dream if he did not mention it, and which none who are awake can believe, because he mentions it too often ; — this book, so bad in the eyes of this man, is still regarded as very good in the eyes of other men, who indeed " are sinners," and do not, like Mr. 127 Holyoake, deny it. "What, then, must be the enormous immorality of that very •• human nature,"' which not only invented such a book and found many who per- versely died for their testimony to it, but has allowed the very wisest nations, and the very best men that human nature can manufacture, the most intelligent that humanity can produce, simple and gentle, old and young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, all bowing before this wicked book ? What a comment on the sufficient goodness of humanity, when the foremost nations, the best men, thousands upon thousands of people are so morally debased ; and when tbis book is sold more than any other, and is perversely translated into almost every human tongue, to pollute even the unsophisticated secular barbarians, and threatening even cultivated Confucian China, with the worse than Kussian invasion of two million testaments at once ! "What an awful wicked world, what a degenerate human nature, still getting worse, with only one good man that carries a higher humanity in bis metaphysical theory — Mr. Holyoake — who stands alone to stem this torrent of unutterable natural wickedness, by "■ noble "aspiration" after a Utopian morality founded on a nature so experimentally perverse ! Does he not well describe himself as " saving a few from a wreck," by bringing his metapbysical humanity from "the wreck" of that real humanity, from which he has swum ashore to lecture on its sufficiency for morals ? If, then, all he says against the Bible and its followers were as true as it is false, it would be an overwhelming confutation of his pitiful metaphysical suffi- ciency of the morals in human nature. Bomarsund was blown up with its o»vn powder, and that is a parable for Mr. Holyoake and his discomfited adherents. He is taken in his own craftiness, and falls headlong into the pit he digged for others ; his attack on the Bible and the churches, if true, is fatal to his own cause — the sufficient morality of human nature. I do not expect him to understand this. I am sure he will forget to state it. Mr. Holyoake asked, " where the Bible would lead us to," if we followed it? Why. to heaven of course ; where do you think ? And where will his system lead ? Just the contrary road ; for it is as fatal in morals as we have in every shape proved it to be fallacious in argument. At the risk of occupying too much space on this discussion, I cannot avoid quoting a passage on progress which may be of service to many a reader. It follows an enumeration of the various whirligigs through which these " reasoners" had led their confused disciples ; — TRUE AND FALSE PROGRESS. He will for a time amu?e his followers by calling this, — " progress," like his friend Joseph Barker ; but if " progress" means giving up your opinions, you can get to the end at once by having no opinion at all. A railway engineer is a " man of progress ;" but if you were a shareholder, you would like him to know his business before he began to work on your property ; if he made you a line pretendedly from Manchester to London, and laid out all tbe preparation on the road for Scotland, and next offered to start in some other direction, he might call his past blunder and his new guess, — " progress ;" but he would not, by that fine word "progress," induce you to let him spend more of your capital on a rail to the moon. You are a plain man, and here is a clever engineer, who has invented a new sort of bridge — it will cost a good deal, but then he proves (for he is a beautiful 128 talker any way), and proves to your confused understanding, that such a bridge would be safe and lasting : it is not one of your old tumble-down bridges — of course not ; you are persuaded, and the bridge is built, and is not an old tumble- down bridge, but a new tumble-down bridge, and you have had to pay for it. He himself comes, not to refund your money, not to regret his blunder, but to praise his wisdom ; he has himself found out that such a bridge was not likely to stand ; when he invented that, he was under the deluding influence of the old bridge-making craft ; he is wiser now, and can show demonstratively where that failed ; he will show you that no man of common sense could have expected any- thing else ; and then will bring out a real new plan as safe as " progress," on which you may spend another ten thousand pounds. For he defies you, and all the engineers of old orthodoxy to find a flaw in the scheme ; very likely you would be puzzled to show where the fault is, and could only say "But the bridge you have made failed, and you sail the same about that ; we don't want a bridge that will stand talking about, but one that will stand the weather and the trains, and that will at least bear its own weight ; but your old bridge tumbled down." " Ay, my dear Sir," he replies, "you little understand the march of intellect; in this age of locomotion, ' progress' is the word ; we are not tied to old orthodox bridges ; we are in advance, and sing the song, ' Try, try, try, again.' " What would you say ? The reply would be, "you are very plausible, and in one sense right — we must try again ; but we will try another engineer, who will not ' pro- gress' in pulling down old bridges to make worse new ones, but who will put up a firm structure, and let us ' progress' while the bridge stands still, as all decent bridges ought." We must die to find it out, was long a favourite phrase of sceptics, and considered a sufficient reason for not seriously regard- ing the claims of the gospel. To this I gave the following reply, which may not be unserviceable ; such short statements would make useful little "tracts: " — There is one assertion which Mr. Holyoake is fond of making, which he will never make again, if he has any pretension to argument. It is considered of some force against Christianity, only because of ignorance and the boldness with which it is uttered. I mean the saying, that " we must die to find out whether Christianity is true." If Mr. Holyoake were to say that he must die to find it out, the assertion would be more modest, though not less melancholy. For does he mean that we, for ourselves at least, have not found out that it is true ? — that we may not find it as firmly proved to our satisfaction, as a thousand other things on which we rely and act daily ? This saying is not true, therefore, of us, for we have found it out already. Secondly — We have lived to " find" Mr. Holyoake " out" and believe him not to be true, before we die, and therefore need not attend further to his revelations. • Thirdly — Many infidels themselves, and indeed the majority, " find it out" before " they die ;" and, thank God, it is theirs then, if they truly accept it, as many of them do. Fourthly — When infidels expect to die, they are often known to send for the minister, the elder, or deacon, in preference to their companions or teachers, and so prove that " they find it out before they die" — as I hope all infidels reading or hearing this, will. Nor do I believe there is any minister of the gospel that would not attend to such a case with the utmost tenderness and alacrity, as they have 129 often done ; and I believe many hearers and readers of this discussion will even- tually try this plan. Fifthly — If we " must die to find out whether Christianity is true," what do you now say it is false for ? Sisthly — If " we must die to find it out," must not you ? Seventhly — If we do not know whether we are right before we die, do you kno\ any better while you live ; and, if we are both alike on this matter, why do you say this against religion, instead of against your own notions ? Eighthly — May you not, when you die, " find out " that your views are false? Ninthly, — If we are wrong when we die, are we not as well off as you ? Tenthly, — If you are wrong when you die, are you as well off as we? Eleventhly, — If, then, " we must die to find it out," which is on the safer Bide? Twelfthly, — Had you not better find it out while you live ? Thirteenthly, — Shall you not ask the same unwise question again, as if it had never been answered ? Fourteenthly, — If so, what do you ask questions at all for ? Will you take my responsibility ? was another favourite ques- tion, and perhaps still is, with the same class, and to it also my last Glasgow speech afforded an answer, which I commend to the reader. There is a further inquiry which I hope will never be put again, namely — why should I believe you, if I am to suffer for myself? "Will you take my res- ponsibility? " Now, since he will not take our responsibility, he should, on this principle, neither offer his opinions to us, nor ask from us so unreasonable a condition. No infidel will take our responsibility ; then why, on the same ground, should we believe them or their opinions ? But if you ask me, as a minister — will I take your responsibility ? I say, God forbid ! I do indeed trust my all to what I recommend to you, and so give a pledge of my sincerity ; but I do not ask you to trust in me ; it is not the gospel of my reason, but of God's revelation ; - I ask you to trust in Jesus Christ. And if you say — well, will He take my responsibility ? I say yes, certainly ; that is what He lived for, and died for, and lives again for ; that is why He is a Judge and a Saviour. And since that you admit that this " responsibility" is what you feel to be so heavy, and that you look for some one to take it off for you ; if you really meant that, then " there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ; " and therefore, in this alone will you find what you profess to seek ; — what I cannot give, what no Infidel dare offer, what you cannot find in yourself, but what you will find in Christ, namely — One who " takes your res- ponsibility," and One to whom you are responsible. " For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," and if we now are " brought nigh by His blood," we " shall be saved from wrath through Him." 130 Chapter XIII. CANDID ATING FOR A RE-SETTLEMENT AT THE CLOSE OF MY PUBLIC MISSION : Letters of Commendation, 1856. Nearly every Hall of Science and infidel shop throughout the kingdom being shut up, and all the popular infidel orators being similarly situated or rendered comparatively innoxious, and more than the stipulated time, three years, having been occupied in labours abundant — travelling and weariness — I began to look for a re-settlement in some private pastorate. I had been favoured with the gratitude of thousands, and received many valuable testimonies to the usefulness of my labours from those who had been interested observers, and, therefore, was in many respects favourably placed for securing introductions to vacant churches. At the same time I laboured under some serious disad- vantages. First, there are those who have not the capacity to understand that others may have two capacities — that a person could both lecture and preach. Secondly, there are those who, ignorant of human nature, imagine that he who can laugh cannot cry, and that to be amused and amusing on suitable subjects indicates a want of solemnity on others. Thirdly, there are those who make amends for acknowledging your ability by hinting a doubt of your piety ; or who, from envy, as conscious of inferiority in courage and capacity, compensate themselves by any discounts they can take off. Fourthly, there are those that feel that they could have done a great deal better, and do not see why you should be so highly extolled. Fifthly, there are good, honest Christian people, ignorant of the materials on which you work and the various styles necessary for various occasions, who think that the solemn preaching of the gospel to men who laugh at it and make a mock of your solemnity, is the only suitable course for all occasions : forgetting that saying, " cast not pearls." Now, such persons may, and in some cases do, from honest and conscientious ignorance, and in good faith, feel that a " free handling "of scorners, is a desecration of the truth. Sixthly, there are those who, knowing better, will, from mixed motives noted above, play on the honest simplicity of godly persons to create a prejudice against you which they know to be foolish in others and wicked in themselves. My name having been mentioned to some of the officials at Clare - mont Chapel, Pentonville, London, preliminary enquiries were made of different persons as to their impression of my suitableness in character and ability. There was plainly this fear in the minds of 131 those who enquired, — that I should be fighting with infidelity in the pulpit — which, in one sense, I do ; whereas it is to me always a relief to turn from such questions, and " lie down in green pastures beside the still waters ;" and to avoid all sound of axes and hammers in the temple, having shaped and settled all the materials before- hand. " Whatever brawls disturb the street, There should be peace at home," — was part of the earliest poetry which I learned, and has described my home from childhood till now ; still I cannot wonder at the im- pression produced on timid and retiring minds, by the exaggerated rumours and grotesque reports busily circulated by baffled infidels and sympathizing liberal Christian brethren, respecting a style of advocacy of which they are profoundly ignorant and the fame of which they envy. I believe that a vague impression of this sort affected the form of enquiry which was made up and down respecting me by those who entertained the thought of inviting me to preach for them " with a view." This I gather from the answers which my excellent and worthy friend, then unacquainted with me, re- ceived to his enquiries, the answers to which, " as testimonials," I now possess, to the writers of which I am indebted, and especially to the Rev. David Loxton, who directly met that point of prejudice from misunderstanding my aim and spirit, in my freer treatment of scoffers who could appreciate no other mode than mine, and were not even thankful for that. But before introducing Mr. Loxton's letter, I shall give one which removed the preliminary scruples as to the advisability of asking me to " supply" at " Claremont." The Rev. J. M. Charlton, M.A.,now Professor at Western College, Plymouth. " Masbro', June 19. " My dear Sir, — I am greatly obliged by your kind letter, and for the confidence you repose in me with respect to the affairs of Claremont chapel. It would give me great pleasure to hear that you were comfortably settled with a pastor. " I entirely sympathise in your scruples about Mr. Grant. His engagements during the last two or three years have been such as are likely to give a somewhat controversial bias to his mind ; still I see no reason why he should not form a very excellent settled pastor. 132 I am quite sure he possesses energy, tact, and elasticity of mind to adapt himself to any circumstances, and I have no doubt that if he were your minister, he would throw himself heart and soul into all the labours necessary to raise Claremont to its ancient prosperity. He is unquestionably a man of great pulpit as well as platform talent, and I should expect him to fill your chapel in a short time. At all events there could be no harm, I think, in asking him to supply the pulpit for two or three weeks. Believe me, dear Sir, "Very sincerely and respectfully yours, " J. M. CHARLTON. " Hugh Owen, Esq." The Rev. David Loxton, Sheffield. " Sheffield, July 23rd, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I understand that my dear friend and brother, Mr. Grant, is supplying your pulpit at Pentonville, with a view to a settlement ; and as I know that the peculiar character of his late mission to the working classes has excited a prejudice against him in the minds of some good people, I feel that as an old friend and *ellow- student, who has had much intercourse with him since we left college, I may possibly be able to serve him by telling you what I know about him. " It would be quite needless for me to say anything about his learning and abilities, in which he is second to no minister in our denomination of the same age. I know from personal intercourse with him that the mode he adopted in his late work was not the re- sult of levity, but of a clear and deep conviction of duty to Christ and to the souls of men. Should any persons among you view it as an error (as I do not myself) they ought to regard it as an error of judgment, not of heart. "As a student, Mr. Grant was eminently conscientious and spiritually minded, a man of prayer, and I know not of anyone of my fellow- students in whose religious sympathies I can more fully confide. Hoping you will excuse the liberty I have taken in ad- dressing these few lines to you, and earnestly praying that you may be directed from on high in the choice of a pastor, " I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, " DAVID LOXTON. " Hugh Owen, Esq." 133 FROM MY PREVIOUS CHURCH IN BIRMINGHAM. " August, 1856. " We, the undersigned, deacons, members and seat-holders of Highbury Chapel, Birmingham, understanding that our late pastor, the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., is now preaching as a candidate at Claremont Chapel, Pentonville, London, have great pleasure in expressing to the church assembling there our high estimation of that gentleman's qualifications as a minister of the gospel. " For several years he was greatly esteemed as a teacher and pastor, evinced great thoughtfulness and study in the interpretation of Scripture, and manifested great earnestness in the application of gospel truth. Many were benefited by his public ministrations ; while his visits to the sick and dying have been the source of gratitude to many. " We should gladly have retained him as our pastor but for those peculiar circumstances which called him forth to a wider sphere of labour, in which we rejoice to know he has been abun- dantly blessed of God. And now that his work in that sphere is happily accomplished we doubt not he will return to the pastorate with an enlarged experience, which, under God, will render his labours more efficient than ever, and add largely to that success which in our midst he w T as beginning to enjoy. " To speak of his abilities we believe would be superfluous ; but of his Christian character, his love of his work, his devotedness, his sincerity, his earnestness, his transparency, his warmth, his kindness — these we cannot refrain from mentioning, having seen them so often displayed and never wanting. " We regard him as especially adapted to a large and intelligent population, and shall look upon it as an earnest of good things to come to see such a minister settled in London, surrounded by an energetic Christian people. " In this expression of our own feelings we feel confident we represent the sentiments of all who have enjoyed Mr. Grant's ministry and who have known him in public and in private. " In conclusion we would say, if the general estimation in which Mr. Grant was and still is held in Birmingham is any proof of his worth, in that estimation we rejoice, for not only amongst our own people was he beloved, but by the members and friends of other churches and denominations. Should it please Providence to place him in your midst, and to dispose you to strengthen and uphold his 134 hands, it is our belief and sincere prayer that lasting and abundant good will be the result. " JABEZ FIDGIN, ) " WILLIAM ROOKE,} ■ Ueacons - "J. C. STOKES, Treasurer. " T. B. WILKINS, Superintendent of Girls' School." Other signatures were appended (as many as could be obtained in time), and the following letter was sent w r ith the address : — " From the Treasurer op my previous Church. " Birmingham, Aug. 15th, 1856. " My dear Sir, — I beg to hand you the letter referred to in my last, and am sorry the time did not allow of the matter being better known to our people, for since your note arrived we have had but one service, and at its close last night this letter was signed. This will account for so few names being attached thereto ; but certain I am that not one of our church or congregation would withhold his signature if the opportunity of attaching it was given. Of course the circumstances will be understood, as nothing of the matter was known prior to last evening. If signatures would help the case, I could, if a reasonable time were given, procure one from every single individual who knew Mr. Grant ; for, speak to whomsoever you may here respecting him, the feeling is the same. I am now speaking of those who knew him, for certainly if anything has been said of him at any time in the form of disparagement, it has been from those who did not know him. I believe that our Mr. Jones has written to one of your colleagues, and I know well, if he has, what the nature of the communication will be, for he entertains a very high opinion of his predecessor. I may just observe, that to my mind it is rather too much to canvass so very severely the character of a man so well known, and who has lived beloved and respected so many years without the shadow of an imputation ; however, having had some experience in this sort of thing myself, I can sympathize with you, and my best wishes being for your success, I can with the more heartiness advise you to take advantage of the present opportunity in securing the man — the genius — the Chris- tian you have in the person of Brewin Grant. " Yours very truly, "J. C. STOKES." 135 From my Successor, the Rev. J. Rhys Jones. "Birmingham, May loth, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I am very much surprised, and not without reason, at the receipt of your note of inquiry respecting my predecessor, the Rev. Brewin Grant. 11 Had Mr. Grant been an unknown, uncertificated novice, or had he been either intellectually or religiously a man of doubtful repu- tation, or if no previous enquiries had been made about him in this town, or if the impression produced by those enquiries had proved unfavourable, then I could clearly see why additional information concerning him should be deemed necessary. " As the case stands, however, it appears to me worse than super- fluous to seek fresh testimony to the character of one who is so well known in this country. " I believe it to be neither possible nor desirable that any minister should be more highly esteemed and respected than my prede- cessor was and still is by his late church and congregation in this town. " They all, without a single exception, bear the most unqualified testimony to his valuable worth as a teacher, a friend, and a Christian. And all I have heard from them respecting his fine abilities, loveable spirit, unworldly, unselfish, noble, generous disposition, and general excellency of character ; I have found more than confirmed by an intercourse with him of the most inti- mate kind, though not of equal duration with theirs. " To my congregation, and especially to a congregation having young people in it, his ministrations will prove a most covetable possession ; and if he meet with a people by whom his services will be appreciated as they were by his late charge at Birmingham, he will be, what he desires and deserves to be, — a useful, happy, and beloved minister of Jesus Christ. " Believe me, dear sir, yours very truly, " J. RHYS JONES. "H. Owen, Esq., Whitehall, London." From the South Staffordshire Congregational Union. " Westbromwich, August 7th, 1856. " We, the undersigned members of the above union, understanding that the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., who has been for some seven years a member with us, is about to return to the pastorate from 136 his late mission, in which his usefulness is known to all, have great pleasure in recommending him to the confidence of the churches. Most of us have known him for some time intimately, and can hear cordial testimony to his Christian character and ministerial adapta- tion. Trusting that he will be guided to a sphere in which his superior qualifications will he exercised and blessed, we commend him to God and the word of his grace. ROBERT DAVIE S, Bilston. WILLIAM CREED, Westbromwich. THOMAS ARNOLD, Smethwick. W. ROBERTSON, Wednesbury. R. D. WILSON, Wolverhampton. The Rev. W. Creed, Secretary of the South Staffordshire Association. "West Bromwich, South Staffordshire, August 8th, 1856. "Dear Sir, — I take the liberty of forwarding to you the enclosed Testimonial in favour of the Rev. Mr. Grant, who, I understand, has been supplying the pnlpit of Claremont Chapel. "My time permitted me to call upon those of my brethren only who reside near West Bromwich, the signatures of some of whom I was unable to procure on account of their absence from home. The Rev. J. Hammond, of Handsworth, and other brethren would, I feel assured, have signed it, if I could have met with them. "From personal knowledge of Mr. Grant I can say, Qie more I know of him the more highly do I esteem- " I am, dear Sir, " Yours very truly, "WILLIAM CREEx,, " Secretary of the South Staffordshire Association./.' "Hugh Owen, Esq." From other Birmingham Ministers, — the Rev. Robert Alfred Vaughan, B.A. 17th August, 1856. " Sir, — Having understood that there are those at Claremont Chapel who are desirous of receiving some testimony in behalf of thu Rev. Brewin Grant, from his ministerial brethren in Birmingham, I have much pleasure in contributing my share therein. 137 " Mr. Grant and I were contemporaries in Birmingham for two or three years. My intercourse with him was always a gratification to me ; and when I came to Birmingham I found that he enjoyed (as he did to the close of his stay there) the full confidence and regard of his ministerial brethren, as a man of unblemished Chris- tian consistency, of eminen!; intellectual vigour and acuteness, and of great activity and diligence. As a preacher, I found his reputation especially high as an expositor of Scripture, and that his discourses were remarkably calculated to attract young men, and to instruct all in a discriminating and thoughtful understanding of the word of God. " With the best wishes for the prosperity of the Church to which you belong, I am, Sir, " Truly yours, " ROBERT ALFRED VAUGHAN."* "Mr. Owen." The Rev. John Angell James. " Edgbaston, August 14th. " My dear Sir, — In reply to your inquiries about Mr. Grant, I can bear testimony to his irreproachable morals during his residence in this town ; not a shade of suspicion ever passed over his character. Of his talents it is quite unnecessary for me to speak, after the publicity and popularity he acquired during his important mission as a combatant in the arena of infidelity. I believe he did great service in rebuking the audacious atheistic spirit of the age, at • This promising young minister, with whom I several times went out to walk to improve his health, and who injured himself by over-much study, or rather by too little exercise, on which I earnestly warned him, when perhaps it was too late, contributed to " The Bible and the Pet *.-" the " the articles" mentioned on page 60, " Passages from the life of an Enquirer." His lamented early death is thus gracefully, though briefly, referred to in the Pall Mall Budget, Jan. 23, 1867, in a notice of his father, the Rev. Robert Vaughax, L.L.D. " The great grief of Dr. Yaughan's life was the death of a very distinguished and excellent son, a grief for which, like the similarly afflicted historian Hallam, he sought consolation in compiling a memoir of the departed. Sir James Stephen, writing of Alfred Vaughan to his sorrowing j arent, said, ' He seemed to me formed to add another name to those of the great Konconformists of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, and to throw over whatever he might undertake not a little of that more elaborate polish which the scholars of Oxford and Cam- bridge have been accustomed to regard as their peculiar boast.' " I regard it as an honour to have been his Mend, and insert his letter with a mournful satisfaction. 138 least, as it exists amongst a large portion of the labouring classes. I think it of some importance that Mr. Grant should be located in the metropolis, either as pastor of a church, or as a public lecturer. " Yours truly, " J. A. JAMES." The Rev. Charles Vince, Baptist Minister. " Soho Park, Birmingham, Aug. 15, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I have been in London the last fortnight supplying at Bloomsbury for my friend Mr. Brock. While there I heard that Mr. Grant had been supplying recently at Claremont Chapel, on probation. " Will you allow me to bear testimony to the high esteem for ability and character in which Mr. Grant was held by my congrega- tion and myself during his ministry at Highbury Chapel, in this town. " Mr. Grant's chapel is in the same street and immediately oppo- site my own, so that I had great facility for forming an opinion." " I hope a sphere will be found for him in London in which his success may, under God's blessing, be commensurate with his mental power and moral worth. I would gladly do much to testify my great esteem for him. " Yours truly, " CHARLES VINCE, " Minister, Graham-st. (Baptist) Chapel, Birmingham." The Rev. Isaac New, (Baptist.) "Birmingham, Aug. 15, 1856. " Dear Sir, — When Mr. Grant was settled in Birmingham I was often brought in contact with him, as a minister located near me, and I think I knew him well, though there was never between us what might be called the intimacy of friendship ; yet our intimacy was always marked by the greatest cordiality. Honest, upright, straight-forward, kind, generous, always struck me as features in his character; perfectly free from anything like meanness or selfishness, and utterly self- forgetful where he could do a kindness or confer a favour. " I did not often hear him preach, but when I did, his sermons always evinced a very superior mind, distinguished by great acute- ness and logical power. His mental independence and fearlessness often carried out of the beaten track of thought, and imparted an 139 originality to his discourses which not unfrequently awakened sur- prise, and it might be, a little suspicion as to the orthodoxy of his views, but I believe perfectly groundless. The time that he was in Birmingham was one of very great agitation on many questions of public interest, and from his controversial skill great numbers were at times drawn to hear him. This made him popular with many, yet increased the hostility of those who differed from him ; but the hostility was only transient ; for I apprehend it would be difficult for any one to be long hostile against a man so really ingenuous and good-natured, however they might feel in reference to his opinions. But in the midst of all, his character was, as far as my knowledge extends without a stain, and above suspicion and reproach. " I do not know that I can add anything more than to say that I should feel glad to hear of his being settled over a church which would fully appreciate his intellectual and moral worth. " I am, dear Sir, yours trulv, "ISAAC NEW, "Baptist Minister, Birmingham.' The Rev. Thos. Swan, (Baptist,) the oldest Minister in Birmingham. " Birmingham, Aug. 14, 1656. " Dear Sir, — I am informed that the Rev. B. Grant has been preaching inClaremont Chapel. I hope he may meet with acceptance among the friends, and (D. V.) may become the settled minister and pastor. " He is a man and minister for whom I have always entertained the highest esteem — not only on account of his uncommon talent, but his piety and ministerial ability — his original and instructive preaching. You are, doubtless, aware of his disinterested labours against the enemies of the truth in many parts of the country. Perhaps London might be the best sphere for Mr. Grant. I hope this note may not be deemed intrusive, I felt it my duty, in the circum- stances, to write ; and if it be the divine will, should be most happy to hear of Mr. Grant's settlement amongst you, as, if I am not mistaken, I think you will find him a Pastor after God's own heart, who will feed you with " knowledge and understanding." Wishing you divine direction in this important matter, " I am, yours very truly and respectfully. «"T. SWAN. "Hugh Owen, Esq." *L f2 14-0 The Rev. Alexander Thomson, M.A. South Shore, Blackpool, July 24, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I have just heard that the Rev. Brewin Grant is preaching at present to the congregation in Clareniont chapel, in which you hold an official position, and I think that by expressing to you frankly my opinion of Mr. Grant — of which you may make whatever use you please — I shall not be transgressing the limits of propriety, which should be regarded in such circumstances. " I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Grant intimately when he was a student in Glasgow, just before his settlement as a minister in Lancashire ; and I have met with him at different times since then, and have all along felt an interest in his career. I esteem him very highly as one of the most sincere, earnest, and truth-loving men ; I know him to be possessed of genuine amiability and good- ness of heart, combined with firmness and decision ; and I feel convinced that in order to respect and love him, whether as a Christian friend or as a minister of the Gospel, it is only necessary to know him thoroughly. I do not think it needful to speak of his talent and mental characteristics, because those have been so un- mistakably displayed, and have received such extensive recognition, that it is quite superfluous to bear testimony to them. I know that no one who has appeared in Glasgow to address popular audiences has ever excited more enthusiastic admiration than Mr. Grant did on the occasion of his visit in 1853 and subsequently, and I do not know where you will find on the whole more competent judges than among the active Christian men of that city. "It would give me great pleasure to hear of Mr. Grant's being called to occupy such an influential sphere of Christian usefulness as Claremont chapel or any similar position. Indeed, after the good service he has done, it would be strangely discreditable to us if he found any difficulty in obtaining such a position. I feel con- vinced that he would fill it with great advantage to the interests of the Gospel and men's souls. Excuse the freedom with which I have written, though a stranger to you, and praying that you may be wisely directed. Believe me to be, dear Sir, Yours truly, ALEXANDER THOMSON, Formerly of Glasgow, now minister of Rushholme- road Chapel, Manchester. H. Owen, Esq. 141 The Rev. Thos. Raffles, LL.D., of Liverpool. " Kingstown Co., Dublin, July 23, 185G. " Dear Sir, — By a letter from my old friend, the Rev. Brewin Grant, which has been forwarded to me here, I find that he has been preaching at Claremont chapel, with a view to a settlement there. Now, my interest in Mr. Grant, who laboured for some time at Prescot, near Liverpool, and the concern I cannot but feel for the prosperity of the Redeemer's cause at Claremont Chapel, at the opening of which I preached, lead me to say — if I may be permitted to do so without incurring the charge of obtrusiveness — that I shall be glad to hear of such a union having taken place. Mr. Grant has rendered good service to the cause of revealed religion by his able and successful advocacy, carried on against the infidel party for several years ; and now, I believe, he desires a more quiet and settled course of usefulness ; and for a suburban congregation in the great metropolis, such as yours, I should deem him eminently qualified. While in Lancashire, he enjoyed the esteem and con- fidence of us all, and since then he has lived too much in the view of the churches and the public to need any testimony beyond that which his own labours supply. '• Pardon this freedom, and believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours, " Hugh Owen, Esq." THOS. RAFFLES. The Rev. Enoch Mellor, M.A. " Halifax, July 24, 1856. 11 My dear Sir, — Though I am entirely unknown to you personally (and perhaps by name), I cannot resist the temptation to write to you in the present crisis of your church. I have only just learned that Mr. Grant has been supplying for you, and it would afford me the highest pleasure if, in the course of Divine Providence, he should become your pastor. I have known him for several years — have seen much of him, and can speak of his piety, his ability, his generous and benevolent spirit in the most unmeasured and un- qualified terms. There are special reasons at the present time why Mr. Grant should have a metropolitan position. His endow- ments eminently befit him for grappling with those Protean forms of unbelief which are sapping the foundation of our common faith. It has often been to me a source of gratification and gratitude that his talents have been so thoroughly consecrated to the service of God ; and I can attest from observation that his labours have been pre- eminentlv successful in the North of England. "f8 142 "I cannot speak of his pastoral qualifications never having seen him in relations which called them forth, but feel proud in bearing my testimony (such as it is) to his admirable fitness in other respects ior the pulpit of Pentonville. " Excuse my seeming ofiiciousness, and believe me to be, " Yours very truly, " ENOCH MELLOR." The Rev. R. D. Wilson, now of Ceaven Chapel, London. " Telford Place, Wolverhampton, " August 6th, 1856. 11 Gentlemen, — I have heard with great pleasure that my intimate and highly esteemed friend the Rev. B. Grant, is now supplying your pulpit with a view to settlement. Having been intimately acquainted with Mr. Grant for the last four years, I can most con- fidently bear testimony to his ability and worth. " I must say that I know of no single man who possesses so many qualifications necessary to a high and permanent popularity and usefulness. The moral qualities of his nature are by no means inferior to his intellectual endowments ; in addition to high moral integrity, he is generous, unselfish, and self-sacrificing to a fault. In a sphere such as yours, affording large scope for his various talents, I feel assured that — with God's blessing — he would soon become a most successful and valuable minister of Christ. It is a strong conviction that the Metropolis is the place for Mr. Grant, which has induced me thus to address you. " Earnestly hoping that he may become your pastor, " I remain, Gentlemen, " Yours in the gospel, " R. D. WILSON." " To the Deacons of Claremont Chapel." Rev. J. W. Richardson, now at Rotheeham. " Tottenham Court Chapel, "Vestry, July 24th, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I was glad to see, in passing Claremont Chapel the other day, that the Rev. Brewin Grant is supplying for you. He is an excellent man and seems to me well-fitted for such a sphere as that of Pentonville. I shall be glad to learn that he has received a unanimous invitation from the members of the Church and congregation. H3 " He is a man of considerable power, and with the Divine blessing, would, I doubt not, prove an acquisition to the Metropolis. " You will excuse the liberty I take in thus addressing you. " Praying that you may be directed aright, "I am, dear Sir, "Yours trulv, "H. Owen, Esq. J. W. RICHARDSON. The Rev. Dr. S. McAll, then of Nottingham, now Professor, Hackney College. " Nottingham, July 22, 1856. " Dear Sir, — I hope I shall be excused for what may appear an intrusion in addressing a few lines to you, as an officer of the church at Claremont, at the present moment when the Rev. Brewin Grant is before you as a candidate. My sole object is to state to you, and through you to others should you think proper, how deep a sense I have of the obligations under which the cause, not of our own deno- mination, but of our common Christianity, has been laid by his public efforts. The great ability as well as the zeal with which he has defended the cause of truth has made a decided and sensible impression upon the general mind of our countrymen, so far as I have had an opportunity of judging; and I believe I may especially speak with confidence as to the young, the enquiring, the thinking part of the community. " I think our highly gifted and honoured friend is well aware of the class of efforts requisite in order to pastoral success. Here indeed another line of things than that in which he has so much shone, is demanded : but he has all the abilities necessary to adapt himself to this particular sphere of duty. I believe he will adorn any such position to which he is called by a very consistent example, and by a truly kind and affectionate spirit. " It has appeared to me that as we all owe a debt to Mr. G. for his lectures in the general cause, I should not perhaps be thought to step out of my place if I were at such a moment to testify the esteem in which Mr. Grant is held by, " Dear Sir, vours very respectfully, " H. Owen, Esq." " S. McALL. The Rev. Watson Surrra, now of Wilmslow, near Manchester. 11 5, Belsize Terrace, Hampstead, August 4th, 1856. Dear Sir,— Finding that the Rev. B. Grant, B.A., late of Bir- mingham, has been supplying Claremont chapel during the la/ 144 three or four sabbaths, I cannot but transmit to you and the deacons of the church there, my cordial testimony to his great ability, — singular aptness to teach, — and adaptedness to all classes of hearers, — high christian character and worth. I knew him well when I was settled at Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, and can speak therefore from a nearer and closer point of view than most. It is simply I feel it, a matter of duty to him, and the church of Christ to communicate something of what I know respecting his extraordinary qualifications for usefulness. There is no man I know who is in all respects so well fitted to deal with the present times, and the men of the times. Thoroughly grounded in the great distinctive doctrines of our common Christianity, — admirably fitted for their assertion and defence. I cannot but augur for him a course oi large usefulness wherever he is settled. And he is one who the better known the more fully will he be estimated ; who, beneath the mere surface, bears as noble and generous a Christian heart and temper as any brother in the ministry I have met with. I trust that you and the brother deacons of Claremont chapel, will excuse one personally unknown, for sending this word of testimony, and hearty well wishing on behalf of a valued friend and servant of Christ. Believe me my dear Sir, yours sincerely, WATSON SMITH. (Then Minister of " New College " Chapel). ''The Rev. William Anderson, LL.D., Glasgow. " Clyde-side Cottage, Uddingston, "Near Glasgow, July 23rd, 1856. " To Mr. Owen. — The Rev. Brewin Grant has requested a note from me to you in his favour as a candidate for the office of pastor in Claremont Chapel. I am somewhat surprised there should be any need for this : I thought his fame was what it deserves to be — kingdom-wide. Of his intellectual gifts, universally acknowledged to be so rare, I shall not say a word. Those, however, who know only of his public character will be gratified to be assured from one who has had experience of him most intimately at home (my own home, I mean), in the family circle, in the library when only we two were there, in his freest, most confidential hours he ever mani- fested that his appearance of zeal in public in defence of the faith is the zeal of personal conviction. Some friends may also be gratified in being assured that he who is so defiant and scornful of the enemy in public is, in private, not only one of the most 145 courteous and kind of men, but as little of a self-sufficient or opinionative character as any man of talents with whom I ever met. His modesty is at times painful. Let me state that, when once visiting our house he found my late wife worse than he had been taught to expect and showing signs of a dissolution not far distant, he, without signifying his apprehensions, guided the conversation at tea with such tenderness and insinuations of Christian comfort that the remembrance and influence of it remained with her for months, till death. When he is withdrawn from the arena of public debate and allowed to settle down in the quietude of the pastorate, there w 11 be few churches I am persuaded in our land favoured with a ministry so excellent. " I am, dear Sir, Yours in good faith and in the bonds of Christian love, "WILLIAM ANDERSON, LL.D., ' Minister of the United Presbyterian Church, John-street, Glasgow." The Rev. De. Halley, now Professor in new College, St. John's Wood. Manchester, July 30th, 1856. " My dear Sir, — I learn from Mr. Grant that he has been preach- ing at Claremont. I do not write to interfere at all with the judgment of your church, but I do not think it will be wrong to say that his settlement in London would be, in my opinion, of great service to the cause of religion. Of his preaching I do not intend' to speak, for I have never heard him, but of his general ability and character I have the highest estimate. " As he wishes me to state my opinion, 1 can do so with con- fidence, — my absence from home has prevented me from doing it earlier. " I remain, yours verv truly, " Hugh Owen, Esq." " ROBERT HALLEY." The Rev. James Parsons, of York. "York, August 1, 1856, " Dear Sir, — I understand that the Rev. Brewin Grant has been supplying the pulpit of Claremont Chapel recently ; and that there is a disposition to invite him to become the pastor of the church assembling there. Perhaps I may be allowed, without intrusion, to render a brief testimony on Mr. Grant's behalf. I believe his character to be thoroughly consistent ; his abilities speak for them- selves, and I should be glad to see them engaged in the regular 146 exercise of the Christian ministry. It is of course important that the sphere at Claremont should be efficiently occupied. Pardon me Sir, thus addressing you, and believe me, " Dear Sir, yours sincerely, " JAMES PARSONS. " Hugh Owen, Esq." The Rev. Dr. Morton Brown, Cheltenham. "Cheltenham, 23rd July, 1856. *' My dear Sir, — I have heard, with great satisfaction, that Mr. Grant is now supplying at Claremont. There are so many associa- tions connected with our denomination, immediately attached to Claremont, that, with multitudes, I cannot but feel a peculiar interest in the welfare of the Church of the late Mr. Blackburn. I do hope God will direct you in your present circumstances. " Mr. Grant is so excellent in himself as a devoted Christian and Christian minister, that he requires no word of commendation from any one. But from my intimate knowledge of him, my attachment to him, my belief in the growth of his Christian character and gospel ministrations, arising from his late engagements, I have a deep conviction of his suitableness for Claremont. Forgive my saying so, I could not but forward to you this utterance. May the Deacons and Church be divinely directed. " Yours very truly, "A. "MORTON BROWN." The Rev. Dr. George Legge, of Leicester. " London Milton Club, " 24th July, 1856. " Dear Sir, — On my arrival here last night, I found a communi cation from Leicester, the sphere of my ministry, from a friend of the Rev. Brewin Grant's. I am informed that he has been preaching at Claremont Chapel, not without an inclination to settle there if approved, and that a word from me to one of the Deacons of Clare- mont might be of service to him. If any one has the right and power to speak on his behalf, I more. I have known and loved him from his boyhood. From a conviction of his piety, I received him into the fellowship of the church ; and from an appreciation of his talent I was helpful to his introduction to the ministry. I have never since had reason to entertain a doubt of his piety, and he has vindi- cated his talent before all the world. I may say that I am, in a measure, glad that he has given up his 'mission,' which was, I think, 147 more profitable to others than to himself, though it must have augmented greatly his natural mastery of language and thought, and I shall be most happy to hear of his settlement in a sphere where he may make fuller proof of his ministry and of the various gifts which God has lavishly conferred on him. It strikes me that Clare- mont Chapel is such a sphere, — and I am persuaded that, under his auspices, it would attain to a prosperity such as it knew not, even in its palmiest times. " Mr. Grant is under engagement to take my pulpit during my holiday, on the first Sunday in August ; and I mention this to say, that contrary to the proverb, "a prophet hath no honour in his own country," — he will be the most popular of all my supplies, with crowded congregations. There where he is entirely known, he is held in highest esteem. "I am, dear Sir, "Yours truly, " GEORGE LEGGE. Chapter XIY. THE MIDNIGHT TELEGRAM. OUR FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT ; OUR FIRST GREAT SORROW ; AND SETTLEMENT IN SHEFFIELD. 1856-7. There were so many encouraging circumstances in connection with my candidature at Claremont chapel, that I was induced to almost hope for what I desired. There was also a general feeling of confi- dence among the people as far as I could observe and learn, as well as on the part of the deacons, who behaved to me with exceeding kindness. Hugh Owen, Esq., one of the permanent officials of the Poor Law Board, was the corresponding deacon, and while I was in London, I was much at his house. On the 7th of August, 1856, he wrote to me saying : — " Many thanks for your very satisfactory note. We had bills printed announcing you for the next two Sundays. I would therefore suggest that you should give to Daventry the fol- lowing Sunday. It is really important with reference to the com- pletion of the ' call' that you should be with us for the next two Sundays." 148 The " trust deed" of the chapel laid down some very compli- cated regulations which the deacons endeavoured to follow, as far as they understood. One regulation was, I think, that one church meeting should be held to call another within a fixed time ; and it is naturally supposed that the agreement to call a meeting for deciding on the choice of any single minister is so far a proof that he is acceptable. Accordingly it was almost regarded as settled, as in the following letter : — " I am thankful to inform you that the church at Claremont chapel decided last evening on giving your dear husband a call to the pastorate of the church. I trust that the future will show that the good hand of God ruled in this matter." I was travelling at the time, and Mr. Owen kindly sent this noti- fication to Mrs. Grant, while to me he wrote more fully, saying : — " We got through the business of last evening in a tolerably satis- factory manner. The church resolved to instruct the deacons to take the necessary steps to give you a call to the pastorate, and steps will be taken accordingly without delay. There was not the unani- mity manifested that one would desire ; but there was sufficient however to warrant the expectation that the ' call' will in due time be completed. I trust that you will be able to supply the pulpit next Sunday week. Your continued occupation of it will materially assist a satisfactory completion of the ' call.' " I preached as requested, and on leaving for home had formed an expectation of being formally invited, as the majority was unmis- takably in favour of it. But as far as I remember, there was one, an occasional attendant, living I think some distance out, but retaining some connection with the place, who looked at me askance, and on whom I looked with suspicion. I fancy he was a sort of sleeping partner in the deacon- ship, and also that he had some connection with law. I imagined afterwards, whether rightly or not I do not know, that he played an electioneering move, which by a fortunate accident might enable a few to over-ride the desires of the many. As for instance, the real completion of the " call " was by uritten votes of the members ; and I believe that sufficient of these had already been signed before I left ; but according to the then traditional notion of the " deed," it was requisite that at the announced meeting, two-thirds of those pre- sent should agree to collect and accept the written votes : in fact, to decide whether the church should go to the poll or not ; so that if, say by any accident or from any misapprehension as to the non- necessity of their presence, many should not be there, a handful could set the proceedings aside. 149 However, I scarcely anticipated such a result ; but requested a friend to telegraph that night, Monday, August 18th, the result of the meeting, " yes " or "no ! " I had not told my wife of this, for I did not want to spoil he» night's rest, as bad news would be time enough for her in the morn- ing, in case the report was unfavourable. I accordingly directed it to be sent to a friend in Birmingham, at whose house I expected to receive it before very late. However, I had to go to bed without it ; and concluded that the meeting had been adjourned. I think it was between one and two o'clock in the morning w T hen we were woke up by a ringing and rapping of an energetic sort. I knew what it meant, that it was The Telegram, but I did not know what was inside it till I opened the door. There was " No ! " in it. I went back not giving the news, but put the message in my pocket, and tried to go to sleep, without having communicated the news or explaining the matter. But as soon as I fell off, another quietly rose and rummaged my pockets, and read by the gas the short announcement. It was not so pleasant as it was plain. The explanation was, that a violent storm of rain came on that night in London, and many dare not go out ; while some felt that it was not necessary, since they had already signed their voting papers, and the matter was as good as settled. But enemies are generally more zealous than friends, and would go through fire and water, either to thwart you personally, or somebody else, whose plans in relation to you they wished to circumvent. I believe there were some thirty present out of a church of three hundred, and eleven of these would constitute the successful minority. I was told that the friends of the " call" proposed an adjournment, but it was claimed that even for this, two-thirds were required as a majority. The meeting was kept up very late, but the few held out : and it was considered that they had by a legal technicality set aside all that the church had done ; so that if next day, nearly the whole church should have voted by papers, most of which were ready and many given in, the accidental advantage of the ten or eleven would frustrate the general wish. It was found out afterwards that the deed, absurd as it was, did not mean this : but as one wrote to me ; — " it is true we were done by the deed, but then the deed is done," and it was considered that to question it, or even to begin the formalities de novo, would produce confusion. I was greatly consoled on this occasion by the very sympathetic and generous letter of the corresponding deacor, who with his colleagues was almost equally disappointed. 150 The following is the letter, which is both a testimonial and an expression of kindness, which I have always highly prized: — " Whitehall, 19th Aug., 1856. " My dear Sir, — It is with regret that reaches to the very core of my heart that I inform you of the result of the church meeting at Claremont chapel last evening, which was that you were not elected to the pastorate. " The array of cordial and discriminating testimonials from ministers of influence, together with a most emphatic testimonial from your late charge at Birmingham — the character of your preaching, which was striking, interesting, and instructive beyond anything that we have been accustomed to — the largeness of the congregation which you attracted, coupled with the kindliness of your nature, and friendly, frank and unaffected manner, — these, I say, led me not only to desire earnestly that you might be elected but also to cherish the hope that you would be elected. Other views, however, triumphed ; and the privilege of having you for a pastor is reserved for some happier fellowship, while our faith and patience must endure a still further trial. Let me, dear Sir, bespeak your sympathy and prayers. " Trusting that the light of heaven may shine on jour future, and that you may be a blessing to thousands, " I remain, " With Christian affection, " Most truly } That Christian faith does not imply belief in the supposed funda- mental doctrines of the gospel is thus intimated : — 158 (P. 15.) " The truths of which the simple belief is by some sup- posed to be Christian faith were not known by those who first had this faith." He means that the personal disciples of Jesus had " Christian faith" without a belief in what are ''supposed by some" to constitute Christian doctrines. " The truths the belief of which is thought to he sufficient for salvation refer to His death, and to its character as a sacrifice for the sins of men. But it appears from the narrative of the New Testament that His death was not ex- pected by His disciples, not even by the apostles. They had faith in Him, and through this faith became His followers. They were acknowledged to be His friends and kindred, were assured of forgiveness and acceptance, and yet they did not believe that it was needful that Christ should suffer. They trusted to Him ; but not till after His death and resurrection did they learn those truths the belief of which has been thought to cons titute Christian faith. "We have no reason to suppose that the faith required of the disciples of Christ at the beginning differed in its nature from what was afterwards enjoined. The ignorance which was compatible with faith at one time may be incompatible with it at another time. But it seems to be impossible that this faith should be the belief of truths which were for some time unknown to all by whom it [this Christian faith] was possessed." This passage is the key to the position : it explains why so much is made of trust, and so little of belief. What does it matter about " believing the doctrines which are supposed by some to constitute Christian faith," when the true faith was possessed by some who knew nothing of the doctrines, and so may be possessed by those who reject those doctrines, since this faith is the same now as at the beginning ! II. The Object of Faith ; or, what ice are to believe in ; not the Sacrifice, nor any Work or Promise of Jesus, but in Christ Himself, and not any Propositions about Him ! " We proceed to the inquiry respecting the object of Christian faith. What is this ? Is it a proposition or a system of propo- sitions ? Is it a fact, or a series of facts ? Or is it some Person ? What or whom are we required to trust ?" (p. 39.) The absurdity of attempting to " distinguish" between believing in a "person" and believing in "propositions" respecting him is acknowledged in the next sentence, page 89 : — " If we believe a person we shall also (!) believe some propositions respecting him, and the facts [which] they [the said propositions] declare, and we shall believe the truth of what we know to be stated by him. But we may believe & person, and not believe many truths asserted by him or by others concerning him, being ignorant of those truths." 159 The schema is to show that we may trust in Chbist as the Person Who was born at Bethlehem and died on Calvary, while " ignorant of the important truths and facts" that His birth was a Divine iu carnation and His death the divinely-appointed sacrifice for sins. No doubt we may, and this will be so far a belief in His " person," but no belief in His mission, and have no relation to Christian faith nor to salvation. "Trusting to a person commonly includes more than trusting to any propositions or facts." Now, a " person" is nothing else but a "fact," and our affections towards that person result from the " propositions" which we accept concerning him. We are told that "Trusting to Christ is (liferent from trusting to the truth of any doctrine, or the sufficiency of any work. Many of the disciples [who do duty a great many times over] trusted to Hem fully, when His doctrine was but partially understood, and His work was still unfinished, and to a great extent unknown." (41.) This dreary lecture concludes in the same manner : — " If Jesus Chbist be the object of Christian faith, those representations mnst be erroneous which assign this place to any particular facts or propositions Not the birth of Christ, nor His death, nor His resurrection, can be the object of this faith." " The sufficiency of His sacrifice for the pardon of sin cannot be alone the object of this faith." " According to the sacred (!) Scriptures, no fact or series of facts, no proposi- tion or system of propositions, but Jesus Cheist Himself, the Bon of God, is the object of faith, in "Whom {not in His works and revealed character in the doctrines of the Gospel, but in something ' different 'J men will find all that is to be believed, desired, and chosen, that they may receive through Hhi eternal life." He further tells us that : — M In more than thirty passages of the Gospel of St. John we find with reference to Chbist the expressions trusting to Me, or trusting to Him, or trusting to x. The same language is employed by the other evangelists, and by the apostles Peter and Paul. The few passages which mention faith in connection with the gospel, or with the death and resurrection of Christ, should be understood in accordance with the many passages which speak of the faith that saves as having for its object the person of Christ." (4<£.) An examination of the gospels shows that neither John nor the other evangelists present the person of Chbist as the object cf faith apart from His work, — the benefits which He bestows, and the sufferings which He was to endure : and that these are either expressly mentioned or implied in every instance. Mr. Godwin goes further than this boldness of making the instances " few " which refer to the work of Christ, and, " many " 160 which refer to His person; he even declares that those "few passages," which in reality are most numerous, are "erroneous!" for he tells us (p. 73) that — ''if Jesus Christ be the object of Chris- tian faith, THOSE REPRESENTATIONS MUST BE ERRONEOUS which assign this place to any particular facts or propositions." And that we may know distinctly what facts or propositions he denies to be the object of our faith, the following are enumerated : — " Not the birth of Christ, not His death, nor His resurrec- tion, can be the object of this faith". " The sufficiency of His sacrifice for the pardon of sin cannot be alone [he dares not say, though he means, ' cannot be at all '] the object of this faith." "According to the sacred Scriptures, no pact or series of facts, no proposition or system of propositions, but Jesus Chhist Him- self the Son of God, is the object of faith " (p. 73). In page 41, Mr. Godwin says : — " It is not said that we are saved by trusting to the doctrine which Christ taught, or by trusting to what He has done or will do, but by trusting to Himself." " Trusting to Christ is different to trusting to the truth of any doctrine or the sufficiency of any work." HI. The Forgiveness of Sin no Forgiveness at all, but the Hecognition of the former Sinner's new Character: — for a Person that repents "cannot truly be judged to be wrong, according to the Wrong of past Actions.'" Mr. Godwin accepts Mr. Lynch's distinction between "conduct," or "action," and "character." "Conduct" may be bad; "actions" may be sinful ; and, while the agent chose to act so, he was a sinner, but is so no longer when he repents ! ( p. 116.) ""What men choose shows to themselves and others what they are. It shows what they are when [his own italics] they thus choose; but it does not certainly show what they are at another time." 1 That is, when they repent. "If there be no change of mind, the testimony given by the former conduct remains, and (in that case) men are still what their past actions indicate. But if their minds are really changed [by repentance], former conduct ceases to be evidence of present character. The action which is past is unalterable, and all true judgment re- specting it must be ever the same. But the character of the agent is not unalter- able ; and a person cannot be tkuly judged to be wrong according to the wrong of past actions if lie is so changed that what he once chose he would no longer choose." " If the character is really changed, there must be a corre- sponding change in all true judgments respecting the person " (pp. 116, 117). 161 So that a man who has been a sinner all his life has but to change in his choice, and he is accepted of God on grounds of ''strictest rectitude " — for what he now is ; the " former conduct " not being reckoned to him, since his "character" is different. Forgiveness on the part of men towards each other, — Does " not " include " forgetting the wrong, nor falsely supposing the guilty to be innocent, but by separating past conduct from present character, no longer viewing the one as the expression of the other. It may result entirely from the change which has taken place, not in those who forgive, but in those who are forgiven. In like manner, when God forgives," " His judgment of the sinner is changed, because the sinner is changed."' (123.) If Mr. Godwin were not afraid of speaking out his own con- clusion, or if he clearly understood himself, he would have said that the person so changed is no longer a sinner at all, for he adds, "He is not what he once was. The judgment of God respecting him is not according to his past conduct. He is not now estimated by what he has done or left undone. His offences are not imputed to him. They are set aside as [no longer] evidences against him, for their testimony is to what he was, not to what he is." Repentance thus clears off old scores ; he is a new creature ; and bygones are bygones ! Or, as Mr. Godwin observes, the Creator " must judge the penitent to be different to the impenitent." As to any atonement by the death of Jesus how can this be re- quired ? Besides Mr. Godwin tells us — " it is not easy to see how truth or retributive justice can be satisfied by the sufferings of the innocent for the guilty." (145.) IV. The Righteousness of Faith is the inherent Goodness of believing. Not the Saviour's Righteousness, but our own. Repentance having made a new man of the old sinner, faith now comes in, and, embracing all the goodness of repentance, confirms and completes it. It is a principle of obedience or Tightness that in desire and purpose aims at " all rightness," and deserves to get on " all right" in " condition" or future happiness, as it is " all right" in present disposition and prospective goodness. This, and nothing else, is Mr. Godwin's " righteousness of faith." It saves Christ from saving sinners, for it makes every re- deemed man accepted for his own " rightness," and " blessed with" or like Christ (p. 172), as of Abraham it is said, " His faith and the blessing which he therefore received are presented as an example for all. ' With thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed ' " 162 (p. 173). Go they who have faith in Christ " will bo at last per- fectly righteous and blessed with the Lord" (p. 172), having the same relation to the Lord as to Abraham ; namely, being imitators of the goodness of one or both of them. " In many passages of the Epistles of St. Paul" " it is stated that they -who Jiave faith are considered or counted to have righteousness. " What is the lightness or righteousness which men are judged to possess ? Is it something which they really have [yes, they ' really have ' pardon, really are accepted and adopted.] Or is it something which is simply attributed to them, which they are only supposed to have ?" " Does it belong to their conduct, their character, or their condition ? The answer to this question will partly depend on the general use in the Sacred Scriptures of the terms righteous and righteous- ness." (1G0.) Now, it is not " the general use" of the terms which is in question, but the particular use of them in reference to the point in hand. " It appears, then, to be, according to the usage of words in the Sacred Scrip- tures, that they who have faith in Christ for salvation, should be said to HAVE RIGHTEOUSNESS, BECAUSE THEY ARE REALLY RIGHT WITH GOD. He judges them to be right, and considers them to be right, and declares them to be right" — it is " a human rightness." " They must [as the very act of faith] have the purpose of following Him, and therefore the purpose to seek and to do all that is right" (p. 167). " They who had faith in Christ as the Son of God . . had the faith which is the principle of all righteousness. [This is 'the righteousness of faith,' not through faith, but faith itself is the rightness.] 'They became upright or righteous pesons. And so it is now with all who have this faith in Christ," which " faith" means " the full and deliberate deter- mination of the will to observe and obey all that is right" (168). " If by trusting to Christ it has become the real choice of their mind to seek the righteousness which He required [not which He bestows, but ' up- rightness of character,' which we are to obtain], and the righteousness which He promised [namely, that we shall be all right hereafter in k condition' in ' conse- quence' of being upright in ' character' nowj, tlienihey are declared to be righteous persons. And they are righteous. There is a rightness belonging to them, to their choice and purpose ." . . (169.) " They who have the righteousness of God are judged to be right, and ARE IN THEIR OWN CHARACTER UPRIGHT" (p. 189.) V. The Death of Christ only a model Death, as His life was only a model life. According to Professor Godwin, the death of Christ was not something unique, peculiar, and unrivalled, but a standard exhibi- tion of those common principles of obedience and submission to the Divine will which are to be repeated by all Christians, and by which they, like Him, are to be " made perfect through sufferings." 1G3 There is no place in Mr. Godwin's system for the death of Christ as an expiating sacrifice for human sins ; for " as in this faith there is the kepentance to which forgiveness is promised, and the uprightness of heart which God requires and approves" (p. 294,) there is nothing left for the death of Christ to accomplish. Christ, indeed, "sought to change the relation of men to God, but this could be effected only by a change in them.. He came to bring men into submission to the Divine will, and make them righteous" (p. 284.) 11 He went forward to death because He would "not cease to promote right, and taught his disciples to do the same, thus to take up the cross and follow Him" (p. 58.) *'■ He required of men nothing but a willingness to receive this [eternal] life : but as it consisted in a resemblance to Him, it could only be received by learning of Him and following Him" (p. GO.) " His example was a pattern of the good to be desired, and of the course to be chosen" (p. 69.) "His life was a perpetual service and perfect sacrifice" (p. 62.) " But [His life] did not receive its highest manifestation until He suffered and died on the cross." •' His lessons were not completed, nor was he a complete example lor men until he dird" (p. 63.) " Desire for what is good for ourselves is increased, and hope is strengthened, by what is shown to us of righteousness and its reward in the person of Christ " (p. 80.) This " reward" will be ours, when we display this " righteousness." He was the example of both. " There may be suffering [in our lot J as in the history of our Lord, and its design may be the good of others, its reward, the blessed- ness of those who are saved by a service of suffering" (p. 86.) " Our Lord frequently referred to the course of earthly labour and suffering which would precede the reward and joy of heaven. .. .The Faith required of men was the acceptance of the service and the reward'' (p. 155.) This is to be saved by our own cross, " saved by a service of suffer- ing." Thus we are " reconciled to God by the death of His Son," as we forgive Him and trust Him in all our sufferings, to make it up in the end ; as was done in the case of Jesus ! "The distrust of the Divine benevolence, which is always experienced when we look only to the visible and present, cannot remain when the love of God is seen in the person of ChFvIST ; when chastisement is felt to produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness ; and when it is known that afflictions, light and momentary, will work out a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory." ip. 225.) " He did not seek to make them immediately wise, happy and perfect, as they ultimately would be ; but to prepare them for that course of seeking, serving and suffering, which is the appointed ivay through which all the sons of G-oti must pass, that they in due time may come to the glory of their Lord. (p. 250.) Thus we, like Him, are to be "made perfect through suffering." " Men have learned from Christ the VMS of suffering, us they were not known before; and thus they have been enabled to trust in God and to rejoice in afflictions, as they could not before." (305.) 164 This is " reconciliatioD to God by the death of His Son," as we see in Christ's death and reward a pledge of the recompense of our patient, trustful, endurance of afflictions; " the best service, even o the perfect, is seen in the service of suffering. Those things have been made evident by the history of Christ and the experience of His disciples." (305.) Their only value to us is as leaders, models, or historical examples ! When we have Christ's faith and submission to God's afflictive discipline, we shall have Christ's reward: — "The Saviour saw all the difficulties, dangers, and distresses of man's state in this world : He was not overcome by this great grief, for he trusted in God, and therefore had what He promised to His disciples [on the same terms], a peace and joy which the world could neither give nor take away. As men learn from Him, and have His faith, they look to God as the chief good ; . . . and they have a joy like that of Christ." (p. 290.) Their faith is rewarded as His was. "He suffered for us that we might learn from Him how to suffer, sub- mitting ourselves to the will of God." (306.) That is, His suffering "for us," was in being our pattern, not our substitute ; that " we may make our lives sublime," as He made His ; " the lives of great men all remind us' ' — of the same thing ! "He went before them in the service [of suffering] which they feared. His own experience and example supplied what loas needed by His disciples." (307.) " He has shown us how the children of God should die." (317.) '• They learn from His example to irust in God" in affliction, danger, and death ; — that " death is a service appointed for their good, and that of others." (316.) " We see in His death [as a specimen] that submission to the Divine Will is right, [i.e., advantageous] whatever sacrifice and suffering ib may involve. We see that it is for the honour of God, the giver of life and all its joys, that those gifts, when required should be returned, not reluctantly but willingly." (p. 315.) This willing submission and surrender of life was the pattern set us in Jesus. ' He was made perfect through suffering,' and ' submission to the Divine Will should be perfected in men, by the sufferings and surrender of death.' " " It is then [when so surrendered] a service profitable to man and pleasing to God, just in proportion to the greatness of the loss [as if a man is young or rich] and the suffering which are included in it." (p. 315.) It is by this proportion that Mr. Godwin exalts the loss and sacrifice of Jesus ; He was in a fair position, and had a very pro- mising life before Him, which He was under no necessity of surrendering ! " In all the services and sacrifices of life, there is actually but a partial surrender of what we have to God ; but in death all we are and have must be resigned." (p. 312.) 165 He admits that where men die from necessity, because they cannot help it, or with insensibility, not caring about it ; or where they accept it as a release from present evils, it is not " a service." " In such cases there can be no submission to the Divine will, no confidence in the love of God. It is not thus that we should wish to die (!). It was not thus that Christ died." " Death had long been to Him an object of clear apprehension. [He was not insensible.] He might have avoided it [it was not a necessity] ; and when He gave up life, all the possibilities of earthly good were present, and might have been realised. [He means Christ did not seek death as a refuge from ills ] : He had everything to render the CONTINUANCE OF LIFE PLEASANT AND DESIRABLE " (p. 312). Yes, He had many such friends around Him, as sometimes now advocate His cause. Mr. Godwin here exalts the sacrifice of Christ by the " sacrifice" He made in giving up very good earthly prospects, which style keeps up the old word — sacrifice — in a new meaning. Thus I make a " sacrifice " in losing friendships, position, and income, for speaking the truth ; in like manner we exalt the heroism of a young man who faces death with confidence when a life of pleasure lies open to him ! It is impossible more deeply to degrade the holiest character and the sublimest theme ; — the death of Jesus was a surrender more pleasing to God in " proportion" to His losses in losing such a life and prospect as He enjoyed here ! YI. As THE DEATH OF CHRIST WAS ONLY A MODEL DEATH, SO HlS FAITH IN God was a model faith. — We are saved as He was, if we believe in God as He did, and if in proof of this faith, we ourselves submit in the surrender, service, and sacrifice of death, as He did. The re-iterated declarations that we are to believe in Christ Him- self and not in His work, come at last to mean that we are to believe like Christ and in our own work ; specially that we are to render the greatest service and honour to God, — namely that of DYING WILLINGLY. Christ is " the Way" not as doing anything for us that we have not to do, but as Columbus is to all men "the way" to America, though all who intend to arrive there must take a berth and pay their own way or work their passage ! So He died for us, to show us how it should be done, not to do anything for us, as in our stead ! We are also saved by His life, as it becomes our life as our " experience" approaches His. This is hinted on pages 171, 172, and is a specimen of "the spirit of truth" which pervades the writer. In the sliding scale of meanings, the " faith in Jesus" — trusting Christ as a Person, in opposition to or exclusion of His work — 1GG comes to be the faith of Jesus — " His faith" — the confidence which He had in God, and which we are to have ; faith in the Saviour meaning no more than accepting His example of confidence in God. " They learn from His example [of dying] to tbust in God ;" that, like other trials, death " too is a service appointed for their good and that of others'' — a service in which they, like Him, give " the highest expression of submission to their Father's will and trust in their Father's love" — a service of submission and trust which is "the means of perfecting them in the likeness of their Lord" (p, 31G.) This likeness of Christ consists in " having His faith" and submission to the Divine will. " They who seek to follow Christ in the course of life are enabled to follow Him in the day of death" (p. 317.) That is, to display in dying the same faith in God as Christ did when He died. This is the faith in Jesus, and all the faith which Mr. Godwin means, as we "go forward to death, walking in the footsteps of our Lord" (p. 316.) All those passages which we have quoted to show that Christ's merely model death teaches us how to trust in God, to submit to His will in the allotment of afflictions as the prelude to glory" ; and all the many similar passages in the work which we have noted but not quoted, converge towards this same fact, that by faith in Jesus, trusting to His person, Mr. Godwin means merely accepting Jesus as an example in the matter of faith — entertaining the same confidence as He did, submitting to God's afflictive dispensations, that as in His sufferings "there was no i:ipatience or discontent" (p. 314), so there should be none in ours. As He was so far " reconciled to God" as to endure willingly the regularly appointed path of suffering, so His imitators have " the clearer consciousness that they are really reconciled to God, reconciled by the death of Christ, as they are thereby con- strained and enabled to surrender themselves entirely to the Divine will" (pp. 293, 294). This is our reconciliation to God, by faith in the death of Jesus, as the sort of death which we are to die, believing, as He did, that God will " reward" our " goodness," the "righteousness of" our "faith," because it is the same as the " righteousness of Christ," which God has rewarded already as a representative case — " the first-born among many brethren." That by faith in Jesus Mr. Godwin means only imitating the faith of Jesus is further illustrated in this sentence : — " As men have faith in Christ they will view all objects as they were viewed by Him, in connection with God and eternity, and so they will feel in reference to them as lie felt" (p. 303). Faith in Jesus here means enter- taining the same opinions and sentiments ; it is the faith of Jesus — that which He exercised. This view is completed by the follow- ing statement : — 167 He trusted in God fin the face of afflictions belonging to man's state on earth], and therefore had [as the reward of His trust] what He promised to His disciples [on the same terms and for the same trust], a peace and joy which the world could neither give nor take away. As men learn of Him and hate His faith, thev 1' ok to God as the chief good, and they have a joy like that of Christ" (p. 290). This is because they have a faith like that of Christ — not faith in Him, but a faith like His ; the " faith in Him" being only a philo- sophical quibble to intimate that His was a kepresentative case ; it means believing in the way that saved Him as the way that will save us. And Mr. Godwin lets out this fundamental fallacy or equivocation by the phrase which confesses the whole — " as men learn of Him and have His faith." Henceforth let no man be deceived by "the cunning craftiness" of heterodox teachers using orthodox language ; when they say " We also believe in Christ," they mean we believe as Christ believed ; we have " His faith" in God's justice, that He will reward our righteousness and submission; we are reconciled to Him, and no more " murmur" at those afflictions on the road, which the case of Jesus proves will be rewarded in the end, if we suffer as resignedly as Jesus did ! VII. The natuke of Christ and of His condescension, not to earth, but on earth, as living in poverty when he might have been a millionaire. "The Divinity which was manifested through the human nature of Jesus existed before all worlds," and it was " the Word of God," or the "Name of God," which " Word of God became human" in Jesus (p. 71), was "manifested through His human nature" (page 72), and was formerly revealed in the manifold opera- tions of nature and humanity. God did not, according to Mr. Godwin, send His Son into the world, but, as he says adroitly, "to the world' (p. 72). Nor is Jesus the object of our faith, but God, who " must be the object of faith in respect to the manifestation given in the person of His Son." Not only was not Christ sent "into" the world, but only "to the world" like the other messengers ; — but further it seems very clear, according to Mr. Godwin, that Jesus could not be sent into the world, for He never existed before ; at least, there is no proof of it in such- passages as are usually relied upon. 168 iTor instance, we read : — " Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was eich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through His poverty, might be rich" (2 Cor. viii. 9). 11 Who, being in the form of God," "took upon Himself the form of a servant" (Philipp. ii. 6). But all this is explained away by Mr. Godwin in the following Rationalistic style (p. 56) : — ' All the wealth of the wokld was at His command ; but though thus rich, He became poor ; He chose the condition of poverty, that He might be more useful ; that men through His poverty might be made rich. He had dominion over the ] ersons of men, and the elements of nature, all things being committed to His hands. But this power was employed only in doing good to men. The Lord of all took the form of a servant, coming not to be ministered to, but to minister.' ' He who had all the possessions of earth at His disposal, gave up all for the good of men. He who was above all in dignity and authority, des- cended to the lowest state and service for the good of men. In the love of Christ there is a breadth and length, a height and depth, which surpass knowledge." Mr. Godwin may well fly off in ecstacies on the love of Jesus ; this is the best escape from the unfathomable depths of his criti- cism upon it, in which he has managed to bring " the Lord of all" down to a very poor condition indeed : the only other question is, how we are to get rich by such sort of poverty ? It was no wealth of heaven, but " the wealth of this world," " the possessions of earth," which the Saviour is here said to have given up ; only, unfortunately, He never had them, according to Mr. Godwin's account. He was " thus rich," — that He could have been, if He had been able and disposed to prostrate His miraculous powers for His personal aggrandisement, which is generally sup- posed to be a stretch beyond the power of any agent in such a case ; for the miracles are to be wrought in furtherance of the mission, and therefore no messengers, as such, ever had the power to work miracles contrary to the object of their mission ; consequently in no view of the case can our Lord be said to have had " the posses- sions of the world at His command, all the wealth of the world at His disposal," to make provision for the lusts of the flesh. This fancied abstemiousness on His part from doing an act or a series of acts which would have frustrated the purpose for which He was " sent to the world," is but a case of common honesty, in not doing what He had as a messenger no right to do. He " was voluntarily poor" (p. 305). But how we get rich, because He never was rich, and thus " became poor" from having nothing, is still a puzzle. Are our riches to be of the same sort as those which He omitted to seize unfaithfully ? Is any Christian in the world a penny the richer 169 because Christ had not a shilling in His pocket ; and because Christ had " not where to lay His head," do His followers " live in kings' houses ?" This miserable sophistry makes Christ poor indeed, for He has nothing to give away but the example of not committing robbery to get rich, a thing that would never be noticed in a society of honest men ; but this is the richest crown which Mr. Godwin can afford for the Saviour. Those hollow words, " the Lord of all," " above all in dignity," mean only One Who could have been rich if He could have forgotten His plainest duty, and prostituted Divine powers for human wealth and pomp ! This phrase, " Lord of all," is no more than is ascribed to Alexander Selkirk : — "I am monarch of all I survey." This is the reed sceptre and purple robe with which Mr Godwin mocks and bedizens the Saviour of the world. Yet we are assured that it is in Him Himself that we are to believe, not in the riches of His grace, not in His precious blood, not in the royalty of heaven which He left for a time, to enrich us with the purchase of His con- descension and death, but in One Whose wealth was never possessed, Who never was a rick Man, but only could have been if He had not been an honest One ; and who, by a life of poverty, left the world so much richer than it would have been if He had used His miraculou? power to turn stones into bread or dross into gold. This is turning gold into dross, disenchanting the name of Jesus of all its power, that we, no longer having " propositions" to trust to, may trust to a " Person" WTiose highest benefit to us is that He lived very poor when He might have been very well o:T. No, this is not the person in whom we trust. We look to One for Whom the highest station on earth would have been but as the cell of a prison ; to Whom the greatest possessions of earth would have been infinitely puerile and mean, and Who will bestow on all who rely on His cross a crown of glory before which all the crowns of the world and all its rarest gems are toys and baubles. It is no compensation for this debasement of Jesus to tell us that the " eternal Word was manifested through His human nature," — " became human" in Him (pp. 71, 72) ; and that Jesus, like every other creature, is " a form of the operation and manifestation of God." These are idle words, to fill men's ears with sounds and their hearts with disappointment, — the apples of Sodom, tempting to the eyes, bitter to the taste, and fatal to the health of the soul. G 170 Such is the theology defended by " some of our most esteemed ministers," who, knowing these things, are only angry at me for proving them ; and treat it as Mr. Lynch's " blasphemy against the Holy Ghost' ' to explode and condemn the following monstrous errors : — That Christian faith is blind trust, and has no reference to the work of Christ ; that the object of faith is not the death of Jesus, or any proposition about Him, but only trusting Himself in the abstract ; that this "trust in Jesus Christ Himself," or faith in Him, means a faith like that of Jesus ; — "His faith," which means ours; that repentance clears off all sins as a matter of justice ; that faith is inherent, all-sufficient righteousness, without regard to or reliance on the righteousness of another ; that the Epistles are of no authority where they seem to go beyond the four Gospels ; that the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of Goodness ; the Spirit of Truth, a truthful disposition ; that the church is the Holy Ghost to convert the world ; that the death of Jesus is no more than any other man's may be and ought to be, — only a model sacrifice for our imitation ; that the Eternal Word is in everything, as " a personal presence," (p. 329) ; and was equally "present in Jesus." It is time our colleges and pulpits were purged from this fatal taint and spiritual leprosy ; and if these reviews shall in any way contribute to awaken the watchmen of Zion, and put the Church on its guard ; — if they shall arm the enquirer against the insidious attacks of a latent scepticism, and preserve untarnished the honour of Christ and the glory of His cross : — if any are hereby aided in their efforts to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints ; — if, through our instrumentality, God shall mercifully open the eyes of any who may have been blinded, and enable them to rescue others ; — if the understanding of the artifices and sophistry here exposed shall increase the number of those "having their senses exercised to discern both good and evil," we shall be able to rejoice with the Apostle Paul, tlrat " the things which have happened," and which at first seemed injurious, " have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel ; " that " as always, so also now, CHRIST SHALL BE MAGNIFIED." 171 Chapter XYL THE COMMOTION IN THE PATRIOT OFFICE, AND A COUNCIL OF WAR TO PUT DOWN CRITICISM; OR THE REVENGE FOR THE RESCUE OF FAITH. The strictures on Professor Godwin's work, called " Christian Faith," — called so by that sarcastic peculiarity of language which calls those who have the narrowest creed "Broad Churchmen;" those who resent earnest orthodoxy, "Liberal Christians;" those who are the most exclusive, " Catholics ;" those who are the greatest slaves, " Independents ;" and those who have no reason, " Ration- alists," — caused no small stir among the more affected intellectualists of " our body," who had stood as cherubim with flaming swords before the throne of Godwin. Not that they all openly espoused his sentiments, but that they liked the honour of maintaining "a little latitude," and reserved to themselves the right of genteelly rebuking his departure from the faith, which at the same time they condoned on the ground of that spiritual goodness which transcends dogmas, and is upon the whole a respectable affair. But now that an obscure provincial, and what is worse, one who had in the " Rivulet controversy" rudely torn the delicate screen of pretended generosity and justice with which they had vainly sought to cover and adorn then lack of both, — that this one should presume to expound fearlessly the errors which they had gently corrected and were tenderly caressing, was such as invasion of their Metropolitan jurisdiction as must be sum- marily put down. So in their collective wisdom they concocted an article, which, no one of them could be accused of writing, because several of them had a hand in it. • At the time that this was completed the Rev. J. B. Paton, M.A., then of Cavendish College, Manchester, in connection with the Rev. Dr. Parker, and now of Nottingham Theological Institute, entered the Patriot Office, and was shown the " article" that had been done on me. The figure by which it was introduced was so maggotty that it made him feel bad, and he assumed the liberty of a character in Shakespere, — " Nay, but if your metaphor" is odori- ferous, " I will hold my nose." He protested to the editor so- called, but slanderously called, by one whom some think a very good judge — "a nose of w T ax," thumbed and twisted to any shapo by the Metropolitan clique of liberal theologians — that if such an article did appear he should be obliged to throw up the Patriot, meaning that if he could by an effort swallow so nauseous a dose g 2 172 he conld not undertake to retain it. This modified if it did not mollify the " wax," and that particular figure was abandoned ; after which an effort was made to concoct an article that should be equally venomous but not quite so nasty. This information of Mr. Paton's visit to the Patriot office, and his successful protest against the first form of liberal revenge on orthodox criticism, I had from a safe source, described at the time as " a carrier pigeon from Manchester." The combination of minds in doing up the final article was acknowledged by the editor in a letter to the Rev. Arthur Mursell, who, with a frankness and courage natural to him, publicly protested against the raving insanity of the Patriot howl, even in its latest and gentlest modulation. Having stated these " dry facts," as Mr. Binney would express it, I may without the least exaggeration, or over-stepping the modesty of nature and verisimilitude, draw upon imagination for the method by which the amended article was licked into shape and fitted to come out for the edification of the Christian public. A council of war must be held in this crisis of affairs : that something must be done was manifest ; that the originally proposed missile was more dangerous to themselves than to the object of their conspiracy was sorrowfully conceded. The editor was in a fix ; the orders and arrangements were, that the condemned shell should be fired. What was he to do ? Nothing was easier than to let his more cautious adviser meet with the unfortunate concoctors and point out the danger of their intended operations. They would be dropping in soon to revise the proofs, and see if any more vigour could be infused into the new " Protest." The adviser agrees to call again at the time when some of " the immortal Fifteen" — the original protestors — would most likely have assembled. On his return he finds, say, Messrs. Binney, Allon, Newman Hall, Baldwin Brown, &c, assembled to "see the thing through." " How is this, Mr. Paton ? You have induced Mr. Turbervtlle to violate his promise ? It was 'the general understanding' that the article should go in as it was, and you have frightened him out of his propriety !" "No, Mr. Binney; I tried to frighten him into propriety, for no critical nose could stand that maggotty illustration. You will all be blown upon — fly-blown, I mean." " ^Ve did not think you were so very delicate, Mr. Paton ; besides, have you considered who it is on whom we wish to do summary justice ?" 173 " Tliat is the very point which you should consider. In trying to snuff him out you may only burn your fingers. He will proclaim it as an acknowledgment that he cannot be answered, and therefore is abused." " I take it that we do not wish to answer him," said poor Tuebeeyllle ; "the point is, that none of us defends Godwin's theology: our stand is on the amenities of controversy." " Do you reckon that article a specimen ?" inquired Mr. Paton, with his winning smile. "You know what you said about 'the Protest,' Mr. Binney — that ' the whole thing was an error ?' " "True; but I changed the subject, and came down on Dr. Campbell's ' moral character' for republishing the articles which detected the error and forced the confession." " It is not a good augury," said Mr. Paton ; " you first shifted your ground, and next could not maintain your new position, for it was irrelevent, and it was another ' error.' " Mr. Binney, who is the leading mind among the Protestors, knowing well that Mr. Paton is the cleverest fellow and best manager present, quietly resolves to cave in, saying, — u Well, we must make the best of the situation. Let two of the brethren retire and revise the article, and read the whole thing to us in an amended form." After some botching, blotching and tinkeriDg, the two brethren returned and gave the amended article to Mr. Tubberytlle, who read as follows, and inserted the same in the Patriot of October 23, 1862 :— THEOLOGICAL CONTEOYEESY. Theological controversy has obtained a bad pre-eminence. Let a man but depart from accepted theological doctrine, and no matter how excellent his personal character may be, or bow impersonal and modest his assertions, be is generally assailed with every offensive missile tbat the vocabulary of abuse or the genius of insinuation can furnish. Instead of a regretful judicial necessity devolved upon grave Christian brethren, an eager, exulting mob madly rushes into the fray, and only clamours are heard, where the voice of the judgment-seat should be calmly pronounced. Instead of a defence of truth in the spirit of truth, hundreds of tongues and pens are loosed utterly destitute of qualification— either of theological knowledge or of high Christian rectitude. Nothing has been more disgraceful than the theological controversies of late years Men with un- scrupulous pens, thinking any weapon lawful that might damage an antagonist, defending truth in the essential spirit of falsehood, have professed to " rescue faith'' by methods tbat might well make all honest men infidels, — " orthodox liars for God," they think themselves right, and are thought right by others simply because they may be on the right side. Nothing so damages a cause, however good in itself, as bad advocacy, and nothing so damages a Christian g3 174 cause as an unchristian spirit. It is of more importance that a man should himself be true than even that he should utter true things. In the one case he is sincerely mistaken, in the other he is consciously false. At this stage the enquiry was made — whether the Patriot was writing this against itself, or against anybody else ? Whether it was intended as an illustration of the " bad pre-eminence " " obtained by theological controversy ? " Mr. Newman Hall replied that it was plainly pointed at the author of the " Eescue of Faith." " True, 5 ' said the objector, " but is it to illustrate the only ivay in which his criticism can be evaded ? " Mr. Paton was afraid that Mr. Grant would ask " if the Orthodox are liars for God, — whom do the heterodox lie for ? " It was decided however, that Mr. Grant would not be permitted to answer in the Patriot, and it would only be necessary to persuade its readers that he is unworthy of notice. " In that case," observed the persistent objector, "it would be more consistent not to notice him, and so to avoid contradicting yourselves by a palpable — ' error.' " Mr. Newman Hall thought it was a very allowable figure of speech, to say that the person whom you feel bound to notice is not worth notice. Besides, he considered that they need not be very particular how they treated such a person as I was. So that the reading was continued : — The effects produced by such self- constituted champions of orthodoxy are simply these — first, that many earnest lovers of truth shrink from a lawful warfare with error lest they should be confounded with these unworthy assailants of it ; next, that all healthy moral sympathy passes over from the side of truth, where it would otherwise be found, to the side of error. Instead of a just judicial retribu- tion, which all men would approve, the errorist is made a martyr, and the injustice and excess of what he suffers makes all men pity him ; and we all know how excessive pity for a criminal diminishes the sense of his crime. Hence, too, it is that outside the religious world sympathies are alioays arrayed on the side of heretics ; of course this is always and with characteristic charity put down to the badness of the human heart, but may it not spring in part from its vert goodness — may it not be the effect of the uniform want of judicial fairness and of Christian forbearance that characterizes theological controversies? If one thing be more certain than another, it is that the " wrath of man cannot work the righteousness of God," and that the cause of truth is far more discredited in the world by its unscrupulous Jriends than by its avowed enemies. How many a man whom fairness and brotherly kindness would have reclaimed from incipient error, has been goaded into its maturity by unscrupulous argument and abuse. The universal moral sense of mankind must revolt at the arguments and insinua- tions which are not only thought right by the wretched men who use them, but which, — alas, that we should have it to say ! are endorsed and applauded by honourable men who look on, and who permit their fear of heterodoxy to over- power their sense of righteousness, and who wink hard at almost any means that may secure the end that they desire. 175 For ourselves we are resolved that, come what may, incur what suspicions w« may, we will never, without an earnest protest, permit a holy cause to he main- tained by unholy weapons ; we will denounce unscrupulous auvocacy of truth as loudly as unscrupulous assaults upon it ; and we earnestly call upon all high- minded men in our churches to join us in this — to be strong enough in faith and righteous enough in feeling to roprobate with all the strength of their Christian conscience every writer who is either unfair in argument or vindictive in feeling. If they would but be persuaded of it, they would by so doing promote the interests of orthodoxy a hundredfold ; they would exalt and honour it, instead of discredit- ing it, as it is now too often discredited. Our own criticism of Professor Godwin's Congregational Lectures was, we believe, the first that appeared ; and we did not hesitate fully and uncompromis- ingly to express our opinion of it, and we trust, with a scrupulous regard to Christian righteousness and charity, our dissent from many of its positions ; and if, as seems probable, the controversy which it has occasioned should be maintained, we shall not hesitate in the same spirit to take our part in it again. And, therefore, although it is a trick common enough to confound objection to an advocate with objection to a cause, we do not fear being misunderstood by our readers when we seek to relieve our souls by expressing in the strongest language of which we are capable, our unutterable dislike and disgust at such criticisms as Mr. Brewin Grant has thought proper to indulge in. We speak in deliberate xvords when we say that a more arrogant, vulgar, and unchristian diatribe has never fallen into our hands. We are compelled to say that so far as the indi- cations of this pamphlet may be trusted, for of Mr. Grant otherwise we know nothing, he appears destitute of every intellectual faculty that can constitute a literary critic, and of every moral quality that should characterise a Christian one. Here it was observed that the article was too mild, and gave the person criticised too much credit ; for if what it said was true, the writer thus described was too highly honoured by the expenditure of so much bile. It was further asked whether there was any one there who did not " know" the writer "otherwise " than by " The Rescue of Faith ? " But it was agreed that this also was " a figure of speech," and would prevent people from thinking that they were revenging themselves for their defeat in the Rivulet affair. The objector suggested that it would only turn attention to that affair ; while all the country knew the writer from his lectures and discussions on popular infidelity. Could they not hide their motives by a less obvious crammer ? They were afraid he was at bottom a friend of the person criti- cised : whereupon he offered to retire, saying that he knew some leading men who regarded " The Rescue of Faith" as a very able production, and he should have liked to hear some direct answer to its main arguments. He was requested to stay a few moments, and was told that the next part of the article pointed out some of the writer's references to Mr. Godwin. " But," said he "does it give his grounds for them ; 176 and do you anywhere touch on the doctrinal questions which he so fully discusses ? Do you enter at all into the merits of the ques- tion ?" " Well, now," said one of the tinkerers, " there is a little lower down a reference to that, to show that it is not worth notice." " I should like," said the objector, " to see how you show that, after the lengthened notice you have elaborated." " This passage," said Mr. Turberville, " is all we think necessary on the merits of the question :" " Upon Mr. Grant's arguments and analysis we cannot spend a line ; they maybe very powerful, or they may be worthless — the language in which they are clothed, and the spirit in which they are conceived, deprive them of all claim to attention. If there are any persons who can attach to them any weight what- ever, we can only say that they are not the persons whom we care to address." At the first sentence, Mr. Paton whistled involuntarily ; at the conclusion he laughed outright. " Then" says he, " you give it up ?" The reader continued : — " Mr. Godwin, we believe, was Mr. Grant's tutor, and whatever may be his theological errors, all his students bear the strongest testimony to his spiritual goodness and personal kindness. For Mr. Grant, therefore, to be capable of writing with so much personal vindictiveness argues something extremely dis- creditable either to his College course or to his present feelings. Mr. Grant might have deemed it necessary to review Mr. Godwin's book, and to controvert its propositions ; but a right-hearted man would have felt it a ' burden of the Lord,' and would have done it with respectful diffidence and with reluctant sor- row. He has done it with gloating eagerness and a malignant fierceness which would have been unseemly in any Christian brother, but which, coming from an old student, is an indication of a nature as incapable of gratitude and delicacy as of courtesy and charity." The same objector here asked them if they had read " the Intro- duction" to the " The Kescue of Faith," and if so, whether they did not know that their " gloating eagerness" and absence of the " burden of the Lord" were absolutely untrue ? He further affirmed that the Eescuer's delay and indifference, the urgency of others, who brought the matter before him, requesting him to review " Christian Faith," the renewed application to recall his attention, the suppo- sition that his notice of the preface would suffice — matters that are published, and to which there are witnesses, — were too glaring to be ignored. As to a "burden of the Lord," the published statements of the sorrowful necessity laid on the writer to expose errors which at first he never expected to meet with, stamp the Patriot article with a very ugly word. " Have you read," he asked, "this sentence on the first page : — ' The character of the volume unfolded lecture by lecture ; the reviewer was amazed and pained at every discovery of 177 some new error,' &c. Or this, on the second page : — ' It is because the gospel of Christ is our only resource in life, and death, and for eternity ; because this is not only our own and only help in our need, but our only means of helping others, by proclaiming pardon through His cross,' &c. ; and, ' for all these reasons the reviewer has been impelled to follow out this subject, and to present it in this separate form for the consideration of the candid and enquiring.' " Is this the style which you characterize after the fashion just read ? Does it not look like bearing false witness ? Mr. Binney requested that the reading of the article should be concluded, on which Mr. Turberville read as follows : — " The Kev. J. H. Hinton has indited some ' Strictures on Mr. Godwin's lectures in a very different spirit ; we owe him an apology for placing them in such an association. He maintains what he thi7iks to be Scriptural truth against tvhat he tliinks to be Mr. Godwin's errors with the most uncompromising firm- ness and with great warmth and earnestness ; but he never violates either argu- mentative fairness or Christian courtesy. If all criticisms were imbued with the same spirit, religious controversy would not be the reproach that it too often is now. Of course they produce a corresponding effect. Mr. Godwin courteously acknowledges them, and announces his reply to them. Mr. Hinton's positions are not always ours — some of them, it appears to us, would involve very ques- tionable inferences; but, in the main, he is successful in making good his objections against Mr. Godwin, and in demonstrating how untenable and nnscriptural some of his conclusions are. We shall, however, wait for Mr. Godwin's rejoinder, most fervently praying that it may clear away some of those ambiguities and errors of his book which have most naturally and reason- ably awakened the anxieties and jealousies of his brethren and of the friends of New College:' The objector said he thought they had not quite represented the real " spirit in which" the Rescue of Faith " was conceived," and recommended to them the following sentence from its intro- duction : — " Faithfulness to the Great Head of the Church — Whose work and teachings are thus burlesqued by one whose office is to repre- sent Him rightly and to instruct others how to urge the terrors of the Lord and the mercies of our God, the wrath revealed from heaven and the mercy that delivers from the wrath to come, through Jesus Christ, — lays upon us the necessity of raising our voice again and again, that we, at least, may be freed from the blood of all men by doing our best to accomplish what Mr. Godwin says is ' the advantage of all proper punishment' — ' the prevention of the conti- nuance of wrong, or the prevention of the influence and imitation of wrong' (p. 144). " It is sad enongh to think that such a necessity is laid upon us, and that in the chief of our institutions for the education of the 178 Independent ministry, instead of the citadel of truth We should find the receptacle and stronghold of such doctrines and their emissaries !" After hearing this they were not ashamed, neither did they blush ; they only hoped that the public would never know the real nature and motive of their Patriotic criticism, and so returned every one to his own home, expecting to enjoy the next Patriot, and to hear no more of the reviewer who had so disturbed their equanimity. Chapter XVII. THE PATRIOT OFFICE BARRICADED AND FORCED : OR CALUMNY DEFERRING TO LAW. The "Immortal Fifteen," who could no more answer "The Rescue of Faith" than "What's it all About," having displayed "the uniform want of judicious fairness that characterizes their theolo- gical controversies," by the honour of their attack, next showed their sense of their incompetency to argue, by the valour of their retreat. They hastily closed and barricaded the door of the Patnot office, cowering into a corner, and directed the bewildered editor to send the following acknowledgment — "The Patriot Office, 3, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C., " October 29th, 1862. "The Editor of the Patriot respectfully declines to insert Mr. Grant's letter, which he returns to him herewith." At first, I thought the pronoun " he " referred to me as the nearest antecedent ; it is editorial English. But as to the readers of the Patriot, — how were " the Fifteen" to deal with them ? Oh ! said the editor, I " will persuade " them " and secure you." (Matt, xxviii., 14.) Everything will be right if we can but keep the critic out of the Patriot. Accordingly he inserted, Oct. 30, the following : — TO CORRESPONDENTS. " We have received a letter from the Rev. Beewin Grant, which is inadmis- sible in our columns ; first, on account of its style, which is that of the pamphlet we condemned ; secondly, because it is merely an expression of opinion upon our opinion, which can manifestly serve no purpose, and opens up a controversy to which there would be no end." The publisher and editor were at once informed that unless they allowed the same space, type, and place in the Patriot for a vindi- cation, as had been employed in maligning the author of the Rescue of Faith, they would hear again of the matter. 179 This brought the following note : — " Sir, — As we are unable to perceive any attack on your character in the article to which you allude, we shall be obliged if you will point out the sentences in which you conceive this to have been done, and they shall at once receive our best consideration. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, " Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A." John Howat, Publisher." In reply, a long friendly letter was written, pointing out some of the grosser accusations, as " orthodox liar for God," "malignant fierceness," &c, with the enquiry whether the Patriot was so accustomed to this coarseness of vituperation as to consider it a ligitimate exercise of its " courtesy and charity." The writer dis- tinctly stated that he was averse to legal proceedings, but was bound to defend his character in order to vindicate his testimony for the truth. The publisher answered as follows : — " Patriot Office, Nov. 4, 1862. 11 Dear Sir, — "We are of opinion that the article of which you complain does not exceed the limits of fair criticism upon your pamphlet, certainly it does not exceed the license which you have yourself taken. If we had done you any injustice we should have most gladly made you reparation ; but we disclaim all intention of attacking your personal character. Our remarks were entirely confined to the style and spirit of your pamphlet. We shall, however, be quite willing to insert any letter from you, vindicating gour own motives, and disavowing personal feeling, to which we will append an editorial note, disclaiming upon our part all intention (!) of imputing them, [i. e. u personal feeling "J to you. " Yours respectfully, " John Howat." It was to be a mutual disavowal. I was to say that I was not guilty of the motives attributed, and they were to say that no such motives had been attributed, since they never intended what they indited ! The publisher was therefore informed, November 5, that " his answer was unsatisfactory ; " because it placed the person maligned " on a level with his traducer." The same post conveyed a legal communication requesting space for an answer, of the same length and prominence as the attack, in order to prevent further proceedings. This was replied to by the Patriot's solicitors, November 7, to the effect — that Mr. Grant had no ground for an action, and that if such were proceeded with they were instructed to appear on behalf of the publisher. This was answered by repeating the terms on which an action could be avoided, viz. : — the insertion of an answer, and an apology from the Patriot, to which, after convenient delay, the following " characteristic" compromise was offered : — 180 " November 17, 1862. 11 We have seen the Editor on the subject of your letter of the 12th instant. We still differ from you altogether in opinion as to the article complained of con- taining anything which would enable Mr. Geant to maintain an action ; but as he seems sensitive on the subject, if it will be any satisfaction to him, and pre- vent litigation, the Editor is willing to insert in the place and type usually devoted to correspondence any temperate letter from Mr. Geant in self-vindica- tion, the savie being first submitted to the Editoe (!) and the Editor will also insert in the same paper among the leading articles a few lines of which we enclose a copy. Our reason for mentioning that any letter from Mr. Grant should be first submitted to the Editor, is, that a former letter which Mr. Grant wished to insert, was, from its tone (!) open to fair objection. Whilst we trust that the acceptance of the above offer will terminate the matter, it must be distinctly understood that we do not on our client's behalf for a moment admit any liability, and the above suggestion is only thrown out in the hope of promoting peace.''' The Patriot's solicitors were informed in reply that the proposal constituted the offenders both judge and jury — that as Mr. Grant did not have the editorial strictures on his " spirit" submitted to his revision, his letter of defence must be inserted verbatim. The following is the Patriot's capitulation, through its solici- tors, November 26, 1862 : — " The Editor feels that the nature of the reply [sent for insertion as the ultimatum of the Kev. Beewin Ghant] precludes his referring to it in the leading article in the terms which he had proposed. " He will not refuse, however, inserting the reply amongst the Correspondence, but tJien he must accompany it with a short article of which we send you a copy. On hearing from you that this will satisfy Mr. Grant, both the article and the reply can be inserted." The reason which " precluded the editor from referring to Mr. Grant's letter in the terms" previously offered was, that the editor's proposed statement contained these words : — "He [Mr. Grant] conceives that our strictures contained an attack upon his personal character : but we are quite at a loss to know how they can be so construed, and we certainly had no intention of imputing personal motives to Mr. Grant." This is abandoned as too bare- faced. Even the editor of the Patriot could not insert such a statement in the same paper with the vindicatory letter, which exposed so clearly the hypocrisy of disavowing what is so unblush- ingly perpetrated. The offer of the solicitors on behalf of the Patriot, to insert Mr. Grant's reply in its entirety, if that would "satisfy Mr. Grant," was accepted, on the ground that his only object was to justify his moral character against the accusations of the Patriot. But it was required that a proof of Mr. Grant's letter should be for- 181 warded to him for correction ; also a proof of the proposed remarks of the editor for inspection and comparison with the original promise. The second editorial explanation, as sent by the Patriot's soli- citors, was as follows : — The Rev. Brewin Grant insists on his right to reply to the article in which •we recently [above a month before] criticised his Pamphlet, entitled "The Bescue of Faith ;" we have from the first declared our readiness to insert any temperate rejoinder, [this was another pure fabrication] but we were obliged to refuse insertion of one letter which he addressed to us, for reasons we have already stated; and we should have been quite justified in objecting to the letter which appears in our columns to-day upon similar grounds, but we prefer to admit it, rather than leave any pretence for saying that we have treated him unfairly. We are quite content to leave the matter as between Mr. Grant and ourselves to the good sense of our readers, contenting ourselves by repeating, in reply to Mr. Grant's insinuating to the contrary, that " of Mr. Grant personally we know nothing," and that we had neither the ability nor the wish to do more than criticise the spirit and style of the publication he had submitted to the attention of the religious community. Here the editor does not scruple to affirm that he "prefers to admit " the answer " rather than leave any pretence" for saying that he had treated me " unfairly." He knew that his only eeason was to avoid an action for libel. When he " contents himself with repeating " " that of Mr. Grant personally we know nothing," he does not " repeat " but only alters the statement which he and the writers of the article knew to he false, namely, — " of Mr. Grant otherwise [than by the ' Rescue of Faith'] we know nothing." That first falsehood was written to hide the animus of the libel ; this second was to evade the first. In consequence of the representations of some that one of the protesters the Rev. Baldwin Brown, B.A., was the author of this libel, I — while believing him incapable of its malignity — told him what I had heard. In his reply, which seemed frank, that fatal phrase "of Mr. Grant otherwise we know nothing," was adroitly employed to show that he could not be the author of the article. At the time when he wrote me this demonstration I was not aware for certain that several hands were actually employed in it. But I now believe that the sentence in question was inserted for two weighty reasons : — first, that the article might not seem to be a revenge for the " Rivulet " defeat, which — like many another crime — was proved by the too eager and early denial ; and secondly, that each writer in turn might escape the charge of writing it, because the sentence in question would be a falsehood in any one of their mouths. Hence Mr. Brown wrote : — 182 " London, Nov. 17th. " My dear Sir, — I read the article in the Patriot when it appeared. The writer states that he ' knows nothing of Mr. Brewin Grant,' or something to that effect. As I have known you well for twenty years, your previous question is substantially whether I am capable of writing and publishing a deliberate lie. I hope that I never by public or by private report laid myself open to that question; " And am, yours truly, " J. BALDWIN BKOWN." It was not till afterwards that I learned the " whole trick." Each writer joining in the concoction of the article could say the same as Mr. Brown says ; and so could the writer of the fatal sentence, whether Binxey, Hall, Brown or Allon. The editor knew that it would be false even from his pen ; and if they fetched some lad out of the printing office to write that line, the editor adopted it, and made it his own ; hence, seeing the inevitable word for it, he told " another," and altered it into — " of Mr. Grant personally we know nothing," which I am happy to say is true, though not written truthfully. At last the " proprietors " step in, and make the editor omit all reference to the tell-tale untruth, "of Mr. Grant otherwise we know nothing;" he is not even allowed to change " otherwise" into " per- sonally," but is forced to pass it by in silent humility, after having boggled at it with a fatal prevarication. Hence the concluding letter from the Patriot's solicitors to mine : — " London, December 2. " Dear Sir, — "We now send the proofs [of Mr. Grant's vindicatory letter, and of a new Editorial article, instead of the one of which a copy had been sent before.] A slight alteration will be found in the Editor's article, but this the proprietors insist on. We shall be glad to receive back the proofs by return of post, that they may be printed in the next paper." The solicitors sent with the above note, this slightly altered third attempt at an editorial article. " The Rev. Brewin Grant claims the right to reply to the strictures on his Pamphlet entitled the Rescue of Faith, which appeared in the Patriot several weeks ago. "We have from the first expressed our willingness to insert any temperate rejoinder from that gentleman. [Their invention overpowers their memory.] But one letter we have rejected [did reject, October 30th, without any offer to admit a " temperate rejoinder"] for reasons which we stated at the time. The letter which appears in our columns to-day we should have been qute justified [but not quite safe] in rejecting on similar grounds, and ak» because it is an attempt to desciibe us as partisans of Mr. Godwin : [which they 183 are now ashamed of being.] This [that they are partisans of Mr. Godwin] ia altogether a misrepresentation. Onr readers know that we were the first to point ont the jiischievious tendency of Mr. Godwin's views. [This was again altered into k what ice deem the mischievous tendency,' &c] We have however decided to insert Mr. Grant's letter rather than leave that gentleman any ground for complaint of unfairness : and we are quite contentto leave the whole matter to the good sense of our readers." The whole affair — conceived in a style of pharisaieal devoutness, to cover heresy ; of meekness and charity, to cover malice ; and of truth, to cover falsehood ; is consistently began with falsifying the Rescue of Faith, and pretending ignorance of the author in order to conceal an old grudge against him, and it closes consistently — with the enormous joke of the editor — that when it would have been fair to reject a reply he admitted it, in order not to seem un- fair — though he knew that he was terrified, and crouched like a culprit before the majesty of the law, because no other consideration could inspire liim with the sentiment of justice, and even this has only hardened him in rebellion against truth. Mr. Turberyille, who thus made the Patriot illustrious, and conducted it to its decease, is now the editor of the so-called English Independent, named thus because the qualities called "English" and "Independent" do net belong to it. The same spirit rules it — the same clique gloats over its "Christian righ- teousness." Just above the "terms for advertisements" in the English Independent, we read this extravagant weekly puff: — " The English Independent is registered for transmission abroad." " The combination of two such well-established Journals as the Patriot and British Standard secures for the English Independent a large and influential circulation." After this " catchpenny appeal," would it be imagined that the Patriot exercised "a malignant fierceness" in denouncing the British Standard, which was carried on with so much vigour and honesty by Dr. Campbell till the time of his decease ? Nay, "The Rescue of Faith," which was so frantically maligned in the Patriot, was composed of a series of articles that had appeared in the British Standard, to which Mr. Turbervtlle is now linked by the ceremony of a literary marriage. Yet, in his review of that " Rescue," aided by " the Fifteen," he thus condemns the organ that he now claims to have embraced : — " He (the writer of ' The Rescue of Faith ') may perhaps understand us when we say that in the world of secular literature, a great deal of it (the series of articles 184 from the British Standard) would be called blackguardism, and would be refused admission into any respectable Journal" — (Patriot, October 23, 1862.) In another part of the same article, the writers, who did not then anticipate " the combination of two such well-established journals," speak of my writing as " after the approved style of the periodical, to which he contributes." But now the name of this very British Standard, which this editor affected so loftily to scorn, has become a respectable flag to sail under ! We may however still expect the same insolence and " Christian righteousness " as a reward for defending the righteous- ness of Christ ; the same prudence in excluding answers from those who are maligned and feared ; and the same readiness to submit on compulsion, — in order not " to leave any ground for complaint of unfairness ;" the same suppression of facts to keep its readers in ignorance ; as in giving a list of pamphlets on both sides of the Irish Church question, it carefully omitted the one by a person whose position on the subject was constantly and wilfully misrepresented in the English Independent, although his published statement — " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland, " — was well known to the editor, who could not answer it, and did not wish his readers to know of it. Just as the advertisement of the title of the present work, which I sent with payment to Mr. Howat, the former Patriot and present English Independent publisher, was returned without a word of explanation. It is only by hoodwinking their readers that such papers maintain even the ricketty condition which precedes "combination." May it not be regarded as the completion of the reward inflicted by some literary Nemesis, that the editor of the Patriot should not only be forced to admit me into his columns — as in the next chapter — to correct his boldness, but should afterwards be reduced to shelter himself under the name of the very journal — the British Standard — to whose columns my " style " was so suitable, and whose prestige is Mr. Turberville's sheet anchor ? If he had the courage, the openness, and real "Christian faith" of the late Dr. Campbell, of the British Standard, whom he attacked while living, and whose fame he would now appropriate, there would be no necessity for these exposures. 185 Chapter XVIII. WHAT I SAID WHEN I GOT INTO THE PATRIOT OFFICE. THE VINDICATORY LETTER. " The Rescue of Faith" defended against the " Patriot" Article of October 23, 1862. (This letter was, through fear of the law, admitted in the Patriot, Dec. 11, seven weeks after the libel which it answers.) To the Editor of the Patriot. Sir, — During the Congregational Meetings I called by appoint- ment en the meekest gentleman in London, [the Rev. Samuel Martin, of Westminster,] with Mr. Godwin's lecture in my hand, having previously forwarded the rough proofs of the Rescue of Faith. He said, " Mr. Grant, I do not find that bitterness in this production which has been attributed to some of your writings." He enquired if I had fairly quoted Mr. Godwin. I offered to read any passage that he asked for. When I was reading some he said, "You horrify me; if you had not read those passages I should have thought you were exaggerating." The proposition maintained in the Rescue of Faith is not, as you assume, that Mr. Godwin is not " courteous," nor that! am, but that Mr. Godwin is not evangelical. I do not find fault with him for, as you say, " but departing from accepted theological doctrine," though I am at liberty to criticise his " errors," but I may find fault with him for not departing from the College after " depart- ing from accepted theological doctrine" which he was engaged to teach. You defend his position by his " excellent personal cha- racter ; " but you point out in the next Patriot the " ambiguous morality" of clergymen who do the same ! You say, Oct. 30th, respecting the rumoured resignation of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, — " He has at length seen what all unprejudiced lookers-on have long seen — the utter incompatibility of his theology with the formulas which he has pledged himself to maintain." " His character will no longer be compromised by the equivocal morality of his position." He " will be free now to maintain whatever opinions he may hold or arrive at, and when we differ from him we shall have simply to combat the legitimate opinions of a free man, and not to condemn the ambiguous morality of an adherent of creeds which his teaching contradicts." " It is no pleasure to us to see any church torn by dissension or emasculated by heresy. We wish that we could congratulate the Church of England on Mr. 186 Maurice's example being followed by Professor Jowett and his co- essayists, and by Bishop Colenso." The "example" was mytho- logical ; these liberal and conscientious gentlemen will not escape from " the equivocal morality of their position" till Professor Godwin displays that " self-sacrificing spirit" which you recommend in vain to the clergy who are in a similar "position." But you make the " modesty of his assertions" and the "excellence of his personal character" defend his position, and you make their "posi- tion" damage and " compromise" their " character." You also turn from Mr. Godwin's " excellent personal character" to my " essential spirit of falsehood" and " malignant fierceness ! " You defend his heterodoxy by exalting his spirit, and denounce the Besctje of Faith by traducing mine. With a boasted " scrupulous regard to Christian righteousness and charity," you directly or by implication attribute to me " every offensive missile that the vocabulary of abuse and the genius of insinuation can furnish," ranking me with those who are " destitute of high Christian rectitude" — "destitute of every intellectual facility [which is a misfortune] that can constitute a literary critic, and of every moral quality [which is a sin] that should characterise a Christian one." I belong to those who use " unscrupulous argu- ment," write with "unscrupulous pens" in the "unscrupulous advocacy of truth," like one of its " unscrupulous friends" — dealing in " coarseness," "vulgarity," " clap-trap," "blackguardism," and "catchpenny appeals," with a " personal vindictiveness," " a gloating eagerness and malignant fierceness" writing in the "essential spirit of falsehood," coming " with a Rescue of Faith" to join the " Or- thodox liars for God." Suppose I am all this, it does not prove that Mr. Godwin is evangelical : suppose I am not — what are you ? Your article stated — u Of Mr. Grant otherwise [than by the Rescue of Faith] we know nothing." Why was this stated? Was the writer conscious that he would naturally be credited with some other motive for his accusations ? Had he never heard of " What's it all About?" How came he, in such ignorance of me, to refer to my " college course ;" to " believe" I was a student under Mr. Godwin, and to reason on that circumstance ? Can you account for the insertion of this sentence — " Of Mr. Grant otherwise we know nothing" ? It is significant and suspicious. If it be proved, after all, that this writer had the Rtvulet Con- troversy to " relieve his soul" of, and perhaps some more recent event, the indelible fiction of his ignorance, assumed to seem impar- 187 tial, -will form a sad mark on his forehead. There are many cir- cumstances which I have not space, if I had permission, to enter into in this ; for the present, and in the Patriot, I content myself with the leading points, and particularly with asserting that a more painstaking criticism, or one freer from every taint of ill-feeling, or dictated with a deeper desire to serve the truth of the Gospel, and defend the honour of our Saviour, was never issued from the press. Even you neither deny its positions nor controvert its arguments : * on Mr. Grant's arguments and analysis we cannot spend a line." This is a fatal omission and an honest admission. You go further, and confess that you had no legitimate purpose to serve in the way of correcting any false impressions I might have made, — saying that if there are any persons who attach any weight to what I say you do not care to address them. Then, what did you write for ? You mention Mr. Hinton's name, and heg his pardon for intro- ducing it in this connection : why did you not strike it out when you saw the impropriety ? Everybody acknowledges, and none more honestly than Mr. Godwin and his advisers and the Patriot, that Mr. Hinton's " Strictures" and the " Rescue" are not to be mentioned on the same day. Mr. Hinton calls Mr. Godwin's theology a " soul- destroying leaven," and his arguments a " trick of legerdemain ;" and you say Mr. Hinton is " courteous." It is no compliment in controversy to be praised by the other side : I should suspect it, or else myself. " The kisses of an enemy are deceitful." You treat me " in a very different spirit:" but your accusations of me are as groundless as your praise of Mr. Godwin is irrelevant. For instance — I prove that he is not orthodox ; you reply that he is " courteous :" I show that he denies the atonement ; you say that this is " blackguardism." I show that he ignores the inspiration of Paul ; you reply that he is " devout." I prove that he sets aside the Holy Spirit's personality and work ; you answer that he has " spiritual goodness." I prove that he represents our Lord's death as only a model death; you inform me that I am an "orthodox liar for God." I show the fatal danger of upholding such a professor ; you assure me that I have " a nature as incapable of gratitude and delicacy as of courtesy and charity." So to the irrelevance of accusing me, you add the peculiar "delicacy" of reproaching me for a natural calamity. Even our street ruffians now-a-days do not mock the blind. Natural incapacity is respected and pitied. But you accuse 188 me of wanting " every intellectual faculty," and reproach me for not having that " gratitude and delicacy" which you are graciously enabled to display, and which you acknowledge me to be " naturally incapable" of J This exonerates me, and implicates you, if you understood what you said, and it exposes you if you did not. _ In a correspondence, the nature of which you know, your pub- lisher said for himself and you,— " we disclaim all intention of attacking your personal character; our remarks were confined to the spirit of your pamphlet." This "spirit" of a thing is the most indefinite and imaginary object in the world ; it is the refuge of the destitute and the resort of the weak. The Patriot publisher adds : — " We, however, shall be willing to insert any letter fiom you, vindicating your own motives, and dis- avowing personal feeling ; to which we will append an editorial note disclaiming on our part all intention of imputing them [i.e. personal feeling] to you." Why should I " defend my own motives," if they are not attacked ? How can you " disclaim all intention of imputing per- sonal feeling," when you directly charge me with ''personal vindicttveness," "gloating eagerness and malignant fierceness ?" I leave these things to your own conscience. If I were in your case, which I never was, I should retract what I said, instead of saying — that I never said it, or did not mean it. The most " discreditable" part of your attack is the effort to bring all the odium which you heap on me, to injure my " church and schools:" from which you omitted the "church," so leaving the impression that you only wanted to prevent me obtaining sub- scriptions to some private enterprise. "The catch-penny appeal" for " Mr. Grant's schools" was, you know, what we call a" Chapel case." This affects only one of our churches, and that in a pecuniary point of view, but the theological and moral sentiments which you endorse and utter threaten the foundation of all our Churches,, and contradict the first principles of common honesty. Thus, defending a college professor, you say, "It is of more importance that [such] a man should himself be true [to what ?] than that he should utteb true things." This is like saying that it is of more importance that a dispenser of medicine should himself be true than that he should avoid giving strychnine instead of quinine ! Of a theological professor you say : — " Whatever, fa's theological errors may be, he [like Maurice] uniformly impresses his students with his spiritual goodness." He " but departs from accepted 189 theological doctrine," which he is engaged to teach : in this case there is no " equivocal morality :" he only gives up the Gospel and keeps his situation — that is all ! He has personal qualities of more importance than '•' uttering true things." So they say with whom " true things" must be at a discount. You — without knowing anything of me " otherwise" than by this pamphlet — accuse me of ingratitude to Mr. Godwin as my former tutor ; but if I teach him the truth which he should have taught me, do I not discharge the obligation ? "Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth ?" If it is not the truth, answer my arguments ; if it is the truth, 11 relieve your soul" by giving God thanks for enabling one — whom you acknowledge to be destitute of " eveiy intellectual faculty" — to vindicate the cross of Christ : that when men are silent — out of the mouth of babes and sucklings He hath perfected praise : ever doing the greatest works by the humblest agents, and by the things that are not, bringing to nought things that are. Yours verv truly, BREWIN GRANT. Chaper XIX. THE ATHEIST AND THE PATRIOT: The New Evangelical Alliance : or, how the Editor tried to get out of it. The Protestors having experienced Mr. Godwin's highest form of religion — " the service of suffering," in their protracted terror, and being forced at last into what " they feared," sought consolation not in a text of scripture, nor in the testimony of a good conscience, but in the testimony of an atheist, which served at once for conso- lation and retaliation. Thus the climax op dishonour was reached by the Patriot, when after agreeing by i 1 - solicitors what observations it would make on the insertion of my defensive letter, the editor, on the 11th of December, followed the vindication — which he was forced by the fear of the law to insert — with this elegant paragraph : — ' A letter now lies before us bearing the signature Atheos, and written with manifest sincerity and earnestness, in which the writer affir ms that he was con- verted from Christianity, of which he was an earnest, prayerful professor, to atheism, which, with his wife and children, he now professes, by listening to the discussion which took p'ace in Cowper- street Rooms, some years ajo,\between Mr. Bcewtn- Grant and Mr. Holyoaile.' 190 On seeing this I wrote to the editor, saying : — " Will you oblige me with the original and history of the letter which you say lay before you from ' Atheos :' will you tell me who iie is and where he lives ?" In reply Mr. Turberville sent me an alleged copy of the letter, but omitted the address, which he said " was not for publication." Now I did not want it for publication, but for investigation, and should have gone up to London and personally tested the hoax ; but Mr. Turberville knew better, and so wrote as follows :— The Patriot Office, Bolt Court, &c, Dec. 16, 1862. The editor of the Patriot complies with the Eev. Bbewin Gbant's request to be furnished with a copy of the letter of " Atheos." The name and addbess of the writer are appended to the original, but "not fob publication'." A personal interview has confirmed the impression given by the letter itself —that the writer is a sincere and earnest man. Mr. Turberville had quite a sweet season with this " earnest" saint, but would rather not permit me to enjoy the same spiritual communion. "Not for publication!" — the writer was the most modest of his sect. The fact is, the whole was a fabrication. I printed and circulated through two subsequent congregational union meetings in Sheffield and Manchester a pamphlet — " The Kev. Isaac Yaughan ; a Memorial," on the 37th page of which was stated in capitals, " I ilnew that no such man [as the alleged atheist] existed." Nor could any honest man pretend to believe the atheistic letter. I do not give this as a reason for saying that Mr. Turberville did not believe it : that proposition is proved by the fact that he knew better than to tell me where the man lived. I published at the time a declaration that it was an " impudent hoax ;" and whether it was written by an atheist belonging to the Patriot, or by some one not on the staff, " the earnest and sincere man" would — if he could have been found — have gone through the small sieve. Since Mr. Turberville is still an editor of the " acknow- ledged representative of the Congregationalists" — doing" Christian righteousness" under the friendly auspices of Messrs. Binney, Allon and Company Limited to "Fifteen" — that the world may know that an alliance of spiritual men with atheists was not first invented in the Irish Church agitation, and, that it may be known to what desperate and immoral expedients the present leaders of the age have lent themselves in defence of heresy, to put down fidelity by calumny — no matter out of what place fished up — I will give this atheist's letter, which so entranced the patriotic band; or 191 rather I will give that alleged copy of it which Mr. Turberville sent to me with his note already quoted. AN ATHEIST'S TESTIMONIAL TO THE EDITOK OF THE PATRIOT. (Copy.) November 10, 1862. To the Editor of the Patriot. Dear Sir. — As one of Bee win Grant's converts from Christianity to Secularism allow me a few brief moments. An article in the Patriot of the 23rd nit., containing criticisms upon Brewin Grant's Kescue of Faith (?) has just been read by me. The critique contains so much good sense, and is written in such an unusual spirit of fairness for a Christian journal, that I feel a pleasurable duty in acknowledging the same, as also to endorse your estimate of the firebrand known as the Kev. Brewin Grant. My first introduction to the " pious mountebank" was during the debate between him and Mr. G. J. Holyoake, in Cowper-street Eoom. I had not seen either of the disputants prior to that, to me, memorable debate, nor had I read a line of their writings. At the invitation of one of Mr. Holyoake's disciples I consented to be pre- sent during several nights' discussion. As an earnest, prayerful Christian, many years a Sunday-school scholar and teacher, a consistent member of a Christian church, seeking (!) to know the truth, I went/ree from prejudice against the teacher of heretical and un- popular truths to hear both sides of important questions. During the first evening's debate Brewin Grant, the Christian teacher, Christ's faithful servant, evinced such intense " personal vindictiveness"[ quoted from the Patriot ! ] and such "malignant fierceness" [quoted from the Patriot ! ] against his opponent, accompanied with such "gloating eagerness," [quoted from the Patriot /] to crush his opponent — facts that unmistakably indicated him to be of " a nature utterly incapable of delicacy, courtesy, or charity" — [the Patriot still !] — he showed himself to be the very " genius of insinuation" — [Patriot again] — and more than a match for any clown for ' pious ribaldry.' Having said this much, I trust that my subsequent objections to the cause he advocates may not be considered entirely as the result of my objection to the advocate. I was present every evening during the debate, and purchased the published report of it ; and the result has been a gradual growth out of and away from Christianity to atheism. I have been an atheist for six years. My wife is now an atheist, and so my children will be atheists ; my brother is now an atheist, and so tvill be his children. Of course while life lasts my earnest efforts will be for the spread of those truths which for [six] years have sustained me, and will (!) sustain me through life, and I doubt not will (!) also sustain me in death. — Yours sincerely, ATHEOS. Now first, is there any reason why a man who intended this to be published, and really believed these glorious " truths," should send his name " not for publication ?" Would this be modesty, or would it be natural " secular" prudence, as the only defence against detection ? 192 Secondly, he flatters the editor by telling him to his face that it was very unusual for a " Christian journal" like the Patriot to show " good sense" and " fairness ;" in fact he accuses Mr. Tureerville of having been for once blessed with a lucid moment, a fit of sense and honesty so remarkable and " unusual" that it did the " sincere and earnest man's" heart good, and made it his " pleasurable duty" to recognize the same. This dose of flattery — for I believe poor Mr. Turberville mistook it for a compliment, as to the unusualness of his honesty or " good sense" and " fairness" — made the subsequent courtesy towards me all the more charming. Thirdly, I do not see that the atheist adds to what the editor and his coadjutors before wrote of me, beyond the terms " fire- brand," "pious mountebank," and "Christ's faithful servant," which these writers had omitted to utter before. The other com- pliments are only repetitions. I hope I shall always deserve the last of these nicknames, " Christ's faithful servant," and then I shall never secure the approbation of atheists, as Messrs. Tureerville, Binney, Allon, and Co., did. Fourthly, the writer is extremely specific as to his want of pre- judice against Mr. Holyoake and his " unpopular truths," and as to his associations with that class : but he omitted saying in what Sunday school he taught, and of what church he had been a member. This would have given a clue, but Mr. Turberville kept the name and address — "not for publication." For "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the chil- dren of light," Fifthly, " Atheos" himself was almost afraid that even Mr. Tureerville would see the hoax of an " earnest, prayerful Christian," " a consistent member of a Christian church," giving up his Saviour because my style of advocacy was not satisfactory ! Why did not Mr. Turberville's " unusual" " Christian righteous- ness" win the wanderer back ? If the man had said that he turned against me because I was disagreeable I could have forgiven his logic and pitied his taste ; but when a " prayerful Christian" and " earnest" to boot says that he gave up his Redeemer on that account — Credat Judaius ? — Tell it to the marines, or to " the Fifteen !" " Atheos" tries to bridge over this chasm, thinking that it might make even the Patriot editor wake up, so he covers it with this odd apology : — " I trust that my subsequent objections to the cause he advocates may not be considered entirely as the result of my objection to the advocate." Which of the " Protesters" cobbled this sentence ? Whoever could imagine that his "subsequent objec- 193 tions to the cause" resulted "entirely" from his previous "objection to the advocate ?" Sixthly, he makes as great a chasm in chronological order as in logical sequence ; for he directly adds — " I have been an atheist six years." This was really "subsequent" to the Cowper-street debate, for that occurred in January, 1853, and this atheist writes in November, 1862 — ten years after the debate, " six " of which he had been an atheist, four years too late to be converted by " listening " to that discussion. Perhaps he had long ears. Yet Mr. Tureerville, in his note in the Patriot, said — "A letter now lies before us," " in which the writer affirms that he was converted from Christianity " "to Atheism," " by listening to the discussion which took place in Cowper-street," " between Mr. Brewin Grant and Mr. Holyoake." The "letter lies before us," and he could have added, truly — " we lie behind it." This is Christian journalism — to bring in an atheist or manu- facture one, in order to traduce the most useful and important labour in which popular infidelity from being rampant became silent, and to introduce this clumsy falsehood in revenue for another defence of truth, not against open but masked and consecrated infidelity ! All this was done under the very eyes of "the Fifteen" advocates of " a scrupulous regard to Christian righteousness ; " and but for Dr. Campbell's paper, the British Standard, which does not now exist, nor is there anything in its place, the only reward I should have received, would have been the "courtesy" of these liberal theologians, who at the very time, when by force of law they are doing penance for a libel, by inserting my defence, also insert this tale of conversion to infidelity, as founded on a letter of an anony- mous and impossible atheist, and whose letter, as copied by Mr. Turberville, contradicts what he asserted out of it. A parallel cannot be found in all the annals of " Christian righteousness." It is doubtless humiliating to be in any way associated with such transactions, even though but as the innocent occasion of driving these patriotic Christians into such desperate shifts, evasions, and inventions. In fact, I felt at the time half guilty of the cowardice, prevarication, submission, and revenge into which I had forced the protesting conspirators and their organ ; and if by this present time I have, in the exercise of meekness and charity, forgiven myself, I have no reason for accusing them of the like vacillation of feeling. For much as they are enamoured of Christian courtesy and charity, 194 they will not suffer these " to overpower their sense of righteous- ness," or to allure them from the life-long and impossible task of speaking the unspeakable, as they labour for methods of " express- ing in the strongest language of which they are capable, their unutter- able dislike and disgust at such criticisms as Mr. Brewin Grant has thought proper to indulge in;" and which, from the inability of the protesters and their allies to answer, provoked them to betray themselves beyond all that either law or gospel would permit. Chapter XX. WHAT IS THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION, ITS PRO- FESSED CONSTITUTION AND OBJECTS ? The name " Independents," lately almost superseded by that of " Congregationalists," as less obviously satirical, was adopted to express the disavowal of all authority external to any single society of professing Christians meeting for worship in one place. In recent times three forms of usurpation or external authority have sprung up, in the shape of " the Sister Churches," in any town and immediate neighbourhood, the wider circle of some County Asso- ciation, and the more ambitious conglomeration called the Congre- gational Union. None of these are " Courts of Appeal" : they only inflict advice, and sometimes make it as disagreeable to refuse it as to take it. According to our theory, union with the " Sister Churches" in a town, or with the Association in a County, or with the Congrega- tional Union, is purely voluntary. At present non-union with the two first is a peculiarity, and involves a bad mark and possible penalty. The Congregational Union meetings are held in May and autumn of each year. " The constitution of the Congregational Union of England and Wales" was "revised by the seventeenth annual assem- bly, May, 1847." (Year Book, 1850, p. 12.) The composition of the Union, revised as aforesaid and still in substance adhered to, is thus described : — I. — That the Union of Congregational Churches and Ministers throughout England and Wales is founded on a full recognition of their own distinctive principle, namely, the scriptural right of every separate church to maintain per- fect independence in the government and administration of its own particular affairs ; and therefore that the Union shall not, in any case, assume legislative authority, or become a court of appeal. 195 II. — That this Union shall consist of Associations of Congregational Churches and of individual churches severally adhering to the Union. The qualification of a church for membership in this Union shall be connexion with an Associa- tion ; or, where no Association is accessible, recommendation by the three ministers, already in the Union, residing nearest to the applicant church. Every Church connected with this Union shall make an annual contribution to its funds ; neglect of which, for two successive years, shall forfeit membership. The tutors of the Theological Colleges of the Independents, and the officers of their general public societies, being members of Congregational churches, also ministers and deacons in fellowship with churches eligible for connexion with the Union, may become personal members of the Union by payment of an annual subscription of not less than five shillings. The Congregational Union is in fact, as lately described to me by one of our college professors, a voluntary " five-shilling club ;" that being the price of personal membership : a church pays ten shillings; but this admits its pastor free, and one representative for every hundred church members. My own church, Cemetery-road, Sheffield, was admitted into the Congregational Union for ten shil- lings, just before the assembling of the ministers and delegates in Sheffield, in 1866. On the same occasion, and for the same price, the late Rev. Isaac Vaughan's Chukch, Rotherham, though at the time not " recognized" by the " sister churches" and the County Association, was also received into the Congregational Union. It is however but fair to note that one object was, to secure "beds" for the deputations among the families of the two respective congre- gations. Every statement of the " Constitution of the Congregational Union" declares " that the union shall not in any case assume legislative authority, or become a court of appeal." In fact it has no power constitutionally, and all exercise of power is usurpation, even if authorised by the Assembly of Pastors and Delegates, and much more so when surreptitiously assumed by the committee. The Union can decide, like any club, as to who shall be its future mem- bers, and what shall be the price of admission ; but it cannot, without the grossest imposition, pretend to prescribe the boundary of the denomination : when it pretends to this it legislates, which is contrary to its express " constitution." When it undertook the guardianship of the general list of ministers it ought to have pre- served it sacredly, and cannot without a libel publish as a sort of denominational document a list of ministers, leaving out those long on it at mere ignorant caprice or baser malice. It has no authority to exclude and depose. Of the seven " objects" of the Congregational Union the first is " to promote evangelical religion in connection with the Inde- pendent denomination." But the practice is to watch over 1% " evangelical religion," or rather to lament any departure from it in the Church of England, and to screen the departure from it among ourselves. The seventh and last " object" of this Union is " to assist in maintaining and enlarging the civil rights of Protestant Dissenters :" but the practice is to extinguish those rights in dissenting ministers, while claiming them from the State. The Congregational Union does not comprise in its membership a THIRD OF THE MINISTERS Or a TENTH OF THE CHURCHES. It IS the E.U.C. of Congregationalism, though it goes beyond that English Church Union in usurping the domination which its "constitution" repudiates. In its Year Book for 1869, " Pastors and Churches," enumerated as subscribers "to the Union " (p. 83), are a hundred and ninety out of two thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine (p. 400), English and Welsh Churches. This leaves two thousand six hundred and seventy churches not connected with the Union. Besides this number of " churches and pastors," there are six hundred and forty-eight five-shillings " personal members," of whom a hundred and fifty are laymen ; leaving four hundred and ninety ministers — besides those of the churches named — members of the Congregational Union, out of two thousand three hundred and eight " ministers and missionaries" in England and Wales (p. 400). This leaves sixteen hundred and twenty-eight ministers and mission- aries outside the Union, to six hundred and eighty in all who are members of it. Nor must it be imagined that the members are permanent, but those who desire to attend the next Union meet- ings send their annual five shillings soon enough to be enrolled as members for the occasion, and to secure board and lodgings gratis during ike sittings of the Assembly. This is enough respecting the constitution and composition of the Union, to enable the reader to understand its proceedings in the matters to be referred to. " The Year Book," containing statistics of the denomination, as well as the minutes of the Congregational Union, is "prepared" " under the direction " of " the Committee of the Congregational Union ;" and besides a list of the members of that body, and lists of local associations, as well as ministers in the districts of these associations but not members of the local unions, it contains an alphabetical list of " accredited congregational ministers" in Eng- land, Wales, Scotland, &c. There are certain prescribed and customary methods by which names are put upon this general list, whicljjs arranged in alphabetical order, and is not affected by the 197 locality in which the ministers thus recorded reside. There is no rule by which the Union can remove ministers from this list. To remove a name from this list would be to degrade the person from status of an " accredited congregational minister," and is the same in effect or intention and tendency as depriving a clergyman of holy orders. It is true that any churches might choose or cling to such minister, but if at the time of his " professional decapitation " he should be " without pastoral charge," it would go hard with him in attempting to secure " a settlement," especially as the officials who may perform the act would be diligent in disparaging him in order to justify themselves : and secret calumny is an arrow that flieth in darkness, and cannot well be guarded against. If any should aid the excommunicated pastor they would be a mark for the same shaft, but this is a danger to which few Independents expose themselves. I know only one. Chapter XXI. THE ABSOLUTISM OF UNION OFFICIALS, AND THE POWER OF ARBITRARY MINISTERIAL DECAPITATION. Official Correspondence, 1S66. An instance of this kind of excommunication, in which I defended the victim and paid the penalty, will amaze if it does not amuse those simple souls who think that the leaders of Independency are friends of independence. The late Rev. Isaac Vaughan, of Masbro' Chapel, whose name to the end of his life was in "the West-Riding Congregational Register," and who was on the committee of the Rotherham College, had this added to some other troubles, under the combined weight of which he sunk, — that between a professor of the college, and the Year-book editor, his name was secretly erased from the list of accredited congregational ministers. Though his decease occurred soon after this, I felt that in vindication of his memory, and of the principles of our denomina- tion, some enquiry into summary private despotism was required. I first applied to the immediate officials, the editor of the Yea: Book, and the district secretaries from whom, as to new names, he should receive information ; and those new names alone are specifically regulated for. 198 To the Editor op the Congregational Tear Book. July 20th, 1866, Dear Sir, — I should be greatly obliged if you could inform me how it happened that the name of the Kev. Isaac Vaughan was removed from the list of Congregational Ministers in the last Year Book. As you are the editor, I take the liberty of enquiring from you on ivhat grounds and by whose arrangement the omission was made. I see at the beginning of the list your rules for adding names ; what I wish to learn is the authority and process of removing them. It could not be accidental, because it is too systematic. When his church at Masbro' was reported "vacant," he should have been mentioned amongst the 'removals" as a matter of course : and this I suppose the editor would have attended to, as in all other cases, if he had not received directions to the con- trary. I buried Mr. Vaughan last Fridav. Yours respectfully, BREWIN GRANT. The answer to this enquiry is a rare specimen of quietly putting a man out of the way : — Congregational Union of England and Wales, 18, South Street, Finsbury, E.C., July 30th, 1866. My dear Sir, — The authority applies equally to admission or omission. This is all I can say on the matter. As the "good man" has gone, I trust to a blessed home, it is desirable that all reference to the past should drop. Revd. B. Grant. Yours truly, Robert Ashton. To this I replied from — Blackpool, August 2nd, 1866. Dear Sir, — If a man may be "put away privily" — guillotined in the dark, by the arbitrary will of unknown persons, who employ an editor as an instrument, and who are in turn screened by his "discretionary silence" — let us hide our heads in shame and say no more about our boasted Independent principles. I am told "the authority applies equally to admission or omission," that is, as the names are added to our list, by the recommendation of a college tutor or a district secretary, or two neighbouring ministers, so any college tutor, district secretary, &c, may of their own mere motion, direct you to erase any name from the list of Congregational ministers ! The thing is incredible and monstrous. Nor do you tell where the rule is to be found. Yousay, "the 'good man' has, you trust, gone to a blessed home." I trust you meant the phrase sincerely and not contemptuously ; and if so, you are con- demned out of your own mouth in having treated him as a bad man. Pardon me if I resent the slighting and doubtful tone of "trust," in which you dismiss so estimable a man, whom you have helped to wrong. Because the " good man " has gone, " as you trust to a blessed home," you say " it is desirable that all reference to the past should drop." This is exceed- ingly inconsequential, and it could be said by any one who had helped a " good man" "home," prematurely, which I am sure his persecutors did. It should be needless to remind you that you have not answered my question, — by what rule and, at ivhose suggestion, you struck off this revered name from the list of accredited congregational ministers. You assert what is impossible 199 and contradictor}-, that " the same authority " adds or removes these names ; by which rule one tutor could add and another could remove the same name ; so it would be o?i and off at the same time. You are responsible to the entire denomination and the Christian public, not to mention higher relationships, which cannot be escaped by saying l> this is all I can say on the matter." You can say more ; and it is neither " desirable" nor possible, that " all reference to the past should drop." Yours faithfully, Brewin Grant. The Eev. Robert Ashton, Editor of the Congregational Year Book. No answer was vouchsafed to this, the editor being in his impregnable irresponsible position. The following was addressed to the Rev. F. J. Falding, D.D. — "July 29, 1866. " Dear Sir, — When I enquired why Mr. Yaughan's name was removed from the list of ministers in the Year Book, and why it does not appear in the list of " removals," though Masbro' is reported "vacant," I have been told that the district secretary makes out the lists ; so it is put down to you, as secretary of this district. I should be obliged if you would inform me as to the truth on this matter. " Yours faithfully, Brewin Grant." In answer, I received this letter — "Kotherham College, August 2, 18G6. " Dear Sir. — I will give you any information which you can require on the subject of your note if you will call on me, but I decline to enter into any corre- spondence about it. To prevent any unnecessary trouble or delay, inform me when I may expect the favour of a call, and I will be at home to see you at the time you appoint, or let you know if I cannot be. " I am, dear Sir, yours truly, " Eev. B. Grant, B.A., Sheffield." " F. J. Falding." In answer I wrote as follows — " Sheffield, August 4, 1866. " Dear Sir,— I returned home late last evening, and so was unable to acknowledge sooner the receipt of a letter in which you intimate that you have " any information which I can require on the subject of my note, but decline " to put it in writing. As the transaction to which I refer was a public act, though privately suggested, I seek only such information as can be honestly laid before the public, and such as any member of our denomination would have a right to •expect from the officials concerned. " Supposing you to be clear in the matter, I see no difficulty in the way of your disavowing all share in so grave an act of injustice and indignity. " The interview for which you give me an opportunity could answer no useful end, unless I could publish the information you can afford ; but as you seem to desire secrecy, of which there has been too much already, I decline to enter into any conversation in a matter of public justice, which may not be proclaimed on the house tops. " Yours very truly, Brewin Grant." ** The Eev. F. J. Falding, D.D." 200 The secretary of the West Riding Association, in which the Sheffield and Masbro' district is included, could afford to be explicit. He therefore wrote in reply as follows : — " Moorville, Beeston Hill, Leeds, August 8, 1866. " My dear Mr. Grant, — Yours from Blackpool reached me this morning, and according to your request I reply to it by the first post. I am only one of six persons upon whom the duty is devolved annually, by the Bev. R. Ashton, of revising the fist of West Biding ministers ; the others are the secretaries of the district. If you are so fortunate as to be a peruser of the " West Riding Congre- gational Register," for the contents of which I am directly responsible, you may find Mr. Yaughan's name in the last list of the " Congregational ministers of the West Riding," which was published only a few weeks ago. Officially I never do any- thing which I am not instructed to do by my committee, and I never received any instructions respecting Mr. Yaughan from that body. With best regards, I am, yours truly, Rev. B. Grant, B.A. JAMES HUGHES MORGAN. Before writing to the secretary of the Union, I had circulated by post " The Rev. Isaac Vaug-han, a Memorial, with Reflections on the Necessity for Independence among the People called Indepen- dents, in order to work out their Church Principles." In reply to a copy of this, I received the following emphatic testimony from the Rev. Joseph Parker, Manchester : — (The Italics or Small Capitals in this letter are not the writer's.) Old Trafford, Sept. 12th, 1866. My dear Sir. — I received yonr pamphlet, for which I beg to thank you. I have read it with deep and mingled interest, for I knew Mr. Yaughan thirteen or fourteen years ago, and respected him very highly. Of his latter life I have not known anything except what has appeared occasionally respecting his public services in the newspapers. I feel that surely you must have missed a link in your painful narrative ; it seems to me utterly impossible that for the reasons you have assigned, or rather the facts you have stated, that his name could have been omitted from the " Congregational Year Book." Are you quite sure that no link has escaped your attention ? Here and there I feel as if a point- had been kept back from you, and a knowledge of which would have altered the complexion of the whole case, Have you no reason to think that this is so ? If not, I must pronounce the case one of extraordinary and indeed of inexcusable severity. If this kind of thing is to be tolerated, then no man's name is safe ; tour name, or mine, or the name of any other brother may disappear without the slightest reason being assigned to us for its omission.* The THING REALLY OUGHT TO BE LOOKED INTO ; and IF NO SUFFICIENT REASON BE forthcoming for the omission of Mr. Yaughan's name, then men who lay any claim to self-respect ought to withdkaw their names from the list of " accredited Independent Ministers, "t and by a quiet earnest protest show that while they cannot cure an evil, yet they will do their utmost to bring it into dis- favour. I am quite anxious about the case. If anything further should turn * Dr. Paeker was a prophet here, so far as my name is concerned. +But will he or any others who " lay claim to self-respect" speak out ? Will he u withdraw" his " name ?'' 201 up to cast light upon any phase of it do let me know, for I feel that the HONOUR AND INTEGRITY OF BRITISH CONGREGATIONALISM ARE ON THEIR TRIAL. With repeated thanks for your pamphlet, and with an earnest hope that you have overlooked some important fact, I am most truly yours, JOSEPH PARKER, Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., Sheffield. Sheffield, Sept. 13th, 1866. My dear Sir, — The missing links which you require should have been supplied by the Rev. Robert Ashton, the editor of the Congregational Tear Book, or by the secretary of the district (Dr. Falding). You consider it " impossible" that, merely on account of " the facts" I have stated, " his name could have been omitted from the Congregational Year Book." You will observe that I have not attempted to give either " reasons" or " facts" to account for that erasure, but have simply inquired — of those who ought to answer — what those reasons and facts were : " on what grounds and by whose arrangement the omission was made ?" All the facts in the world — whether manufactured after the victim is dead or not — will never justify expulsion without notice or trial, any more than a police- man can hang a prisoner whether guilty or not. You have no alternative but to lift up your voice for the "integrity and honour of British Congregationalism," which you say " are on their trial." How can we utter protests against tyranny, corruption, and patronage in other sections, when these things are permitted in our own ? Be good enough to observe that all the positions I assume are independent of any view of Mr. Vaughan's character ; the process of treatment by the Year Book managers was utterly illegal, arbitrary, and tyrannical; for a man has a right even to be hung constitutionally. Therefore, no new facts would serve your turn, for the fact of the methods pursued, irrespective of the character of the person so treated, is a scandal to our denomination. But, while I thus distinguish between Mr. Yaughan's character and the real question at issue, I in no degree swerve from the assertion, that taking him for all in all, I never knew a better or worthier minister of the gospel. Yours very truly, BREWIN GRANT. I next wrote to the committee of the Congregational Union, stating the case for the consideration of the members of that body, who were in fact responsible for the introduction of this tyranny. "Sheffield, Sept. 17, 1866. "To the Eev. George Smith, D.D., Secretary of the Congre- gational Union. "My dear Sir, — I beg, through you, to call attention to a question directly affecting the Congregational Union, from whose organ — the 'Year Book for 1866' — a minister's name is purposely erased, by the editor, without any intimation having been given to the minister so excluded. "The committee repudiates responsibility for any accidental omis- sions. But this was a deliberate act, which the editor refuses to 202 explain, further than by a reference to the rules of admission, at the head of the alphabetical list of ' accredited ministers,' which rules do not refer to, nor provide for, exclusion. "This question is independent of the character of the excluded minister, now deceased, and which won for him the esteem of many friends; for his exclusion was the secret and arbitrary act of your official, directed, perhaps, by others, the scandal of which attaches to your "Year Book." To pass by this act of tyranny will be to endorse it, and the world will take know- ledge of our conduct alongside our boasted liberal and independent principles. We make it our own act and deed, as a Congregational Union, if we endorse the "Year Book," and say nothing openly and officially against that private professional decapitation of one of our ministers by the silent erasure of his name from the "accre- dited" list. "We can no more talk of our Bicentenary heroes and martyrs, if we show to the whole world that, as far as we can, we inflict all the injustice which they suffered or practically connive at it. "As I do not desire to see any conflict or confusion in our meet- ings, I am anxious to know from you, whether the committee of the Union will be prepared with any explanation of this mysterious procedure, to which any one of us may be exposed, and which it is no less necessary to have explained because the victim of it 'is gone to a blessed home.' "Yours truly, "BREWIN GRANT." The following reply was sent to me by the secretary, the Rev. George Smith, D.D. : — " Congregational Union of England and Wales, 18, South-street, Finsbury, E.C., Sept. 25, 1866. " My dear Sir, — I should have answered your note earlier, but for the fact that I was from home when it was delivered at my house, and though it followed me at some distance of time, your pamphlet [' the Rev. Isaac Yaughan : a Memorial'] did not ; the latter I have read since my return and the former I sent to Mr. Ashton, [the Union's editor of the Year Book]. I have since seen and conversed with him on the subject, and I find that he has only one rule in relation to the annual insertion of names in the Year Book. He places there only those who are returned to him [by the district secretaries]. Mr. Vaughan's name was not so returned 203 [i.e. by Dr. Falding, district secretary,] last year, and conse- quently it was omitted from the printed list. "I am sure that Mr. Ashton was not influenced in any degree by personal feeling, but simply acted on a rule which he applies alike to admission and omission. Neither his colleague [Dr. Smith] nor the committee interfere with his duty [caprice ? ] as editor, and a prefatory note in the volume distinctly declares that the com- mittee of the Union do not hold themselves responsible for any omis- sions or errors in the statistics. If any injustice has been done, or any needless sorrow inflicted, it will be deeply regretted by us all, and by none more than the editor. " I shall place your letter before the committee at their next meeting, and will convey to you any resolution or conclusion they may adopt. " I remain yours faithfully, " Rev. B. Grant, B.A." " G. SMITH. That the committee might not come to any resolution based on the erroneous ideas entertained by the colleagues and secretaries, I immediately wrote in reply, as follows : — "Sheffield, September 26, 1866. My dear Sir, — I hope the resolution of the committee, which I anxiously wait for, will not include any of the exploded excuses which from your kind mention of them seem to be all that can be suggested. " You • find that Mr. Ashton has only one rule in relation to the annual insertion of names in the Year Book. He places there only those who are returned to him. Mr. Vaughan's name was not so returned, and consequently it was omitted from the printed list.' This implies that the names are annually added anew without any reference to the fact of their appearing in the list before : so he receives some 2,500 names yearly ; and if any person fancies to omit one name out of this number he makes no enquiry, but erases the name from the ' list of accredited ministers,' and thus can publicly degrade any minister from his professional standing ! " A thing which neither law nor decency would permit. In this case he carries out the expulsion perpetrated privately by our district secretary, who permits the same name to be retained on his own college committee ! " But ' he simply acts on a rule which he applies equally to admission or omission.' But you know that the rule does not apply to both. h 2 204 "'Additions are made to this list from time to time only as ministers [that is, new ones] are accredited by the tutors of colleges, secretaries of associations,' &c. Where is your rule for omissions? The ' name not having been sent is a poor evasion the name was there before, and need not be sent'. If your ' committee does not interfere' it ought, and is guilty of what it permits. The reference to the disavowal of responsibility for ' omissions or errors' is out of place, since this was no such omission but a wilful erasion. " This ' injustice' was not done inadvertently, but on purpose. It did inflict ' needless sorrow,' and your editor did not ' regret it,' but treated it with levity as ' the good man's' fate — a marked phrase, uttered either contemptuously or insincerely, and explainable on no other ground. "The committee, I think, will not fence with so plain a case ; if they ' deeply regret the injustice,' let them frankly say so, and deliver the Union from the suspicion of being an organized tyranny sustained by organized hypocrisy, as this reference to non-existing rules would make it appear. " It is better to be plain in these matters ; and I beg you to excuse this plainness of speech, which still permits me to remain yours respectfully, "BREWIN GRANT. " The Rev. George Smith, D.D." The official reply from the Congregational Union committee to my letter, as promised by Dr. Smith, was forwarded with the following note : — " My dear Sir, — I placed our correspondence before the com- mittee of the Union to-day, and they adopted the following resolu- tion, requesting me to forward it to you. " I am, with Christian regards, " Yours faithfully, " October 2, 1866." " G. SMITH." Resolution : — " A correspondence having been read between the Rev. Brewin Grant, of Sheffield, and the secretaries of this Union, relative to the removal of the name of the late Rev. Isaac Vaughan from the list of accredited ministers in the last Year Book ; this committee, assured by Mr. Ashton that he acted in this case upon an official communication from the district secretary according to the invariable rule, must hold their editor blameless in this matter, and feel confident that nothing was further from his intention than to inflict injury, or occasion painful feeling in any quarter." 205 This "resolution" did not remove the "injustice;" it only attempted to shift the blame from " their editor " to the " district secretary." The committee did not express regret at " the injustice" committed in its own organ, nor produce the " official communica- tion," which could not be " OFFICIAL " unless the committee of the district authorized its transmission, which never happened ; and when the district secretary omitted to send the name "their editor" should have enquired the reason, and the minister himself who was thus pained "without intention" should surely have been com- municated with. Did Mr. Ashton think "the good man " had no friends ? The " invariable rule " on which it is pretended that the editor acted, is simply taking cowardly refuge in an arbitrary invention. To prepare for meeting the assembly in Sheffield it was necessary for the committee to have some public resolution ; and this was provided for by a correspondence between me and Dr. Parker, of Manchester, who, asking me what step I should take, and what resolution I could suggest, and at the same time corresponding with the secretary was at last furnished, as from the committee, with a resolution, which he had suggested and which I had amended, and which the committee had adopted and requested him to propose in the Sheffield meeting. Up to this time Dr. Parker had acted in the closest co-operation with me ; but having now been entrusted with a public position, for the expected autumnal meetings in Sheffield, he became reticent, adopted the principle, and ignored " the case," as indicated in the following chapter. Chapter XXLT. THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION MEETINGS IN SHEFFIELD, OCTOBER, 1866: SCREENING OFFICIAL TYRANNY, SILENCING DISCUSSION, AND EVADING INVESTIGATION BY A PRETENDED RESOLUTION OF ENQUIRY. The Congregational Union having been involved by " their editor" in an act of grave tyranny towards a provincial minister, now deceased, by which act all the avowed principles of congrega- tionalists are set aside, and the committee, being reluctantly forced to enquire into the matter, in order to make some feasible — h 3 206 appearance in Sheffield, they arranged to smother the deed, by proposing to enquire into some new rules, instead of enquiring into the violation of the rules that did exist, and which had been dis- gracefully broken by the illegal erasure of a minister's name from the " Year Book," which is like striking a solicitor's name off the rolls, by an arbitrary act, without any notice or enquiry. The plan of hiding the case, under pretence of advocating the principle 3 was adopted with care and carried out with skill ; " The Kev. Dr. Parker rose to move a resolution in reference to the Year Book. He said the resolution had reference to a particular part of the Year Book" — meaning the list of accredited ministers. After a eulogy on the accuracy of the Book as " most ably com- piled," he proceeded : — " The resolution which he had to move was that the pastors, deacons, and delegates then assembled most respectfully requested the committee of the Union to consider whether any alterations should be made in the terms on which the names of ministers were inserted in or omitted from the * Congregational Year Book' and report upon the same at the next annual meeting." " He was in favour of the most stringent conditions of insertion being exacted, and the removal of a name was a thing that affected the church most seriously, and assumed a grave aspect. The removal of a name amounted to ministerial deposition ; it was, in fact, a species of excommunication, and being fraught with the gravest consequences to individual ministers,* he thought the time had come when the subject should be fully and candidly expounded and decided upon." " It was a matter for the consideration of the Union." "Whilst they stood up for the general repute of the denomination, they should be anxious in regarding the status of the youngest and obscurest minister of the Union. (Hear, hear.)" " He personally had in the matter which he had brought before them no cause of complaint whatsoever, and did not know that there was any case that then required particular scrutiny and investigation ; and there- fore that was a proper time for a full and candid discussion." Here I must in charity suggest that the speaker's memory was at fault, and perhaps he did not conclude his intended speech, in which he would have added,— "At least I know of no case but the *This acknowledgment renders the committee legally liable for the infliction illegally of so grave an injury. 207 one that has forced the committee into admitting this resolution of enquiry into onr methods for the future, so as to screen our tyranny in the past." This proposition for enquiry was moved professedly on the GROUND THAT THERE WAS NO OCCASION FOR IT. This I think is what they call " judicious," and is at least wonderfully reserved. " The Rev. Dr. George Smith seconded the proposition. It was already patent to the public by the wide circulation of the pamphlet which he held in his hand (' Memorial of the Rev. Isaac Vaughan'), that a long correspondence had taken place [between Dr. Smith, Mr. Ashton, and myself] in reference to the removal of a name from the list, [the Rev. Isaac Vaughan's] and when Dr. Parker sent to him the terms of the resolution he had just moved, it appeared to him to be a proper resolution, and he cheerfully seconded its adoption. He laid it before the committee of the Union, and they in like manner accepted it, and desired him, as secretary, to second it. The work was a very delicate and difficult one. No one could imagine for a moment that a name would be omitted from any pique or prejudice, or that Mr. Ashton would be a party to the removal of any gentleman's name from the list. (Cheers.) He always depended upon local intelligence, and that local in- telligence or authority ought perhaps to be held responsible. [This means Dr. Falding.] He felt convinced that there were sufficient reasons to thoroughly vindicate Mr. Ashton in the whole course of his procedure. (Hear, hear.) He was not sure that the present mode was faultless, but they ought all to be jealous of the honour and reputation of their brethren, and no charge should be made very lightly. [* No charge' is made at all !] The committee very cheerfully accepted the resolution which Dr. Parker had sub- mitted, and were prepared to give the- subject the fullest and fairest consideration." Dr. Smith and his colleagues never intended the matter to be heard of any more. It was enough for the present to assure the meeting that his colleague Mr. Ashton would not " be a party to the removal of any gentleman's name from the list." Though Dr. Smith knew that Mr. Ashton had done it to Mr. Vaughan, and that he himself had transmitted to me from London the committee's attempted exoneration of then- "editor," by his affirmation that "he acted in this case on an official document from the district secre- tary," Dr. Falding, who, knowing this fact, that he was accused of this " professional decapitation," now comes in to try and throw SOME OF THE BLAME BACK On Mr. ASHTON. 208 " The Rev. Dr. Falding said lie rose partly to snpport the reso- lution before the meeting, and partly to offer an explanation, which he knew would be expected [but never obtained] from him, and which he should most readily render. He agreed with the resolu- tion entirely, and was personally grateful to Dr. Smith and Dr. Parker for the terms in which they had moved and seconded the resolution. Dr. Smith had referred to a pamphlet which had been widely circulated, bringing up the case of the removal of a name from the list of accredited ministers. He desired not to refer to that — (hear, hear) — but he thought he had a right just to say one single sentence, and that was that the case had been brought before the public only through one channel, and that the other side of the case had never been made public." [It never will be.] " Dr. Smith had said that perhaps the responsibility should rest, not on the editor, but on the local informant — the person who had supplied the information. [He means the person who suppressed the name.] He was not sure that that was quite right. He thought the editor ought to satisfy himself that he had information from the right party, and then it became a kind of divided authority. But that was an abstract question that he would not meddle with further. As to the particular case, and as to the part " he had taken, he was going to say, when Mr. Binney, thinking he had committed himself and the editor far enough, got up and gravely observed — " that there really was no case before them, and that they ought to discuss the resolution without reference to any particular case ;" and Dr. Falding was " willing to retire at that moment on the assurance that the particular case would not be brought up." They were all concerned to conceal " the case" which forced the resolution on, and by which alone its necessity was explained. I am told that Mr. Binney declared in London — objecting to the erasure in this case — " I myself may, on such a plan, wake up some morning and find my name taken off the Year Book." If he had borne this testimony in the meeting of the Union, it would have looked more like open justice. The plan there was to cry down any expression of even the opinions whieh they themselves could not help entertaining. Hence the following bear-baiting exhibition : — " The Rev. Brewin Grant, on presenting himself, was received with hisses and cries of ' Vote.' " This was an intelligent and grace- ful display of Congregational freedom. After some hubbub, Mr. Grant said he was there "to defend the dead and to protect the living." One Mr. Morgan, of Masbro', a fierce partizan, here " rose to order," and another " rose to order ;" since all that v>as needed was a little more disorder to prevent free speech. 209 The Rev. J. Parsons, following the official cry, observed that ii " was most inadvisable to introduce any particular case into the discussion." Then the Chairman echoed, that " the resolution had nothing to do with a particular case," as if that case did not originate the resolution and come fairly under it ! The chairman, the Rev. Newman Hall, "objected to the intro- duction, especially without warning, of any particular case." He knew it was not " without warning." He had said in reply to my question, that " amendments" were admissible, and he had my printed "proposed resolution" on the table; and all had seen it for it was distributed through the meeting. He " ruled against particular cases," which he knew composed general princi- ples ; and then he put to the meeting — "Will you allow the introduction of any individual matter or not ?" He knew that this was a false putting of the case ; it was a matter of public justice, and every minister in the meeting was concerned in it. After much confusion, and many liberal "Xoes," which treated me to more thunder than lightning, I was enabled to reach this point : " The question was, the insertion and omission of names in the Year Book ; and that the matter be referred to a committee of enquiry. I asked — why was this proposed '? I wished that to be known. They had introduced it on the ground of a case, which they were afraid and ashamed of going into." This was enough for me, and too much for them : the exhibition of calmness and free deliberate enquiry was rather startling. The chairman, as a true partizan, observed to the meeting that "the last remark was on worthy of notice," which gave great delight to those who did not know that it was as silly as it was rude, since he was doing what he properly intimated need not be done ; and he received this answer — "Then what did you notice it for?" They had now, as they vainly dreamed, smothered "the particular case." "But in these cases we still have judgment here," as poor Macbeth said:— "The times have been, That -when the brains were out the man would die, And there an end; but now, they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crown, And push us from our stools." Banquo's ghost disturbs Macbeth's feast. The committee before coming down to Sheffield was haunted, and fear of the ghost drove them into this resolution, in which they expected, without repen- 210 tance or confession as to the past, to cover crying tyranny by a new rule for the future ; or rather, by forming a committee of enquiry COMPOSED OF THE COMMITTEE THAT IS IMPLICATED, wllOSe policy WOUld be to hush up their crime. The suggestion, not to say pretence, of those who sought to influence the meeting not to hear "the case" was, that something unpleasant might come out ; as if the proposal was to enquire into the character of the deceased. Those who suggested this were either very dull or very dishonest. They either knew or ought to have known, for it had been put plainly before them, in their committee in London, and in every other way, that the question was independent of the character of the deceased, and was confined to the legality of the treatment which he received ; and therefore, if anybody had come forward to accuse him of stand- ing on his head on the pinnacle of Eotherham church steeple — which was as true as most things that were said — the answer would be : — all this is foreign — the case is not that of Mr. Vaughan, but an enquiry into the conduct of Mr. Ashton and Dr. Falding. The question was — did they illegally erase this name ? They know they did — the committee knew they did — the whole assembly knew they did. But they were all too delicate and faithful to acknowledge it. Some said they had not time to understand the case ; as if it would take them long to understand this — ought a man to be hanged before he is tried ? May a minister's name be erased from the Year Book at the mutual or divided fancy of a district secretary and the editor of the " Year Book," without any intimation being given to him, or any chance of protecting himself from this extreme of indignity? If the ministers there could not answer " no," in one word, instead of crying down the only one that protected their interests, they deserve all they get. I have no doubt that when they come to consider they will be heartily ashamed, and will divide the blame with the leaders who so often " rose to order," and who misled the meeting by courteous interruptons to suggest that " the particular case" which they knew would disgrace their officials should be withdrawn, and the resolution be passed without any reference to the cruelty and tyranny which forced on this tardy and theoretical, not to say hypocritical, acknowledgment of abstract justice, to avoid the odium of a particular case. By crying down the proposed resolution, which was circulated through the meeting the ministers and delegates present stultified 211 themselves, by in effect contradicting the self-evident propositions which it contains. The following is what they thus negatived : — " Proposed Resolution on ' The Year Book.' " That the omission of the name of the late Rev. Isaac Vaughan from the list of ' accredited ministers ' in the last ' Congregational Year Book ' without any notice or trial, or any intimation to Mr. Vaughan before or after the omission, was an injustice and grief to Mr. Vaughan, is a threatening danger to every congrega- tional minister, is a violation of our principles, and should be dis- avowed by this meeting to save the denomination from disgrace." But the meeting voted that it is not " a violation of our prin- ciples, 9 ' not " an injustice," not " a threatening danger to all ministers," not "a course to be disavowed," but a right thing, to depose a minister without notice or trial ! They abjured their rights, and signed articles of slavery. If any still quibble, and say that the question of "injustice" would turn upon the character of the deceased, then they still assume that it is just to execute a man without trial, to which every prisoner has a claim, whether guilty or not. In this " particular case" a local seceetary, [the Rev. Dr. Falding] belonging to an opposite faction, and having taken an active part, speaking in church meetings, and signing a memorial against a minister, is the authority to send an " official document," omitting the name, on his own private account, being directed to do so by no committee ; and on this "official document" from Dr. Falding Mr. Ashton says he acted, no enquiry being made of Mr. Vaughan and his friends ! All this the committee of the Union knew, and, with the exception of the Rev. James Parsons, every man who helped to induce the Assembly to suppress "the case" knew; so they in principle repeated, in the eyes of God and man, an act of odious private tyranny and disgraced Independency. Mr. Robert Leader, the editor of the Sheffield Independent, and now a consistent " country member " of the " rattening" committee of the Congregational Union, put out flaring placards of his Satur- day's paper, with this leading announcement :— - " Brewin Grant Extinguished." This was to get off his supplemental account of the Union meetings. It is like the whole affair. It shows what these men will stoop to. He was hard up for a "sensation." Perhaps this little trick was suggested to him by the leaders of the Union who assembled at his house, and made his shop their centre. It might be good news to some that the Rev. Brewin Grant is " extin- 212 guished," but it is bad taste to confess it, and only parades the editor's disappointment in this "particular case." If he had announced " The Rev. Brewin Grant answered" all Sheffield would have flocked to his office to get the paper in which he even promises what he has never yet performed. Surely it is enough that one victim of Congregational tyranny is removed to a ''better home ; " but those who helped to crush his noble spirit and pain his generous soul, as well as those who now abet that wickedness, must not be impatient with Providence that permits at least one Independent friend to shield his memory, shame his persecutors, and drag into the light of public criticism those official instruments of professional decapitation. Trades Unions are accused of tyranny, in blowing up houses, or getting wheelbands stolen, and refractory members shot or other- wise disabled. Mr. Newman Hall, chairman of the Congrega- tional Union, whose officials, together with another official acting unofficially, took Mr. Vaughan's bands off the Union Wheel, and blew up his professional office while he was asleep, goes and lectures Sheffield working men about tyranny over one another. The Congregational Union, knowing its official implication in the same crime, justified the act, and reserved all its anger for the man who detected and exposed it, standing bravely up for a deceased friend, and seeking to defend the living from similar tyranny ! I observed at the time that I had been in at least eight HUNDRED OF THE ROUGHEST MEETINGS OF WORKING MEN, infidels and otherwise, and I never allowed any man to be cried down, what- ever he might say, and I never was cried down myself but once, and that by some Canterbury roughs, who had been inspired for the occasion at an adjoining public-house. The only other time was by the Congregational Union, inspired from another source. This insolence and the tyranny which it was perpetrated to screen have been tamely submitted to by the whole denomination ; nor can I blame ordinary ministers for silent submission when it would be ruin to speak. How the committee intended to carry out the resolution of the Assembly, to enquire and report to the next meeting of the Union, as to the best methods of admitting and omitting the names of ministers, creating and decapitating them, will be seen in the following chapter. 213 Chapter XXHI. THE COMMITTEE ASSUMES ABSOLUTE DICTATORSHIP OYER THE UNION AND THE DENOMINATION: BY LEGISLATING INSTEAD OF REPORTING, The Manchester Meetings, October, 1867. The committee of the Congregational Union, having by Dr. Smith, its " mouth, matter and wisdom," " cheerfully accepted" a resolution which it meant to shelve, by way of giving "the sub- ject the fullest and fairest investigation," proceeded surreptitiously to frame a new law to legalize their old tyranny. No man who ever expects to get promoted, or to have his like- ness in the Evangelical Magazine, or to read a paper to the As- sembly, or to be a deputation, or to become chairman of the Union — the acme of honour, as all the introductions to the addresses adulatingly confess — would venture to oppose the violation of our principles, the injury of any brother, or any kind of wrong in the opinion or actions of the " wire-pullers" of "the body." Honesty is about the worst policy I know of, as Balak told Balaam long ago. (Numbers xxiv. 11.) It was October, 1866, when the pastors, deacons, and delegates then assembled "most respectfully requested the committee of the Union to consider whether any alteration should be made in the terms on which the names of ministers were inserted in or omitted from the ' Congregational Year Book' and report upon the same at the next annual meeting." This " next annual meeting" was in London, May, 1867 ; and though " the committee very cheerfully accepted the resolution," and as Dr. Smith, its secretary, said, were " prepared to give the subject its fullest and fairest consideration," they gave it the go- by instead, and insulted the Union, with its "pastors, deacons, and delegates," by making and printing a new law, before the assembly met agatn, as justly thinking that those men were un- worthy of being considered and consulted who had in so abject a style " most respectfully requested" their own committee to re-con- sider for their guidance those laws which they knew their com- mittee had grievously violated. The new law, illegally made, was never mentioned to the London meeting to which the committee was pledged to " report," and without whose authority it could no more make rules for the Union or denomination than for the kingdom. 214 I determined therefore to attend the autumnal meeting of the same year, which was to be held in Manchester, and accordingly obtained my delegate ticket, and went there, with a series of packets of pamphlets for distribution among the " pastors, deacons and delegates ; " especially a letter addressed to the members of the Congregational Union, some thousand of which besides other pamphlets were distributed at the different meetings. The following is the substance of my letter : — CONGREGATIONAL UNIONISM TESTED. " The honour and integrity of British Congregationalism are on their trial." The Eev. J. Parker, D.D. " TO THE MEMBERS OP THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION." tl Dear Friends,- — The special mission of Congregationalism for which it is deservedly prized is, — first, to afford an asylum for Christian liberty, in its freest exercise, in opposition to tyranny, or < lording it over God's heritage.' The second distinguishing feature is to secure the living guardianship of evangelical Christianity. The Rev. Samuel Martin observed in his opening address at the annual meeting of 1862, that ' our chief care, next to the soundness of our belief, must be to work out our church principles.'' " First let us enquire how far we carry out our own professed principles in relation to liberty and justice. We have no Synod, Conference, or Pope ; but we have district secretaries, and a metropolitan editor of 'the Congregational Year Book,' to whom most extraordinary powers are entrusted, or at least who are per- mitted to act as absolute dictators over their ' Independent ' brethren. A proposal was carried in the meeting at Sheffield, held in October, 1866, by which it was confidently expected that this yoke would be taken off the necks of congregational ministers. It was acknowledged that the yoke was " intolerable," and that some better defence of our ministerial standing ought to be provided than the mere dictum of any official. Here followed Dr. Parker's letter, given in the preceding chapter. "We have already seen this question of ministerial existence referred to and shelved by the committee of the Congregational Union. The pastors and delegates did, it is true, ' most respect- fully request the committee to consider whether any alteration should be made in the terms upon which the names of ministers are inserted in, or omitted from, the Congregational Year Book, 215 and to eepoet upon the same at the annual meeting in May next.' They did not propose to enquire whether the rules had been noto- riously and scandalously violated, and teems of omission capbi- ciously invented by their editor. This fact was carefully endea- voured to be concealed. ' The Particular Case ' which brought on the enquiry has since been acknowledged to be a grievous injustice, as the minister whose existence and work were ignored while he was living, obtains a place in the ' notice of ministers deceased,' and the church which he was building figures now in ' the Year Book,' while some who ignored his case in the Union took part in the opening of his church, and thus endorsed his work, and the course which his friends adopted in rallying round him while the union officials excommunicated him — to ' recognise ' him after his death ! " This case is not to be set aside as merely personal, and related only to the deceased, it is the testing instance as to the pbinci- ples on which the Congregational Union acts, and under which our ministry is degraded, if not enslaved. " The committee, though ' most respectfully requested,' gave no * report' on the matter to the meeting in May of this year, but foisted an impoetant alteeation into the ' special notice' placed before the ' alphabetical fist of Congregational or Independent ministers.' " On page 202, ' Congregational Year Book, 1867,' is printed as follows : — " ' SPECIAL NOTICE. " 'Ministers are added to this list, oe omitted feom it, on the testimony and authority of tutoes of colleges ; secretaries ot county, district, or local associations ; three ministers, members of an adjoining association, when no association exists in the county ; or of five members of the congregational board, when the minister resides within the postal district of the Metropolis.' " The indicated interpolation, ' oe omitted feom,' had not been foisted in when ' The Particular Case' was perpetrated : no such rule existed : it was simply editoe-made law, on which the committee was to enquire and report — it was not at that time a written law ; it is now invented and printed in your ' Year Book !' " I enquired of the editor, July, 1866, on what grounds a certain name had been erased, and by whose arrangement the omission was made. I knew the rules for adding names, but wished to learn the process of eemovtng them. " To this enquiry he replied — ' The authority applies equally to admission oe omission.' That is, as the names are ' added to' our 216 list by the recommendation of a college tutor, or a district secretary, or neighbouring ministers, so any college tutor, district secretary, &c, may of his own mere motion direct the editor to erase any name from the list of Congregational ministers ! The thing is incredible and monstrous. Nor did he tell me where the rule was to he found. " He could not find the rule then, but he or some one else has made it since. So that it must be acknowledged that if the editor exceeded the law before, he has got the law so altered that no similar abitrary excommunication can be regarded as illegal in the future. This is a new style of taking the law into one's own hands. This will surely try the faith and patience of ' Independent' ministers. " The second excellency of Congregationalism is, that it tends to fulfil the function of the church — ' the pillar and the ground of truth' — as the living shrine and guardian of evangelical Christianity. Is it true, then, that a Professor in one of our chief colleges,- u*ho was deposed from an influential chair, under the suspicion — to say the least — of omitting every distinguishing doctrine of the gospel, has since then, but lately, been quietly re-installed ? Has this been permitted because Dr. Campbell, with his Standard, is no more amongst us, so that the criticisms which appeared in that paper, and were never answered, could not be repeated in a public organ that would reach the subscribers ? It would take up too much space to give the history of the contro- versy, which led first to a meeting of the College Council, wherein the professor's " Christian Faith" was endorsed and his position was confirmed ; and secondly to a meeting of the same, in which his teaching on " main proof texts" was condemned, but his general soundness affirmed, while his resignation of the Greek New Testa- ment chair was reluctlantly accepted, because the subscribers had been alarmed. "A series of papers appeared in the British Standard, carefully analyzing the professor's lectures on " Christian Faith." These were collected into a pamphlet called " The Rescue of Faith," and circulated by book post among the subscribers to the college. " The bitterest critics of ' The Rescue of Faith,' the Patriot, the Nonconformist, and the Christian Spectator, were obliged to condemn the professor's theology ; while the Baptist Magazine, the United Presbyterian Magazine, the Record, the Freeman, and the Eclectic distinctly, and some of them at large, condemned the professor's teaching as subversive of the gospel. • This refers to Professor Godwin, at New College. 217 "The friends of the professor, abandoning all defence of his heresies, turned the full power of their denunciation on the writer who had most elaborately confuted this insidious and dangerous Neology. 1 On his arguments and analysis,' said one representative organ, 4 we cannot spend a line ;' so some of the choicest ' liberal ' in- solence was poured on his devoted head, though not one of his positions was even controverted. " Only a few copies of ' The Rescue of Faith" are left, but the subsequent pamphlets, giving a history of the controversy, with rare specimens of the " press in relation to our denomination," may be had for stamps covering the postage. " Arrangements will be made, if possible, to provide any of the ministers and delegates with copies of these at the Free Trade Hall, and of ' The Memorial ' and ' Particular Case,' which show wherein we do not ' carry out our church principles,' and how we may do so. "We nullify our testimony by our inconsistency ; nor shall we be able to open our mouth -with power till we wash our hands in innocency. It is affirmed, and not without good grounds, that such acts of tyranny occur amongst us as could exist in no other denomination, and a wokse form of rationalism is silently per- mitted in our high places than is to be found in Colensoism. Thus we are liable to be spectacles to angels and to men, one laughing at us, and the other weeping over us, for openly perpetrat- ing the tyranny which we protest against, and quietly fostering the rationalism that we scream at. "Our excuse for not discussing the errors of opinion and of practice that creep in amongst ourselves is, that ■ the Union is not a court of appeal,' as if the same should not equally prevent discussing ''Ritualism' or ' Rationalism,' for we are 'not a court of appeal' on these matters, or on any other ; though we are more concerned in the ' Rationalism' of Godwin than of Colenso, and therefore avoid referring to it. We invent some show of reason for unfaithfulness, as if we were tender of liberty, which we betray in ' the Particular Case' and all cases like it ; as we betray the truth in another Case, and so fail in both ends of Congregationalism. " Our zealous regard for freedom, in not being ' a court of appeal' on points wherein our own loyalty to our principles is concerned, reminds me of a saying in Livy : — Semper aliquam fraudi speciem juris imponitis. We put some face of right on our violation of it. " Our allowing Christ to be discrowned amongst us, while we are officious in testimony and loyalty to the truth, so far as other denominations are concerned, exposes us to this rebuke from them 218 — Hsec ludibria religionum non pudet in lucem proferre ? For what is it but a mockery to be so earnest for a purity which we do not try to secure at home ? "If we could but give up talking about ' Ritualism,' which is a foreign disease, and at least spend our time on what relates to our own efficiency and purity, we should be better prepared for a foreign campaign. Similar remonstrances induced some attention to points nearer home, in the Rev. Newwan Hall's presidential address at Sheffield; but which, while claiming "greater facilities for discus- sion," was abundantly compensated for by his subsequent arbitrary suppression of free speech on a case that had occasioned the reso- lution then before the meeting. Besides this confession that he did not really mean to encourage the freedom which he advocated, we were refreshed not only with a book on ' Ritualism,' but with a preliminary survey by Mr. Newman Hall, of the same ground, as we ' watched the setting sun from a lofty peak in Switzerland,' and let our ' thoughts travel far away to another scene," " up the glen, along the torrent's brink," to see a " bare-legged urchin carry home a can of newly drawn milk." This milk for babes led on naturally to 1 the exclusive claims on the part of an influential sectiun of our fellow- Christians,' and we were elaborately instructed not to swallow sacerdotal sacramentarianism and apostolical succession — points which are more appropriate to some ' Pan-Anglican Synod* than to the business of the Congregational Union, if it have any. No denomination could with greater vigour rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of past trials and sloth, than our own : all that is required is, that we exercise a manly freedom, and honestly consider our own ways, reduce our own principles to practice, and no longer consider those our greatest enemies who tell us salutary truths, however un- welcome : but if we must regard them as enemies let us at least remember — Fas est, ab hoste doceri. " The Preface to the ' Year Rook, 1867,' groans over the fact that in the Church of England ' Evangelical truth and spiritual worship are greatly imperilled.' Among the ' objects' aimed at by the Congregational Union, the first is asserted to be ' to promote evangelical religion in connection with the Congregational de- nomination,' yet no reference would be permitted in the Union meetings to any actual case of danger to that truth amongst us. " Instead of being distinguished for truth and liberty, we have heresy enthroned in our chief college, and tyranny enshrined in a ' special notice ' at the head of the ' list of Independent minis- ters,' as follows: — 'Ministers are added to this list, or omitted 219 from it, on the testimony and authority (!) of tutors of colleges, secretaries of county, district, or local associations, &c.' This is the new rule of omission invented for us by those who in 1866 1 excommunicate' and in 1867 ' beatify' the same saint ! " ' There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day. Consider of it, take advtce, and speak your minds ! ' (Judges xix. 30.) Yours faithfully, "BBEWIN GRANT." This surreptitious legalising of tyranny -was one of the things which I went to Manchester to expose. I had two ways of working — one to enlighten the brethren by the distribution of the letter, " Congregational Unionism Tested," and the other, to get through the cordon of officials on the platform, if possible ; for in our free Union every scheme is adopted to prevent the ventilation of any subject on which the managers frown. Besides that all is done up in red tape in London, a committee of reference is appointed at the meetings to consider what other subjects should be allowed to be introduced, or, in effect, to mind that nothing else shall be introduced, especially from any suspected quarter. Now, to obviate all objections as to the irregularity of introducing the enquiries which I wished to bring before the meeting, I addressed a letter through the chairman to the committee of reference, at eleven o'clock on Thursday morning. They were questions which could be asked and answered in two minutes ; espe- cially as, according to the subsequent assertions of the secretary of the Union and the editor of ' The Tear Book,' they had a plain, short, and sufficient (though false) answer to each question, and should have been glad to give the answers in order to remove a painful and widely-spread suspicion. The desperate attempt to fence off questions which they were so ready to answer, throws further suspicion on the whole of their proceedings. The following is the letter : — " To the committee of reference in connection with the Congregational Union meetings — " Gentlemen, — I beg respectfully to inquire of you whether permission will be granted for asking this morning — without any discussion — the two following questions: — Namely, first, as the pastors and delegates of the Congregational Union assembled in October, 1866, 'most respectfully requested the committee to consider whether any alteration should be made in the terms open which the names of ministers are inserted in, or omitted from, the Congregational Year Book, and to report upon the same at the annual meeting in May nest,' it is requested on this point to know ichether such report has been made, and if not, when it may be expected ? Secondly, by whose arrangement — before any report could have been laid before the next ensuing annual meeting — an important addition was made to ' the special notice,' giving what was not in the Year Book before, namelv, ' authority ' to ' tutors of colleges, secretaries of county or district associations, &c.,' not only to add 'ministers to this list' of accredited, but to omit from it any minister ? " If this second question cannot be answered now, when xcill an answer be given ?— and may the information here sought be published in the Year Book, for the satisfaction of those concerned in these matters. 220 n The questions above mentioned may be read either by the chairman or by the present applicant, who is prevented attending this morning's meeting before twelve o'clock, at which time he will come into the committee room for the answer to this application. " I remain, Gentlemen, very respectfully yours, "BREWIN GRANT. " Thursday morning, Oct. 10, 1867." When I went into the vestry at twelve no committee could be found. Two of the members were on the platform, one was close by, and a quorum could have been called ; but the point was to shut out the questions. After waiting some time in the meeting I sent a pencil note up to the chairman, Dr. Campbell, of Bradford — (not the celebrated Dr. Campbell, of London) — and received the following note in reply, the original of which literally lies before me : — " The Refe- rence Committee had no opportunity of meeting to-day, its functions being exercised principally on the first day of the Assembly's sit- ting. The Chairman" This makes " the Committee of Reference" a mockery : the pretence first, is, that members of the Union may have an opportunity of introducing questions not provided for by the London committee, but which questions may be submitted pre- liminarily to certain gentlemen selected to sit during the meetings. The programme had arranged for " Miscellaneous resolutions " for that " Thursday morning," and at this stage such a question ought to have been freely permitted. Another programme said — " The committee of the Union have arranged for the following papers to be read to the Assembly," and after enumerating these the notice ends thus : — " It is intended that these papers should be brief, and that ample time should be allowed for their discussion, and for other business." "The Committee of Reference" — whose "functions" and the time of " exercising" them are so evasively and inconsecutively described by the "Chairman" in his note — existed for the purpose or pretence of giving opportunity to introduce "other business;" but when the business is honest and necessary, the Reference Com- mittee has " no opportunity of meeting," for this odd reason, " its functions being exercised 'principally on the first day of the Assem- bly's sitting." Since the committee could not be appealed to, I wrote to the chairman : — " Will you allow the question to be asked ?" — I got an oral answer to this at the foot of the platform steps : — " We must get through the programme first." The next move was to speak against time. But at last, when by several demonstrations, the attention of the meeting was called to the questioner, the chairman, 221 as represented by the Sheffield Independent, Oct. 11, 1867, which is hostile to me, explained that " the Rev. Bkewin Grant had sent him a note asking him to place it in the hands of the Committee of Reference. He, the chairman, put it into the hands of such mem- bers of the committee as were at hand, but the order of the day was such as to prohibit the introduction of fresh matter." This reads curiously alongside the pencil note: — " The Com- mittee of Reference has had no opportunity of meeting to-day, its functions being exercised principally on the first day of the Assem- bly's sitting. — The Chairman.'" The affected contempt with which this vigorous-minded gentle- man informed the meeting that Mr. Brewin Grant, of Sheffield, wanted to obtrude a question on the Assembly, only caused numbers to cry out "Platform ! Platform ! " on which I descended from a pew seat on which I had been standing, and ascended the platform. There, in some flutter, I stated the case, and was surprised to find, from three papers, that I had managed to put the question distinctly, for it was the culminating point of long labour and some excitement. Mr. Robert Leader, of the Sheffield Independent, gave in his organ, the chairman's curious intimation about " such members of the reference committee as were at hand, but that the order of the day [he meant ' the order of ' the committee] was such as to prohibit the introduction of fresh matter : " and the same report continues : — " Mr Grant then asked him to put the question from the chair. That he could not do, hut with the permission of the Assembly Mr. Grant might now put the question himself. The Rev. Brewin Geant said, if the chairman had put his question he would not have taken up so much time as he had in explaining. It was to ask for information in reference to an alteration that had been made in the introduc- tion to the list of ministers in '• The Year Book.'' He wanted to know who made that alteration, and by what authority it had been done. The introduction had run, "the names of ministers can be added to," and to this had been added " or omitted from," the list on certain authority. So that any member of that assembly was liable to have his name struck off the list by the tutor of a college or the secretary of a local association. This was now the rule : who made it ? Had the committee to which the subject was referred at the last autumnal meeting made a report as requested ? If so, when did they report ? Why should business referred to a committee be carried away and smothered ? When would the report be presented, and who had changed the introduction to the Year Book? They were all slaves in principle, for any of them could have his name removed without knowing anything about it until it was done. He didn't say they dare do it, except to a few poor men who couldn't speak for them- selves and had no friend who could speak for them. What he said was for the honour of his brethren and of the denomination. He felt ashamed whenever he 222 stood before churchmen and talked about Independency, -when its principles were violated by themselves. He had no object but to free the denomination from every stigma that could be cast upon it. He believed their principles were per- fect, but that they themselves were not. The Chaibman reminded Mr. Grant that he was making a speech instead of merely asking a question. Mr. Grant begged pardon ; he knew he was trespassing, and concluded by repeating his questions — Did the committee appointed last October consider and report as to whether any alteration should be made in the terms of adding ministers' names to or taking them from the list, and if they had not reported when would they ? Secondly, "Who had changed the ' Year Book ' to what it had never been before, and -which it would not have been now if he (Mr. Grant) had not exposed a case of tyranny ? " This is pretty well reported for Mr. Leader : though I may correct the last sentence attributed to me by him, and this I can do by two Manchester papers. The Courier, Oct. 11, said, " He (Mr. Grant) stated that the alteration in the Book had been made to cover the tyranny which he (had) exposed." The Manchester Guardian of the same date reported me as saying, " Why had the words ■ omit- ted from' been put in this 'year that were never in before, and would not have been in now but for the tyranny of the committee, which he (Mr. Grant) had endeavoured to expose." Dr. Smith, the secretary, instead of confessing the gross injustice committed, and the fraud and usurpation of inventing a law to screen it, was hysterically affected at the dreadful taste of using the word " tyranny." Perpetrating the act is nothing — falsifying the constitution of Congregationalism by a forged law is nothing ; but describing it in mild English words takes the good man's breath away ! This is the affected delicacy of men whose " words are smoother than butter" while " war is in their heart" — " words softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords" (Ps. lv., 21). None are more offensive than these smooth-tongued perpetrators of rough deeds, and whose only tenderness is for themselves as they lament the " free handling" of honest rebuke. The bitter sufferings which they inflict on the helpless victims of their secret conspiracies excite in them no remorse ; but they call out loudly for sympathy, and ride off loftily on the high horse of fastidiousness in language when their cruelty is described in the most moderate terms. But of all refinement of taste and exquisite delicacy of speech, what can equal this of Dr. Smith in reply : — " Dr. Smith asked whether the use of the word "tyranny" was a gentlemanly way of putting the matter ? Mr. Grant was the only gentleman who had used such language in their assembly in all the years he had known it." When some cried out " Question !" in reply to this egregiously 223 hypocritical evasion, the Doctor retorted : — " If any friends of Mr. Grant were calling ' question,' he begged to remind them that he had a right to reply to the remarks that had been made." Exactly : but he was not replying to them : he was fainting off into fits of virtuous indignation at the word " tyranny," to hide his practice and defence of it. However, he did at last come nearer the point in the following extraordinary asseveration, which I quote from Mr. Robert Leader's Sheffield Independent: — "In reply to the questions put, he (Dr. Smith) had to say, that in accordance with the resolution proposed last year the committee met and suggested the alteration as it now appeared in the Year Book, and reported in favour of the alteration ; the report was presented to the Union last May and was adopted by the Assembly. Neither the secretary nor editor had auything to do with the alteration." Now, if he had said : — " The committee contrary to (instead of 1 in accordance with') the resolution passed last year, effected (instead of ' suggested") the alteration as it now stands in the Tear Book, and said nothing about (instead of ' reported in favour of ') the alteration ; no report was presented to the Union (instead of ' reported it to the Union') last May ; and therefore it could not have been adopted (instead of ' was adopted') by the assembly," he would have said the exact truth. Dr. Smith has publicly confessed to these mistakes. Such mistakes on matters in which men are so personally concerned do not often occur. It is true Mr. Ashton, the editor, confirmed these mistakes, which so far made them less singular ; but to this day I never could understand them. Mr. Ashton, under the same strange and fatal hallucination as reported by Mr. Leader's paper, said " He would not supple- ment the answer of Dr. Smith further than to say that no name was put into or taken from the list without the authority of the brethren. The secretaries of county associations sent the names of ministers, and they were inserted in the Year Book just as they were sent." A Manchester paper adds : — " It was not he (Mr. Ashton) but the brethren in the county that were responsible." He knows, or should be taught, that even this authority of brethren from the county has to do only with adding new names. Joseph's name was omitted by " brethren in the country," but their " report" was such that to describe it by name would not, as Dr. Smith would say, be " a gentlemanly way of putting the thing." They first thought to kill him, then sold him, and then omitted him from the list of surviving sons of their father. 224 It was imposed upon that meeting that Joseph's " brethren in the country," acted as secretaries, under the orders of their respective associations ; whereas the omission referred to was of a name admitted into the " Register of the West-Riding," and was never debated nor decided upon by that association : the secret personal omission of it by a district secretary, who ought to have returned it as in his district, was the editor's excuse for a further act of omission, namely from the standing general list of ministers. Samuel Morley, Esq., who miraculously escaped being spoiled by all the toadyism which he must have experienced, declared that it was " a vital question, and that the character of no living men should be in the hands of one man." This is plain common sense and honesty, and it indicates that the removal of a name is the destruction of "character:" it is in fact, the most virulent form of libel. Mr. Morley added that " a man's character should be safe, not in the hands of any secretary or committee, but of the whole association:" whereas neither the man himself nor the local association — of which he is not necessarily a member — knows anything of the matter. He is decapitated professionally by the private act of an official acting unofficially, and by the endorsement of the Year Book editor, acting illegally and screened by the committee. Thus Dr. Falding erases Mr. Vaughan's name from the leaf of the old Year Book, as no longer at Masbro' chapel, and omits to put it down as in the same district connected with a "new cause;" and this want of fidelity in a return for the district is crowned by the London editor taking the same name out of the list of ministers in England in which it has stood for thirty years ! Then they play at see-saw, and throw the blame on one another, while the victim of their combined treachery suffers a silent martyrdom and dies; and the one who protects his rights and reputation against these magnates is denounced as a man of a very bad spirit, who would not let such godly men extinguish a brother in peace. Mr. Morley's natural honesty, however, notwithstanding the confusion of the moment and the well-acted horror of the officials at Manchester, enabled him to see that some explanation was required. He asked whether the explanation " was satisfactory to the brethren ?" The Manchester Courier, gives as the answer, "No, no!" The Manchester Guardian paper gives — " Yes, yes, and no, no !" " The chairman" then comes in to conclude the scene, by judiciously observing, according to the Sheffield Indtpen- 225 dent, " that all this was out of order." The Manchester Examiner and Times reports : — " The chairman here interposed, and said the discussion was quite irregular. The question had been put and fairly answered. It should have been brought before the committee of the Assembly in a regular way." The Guardian reports him as saying : — " The question had been most irregularly introduced." There was no need to have added this grave mistake to the other asseverations which disgraced the meeting, and which Dr. Smith afterwards publicly recanted, when he was certain to be detected. This recantation will be noticed afterwards. Samuel Mopley, Esq., in reply to a private urgent request that he would fairly look into the matter, said emphatically — " I will" Knowing if he had the opportunity of attending to it the matter would be honourably adjusted, I left the Manchester meeting. I had, how- ever, so far advanced since the " crying down" meeting at Sheffield, that I was cried up to the platform ; and unless some new and more desperate act of tyranny should prevent the union meetings recurring to the subject I was sure that the battle of freedom was won. "What further provocation the committee received, and how it plunged into a deeper gulf to escape, will be noticed subsequently. Chapter XXIV. DR. SMITH'S RECANTATION OF HIS ANSWER TO ME ABOUT THE YEAR BOOK; AND THE COMMITTEE'S TWO NEW SHUFFLES. London and Leeds Meetings, 1868. The following article, re-stating this " Year Book" case, and advancing the history of it, appeared in the Sheffield Telegraph, January 1868 :— " THE CONGREGATIONAL YEAR BOOK" AND THE REV. BREWIN GRANT, B.A. Those of our contemporaries in Manchester and elsewhere who published an account of " the scene" on the above subject, in the " autumnal meetings" of the Congregational Union in Manchester last year, should in justice give equal currency to the Rev. Dr. George Smith's correction of, and apology for, the answer which he gave to the Rev. Brewin Grant's questions respecting the authority for certain important and objectionable changes, conferring on certain officials the arbitrary power of omitting the name of any Congregational minister from the " alphabetical list" of accredited Congregational pastor. 226 Such a sweeping, irresponsible power is not even dreamed of in other denomi- nations, who are supposed to be inferior to the Congregationalists in the professed freedom of their principles. In reply to the inquiry — on what authority this new rule was promulgated, the Eev. Dr. George Smith, the secretary of the Congre- gational Union, declared that it was done by the committee, in accordance with certain instructions, which only authorised the committee to inquire and report, not to legislate. He further said that the new law, thus made and promulgated, six months before the meeting of the Assembly, to which the committee was to report, was reported to, and approved of by, that public meeting. This, if true, would have made the rule no better, and would only have convicted the Assembly of endorsing tyranny. It is, however, now frankly acknowlddged that the rule, bad in itself, was surreptitiously introduced, and has not even the apology of having been publicly approved of. The full admission of this extraordinary fact was published in The English Independent of January 2, in the following letter : — " CONGREGATIONAL UNION. "TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH INDEPENDENT. " Sir, — Will you kindly allow me, through your paper, to correct an error into which I unintentionally fell at the late autumnal meeting of the Congregational Union in Manchester ? When the Rev. Brewin Grant made inquiry as to an alteration in the beginning of the alphabetical list of ministers in the Year-book, and asked who made it, and by what authority, I replied that it had been made by order of the committee, under an instruction of the assembly at Sheffield, and that it had been reported to the annual meeting in May last and approved. On looking at the annual report of that meeting, as given in the Year-book for 1868, much to my surprise I find there is no allusion to the alteration, and I conclude that it was from forgetfulness omitted. While regretting this omission, I very deeply deplore the mistake I made in stating my conviction that the change had been noticed in the report. The statement, though erroneous, as I now fear, was made in perfect good faith, and with the concurrent opinion of my col- league, Mr. Ashton, who was equally of opinion with me that the alteration had been reported. On finding now my mistake, I lose no time in offering to Mr. Grant and all the members of the Union an expression of my sincere regret for its occurrence. The effected alteration in the heading of the alphabetical list will be reported to the next annual meeting, when opportunity will be afforded of ascertaining how far it meets the views and wishes of the brethren. " I remain yours faithfully, GEORGE SMITH. " Poplar, January 1st, 18G8." It is needless to inquire how the two secretaries, who arrange the business of the committee meetings and the public assemblies, should have been so almost contemptuously confident that this important matter, which had caused " no small stir," formed a part of the public business in May, 1867. "It is equally difficult \o understand how the secretary, who takes the minutes of the meetings, should have waited to see them in print and published before knowing their contents, when all the world could read and discover the mis- statement. " It is, however, satisfactory to find so open a confession, and still more to learn that the matter is not only to be reported but to be debated at the next annual meetings in May. Let us hope that the debate will be free and open, and 227 mat the Bev. Brewin Grant will not meet with such finesse and scheming as were employed to prevent the public utterance of his two plain questions at Manchester. " In order that the point may be settled in London, and not have to be re-opened rregularly at the next country meeting, where it might be roughly ventilated, the committee should arrange beforehand to permit an amendment on the report, namely, the counter-proposal that the new rule is irregularly introduced, is a violation of ministerial rights, and ought, for the honour of the denomination, to be omitted from ' The Congregational Year Book.' A fair hearing of this subject, of a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, with five minutes for reply, might in justice be accorded to one who has given himself so much trouble on this subject, and who could have no other motive, in exposing himself to obloquy from the more influential, than to defend the rights of his brethren and recover the honour of his denomination. Of one thing the committee of the Congregational Union may be assured, namely, that the question cannot be shelved; nor can it be laid at rest till it is fairly debated, if, indeed, it admits of debate. " If Congregationalists expect to influence others in the way of freedom, they must not enslave their own ministers and enshrine tyranny in their ' Year Book.' " — Sheffield Telegraph. The method of introducing the matter at the London May Meeting in 1868 may be called smuggling. There was no intention for the matter to be debated, whether such an insane or wicked rule should be adopted, but just to adopt it as " the effected alter- ation," as Dr. Smith affectedly calls it in his curiously-timed letter of apology for a very extraordinary mistake. In consequence of being engaged with a second Bazaar towards liquidating the debt on my church before leaving it, I was unable to be present at the London May Meeting, 1868. Dr. Smith relying, and for once mistakenly, on the servility of his audience, referred in the report to " an accidental omission" from the preceding report, of this " effected alteration," and told the Assembly how the committee had appointed a sub-committee, and being itself reported to, had accordingly adopted those new words " or omitted from" which gives new illegal power of expulsion to certain august officials. He did'nt apologize for this assumption of legislative functions by a committee that engaged to report to the Assembly. Notwithstanding the efforts of Mr. Binney by the diversion of a little joke to rivet the fetters of slavery on his weaker brethren, the whole scheme was foiled. The following account of the matter is given by the English Independent, whose slavish or tyrannical prin- ciples make it the willing tool of the " ruling elders," and therefore its testimony is valid against them. " The Bev. E. S. Prout : I intended to have seconded the resolution without a single sentence ; but there is one paragraph in the report I feel must be spoken offer a moment, because it is now or never. The report submits to the judg- ment of tMs meeting the altered terms in regard to the adi^i&sioi? and omission 228 I of names on the list of our accredited ministers. Inasmuch as it is submitted for our judgment, I do not feel I am violating the confidence of the secretary in referring to it. The terms on which names are added to the list are unquestion- able. There are five methods in which a minister's name may be added to the list already in existence, but the same rules, according to the wording of the resolution, would cause a name to be omitted ; and tbere, I think is the weak point, and it is really a serious one in matter of form, even though we have perfect confidence that neither secretary or committee would do anything that would be ungenerous or harsh to any brother throughout the whole country. But, as the terms of this resolution run, if two tutors of a college write up to the secretary to say, ' Mr. A. has forfeited his character, he has been guilty of so-and-so, he has lost the confidence of his brethren, and therefore his name ought to be left out," according to the wording of those terms the secretary would be bound to strike out the name. The committee does not mean that, I feel certain. If the secre- tary of the district association sends up to say, ' Mr. A. is no longer a member of that association,' that is a different matter ; but as the words are here written, certainly two tutors or five members of the Congregational Board of Ministers in London would have the power of requiring the name to be omitted. I think the mistake arises from endeavouring to condense into one sentence the terms of admission and omission. The terms of admission are unquestionable ; the terms of removal need to be very carefully re-considered. I have great pleasure, with that exception, in seconding the resolution. " The Kev. Thomas Binney : I think there was an expression that must have come upon the minds of a great many persons here who were present at Man- chester, and I am afraid must have caused them a great deal of pain. A little alteration would remove that distress, and I am sure my friend Mr. Geo. Smith will attend to it. He said it was a very great thing that the hospitality of the people of Manchester was equal to the ' increased requirements ' of their visitors. Now I think he means the increased number of visitors. (Laughter.) I was not at Manchester, but I should be very sorry to think that you went there, all of you, with increased requirements. (Laughter.) <; The Kev. Dr. Smith : I am very sorry we had not the benefit of that criticism before, but Mr. Binney has given the right meaning to it. It means an augmented number, and the correction shall be made. " The Chairman was about to put the resolution adopting the report, when a delegate interposed, and asked what were the terms or exclusion ? " The Chairman : It has come upon me partly by surprise. But it seems that there never has been a report given to this Union from the committee that was appointed to report to it, and that we have the thing now tabulated and adopted without really having ourselves sanctioned it. Possibly the thing might be accomplished, and all interests and susceptibilities met, by simply referring this point for consideration during the year, and bringing it up again for your adoption in an amended form. " The Rev. Dr. Smith: I think, sir, that would be a very wise course. I quite think there is weight in the remark our friend made. I have no doubt that attempting to put the whole definition into one short phrase led to obscurity. I may state it is the intention op the committee that the name of no person shall be omitted but on the authority of local, COUNTY, OB other associations ; that the authority shall not be in London, but with the brethren in the neighbourhood where the man lives. If that does not appear quite plain now, I think the suggestion of Dr. Raleigh a very wise one ; it can be taken into consideration, and reported upon at a future meeting." 229 Ordinary persons would imagine that Dr. Smith and the committee could now have no escape from bringing it before the next general meeting ; whereas they suppress all reference to this debate in their Year Book, and simply say — " It was moved and seconded that this assembly, in receiving and adopting this report, renders its cordial thanks to the committee," &c. (Year Book 1869, p. 33.) But the vote of the assembly and the dictum of the chairman would lead any judge to decide that the newly-forged law is an illegality, and its enforcement a punishable crime. But then it was brought forward at the next meeting, perhaps, and settled, as far as the Assembly has authority by its " constitu- tion" to settle it ? By no means, my verdant friend ; it was silently passed by, as no doubt intended to be, when Dr. Smith thought the chairman's " suggestion" " a very wise one." I was busy lecturing when the next Union meeting was held, in October of 1868, at Leeds ; otherwise, as my church was " in arrears," so I could not go as a delegate from it, I should have sent the "five shillings" and gone, especially as I had several invitations to the houses of friends. I however sent a letter and a number of pamphlets — " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland" among the rest — which excited such indignation and wrath that a friend wrote to say he was glad I had not gone, for I should not have been permitted to be heard. The feeling ran very high ; and even he, said he did not expect among my papers one on the Irish Church ; but that he should always be " glad to see me as a personal friend," which meant no longer in my public ministerial capacity, — that was sealed and doomed, for we are extremely "liberal." The Rev. Mr. Thomas, of Leeds, who, like a great many more, once oracularly denounced my " Rescue of Faith," and had to confess in company that he never saw it nor the " Christian Faith" which it criticised — rose towards the end of the proceedings to move some vote of thanks, when he incautiously admitted the terror under which the officials and then adherents had assembled, for fear I should be there after all ! He declared how they had met in fear and trembling, expecting some earthquake or tornado, and then looking round with recovered courage, observed with gratitude, but I do not see the person present -who was to — "No! no!" greeted him; he was rebuked for the confession ; and then rallying, he said how he at any rate blessed the Lawhd that they had been able to hold their meetings in harmony, &c. — "Hush ! " So, he stopped short, or would have added, 230 that they could sit under their own vine and fig tree, none daring to make them afraid ! For tyrants are often cowards. Now why should it have been so dreadful for me to appear among a host of cultivated speakers ? I had the above account from one intelligent witness, and it was confirmed to me lately by another, who, like the first witness, is a Gladstonian. In my letter to the Union Meeting at Leeds, which was circulated extensively, I quoted Dr. Smith's recantation and the shuffle at London, and asked: Will the question be "fairly debated" at Leeds ? or, " will the brethren still stand in this independent position ? It is nothing to me. I secure only insult and defama- tion. But the honour and integrity of British Nonconformity are at stake, as Dr. Parker says." The English Independent gave out hints that a new method of arranging the names of ministers would be adopted ; .and in one place I think I read that it would facilitate a "judicious weeding of the list." That paper had already declared that I could no longer be a Congregational minister, since I did not adore Mr. Gladstone, or his " gods and heroes of Greece" or Rome. Aided by liberals in other liberal papers, it tried to smooth the way of the dictation in the Union as they all set up a dictator in the State. The Non- conformist, gladly joining in this conspiracy, quoted (Nov. 11, 1868) the following from its colleaguing contemporary : — The Congregational Year Book. — An entirely new plan has been deter- mined for arranging the list of Congregational ministers in the "Year Book." Henceforth the names of those only will be inserted who are connected with the London Congregational Board, or with one of the county associations. Others can only be admitted on the requisition of five neighbouring ministers who are themselves accredited ministers of some association. This will relieve the editor from all responsibility. — English Independent, Neither of these editors explained how responsibility was evaded by the surreptitious invention of a new rule a second time, for now another alteration had been determined on without the assembly having been consulted. This second new rule came out with the Year Book of 1869, and was thus referred to in the Nonconformist (Jany. 6) : — In the list of ministers no names are allowed to appear but those returned by the secretaries of County Associations or Unions, and the secretaries of the Con- gregational Board and the General Union. This rule has been adopted with a view to obviate unpleasant controversies. Now this method " of obviating unpleasant controversies" only aggravates them, and places the committee and its agents and pub- 231 lisher in a dangerous position , if their victims are not so crushed as to find neither friends nor means to vindicate and recompense the sufferers. Before the Year Book came out, the rumours and paragraphs respecting some new style of "thumb-screw" led me to enquire of the secretary, Dr. Smith, but knowing how he had insulted me previously, as when, at Sheffield, I civilly asked him a civil question as he passed out of the meeting, he went on muttering thunder, and I followed saying " I beg your pardon, I did not understand what you were saying ;" to which he replied, rather gruffly, "lam ashamed of being seen speaking to you." I promised that it would not occur again: — in writing to so great a man, even though he had publicly apologized to me for his Manchester answer, I thought it becoming and modest to assume the third person ; which I did as follows : — " Sheffield, Dec. 8th, 1868. " The Rev. Brewin Grant presents his compliments to the Rev. Dr. George Smith, and would be obliged by being informed whether the statement respecting "the entirely new plan" "for arranging the list of Congregational Ministers in the Year Book," as described in the English Independent, and quoted thence into the Nonconformist of November 11th, was sanctioned by any public meeting at Leeds, and whether it refers to new ministers only, or to names that have long been on the list. Further — whether the Year Book question as previously brougrTt up in Sheffield, Manchester and London, was put down on the programme for Leeds ? On both public and personal grounds an answer to these questions is respectfully requested ; since it should be known if new terms for continuing on the list are demanded, and by what authority the long-established custom of the denomination is departed from, if such should be the case. " A directed and stamped envelope is enclosed for the favour of a reply." " Bournemouth, Dec. 17th, 1868. " Dear Sir, — I have no recollection of the newspaper paragraph to which yon refer, and therefore cannot answer your question respecting it. " So far as I remember, the Year Book question was not put down for Leeds, it having been decided upon at the annual meeting, if my memory serves me aright ; but as I am from London, on ac- count of the state of my health, I have no access to the documents which would enable me to give the information you seek. Mr. 232 Ashton, the editor of the Year Book, is better able than I am to answer the questions you propose to me. " I remain yours faithfully, " Rev. B. Grant, B.A." " G. SMITH. Mr. Ashton was surly and would not answer at all, even when I was myself the victim ; but I ought here to say, to Dr. Smith's credit, that since this occurred he has always been prompt and courteous in his answers. But it will not escape the notice of the reader that this official of the Union should not only, at Manchester, make so grave a mistake, confirmed by Mr. Ashton of course, but should, at the time of writing the above, be ignorant whether the question was put on the programme for Leeds, according to his public promise to the chairman in London : and even think the matter was settled there, when his report of it was rejected by the assembly ! It is on such rules, so concocted, that the Congrega- tional Union may have legally to vindicate its good faith in its dealings with ejected Nonconformists. Chapteb XXY. THE CHERRYTREE ORPHANAGE, TOTLEY, NEAK SHEFFIELD, Notwithstanding the difficulty of getting into the space fixed upon for this book all that I should like to say, I must give a short chapter to this excellent institution, which needs and deserves the assistance of Christian people. A few years ago, Mr. E. R. Taylor, who was I think brought up among the Wesleyans, and was for some time Havelock Missionary to our soldiers in India, and in the same capacity in other parts, was impressed with the idea of taking in> and educating orphan children. He first received some into his house at Cherrytree, Sheffield ; then filled the next house ; then took a large hall at Highfield, Sheffield, and then began to build a large Orphanage at Totley, about four miles distant. All this was begun in faith, and he found, generally, that supplies '•atne in for support of the children. But some became afraid that 233 the contract for building could not be carried out ; that it was rash, or too adventurous ; and steps were unwisely taken that eventually lessened public confidence, so that the building was in danger of stopping a little above the foundation. At this time J. Webster, Esq., the Mayor of Sheffield, kindly laid the foundation-stone ; and I attended, simply because ,the enterprise was in danger. I was asked to act as treasurer to the building fund, and spent two months in begging and teaching the collector to beg. We had much misrepresentation to battle with ; but with many, my name did the institution good : and a few days before writing this, I saw the last certificate to the builder for £250, and went with the collector to S. Fox, Esq., of Deepcar, who had promised a second help when the building and grounds were put in trust ; but our ex- Mayor, who laid the stone, had not yet been able to complete the trust deed. However, as we could explain that it was in process, and would soon be finished, but that in the mean time the con- tractor needed some advance, Mr. Fox, kindly gave us another £50. Many gentlemen had generously given fifty ; among the earliest, Feancis Hoole, Esq., the worthiest layman among Dis- senters in Sheffield, sent for me, and having enquired into the case gave £50 : several others did the same, and so we started into public confidence. I write this simply to enlist the sympathies of the benevolent, both towards the support of the children — between forty and fifty of whom I saw dining on Christmas day last, with only one sickly child amongst them — and also for any further aid towards com- pleting the furnishing, and the final entire purchase of the land, or rather removing any debt, for it is purchased, and at a very reasonable rate. The following is quoted from a circular which contains a list of the subscribers to the building fund : — " This Institution is not local or sectarian in its operations, but receives orphans from all parts of the United Kingdom ; has been in operation over five years, and it was necessary to erect a suitable building. A. site was accordingly secured at Totley, near Sheffield. The foundation stone was laid by John Webster, Esq., Mayor of Sheffield, August 21st, 1867. The object of this Institution is to feed and clothe orphan children of both sexes; and to educate them on unsectarian principles, and prepare them to become honest servants and good citizens. The new building, and Brook Hall, with nine acres of land, will cost £3500. The whole is being put in trust. 234 The following gentlemen are the trustees : — J.Webster, Esq., Ex-Mayor, Broom-bank[ W. Fisher, Esq., J.P., Norton Grange T. Moore, Esq., Mayor, Ashdell- grove S. Butcher, Esq., J.P., Banner Cross Hall Henry Pawson, Esq., Broomhail Place W. C. Leng, Esq., Broomhail Park W. Howson, Esq., Storr Wood F. W. Hoole, Esq., Moor Lodge C. Doncaster, Esq., Broomhail Park John Unwin, Esq., Kockingham-street John Hall, Esq., Westbourne B. Nicholson, Esq., Cemetery-road W. H. Greaves, Esq., Norfolk-road Alfred Chadburn, Esq., Brincliffe Thomas Searles, Esq., Pitsmoor Joseph Haywood, Esq., Highfield James Morton, Esq., Lawson-road W. H. Ward, Esq., East Bank George Saville, Esq., Snig-hill Samuel Fox, Esq., Deepcar G. Wostenholm, Esq., Kenwood-house William Harmar, Esq., Norton S. Osborn, Esq., Butledge, Clarkehouse- road W. Whitehead, Esq., Sharrow-head H. Cooper, Esq., Pitsmoor W. H. Fawcett, Esq., Clarke-house R. Broadhead, Esq., Upper Hanover-st. George Bassett, Esq., Endcliffe Isaac Milner, Esq., Priory Villas E. Searle, Esq., Belmont, Upperthorpe E.T.Eadon, Esq.,BrookVilla,Attercliffe S.Meggitt, Esq., Cannon Hall, Pitsmoor Henry Rossell, Esq., Broomhail Park Thomas Cole, Esq., Cavendish-road J. W. Travis, Esq., Clarke-street, Broomhail J.Wortley,Esq.DonHouse,Philadelphia Noble assistance has already been secured from gentlemen of influence in Sheffield, and it is hoped that this case of the orphan will commend itself to other gentlemen, whose kindly aid will be gratefully received. Will you kindly give a donation to this work ? Donations may be paid into the Sheffield and Rotherham Bank or to the following gentlemen : — Francis Hoole, Esq., Solicitor, Moor Lodge, Sheffield Eogers Broadhead, Esq., 6, Upper Hanover-street, Sheffield B. Nicholson, Esq., Cemetery-road.* Sheffield John Webster, Ex-Mayor Eev. Brewin Grant, B.A., Broomhail Park, Sheffield William Hargreaves, Esq., Merchant Eyre-lane, Sheffield J.Unwin, Esq., Piockingham-st., Sheffield P.S. — The undersigned having been requested to act as treasurer to the building fund, this office has been accepted pro tern, in order to facilitate the important bject in view. BEEWIN GEANT, Broomhail Park, Sheffield." N.B. — The building is nearly paid for, but many extra expenses, beyond the contract, were incurred, and the furnishing is not all paid for. Mr. PAGAN, Fits-orilliam street, Sheffield, Collects for the Institution. 235 Chapter XXVI. BUILDING THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CEMETERY ROAD, AND RESIGNATION OF MY CHARGE FOR A TEMPORARY PUBLIC MINISTRY, FOR SPECIAL SUNDAY SERVICES, AND WEEK NIGHT LECTURES AGAINST RITUALISM, RATIONALISM, and ROMANISM. 1860 to 1868. Soon after my settlement in Sheffield it was considered desirable by the denomination generally to erect new churches for new dis- tricts growing up round the town. I was recommended to lead in this enterprise, and was promised the support of the other churches : so went with a very few to found a mission church, or entirely new cause. I received great assistance from persons of all denomina- tions ; and should say that out of some three thousand five hundred pounds raised during my pastorate for the building fund at least a thousand pounds was contributed by churchmen. A circular, sent round for a second bazaar, to be held in order to advance towards the entire payment for the edifice, is given here to indicate the spirit in which I conducted my ministry in relation to the town at large. THE CASE of the Cemetery-road Congregational Church, being an Appeal by the Kev. Brewin Grant, B.A.,to friends outside the congregation, to aid them in their present efforts to complete the liquidation of the debt remaining on that edifice. If we were to draw a line from Hunter's- bar down Ecclesall-road to Sheffield- moor, then turn round to the right up to Highfield, passing a little way up Shar- row-lane, and then turning to the left, round, and including Nether- edge, going on lastly to Brincliffe-edge across to Hunter's-bar where we started from, we should have an area within which was no place of worship when the site was selected for our Church. Since then others have happily joined in meeting the necessities of this populous neighbourhood. Besides the Baptist Chapel, built almost simultaneously with the above Congregational Church, two families of Methodists have occupied Nether-edge, and a National Episcopal Church is being erected near Shirle-hill, by Kenwood Park. If any, as we can scarcely imagine, should think that the whole burden of pro- viding religious instruction should be left to the Episcopal Church, the members of which are doing munificently in Sheffield, it is enough to say that a variety of denominations meets a variety of tastes and conditions in life, and serves to keep the Churches alive by the stimulus of a healthy competition. Under any one Church the population would go to sleep : but those outside the National Church serve at least the purpose of the poor man in a Scotch Kirk who, while the minister was preaching, amused himself with throwing peas at the heads of the sleepers, and when rebuked from the pulpit, retorted — " You go on preaching, I will keep the folks awake." Or the Dissenters in general, in relation to the i 2 I* National Church, may be compared to that other slenderly endowed individual who, while a good Scotch minister was conducting the service, would go up into the pulpit to assist him, and when told that he ''must not come there," replied — " They are a stiff-necked generation, and require us baith." That both are required in Sheffield, as well as in other places, is obvious enough ; regulars and volunteers — the combined forces of every brigade — will not be too much to con- quer the ignorance and irreligion which are natural to all mankind. Every one who contributes to the establishment and efficiency of any place of Christian worship perpetuates an ameliorating influence, whose benefits are incalculable. The minister of the Cemetery Eoad Congregational Church has endeavoured to dc his part for the general advantage as well as for his own congregation. Besides tSn mission to tho working classes, in which a most rabid and infectious form of popular infidelity was checked and almost annihilated, he has, since his settle- E&ght ir Sheffield, endeavoured to do his share in the public service. When there was 2 danger of an unhappy division of feeling between church and chapel by an untimely controversy, he preached and published and circulated extensively, by post, to leading men of both parties, a discourse intended to withdraw attention froit nrrior differences to those material truths and principles of liberty in which all Christians are concerned, and which are perilled as much by our divisions and estrar ^ement of feeling, as by the tactics of the common enemy. The title of thn discourse was — " The Church : Her Dangers and Her Duties: or, The Pro- testant Eirenicon." When the Bradfield inundation spread terror and misery in our neighbourhood, he took the opportunity of printing and circulating gratuitously a pamphlet, entitled " The Flood and its Lessons." The same was done by him in reference to the unhappy disclosures in connection with recents events, in a pamphlet, entitled — " The Trade Outrage Commission and its Lessons." These were in- tended to disseminate useful principles of religious union, social kindness, and a wise forethought, together with true ideas of political economy and religious responsibility. It can scarcely be expected that every one will agree with every principle advanced in these papers, a copy of which as far as they remain on hand will be sent with this statement; but it is confidently anticipated that the general views and purposes are such as to commend themselves to the considerate and in- telligent. It should be stated here, with thanks, that the author of these pamphlets has been enabled to distribute gratuitously many thousands of these and other pro- ductions, by the aid of contributions from gentlemen who sympathise with the object. Though much more has been done in these and other ways, than any such kind assistance has covered ; and the writer hopes for the future to be still further enabled to " serve his generation," and is gateful for such assistance as may in any way be rendered towards the success of his endeavours. He is especially concerned in the removal of the debt on the Congregational Church, Cemetery Boad, and will be grateful for any assistance kindly rendered towards this object, the accomplishment of which will remove the only hindrance to complete efficiency and extending usefulness. A Bazaar will be opened in connection with this movement a little before Whitsuntide of 1868 ; contributions of money and goods will be thankfully received by the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., Broomhall Park, Sheffield. We obtained about four hundred pounds by this second bazaar, in a time of great depression of trade, and were enabled to claim 237 another hundred pounds from the English Congregational Chapel Building Society which was promised when we reached a certain stage. About the beginning of the year 1868 much attention was called to the rapid growth of " the Catholic Revival in England." Several clergymen in Sheffield gave lectures on the subject, and I began carefully to examine the question. I saw inside the church traitors, and outside enemies, and that to " conquer an imperial race" was the concentrated scheme of the sacerdotal caste. I read many books and gave two lectures on the subject, and felt deeply impressed with the necessity for some persons being, for a time at least, wholly disengaged so as to attend to this matter. Although I felt necessitated to throw my energies into this work, I could not at first let it be known to my church and congregation, because we were then engaged in raising a bazaar towards liquidating the debt on the building, and if my people had known, many would have ceased to work ; and people outside, from whom the greater part must be raised, who gave on personal grounds, would have felt less interest in the matter. I did, however, privately inform the treasurer of the church, so that he might make arrangements to prevent a sudden change pro- ducing confusion or disruption. I secured the services of a late student of Lancashire College as my " occasional supply," and did everything to facilitate his entrance early into the pastorate in my place. This succeeded ; and when at the close of the bazaar it came out that I was going to leave, some were angry and some in tears ; and many in the sudden feeling would have left, but I prevailed on most to stay at the church and to secure the services of the young minister whom I had introduced. THE REV. BREWIN GRANT'S ANTI-RITUALISTIC CAMPAIGN, &c. The following account of my resignation and farewell address is adopted from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of June 15, 1868. Last evening the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A.. gave a public state- ment of his reasons for entering into the above line of public advocacy, giving his reasons in the form of a farewell address on retiring from the pastorate of Cemetery-road Congragational church, tthich had been built in connection with his efforts, aided by a few friends who joined him, to raise a new congregation as a mission : 3 238 church. Three thonsand five hundred pounds had been raised towards the building fund, besides meeting the expenses of worship, though none of the worshippers were rich, and only a very few commenced the enterprise. Mr. Grant observed that, though leaving the office of pastor of that church in order to carry on more extensive labours which he onsidered absolutely required, he should still reside in Sheffield, where he had so many friends, not only in his own congregation but outside his own denomination. He would not trouble his audience with detailed facts, which accumulated every day, as to the rapid growth and monstrous cha- racter of the Catholic revival, which threatened the destruction of English religion and liberties in order to dominate over the world in one vast confederation of priestcraft. But while not entering into these particulars, which would be more appropriate to lectures on the subject, he could adopt the words of Sir Alfred Slade, Bart., and apply them to this case : — " My fellow countrymen, you are so peaceful and so prosperous that you have not yet opened your eyes to the revolution in which you are living. There are bloody revolutions and bloodless revolutions. It is not clear to my mind which are the least evil. Certainly the last admit and encourage a much greater amount of self-deceit than the first. But whether you will or no, the day of battle has come, and you and your children cannot escape it." He would put before them in a condensed shape the result of extensive reading and observation — the grounds for his new form of public ministry and general advocacy, which were stated in the following propositions : — 1. A determined and formidable movement is now being made to extinguish and overthrow such religious light and liberty as have so long distinguished this land. 2. The movement has, by secret processes, gained considerable advantage and foothold, so that batteries formerly masked are now boldly opened 3. One in a responsible position is reported to have said, what certainly describes the actual position : — " The High Church Ritualists and the followers of the Pope had long been in secret combination under the guise of Libe- ralism ; and under the pretence of ' legislating in the spirit of the age' they were about, as they thought, to seize upon the supreme authority of the realm." 4. In a meeting where Irish priests preponderated, it was said that it would be more true to affirm that such a confederacy existed between English Libera- tionists and Irish Romanists.* 5. " The English Church in both its branches is the key to the position," and the enemy has gained a lodgment. 6. It is only public apathy, founded on ignorance and aided by a false liberality, that renders the position of the enemy tenable and progressive. * This turns out to be the truth. 239 7. This apathy can be removed by careful, persistent, enligbtened, and Scrip- tural advocacy of the principles of religion and liberty, bequeathed by our Lord through his Apostles, recovered by the battle of the Reformation, and now again endangered by what is called "the Catholic Kevival " in England, in which '• Anglican Jesuits" are strenuously engaged. 8. A great awakening of the Evangelical party in the Church of England, clerical and lay, is both a pledge of earnestness on their part and an acknowledg- ment, though tardy, of the crisis which is threatening. 9. A more general movement, independent of, but in honourable and free alliance with, Evangelical Episcopalians, is also needed, in which the " more advanced Dissenters " and English Protestants generally may contribute their share, and prove that while pseudo -liberalism can ally itself with superstition and despotism, real liberality is allied to real religion, " not as a question of party, but of Christ and Christianity.'' 10. It is proposed, therefore, that a representative of this class, or several representatives, as may be feasible, should be devoted to the study and popular exposition of this question, by tongue and pen — mastering the secret and policy of this conspiracy, and awakening such public attention as that people shall be warned and alarmed before they are beguiled and fascinated. 11. Such an anti-Ritual advocacy would supplement and complete the efforts of Evangelical " Church Associations," and would possess some advantages peculiar to itself, both in freedom of action and as to the force of disinterested and independent testimony, and not the struggle of one party for power against another party, as Erastian philosophers might say of Evangelical Churchmen. 12. Many who have means, but not time, to enter into details of such publie questions, and yet have deep convictions and solicitude on the matter, would no doubt gladly aid in the support of such agency as they could confide in, and thus, as if by deputy, take an efficient part in the defence of all that they hold most dear and sacred. 13. Money spent in law is useful, as in the late St. Alban's case, in which a Ritualistic judge, while abandoning the principle to find "room for both parties," — still condemned and forbade certain details of Ritualistic innovations. 14. But money spent on public advocacy, to prepare the national mind for resisting all the encroachments of priestcraft, may be more advantageous than even building and endowing a Church ; for it may, by the blessing of God, prevent the misappropriation of all present and future churches. 15. In anticipation of some such movement, and in faith that God's pro- vidence will secure friends to sustain the effort and render it effective by the Divine blessing, the accompanying letter was prepared as the draught of an intended public announcement, and the basis of the writer's resignation of his present charge. LETTER OF RESIGNATION. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CEMETERY-ROAD. Sheffield, June, 1868. Christian Friends. — For some time I have been impressed with the fact that there are certain public questions demanding more time and thought than could be devoted by one who has the prior and personal claims of his own pastorate, especially if many demands were made upon him, without much organised assistance. " The English Independent," during the same period, contained some suggestions respecting a general ministry in contradistinction to an exclusive pastorate, which coincided very much with my own feelings in favour 240 of some being occupied, at least for a time, in public -work, so as to be able to take more special services, and enter further into public questions than is con- sistent with the numerous claims on a settled pastor. My own mind has been powerfully wrought upon in reference to one public question, on which the future religious condition of England, humanly speaking, greatly depends — I mean the partly clandestine and partly open attempt, under the cloak of Ritual- ism, to involve our nation in the darkness of superstition, and bind our posterity in the fetters of priestcraft. I feel deeply and solemnly that we, as Dissenters, are bound to come to the aid of the Evangelical party in the Chuch of England, to prevent the citadel of that Church being employed to dominate over and enslave the country. From our independent position we can, in some respects, speak out with greater force and impartiality than is always permissible to an Evangelical clergyman. It is, therefore, to the study and development of this question of Ritualism that I propose for a time to devote my chief efforts in the way of week-night lectures, while I shall be open to special services and occasional " supplies'' in any chapels the managers of which may honour me by invitations to such services. My resignation of the office of pastor among you, necessitated by the above considerations, would have been tendered earlier but ior the interest of our Bazaar, which might have suffered from the intended change. I shall continue to feel an interest in your highest welfare, and doubt not you will heartily respond. I remain yours affectionately, BREWIN GRANT. THE CHURCH'S ANSWER AND TESTIMONY. TO THE REV. BREWIN GRANT, B.A. Reverend and dear Sir, — At the special Church meeting of the Cemetery-road Congregational Church, held June 10th, 1868, for the purpose of considering the propriety or otherwise of accepting your resignation, it was unanimously resolved that the members express their deep regret that from your convictions as to the necessity of your intended public work, they have no alternative but to accept your resignation, believing as they do that nothing but a deep sense of duty could have induced you to resign your office as pastor, and give precedence to the im- portant undertaking to which you have devoted yourself. We know well that any system regarded by you as delusive, subversive of morals, and fatal to the noblest instincts of humanity, will be dealt with by you with an unsparing hand, never abandoning your right to use persuasion or denuncia- tion, ridicule or philosophy, wit or invective, eloquence or science, the treasures of history or the resources of genius, the amenities of art or the severity of logic, the ornaments of poetry or the maxims of experience, all which we know you regard as the gifts of God's good providence — intrusted to our reason to be employed in the defence of that crowning gift, — His Holy Word, the palladium of our liberties and the solid basis of our hopes ; and you would still regard yourself as false to the truth you hold, faithless to the minds of others whom you ought to wain and deJend, forgetful of your allegiance to your blessed Lord, if you allowed His kingdom to be invaded without employing the artillery of argument, and sweeping with the battery of truth the legions of the enemy, who menacingly march up to the walls of Zion and boast that they can shake them. To drive back and check the incursions of the enemy is no doubt your great aim in the work upon which you are about to enter, and believing you to poss^ m tfvery intellectual and other necessary endowments, we wish you every success It will be impossible for those who know the service you rendered during ue 241 erection of the Church to forget your untiring efforts to meet the financial re- quirements of the place. Your interest in the Church has been proved during the late Bazaar by not making known your intended resignation until it was over, lest it should suffer in any way. Many of our friends, not wishing to lose your services, have been very anxious that a co-pastor should be obtained, but others whose views are coincident with your own thought it would be to your advantage if your resignation was accepted and you were free from any minor claims. Your general liberality, and kindness in seasons of difficulty and distress, will never be forgotten. Hoping that, although your official connection with us has ceased, we may long be spared to reciprocate those friendly feelings which for many years we have enjoyed, "We remain, on behalf of the Church, THOS. 'BOWER, 1 ~„ nTIO WILLIAM BISSETT, f^^ 00118 - He, with the Church, regretted his being called away by im- perative duty, and desired for his late flock all spiritual prosperity. They had experienced many difficulties and many blessings together, and he hoped that they were but beginning to reap the fruits of past labours. He wished further to explain, for the satisfaction of his numerous friends, that while his sole original intention was to confine his advocacy to the Ritualistic and Rationalistic movement, he had also seen the necessity of examining with closest scrutiny the tendencies of certain politico-ecclesiastical changes as proposed in relation to the Irish Church. The same circumstance which awakened his grave suspicion as to the possible ulterior objects of that proposal had also awakened similar suspicions in the mind of the celebrated preacher, the Rev. C. Spurgeon, although that gentleman had at first committed him- self determinedly to the side of Mr. Gladstone's resolutions. He still sees that it is necessary for Churchmen and Dissenters to unite, in order to demand that " not one penny" of the funds proposed to be distributed be given to Roman Irish priestly educational esta- blishments, or any other form of deadly Papal error. Mr. Gladstone having declined to give any guarantee in the form of a resolution on that subject, and having even opposed such gua- rantees, it is only necessary that the general public should under- stand this point of danger, and he (Mr. Grant) should consider it a part of his public work to make that increasingly understood. The reverend gentlemen begged to apologise for saying one word as to his own motives in the undertaking, which had naturally begun to be impugned by those who had no other answer to his argu- ments, and who, as a class, never did give any other answer than a perversion of what he said and an imputation against his motives, 242 all in the name of fairness and that much-abused phrase, " a Christian spirit." It was beneath him to enter into controversy with men who are forced to descend to such topics, and whose only liberality is liberality of insolence and abuse. It had been very generally and industriously reported — he scarcely thought it was believed — that he was seeking ordination in the Church of England. He was not aware that even this would be a sin, except in the estimation of more liberal-minded people, who had a right to differ from everybody, but felt that nobody had a right to differ from them. Still, he wished again to say that he did not remember ever dreaming of such a step, and certainly it never occurred to him in his waking moments. But wherein he could co-operate honourably with the Evangelical section of the Church of England, in defence of their common Christianity, he did not feel called upon to refrain, even though the " English Inde- pendent," which is very much like the Sheffield one, had not scrupled in its last number to say that ' ' he w t ill find it very haet> to con- vince them of his own sincerity." Such insults he naturally expected ; and his only answer was, that they would find it much harder to convince him that they doubted his sincerity. Nor did he doubt theirs ; he believed that such persons were as sincere tyrants as ever applied a thumbscrew, and that the " sincerity" of their tyranny was the most fatal judicial element in their own blindness and self-conceit. They were not even ashamed of their own imputations, which indicated the blessedness of the fact that their power was not equal to their disposition. All this, however, was but a tribute of their fear to his influence ; and when such ceased to malign and began to applaud him, he should fear that he had forgotten his own independence, and betrayed the cause of God's truth and man's liberty, to which his whole life had been consecrated. There were two objections which had been made against his course. One was that he was doing it for pay, and the other was that he was doing it for nothing. One came from friends and one from enemies. The latter, who say he does it for pay, did not believe what they said, and themselves hoped it was not true ; for there is nothing that they like so little as to see a minister well paid, and nothing they like so much as to be well paid themselves, except seeing those starved who work independently and are not the tools of their party. There is one thing to be said of such people, and goes far to soften anger into pity, namely, that they are so little accustomed to 243 any generous impulses or heroic self- sacrifice that they have lost the capacity of seeing it, or at any rate of openly acknowleging it, and to "level down" to themselves, are forced to deny its reality. Accordingly the "English Independent," which trades on the repu- tation of the British Standard, the last free Orthodox organ of Dissenters, says : — " Mr. Brewin Grant's ' anti-Ritualistic campaign' turns out, as might be supposed, to be a stump on behalf of the Irish Church." "Possibly he may convince the audiences he addresses that he represents ' the more observant English Dis- senter ; ' but he will find it very hard to convince them of his own sincerity. He best knows the proper market for his eggs ; but not even this accession of talent to Mr. Disraeli's company will suffice to keep the concern going beyond the present season." (June 11, 1868.) These men have no higher conception than the best "market for eggs," though they often take them to the wrong market after all, and do not get them sold, because they are suspected ; nor hatched, because they are addled. Such writers and organs are the disgrace of controversy and the bane of liberty. The Church News, a cele- brated Ritualistic paper, from a less dishonourable motive says — " It is given out that the Church Association has engaged the well- known Congregational minister, Mr. Brewin Grant, to lecture against Ritualism." This is a mistake, but not a malicious one. I have even been asked by friends whether I am not " engaged " — promised payment ; in fact, whether some party has hired me,* which no party is rich enough to do ; because, though some men, judging from themselves, say "Everyman has his price," there are still those who believe in God, and cannot afford to dispense with their conscience for any "engagement" with "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," as the reward of venality. But then a second objection, that of anxious friends, is — " You have a family ; you ought to have a certainty ; " and to them I reply — I wish no party to be responsible for my course, but desire to obtain the personal sympathy of friends without involving any, and without being myself involved, as the mere agent, delegate, or hired advocate of any party, which position might both endanger my own independence of thought and weaken the force of my public testimony. The undertaking of the enterprise is in no way depen- dent on such assistance, being morally necessitated by the growing and irrepressible conviction that it is demanded by " the signs of the times ;" but such aid would nevertheless greatly help in the * The Rev. David Loxton put this question to me just before cutting me for not joining in Gladstone worship. 244 comfort and efficiency of carrying ont the work, and especially in the pioneer work of making the mission known and understood, as well as in the careful study requisite for entering upon it fully armed. I believe, moreover, that He Who calls to this work — for I am constrained to regard it in this light — will prepare the way and provide the means in answer to confident waiting and earnest effort ; nor do I expect to be without the aid of the fervent supplications of those who desire, above all things, that the truth of God may be vindicated, and His name glorified in the revival and increasing prevalence of pure and undefiled religion, as the security for all other blessings on which the liberty and happiness of mankind depend. I cannot think that God will forsake England, after all that He has done for it ; and I believe* that if we are not utterly faithless He will not permit this land, which should be the centre of light and liberty to all others, to become what some now strive to make it — the centre and stronghold of priestly domination. The rev. gentleman continued : — Any who could aid him in his work by securing the opportunity of giving lectures, or holding special Sunday services, or in any other way, would receive his hearty thanks. To them he said, in words formerly employed — be sure of this, that the English Church is the key to the position foi mastering England ; it is already sapped and mined, and the enemy is inside, and the fight is going on. Shall we not adopt some means to arouse the majesty of Britain to abate this danger, and leave to our children the same inheritance of God's truth and man's freedom as we received from the hand of a beneficent Providence ? As for himself, he could only utter the reply of the prophet, when in Israel's apostacy, the inquiry was, " Whom shall we send?" In this way he would be consistent with that prayer which he lately publicly offered : — Would to God that He would raise up some whose lips are touched with a live coal from off the altar, who should stand out and vow before Him Whose gospel is insulted — that every energy they possess, all diligence of study they can use, all heroic zeal which they can evoke, all eloquence of tongue or pen they can reach, every power of body, soul, and spirit shall be consecrated to this great cause of religion and liberty against superstition and despotism, to the glory of God the Father, by the sanctific ation of the Spirit, and in honour of Jesus Christ, the one only Priest — that Great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. The address was listened to throughout with profound attention The sacred edifice was crowded by a large and respectable congrega- tion, outside the pews being also occupied. We believe some had to return on account of their not being able to obtain admission. 245 THE LEY. BEE WIN GRANT'S ANTI-RITUALISTIC CAMPAIGN, And General Ministry in defence of the English Reformation against the so-called Catholic Movement. I. — Which Side shall we Join: The Ritualists or the Evan- gelicals ? AND WHICH SIDE IS THE PRAYER-BOOK ON ? Containing a Plea for united action on the part of Christians of all denominations against Superstition and Despotism. This Lecture can be had as a specimen, by any one sending his address and six stamps to the Author. II. — A Defence of the English Reformation against the Rev. Dr. Littledale's Ritualistic " Innovations." III. — The Sacramental System: or the Mystery of Iniquity. Showing how the Temptation of our Lord in the Wilderness, is repeated ; to tempt His people, by the same misuse of Scripture, to seek supernatural Bread, to follow Sensationalism in Religion, and to commit Idolatry, in falling down to worship the Host and the Priest. IV. — The Purple Robe : or Ritualism a Mockery of Christ and Christlinity. With Criticisms on the Rev. Mr. Legett's Lecture on Christian Worship, wherein he advocates Objective in opposition to Subjective Worship ; that is, a sensuous and idolatrous Ritual, instead of worshipping " in Spirit, and in Truth." Y. — The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. Or an Analysis of the Bishop of Salisbury's " charge," at his " Triennial Visitation." VI. — The English Church the Key to the Position for the Mastery of England. N.B. — The Rev. Brewin Grant undertakes to give the above Lectures in con- nection with any Association of Christians, or any individuals interested in the subject ; but not as the Agent, Representative, or Advocate of any Party or Society. Asiocidental to the above Lectures and Mission, he is also prepared to give a Lecture on The Irish Church — an English Dissenter's View of it; or Mr. Gladstone's Missing Link.* It is desired that, on the occasion of delivering this Lecture, hauf-an-hour should be permitted for Questions and Objections; on condition that opponents listen moderately quietly to the Lecturer's statements. * The title of this lecture is now changed to — " Liberationists Betray Dissent, Rob the Church, Favour Popery, an I Destroy Liberty." This should be given in every large town. It has been given in Sheffield and Birkenhead. To the above may be added — "Nuns and Nunneries. Should Conventual Institutions be under Government Inspection ?" 246 Arrangements can also be made with Young Men's Christian Associations, Mutual Improvement Societies, and Literary Institutes, for Lectures suitable to the objects of those institutions. — A list of Lectures on application. Ministers, Sunday School Teachers, and others, are also respectfully informed that the Kev. Brewin Grant, B.A., having for a time resigned a private pastorate for the above public work, is open to form engage- ments for Anniversary and other Special Services; many invitations to which he has been hitherto obliged to decline, and in some cases, from accumulated engagements, has been driven to neglect applications, to which now he will be able to pay immediate attention. It is desirable, as far as possible, that arrangements should be made for "Week- night Lectures in, or near to, the locality in which the Sunday Services are held. Broomhall Park, Sheffield. Chapter XXYII. THE REV. GENERAL PICTON, B.A., and HIS LEICESTER BRIGADE OF VOLUNTARY ROUGHS, AIDED BY LIBERAL AND RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPER EDITORS,— LEADER, BAINES, MIALL, TURBERVILLE & Co. "When I was at Carmarthen, — where a person named " Joseph," who was drunk and interrupted my lecture, and then wrote a false account of it, which Messrs. Leader and Tuebeeville accepted and repeated, but which a gentleman who was sober corrected in the Carmarthen Journal, — I walked up a long street till I came to an obelisk celebrating Picton, and enumerating the battles in which he fought for his country. The " Picton" at the head of this chapter is another person who headed a Leicester mob of liberal dissenters, invited by the " Free Press," probably at Mr. Picton's dictation, to cry me down, which feat thc} T celebrated as a victory of liberalism — which means rowdyism. There never could be a public meeting on the other side if such liberals could prevent it. Mr. Picton's friends not only cried me down, interrupting me for the space of an hour and a-half, when we had paid for and engaged the hall, — and they had no more right to interrupt and prevent speaking than they had to pick pockets ; — but they also, perhaps at his instigation, came to me personally, and accused me of having had my education paid for me by my late friend Dr. Legge, 247 respecting which a corset dealer in Leicester market, an agent for the party, insulted me in the most liberal manner. The suggestion was that I was ungrateful in turning against people who had educated me in the faith that I should turn out a Gladstonian. This Mr. Pictox, who is a member of the Congregational Union committee, demanded that my chairman, A. Pell, Esq., now M.P. for South Leicestershire, though announced on the placards, should vacate the chair before I should be allowed to give my lecture. I acknowledge that I had formerly proved that Mr. Pictox had forsaken the truth once believed amongst us ; for in two Bicentenary discourses on the words " That they without us should not be made perfect," — he showed that Christ and His apostles were not perfect without him ; that our trust deeds of our chapels should be made of india-rubber, to admit any growth of thought, as they call the erratic conceit of improvers on Inspiration. But if Mr. Pictox improves on the apostles he stops at Mr. Gladstoxe ; and while claiming liberty to differ from the gospel he should preach, does not permit me to differ from him. I paid a second visit to Leicester, and had a ticket meeting to keep out the roughs ; at which time Mr. Picton was invited to a free debate, in which his own lambs should be muzzled, and only the speakers be allowed to speak. He loftily declined the honour, as not being willing to " come into personal contact" with me ; though, as I explained to a large audience, he need not have come any closer than when he mounted the platform with his yelping pack at his heels. They can well master you if they can stop you ; but all of them together neither could answer me nor report honestly what I said. The right of public meetings ought to be settled by parliament, and every one inter- rupting contrary to the rules of the chairman, by the printed conditions of the placards, should be expelled by the police as a public nuisance. Mr. Roebuck nearly lost his life by liberal rowdies in Sheffield, hustling him in one of his own meetings, and mobbing him outside ; on which Mr. Leadek, a Congregational committee- man, observed in his paper to the effect "that no man more righteously incurred public indignation." These are the disgraceful principles and proceedings to which I was exposed, the most unmitigated ruffianism, physical and literary, that ever trampled liberty under foot. Every falsehood was secretly or publicly affirmed, to make Dis- senters close their ears and to discard one who, if wrong, was open 248 to an answer, and always asked for it, and never got it. I was seeking for ordination in the Church, I had offered my services to the Liberation Society for five hundred pounds, and been rejected ; I then sold myself to the Church, and in the first meeting I attended was asked how much I got while a minister, and how much now from the Church Association. This was heard by ministers and not rebuked. Mr. Leader, or some one else from Sheffield, sent down to the Independent and Baptist ministers at Haverfordwest, that I per- mitted my wife and family to go to the Rev. J. Burbidge's church, and that my own church was just on the point of turning me out, that the place was getting hot for me, on account of my opposition to Mr. Gladstone. These men did not state this as an accusation of my Church for its supposed bigotry, but as a proof and reward of my wickedness. The ministers I refer to are a Mr. Long and a Mr. Dr. Davies of Haver- fordwest. At Llanelly, a Baptist minister, with two or three others, headed a meeting, tickets having been got in the lump by the liberal committee, and grossly insulted me, and left a mob at the door, of their followers, to wait till I went out. I let them cool their heels for two hours. A clergyman's position in Wales and other places was often intolerable : they lived in a state of siege, and were coarsely insulted; the Rev. Bury Capel, M.A., of Abergavenny, was to be throw 7 n into a horse-pond if he took me to the lecture ; and so much were the friends of Protestantism afraid, that the committee proposed giving up the lecture but Mr. Capel, who was as courageous as he was modest and gentlemanly, would not succumb, and the meeting was held. Another excellent clergyman, the Rev. D. Howell, of Cardiff, was denounced in placards of the most, unfair character, even to quoting his translation, when a youth, of some Dissenting publication. A Baptist minister, named Young, at Abergavenny, obtruded himself upon me at an hotel, to say that he was disappointed in not hearing me on a previous occasion, and when asked to hear me in a few days, immediately got out a placard, as many others had done, to malign me as a purchased renegade ; and in reply to a note, in which I offered him a long space to criticise my lecture, wrote to say, that when I had actually gone into the church and no longer appeared under false colours, he would condescend to debate the question with me.* * The Saturday and Sunday bef ore this Abergavenny lecture I stayed with the able and exoellent clergyman of Llanover, the Rev. Joshua Evans. 249 This kind of insolence and ignorance greeted me frequently, and men pretended not to know my position, as the Dissenting papers also wilfully falsified it, in order that Dissenters might be prejudiced. What offended these men most was, that while like my former friend, the Rev. David Loxton, they could challenge clergymen on state- church principles, they could not deal with a Dissenter who knew all their tactics, despised their policy, and exploded the liberal trick that made Dissenters the dupes of Manning, Cullen, & Co. A liberation agent asked a friend of mine, who was himself a Gladstonian, how I was paid ? and when told " that is the last thing my friend Mr. Grant thinks of," said — "Well, he is a mystery to me:" for the free spontaneous defence of what a man considers the truth, to his own injur} r and loss, is a " mystery " to many. As it was foretold to me, before I began, that I should lose my preaching if I opposed Mr. Gladstone, so it turned out, and four sabbaths for which I was specially engaged, were thrown, on my hands, on the ground that I did not go against the Irish Church. The persistent misrepresentations of the Liberationists and Con- gregational Unionists have prevented me obtaining a preaching engagement since ; and the tyranny of the Union has closed, as far as it can, the Congregational pulpit against me for the future. The illegal act of "ministerial deposition and excommunication" perpetrated on me by the Congregational Union will, I hope, be expounded in a court of justice which recognizes the rules of any society as a contract with its members ; but to contest such a point which will be comparatively short and simple, will require the pecuniary aid of friends who are opposed to arbitrary power. There is not a man in all the Liberation society's ranks that has lifted, or will lift, up his voice against this slyest — most offensive and injurious — act of persecution. The secretary of the Liberation society, Mr. Carvell Williams, is a member of the Congregational Inquisitorial Committee. Instead of Dissent laying down, as was its duty, a model of freedom and purity on which the Church if disestablished could be partly formed, it stands as a warning of the base and servile ends to which the loud professions of liberty may be prostituted. The same is true of our semi-religious newspapers of the liberal caste. The editor, of the Sheffield Independent, who is a "country member" of the "rattening" committee of the Congregational Union, prepared the way for their tyranny by a wilful falsification of a testimonial into a libel by inuendo. 250 The falsified statement was as follows : — " A meeting of the Cemetery Eoad Congregational Church, held en "Wednesday eTening, unanimously accepted with a polite expression of regret the resignation of the Eev. Brewin Grant. This appeared first in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, June 13, 1868. It was a puee fabrication of Mr. Eobert Leader, the editor of that paper, or fabricated at his instigation, or by his responsible agents, contrary to the plain truth of an official communication, written, signed, and taken to the Inde- pendent office by Mr. "William Bissett, of Broomgrove, Sheffield, treasurer and deacon of my church. This is the original notice : — The Eev. Brewin Grant, B.A. — At a Church Meeting of the Ceme- tery Boad Congregational Church, held on Wednesday evening it was unanimously resolved, that the church regretted that in consequence Of MR. GRANT'S UNCHANGEABLE CONVICTION OF THE NECESSITY OF his public work in relation to Bitualism and Bomanism, they were obliged to lose his services : and that a memorial, expressive of their regret be prepared and presented to him. Mr. Grant preaches his farewell sermon to-morrow evening. This true account appeared in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph June 13, 18C8. Mr. Leader was furnished with the same, in the same hand-writing, but he chose to falsify the news in order to furnish an untruth for his few semi-denominational and semi-religious " Exchanges," such as the Nonconformist which quoted it. and would never correct it, but adds more falsehoods since : as, that I am a State- Church lecturer, which the English Independent with equal liberality endorses, though BOTH EDITORS KNOW BETTER. The same libel having been inserted in the Leeds Mercury, I sent the true statement with a private note expressing my confidence that Mr. Baines would correct the injurious report referred to, but I was mistaken ; the editors of that paper did not think it was " an injurious report," for Mr. Baines also is a " country member" of the Union Committee! " Mr. Gladstone's ' suspensory bill ' suspended honour, and truth, and courtesy; and his semi-religious defenders are obliged to asperse any independent Dissenter, lest their readers should see through their trick and their partizanship, in which, from their one idea of anti-state churchism,* they blindly sell their country's religion and liberties to those who use them and despise them. But Dissenters are beginning to see through it, and when they do use their eyes they will under- stand the truthful character of their scrupulous seini-religious Gladstonian editors. Chapter XXVIII. WHAT MR. GLADSTONE SAID OF ME, AND WHAx I SAID IN REPLY, TO HIM. During my lecture on the Irish Church — " An English Dissenter's view of it " — all others having failed to answer, Mr. Gladstone was appealed to, and instead of getting to learn intelligently what I said, * Which they have abandoned in practice and principle to receive State pay for Denominational Bchools. 251 he wrote a confirmation of my leading argument. This being pnt round the liberal papers, and gloried in as " the Hey. Brewin Glant Extinguished," I at last wrote and circulated very exten- sively the following, which is still useful. MR. GLADSTONE AND THE REV. EREWTN GRANT, B.A. The Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., presents his compliments to the Hon. W. E. Gladstone, and begs most respectfully to call his atten- tion to a letter lately going the round of the papers, purporting to be Mr. Gladstone's answer to the Rev. Brewin Grant's lectures on the Irish Church. Mr. Grant would rejoice, for Mr. Gladstone's sake, to find the letter a forgery, but fears — from other acknowledged instances — that it is only another specimen of Mr. Gladstone's epistolary con- tributions to electioneering literature, to be classed with that honourable gentleman's East Worcestershire letter, and his curious reply to the Rev. A. A. Rees, of Sunderland. Mr. Gladstone's latest development of this kind, as stated in the Nonconformist, October 7th, the English Independent, October 8th, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, October 3rd, the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, October 1st, is here given verbatim : — Mr. Gladstone on Irish Disendowment. — On Monday evening week a public meeting was held at Ilkestone, when a lecture was delivered by the Rev. W. Mitchell on the Irish Church, in reply to one given on the previous Tuesday evening by Mr. Brewin Grant. The secretary of the liberal committee, Mr. Wright Lissett, read a letter he had received from Mr. Gladstone, in reply to one addressed to him on the subject of Mr. Grant's lecture. The letter was as follows :— "Hawarden, North Wales, Sept. 27, 1868.— Sir,— I feel a cordial interest in your Derbyshire elections, alike on account of your candidates, of the abusive attacks which have been made on that wise and excellent man the Duke of Devonshire, and of the revolutionary doctrines concerning property which appear to have been put forth, under Conservative auspices, in your quarter. Mr. Brewin Grant requires no reply from me, nor (I should think) much from any one, lor I see he vehemently condemns me because I refused outright to vote for Mr. Aytoun's motion. That was a motion which pledged the legislature to give nothing to Roman Catholics, but left it free to give to Unitarians, Jews, Mahometans, and Mormons. Mr. Brewin Grant seems to think differently from the thousands of his brethren who have cheered me on by their approval. As he has, no doubt, a respect for minorities, 252 I recommend to him and to you the excellent charge of the Bishop of Fredericton, in New Brunswick, who has been disestablished, and says, ' I would not wish it otherwise.' There, too, he describes the Koman Catholics as the most numerous body of Christians. — I remain, W, E. Gladstone." On this attempt to answer, or seem to answer, his lectures, the Rev. Brewin Grant observes, — 1. Mr. Gladstone should have stated what it was that he pro- fessed to reply to, and through what medium of information he had qualified himself to honour " Mr. Brewin Grant" by name, and in so courteous a style. "Was it the Ilkestone liberal committee's representations that Mr. Gladstone replied to ? 2. It would be inferred from Mr. Gladstone's letter, that the Rev. Brewin Grant had been advancing some " revolutionary doc- trines" respecting the Duke of Devonshire's share in Irish Church property, which Mr. Gladstone is too just to sequestrate. No doubt this is a tender point, but Mr. Gladstone should not have referred to it, since the Rev. Brewin Grant chivalrously omitted attacking the weak place ; and was innocent of any reference to, much less any " abusive attacks on, that wise and excellent man the Duke of Devonshire," whose large "vested interests" in Irish Church pro- perty, in tithes and patronage, would have been better defended by Mr. Gladstone's silence. 3. When Mr. Gladstone said — "Mr. Brewin Grant requires no answer from me, nor (I should think) much from any one," he gave a good reason for not writing his letter, and also a sly rebuke to " the Rev. Wm. Mitchell, and Mr. Wright Lissett, the secretary of the liberal committee," for their pains in getting Mr. Gladstone and Mr. W f right to aid in this work of supererogation. It should however be admitted that the qualifying word " much," is the usual "suspensory" style that leaves open a possible defence of a little reply, but not "much," which latter is not "much" expected by the humble individual whom Mr. Gladstone condescends to notice even in this little way. Certainly it is true that " Mr. Brewin Grant requires no reply from Mr. Gladstone," never having asked for such a thing, and having no right to demand it ; but why Mr. Gladstone should inform the world of this simple circumstance "requires" some explanation. 4. The reason for Mr. Gladstone saying that "Mr. Grant requires no answer from him, nor much from any one," is a curiosity : — " for I see he vehemently condemns me because I refused outright to vote for Mr. Aytoun's motion." What "outright" '253 means, in tons case, is not apparent : but when Mr. Gladstone "refused outright," he betrayed the Liberationists, and showed that he "refused outright " their professed doctrine of impartial disendowment ; and as the Church Times, May 16, observed, made up for his forced abandonment of Maynooth, by leaving himself " perfectly at liberty to give the Roman Catholics an endowment of ten times the amount." Mr. Gladstone may see this argued, under the head of " the testing point" in a pamphlet entitled, " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland : The Liberal cry examined on Liberal principles," by the Eev. Brewin Grant. 5. The fatal point in Mr. Gladstone's letter is the account which he gives of Mr. Aytoun's motion. He says — " That was a motion which pledged the legislature to give nothing to the Roman Catholics, [namely, out of the Protestant Church fund] : but left it [the legislature] free to give to Unitarians, Jews, Mahometans, and Mormans." The first part of the sentence vin- dicates Mr. Grant's argument, and the second insults Mr. Gladstone's allies. For what Mr. Grant argued was, that Mr. Aytoun wished impartially to disendow all; but Mr. Gladstone wished to disen dow the Protestant Church in order to endow the Romanists with the proceeds ; and that honourable gentleman admits it, in saying that he "refused outright to vote for Mr. Aytoun's motion," "which pledged the legislature to give nothing [out of the Irish Church funds] to the Roman Catholics." Therefore, Mr. Gladstone's object Was, A TRANSFERENCE OF ENDOWMENTS, NOT THEIR REMOVAL I accor- dingly, he " refused outright to vote for Mr. Aytoun's motion" "which pledged the legislature" against this transference of property. G But in the next place, Mr. Gladstone having admitted what he was interested in contradicting, namely, that he opposed strenu- ously a measure that would have prevented Roman Catholics having IrisL Church property added to their large taxation grants for education, goes on to state that " this motion pledged the legis- lature to give nothing [of the confiscated estate] to the Roman Catholics, but left it free to give to Unitarians, Jews, Mahometans, and Mormons." What will the Unitarians say to this courteous classification of Mr. Gladstone's most ardent and enlightened admirers, as if the eery idea of their sharing in educational grants from Irish Church funds would outrage the feeliogs of the country ? What will his Jewish friend Mr. Alderman Solomons say, who is keeping his bed 254 warm as a sleeping partner at Greenwich, in case he is not allowed " to sleep here to-night" by the inhospitable Sonth-west Lancashire hotel keeper ?* Mr. Solomans gives himself out as the one who em- bodies in his own person civil and religious equality, and yet he is among the people whom it is, by implication, monstrous to allow to participate in the sequestrated revenues of the Irish Church ! 7. Whether Mr. Aytoun's motion would have permitted this enormity of allowing Unitarians, Jews, and the numerous Mahome- tans and Mormans in Ireland to share in the educational funds transferred from the Irish Church, is, to speak softly, rather pro- blematical. But if this were the enormity which Mr. Gladstone desired to prevent, by way of compliment to his allies of the Unita- rian and Jewish persuasions, he had an unequivocal opportunity of showing his abhorrence of people who have as much right to share in public educational grants as anybody else. The English Independent, which is a thick-and-thin Gladstonian organ, though it unwisely inserted Mr. Gladstone's fatal letter, acknowledges the following: — "Then Mr. Greene proposed as an amendment, that no part of the endowments of the Anglican church [in Ireland] be applied to the endowment of the institutions of other religious communities." Here all were excluded, even Mr. Glad- stone's particular friends " the Unitarians, Jews, Mahometans, and Mormons," But did this satisfy Mr. Gladstone ? No ! Because it included Romanists in the exclusion. The English Independent does not say — as Mr. Gladstone's late letter would imply — that he accepted this desired exclusion of Unitarians, &c, but "Mr. Gladstone again protested against vague pledges at this stage." What will that honourable gentleman's friends now say as to his modern horror of Jews and Mahometans and Unitarians and Mormons sharing in the Irish Church funds, when he " protested against " preventing it ? Mr. Gladstone "requires no answer from Mr. Brewin Grant, nor (I should think) much from any one ;" all that is required is that the country should understand him. Even Mr. Miall says — " What Mr. Gladstone needs at the present moment is not the criticism but the support of all Nonconformists :" but they will not long support a man who cannot stand " criticism," and who, when he attempts to exercise it, lays himself open, as in this late epistle. 8. Mr. Gladstone, however, has his consolation : " Mr. Brewin Grant seems to think differently from the thousands of his brethren who have cheered me on by their approval." • Now a fulfilled prophecy. 255 These " cheers " may be required, and may support Mr. Glad- stone against " Mr. Brewin Grant's" criticisms, bat they will not answer them, and will not hold water long. The Apostle Paul " seemed to think differently from his brethren " when he said — " At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me."— (II Tim., iv., 16.) Perhaps some would stand with him afterwards ; though this would not affect the question. Mr. Gladstone having — as the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelli- gencer points out — first taunted Mr. Grant with being in the minority, next asks him to respect the authority of a minority, which Mr. Gladstone himself ignores. What Mr. Grant respects is consistency of profession and of con- duct, a real principle of right, and a practical plan of action founded on it, and these are the two things which Mr. Gladstone lacks in his Irish Church agitation. As Mr. Gladstone has done the Rev. Brewin Grant the honour of singling him out for refutation, the Dissenting minister thus dis- tinguished takes this opportunity of calling Mr. Gladstone's atten- tion to the published statement of the Rev. Brewin Grant's argument on the subject, given at large in "Gladstone and Justice to Ireland: the Liberal Cry Examined on Liberal Principles. A Repertory of Arguments for all True Liberals, Liberationists, Protestants, and Patriots : by the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., Congregational Minister of Twenty-five Years' standing, and Author of the First Anti-State Church or Liberation Society's Prize Tract — • The Church of Christ — What is it '? ' — Sheffield : Pawson and Brailsford." * P.S. — Mr. Gladstone was properly suspensory on the Telegraph bill, saying respecting it exactly what he should have said about his own Irish Church resolutions, namely: — "It was impossible for the house to complete the operation by passing another bill — -first, because they did not know the facts, and second, because the right lion, gentleman icoidd not under the circumstance? enter upon such a financial operation. That would be a matter of comparative insignificance if the question were to be consi- dered by the same body next year; but as it would not be, it was desirable to understand clearly the position in which the new parliament would be placed ; and this parliament had no right to * Mr. Elliott Stock, Paternoster-row, "whose name I used from custom, as my publisher, suppressed this pamphlet by refusing to supply it ; but he is a liberal, and wrote threatening me with legal consequences if I sold any more with his name on ! 256 put the members of the new parliament in the position of having it said to them, i You are not free ; you are bound by the assent of those who have gone before you.' The new parliament would not, could not, and ought not to admit that it was bound. It must have not only a legal but a moral freedom of choice." Times, July 22- Is Mr. Gladstone aware that these were exactly the reasons why he should not have wasted a session in trying to bind a new par- liament by the dictum of an effete one, while this same dying parliament " did not know the facts" and was waiting for the evidence of that commission of enquiry which Mr. Gladstone's friends had instituted ? Broomhall Park, Sheffield, Oct. 13, 1868. Chapter XXIX. THE UNPARDONABLE SIN: OR, DISLOYALTY TO MR. GLADSTONE AND ITS PENALTY. "MINISTERIAL DEPOSITION" AND " EXCOMMUNICATION." TO THE OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION. Gentlemen, — Having been all my life connected with the Independent denomination, having spent seven years in training for, and twenty-five years in the exercise of the ministry in con- nection with it, is my "name" now "cast out as evil" by some secret decree, for which your "Year Book" editor alleges your authority. I still hope yet to be installed by your acknowledgment in that position for the loss of which your authority is alleged by your editor, as sanctioned by your "resolution" of Feb. 15, 1869. I cannot but suppose that some of you are entirely ignorant of this transaction, and will be as much astonished as the world outside ; but so long as you do not protest and secure me reparation, but like Dr. Falding, of Rotherham, permit your names to be used in the Year Book as the authority for my " ministerial deposition," you are responsible both in law and morals. Your "Year Book" publicly accuses t>r. Falding of sending a false return, and he privately accuses the editor of falsifying the return which he sent. Between you I am made a victim. 257 The following letter to you, written directly after I discovered — for you did not condescend to inform me of — your act of pro- fessional decapitation was inserted in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, January 12th, and copied into many other papers, with this preli- minary title and note. THE DISSENTING " SCREW." The Committee of the Congregational Union has invented a new instrument for the private decapitation, without notice or trial, of ministers, who venture to have and to express an opinion on public matters contrary to that of " the wire-pullers" of the sect. The following letter is from the victim for whose advantage this instru- ment was invented. He must now feel that his heretical and contumacious pamphlet — " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland ; the Liberal Cry Examined on Liberal Principles" :|: — is liberally answered : — TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION. Sheffield, January 11th, 1869. Gentlemen, — As you have introduced a new law into our denomination, by which you have put it into the power of every district secretary to omit the name of any minister resident in his district, and on this omission you have assumed to alter the standing list, to which you had only authority to add, according to established custom ; and as by this new rule you depose every minister at the close of the year, and recognize by recording and re-enrolling only those who are newly endorsed by the district secretary, who thus makes and unmakes ministers as he chooses ; and, whereas I am the chief, if not the only intended, victim of this more than Episcopal or even Papal power, by which both my spiritual and legal rights are seriously infringed and my usefulness and prospects endangered, I therefore, in the first instance, apply to you for explanation and immediate redress of this great grievance and injury ; for which I can discover no other motive than your revenge for the position which, as a Dissenter, a Protestant, and an Englishman, I took, and had a right to take, on the Irish Church policy of Mr. Gladstone. But apart from your motive, it is enough to show that the unauthorized plan you have put into operation is contrary to the practices and principles of Congre- gationalism, and therefore you are in every way responsible for the injury which you have illegally inflicted. That your self-originated plan is contrary to the principles of Independency is plain from a few facts wherein you acknowledge it. When your agents had capriciously excluded the Eev. Isaac Yaughan's name, and thereby hastened his decease, you proposed that the Assembly in Sheffield, 1866, should request the committee to consider the best methods of adding names to, or removing them from, the list. This general motion — which your secretary sent beforehand to me, in reply to my letters on the subject, was proposed by you to avoid inquiry into the injustice of the particular case. • To be had by post, of the author, for seven stamps. Address- the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., Sheffield. 258 It was a part of the motion that the committee of the Congregational Union should report to the next assembly in London, in May, 1867. But, instead of waiting to report to that meeting, and gain its sanction to any suggested changes, you assumed the right to legislate, made a new law, and printed it in the l'ear Book six months before the meeting assembled to which it was your duty to report. You thus surreptitiously legalised the tyranny that was questioned, and, making the iniquity into a law, usurped the position of dictators to the denomi- nation. When I enquired at the Manchester meetings by what authority the power of decapitating ministers, without notice or trial, was foisted into the Year Book, every obstacle was put in my way to prevent the question coming before the meeting ; and your two secretaries declared at last, with great confidence, that the obnoxious law had been endorsed, if not proposed and passed, in the May meeting in London. One of them afterwards published a letter to acknow- ledge that the Assembly had not been appealed to on the subject, and promising that at the next meeting an opportunity should be afforded of discussing the matter. Instead of this, the change was referred to in your report as an accom- plished fact, and the only point for the meeting to consider was the condoning of the omission to report it before. It was assumed that the law itself was right, and that the committee had a right to make it. That part of your report was rejected by the Assembly, as recorded in the English Independent, but ignored in our Year Book. Your secretary, at the suggestion of the chairman — who expressed his surprise at your illegal course — referred the matter to the next meeting at Leeds, and there it was ignored entirely. Since then you have gone further, and prescribed that each new year only such names shall be printed as " Independent ministers in England," &c, as the district secretaries may send up to the editor. Tbis gave Dr. Falding, of Masbro' College, an opportunity of not sending my name, and I think your rule is made for the sole purpose — to sacrifice me on the altar of Dissenting "persecu- tion; and thus at once to relieve yourselves from all further remonstrance, and to execute summary vengeance on my failure to worship the idol of the hour, Mr. Gladstone. But you have not escaped either remonstrance or responsibility by this second false step to retrieve your first. If I had joined a secular club, which by its constitution and rules offered me certain advantages, the law of the land would come in as arbitrator, to enforce the stipulated conditions and set aside any contrary rules. I vail tell you now how far your course tends to injure me, on the same principle, but in an infinitely higher degree. I announced myself as intending for a time to engage in a general ministry, in which I should preach special sermons on Sundays, and on week evenings lecture on Eomanism, Ritualism, and Rationalism. To free myself for this I gave up my pastorate. As to preaching, I may now be told that my own denomination rejects me ; and it may be imagined that there was some moral ground for it. The same may operate to prevent my lecturing ; and in case I should seek to re-settle as a minister, as intended, the same would bar my progress — " He is not on the list of our congregational ministers." If, thus rejected by you, who usurp the place of the denomination, I should seek to preach the gospel in some other really independent church, any body of Christians to whom I should offer myself might naturally make the same objection. Tb( so are the direct and immediate injuries you have inflicted on one who has the same right to be on the list as anyone of you. But further, there are aids to retiring pastors, and subsequent advantages to their families, if required ; and 259 from all these opportunities of usefulness, benefits, and repute, you have, as far as you can, debarred me by the illegal procedure already described ; and it is for this deprivation — which I learned only from your printed book — that I ask your immediate, unequivocal explanation and reparation. I have equally demanded of Dr. Falding, to whom you gave the power to erase my name, or, rather, on the pretext of whose omision to send it you presumed to erase it, what reasons he had for his share in this transaction, which tends to make the profession of religion the scorn of the world. The Roman cardinal's aspiration to "conquer an imperial race" does not seem so extravagant, when we consider that the present leading statesman has introduced into the Queen's Privy Council the most active Romanist, who lately proposed that our next monarch should not make the Protestant declarations which assured England of her liberties. But this is nothing in comparison with the fact that the committee of the Congregational Union is the Pope's execu- tioner, for all in that denomination who shall with any effect oppose the present Roman invasion of England, Ireland, and Scotland; nor will the Pope's generals, Drs. Manning and Cullen, find much liberty to conquer in England, for its loudest friends have smitten it ; having first been false to Christ's honour in abetting the spiritual Fenianism that would wickedly depose Him, it is a fitting preparation for trampling on human liberty, which flourishes in perfection only under the sacred shadow of His throne. How far the assumed leaders of Dissenters are betraying them into a position false to Christianity and liberty, I have too abundant and sad materials of showing in the preparation for " The Dissenting World; an Autobiography," which wL; be ready by the opening of Parliament. Besides the effect upon the nation at large, I do not doubt that it will fin'" some amongst us, as Independents, "who have not bowed the knee to Baal; 1 ' and though you may unhappily be so eager to "receive honour one of another" as to make it morally impossible for you to " believe" or acknowledge the truth, I trust that God, in His mercy, will not only defend me against your policy, but sustain me in honour and fidelity, still to witness more effectually for the truth of Christ and the liberty of man, so that to all sympathising friends I maybe able to say — "I would ye sbould understand, brethren, that the things which have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." — Phil, i., 12. Yours faithfully, BREWIN GRANT. The noble and independent editor of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph whose industry, genius, and courage have achieved a marvellous success in a few years, and who first broke down that terrorism, which the former cowardice and compliance of others had fostered in Shef- field and its neighbourhood, and whose high moral tone and literary culture promise to lead and sustain all other influences in elevating this vast population, and redeeming the district from that reproach which the supineness and cupidity of the assumed leaders and guides of the people had too much encouraged, came forward in this crisis of my life, and voluntarily gave the following testimony, at a time when even common justice was a rarity and a consolation : — 260 "The Independents do themselves an injustice in having no church courts in which to try questions affecting the character and standing of their ministers. They appear to have no tribunal before which to arraign the preachers of their persuasion. A minister of stainless character and superior ability — a kind father, an excellent husband, a spirited citizen, a genial and generous friend, a powerful writer, an able debater, may any day find his name erased from the list of recognised ministers, and himself treated as an outcast for reasons unknown to him. An Independent minister, distinguished by qualities of head and heart which stamp him a superior man, may be stealthily accused, secretly denounced, and as secretly de- posed from the rank of an acknowledged pastor before he has the slightest chance of knowing who were his accusers, or what was the nature of the charge brought against him. Such a system of pro- ceeding to pass sentence in private outrages every sense of justice, and is open to the grossest abuse. We do not like to use strong language about matters of this kind, yet what language can be too strong ? ' He who judgeth a cause before he heareth it is not wise.' In the law courts of the land no one, however poor, however damaged in character, however vile, can be treated as some pastors of ad- mitted ability and no small reputation have of late been treated in this part of England. The thief caught in the act, the ticket-of- leave man pinioned in the house into which he has penetrated as a burglar, the murder taken red-handed, are duly informed of the charge against them, have a fair allowance of time in which to pre- pare their defence, are assisted by counsel, in order that no mental dulness of theirs may place them at a disadvantage, are permitted to see their accusers face to face, are tried by jurymen who have no personal interest in the question, and are at liberty to object to any juror who is suspected of entertaining any private feeling against them. For them everything is open and above-board. The full glare of daylight is let in upon the proceedings. All irrelevant matter, all hearsay and gossip, all indications of animus, all attempts to strain a point for the conviction are sternly rebuked and firmly arrested. The jurymen are not even permitted to know that the accused have been previously convicted, lest the knowledge of the facts should prejudice their minds against the prisoners. Such is the treatment to which even the worst of criminals are entitled under secular law. But an Independent minister is treated so much worse than a criminal that a sentence of ministerial decapita- tion may be issued against him in his absence without so much as a pretenee of trial, and without letting him know either the names 261 of the instigators or the nature of the accusation. What a pre- mium this upon the development of personal pique ! It is not a word and a blow with the blow first ; it is simply the blow without the word. The victim is stabbed from behind, and knows not in the darkness whose is the hand that has driven in the weapon. All that he knows is that he is wounded — wounded deeply, wounded, it may be, fatally — wounded, not improbably, by men who would have hesitated to meet him in fair fight, face to face. If such a system of dealing with respectable and highly intelligent men who believe themselves to be honest is right, the rules of our law courts must be strangely wrong, and if on the other hand it is not right, parliament should grant us another commission, with full power to sit in Sheffield, and institute a most searching enquiry into some recent cases of ecclesiastical trade outrages. Let us calmly take an example. In William Broadhead's case there were ex- tenuating circumstances. He at least warned the men who were incurring his anger. In his case there was a sort of trial before sentence was passed, nor did he take any measures until his private law court had pronounced the suggestive words, "some- thing must be done." Can we say as much in reference to the rattened Independent minister, whose account of his treat- ment appeared in our Tuesday's paper? That gentleman's position is, if we understand it aright, something like this. He has the misfortune to differ from the majority of his class in a matter of opinion. The difference is not one of morals, nor is it one of faith. His private character is irreproachable ; his religious belief has not been called in question ; his peculiarity is one of purely political opinion, and the remarkable thing about his political opinion is that it is nothing new, even among the highest authori- ties of the body to which he belongs. What he thinks and feels on the subject of Protestantism in Ireland is precisely what some of the most distinguished Nonconformist divines have thought and felt on the same subject. Having a mind of his own, and a strength of will which makes him speak his mind, he does speak it. He declines to conceal his convictions ; he dares to dissent from the political policy of the majority ; and being by nature a very bold man, he dares even to practise dissent amongst Dissenters. In stating this much we are not endorsing his opinions. It is sufficient for us that they are his opinions. Has he a right to think his own thoughts ? Is he at liberty to say what he thinks ? These points ought really to be settled. If there is somewhere or other a politi- cal Pope, and an infallible political creed, the authority of that 262 Pope should be announced by proclamation, and the necessity of believing in that creed, and of cursing with more than Athanasian vigour all who do not believe, should be made known to all candi- dates for the ministerial office, so that they at least may take their politics in prepared pulp, as babies take spoon &eat, and may, in the event of refusal, know what is before them." — Sheffield Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1869. A copy of my letter to the committee of the Congregational Union, having been sent to a friend who is on the committee, led to the following correspondence, which with the preliminary notice here given, appeared in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, January 23rd. This letter from a Ministerial member of the committee contains such sort of defence as that body may possibly adopt. How far it is valid, is seen by the answer : — THE DISSENTING "SCKEW" NUMBER TWO. The Congregationalists having illegally excommunicated the Rev. Brewin (3-rant, B.A., because the Liberationists could not answer his arguments in his lectures, recorded in his pamphlet, " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland," which foretold all that is now taking place — the demands of the Roman cardinals, exposed for a second time by the Rev. W. Arthur, of the Wesleyan denomina- tion ; we inserted Mr. Grant's letter to the Congregational Union in the Telegraph of January 12th, and we expressed our views on the matter in an article inserted January 14th. We are now favoured with a reply from a ministerial member of the committee of the Congregational Union, and Mr. Grant's answer thereto. We think that Churchmen should form a "Liberation Society for the freedom of Congregationalism from all union patronage and con- trol," in kindly answer to a similar Dissenting society to "liberate" Churchmen "from all state patronage and control." LETTEB FROM A MINISTERIAL MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE CONGRE- GATIONAL UNION. " January 18, 1869. " My dear Mr. Grant, — I now write because a long friendship prevents a cold silence, but with no desire for controversy. Let me say that until I read your letter I was in ignorance of the omission of your name from the Year Book. At the same time I feel bound to express my belief that the motives you attribute to the committee in the matter are altogether unreal. I never was on a committee where there was more independent speaking. From what I have seen of Dr. Smith and Mr. Ashton I am certain they are incapable of acting from mere per- sonal considerations in such an important matter. " While sincerely hoping justice may be done to you, I cannot see where blame can attach to the committee. The Union passes rules for the guidance of the editorial secretary, and he has no choice but compliance. If those locally con- nected with the case do not send up the name how can the committee help that ? It may be an argument for altering the rules, but I cannot see how you can lay the blame on the committee. Besides, you have another mode of having your name inserted in the Year Book ; if I mistake not the signatures of five brethren insure it. 263 « It would be an evil day for Independency if a difference of view on political mictions ceased to be accepted as a personal right. ' q ' Vo o/ifmor. tku I did lamented your action *r*v tfc wceni Action; tat it www- crossed my mind to question your absolute right to take as an In- flpvendent minister the position you did. , and I did transmit it intact, to be subjected to his revision an< u i in his preparation for the register. But I did more ; I rotoruJl 279 your name and that of your church and did not ' omit' it in a smaller list of churches and ministers resident in the district but not members of the Union. If you had not resigned your pastoral charge in the interval between my sending the list and the printing of the register, your name would have appeared both in the list of churches on page 114 and in the alphabetical list on page 116. I presume it was subsequently struck out by the editor after your resignation, but inserted in the alphabetical list, with the usual mark to denote a minister without charge. " In the same way later in the year in November I think, I returned your name to the editor of the Year Book. In the usual schedule furnished by him I wrote your name as having resigned your church, as living in the district, but as not being a member of the county association. Why your name nowhere appears in the Year Book, I have already said, I know not. "Had you attended the district meeting referred to as you might have done, or had you called upon mo to enquire on the matter, this correspondence might have been spared. At all events I pre- sume you will neither expect nor desire that I should continue it. '• I am, Sir, yours truly, F. J. FALDING." " P.S. — I ought, perhaps, in my second letter, to have mentioned the possibility of some notice having been sent me by printed cir- cular, of the adoption of the new regulations contained in the 18G9 Year Book. This possibility did not occur to me when writing, as I have no recollection of any information being sent to me. And this does not affect my statement. If my consent to the regulations had been asked previously to their adoption and publication I should have declined to give it. And when they are published without my knowledge, I do not accept any responsibility whiah they may seem to throw on the district secretaries." "Sheffield, Jan. 30th, 1869. "Dear Sir, — Your extra delay, and the unhappy and unhand- some conclusion of your second letter, caused me to despair of receiving a third, which, however, came to hand last night. The form in which I put the question to you before was, whether you would still permit your name to appear as secretary to a list from which mine is excluded. I told you that you were responsible, either for doing the act or for permitting your name to be employed to sanction it. 280 " You first denied all knowledge of the * rule ' by which your omission to name me on the local list would remove my name from the category of Independent ministers in England. I accepted your word. I then asked, whether you did send a list without my name. I did not ' accuse and then enquire.' I told you that Mr. Ashton accused you of having made your returns on this new principle, and further, that the ' West Riding Register' and the * Congregational Year Book' both accused you of omitting my name from those of ministers in your district, and that Mr. Ashton's Year Book justified the excommunication of me on the ground of your local returns, to which your name is appended as guarantee. I asked whether you were guilty of this. You in effect not only say ' No,' but you accuse the Rev. Robert Ashton, editor of the Year Book, and the Rev. J. Hughes Morgan, editor of the West Riding Register, of falsifying your reports. I accept your account and shall apply to them. "But as your name still stands to both accounts, and now with your knowledge, by which you publicly endorse what you privately repudiate, you are legally and morally responsible for the conse- quences of allowing your name to deceive the public and to injure me. " Dr Parker, to whom you expressed yourself as 'personally grateful for the terms' in which he proposed a resolution for enquiry — in which speech he sold me, to buy off you and Mr. Ashton, — said : ' the removal of a name [from the list of ministers] amounted to ministerial deposition; was, in fact, a species of excommunication, fraught with the gravest consequences to individual ministers. " These * consequences' I am suffering, and your name is used as the pretext and instrument of infliction. This is the only pretext, and you know it, and you say that the pretext is false. All that you have to do, therefore, to escape the odium and danger into which you are brought, by publicly sanctioning what you privately deny, is to purge yourself from legal and moral complicity, by no longer being guilty, through permission and compliance, in the allowed public use of your name. The act in which you at present publicly conspire takes the gospel out of my mouth and the bread out of my children's ; and you stand silently by, consenting to and sharing in the deed. Your reference to a meeting of delegates is an irrelevance, aud no public reading of a list of your subscribing members would justify you or any one else in saying that I am not a Congregational minister residing in the district. 281 " Your final declaration that you do ' not accept the responsi- bility which they [the new rules] seem to throw on the secretaries,' will not pass either for law or gospel. Whether I expect or desire you to continue this correspondence is of no moment ; it is your own concern whether you will still stand before the world as signing that act of my ' ministerial deposition,' for which nothing but your name is the guarantee, against which you protest privately, — in every degree of emphasis, — you had no hand in. Your name is your hand, by which you perpetrate the act, till you publicly purge yourself from what you privately deny and openly sanction. Yours faithfully, BREWIN GRANT. " The Rev. F. J. Faldixg, D.D." " Rotherham College, Feb. 9, 1869. " Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your last letter. Having answered at least every question which you had a right to put, I decline to notice the twisting of words and perversion of facts contained in your letters. " I have permitted myself to enter into this correspondence not because I thought for a moment that you cared to know the truth or justice of the matter, nor because I cared to ward off from myself the abuse which you seem to find pleasure in uttering, but because I thought it right to shew the hollowness of your pretence of being persecuted on account of any opinions which you have chosen to advocate. For this reason I shall feel at liberty to publish this correspondence if at any time I think proper to do it. " I am, Sir, yours truly, " F. J. FALDIXG." " Dear Sir, — I have received your letter begun 'February 9th,' and finished for post late on February 11th, and I am obliged by the proof which it affords of what it denies, namely, that I am 1 persecuted on account of any opinions I have chosen to advocate.' I equally thank you for contradicting yourself again in the absurd observation, after a lengthened incubation, that you ' decline to notice the twisting of words and perversion of facts contained in my letters.' Perhaps I had better explain that this was ' noticing,' or rather inventing, such ' perversions.' I am more particularly gratefu 282 for your frankness in telling me that you did ' not think for a moment that I cared to know the truth or justice of the matter.' No doubt you dictated this from that critical maxim, ' Look into your own heart and write.' Your liberty to publish this correspondence may be turned into compulsion, as you join those two rev. mothers, Mrs. Star and Mrs. M'Owne. If you destroy these letters, as they did certain documents, for conscience sake, I have your originals and my copies. " You are still convicted out of your own mouth of permitting your name publicly to cover my ' ministerial deposition, ' while in private you repudiate what you openly perpetrate by conniving at. Wishing for you more facility and better temper in answering letters, I remain yours faithfully, ■■ BREWIN GRANT." L'EXVOI. I cannot help thinking that some of my readers will wish to know after all, how I am placed, and what I purpose doing. It is to such friendly ears that I make this frank confession : — This book does not express, nor can any book, the deep darkness and almost agony which for some time I experienced, after my return from prostrating labours, and clangers, and " perils among false brethren," a fortnight before Christmas. Nothing but blackness was before me. My preaching was gone, on which I had relied for half my support in my general public ministry. My character was gone, so far as such persons as edit our semi-denominational papers, the Nonconformist and the English Independent, and the baser Sheffield one, could warp the minds of Dissenters, by what Mr. Miall calls, and knows — " unscrupulous venomousness ; " not one of whom dare represent me truly or let me represent myself in his columns. Besides these, such speakers as had made themselves prominent in glorifying Mr. Gladstone's policy, of which they are still ignorant, were bound both not to meet me in argument, and to justify their cowardice by their malice in maligning me. Not only was my good name gone — as it then seemed to me in that darkness — so far as the denomination was concerned in and for which I had laboured, and whose principles 1 held and hold — but my means were gone, my pocket was empty, and so far as the sale of myself for tory gold was concerned, I was a hundred pounds out of pocket for extensive printing and gratuitous circulation of papers, and other incidental expenses. 283 As to the future, nncl as a minister, my way was blocked up ; and I should have been more painfully straitened if, during my hard tour of lecturing, my son, some months under his majority, had not taken my pecuniary affairs into his own hands, and raised my terms for lecturing, which then scarcely covered my travelling expenses. I owe to the same fealty, the management of my correspondence, answering some seven hundred letters of subscribers, and making all business arrangements for the issue of this volume, in all which matters I should have been inextricably confused. The darkness and difficulties above referred to, occurred before it came out that the conspiracy would culminate in my formal exclusion, by the Congrega- tional Union, from the list of accredited Congregational ministers. That act, for my ruin, will, by the blessing of God, awakening the sympathy of man, be my salvation. As my health gradually recovered, my mind cleared : a few friends, all that I had opportunity of calling on, contributed something towards my losses. I began to feel that there was hope yet ; and the definite form which the persecution of me by Liberationists had assumed, gave me a plain mark to shoot at, and a visible enemy, which aroused my courage, and I felt that the darkness was j^ast. I blessed God and took heart. But during the writing of my life, besides two cases of illness among my children, one of which in particular excited my fears, there was another cloud still blacker, but happily temporary, as the one who had shared my fortunes, and more than half supported our family by her own, fell into a low nervous way, and seemed struck with a panic fear, after I had recovered ; and the forebodings which for a little time came upon me, and which I dared not then utter to my family, and which they will see only in print, made me for a time fear to write, lest the bitterness of this new calamity, which in my mind I attributed to the conspirators, should tinge my book — which indeed could not have been finished if I had not been merci- fully delivered both from the fear and from what I feared. I wish every Dissenting minister had as good a house and house- hold as we have hitherto been able to maintain, in moderate com- fort, and in a peace and mutual love which can be surpassed in no house this side heaven. God has mercifully preserved us from being broken in upon again by the dreaded visitor, and I doubt not He will raise friends to help me to keep necessity at the staff's end, and enable me to maintain the honourable position of an Independent Minister in every sense. As a pledge of this, among eighteen letters ordering copies of my 284 Autobiography, which have come in this morning, March 1, 1869, whilst I was writing the preceding sentences, was the following : — "February 27- " My dear Friend, — The letter sent to you by Mr. Ashton is not true , as you will see from the enclosed. [From the Eev. Dr. Smith, Union secretary.] Dr. Smith must know 'the course which had been previously pursued ;' you will see that he [Dr. Smith] wrote to me in reply to a letter of mine, of the 20th of January, saying* that IF YOUR NAME HAD BEEN SENT UP [by Dr. FALDING, who who says he sent it] it would have been inserted. " I feel very much disgraced and humbled to think that such a cruel and nasty job can be done by the angels of our churches. I have a letter from P who says it looks very queer, * * says the business ought not to have been done. " I have spoken to many about the matter, and they one and all complain of the transaction. " I Shall BE GLAD TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUND FOR BRINGING THE WHOLE MATTER BEFORE THE PUBLIC. " Yours truly " • 18, South-street, Finsburv, January 20th, 1869. To , Esq. Dear Sir, — Your note has been forwarded to Bournemouth, where I am re- maining on account of my health. In answer to your enquiry, I beg to say that Mr. Ashton, the editor of the Year Book, inserts in the lists the names only of t'WSe MINISTERS WHO ABE RETURNED BY THE SECRETARIES of COUnty and other associations as recognised ministers within their bounds. If Mr. Grant's n\me had been returned from Yorkshire, it would have been inserted in the county and alphabetical list. — I remain, dear Sir, yours faithfully, G. SMITH. N.B. — Dr. Smith neither saves himself, nor Mr. Ashton, nor the committee by this implied contradiction of Dr. Falding's professions, which a district meeting lately accepted as his exoneration, thongh that meeting was too slavish or tyrannical to protest against the illegality and cruelty of the act which they were ashamed of being directly implicated in. "Whether the name was sent up or not, the erasion of it was a crime and a sin, by the laws of the land, the laws of the Union, and the laws of God. My correspondent assumes that Mr. Ashton had received my name, and even then suppressed it, contrary to tbe new rule alleged for " the previous course ;" Dr. Smith assumes that it was not received "from Yorkshire," that is from Dr. Falding ; let them wriggle together. " Tbese haunted men will never lay The gbosts" of " Eivers, Vaughan and Gray." Grant and Shakespere, Richard in, Act i, Scene iii; Act v. Scene iii, 285 This is from a friend who is a hot Gladstonian, but a real liberal, and I believe that Providence sent this letter while I was writing this appeal, to give me a pledge and earnest, that ' nothing shall harro. you if ye be followers of that which is good. ' In this case sympathy means a subscription, which I believe will come from the poor and the rich, from a few stamps to a few pounds, to aid me both in advertising my book and the case, and writing other things, and in sustaining me while thus engaged, and in enabling me to draw up a case for legal opinion, providing fees for counsel, and piromises towards a prosecution fund, to be paid to an appointed receiver, in case counsel's opinion justifies legal action. With thanks to the many friends who have subscribed for nearly a thousand copies of this Autobiography, and devout over- swelling gratitude to that providence which has carried me no less through this writing than through the scenes which it describes, I commend this book and the reader to the blessing of Almighty God. The course of my past life is traced in this Autobiography ; as to the future and what '• inward ripeness" may be attained, is, I hope, described by the immortal bard, who paid the penalty for "Liberty's defence ; his " noble task, with which all Europe rung from side to side : — "Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, " It shall be still in strictest measure even " To that same lot, however mean or high, " Towards which time leads me, and the will of heaven ; " All is, if I have grace to use it so, " As ever in my great Task-master's eye." In relation to the dangers which threaten our country from our unhappy divisions fomented by our enemies, — the friends of superstition, I beseech the reader to join me heartily in the follow- ing supplication : — Thou, Who art the Father of Lights, Who hast condescended to shine into this world, not only to remove the natural chaos, but that moral darkness which overspread the earth, mercifully grant that the priests of superstition — the blind leaders of the blind — who obstruct the rays of Thy truth, and cover the eyes of men with a cloud of ignorance, may themselves be illuminated with the light of Thy glorious gospel ; and that those, hitherto led in darkness, 286 through the ignorance that is in them, may be translated out of the darkness of papal error into the kingdom of Thy dear Son !■ May this dear land of freedom, bathed in marvellous light, not again be overshadowed with that train of errors which once darkened the firmament and hid the Sun of Righteousness in a total eclipse of heathenish night : let not the locusts, coming into this our Eden and second paradise of gospel delights — in which is every tree good for food and pleasant to the eye — settle clown and march on, having before them the garden of the Lord, behind them a desert ; but may a mighty wind, as of Thine all-reviving and sustaining Spirit, sweep back this devouring army of Egyptian locusts ; and, filling Thy people with joy for Thy interposing Providence, inspire them with that gratitude and watchfulness by which they shall not only dress and keep this land, uprooting every weed, but send forth the seed of Thy truth to be sown in every barren place, so that when He shall come Who will gather the wheat into His garner, when the angels shall put in the sickle, and the harvest of the world will be ripe, a large ingathering may be made "into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Broo:mhall Park, Sheffield, March 1, 1869. 286a The Examination of the Rev. De. Hallat, which formed part of The Tmal contained in the subsequent pages, was accidentally omitted from its place, and is presented here in a condensed form, by the opportunity of two blank pages, in making up this edition. The English Independent having intimated that my name, which in May, 1869, was publicly declared restored, ought again to be erased from the list of congregational ministers ; and the clerk to the secretaries of the Union, having shown how this threat of our " repre- sentative journal" might be carried out, while no further information was vouchsafed by the secretaries themselves, I found it necessary for my own vindication, and for the fuller information of the public, which is studying the experiment of The Free Churches, to put the leading perpetrators, and accessories before and after the fact, into the witness box, and from their own mouths, by their own proved and recorded woeds, to leave them all without excuse. Their reiterated, astute, and helpless attempts to cover the dishonour of their course, form the most effective confession and reward of their deed. The Eev. Dr. Halley having appeared in London, May 11, 1869, to prevent the Assembly agreeing to that " apology," which he acknowledged had been agreed to, by "the Preliminary Meeting" that sat on the subject, appears now, to be cross-examined as follows : — The Preliminary Meeting of the Congregational Union having agreed upon a recommendation to the Assembly, you considering it as an apology, justified the course thus apologised for, by asking : — " Does anybody suppose your secretaries for any political purpose or any unworthy motive whatsoever displace anybody from the list ? — (no, no) — and I am sure if you approve the resolution passed last night you do pass that censure — (no, no) — upon your secretaries. (Confusion, "vote, vote.") Let me be heard! (Cheers.) It has been said that a gentleman has qualified himself within the last fortnight by becoming a member of the Union, then he was not qualified before — (hear, hear) — and the secretaries did right in leaving out his name from the list. (Applause.) If he be now a member ey will do wrong in leaving out his name from the nesct list ; but lid right in leaving out his name from this list. (Cheers.) And they have done right in this business, why should you now wish make a special reference to any name whatsoever of any one man, he who he may, who was not a member of this Union last iristmas, and who has become a member since ? (Hear, hear.) ras sorry to hear it was to prevent a pamphlet from being dis- puted. (Laughter, "No.") It was said so here. ("No, no," * \~ote, vote," cheers.) Let Mr. Grant distribute his pamphlet — (hear, hear, and cheers) — to the ends of the earth for aright I care. (Laughter.) I for one will vote against this resolution. (Loud cheers.) — (English Independent, May 14, 1869.)- You say, that being but "lately qualified by becoming a member of the union," " the secretaries did quite right in leaving his name from the list?" Yes. What " List" no you mean ? I mean the Alphabetical List of Ministers of the denomination. Then did you really think that only members of the Congregational Union, are on the list of ministers of the Denomination ? Yes ; I said, he had "qualified within the last fortnight by becoming a member of the Union." Do you know this book '? It is " the Year Book for 1869." How many ministers are in your list of members of the Congre- gational Union ? I do not know. Well, look at page 81. How many ? I cannot count them. Well there are 557. How many ministers' names appear in your " Alphabetical List of Ministers ?" I do not know. Well look at page 400. How many ? 2,898. Then you have 557 ministers who are " members of the Union," and nearly three thousand on the " Alphabetical List of Ministers ?" So it seems. There are also 190 ministers, ex officio " members of the Union," by being pastors of churches, who subscribe to it ; making 747 members of the Union; and nearly three thousand on the list of Ministers of the Denomination ? Yes. Yet you asked — how could he be on this list of Ministers, till he had " qualified " for the other list of " members '?" Yes. And you could see at a glance in that " Year Book," two thousand one hundred and fifty-one names on the List of Ministers, that are not in the List of Members '? I did not know. But you know now ? Yes. You said that " it would be wrong," if, now that Mr. Grant " is a member " of the Union, his name should be left out of " the next list " of Ministers for 1870 ? Yes. Do you know that this is contemplated : and shall you protest against this premeditated " wrong ?" I was not aware of it. Well, this probable and threatened violation of a promise, and of what you call a rule, is the only occasion of this Trial, which must be trying to you. Dr. Halley stepped down from the witness box, not being " quallified" till "lately" and so " was not qualified before" to speak on Congregational Polity. * From the " Dissenting World." An Autobiography. THE TRIAL OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNIONISTS BEFORE THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO SPIRITUAL TRADES-UNION OUTRAGES; WITH A FULL REPORT OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE WITNESSES — DR. GEORGE SMITH, DR. FALDING, DR. A. RALEIGH, DR. HALLEY, KEY. A. HANNAY, BEY. J. H. MORGAN, REY. T. BINNEY, EEY. NEWMAN HALL. By the Author of THE SHEFFIELD TBADES-OUTBAGE COMMISSION AND ITS LESSONS; being THE APPENDIX to the THIRD EDITION of THE DISSENTING WORLD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. PUBLISHED SEPARATELY, FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF PURCHASERS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS, AND OTHERS. Sheffield : PAWSON and BRAILSFORD, High-street. London: WILLIAM MACINTOSH, Paternoster-row. 1869. PREFACE Pudet et hrec opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refeili.* — Ovidii Metamor. I. 758-7. "SPECIAL NOTICE." To the Readers of the following Trial of the Coxgeegatioxal Unionists. " The Coming Struggle, or the Liberationists and the Inquisition: shewing the Danger to Truth and Liberty in the Unestablished Churches ;" was the suggestive title of a pamphlet lately issued in connection with this illustrative case. In that pamphlet it was observed that " The people of England are looking on at this ex- periment of Esse Chuechism. They want to know what is to be substituted for the Establishment which is to be attacked ; and whether disestablishment means the establishment of a spiritual tyranny and serfdom that is consistently allied with altar denuncia- tors, to aid in ' liberating' us from all forms of law, order, trial, or redress, and establish a Dissenting Inquisition more odious, because more hypocritical, than the honest out- spoken domination of the Church of Rome ?" A specimen of this tyranny is afforded in the case of the freest of the Free Churches, the Congregationalists, which are subject to the centralized despotism of the managers of the Congregational Union, comprising only a small fraction of the denomination. So absolute is this usurped authority that any one out of a list of some three thousand ministers may at any time be deposed and unfrocked if he is not politically subservient to the Libeeatiox Society, whose secretary, Mr. Caevell Williams, was on the Congregational Union Committee, that invented a new rule to ostracise a minister who did not fall in with Mr. Gladstoxe's Cullenite policy. < * The grief is, both that such reproaches can be uttered, and that they cannot be refuted. 290 PREFACE. As was said in a meeting of the Irish National Association — it would be more true to say there was a confederation between the Romanists and the English Liberationists than between the Romanists and the Ritualists, on the Irish Church question. The secretary of the Liberation Society works with Cullen and through the Congregational Union, or at least never protests against the act of the committee on which he sits, and by which, without notice or inquiry, an opponent of Gladstone's Cullenite policy is excommunicated from the Congregational ministry. This is accom plished by the surreptitious application of a surreptitious rule to strike his name off the rolls in the Congregational Year Book. The pretexts and equivocations on which this measure was adopted, and by which the Romish power of Auto de Fe was consistently de- fended by a Jesuitical change in the meaning of words, is abundantly manifest in the following Trial. It should also here be noted, that in the Assembly — which in haste, and through misleading, passed this rule of despotism — it v/as declared that the name of the one who had been victimised by the rule before it passed would be restored next year. But even this has since been protested against by the English Independent, and, while this promised restoration is pretended to be founded on a certain constitutional rule, the victim has been officially informed that it may be "vetoed by the Assembly' at Wolver- hampton, October, 1869, — so that neither rule nor declaration is any obligation. For without a rule he was excommunicated, and with an alleged rule, ignorantly applied, he may not be restored. This is Free Churchism in its " Independent" development. "Sheffield, Aug. 19,1869. "Dear Sir, — As Mr. Hannay affirmed in the Union meeting that my name would be inserted in the next Year Book, I wish to know whether this was merely his personal statement, or whether he had the authority of the committee, or any on whom I can rely that this will be the case ; as the knowledge of this, one way or other, will affect my action at the Wolverhampton (fathering. " Yours truly, "BREWIN GRANT." " The Rev. Dr. George Smith." "August 23, 1869. "Dear Sir, — As Dr. Smith is from home, I have pleasure in replying to the inquiry contained in your note addressed to him as secretary of the Congregational Union. PREFACE. 291 " Mr. Hannay's affirmation in May last, relative to the insertion of your name in the next Year Book, was in accordance with the rule. "As a minister, in fellowship with a church connected with the Union, you became a member [of the Congregational Union] on pay- ment of the usual subscription, and your name will, therefore, appear in the Alphabetical List of Ministebs,* unless its inser- tion should be vetoed by the Assembly of the Union. " I am, dear Sir, " Yours truly, " THOMAS H. COLLINS." " Kev. B. Grant, B.A." " Sheffield, August 24th, 1869. " Dear Sir, — ' The rule,' ' in accordance with ' which you say * Mr. Hannay's affirmation ' was made, has nothing to do with the subject of my inquiry. It relates to personal membership of the Congregational Union, not to the list of Congregational Ministers. It is a special provision for those who are ministers, and who, therefore, before joining the Union — which is a private voluntary association — are already enrolled, or entitled independently of this ' rule ' to be enrolled in the ' Alphabetical List of Congregational Ministers.' "To say that a minister by paying five shillings to the Union may be a minister, is to be reduced to an absurdity. " Members of the Union are one thing, ministers of the denomi- nation are another. It is, however, necessary for the officials of the Union to confound a plain distinction. But if the rule did apply to being on the ' List of Ministers ' instead of to ' personal membership of the Union,' to which alone it refers, as you can see by looking at it, — still, if it meant what it never mentions and cannot mean, but contradicts by clear implication, it seems that it may be ' vetoed by the Assembly ' in October, without any intima- tion to the victim, although it is a part of ' the constitution ' of the Union. " A * rule ' therefore means something that we are not to go by. " I do not ask for Mr. Hannay's personal misapplication of rules, l)ut for the Committee's official authority — on which I may rely— - that what he said would be done — will be done. " The members of the committee will be wise not to stultify themselves by advancing an irrelevant rule as an excuse for fulfilling * Which is distinct from and independent of the List of Members of the Union. 292 PREEACE. a public unchallenged pledge which they permitted to he given, and which, if not intended by them, should not have been permitted to be openly made in their presence by their representative speaker. " But, as you surmise that this restoration may be 'vetoed by the Assembly,' will it be open to debate ? Will the committee send me the articles of impeachment, giving a list of any rules THAT I HAVE VIOLATED and THE THEN EXISTING RULES ON WHICH THEY ACTED ? " The confused and hasty post mortem legislation in May was only a confession of the illegality of their proceedings. "Nothing but a fair, frank, authorized statement can restore the credit of the Union, and this statement neither the committee nor the Assembly has given, or dare give. "I ask now, however, for a plain statement whether my name will be restored, as publicly affirmed in the Assembly last May ? This information is the more necessary after your intimation that even the pretended rule on the subject may be violated by those who are weak enough or reduced enough to plead it — in order to break it. "As I said before, my proceedings at the "Wolverhampton gathering will be affected by the way in which the committee deals with this inquiry. " Yours very truly, " BREWIN GRANT." " T. H. Collins, Esq." " Please to show this letter to the secretary, Dr. Smith, as I wish for an official reply." No answer was vouchsafed to this inquiry. Indeed it is im- possible to put into words an excuse for the pretence that because a Congregational minister joins a voluntary association — the Congre- gational Union — to attend its meetings, he is therefore put on the list — not of members of that Union, which was the only common- sense result, but on the list of Congregational ministers, which is a separate thing, and to which place he had a right before, and must have, according to the rule referred to, in order to qualify for " personal membership " in the Union. Yet it is pretended that the personal membership of the Union qualifies a minister for the ministry, which again reciprocally qualifies him for securing "per- sonal membership !" Thus tyranny is reduced to imbecility when it tries to excuse itself. It was the astuteness of Mr. Hannay, the committee's mouth- piece in the Assembly, that imposed on the simplicity of Mr. Collins, the worthy clerk to the secretaries. \ PREFACE. 293 Any one reading his letter would expect this conclusion, that because " as a minister" I had joined the Congregational Union my name would therefore appear "in the list" of the members of that Union. But guided by official and authorised hallucination, the writer's pen turns off [from the only legitimate conclusion, and substitutes the "Alphabetical List of Congregational Ministers," on which I had stood for a quarter of a century. It is like saying to a town councillor, that "as a burgess, having obtained a membership of the town council by the votes of your fellow burgesses, your name will therefore appear on the alpha- betical list of burgesses," according to the rule which permits a burgess to be a town councillor and so qualifies him to be a burgess. I put it in this way to make it plain even to the committee of the Congregational Union, that if possible they may understand to what deplorable shifts they are reduced. Their reasons are their ruin — whether we look at their reasons for taking the name off, or for promising to put it on again, or for not fulfilling that promise. The only fear I have is lest their incredible absurdity, as they struggle helplessly in the net which they wove for me, will throw discredit on this history, and make some imagine that this helpless floundering of a committee, backed by the ablest intellects of our men of progress, must be what the genius of the English Inde- pendent calls "flim-flam." It is by these arts that Independency is conquered. There may be some satisfaction in falling before brave and able men : — Ne virtute quidem, premi libertatem, sed arte eludi : :;: — Not by open bravery was our freedom vanquished, but spirited away by trickery. As the same master of language observes of one : — Excepit deinde euru lentius spe bellum, quo nequidquam vi adortus, postremo minime arte Romana, frauds ac dolo, adgressus est.f Afterwards another war engaged him, which dragged on longer than he expected, in which, having vainly tried fair strength of war, at last by treachery, very little after the high Roman fashion, by fraud and guile, he gained his end. We must distinguish between Roman and Romish art, and remember that the latter is adopted to advance Romish equality by consistently imitating it. Both to Independent Ministers and others the writer's case is a warning and example of the " equality" which they may experience — he can suffer no more than is already inflicted. Ceteri sibi ac liberis suis consulerent J — Let the * Livii, lib. III., cap. x. f Livii, lib. I, cap. liii. + Liviii, lib. III. 294 PREFACE. rest consider for themselves and their families. Aliena oalamitate documentum datum Mis carenda similis injuria — By the misfor- tunes of another, there is given to them a specimen of the kind of injury against which they have to guard themselves. Si animus sit, non defore auxilium* — If they are not wanting in faithfulness, they will not want for help. Quum priorum audacia dubiis etiam animum faceret— The boldness of a few would give courage to the rest. This power of ministerial life and death was well described by the Rev. S. M'Call in the following observations to the Assembly of the Congregational Union, May, 1869 : — " It was foreseen from the very beginning that the Year Book would come to be a serious and perhaps formidable power. That was foreseen. The thing was inevitable. The appearance of a name in that book was a kind of authentication ; the omission of the name seemed to be an emphatic disownment of the person. And the omission was more serious than the insertion, for, whereas the insertion would seem to imply that there was nothing to be said material against the person, the omission would seem to imply that there teas nothing to be said for him, and, therefore, that the Year Book would be a very serious power in our hands was anticipated as a matter of course, and that there would arise some difficulties in managing this power might be anticipated by every thoughtful person. I am glad they have not arisen earlier, for then it might have damaged our condition as a Union ; and I am glad that they have not been deferred longer, for then possibly the mischief might have become unmanageable. It lies at present within comparatively narrow bounds, and I sincerely hope, with my honourable friend Mr. Hannay, that this morning will see the end of it for ever."\ Instead of ending that difficulty that morning, the power of arbitrarily and secretly excommunicating ministers was then for the first time publicly confirmed, so that " the mischief" has become " unmanageable." * Livii, lib. III., cap. x. f " English Independent," May 14, 1869. KEPOKT OF THE TKIAL OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNIONISTS BEFORE THE COMMISSION OF INQUIET INTO SPIRITUAL TRADES-UNION OUTRAGES. The Constitution of the Court, the occasion and object of its appointment, may be understood from the opening remarks of the President, who observed, for the information of the public, — that of late it had been found necessary, in order to discover certain crimes and protect future possible victims, by deterring the perpe- trators, to arm Commissioners with a power of enquiry beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of legal courts. Yet, at the same time, in order to protect the accused, while consulting the interests of the public, it was seen to be necessary that extra-judicial methods of securing evidence should not tell penally against those who were convicted by it ; that is, providing they themselves honestly aided the cour*. in obtaining information by making, as Mr. Overend observed a. *he Trades-Union Outrage Commission in Sheffield — " a clean bi'btist of it." If the court were satisfied that the persons examined gave all the information in their power, even though thereby criminating themselves, they were to receive a form of indem- nification ; but if it were believed by the Commission that any witness concealed information, such witness was liable to be tried in the ordinary courts and punished, if found guilty. The Court of Inquiry had also power to enforce answers, and to commit for contempt. It was under the provision of indemnity that evidence as to the agency in suspected Trades -Union Outrages was obtained ; and even though, in the case of the murder of the man Linley, and the " blowing up " of the house of the man Fearnehough — to the extreme danger of the lives of himself and family, who were in bed 296 at the time of the explosion — the confederates in those deeds were pardoned, according to the conditions laid down, of a full confes- sion ; still, the liability to such investigation and exposure would tend to prevent similar acts, while the information thus acquired would aid the legislature in deciding how far new laws regarding Trades Unions were required, and what those laws should be. The same principle has been applied to questions of bribery in elections, in the case of Norwich, Beverley, and Bridgewater, by which evidence was obtained that had eluded the search of the judges lately appointed to decide on election petitions. This Court or Commission of Inquiry into Spiritual Trades- Union Outrages is of the same kind, and founded on the same principle. It is the boast of our present legislation that all parties shall be treated on the principle of equality ; and it would be manifestly unequal to inquire severely into the conduct of the Unions of the working classes, as in Sheffield, and not to inquire into the con- duct of that Spiritual Trades-Union whose president, the Eev. Newman Hall, in its name, lectured the working classes of Shef- field on tyranny over one another, which that same Ministerial Uniou was then accused of perpetrating on its own account, while it was also endeavouring to screen and justify the perpetrators. This was well brought out in " The Particular Case for Congrega- tional Unionists," the author of which now, in turn, and to a great extent, as he believes, for that exposure of an outrage, is himself the subject of one ; not only to silence him, but to terrify others from public criticism, and render the repetition of Spiritual Trades- Union outrages as secure to the perpetrators as they are fatal to the victims. It is not for the Court to pronounce an opinion on the case before- hand — in fact, we cannot entertain an opinion till we have pursued the investigation : but justice requires this distinction, that while the sacred character of Christian societies and ministers should be jealously guarded and respected, the same renders it more impera- tive to require of them a greater scrupulousness and magnanimity of conduct than can reasonably be expected of untaught men following the impulse of an apparent though mistaken self-interest. This distinction is the more obviously just, inasmuch as the Congregational Union took upon itself to instruct the working men of Sheffield in the duty of respecting ether people's rights while defending their own. The working classes naturally expect their, teachers to set them an example 297 But there is a greater principle, or one more important, than any hitherto mentioned, and which both justifies and necessitates the inquiry on which we are entering, and to this we desire to call special attention. At present, the presumed tendency of legislation is to withdraw religion at least — though nothing else — from the patronage, pro- tection, and subsidising of Government, even so far as the with- drawal, not of public money given from the Consolidated Fund — the common taxes, to which all contribute — but of corporate property, which prescriptive right would seem to perpetuate. Now, the professed object of these changes is to secure liberty and equality in the free exercise of private opinion on religious and moral questions, and on political questions as relating to them. It is therefore necessary for the public good that the nation should be informed how far those so-called voluntary societies. — which are presumed to be the alternative of National Establishments and to " liberate" men from evils said to be incidental to those establishments — are fraught with the evils for which they are the professed remedy. Whether, in fact, these societies as at present existing, however free in theory, do not need the regulation of public law to defend the natural rights of individuals against what is called " an organized tyranny supported by an organized hypocrisy." There are two objects professedly to be secured by the so-called " Free Churches " — the purity of Christian truth and the freedom of individual consciences ; and it is alleged that there are two dangers from unestablished Churches ; besides that it is said that the freer Churches are departing from the Christian truth referred +o — a point not at present before us, except so far as they may infringe the rights of their members by illegally excommunicating them for maintaining the professed principles of these societies. That this has had something, and not a little, to do with the outrage specially before us has been affirmed by so high a Broad Church authority as the Pall Mall Gazette* However, it is enough to observe that the two dangers from un- established churches are first to suppress individual freedom by the tyranny of majorities, by the usurpation of officials, by technical rules technically applied, or rules invented for the occasion ; by patronage, and by terrorism of penalties. Secondly, the danger * In a review at considerable length of " The Dissenting World : an Autobiography." 298 from Free Churches is to the State, which may be predominated over by what has been well described as a "fraternity of Eccle- siastics, without families, without the ties of home or country, a race of spiritual gypsies belonging to no nation, but domineering over all ; fomenting wars, distributing crowns, annulling the alle- giance of subjects, laying interdicts on kingdoms, not to free the nations but to enslave monarchs and consummate their conspiracy against mankind."* These also accumulate vast wealth by frightening the dying; and when aided towards equality by other "Free Churches," imme- diately demand domination over schools and Government pay ; as Paul Cullen, for Ireland, in gratitude for pacification by the over- throw of the Protestant establishment, to be followed by the con- fiscation of property of Protestant landowners. This fraternity would dominate over the Government, and secures its power by domineering over private conscience even in scholastic affairs, publicly threatening in a pastoral to deprive of the sacra- ments, and so to consign to everlasting ruin whoever shall send their children to Government schools not modelled into Romish " establishments." This is done at the same time that a Triduwn, or three days' thanksgiving service, is instituted to bless God for the liberality of a liberal Government, and the special enlightenment of our Premier, Mr. Gladstone, in giving the Romish priests equality, as a step towards this domination, which is " conciliation." Nor are the priests the only danger to Government, for as they dictate to electors, so "the Dissenting screw" is worked against any one who does not fall into rank on the liberal, side to lift priests into the position for new demands. The kind of intimidation em- ployed is seen by the fact that the leading organ of the " Spiritual Trades -Union," whose proceedings in this case we are to inquire into, plainly intimated to its readers that for taking an independent view of the election contest the plaintiff could no longer be regarded as a Congregational Minister and " on this hint" the Union would appear to have acted. The object of this inquiry is to shew hoiv far, apart from the preservation of doctrine, such Free Churches can be entrusted with the preservation of individual liberty, and whether some special legislation may not be required for these " Spiritual Trades-Unions," • Orations to the-Oratorians, in reply to Dr. Newman, by the Kev. Brewin Grant, &A. 290 as well as for those Secular Trades-Unions, which the managers of the former are so ready to advise and correct. "We have something else to do besides disestablishing the English Church, if we really mean to secure religious freedom and purity of doctrine and disci- pline as well as civil rights. In the words of a great authority among the Free Churches— - the Rev. Dr. Parker, late of Manchester, the great advocate of ' ' Aggressive Nonconformity — "The honour and integrity of British Congregationalism are on their trial." FIBST DAYS PBOCEEDINGS OPENING OF THE CASE. It was arranged by the President of the Court that a general statement of the case on both sides should be put in as the basis of proceedings. THE KEY. BREWIN GRANT'S STATEMENT. In order to exhaust all moral means before having recourse to legal proceedings to secure reparation for the Union outrage, which, without notice, trial, or even accusation beforehand, and without explanation afterwards, unfrocked, deposed, and excommunicated him, he determined on petitioning the general " Annual Assembly," May 11th, against the illegal action of its committee on surrep- titiously forged rules. The following is a copy of the petition that was sent to the Committee for presentation to the Assembly :■— THE PETITION OF THE REV. BREWIN GRANT, B.A., to the congregational union, in public annual meeting assembled, " ShEWHTH — " That the petitioner's name has been on the list of Congrega- tional ministers for the space of twenty-five years, up to the ' Year Book for 1868,' and was omitted from the"' Year Book for 1869,' without any intimation to the petitioner beforehand, or any explana- tion afterwards. 300 " That this act of the editor of the 'Year Book' has been en- dorsed by the Committee of the Union, which gives no reason, and affords no redress* " That such erasure was admitted by Dr. xarker, m the Union meeting in Sheffield, in 1866, to ' amount to ministerial deposition ; a species of excommunication,' and to be ' fraught with the gravest consequences to individual ministers.' "That the petitioner is suffering these 'gravest consequences,' contrary, as he believes, to the law of the land, and contrary to the positive votes and directions of the Assembly, whose authority the Committee have ignored, contravened, assumed, and surpassed. " That the committee acknowledged it had not the authority to make regulations for deposing ministers, when in reply to the peti- tioner's remonstrance against the unconstitutional erasure of the Rev. Isaac Vaughans name, without notice or trial, the committee agreed to introduce a motion on the subject at the autumnal meetings in Sheffield, in 1866. " That the committee, by its own arrangement, was most respect- fully requested to consider the methods of adding names to, and re- moving them from, the list of ministers, and to report on the same to the next Annual Assembly. " That the committee did not report to the Assembly, but legis- lated in its place, creating a new rule six months before the next Annual Assembly, and placed its illegal law in the ' Year Book for 1867,' to authorize that power of expulsion which was in question, which was already protested against, and which should at least have been debated and sanctioned by the Assembly, and been regulated within the constitutional power of the Union. " That in the autumn of 1867, at Manchester, the petitioner in- quired by what authority the new law of expulsion from the Inde- pendent body was inserted in the 'Year Book,' when no report had been made to the Assembly, as ordered and promised. " That in reply, the Secretary said the committee had reported in favour of the alteration, and that the alteration was sanctioned by the annual meeting. "That the secretary afterwards apologised publicly to the peti- tioner, acknowledging that no report had been given, and conse- sequently no sanction received for the innovation. " That the secretary promised that it should be reported to the next annual meeting for the consideration of the members, as to whether the new rule should be adopted. " That it was not presented for discussion, but referred to as an 301 * effected alteration,' which had been forgotten to be reported ; the authority to ' effect ' it was assumed on the part of the Committee, and all the Assembly had to do was not to debate the new rule, but to condone the failure to report it before by those who had no authority to make it. " That this part of the report — 3Ia\\ 1868— was objected to by the seconder, the new rule being declared by the chairman to be il- legally made ; and the whole question was recommended to be re- served for a future meeting. " That on this condition only, the report in general was accepted, and consequently the innovation was repudiated by the seconder, condemned by the chairman, Dr. Raleigh, and voted down by the Assembly. 11 That the ' Year Book for 1869' if/nores this important circum- stance, which was fully recorded in the English Independent, and is quoted at large in 'The Dissenting World: an Autobiography,' pages 227-8 : in which book, also, every stage of this business is carefully recorded. " That the secretary again publicly pledged himself and the com- mittee to bring the matter before a subsequent meeting, as directed. " That he did not do so ; but when asked whether it was brought up at the next meeting in Leeds, October, 1868, replied that he believed it was settled in London, in May ; as at Manchester, he and the editor of the ' Year Book ' averred that the rule was proposed and passed in London, 1867, though it had never been mentioned. " That instead of bringing forward the question, according to re- iterated public promises, a more stringent rule was made by the same illegal power of the committee ; and this second surreptitious altera- tion of the laws of Independency is placed in the ' Year Book of 1869,' for which the editor alleges a resolution of the committee, which he knew had no authority to make the alteration, but was pledged to bring its former illegal rule before the Assembly for con- sideration and decision. " That under this second surreptitiously-made rule, the petitioner was excommunicated and deposed, the only possible pretence being that his name was omitted to be returned by the district secretary, Dr. Falding, as that of a minister resident in his district. " That the rule requiring such return was illegally made ; that the application of it to previous ministers is unconstitutional as a retrospective law ; and that the pretence that the petitioner's name was not returned — if such pretence should be advanced respecting a name that had been recognised for a quarter of a century — is con- 302 tradicted by a letter from Dr. Falding to the petitioner, which avows that he did return the name. 1 * That, therefore, if the new illegal rule were legal, and appli- cable to previous ministers instead of to new ones, it does not apply to the petitioner. [It should be explained here, that though Dr. Falding, to defend himself from the odium of being the private illegal professional executioner of a brother minister without note or comment, trial or execution, or notice, declared he did " return" the name, he explained afterwards that he returned it — as not re- turnable (!) This prevarication is sacred to Professors : not to be imitated by the profane vulgar.] " That the committee has * assigned no reason and cannot — it avows no motive, and dare not ;' but evasively refers to a ' previous course,' which was not previously pursued ; and nothing happened between 1868, when the petitioner's name was in the ' Year Book,' and 1869, when it was erased, except his opposition to Mr. Glad- stone s movements to transfer the endowment of Protestantism in Ire- land to Roman Catholic institutions and management. " That the petitioner had a right to his opinions, and to the free utterance of them, since he did not, as some do, undermine the Gos- pel of Christ and deny his Saviour, but only doubted the policy of a variegated and ' suspensory ' statesman, whose course has been * a perpetual motion of self-contradiction.' " That whatever motive the committee had in endorsing the action of its editor, that action was illegal and injurious, and that no technical rules or excuses will cover the grave injustice which is inflicted, and for which the petitioner believes the law of the land will afford repa- ration, as a condensed libel ; a violation of the implied contract in the principles of our denomination ; a deprival of professional stand- ing, its usefulness and its advantages, in violation of all rules of honour, and justice, and open dealing. " That, nevertheless, the petitioner prefers, as he has all along offered, a settlement by moral and Christian means, the last of which in his power is an appeal direct to the Union to carry out its own principles, and neither itself to be over-ridden by the usurpa- tion of its committeee and paid agents, nor to permit them to over- ride the common claims of justice, to the discredit of the Union, as an organised and centralised despotism that can strangle in the dark any Independent minister without a word. " That no subterfuges will escape the general conviction of the world outside — that this act is lending the Union to the side of political and religious despotism. 303 "That it can be settled now to the honour of the denomination, by the restoration of the name to the list of the Congregational ministers, and for this the petitioner appeals as the barest act of justice. " That the refusal to entertain this petition, and deal frankly with the merits of the case, uill entail continued agitation, the result of which may be as disastrous to the denomination as the conduct of the committee is to the petitioner, who was brought up an Independent, was over seven years educated for the ministry, has been engaged twenty-five years in it, and wished to continue ; and who has received recognitions as to character, ability, and use- fulness, such as few have been honoured with, and who is deeply convinced that the only reason for his deposition is the anger of some, both for his defence of orthodoxy and liberty among our- selves, and his opposition to Roman encroachments in political parties. " That whatever real or affected contempt any may feel or feign, the petitioner believes that calm consideration will lead the gene- rality to a desire to do justice, which can be prevented only by clamour and misrepresentation, and the averting of impartial enquiry. " That the loftiest throne, in heaven as on earth, may be approached by the lowliest petitioner, even to sue for mercy and favour on behalf of offences against the law, while the petitioner asks his brethren neither for mercy nor favour, but for the removal of the injustice of condemnation without trial or accusation — the restoration of their own good name no less than his ; the removal of a scandal which amazes the world, and the continuance of which, by the direct act or silence of the Union, will be a stain on our practice, which no " exposition of congregational principles" will wipe out, but only intensify, as a mocking contrast between our high professions and our low performances : and that this may be averted by wisdom given to the assembly " to do justly," is the only desire and prayer of your petitioner. " B re win Grant." In reply to letters urging the committee to lay this petition before the Assembly, the secretary wrote : — " Congregational Union of England and Wales. " Dear Sir, — The committee are unable to comply with your request to present to the Assembly the printed petition you have seut me. I am, yours truly, " Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A. " George Smith." 304 After the laying of these before the Court, as a general statement of the plaintiff's case and as the basis for investigation, the Presi- dent directed other witnesses to be called, leaving it open to cross- examine the plaintiff at a subsequent stage of the enquiry. Counter Statement on Behalf of the Congregational Unionists, report on the year-book. The Rev. Dr. Smith : I have now to submit the special report on the Year Book which was adopted by the Assembly. " In the report presented to the last annual meeting of the Con- gregational Union, the committee explained to the Assembly the accidental omission from the former report of a statement which ought to have been made, ' on the terms on which names of ministers are inserted or omitted from the Year Booh ;' and they endeavoured to supply the deficiency by a statement of what they had done in this matter, in conformity with a resolution adopted at Sheffield. The information thus conveyed not being deemed suffi- ciently definite by some of the brethren, the subject was remitted to the committee for further consideration, and for a subsequent report, which they now proceed to make. In June of last year the Committee appointed a Sub-committee of their number, consisting of eighteen gentlemen, to consider the question. They met, and sent up a recommendation to the effect that the present heading of the alphabetical lists be expunged, and that the following heading should be substituted : — ' Alphabetical list of Independent ministers in England whose names have been furnished by the secretaries of County Associations or Unions, or by the secretaries of the Con- gregational Board, or who are members of the Congregational Union.' Acting on this minute, which was adopted by the com- mittee, the editor prepared the list for the present year. " Exceptions having been taken to the operation of this regulation, by which certain names were excluded from the list which it was imagined ought to have been inserted, the committee again referred the subject to the consideration of their sub-committee, who recom- mended that the following in future be the heading in the Year Booh, preceding the alphabetical list, instead of that published in 1869 : — ' Independent Ministers, Great Britain and Ireland, whose names have been furnished by the secretaries of associations or unions, or by the secretaries of the Congregational board, or by five ministers already on the list and residing in the neighbourhood, or 305 who are members of the Congregational Union.' N.B. — These returns in each case are made annually. "It will be observed that the principal change in this heading from that which appears in the Year Book for the present year is found in the provision made for the introduction of names on the testimony of five neighbouring ministers. " After the most mature deliberation given by your committee to the subject, they recommend the Assembly to approve the proposed form of announcement, as the only way of avoiding the evil of making an editor or a committee responsible for the insertion of names, and placing the responsibility on those local associations with which the minister may be connected, or on his ministerial brethren who have recommended the insertion of his name. Your approval of this will give for the future a certain well-defined regularity to the list. It is important to state that the editor from the commencement of the publication of the Year Book has never professed to furnish a list of all Independent ministers, but only the names of such as were supplied to him for insertion, " The committee are free to acknowledge that in changing the heading of the list, before reporting to the Assembly, they perhaps acted prematurely, but forasmuch as they in no respect de- parted from the fundamental principle on which names have been admitted to the list from the beginning, they anticipated no difficulty in obtaining the approval of the Assembly. They have now only to add that no name has been omitted from the Year Book of 1869 by the operation of any new regulation adopted by them, but because the name was not sent to the editor for insertion by any one compe- tent to send it ; and that in accordance with the course which had been previously pursued in the preparation of the Year Book." That is the entire report of the committee ; but last evening in the preliminary meeting a conversation upon this report, which was then read, and, I believe, in the main approved, led to the introduc- tion of what the committee- were very anxious to avoid — some- thing in the shape of personality. It resulted in the adoption of a resolution by the preliminary meeting which they instructed me to bring up and lay before you. The preliminary meeting of this Union held last evening determined to recommend that the follow- ing resolution be submitted to the Assembly this morning : — " That with relation to the complaint which the Kev. Brewin Grant has made as to the non-insertion of his name in the "Year Book" of 1869, the Assembly hereby assures him that no personal disrespect was intended to him by such non-insertion, nor had it any relation whatever to his political opinions, nor did it imply the slightest reflection either on his cnaracter or on his ministerial standing."* * " The English Independent," May 14, 1869. 306 Examination of the Eev. Dr. Geoege Smith, Secretary of the Congregational Union. In reply to the question, by what authority, according to the principles and usages of the Congregationalists, the Rev. Brewin Grant's name had been omitted from "The Alphabetical List of Congregational Ministers " in the Year Book for 1869 ? — the Rev. Dr. Smith said : The whole matter is explained and justified in the Report on the subject, which was submitted to the Assembly in May, 1869, and which the meeting confirmed. The Report in question had been read in Court. Dr. Smith examined mainly on the basis of this Report : — Was that Report, with its appendage about the plaintiff's case, adopted by the Assembly ? The Report was adopted apart from that appended resolution. — Then the Assembly would not affirm — as advised by the preliminary meeting — that the non -insertion of the plaintiff's name " intended no persoual disrespect," had " no relation whatever to his political sentiments," and did " not imply the slightest reflection on his character or on his ministerial standing?" No. — Did they admit, then, that this " non-insertion" ivas an act of " personal disrespect " for " his political sentiments," by which he lost " his character and ministerial standing " amongst Independents ? I did not understand it so. — How then ? The proposal was negatived. — Then the Assembly did not agree with the Preliminary Meeting's interpretation of the omission of this name ? They might agree with it, and yet not think it wise to assert it. — Why ? Because, as it was said, it would seem like an apology. — But, if the statement was true, why should they be afraid or ashamed to accept it ? I cannot say. — Did you consider it necessary to gain the sanction of that meeting, in order to give validity to regulations that were suggested in the Report ? The Committee has authority ©nly to suggest and recommend alterations, which the Assembly aaay decline or accept, and in this case the Assembly adopted the new rules. Then, in fact, you had acted upon new methods that had not received any sanction? — "No name was omitted by the adoption of any new regulation." What, then, do you mean by saying, "exceptions having been taken to the operation of this resolution, by which certain names were excluded from the list"? It was all "in accordance with the course previously pursued in the preparation of the Year Book." 307 How was it, then, that those names were not previously excluded; and how can it be " by the operation of this regulation " that " certain names were excluded," if, after all, no alteration of the rules had been made ? " We have departed from no fundamental principle on which names have been admitted from the beginning." We are not speaking of " names being admitted," but names being " omitted^ Did you not say that this omission arose from "the operation of this regulation" which you proposed to the Assembly ? Yes. Then " this regulation " was not in operation before ? Oh, yes ! We always acted on the same principle. Then why did you propose "this regulation " to the Assembly for its approval if you had always acted on it before it existed ? Because the Assembly's " approval " would " give for the future a certain well defined regularity to the list." How can it give " a well denned regularity for the future" to this list, if the same rule has existed and been acted on in the past ? I do not understand. You say that this rule has always been acted on ? Yes. And that " its approval " by the Assembly will " give in future a well denned regularity to the list" ? Yes. Then hitherto it has not had this "well denned regularity?" Oh, yes ! for we have always acted on the same rule. Without securing " a well denned regularity to the list ?" I do not say so. But I want you to say one way or the other — has the observance of this rule, which you say has been observed in the past, secured " a well denned regularity to the list ?" No answer. If the use of the rule in the past had not secured " a well de- fined regularity to the list," what difference would be made in its operation by its receiving the "approval" of the Assembly ? I have replied to the best of my ability. No doubt. Will you be good enough to turn to the foot of page 399 of the Year Book for 1869 ? I have it here, sir. Well, read " the Editorial Notice." "He [the editor] would bespeak the special attention of Association Secretaries in Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies, to the decision of the Committee of the Congregational Union, respecting the names to be inserted in the Year Book, as indicated at the head of the Alphabetical List. No names of ministers are allowed to appear but those which have been returned to the editor by the secretaries of country associations," &c. Is not that a fundamental change — making every minister 308 dependent for his continuance on the list on your arbitrary " regu lation ?" We have not departed from " the course previously pur sued." Then how is it that the editor "bespeaks special attention" to the fact that "the preparation of the returns has been made this year in accordance with this principle ?" The rule had always been acted on. Was it " traditional" or does it exist in any Year Book " at the head" of any " alphabetical list" before that of 1869 ? It was not a written rule. Were not your " notices" after this fashion, — " names are added to this list ?" Yes. Did not that imply that the persons who managed the list had no authority to remove old b 7 ~t only to admit new names, according to acknowledged rules, to an accredited and standing list ? I do not quite understand. Well, can you direct me to any rule, in any Year Book, giving the committee or any one power to remove a minister's name ? No answer. In that Report you say: — "It is important to state that the editor of the Year Book has never professed to furnish a list of all Independent Ministers, but only such as were supplied to him." Do you mean that he did not profess to give as accurate a list as he was able to obtain ? No. Among those " supplied to him" did he not include those that came originally from college, " supplied " " by the authority of tutors," &c, according to the old " headings " of your list ? Yes. Did he ever before-hand venture to acknowledge that he assumed to omit, or " non-insert," names that had been " previously supplied to him," on the pretext that they were not re-supplied every year ? No. Then, in seeing the " importance " of saying that he inserted " only those that were supplied to him" you do not mean that he may now omit them because not supplied again ? No answer. Has any one ever said that the editor is to insert names that are not " supplied " to him ? No. Then why did you introduce this irrelevant defence ? It seemed necessary. Perhaps so, but it is irrelevant ? I do not see it. Well, if nobody complains of his not " inserting names that are not supplied," why do you say that he has never done this ? I cannot tell. ir- 309 No, but I can : is it not this, that under the plea of never having inserted names not " supplied "from certain specified sources, he may now omit oe expunge the names that had been so supplied and had long stood on the list — but which are now, if convenient, to be omitted on the plea of not being " supplied" annually : that is, " sup- plied" in a new sense, namely, by secretaries, to whom you have ille- gally transferred the responsibility, of " expunging" names under the cover of " not supplying" them ? No answer. " You now use the word " supplied to him" in a different sense, to prove that you follow the old plan ? No answer. In fact, your defence is an equivocation. It is true we never admitted those not " supplied." Yes ; but now you do omit them, under the pretence that they are not supplied annually ? No answer. "When did you first assume this power ? We did not assume it ; we " placed the responsibility on those local associations with which the minister may be connected," " as the only way of avoid- ing the evil of making an editor or a committee responsible for the insertion of names." I am not speaking of "insertion," but I [want your rules for 11 omission ;" if you never had this power, how could you confer it on local secretaries or associations'? It was "to avoid respon- sibility." No doubt you may desire to avoid that, but if you had no right arbitrarily to depose the Rev. Brewin Grant by erasing his name from its old place in your "Alphabetical List," had you a right to make a regulation to do it on condition Dr. Falding pleased not to "return" it ? I do not wish to make a personal question of the matter. Was not the injury " personal," and done by " persons," by the aid of " personal," political and neological motives? It is said so. Then you are not prepared to tell me whether you escape " respon- sibility " by employing a tool to do what you have no right to do, either with or without the tool ? We had the authority of the Assembly for what we did. Then, why did you ask for its " approval" six months after you did it ? We secured that approval afterwards. Then you acted without authority? We acted "in conformity with a resolution adopted at Sheffield." Will you state that resolution ? Resolution moved by the Rev. Dr. Parker, seconded by Dr. George Smith : " That the pastors, deacons and delegates now assembled most respectfully request the 310 committee of the Union to consider whether any alterations should be made in the terms upon which the names of ministers are inserted in, or omitted from, the Congregational Year Book, and to report upon the same at the Annual Meeting in May next." Did you " report to the Annual Meeting in May next," — that is, in 1867 ? No. Did you not say, in October of that year, in the public meeting in Manchester, that the committee had reported and that its sug- gested alterations were accepted by the Assembly ? Yes ; and my colleague, the Rev. Robert Ashton, confidently confirmed my words ;* but I afterwards offered to Mr. Grant and all the members of the Union an expression of my sincere regret f for the mistake. It certainly was a curious mistake for both of you to make, on a subject in which you were both so deeply concerned. But had you legislated instead of reporting, and already made an alteration in the terms, so as to provide a method of expulsion without consulting the Assembly ? Yes. Did the resolution authorize you to make any alteration ? We were "to consider whether any alterations should be made." And " to report ?" Yes. And you did not report, but legislated six months before the Assembly met ? Yes. You assumed or conferred the power of secret " ministerial decapitation?" That is not "a gentlemanly way of putting the matter."| But you gave license to any tutor or secretary, or batch of three ministers to get rid, by excommunication, of any independent brother ? We simply altered the heading of the Alphabetical List, thus : " Ministers are added to this List, or omitted from it, on the testimony and authority of tutors of colleges, secretaries of local associations, three ministers," &c. Exactly, you might as well have said " Yes," at once. You gave power " to omit from " the list of ministers, that is, to excommuni- cate and depose any in a private fashion, and you have used this engine against the plaintiff to secure your empire by a coup d'etat ? He may please to say so, in order to make himself a martyr. Was it he or you, and Dr. Falding, and the Committee, who employed Mr. Ashton to erase his name, and depose him from his profession, instigated by The English Independent newspaper ? I do not see the relevance of the question. • "Dissenting World," p. 223. f Ibid, p. 226. J " Dissenting World," p. 222. 311 Did he strike himself off the rolls ? The English Independent, of April 29, explains, that " the omission of Mr. Grant's name befell by natural operation of law." But who surreptitiously made the " law," and put it into " natural operation " to the plaintiff's injury ? No answer. In your apology for the grave mistake made by you and your colleague at Manchester, you promised that " the effected altera- tion," which you had smuggled into the Year Book, should " be reported to the next annual meeting, when opportunity will be afforded of ascertaining how far it meets the views and wishes of the brethren ?"* Yes. Did you, then, in London, in May, 1868, present this question to the Union as a proposal to be considered, or only refer to it in the report as legislation accomplished ? The report as in the Y'ear Book for 1869, says of " the effected alteration — " they (the committee) now submit it for your judgment and approval." Yes; for their "approval," but was it put before the meeting as a distinct proposition to be debated, or merely as part of a report of what was already done, and had been accidentally omitted to be reported before ? We said, " this alteration, which ought to have been reported to the last annual meeting, was by a pure oversight, which your committee regret, omitted from the report." Exactly ; you laid it before them as an " alteration" which you had " effected," when you were authorised only to report as to whether alterations were needed, but had no authority to make them? You say so. Well, did the Assembly give its ' 'approval" to your " alteration?" The Year Book (for 1869, p. 33), says, it was " moved and seconded," "that this Assembly, in receiving and adopting the report now read, tenders its cordial thanks," &c. Do you not know that the statement is untrue, so far as your " effected alteration " is concerned ? That was the resolution of the Assembly. Was there not a debate on the alteration in question, and was not the consideration of it reserved for a future occasion ? Yes. Then the Assembly was not yet prepared to endorse your new rule of tyranny, and, in fact, did not favour it with " approval?" Not on that occasion. Then why not say so at first ? How came the disapproval of the Assembly to be concealed in the Year Book ? I do not edit that volume ; it is my colleague's department. * "Dissenting World," p. 226. 312 ¥bu mean the Rev. Robt. Ashton, who gives the finishing stroke to ministerial decapitations? He compiles the lists from the returns of the local secretaries. And strikes oft', without enquiring of the victims, any whom such as Dr. Falding may proscribe under your " effected alterations ?" He completes the list. And finishes his brethren ? No answer. But now about that debate which is so carefully omitted by your colleague ; what did the chairman, Dr. Raleigh, say of your " conformity with the resolution adopted at Sheffield?" I do not remember. Let me refresh your memory from the English Independent ;* — " The Chairman : It has come upon me partly by surprise. It seems THERE NEVER HAS BEEN A REPORT GIVEN TO THIS UNION from the Committee that was appointed to report to it, and that we have the thing now tabulated and adopted without really having our- selves SANCTIONED IT." So this new law was as clandestine in its manufacture as it is silent and dark in its operation ? Do you mean that as a question ? Right, sir ; there is, as you delicately hint, no question about it. There is, however, a question to which I " bespeak your special attention." The seconder of the motion for the adoption of your report, in objecting to your " effected alteration," pointed out that it put the power of exclusion into the same hands as held the authority to recommend : for instance, as any tutor, secretary, or three ministers could secure the addition of a name to the list of accredited ministers, so " according to the wording" of the altera- tion, any such parties could " cause a name to be omitted." In explanation of this, he observed, " I think the mistake arises from endeavouring to condense into one sentence the terms of admission and of omission." Now I want your attention to your answer on this point ; you said, " I have no doubt that attempting to put the whole definition into one short phrase led to obscurity." What " obscurity " do you mean ? I mean that it confounded the terms of omission and admission, and made them appear to be the same. Undoubtedly, there can be no other interpretation of your an- swer. Though there is no possible " obscurity" in the "definition," it does clearly give power to such persons as can recommend minis- ters to expel them at any time. The Dissenting World," p. 228. 313 But was not that the plain doctrine of your " alteration" and your own express teachings that the same rule applies to both cases ? That is what I objected to, or rather I accepted and endorsed the objection of the seconder. True, for that occasion : but did not your colleague write to the plaintiff about another victim, and say, "the authority applies equally to admission or omission ? This is all I can say."* I am not responsible for my colleague. But you act together, and he is your official editor. Besides, did you not write defending him in a letter to the plaintiff, in which you say, " he [your colleague] simply acted on a rule which he applies alike to admission and omission ?"f I do not remember; Mr. Grant has a way of keeping letters and quoting them. That, no doubt, is unfortunate for the other side ; but as to your memory, now. Would not such a scene as the one in London — when you were again, for the third time, publicly pestered with this awkward Year Book question — make an impression that would last a twelvemonth ? I should think it would. Well, on the occasion referred to, the Chairman, who then honestly followed plain common sense, concluded by suggesting a reference of " this point for consideration during the year, and bringing it up again for adoption in an amended form ?" Yes. To which you replied : "I think that would be a very wise course." " It can be taken into consideration and reported upon at a future meeting." Now, did you forget all about this during the same year ? I do not remember. Did you, in reply to the inquiry whether the question was reported on at Leeds, in the autumn of 1868, say: " So far as I remember, the Year Book question was not put down for Leeds, it having been decided upon at the annual meeting, if my memory serves me aright ?" \ I may have written that. Speaking of " writing," has it not been affirmed that the plaintiff was written to several times and neglected to answer, respecting qualifying for being on the list ? I heard Dr. Falding and the Bev. Hughes Morgan make that assertion, and they implied that his neglect to answer was the occasion of the omission of his name. True, they hinted so, and knew better ; I shall talk to them all in good time ; but did not the plaintiff, in the same letter which enquired about the Leeds meeting in October, 1868, ask whether * " Dissenting "World," p. 198. t " Dissenting World," p. 203. ♦ "Dissenting World," p. 231. 314 *' the entirely new plan " "for arranging the lists of the Congrega- tional Year Book, as prognosticated in the English Independent and Nonconformist, " refers to new ministers only, or to names that have long been on the list ?"* Perhaps he did. Were not you the proper party, as the Secretary of the Union, of whom to make this inquiry ? Yes. Then, though no man's position should be seriously affected and undermined by new rules, of whose operation he receives no notice, could he have done anything more to avoid the threatened blow than ask you what the new rule was, or whether it affected him ? I directed him to Mr. Ashton. That is your colleague ? Yes. But are you aware that he wrote several times on the subject of these alterations to that colleague of yours and got no answer ? I was not aware of that. Can you trust your memory in this case ? I do not remember. Are you still of opinion that in twice making alterations in the fundamental rules of your society affecting the status of ministers outside it, instead of reporting to the Assembly, you were acting " in conformity with the resolution adopted at Sheffield ?" We say distinctly in our report that "the Committee are free to acknowledge that in changing the heading of the list, before reporting to the Assembly, they, perhaps, acted prematurely. " Perhaps " they did ; but it is not only " prematurely," it is in direct contempt of the Assembly for you to make any alteration at all, since you had no authority to do so. But was it not a still graver fault to take action against an individual on. a rule that had not been passed, even if the Assembly were competent to pass it ? The rule was not made for an individual. No, but against him. Do you think that you would have introduced the resolution at Sheffield, — which you shirked for three years, — or that you would have made the second alterations to cut him off, or would have reported to the Assembly in 18G9, if the plaintiff had not occasioned all these steps ? He thinks himself of too much consequence. Nay, it is you that give consequence to him, or acknowledge it ; but you have not answered my question : — Was it not he who caused the resolution to be adopted at Sheffield, in 1866, and made you afraid of carrying it out, and forced you to do so in 1869 ? And did you not think the late political agitation a favourable oppor- * "Dissenting World," p. 231. 315 tunity, from Liberal prejudice, to secure impunity in throwing him overboard ? I am not bound to answer such questions. Sir, you are. Whose correspondence with you, as secretary, caused the question of the Year Book to be introduced at Sheffield ? The plaintiff's. If you had not confessed it, I could have shown you your own words in acknowledgment of the fact. Now tell me who caused the question to be brought up in London, in May, 1868 ? The plaintiff's pertinacity. Who forced on the same question in May, 1869 ? The plaintiff's pertinacity. Then you have shifted the whole basis of your constitution, and got rid of your principles to get rid of " the plaintiff's pertina- city" in the defence of truth and justice ? We have not changed our constitution ; we pursue the same course as previously. Do you not say in your report, in reference to a second great alteration in the formation of your ministerial list, that "■ acting on this minute [of the Committee] the editor prepared the list for the present year " ? Yes. Is not that an alteration of the constitution of your society, to make it the autocrat of the denomination, so as to depose ministers by the unauthorised action of a committee of a Union that com- prises only a fraction of the denomination '? I think not ; and as I said before, " no name has been omitted from the Year Book of 1869 by the operation of any new regulation." You said that before, and did not explain your contradiction of it: — namely, "exceptions having been taken to the operation of this regulation by which certain names were excluded from the list,'" &c. Can you explain it now ? No answer. Well, can you tell me by what old regulation the plaintiff's name was omitted ? No answer. Do you know any other circumstance than his opposition to Liberal Gladstonianism, which should operate to his expulsion now, and that would not equally have operated for 1868, or for any of the previous twenty- five years during which his name was in- serted ? No answer. Come, sir, you have done admirably under the circumstances ; you can certainly say " yes" or "no" to this question. A.s it is by no " new regulation" that his name is omitted, can you mention any old regulation, and explain why this expulsion did not " befall by operation of law" till the introduction of your " new regulation" for 1869 ? I am not at present prepared with any definite rule. 316 Well, sir, if yon think of one before the examination of witnesses is concluded, my honourable friends on the other side will no doubt put you forward. Dr. Smith then stepped down. The Key. Dr. Alexander Ealeigh's Examination on the Validity of the Committee's " Premature" Legislation. You were chairman of the Congregational Union in May, 1868, and presided as " retiring chairman " over the " preliminary meet- ing," May 10, 1869 ? Yes. Is the Committee of the Union the master or the servant of the Assembly ? The servant. Did you consider the Committee went beyond its province, when being requested, and having agreed, to consider and report whether any alterations were required in the " method of admitting to or omit- ting Ministers' names from the accredited list," it inserted a new rule giving power to certain parties to depose their brethren from the Congregational ministry ? My evidence has been already quoted : I distinctly affirmed that " no report had been given by the Com- mittee that was appointed to report to the Assembly, and that we have the thing [that is, the new " premature" rule] tabulated and adopted without really having ourselves sanctioned it." And you suggested the postponement of the question "for con- sideration during the year, and bringing it up again for adoption in another form" ? Yes. Then the Assembly did not " adopt it" in May, 1868 ? No. Did not Dr. Smith promise to adopt your suggestion, " and re- port upon ' the matter' at a future meeting" ? Yes. Do you consider that after this open rebuff by the Assembly, for '•'premature" legislation, the Committee had liberty to repeat the offence by printing in the Year Book for 1869 a still more strin- gent code, changing the entire character of the list, and of the principles of its construction ? I do not know that such entire change was made. If you considered the Committee wrong in its previous act of forming a law and " tabulating" it before the Assembly " really sanctioned it," do you think they were justified in repeating that error ? I am not the judge of the committee. Pray sir, does a " retiring chairman" mean one who " retires" from his acknowledged principles ? I am not bound to answer such a question. 317 If it was illegal for the Committee to legislate instead of report- ing in one year, was it legal the next ? No. Did you protest against this second open infringement on the authority of the Assembly and the rights of the Ministry ? I was not called upon to protest. But were you not, as President, whether "retiring" or " inaugu- ral," bound to see that the rules and principles of the Union were not openly violated ? Perhaps so. Yet " not called upon to protest" against it ? Not necessary sarily. But morally, and as a Christian man, in defence of the rights of illegally expelled brethren, and the honour of the Assembly '? The Assembly can take care of its own honour. I doubt that. Did it defend its own honour in accepting illegal rules, that had already been clandestinely employed to the injury of individuals, and after such illegal assumption of making rules had been by it publicly repudiated the year before ? The Assem- bly is the best judge of that. Perhaps so, but as the Assembly is not here, will you favour us with your judgment ? I decline to answer. Can you explain how it was that an Assembly of Independents should so readily abdicate its authority to the Committee, its ser- vant, and submit to be a second time informed of laws made for it, and without its sanction or knowledge ? I cannot say. Was it because, in " the particular case" most involved, there was a political feeling excited by denominational organs against the person injured ; so that the Assembly was willing to be ridden by its committee, and the ministers ready — partly out of fear and partly out of liberality — to sacrifice their own independence on the altar of fidelity to Mr. Gladstone ? The committee and a large "preliminary meeting" decided unanimously — with one exception — under my presidencj", that " the non-insertion of Mr. Grant's name had not any relation what- ever to his political sentiments." Exactly : and you, having agreed to this, and requested that there should be no debate on it, but that it should be recommended to the Assembly next day at once to accept this as part of the "com- promise," joined Dr. Halley and others in arguing for setting it aside '? I was not quite satisfied with the decision of the preliminary meeting. But you concurred in setting that decision aside which you recommended should be accepted ; and so you aided the Assembly to contradict by rejecting the assertion of the preliminary meeting — 318 that "the non-insertion of his name had not any relation whatever to his political sentiments ?" I agreed with the decision of the Assembly. And differed from the opinion of the preliminary meeting ? I considered that its decision took the form of " an apology," and we had done him " no wrong." Was it not wrong to legislate without authority, and condemn and ministerially execute the plaintiff on that unauthorised law, and without any notice or trial ? No answer. You do not like to say? As " retiring chairman," you think it modest to conceal your opinion ? You can retire again. Dr. Raleigh retires. The Rev. Dr. Falding, Resident Tutor of Rotherham College, Examined. You are the Secretary of the Sheffield District of the West Riding Congregational Association ? No ; I was the Secretary of that district till the close of 1868. That office is now filled by the Rev. David Loxton, of Sheffield. While Secretary of the district what was your duty in relation to the general list of congregational ministers ? To supply to the editor of the Year Book information of any changes in the ministry of the district, so that the general alphabetical list of congregational ministers might be continued in a correct state. Should you feel at liberty to omit the name of any minister resident in your district, so as to procure or promote its removal from the general alphabetical list ? " Dr. Smith has said that per- haps the responsibility should rest not on the editor of the Year Book, but on the local informant — the person who had supplied the information. But I am not sure that that is quite right. I think the editor ought to satisfy himself that he has the information from the right party, and then it becomes a kind of divided authority."* That is what you said over the case that brought on a motion for inquiry ? Yes. Then you think that you and the editor of the Year Book between you, have the "divided" or combined "authority" to drop any name you may agree to have erased ? I have already hinted that such removal or insertion of names in arranging the list should be by " a kind of divided authority." * " The Particular Case," p. 7. " Dissenting World," p. 208. 319 You said " the editor should satisfy himself that he had the infor- mation from the right party": what did you mean by that ? I meant that the editor of the Year Book should know the party who gives information as to the names to be retained, omitted, or added. But who is the " right party ?" The secretary of the district. Who was secretary at that time ? I was. You say " the editor should satisfy himself that he has the infor- mation from the right party," and that you were " the right party :" could he, then, be in any doubt as to the party ? I do not say he could. Then why should he have to " satisfy himself" on a subject on which he was " satisfied ?" I do not see the drift of the question. Is that necessary before giving a plain answer ? No reply. Were you not the " local informant " in the case then referred to ? I was the secretary of the district. Were you not " the local informant ?" Yes. Then did you inform the editor that the name of the Rev. Isaac Yaughan should be omitted from the list of ministers ? I have already said, and it has been made public, that "I accepted no responsibility whatever for the contents of the Year Book, nor had I anything to do with the removal of Mr. Yaughan's name from that list."* But were you not " the local informant " on whose information the list was corrected from year to year ? I am not responsible for what the editor put into " that list." But are you responsible for what you put into your own — the list you send up for him to correct by ? Yes. Then, if on the ground of this local list in your return, he alters " that list," which is professed to be founded on yours, have you no responsibility in the matter ? "I have accepted " none. Did not Dr. Smith state publicly in your presence, in Sheffield, in connection with the omission of the Rev. Isaac Yaughan's name from the Year Book, that " the editor always depended on local. INTELLIGENCE ?"f YeS. Then had he your" local intelligence" to guide him in that omission ? I am not responsible for the contents of the Year Book. Was that list, so far as your district is concerned, founded on your " local intelligence ?" The editor used his own judgment. Guided by your " intelligence ?" I do not see the necessity of answering questions so put. * "Dissenting World," p. 275. t Ibid, p. 207. 320 No, but you see the necessity of not answering them ? I do not see the necessity of answering that. Perhaps not, and sometimes silence goes as far as speech. Did Dr. Smith say what was true when he declared that the editor of the Year Book " always depended on local intelligence?" I am not here to question Dr. Smith's word. But does not his statement directly contradict yours ? No. I have never said that the editor did not " always depend on local intelligence." But could he " depend on local intelligence " if you returned Mr. Vaughan's name for insertion and he omitted it, contrary to your " intelligence ?" The editor uses his own judgment. Then he does not " always depend on local intelligence ?" I did not say he does ; but Dr. Smith said so. And it was not true as to that " particular case ?" I do not my so. Then it was true ? I do not say so. It was either true or not ? I see no other alternative at present. But, if it was true, then you had, as " local informant," caused the omission of the name ? I have only said that I had not " any- thing to do with the removal of Mr. Vaughan's name from that list" — it would be the editor's act. But if he acted on your "information," had not this " anything to do with it ?" I do not say that he acted on my " information." Nobody said you did say it ; but Dr. Smith said it and you did not contradict it, but partly implied it in saying that the editor " should satisfy himself that he had the information from the right party, and then it became a kind of divided authority" — you meant "divided" between the editor and you? I did not say that I furnished him with the information in that case. Did you say that you did not 1 No. Will you say so ?iow ? No answer. Did you permit yourself to be publicly accused of an act of which you were innocent ? One cannot answer everybody's wild accusa- tions. But have you not since answered this wild accusation, in your letter, saying " nor had I anything to do with the removal of Mr. Vaughan's name from that list?" I was not responsible for the editor's " depending on local intelligence." No, that is certainly the editor's responsibility. But were you not responsible for the " intelligence" on which it is said he acted? I am not responsible for his use of it. 321 But for your conveyance of the information '? That did not remove the name from the Year Book. No, but it caused its removal '? Not necessarily, for the editor need not have acted on it. Not if "he always depended on his local informant ?" It was not necessary that he should depend on his local informant. But if he did, must he not necessarily omit the names that you indicated for omission ? That is " an abstract question." Then you think that the information on which a man acts has not " anything to do"' with his actions ? I do not say so. I denied that I had "anything to do with the removal of Mr. Yaughan's name from that list." I did not say the " information had not anything to do with it." But who gave the information '? It was the editor's duty to " satisfy himself that he had it from the right party." And being " satisfied" of this, to act upon it ? He must use his own judgment. As to "the right party?" Yes, and as to the validity of the information. Then "the right party" might give wrong information ? Possibly. But you were " the right party" in this case ? Yes. Did you give the wrong information '? No answer. Was the list formed on your information ? It was founded on the editor's own judgment. Guided by your information ? That might aid his judgment, but the actual " removal" of the name, was the editor's act, not mine, and in that sense I had not " anything to do with its removal from that list." You mean the sort of " sense' in which one who lays the train has not "anything to do with" the explosion, because he did not light, or at least did not apply, the match ? I have already ex- plained the sense in which my words were to be taken. Then in the same sense you had not " anything to do with the re- moval " of the plaintiff's name from that list" ? I some time ago wrote to Mr. Grant saying : "I know nothing about the removal of your name from the list of ministers in the Congregational Year Book. I was not aware that it had l)een removed until informed by your letter."* In what sense did you "know nothing about" this transac- tion ? Were you not aware before it was done that it would be done ? No one can be certain of any event till it has occurred. v * •' Dissenting "World," page 275. 322 But you expected it ? I have said that " I knew nothing about the removal." Did you not receive an intimation from the editor of the Year Book of a new rule according to which the list which you were about to return for 1869, of ministers in your district, would determine what ministers, hitherto recognised, should continue to be on the list or omitted from it, according as their names were or were not returned by you for insertion ? Mr. Grant knows that I wrote to him Jan. 18, 1869, saying : "As to the new rule made by the Congregational Union Committee, and printed in the Year Book for 1869, I never heard of its existence until I read it in your letters of the 15th and 16th inst., and have never been told that such a rule was likely to be made." Had you no correspondence with the editor of the Year Book, on the "new rule" and its application by you to Mr. Grant's name ? I wrote to the plaintiff Jan. 13, 1869, as already declared, saying, "I know nothing about the removal of your name." "I was not aware that it had been removed until informed by your letter." But did you correspond previously with the editor of the Year Book on the question of omitting this name ? " Can words go further" than my express declaration ? That I think was the celebrated phrase by which a political leader completed his disavowal of intending to perpetuate the endowment of Maynooth. Do you know the answer to that question ? No. Well, it was, that " words can go no further, but you can." Did you, or did you not, correspond with the editor of the Year Book respecting the omission of Mr. Grant's name from the Year Book of 1869, when the editor was inquiring about the list ? I wrote distinctly to Mr. Grant, saying: — "I did not intend," nor do I " still desire, that any act or omission on my part should be the ground for a defence of the Committee's action in regard to you." " The idea of removing, or causing your name to be removed, never entered my mind or * desire ' at all."* Do you mean to shelter yourself under the word " removal," and to adopt the new doctrine of the " preliminary meeting," May 10th, that there had been " no removal " but only "non-insertion," in the list for 1869 ? I answer for my own words. Yes ; but when you denied any share in " the removal " of his name, did you mean its " non-insertion?" I meant what I said. * " Dissenting World," p. 276. 323 In the sense that was understood by your correspondent and the public, or in the concealed, and subsequently revealed, sense of contributing not to its "removal," but only to its " non-inser- tion /" My words will bear a fair interpretation. Will you tell us what that interpretation is ? The words speak for themselves. Then did you mean that you did nothing nor omitted anything to cause its " non-insertion," and that the idea of its " non-inser- tion," which you know was all he could mean by " removal," "never entered your mind or desire at all ?" No answer. Were you not aware that by a " new rule," your omission of the name in your return would cause its omission from the Year Book ? I have already said " I never heard of its existence till I read of it in Mr. Grant's letters." Are you quite sure that you had not heard of it ? "I ought, perhaps, in my second letter to have mentioned the possibility of some notice having been sent me by printed circular of the adoption of the new regulations contained in the 1869 Year Book. This possibility did not occur to me when writing, as IJiave no recollection of any information being sent to me. And this does not affect my statement."* Then why did you advance it ? I do not understand your question. Excuse me ; I wish to be quite clear ; you made a very positive statement, that you knew nothing of the new regulation as to the use to be made of your returns, and then you explain what does " not affect your statement." Then why did you give the explana- tion ? Did you think your statement was too broad, or had you been reminded by Mr. Ashton, in consequence of the plaintiff's inquiry of him, whether he sent you word of the new effect of your returns ? I do not understand. Well, on the 18th of January you wrote, saying, that you had never heard of the new regulation. On the receipt of that letter the plaintiff wrote to the editor, Mr. Ashton, inquiring if he had " given the local secretaries clearly to understand that their omission to send the address of any minister would involve the removal of his name from the alphabetical list of ministers in England?" The editor did not answer the plaintiff. May he not have reminded you that he did send you notice ? and would not this account for your return to the subject in your third letter, in which you make • " Dissenting World," p. 279. 324 provision for the " possibility " of having had such a notice as you denied having had ? I distinctly say, then, in my third letter, that " I have no recollection of any information being sent to me." But had you not been reminded by the editor ? I do not remember. You still persist that you never heard of the " new regulation ?" I do not deny " the possibility of a printed circular" having been received. The question was not as to the " possibility" of such a circum- stance, but as to its actuality. I do not remember. You say you " had never heard of" the " new regulation ;" do you read the Nonconformist or the English Independent ? Some- times. Well, did you notice this statement on a matter in which you figured somewhat, and in which you were particularly concerned ? It is quoted by the Nonconformist, Nov. 11, 1868, from the English Independent, and so appeared in both papers — " The Congrega- tional Yeae Book. An entirely new plan has been determined for arranging the list of Congregational Ministers in the Year Book." " This will believe the editor from all responsibility." Did you see this striking paragraph ? I do not remember. Nobody ever mentioned the "new rule" to you in any shape ? I told Mr. Grant, Jan. 18, 1869 — " I have never been told that such a rule was likely to be made."* Were you told that it had been made ? I have no recollection. Did you return the plaintiff's name for insertion in the Year Book for 1869? I told him that in the preparation of the list for the West Fading Register . I am not speaking of that. I observe in your letter that you make a long complicated foreign statement about your preparation of a list for that local book, I am speaking of the general Year Book. Did you return his name for insertion in that book? In the letter you refer to, I said to Mr. Grant — " Later in the year 1868, in November, I think — I returned your name to the editor of the Year Book. In the usual schedule furnished by him I wrote your name as having resigned your church, as living in the district, but as not being a member of the County Association." Did you intend this non-membership of the County Association as a reason why the editor of the Year Book should omit the plaintiff's name from the alphabetical list of Congregational Ministers ? [After a pause] — No. " Dissenting World," p. 276. 325 You are sure ? Yes ; and on looking at that letter I see by the very next sentence that I could not be inferred to mean that, for I said: — "WHY your name nowhere appears in the Year Book, I have already said, I know not." I was about to draw your attention to that statement : will you now tell me whether you did not yourself justify the omission of that name on the ground of the plaintiffs not being a member of your local Sheffield club, as a branch of the West Riding Union ? I do not remember. Allow me to aid you: it was in the " preliminary meeting," a rather large assembly, at the City Terminus Hotel, Cannon-street, May 10, 1869 : do you remember now ? There was no reporter at that meeting. You are mistaken ; besides, there were witnesses there ; and I am asking you as a witness, did you not publicly assert there, that the plaintiff had failed to answer your applications about his joining the County Association ? Yes. Was not that adduced to justify your not returning his name for insertion in the Year Book ? No answer. Did not your colleague, the Rev. Hughes Morgan, repeat your excuse in the Assembly next day ? No answer. There was a report of that meeting, was there not ? Yes, several. Well, did Mr. Morgan in that Assembly, repeat the excuse w T hich you attempted in the preliminary meeting ? Yes. Then he justified the omission on the ground of the plaintin's not being a member of the local union ? Yes. And you had done the same the night before, and permitted it to be repeated without contradicting it ? I was not bound to contra- dict it. But you did not believe it ? You allowed the Assembly to be de- ceived, and permitted Mr. Dyer to refer to your tale about the County Association, as justifying the omission of Mr. Grants' name from the Year Book, and so to mislead the general Assembly, contrary to plaisr- ijacts within your own knowledge ? — You per- mitted all this by your silence ? I was not bound to correct them. You did not believe that the use made of your statement about the County Association was any reason for the omission of the name from the Year Book ? I do not admit that. Do you deny it ? No answer. Have you not said that you could not be inferred to mean, by his " not being a member of the County Association," that he was therefore not to be retained on the list of Congregational Ministers ? 326 Yes ; for I declared alongside the statement that he was not a mem- ber of the County Association — " WHY your name nowhere appears in the Year Book, I have already said, I know not." Then the excuse which you made for its non-appearance, and which you caused others to repeat and deceive the Assembly by it, was not true ? No answer. Was it true that " the idea of removing, or of in any way causing the removal of his name from the list, never entered your mind or desire at all ?" I have said it emphatically in my letters to the plaintiff. Then you were entirely ignorant of the omission of the name and of the reason " why " it was omitted ? I have said so. Yet you justified its non-insertion, on the ground that he was not a member of your local association and had not answered your circulars inviting him to join it ? I have shown that it was impossible that I could regard that as a reason, since, while mentioning that circumstance to him, I declare : " Why your name nowhere appears in the Year Book I know not." True ; nevertheless, in the preliminary meeting you gave this as the reason "why" — which you did not know, and which, as you properly observe, it was impossible you could think to be the reason ? I could not think so ivhile writing that letter to Mr. Grant. Certainly not. Then you struck out this reason afterwards ? No answer. Now, besides inventing a reason afterwards, for May 10, of which in your letter of January 17th you declare and demonstrate your ignorance, had you not already, before writing that letter, stated " why" his " name " should " nowhere appear in the Year Book ?" How could I, if I did " not know why ?" Pray do not ask me how you could do what we know you did do.. Is it not true that before the thing was done you gave a reason to justify it, and after it was done you were ignorant that it had happened, and knew not the reason " why," but could state in the "preliminary meeting," in May, that very reason which you did not know in January, but had given " in November, I think," of the previous year ? I do not know "why" you ask these suggestive and indefinite questions. Well, did Alderman Bantock, of Wolverhampton, give out publicly that you omitted to return the name, and that when asked the reason " why," you gave a reason that satisfied the Year Book authorities, and so caused the name to " appear nowhere" in that book ? I do not read the Wolverhampton papers. 827 Did you receive the following specific inquiry on the subject : — " Dear Sir, — I am sorry to inform you that, notwithstanding your positive assertion, for which I gave you credit, that you did return my name for the Year Book, and that you 'knew nothing till informed by me of its omission ; that you knew of no rule giving you any power in the matter, and did not do nor omit any- thing to produce the result ; and that you did not intend nor desire that anything you did or omitted should be any ground for the Committee's action' in relation to me [pages 273-283, " Dissenting World "] ; still the onus in this case, as in that of the late Rev. Isaac Yaughan, is thrown on you by the secretary of the Union. "As to my case, and your share in it, the entire responsibility is attributed to your direct intervention and act by Mr. Alderman Bantock, of Wolverhampton, as reported in the Wolverhampton Chronicle of April 21, in an account of a meeting over which that gentleman presided. " He refers to Dr. George Smith, secretary of the Congregational Union, as his authority for ascribing the whole transaction to you in these words : — ' What were the facts ? He had taken advantage of the opportunity — for it so happened that the secretary of the Congregational Union [Dr. George Smith] was preaching sermons on the previous day on behalf of Queen- street Chapel Sunday Schools — to ask him [Dr. Smith] what were the real facts in connection with the Rev. Brew t in Grant.' Among the facts he affirmed two things: — First, that my 'name was omitted' "last year in the list of ministers sent up by the secretary of the district, Dr. Falding.' Second, that ' on the secretary of the Union writing to Dr. Falding, and being satisfied with Dr. Falding's explanation, [viz., of his omission of the name from his district returns] ths: omission of the Rev. Brewin Grant's name from the Year Booy followed as a matter of course.' This want of harmony among yourselves is as ' disedifying* as the conduct of the Committee is in hanging me on a technicality made for the occasion. But though they placed my professional life in your private hands to make or mar me, without the trouble of a reason, or the disagreeable neces- sity of giving one, except to the Committee's secretary's private ear, still you did return my name, though Dr. Smith writes that if you had it would have appeared in the Year Book ; and though Alderman Bantock says you omitted it, and so far justified your omission as to relieve the conscience of the secretary of the Union, in doing what they had better undo, and that speedily. "Yours faithfully, " Brewin Grant." 328 You received that letter ? I did. Were the allegations in it true ? I take no notice of the plain- tiff's allegations, and gave him this answer : — " Eotherham College, April 28, 1869. "Sir, — I have received your letter of the 27th instant, and am "Yours truly, "F. J. Falding." Were the contents "the plaintiff's allegations ?" He sent them to me : I had only his word for it. Will Alderman Bantock's word do ? He says here in this letter, that "the Rev. Dr. George Smith was his "authority" for the statements made on the occasion. Or will this letter from Dr. Smith, in reply to the plaintiff's inquiry, suit you ? — •' Congregational Union, April 27th, 1869. "Dear Sir, — A mistake might naturally enough arise in the im- pression received as to what I said to Mr. Alderman Bantock, and I hasten to correct it. I did not say that I had written to Dr. Falding, but that Mr. Ashton [the editor of the Year Book] had, as well as to Mr. Morgan, [secretary for the West Riding] and that on the ground of your name not being locally returned it was omitted from the Year Book. I have shewn your note to Mr. Ashton, and he says I am correct. " Yours faithfully, " Rev. B. Grant, B.A." " G. Smith." Do you admit this letter, or shall we recall Dr. Smith ? It is evidently his handwriting. Then, in reply to the inquiry whether Dr. Smith had said that you omitted to return this name, and that he wrote for your reason and received one, which was satisfactory, and caused its omission from the Year Book, Dr. Smith, hastening to correct any wrong impression, corrects only this — that it was not he, but Mr. Ashton, who inquired your reason, and was satisfied with it, "and conse- quently the name was omitted, as a matter of course, from the Year Book?''' So you say. No ; I do not say it, I ask it. Do you deny it ? No answer. Then the name was not " returned " by you, and " you did know why it nowhere appeared," and " the idea and desire for its removal " did " enter your mind at all," and 3 T ou knew all about it, and did " in any way cause its removal ?" I have answered to the best of my ability. 329 Then are we to conclude that you did cause " the removal " of the name ? There was no "removal;" it was only not inserted in this year's list, so could not, in strict propriety of words, be said to be removed " from that list " on which it never appeared. Had you this meaning in your mind when you so positively- denied all knowledge of or share in its " removal," in this foreign sense ? I am responsible only for my words, and not for your interpretation. And that is your best answer ? It is sufficient. Did you not meet your constituents of the Sheffield branch of the West Riding Union to clear yourself, through them, of any share in this ejection ? There was a meeting held in Nether Chapel, Shef- field, at which the following resolution was passed unanimously: — "That Dr. Falding, having explained to the meeting how the list of ministers and churches had been prepared and furnished to the editors of the West Riding Register and the Year Book, to whom he had communicated the names of all the ministers and churches, whether they were in the Association or not — resolved, that the meeting entirely approves what Dr. Falding has done, and expresses its entire confidence in and sympathy with him."* Did you intend by that to lead the world to believe that you " communicated" the plaintiff's name as eligible for insertion in the Year Book ? Another account says that I " had returned to the editors of the West Fading Register and the Congregational Year Book a full list of all the mtnsiters resident in this district, both of those connected with the society and of those unconnected with it."f Did you intend the public to receive this in the sense that you had " returned a full list of all the ministers resident in the district," without marking any one name for omission, but all for insertion in the Year Book ? It was intended, in the strict sense of the words. "What sense is that? I leave others to judge. Then you meant it to be understood that you had not been justly charged with procuring the omission of the plaintiff's name ? No answer. It was to justify you before the district meeting, and the neigh- bourhood outside, as not the procuring cause of the plaintiff's ejec- tion ? Yes. Then why did you not publicly declare that the editor of the Year Book, and the entire Congregational Union Committee in * " Sheffield Independent," Feb. 25, 18G9. t "The Sheffield Daily Telegraph," Feb. 24, 1869. 330 its report — which you agreed to — maligned you, by saying that you did not " reiurn a full list," but omitted to return the plaintiff's name ? I have said distinctly that I did return the name. For insertion in the alphabetical list in the Year Book ? I " returned" the name. Have you two senses to the word " returned" ? I do not say so. Did you "return" it in the sense in which the committee of the Union and the editor of the Year Book employ the word "re- turn" ? It is enough that I " returned" it. In some private sense of your own, by way of " local intelligence" ? No answer. Y r ou were at the " preliminary meeting" ? Yes. Was the report on the Year Book read and accepted in that meeting ? Yes. Did you object to it ? No. Did you object to it when it was proposed to the Assembly ? No. Did it contain the truth about your conduct in reference to this name ? No answer. Does not that report say : — " No name has been omitted from the Year Book of 1869," "but because the name was not sent to the editor by any one competent to send it" ? — [After a pause] — Yes. Then were you not " competent to send it" ? I did send it. " For insertion ?" No answer. Did you send it " for insertion" ? I " returned" it. For " insertion" ? No answer. Your silence is as wise as it is instructive, for if you say "no" you contradict yourself: and if you say "yes" you contradict the committee and yourself too, for you were a party to the report that impugns your letters. Does not Dr. Smith say, in the letter you have seen, that "on the ground of the name not being locally returned it was omitted from the Year Booh" ? Yes ; I returned it to Mr. Ashton. Well, does not Dr. Smith say, " I have shown your note to Mr. Ashton, and he says I am correct" ? Yes. Then both they and the Report of May, and the Year Book, all accuse you of not returning the name ? I could have " explained" it all in " a personal interview," but the plaintiff " prefers a method that can be most readily turned to a one-sided account in pamphlets and newspapers." * • " Dissenting World," page 277. 331 So you said, when you pretended that a conversation was more definite than a correspondence ; but could not the former be tra- vestied " in pamphlets and newspapers" ? Yes. "When you, in a private meeting, without the committee of the Congregational Union, whose secretary and editor accused you of not returning the name, led the Nether chapel meeting into the belief and public statement that you had " returned" it, the meeting expressed " sympathy with" you ? Yes. What for ? For having been falsely accused of not returning a name which I had returned. Who accused you ? The plaintiff. No ; he did not : he only inquired of you whether the accusation of Dr. Smith, Mr. Ashton, and the committee was true. They were your accusers : the Year Book accuses you : and did you not accuse youeself of this act ? How could I ? My question is not how you could, but whether you did — did you ? How could I ? Did you ? No. If a person sitting in conclave on a paper votes its acceptance, does he not endorse its statements ? He may overlook some. Would he overlook the only question that caused the paper to be written, and in which his own conduct is a main part of the discussion ? Perhaps not. Was not the Report such a paper, in which you were so con- cerned, and on which you debated ? Yes. Did you object to that part which said, " no name had been omitted from the Year Book" "that had been sent to the editor for insertion by anyone competent to send it ?" No. Then you agreed to that statement ? (After a pause) — I agreed to the Report. And objected to that part ? No answer. Then did you not unite to accuse youeself of causing the omission of that name, by not sending it, when you were "the competent person to send it ?" No answer. Why did you call a meeting in Sheffield to justify yourself from a charge which you afterwards joined in making in London ? No answer. Did that meeting in Sheffield, when your weightier brethren sat on you and exonerated you from doing what in London you admitted, justified, and glorified, — did it protest against the injustice committed on the plaintiff by the omission of his name, on the alleged false ground that you had not returned it ? No answer. 332 They " sympathised with " you for having been detected in the operation, but not with your victim ? No answer. It was to whitewash you, but not to relieve him ? No answer. You accepted their " sympathy ?" Yes. But did they extend it to the person injured by the act attributed to you ? No ! They did not send a memorial to the Congregational Union, requesting them publicly to restore a name that had been erased by the pretence of an act of their official of which act they were ashamed ? I do not say that they were ashamed of it. Then why did they " sympathise with " you, and try to make the world believe that you, as their official, were not guilty ? No answer. If they believed that even " the new rule " invented by the Congregational Union — which was falsely made — was falsely applied, and their local union disgraced by the supposition that you had taken advantage of it to the deposition of a brother, why did they not seek that brother's restoration ? That is a question for them. Perhaps so ; but you were one of them ; and did not the fact that you let remain, without protest, the wrong which you were ashamed of being charged with committing, show that in principle you were all guilty of it, only wished to avoid the shame of it ? That is also a question for them. Any more than for you ? I was in the hands of the meeting. Or, were they in your hands ? Did you state the case fairly to them about your correspondence with the editor of the Year Book, in which you satisfied him "why the name should nowhere appear?" They were satisfied with my explanation. No doubt they desired to be, and perhaps some of them did not suspect any equivocation. Did you meet again to sit on the letter which contained the following ? — De. Falding's Nether Chapel Meeting. — The Mystery Fathomed. to the editor ot the sheffield daily telegraph. " Dr. Smith, and Mr. Ashton, the editor of the ' Year Book,' and the Pieport of the Committee, all affirm, distinctly that my name ivas ' not returned' by the local secretary, and Dr. Falding says it was returned by him. You would think that Dr. Falding meant that he returned it for insertion ; he ' returned it' for non-insertion : and instead of giving, in the sense understood by you, a full list for 333 insertion in the Year Book, ' both of those connected with the local association and those not connected with it,' he gave the latter as persons not for insertion in the Year Book." " He justified this evasive distinction, in London, on the ground that I had not answered some circulars about the amalgamation of two local societies, which had nothing to do with the ' Year Book ' question." Did any of you venture to notice that ? We treated it with silent contempt. Were you not more wise than contemptuous in your silence ? " The other side of the case had not been brought before the public." Modesty becomes you, doubtless ; but will you give a plain answer ? Did you return the name as not returnable, and justify it by a reason that was not applicable ? I do not understand. You perpetually do yourself injustice by this humility. You say you returned it ? Yes. But you argued that, not having qualified by a paying com- munion with the sister churches in your district, it was not to be inserted ? I do not say so. But you argued so in London, and set others on to do the same ? I am not responsible for their words. Not when they only repeat yours, which you put into their mouth ? No answer. It was your argument, and it was a false pretext ? I do not say so. Was it a true reason for the omission of the name from the Year Book ? Yes. Then you returned it as not returnable ? I do not admit that. No, you only prove it. Had you ever returned the name for insertion before ? Yes. For some ten years as in your district ? Yes. Was the plaintiff a member of your local association then ? No. Then the reason was not applicable ? I do not see that. No one said you did ; but I think you do. You " did not know why his name nowhere appeared in the Year Book ?" I have said so. Yet you gave the reason ? No answer. And a reason not applicable for a return as not returnable ? No answer. You may return to college and study casuistry. Dr. Falding "returns." 334 The Rev. James Hughes Morgan, Secretary of the West Riding Congregational Association, examined. In the General Assembly of the Congregational Union you are reported as having said — " When it was stated by Mr. Dyer that it was entirely Mr. Grant's own fault that his name was left out of the Year Book, somebody cried out ' No ?' I am here to say 1 Yes,' it was entirely his own fault. Mr. Grant was asked three times to unite himself with the West Riding Congregational Union, and he has never had the courtesy to answer one application."* That was in substance your statement ? Yes. Can you explain to us what connection there is between " uniting himself with the West Riding Congregational Union," and having his name in the list of ministers in the Congregational Year Book ? A pause — another pause — and then another. Shall I have to " ask " you " three times " before you have " the courtesy to answer?" A pause. Now, Sir, for the third time — what connection is there between these two things ? A pause. Did you not receive great applause in the Union for your observation, mingled with cries of " Shame !" at the victim whom you so clearly impaled ? Yes ; and really the matter seemed so very plain to us all then — and I think my observation quite carried the meeting. No doubt. But where did it carry the meeting to ? I am afraid to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Certainly, if it followed your premises ; but are all the leaders of Congregationalism as ignorant of its principles and usages as you seem to be ? Judging from the way in which the " Preliminary Meeting " received Mr. Grant's statements about the relation of the alphabetical list of ministers to the list of members of the Union, and of some associations, I am afraid that many are in my condition. Well, we may leave that meeting for the present, and return to your application to the plaintiff "to unite himself," as you call it, " with the West Riding Union :" you considered him eliyible for that fellowship '? Quite so. Do you think that persons, as a general principle, are bound to answer circulars ? A pause. Well, are you sure that he "never had the courtesy to answer the application" ? — [A pause.] — I never received any answer. * "English Independent," May 14, 18G9. 335 Nor do you give me one. Are you sure that he never answered ? I do not remember that he ever answered to me, and Dr. Falding, who is secretary of the sub-district to which the plaintiff belongs, said the same the night before. That gentleman is not here, and perhaps would rather not "return" at present ; but are you aware that the plaintiff did attend a Nether vestry meeting, in reply to a circular of your colleague's ? I was not aware of it. Of course not. Were you aware that the circular, inviting the plaintiff to a meeting for re-constructing or amalgamating your local societies, had these words at the foot — that he was invited to attend " if a member ?" No. Did you know that he asked your colleague in that meeting whether he as secretary did not know whether he were a member or not ? No. Well, about these circulars of yours, inviting the plaintiff to "unite" himself by a money bond to your local Association ; you cannot tell me what that had to do with being on the list of Congregational ministers in England? No sir, not for the life of me, at present. Well, I can tell you : it had nothing to do ivith it ; and it requires charity to charge your more astute colleague with so much ignorance on that question as not to know so much about his own denomination. Now will you oblige me with a copy of your application, which you say was three times unsuccessful ? Here it is, sir, in the West Riding Congregational Register ; it w T as addressed to pastors and churches " without the pale of the Union," inviting them to join, according " to the new laws" which made it " imperative" to pay for membership. It is dated, Leeds, December 24, 1867. It was to " draw attention" of persons to the fact of " not being in mem- bership," and " inviting them to join the Union" by paying a sub- scription. Exactly ; it says nothing about this local union being the door of admission to the list of Congregational ministers ? No. Was it not a curious circular for people to receive, December 25, that is, on Christmas morning ? Perhaps so I did not think of that. Well, those who had not joined by payment up to this time, December 24, were not members ? No. Was the plaintiff one of these ? I believe so. Don't you know ? Yes, or he would not have had a circular sent. Were there many at this time, " outside the pale " of your local union ? There were " thirty pastors and churches." 336 And did you then, in returning your district list for the Congre- gational Year Book, omit these thirty, and get them expunged from the denomination ? I do not quite understand. Well, the plaintiff was one of the non-contributors to your Union ? Yes. He had not " united himself" to you by a subscription up to the end of 1867 ? He never did give a subscription. But his name was " returned" for insertion in the Congregational Year Book, notwithstanding his non-membership in your local society ? Certainly, always. It appeared in 1868 ? Yes. Then it was a new pretence, got up for the Year Book for 1869, that made you so eloquent in the Assembly, on the point on which you were so dumb here ? I can account for it only in that way. You have now altered your plan with your West Riding Register, to print no names as ministers who are not paying members ? Yes. Yet you call it " Congregational Ministers of the Riding ?" That is at the head of the page, but at the beginning of the list, it is explained — " who are members of the West Riding Cougregational Union in 1869." So you recognize in your book no ministers who do not pay to the Union, though living in the Riding ? Yes. This is a new plan, for giving the secretaries, who are the com- mittees, a good grip of the Independent denomination ? I do not understand it so. Your churches look at this list, and pick their changes from it, so that a minister who does not come in and pay, is not advertised, even if " moveable" ? That is not the object. But it is the fact? Yes. Then you have changed the principle of free voluntary Unions, which persons may or may not join, into a compulsory payment on the one hand, with the chance of patronage on the other ? As I said before, that was not our object. Perhaps one object was to suppress such erratic spirits as the plaintiff by changing the whole polity of the denomination, and leav- ing no chance for Independents to trouble officials for the future ? I can only answer as before. Your answer is very good. I ought to have said that everybody who belongs to a society ought to support it, or it cannot be carried on. Just so, perhaps, but you must not force people into a spikituai> trades union, and "ratten" all that do not pay you " natty money," 337 or prevent their getting employment if they are non-unionists. How much extra would the financial secretary of the Congregational Union gather by forcing all either to pay five shillings or leave the denomination ? Well, there would have been sixteen hundred extra subscriptions in 1868, for England and Wales only. Good. But now you say, if every member does not pay, societies cannot be carried on ? Yes. Is that true ? I believe so. Then do you require a money payment for church members, and enrol afresh every year only those who have paid up ? No. But the same reason for it exists ? The members are expected to pay according to their means. Was this not so among the pastors and churches in your Union ? Yes ; but all did not do so, and we wanted money. Then the voluntary principle, in the sense of leaving it to the conscience of the members, did not pay ? The members did not pay. The principle was good ; the fault was not in it. But in the want of it ? Yes. So you set that principle aside for one that would work, and enforced a contribution as a term of membership between the churches ? Yes ; but it was still voluntary as to the amount, and as to whether they joined at all. But if they did not join you would have a further impulse to the voluntary principle, and the exercise of spiritual fellowship, in the power of the keys, to lock out of the denomination any minister who did not " unite himself" to you by a " money nexus?" I do not understand. You could put them on the black list by keeping them off your Riding Register and the Year Book ? I don't quite see that. But they would feel it ? I do not understand the drift of your questions, nor quite see their pertinence. Sir, you sadly underrate your capacity. It is your penetration that produces hesitation. I am referring now to " the dissenting screw," and the compactness with which the whole body can be operated on, as any ecclesiastical or political power turns the handle of the secretaries, who are the committees, and their repre- sentatives. Is not this so ? That is contrary to our polity. Yes : but not contrary to your policy. Must not every man who is ambitious find it agreeable to be on good terms with the secre- tary, who has so many chances of doing him a good turn ? Sir, we are independents. Your forefathers were ; it is an age of progress. But if the more 338 ambitious need a lift from secretaries, who are the door of promo- tion and honour, will not the weaker brethren find it advisable to be pliable ? I believe the contrary. If any do not join by payment, and generally run in harness, can you not forget to send their names to Mr. Ashton, and so get them off the list of accredited ministers ? Sir, one would think you were referring to the Inquisition. That is another instance of your penetration. But you cannot tell what joining your local Union by a contribution has to do with being on the list of Congregational Ministers ? Yes, I can ; it has nothing to do with it at present: but the secretaries may change all that, for the Union will endorse all " irregularities." When you so confidently affirmed to the public assembly in London that the omission of Mr. Grant's name "was his own fault" for not noticing your circulars on another subject, was it a new idea learned in " the preliminary meeting " of the night before, or was it the principle on which you and Dr. Falding acted when you made your district returns ? I really could not say when the idea of that reason for omission first occurred. But it was a new idea ? I do not say that. Had it occurred to you in January, 1869 ? I should suppose so : certainly, if it affected the returns, for they were made in the latter end of the previous year. Shall you be at all surprised if I refresh your memory, and show you in your handwriting, that by the 20th of January, 1869, you could have no idea of that reason which you so confidently imposed on the Assembly ? Perhaps you will show me the letter. Certainly. Will you kindly read it to the court ? The Rev. James Hughes Morgan read as follows : — " Moorville, Leeds, Jan. 20, 1869. " Dear Sir, — In answer to your inquiry, I write to say, that accompanying the printed questions, sent to me by the editor of the Year Book in the autumn, there was an intimation, I believe, in the very icords of the notice which appears on the 400th page of that book, and which you quote in your letter of yesterday. Notwith- standing that notice, I, for several reasons, decline to be held responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the list of the West Riding Congregational Ministers which appears in the Year Book. " I hold myself strictly responsible for the list published in the West Riding Congregational Register. I forwarded a copy of the last 339 number, in which you will find your name among the West Riding Ministers, denoted like the names of others who are in a similar posi- tion, as being without a pastorate, and not a member of our Union. For the omission of your name from the last Year Book I am not responsible, and I consider it quite possible — inasmuch as you are not a member of the Local Union, and you resigned your charge in the course of the year — for your name to have been omitted, without any conspiracy to bring that to pass, especially if you neglected to inform the district secretary, or the editor of the Year Book, of your subsequent position and residence. " I am, dear sir, yours, "Rev. B. Grant, B.A. " James H. Morgan." Then you did have a notice of the Congregational Union Com- mittee's new rule for Mr. Ashton to omit from the Year Book all that were omitted from your local lists ? Yes. As general secretary should you not see that the same important notice was sent to the sub-secretaries of your West Riding ? Yes, or Mr. Ashton would supply them. Then Dr. Falding would have one for his district ? I should think so, as a matter of course. Though you received notice of this " new rule" of the Congrega- tional Union Committee, you did not then think that because a minis- ter was not in your local Union his name was to be struck out of the list of Congregational Ministers in the Year Book ? — A pause. You remember your letter now ? Yes. Does it contain any such hint ? No. Does it not exclude the possibility of your then entertaining such an idea ? It seems to do. In that letter you say, that " invitations to join" your local union, that is to subscribe, " were sent" to him " at the close of 1867, and in February of that year," and you send him the West Riding Con- gregational Register to explain why he was not put down as a member of your union — which he never asked to be nor inquired about. But you do not pretend, nor even now think of pretending, that his non- reply to your circulars, and not "uniting himself to your West Rid- ing Union," is to account for and justify the omission of his name from the list of Congregational Ministers in the Year Book ? No. So far from adducing these things as a reason for that, you men- tion them to explain why, though published among the West Riding Ministers, he does not appear as a member of the West Riding Union ? Yes. 340 You had not then thought of mixing matters, and substituting a place in the Congregational Year Book for a place in your local union ? No. You then honestly treated them as distinct questions, quite inde- pendent of each other ? Yes. And having explained, what he did not ask about — which is quite a feature in your colleague, Dr. Falling, which perhaps you got b} 7 contagion — you next try to find an explanation of the omis- sion of his name from the Year Booh t Yes. You do not find it in the fact that he had not answered your West Hiding circulars ? No. Your tone in that letter is not so insolent as your subsequent speech in the Assembly ? No answer. You admit that if the name were intentionally omitted it was " a conspiracy ?" No answer. You give two alternatives, conspiracy and accident, and you argue for the accident ? Yes. And you think it possible that the omission was accidental, and not by " any conspiracy to bring it to pass ?" I do not use the word " accidental." No : but you suggest how the accident might have occurred? Yes. And do you think that possible ? I must have thought so then, since I said so. Was there any ground for your thinking that he had left the district ? No answer. If you had any doubt could you not have inquired ? Yes. Did you inquire ? No. Do you think he need " inform the district secretary," Dr. Falding, that he had not changed his " residence ?" No answer. Your supposition that the name might be omitted by accident was an acknowledgment that you knew of no reason for omitting it by design ? Yes, certainly. That design would have been a " conspiracy ?" Such maybe inferred from my letter. But if accidental omission were possible, at any rate your alleging it as a defence, so soon after the offence, is a proof that you did not then believe that "it was his own fault ?" Yes. And your attempting that excuse was a proof that you did not then believe that his not having answered your circulars and joined your union was any valid reason for omitting his name from the Year Booh ? Yes. Then the statement to the Assembly that you were "thereto 341 say ■ Yes,' it was his own fault," and your reason for that state- ment — because he had not answered your circulars nor joined your union — were both false ? I did not intend to say what was false. But it was not true ? It was true he had not joined our local union. But that was not a true reason for the omission of his name from the Year Book? No. Then your statement was false and your reason for it was false ? I was mistaken in both. But you were very confident ? Yes, I believed it. At the meeting, but not when you were inquired of by the plaintiff at the proper time ? I have already admitted that my letter to him proves what you intimate. Through what process of growth had you gone to attain that remarkable contradiction of your written evidence ? I cannot explain it. Do you regret it ? Certainly. Then will you apologise to the brethren in Wolverhampton, and tell them that your evidence, on which they voted, was entirely wrong ? I do not expect the matter to be brought up again. But is it not your duty to bring it up, and secure reparation from the Assembly for the injury which you led them to inflict ? I only said what Dr. Falding said the night before. Then had you not better both of you unsay it ; since now that you know it is false, your silence would be the practical repetition of untruth ? There was a manifest disinclination in the leaders of the Assembly in London to do anything that might seem to bear the appearance of an apology. But this was under your prompting and that of others, who deceived the Assembly ? Not intentionally. But actually ? Yes. Then why not correct your evidence and give them an opportunity of doing justice ? The Assembly fully responded to Mr. Newman Hall, that rather than enter upon these questions we should be engaged in loving and honouring the Saviour. I shall come to Mr. Hall in good time : but is it your theoiy that you honour the Saviour by insulting your brethren ? They seemed to consider that no individual was of sufficient importance to receive sach personal consideration from the Assembly. Is that Mr. Newman Hall's idea of a sweet season of sacred communion and friendship ? No answer. 342 Have you never read — " Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me ?" Certainly. Then the superciliousness assumed by the august manipulators of that meeting was scarcely justified by the consistent sanctimo- niousness of the concluding speaker ? I have explained the matter as well as I can. Shall you ever again affirm so confidently, what you had already by letter contradicted so clearly — "it was his own fault" — for he neglected "to unite himself with the West Riding Union," and did " not condescend to answer" our circulars inviting him to do so? It is not likely. Let us hope not ; I have no more to ask, you can go down. The Rev. James Hughes Morgan goes down. SECOND DAY'S PEOCEEDINGS. The Rev. Alexander Hannay, the Spokesman of the Congre- gational Union Committee, examined, especially on the New Pretence that the List of Congregational Ministers is an entirely new llst of new men, or men newly accredited annually, whose llcense lasts but a year. You were a member of the Committee of the Congregational Union for 1868-1869 ? Yes. You took an active part in the Year Book question in May of this year, proposing, explaining, and defending the committee's Report on that subject ? Yes. In your third speech on this subject you say, " the view the Committee takes of the matter is this, that there is no such thing as a list from year to year. In considering the principle of its con- struction it is a new list every year.'" " It has been a new list from year to year, in all times, ever since it was a list ?"* Yes. Then at the close of the year who makes up the new lists ? The secretaries of the Local Associations, or the London Congregational Board, or five neighbouring ministers on the London "board" may certify men who are not on it. Exactly. But who certifies them? I do not understand you. 343 I think you do. Pray try to answer : — Who certifies your " five neighbouring ministers" that have the privilege of "introducing names ?" I do not understand. Well, at the end of the year your list is broken up ; there is no accredited minister left ; who accredits them all afresh ? Your " question arises from an imperfect apprehension of the case."* So you told Samuel Mokley, Esq., when you evaded his ques- tion ; pray do not evade mine. Who certifies the certifiers when all are of the list and want new credentials ? The local associations are left to make out a new list. But how can you recognise or know those associations, when your list of them and their members is to be an entirely new one — of newly certificated preachers ? The question seems captious. No doubt. But now, for instance, did you not repudiate the idea that a man, being on the list the year before, had therefore any claim to continue ? What I said was in reply to Mr. Gascoyne, who treated a place once acquired on the list as a " vested interest," which ought to be " regarded ;" and that it would be " unfair that any new regulation should affect names already in the Year Book." Exactly ; and you said — what ? "I am sure you will all agree with me, that we could not adopt the suggestion of Mr. Gascoyne." By which you meant, that a minister having been on that list, no matter how long, say, as in the plaintiff's case, twenty-five years, lie has thence no prescriptive, presumptive, or vested right to be continued on the succeeding year? That is the very gist of our defence. I hope you will hold to that — it is what you really mean ? Yes : for I added : — " A man may be on the list this year — he may not lapse into grave heresy, but he may become an unworthy minister of Christ, whom his brethren in his own locality have no fellowship with." True. And you have so little faith in one another, that you annually break up the list of Congregational ministers in England, Wales, and the Colonies, to get a new set of newly certified men ? I do not say so. But that was the principle of your defence ? I do not see that. You will not acknowledge it ? No answer. Now in this natural uncertainty about the theology or spirituality of the formerly certified and accredited ministers — who is the locum * Report of the Congregational Union Meeting, "English Independent," May 14, 1869. 344 tenens for the suspended breath of Independency — who " sits on" the new candidates for enrolment ? I have already said — the local associations. But they have new lists too, and announce their members as annual, do they not ? I am not aware. What is this Book? It is the West Riding Congregational Register for 1869. Eight. How do you read on page 107 ? " Alphabetical List of Congregational Ministers, who are members of the West Riding Congregational Union in 1869." Then these are Annuals ? Yes. Who starts that society every new year ? I suppose the secre- taries REMAIN. No doubt they are the life of these societies. But how can you tell, — having disbanded your list, on the faith that you cannot rely on the faithfulness of the brethren, for above a year, — that the secretaries formerly on your lists may not be themselves unfaithful ? No answer. Well, can you tell me who amongst you, on the committee of the Union, is left to inquire after the brethren in the country ? The secretaries. Then their names do stand, though the old list has died out ? Your question suggests needless difficulties. No, it is your newly invented theory of an entirely new list, independent of the old one, that involves you in these difficulties. The old list is waste paper, lumber ; the men on it, for all you know, in your solicitude against immorality and Neology, may be tainted with New College-ism, or worse ; — how then do you re-start this firm of uncertificated bankrupts ? The plaintiff could not use harsher language. Nor more appropriate ? No answer. Well, let us be more delicate about facts than words : — who starts your new accredited list ? I said in that meeting : — " Mr. Ashton no doubt makes use of the slips of the last Year Book, for clerical convenience, and sends the old list down to Yorkshire or Leices- tershire, and so forth, and it is returned, with such new names written as the secretary finds it necessary to write in, and such old names erased as he finds it necessary to erase ; but the book is a new book, and the list is a new list from year to year." That is a very satisfactory account of " Independancy ;" but if being on your old list affords no prescriptive or presumptive, or " vested right" to be on the new one, why does this mysterious Mr. 345 Ashton, who survives when all are defunct, — send the old list to make a new one out of? I said it was " for clerical convenience." You mean, to save the trouble of writing the old names over again ? No answer. Does it not seem as if out of all the names in the world, it is con- sidered probable that those on the former list are likely to make up the bulk of the new one ? Certainly. Then it is not so much a new list as the old one revised? No answer. Was it not to evade the charge of omitting the plaintiff's name from that list, that you invented this new theory — nobody is omitted, the list is a fresh one, and his name was only — not inserted ? No. It is not for the first time a new list, it always M has been a new list, from year to year." Can you find such language in any Year Book, or any un- questioned statement in any record of your proceedings ? It always has been so regarded. I asked you whether you could find any language of that sort in the Year Book ? No answer. Do you know anything about this question ? I am perfectly acquainted with the method of our procedure as a Union and as a denomination. Then you know that what you say about a new list is not true ? That is an offensive imputation. But is it a fact ? No answer. Can you find one Year Book before 1869, that does not treat the Alphabetical List of Ministers as a permanent list ? No answer. What does the Year Book of 1868 say? " Special Notice. — Ministers are added to this list or omitted from it on the authority of tutors of colleges, &c." What do you read in 1867 ? The same. What difference is there in this from 1866 ? The words — " or omitted from " are inserted. That was an unauthorised interpolation of the committee ? I do not say so. But the chairman of the Assembly said so in May, 1868 ? Possibly, With or without that interpolation, the list is plainly treated as a standing list from year to year ? I do not say so. But it is so ? You say it. And you know it ? No answer. What does the Year Book for 1863 say ? "Additions are made 346 to this list from time to time, only as ministers are accredited by tutors of colleges, &c." Does that say it is "a new list ?" No. Is that said anywhere till you put into your report for 1869, "N.B. — These returns are in each made annually?' I do not know. Is not this " N.B." a proof of a change ? Not necessarily. But naturally and probably ? No answer. Was not this report made with a view to " The Dissenting World ?" No. Do you make a report on the Year Booh annually ? No. How came you to make one this year ? It was in accordance with a resolution adopted at Sheffield, as the report says. When were you required by the Sheffield resolution to make a report? In May 1867. And you did not ? No. Then instead of reporting, as required, in May 1867, you passed over four half-yearly meetings, — what brought it on in 1869 ? The plaintin's representations in " The Dissenting World?" No answer. But did that resolution in Sheffield imply that it was a " new list from year to year?" I have said that " the view the committee takes of the whole matter is this, that there is no such thing as a list from year to year." I am not asking what you said for that occasion, but what the resolution referred to said : can you tell me? Yes: — " that the pastors, deacons, and delegates then assembled most respectfully requested the committee of the Union to consider whether any alterations should be made in the terms on which the names of ministers icere inserted in or omitted from the Congregational Year Book, and report upon the same at the next annual meeting." And you at last reported that there could be no "adding to or omitting from," as it was a " new list ?" That was the meaning of our debate and report. True : but you never thought of this wretched evasion till you were accused of " omitting from;" and then you invented this con- tradiction of the resolution, that there could be no " terms of removal or addition," because there was nothing to add to or omit from ? No answer. In fact, you made game of the resolution ? A pause. Was it not an afterthought to escape the charge of secretly erasing a name, by an excuse that made the Assembly and com- mittee eat their own words ? I have told you as well as I can. Were you in the Assembly in May, 1868 ? Yes. 347 Did you hear Mr. Prout, in seconding the report, say : " Thero are five methods in which a minister's name may be added to the LIST ALREADY IN EXISTENCE ?"* No answer. Can you think of any form of speech, publicly adopted, giving any other view, before you were driven to contradict yourselves in order to contradict the plaintiff ? No answer. When Samuel Morley, Esq., asked, " Why, if Mr. Grant's name was reinstated, that should not be acknowledged in the resolution" "of the Assembly in May, 1869 ? What did you reply ? I said : " It cannot be put in the Year Book for 1869 ; the book is printed, we cannot issue a new edition — that course is out of the question."! Was not your answer " out of the question ?" The Assembly did not think so. Well, you were asked : Why not acknowledge the restoration of the name — " why be afraid or ashamed of saying it " in the resolu- tion then before the meeting ? Yes. And you answered : The Year Book is printed, we cannot put it in that. Who said you could ? No answer. You think that your "new rule" and " new list" required a " new " kind of logic ? No answer. You said his " name will go in in the Year Book for 1870, because he has qualified within the last fortnight, by becoming a member of the Congregational Union ?" Yes. Was that qualification also " new ?" It was just being proposed in our report. Then you had made that " new " rule to meet the case and creep out by promising to put him in, after you knew he had joined the Union ? No answer. Do you not know that this new rule, to admit on the list of minis- ters those who joined the Union, is also itself a contradiction or an imbecility ? I cannot answer such a form of question. Let me alter it : Do you not know that it was trifling with the Assembly to allege such a qualification ? It was in the proposal contained in the report. Does that make it less ridiculous ? We have a rule for admission of personal members to the Union, and compliance with that entitles a minister to be on the Alphabetical List. Will you state the rule ? Yes. It is that " Ministers, being * "English Independent" Report, May, 1868. f "English Independent," May 14, 1869. 348 members of Congregational churches in connection with the Union,' "become " Personal Members" by subscribing five shillings. But this is for " Ministers ?" Yes. By " Ministers " you mean recognized as such ? Yes. Then they have a right to be on the list as ministers before they become " personal members " of the Union ? Yes. How then can this personal membership, which requires a man to be a recognized minister before he can be such member, give him the right to be recognised as a minister ? I do not see. Nor anybody else. Had you ever made membership of the Union a door to the Alphabetical List before ? No answer. Was the plaintiff on the list for twenty-five years ? Yes. Was he ever a " personal member ?" I do not know. Then up to this time, there was no connection between being a member of the Union, and being on the list of ministers ? No answer. In 1868, how many ministers were on the Alphabetical List who were not members of the Congregational Union ? I do not know. You have not read the Dissenting World ? No answer. Did not the plaintiff tell you, the night before, that your Union in 1868 contained only a third of the ministers on the Alphabetical List ; — that sixteen hundred were there, and not in your Union ? We laughed at him. So I understand. Because you were ignorant enough to suppose him mistaken ? No answer. You twit him with having joined the union only a fortnight before ? Yes. Any minister being a member of a church in con- nection with the Union can be a personal member for five shillings. True, but how long had the church of which he was a member been connected with the Union ? I do not know. Then why did you venture on the observation ? No answer. Do you know that he joined the Union in order to be at your meetings, and see if he could secure a reasonable inquiry into his illegal deposition ? No answer. Was your remark about his late joining the Union, made to deceive such as Dr. Halley with the absurd inquiry — then how could he be on the list of Congregational Ministers ? Can you account for the general ignorance of the leading speakers on the commonest facts of your Congregational polity ? — Was it assumed for a purpose, or was it honest bond-fide ignorance ? We do not call it ignorance. 349 Well, perhaps it was not : certainly it was specially required and well adapted for the occasion ; but you see it does not serve further, and rather reacts unfavourably. Were you the only one that could keep his face while solemnly saying what you could not know ? I am not here to answer that. Perhaps not ; I almost think you really did not know better than you said ; but you must have taken great pains to acquire such an aptness in not knowing. Is that a question ? No. You did not know that the Committee always treated the list not as " a new one from year to year," but a permanent record of honoured brethren ? No. But you know now? You say so. No : all your books say so : and your language is as " new" as your lists. That will do. The Rev. Alexander Hannay, after this tourna- ment, left the lists. The Rev. Thomas Binney, examined. You were at the meeting of the Assembly, May 11, 1869, and took some part in the Year Book debate ? Yes. I rose " to put a question to the secretary, not about putting a man out, but about getting in"* You mean about his getting into your ministry ? Yes, as on the accredited list. Were you not aware that the real question of difficulty was as to putting out those who had long been in ? That occasioned the debate ; but I was anxious to prevent such easily getting in again by a five shillings subscription. "Part of the resolution was that any man who qualifies as a member of the Uuion is to have his name put in the Year Book.'" You mean in the Alphabetical List of Congregational Ministers ? Yes. And I asked what the qualification for the Union was, and some one called out " five shillings." I said, then why not pay it? You considered that a valid answer ? It seemed to me absurd that a man should be disturbing our meeting, clamouring for a place which five shillings would have bought. Had he been asked for the five shillings ? I do not know. If you secretly make a five shillings qualification and then "put a man out," as you mildly term it, for not paying what was never * "English Independent" Report, May 14, 1869. 350 heard of before, and was not demanded of him then, and so join to ruin his prospects on your five shillings plea — is that manly, mag- nanimous and Christian, or a pitiable snuffle worth} 7 only of a trick- ster ? I am not used to be talked to in that style. No, you have been flattered too much : but will you answer the question ? Enough has been said on so paltry a question. You mean that five shillings is a paltry question ? Yes. Suppose you had to pay it for church rates, and were distrained upon for that sum in an illegal rate, payment for which had not even been asked ? This is not a church rate question. No : but a "five shillings" question, which your party raises, and which you endorse ; and because they did not get five shillings — the new price for a license — you "put a man out ?" My question distinctly was, "not about putting a man out, but about getting in." Yes: you thought he ought to be " put out" for not paying a paltry "five shillings," which was neither due nor asked for, but you were afraid of his "getting in" again at the same price ? I said to the Union that at this rate " your door is wide open indeed.'''' True ; you did not object to the width of the door for " putting a man out " on a newly misapplied five shillings rule, of which he is not informed, and which you had no right to make, — for you can raise a tariff for your Union, but not "put a man out" of the ministry of your denomination because he does not join your club. But were you not aware that the door you spoke of, as too "wide," is no door at all for a man to get in at ? The resolution was. that " any man who qualifies as a member of the Union," which is by payment of five shillings, "is to have his name on the Year Book." Y 7 ou mean as a minister, and that this is a wide door to the ministry ? Yes, certainly. Pray is not that five shillings rule made for ministers? I do not know. Then why did you get up in the meeting ? I got up for informa- tion. You needed it, but did you get it ? I was told by Mr. Ashton, that the rule was : — " Any minister who is a member of a church in connection with the Congregational Union is eligible for mem- bership." That is, for membership of the Union ? Yes, and so for going on to the Year Book list of ministers. m 351 But he must be a minister to start with, to become eligible as a member of the Union for five shillings ? Yes. Then if he is a minister before he pays five shillings, how does the five shillings rule " open a very wide door indeed" — for those who are inside already, and so do not want " your door ?" That was the way the thing appeared to me. Do you mean that your observation in the meeting implied a con- tradiction that amounted to an absurdity ? Xo answer. You were in the Assembly, 1868 ? Yes. And when this matter was debated, as to the committee's new illegal rule to depose secretly your weaker brethren, you turned off to a miserable joke on another subject ? I criticised the report which was before the meeting. Yes. When Mr. Prout objected to the report putting into the power of certain paid officials the opportunity of deposing any minis- ter they chose, you rose and said : — " I think there was an expres- sion that must have come upon the minds of a great many persons here present, who were present at Manchester, and I am afraid must have caused them a great deal of pain. A little alteration would remove that distress ; and I am sure my friend Mr. George Smith will attend to it. He said it was a very great thing that the hospitality of the people of Manchester was equal to the increased requirements of their visitors. Now I think he means increased number of visitors. (Laughter.) I was not at Manchester, but I should be very sorry to think that you went there, all of you, with ' in- creased requirements.'' (Laughter.)* This was your speech on that occasion ? Perhaps so ; it was a joke, and was kindly taken, for the English Independent adds — " The Rev. Dr. Smith : — ' I am sorry we had not the benefit of that criticism before ; but Mr. Binney has given the right meaning to it. It means an augmented number, and the correction shall be made.' The chairman was about to put the resolution, when a delegate interposed and asked — what were the terms of EXCLUSION ?" Exactly, so this delegate recalled the attention of the meeting to the serious subject of "causing a great deal of pain" and "distress" by something more than your " sentimental grievance" about " in- creased requirements," which you trailed across the path of the meeting to put them off the scent ? I simply criticised the report. "Would it not have been more worthy of your standing and ability — knowing, as you did, the many sacrifices and troubles connected * "Dissenting World," p. 228. 352 with the ministerial vocation — to have thrown the shield of your protection over the brethren, that to the difficulties incident to carrying on their profession there may not be added this official Union tyranny of secretly " putting the man out" ? No answer. Your wit is well known ; but can it be any satisfaction to vent a poor joke, when a great principle affecting the honour and life- work of your brethren is at stake ? It was a mere sally, and the joke was good enough. No sir ; it was as illogical as your "wide open door," for ministers to become ministers. Were there not " increasing requirements" met by " Manchester hospitality?" No : Dr. Smith acknowledged it was "increased numbers." But would not "increased numbers" involve "increased requirements ? " Certainly. Then your joke was as illogical as it was ill-timed, and was no better than your " door" of entrance for people who are already admitted to the ministry ? The Rev. Thomas Binney, father of the "Immortal Fifteen" Protestors, " puts " himself " out " of court through " a dor very wide open indeed." The Rev. Thomas Ashton, Editor of the Year Book, examined. You read the rule in reply to Mr. Binney ? Yes. He seemed to think, that by admitting to the Year Book List members of the Congregational Union, we opened a wide door for the Ministerial List. But I showed him by the rule that they were ministers beforehand. Exactly. Then why does your report give them a license to be enrolled as ministers, if that was their status before ? The matter is very difficult, and has given us a great deal of trouble. No doubt. You had been striking names off the list without any rule but such as the committee had made for you, to suit diffi- cult circumstances ? No. It is a "new list from year to year," as Mr. Hannay said ; so there is no striking off, but only " non- insertion." Then the terms "adding to," "omitting from," "exclusion," "extrusion," "excommunication," " ministerial deposition," were expressions of the ignorance of those who uttered them ? Yes. 353 Then you and your committee were only giving expression to your combined ignorance when you proposed that " the present heading of the Alphabetical List should be expunged, and the fol- lowing heading be substituted ?" No answer. How can you " expunge " a heading from a " new list from year to year?" No answer. Your new " heading " says that the list is composed of the names of "Independent Ministers of Great Britain and Ireland whose names have been furnished by the secretaries of associations or unions, or by the secretaries of the Congregational Board, or by five ministers already on the list, and residing in the neighbourhood, or who are members of the Congregational Union ?" Yes. What do you mean by "five ministers already on the list?" That those on the list this year may recommend others for the list next year. Exactly : but how can this be if they all want recommending over again ? I do not understand it so. That is not the question. You allege Mr. Hannay's doctrine,, who uttered " the view which the committee takes of the whole matter." The list is new each year : being on the old list is no claim to be put on the new one. Then how can being on the old list, which is abandoned, give license to unlicensed persons to license other people ? I do not understand it. But does your new "heading" mean that ministers, members of the Congregational Union, may recommend somebody else ; or does it mean that they, the members of the Union, are themselves to be on the list of ministers ? It means the latter. No, it does not : for as you read the heading, these members of the Congregational Union are a continuance of the enumeration of per- sons who may recommend : is it not so ? That was not our meaning. Very likely not : but is it not the meaning of the new " head- ing ?" I cannot say. Perhaps you got it up in a hurry ? It was very carefully debated. But it is as ambiguous as your conduct in this bungling ad rem legislation, and your excuses for it are equivocal ? That is the style of language against which we have always protested. And that is the style of evasion which you have always practised? I have no answer to such questions. In your new heading, which no doubt was composed by old heads, you speak of " five ministers already on the list and RESIDING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD." WHAT NEIGHBOURHOOD did you mean ? I do not see the necessity for that question, f 354 What did you mean by putting: " N.B. — These returns in each case are made annually ?" What it says. Doubtless ; but does this mean that it is a new plan ? No ; it is the old plan. Do you generally introduce a long existing plan by " N.B. ?" No answer. What is the meaning of " in each case ?" Everybody can see it. Does it mean in the case of each list ? No ; each individual. Then there is no individual on the old list that has from that position a right to go on the new one ? No. Then who makes the new body of Independent Ministers ? It is not a new body, but a " new list." Of the old body ? No ; it is new " in each case" Then what person has authority to judge of the qualifications for going on the new list ? The secretaries. But they are off as well ? I do not say so. No ; but " in each case ?" I do not see it. You all begin de novo ? No ; I am left, as secretary. It is not a new list in your " case ?" No. Then not " in each case ?" Yes. How are we to understand you ? I trust we are Christian men seeking to do our duty. I trust you are, and I hope .you may yet be able to see what your duty is, and have grace to perform it "in each case." The Rev. Robert Ashton retires, evidently hoping that the " return " of this " case " may not be " made annually." The Rev. Newman Hall, examined. At the Annual Assembly, May 11, 1869, when the Preliminary Meeting's proposal respecting the case of the plaintiff's name being omitted from the Congregational Year Book was considered, you are reported to have said :* — "Mr. President and brethren : I am sure it must be a grief to us all — (hear, hear) — that a thousand pastors and delegates from all parts of the kingdom, and representatives from the world, and the representatives of the press, should be gathered together here for the interests of Christ's kingdom, the promotion of our spiritual welfare, the furtherance of those grand principles about which we * The " English Independent," May 14, 1869. 355 listened just now, and that we should spend a moment of precious time on personal squabbles or on even constitutional matters which owght to be attended to in committee or at the preliminary meeting. (Applause.) "With all respect I move the previous question." Is that a true account of your speech ? Yes. You moved the previous question ? Yes, and it was " carried unanimously and was followed by loud and long continued cheering." Your "previous question" was to set aside the decision of the " preliminary meeting ?" Yes. But in your speech you say that these are matters which " ought to be attended to in the preliminary meeting ?" Yes. Had they not been ? Yes. Then why did you say they " ought" to have been ? I do not understand you. No, but I understand you : under pretence of supporting the "preliminary meeting," and pointing out its duty, you ignored its labours and unsettled what it had endeavoured to settle : did you not ? I spoke " with all respect." Exactly : perhaps you generally do when you mean to act "with- out respect" to those persons or opinions that you are about to abandon ? My proposal was made " with all respect" to the preli- minary meeting. By accusing its members — " delegates from all parts of the king- dom" — of introducing "personal squabbles?" It was the fault of the plaintiff that a "personal" question was introduced. Is not that the fault of every plaintiff that appears in any court in the world ? I do not see the relevance of the inquiry. Well, what do you mean by " a personal question ?" Is not every question of right or wrong, as an actual case, connected with the conduct of persons? It may be ; but these questions "ought to have been attended to in the preliminary meeting." So you said before, and you knew they had been, and spoke as if they had not been ; and " with all respect" to those whose con- clusion, after anxious deliberations, you stigmatized as "personal squabbles ?" No answer. Do you not generally make a personal application of your text in preaching ? I do not see what that has to do with it. No, but it is " personal," and perhaps if you had been one of David's courtiers, you would have told Nathan, when he said — "|Thou art i ie man" — that it was a " personal squabble ?" Tbat instance is foreign. Yes ; but it was " personal ?" Certainly. 356 Are there not many other " personal" sayings in that book ? No doubt. Speaking of " Thou art the man," had you not a "personal" grudge to pay the plaintiff for his analysis of your curious scornful hodgepodge — " The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink and verbal statements of doctrine, and the shibboleths of even an Evangelical party, not doubtful statements about modes of utter- ance, but righteousness and peace "?* That had nothing to do with my course. But considering the "personal" relations in which you stood doctrinally to the plaintiff, inasmuch as he had expounded, and, as the Pall Mall — though defending your " liberal" theology, acknow- ledges — defeated the attempt of "Messrs. Binney, Newman Hall, and Baldwin Brown" to " throw" protection by their " aggis" over the theology of ' The Rivulet,' would it not " personally" have been more honourable and free from the taint of personality if, instead of a second time revenging this defeat by coming personally forward to defeat justice and revenge your "personal squabble" on the plaintiff, you had " with all respect " stood back, and not either have exposed yourself to the charge of pursuing a "personal squabble" while protesting against it, or to that of insulting the preliminary meeting " with all respect ?" I did not come forward with any personal feeling. Of course not ; it was all for the furtherance of " those grand principles " which you introduced to cover little actions, — " with all respect?" No answer. Were you not the central figure of " the Immortal Fifteen," being yourself the fifteenth, "by whose side" fourteen "gladly placed " themselves, with Mr. Binney, the father of them, at their head — all under the pretext of defending poor Lynch, but in fact to defend you ? That has nothing to do with the present question. It explains your anxiety to consult the " spiritual welfare" of the brethren, by at once destroying their liberty, and preventing the plaintiff obtaining even the shadow of a redress for that victimisation in which the liberty of all were representatively sold to recompense your previous defeat. Have you ever seen this pamphlet " What is Negative Theology, and who are its Abettors ?" Yes ; that was a sequel to "What's it all about ?" and both gave great offence. Exactly : and so we see what it's all about, — when you come out • " Dissenting World," p. 115, 357 against "personal squabbles" to create one, as a revenge for the exposure of your insult to " the Shibboleths of even an Evangelical party." But how do you explain your " respect" to the preliminary meeting ? That is plain of itself. Yes, too plain : you said they " ought to have attended " to the subject ; did you mean to inspire that agitated and befogged assembly with the notion that the plaintiff was introducing a subject over the head of the preliminary meeting ? No. What other object could you have ? My speech speaks for itself. True ; but it speaks against you, and may I not say that it was fitting that you, who led and fell in the Rivulet battle, should crown the contradictions of those who misled the assembly '? I uttered no contradiction. Not directly, but by inevitable implication you suggested that the Preliminary Meeting had not — but only ought to have — attended to the subject, while you showed "all respect" to their recom- mendation. Did you not know that you were in fact contradicting them ? No. Had you not heard Mr. Haxnay say — " In moving this resolution I abstain for obvious reasons from dealing with its merits, and shall only state to the assembly the fact that the preliminary meeting had a protracted and somewhat heated discussion, a discussion of three hours on the last clause of this resolution ; and though they did not put it upon me to entreat the assembly to accept the resolution as it is, seeing that it was adopted after three hours' discussion and protracted conference with Mr. Grant, — adopted by representative men, who felt that they were making a certain concession in the matter, Mr. Grant accepting it, and, by the way, suppressing a pamphlet which he was to have circulated on the subject this morning, — a fact which, I think, ought to be mentioned, — it was hoped that this meeting " would, " considering all the circumstances, agree to pass it. I have no right to assume the position of making an appeal to my brethren in this sense, but I believe I am fairly expressing the feeling of the meeting last night, that by accepting this resolution we shall be saving much valuable time and our- selves a great deal of trouble" — that, in fact, the members of the Preliminary Meeting had " spent " in the previous night's discussion nearly "all their strength," which should have carried them through the week ?* I may have heard that. And your answer was, " with all respect," the preliminary meeting ought to have attended to it ? I have already said. Yes ; and " with all respect " you have cut a sorry figure, and the * English Independent, May Uth, 1869. 358 " loud and long continued cheering" of the assembly is echoed back by "loud and long continued" jeering of an unbelieving world, at the sacred cajolery by which Independents were cheated into a surrender of honour and liberty. The Kev. Newman Hall, bowing "with all respect" to the court, retires to utter "the Shibboleth of even an Evangelical party." The Eev. Kobert Macbeth, an Association Secretary, examined on the Notice given to a Victim before Ministerial Execution. You said in the Assembly, in May, "there has always been the most ample opportunity given to any man to see to it that his name should be inserted in the list from year to year ?"* Yes. You meant that the plaintiff had warning, and could have avoided excommunication by getting his brethren to recommend the re- insertion of his name ? Yes. Who gave him that warning, and what reason did they give to him for seeking a recommendation or re-ordination ? I do not know. Did you not know that what you said was untrue ? No. Did you know it to be true ? I believed it. On what ground ? A pause. Have you read the Rev. Josiah Miller's recommendation in the English Independent, May 14, 1869 — " that in future the name of no minister be omitted from the list in the Year Book until he has had a notice from the editor, that owing to his name not having been ' returned ' to the editor he is about to be omitted?" I may have seen that. Does it not contradict your asseveration that there " always had been most ample opportunity given to any man to see that his name should be inserted ?" I do not see that. No ; but if it had "always" been the rule to give this notice, why should Mr. Miller beg to make that " practical suggestion ?" I do not know. Does not the editor in that same paper say, " If anything further be needed, the suggestion of a correspondent in our columns to-day will probably supply the omission ?" Perhaps so. Then what you said was not true ? No answer. * " English Independent," May 11, 1809. 359 Was it not declared afterwards, in that organ, that the com- mittee had since made " a bye-law " to gice in future such a notice, and did not some one say that it should include the case of any omission from this present list ?* No answer. What induces you Congregational leaders and association secre- taries to make such assertions about your rules and procedures which the least inquiry disproves ? No answer. Your assertion that " every man has always had most ample " notice of his coming excommunication was contradicted by the editor of the Independent, his correspondent, and the committee's new " bye-law ?" I do not see it. Can you tell us what notice your namesake, Macbeth,! gave to his guest as a " most ample opportunity to see to it that his name should be inserted " next morning in the list of those newly licensed to live ? Mr. Macbeth, being reminded of Macduff, who died without warning, is thankful for a " most ample opportunity " of retiring from the witness box. The Kev. Dr. Waddixgton examined on Union Love. You spoke very strongly in favour of affection and forbearance under all the trials of criticism to which the Union was exposed, and concluded thus : " However, the more in this matter we (Unionists) may be threatened, or the more unkindly treated as a body, the better it is that we should act in a noble way to people, and overcome evil with good ?"* Yes. And yon retired from that speech to say privately: " We must CAST HIM OUT AT ANY PRICE?" No answer. This was your loving observation, as a commentary on the sweet speech of forgiveness towards your victim, who ought to have died quickly and quietly, and saved — the Union ? Dr. Waddixgton forgiving the unkindness of these questions " cast " himself " out of" Court. English Independent," May 27, 18C9. t Shakespere. 360 THE CLOSE OF THE INQUIRY. Conversation between the President of the Commission and Messrs. Cossham and Campbell, respectively watching over the Interests of the Unionists and the Plaintiff. The President, addressing these two, said : "We have power to permit any explanation to be addressed to the court by represen- tatives of the parties directly concerned, and you have been allowed to suggest any questions to be asked the witnesses, with the court's approval. All the main questions have been founded on previous sayings or doings of the witnesses themselves, and it is scarcely necessary to observe that the answers, though coinciding with what the witnesses are known and proved to have said elsewhere, form a painfully conflicting group of excuses scarcely less satisfactory than the act which so much has been done and said to cover. I may refer for instance to that huddling up of new laws and conditions, changing the whole framework of not only the Congregational Union, and its method of preserving the list of Congregational Ministers, but even the West Riding Association has been wholly changed — all in the face of this difficulty ; which is a palpable acknowledgment that the old orthodox machinery afforded no cover for "the parti- cular case" before the court. Mr. Cossham : Will your Honour allow me to observe that this whole matter, which seems so complicated, lies in a nutshell ? The Presdent : Will you crack it for us, brother Cossham, and show us the kernel ? Mr. Cossham : With permission I will try. The fact is — and I know this was stated by one who " sits under" a Professor, and is at the same time kindly disposed to the plaintiff — that it was generally thought he had left the denomination, and was going into the Church, and so his name was omitted from the alphabetical list of Congregational Ministers. President : Was there any ground for that supposition ? Mr. Cossham : Well, he lectured on the Church side, at least against Mr. Gladstone's scheme. President : But did not the Nonconformist, the English Independent, and the Congregational Union in its tract on the duty of Dissenters, all declare that the State Church principle was not involved in the Irish Church agitation ? :;: * " Dissenting World," p. 267. 361 BEr. Cossham : True, they did ; and, also, they did not consider that Dr. Miller and other clergymen had become Dissenters by taking Mr. Gladstone's side ; but we know how party feeling at times warps the judgment of the best intentioned. President : You are aware that the plaintiff always put himself forward as a Dissenter in his lectures ? Mr. Cossham : Yes ; and that made the English Independent declare that he could no longer be considered a Dissenting Minister. President : Was not that the very element of the persecution complained of ? Mr. Cossham : I am only explaining how they looked at it, and how it was not from any animus. President : But was not that method of looking at it the expression of the animus ? Mr. E. S. Campbell : Will your Honour pardon me if I observe that respecting the Congregational Union's tract on the duty of Dissenters, it was said by the English Independent* that its circula- tion would do good in any neighbourhood in which a person from Sheffield, professing to be a Congregational minister, should lecture on the subject ? This showed that they knew he had not gone into the Church, and they accused him of this — Mr. Miall calling him "a State Church lecturer," on purpose to prejudice Dissenters; and when they found he had not gone into the Church they drove him out of Dissent — closed the door of his profession — so that, if they can drive Mm into the Church, they will say, "We knew he would ; we said so." But he would still be an ejected Non- conformist. The President : But, Mr. Cossham, you have a statement of seceders to the Church on page 401 of the Year Book for 1869. W r as he included in those five ? Mr. Cossham : I do not know. The President : Is he intended by " To the Free Church of England, 1 ?" Mr. Cossham : I do not know. Mr. E. S. Campbell : On page 219 of the same book your Honour will find a list of " removals of ministers," stating " name," " place left," and " place settled at." In several instances there is a blank as to " place settled at." Now the plaintiff's name should have appeared also in this list; and since he had not "settled" yet at any " place," his location should have been left blank ; but, * August 6, 1868. 362 while the book pretends to account for " removals," the plaintiff is not referred to. Peesident : Evidently the whole matter has been exceptional ; and if the Unionists believed that the plaintiff had gone into the Church, — for which they had no reason, — they should have acknowledged the palpable mistake and restored the name honour- ably, instead of altering all their rules and involving themselves in inextricable contradictions. It is altogether a painful exhibition, and you should advise your friends — Mr. Cossham — to retreat clean out of their evasions, and put the matter in statu quo, without adopting the excuses intended to shield while only shaming the officials and their abettors. Mr. E. S. Campbell : Such a settlement was what the plaintiff asked for in his petition, and it was in part conceded to him, and accepted by him, in the " Preliminary Meeting ; but those who had previous grudges for " the Rivulet" and the Godwinian Contro- versy, in which Mr. Newman Hall, Mr. Binney, and others figured, misled the public Assembly into repudiating that settlement. To secure this end, they perpetrated those changes and evasions which have excited so much pain and surprise in the court, duriug this present enquiry. The Peesident : But if they could give it all up and shake hands ? If the next Assembly, finding that the witnesses who mis- led them before, were hopelessly befogged, and have now been clarified — should accept the finding of the only meeting that at all looked into the matter — would not that be the best course under the circumstances ? Mr. Campbell : But already the plaintiff has been greatly injured, for to cover their act, they must misrepresent him, and the act itself was an " emphatic disownment," as the Rev. S. M'call said; so that to recover from it so as to secure a settlement, especially if the wire-pullers are diligent, would be difficult, besides the past expense and loss and anxiety to which the plaintiff has been exposed. The Peesident : Doubtless. But surely a respectable body of Christian men can back out of a mistake into which they are blindly led, and make suitable amends. Mr. Cossham: I am sure "the generality of Dissenters," as the plaintiff acknowledges in his " Gladstone and Justice to Ireland," "only want to see the truth in order to do justice ;" and that on the whole, however occasionally misled, "they are a fair minded people." 363 The President : Well then, since even when bearing the brunt of their displeasure, the plaintiff spoke so honourably of Dissenters as a people, there can be no objection to their justifying his good opinion. They had better take affairs out of official management and revert to their position in and before 1866, as to the Year Book, and abandon all those new equivocal phrases — about "sending" up names — in the sense of to be inserted, or not to be inserted ; "return" as returnable, or not returnable; "supplied" to the editor, in the sense of " supplied " originally at the beginning of a man's career, or supplied "annually" at the caprice of local secretaries ; " non-insertion," to escape the charge of " erasion " or "removal:" with the " new list " theory, — making ministers annually licensed, and not like beerhouse keepers by a good character from outsiders, but by licensing one another with no one left to do it, since they all need new credentials — a humiliation of the whole body of Congregational ministers newly invented to cover, by intensifying, the humiliation of injustice to one by the degrada- tion of all. Perhaps the worst feature in this melancholy affair is the finding out of a reason afterwards by the District Secretar}^, who said at the time, — " why your name nowhere appears in the Year Book, I have already said, I know not." This statement was not even covered by the evasion of not being "removed" but only " non-inserted :" the asseveration left no loophole. Mr. Cossham : I may perhaps here remind the court, that the District Secretary referred to, has resigned that office. The President : Then you have the less official difficulty in backing out of the transaction, in which he took so prominent a share. Mr. Cossham : It should be borne in mind, that the plaintiff had given offence by being a leader in opposing the Amalgamation of two colleges, in one of which the former district secretary is engaged : and he was a great promoter of that plan, which the plaintiff joined in defeating. The President : Your professor and secretary should have been the more scrupulous, and carefully have avoided the appearance, of joining a present prejudice to revenge an old grudge. Mr. E. S. Campbell: Your Honour has exactly described the situation : former offences, as the defence of orthodoxy, and opposing amalgamation, prompted some to encourage and take advantage of a political excitement in order to " extinguish" the plaintiff. The worst part was played by the editors of newspapers : — the 364 English Independent, the Sheffield Independent, edited by a country committeeman ; followed by the Leeds Mercury, under another com- mitteeman ; the Nonconformist, edited by the leading liberationist ; and even the Christian World, inspired by the same parties. The President : We are not now sitting on "the Press of the denomination." Mr. Campbell : No, your Honour, but when you do, there will be as curious disclosures as about Union officials. Some striking specimens already appear in "the Dissenting World:" and there are others, if necessary. The President : The inquiry is closed for the present : a report will in due time be issued by the Commissioners ; with such recom- mendations for the security of Her Majesty's subjects, as the threatened encroachments of Free Churchism on individuals rights and liberty may appear to require. CONCLUDING CHAPTER, With a few Inferences. Hapid Progress of Independents in the Abandonment of their Principles, — Ecclesiastical, Political, and Theological, — Solving all Difficulties by holding all Things in Solution, that in this "suspensory" state they may lead the "Liberal" Thought of the Age. Qui exemplo aliis esse debetis, aliorum exemplo peccetis potius, quam alii vestro recte faciant.* — Livii, lib. III., cap. xxi. Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edarn.+ —Juvenalis, Sat. I., 21. Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur.t —Juvenalis, Sat. VIII., 140. Sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere vero Auriculas ? Vide, sis, ne majornm tibi forte Limena frigescant.§ — Persii, Sat. L, 107. The mission of the unestablished churches was to provide a platform and example on which Christian Truth and Liberty might be preserved, without the machinery of even Protestant establishments ; instead of which we are in danger of becoming a warning rather than an example, of which both philosophical statesmen and state churchmen are not uninterested spectators. The former * Ye who should be for an example to others, rather sin by their example than lead them right by yours. |- If you have leisure and paiience, I will go through the matter. ^ Every fault is so much the worse in itself, as the one who commits it is held in higher estimation. § But what necessity is thereto wound delicate ears with biting truth ? Miud lest you get the cold shoulder from influential persons. 365 will ask for some legislative guarantees for personal liberty against the encroach- ing centralized organizations of Free Churchism amongst Protestants, no less than against the Romish altar denunciations, and " spiritual influences;" while the latter will not fail to see that we have abandoned voluntaryism, and so lost our vantage ground, before the grand attach on the English Church. But the more serious objections to our present position will arise from thoughtful Christian people, both among Churchmen and Dissenters, who are jealous for that fundamental Christian truth which we, as Dissenters, ought to have enshrined in the living organization of our churches, but which we have betrayed, as we have destroyed independency of churches, and liberty of individual ministers, by a network of technical organization, the mouth of which is opened and closed by the Liberation Society in amalgama- tion with Irish and English Ultramontanes. Speclal attention, with careful study of the proofs referred to, is requested to the following Five Important Points as Conclusions from " The Dissenting World :" — Congregational Unionism and Liberationism destroy real Independency, and contravene the true objects of Free Churchism, in the following particulars : — I. — The Abandonment of Voluntaryism, as a principle of religion and of free trade, for " protection," and subsidies from Government taxes for denominational schools : which opens the way for priestly education, or small State Churches, indefinitely, out of the taxes. — " The Dissenting World," Chapter xxx. We gave up the Regium Domini to keep up our consistency, and take State Taxes for our religious schools, to lose it again. II. — The Abandonment of Christ, as in any evangelical sense a Saviour : in conniving at the gravest heresy, while professing to be the pillar and ground of the truth. — Chapters x., xv. III. — The Abandonment of Liberty for a secret irresponsible despotism ; and the centralization of voluntary societies into Com- pulsory Spiritual Trades-Unions. — xx. to xxvi. IV. — The Suppression of Open Inquiry into official private tyranny, guarding it by terror and secresy. — xxiii., xxiv. V. — The Employment of the Press to suppress Criticism on the orthodox side. — "The Dissenting World," Chapters xvi. to xix. That the reader may know who is the great authority frequently quoted I give the following explanation : — Air. Turberville, the presiding genius of our order, to whom the Eev. W. Cuthbebtsox at the autumn meeting of the Herts Congregational Association, " asked the meeting to express their sense of the services rendered to the Congregational body by their representative Journal, the English Independent,'' — observed, " as to the high hopes and expectations of Congregationalists ? ' of being " the religious leaders of an 366 imperial race," as suggested by Mr. Cuthbertson, that it would be "in- expressibly ridiculous " for a " body of men to put forth pretensions like these in these days without securing representation in the press, and having at least one journal to expound, defend, and enforce their opinions." " It was not particularly to the credit of any minister or layman taking a leading part in the affairs of their Church to say that he did not see or read their representative paper." Whether he referred to Dr. Falding " not having heard" of the change in the "Year Book" list, which was put out in our " representative paper," was not said; but Mr. Turberville thought that " a little more loyalty to their literature, even a little more enthusiasm in its behalf, would do Independents no harm." — English Independent, Sept. 30, 1869. He is our factotum. Yet even he says: — " The great work of construction is opening before us;" "it has been noble to protest against the wrong ; we ought to leel it nobler still to aid in building up the right." " Of the part which Congregationalism has yet to play in these coming days of mingled hopefulness and trial, we have yet much to say." — (English Independent, September 24, 1868.) But it all comes to nothing ; for Congregationalism has to be amalgamated, like the two papers into the English Independent, or the different assurance offices into the "Albert." The same Independent contains a recommendation by the Bev. T. Mann, a district secretary, that "ordination is to be the recognition of the Associated Churches," i.e., county unions, who are to examine and certificate the person before he is permitted to be ordained, though a congregation has "called" him, and if this were done, we are told " our ministry would not be flooded by so MANY UNQUALIFIED MEN." Besides this abandonment of Congregational rule in choosing our ministers, our churches or congregations are to be merged into a general body of all the believers in a town or neighbourhood, as another form of amalgamation. For " the truth is," we are told (July 9, 1868,) " that the theories of Non- conformity presuppose, in order to their thoroughly efficient working, the general assent and support of all the Christians in the neighbourhood;" and "when they fail to obtain that assent and support they are certain to work at a practical disadvantage." Hence all the failure of our Dissent is because Church- men have dissented from us, as our oracle intimates : — " The New Testament model of Church government, in which each town and city possessed its own independent Christian society, with a staff of rulers and assistants, and in which the whole expense of its procedure was sustained by the voluntary offerings of the faithful, without assistance from the State, would work admirably enough in our time, as of old, under similar conditions. Those conditions are simply that all the faithful of each neighbourhood should give their allegiance to the same sacred society : that rich and poor, high and low, learned and ignorant alike, who believe in Christ, should contribute their quota of influence, labour, power, and wealth, to the same church. Let this apostolic model be adopted in England to-day, and the characteristic faults of ' Dissent' would immediately disappear. The persons of the highest culture and piety would in such case immediately assume their proper position ; and there would be little room for complaint of lack of funds when all the supplies, instead of being frittered away through twenty channels, ran into a COMMON TREASURY. "But if, through obstinately clinging to a Ceiurch system, which in its leading outlines is a growth of post-apostolic times, the Christian part of the upper and more cultured classes abandon the support of the apostolic form of 367 Church government [which does not yet exist] to the middle and lower ranks, no wonder if the inevitable results of such an abandonment appear. The obvious defects of Nonconformity are the natural and direct consequence of the withdraw- ment of the more cultured orders from its societies." We have only to deprive the clergyman first of his endowment and next of s supporters, and get them nobody Nonconforms from it. Though what it is to be we cannot say : but " the idea that lies behind Independency and Congregationalism is the unity and self-government of the Church of each neighbourhood ; and if ever a single town in Great Britain should attain grace sufficient to throw all its Protestant Christianity into one organized society, allowing freedom to its various internal elements" — the mihenium would be insured. This is the wild conglomeration of organisation in which Congregationalism is to be merged ! It is only a clumsy imitation of the parochial system, with a provision for amalgamating all Churches into one denomination — without saying which it is to be. "At present," concludes this facetious writer, "there is nothing to be done except by God's blessing, to render Noncomformity as good a thing as the materials will permit it to become." The whole scheme of this organ is to attempt something new in which all present denominations shall be absorbed. This is a poor result of our Free Church experiment. No doubt the editor said rightly, of the Congregational Union Annual Assembly of May, 1869 : — " it was as good a Church council as was ever summoned by Bishop or Pope," (May 14, 18C9 ;) but unless we admit his or its infallibility, we seem to have no coherence or consistency. The constitution of the Congregational Union itself is held in solution ; we have not even organized that as our Free " Church body." The secretary of the South Staffordshire County Union writes to the editor of the English Independent to coincide with the editor's proposed re -construction of that " body; " which, he says, instead of being formed out of, and regulated by, the county associations, ignores them, and visits " the Churches of a particular town," instead of paying its " autumnal visits to the County Associations," who ought to "nominate the general committee of the Congregational Union." (September 16, 1869.) In reference to this relation of the Congregational Union to county associations, the English Independent, Sept. 9, 1869, says: "This is precisely the difficulty attaching to our Congregational system. We wish to maintain individual liberty. We want more corporate life." Which is employed to strangle liberty. '* The problem " he admits " is a difficult and a delicate one ; but we believe it is capable of solution. If it is to be solved by the Congregational Union, that body must consent to vert considerable changes in its constitution, and perhaps to some diminution in the number of its members : but even this will be preferable to the present anomalous and unsatisfactory state of things." In all this our Churches are not considered, nor the liberty and honour of our ministers: it is "individual liberty of the Associations," in relation to the Congregational Union, that is pleaded for. The denomination is assumed to be handed over to that fraction of organizers of disorganisation. " Who can con- template" inquires this regulator of Independency, "with any thing like satisfaction the present state of the denomination with reference to such matters as the membership of our churches, the status of the ordained ministry, and our collegiate system?" What a platform we present as a model for the enslaved churches on the day of then emancipation ! 8G8 Besides our church membership, which is to approach nearer to the " multitudi- nous " system, as well as to include children on the principles of the Church Catechism, as " hens of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven,"* our form of worship is to be borrowed from the Church : so that if we can teach them nothing we can learn everything from them. Thus after warning "those protestanfs" who, as high church, " have been dallying with Rome," to " draw back," we have an article that commences by attributing the improvement of our " methods of conducting divine worship" to "the Catholic revival." But we stop soon enough we are only to adopt the Church prayers. " There is now a pretty general agreement that some of the prayers in the Church of England service may be used with advantage both to minister and people. As to the extent to which these principles should be applied, there is however the greatest possible diversity of feeling." But if we cannot get Church- men to turn dissenters, we can get them to our side by taking theirs ; thus : — " Thirdly, we should try to adapt our forms of service as far as ice can conscientiously to those of other churches, and especially to those of the Church of England, that, when its members set out in search of more evangelical worship and simpler church government, they may not find in our chapels any harsh and repellent difference from the beautiful service round which all their associations have entwined themselves." Thus after all our mockery of " praying by the book," we are brought to book, to get Churehnien to Chapel. "These remarks" says our English Independent, " are occasioned by the publication of a form of service which has just been brougbt into use by the Congregation at Cheetham-hill Chapel, Manchester, under the pastoral care of the Rev. G. W. Conder. It is a free revision of the Morning and Evening Service of the Prayer-book. Thus after an opening sanctus or anthem, comes the well- known 'Dearly beloved brethren,' omitting the phrase ' miserable offenders.'' " Now, why we should be above the phrase " miserable offenders " is not explained — perhaps it is sufficiently acknowledged by our return to Church, or rather our adaptation of its services — " convey, the wise call it," — in order to abstract her worshippers. We are told — " It is an honest attempt to help the Free Churches to a more hearty and intense devotion in their public worship" — by imitating the enslaved church ! This is our achievement. In an article " Dishonesty in the Pulpit," it is scarcely concealed by the editor of the English Independent that this dishonesty exists in the Dissenting pulpit, which seems to be accused by him of already anticipating and not yet acknowledging that more rational theology which it is to be our distinction as Congregationalists to introduce, yet so as not to follow Germany altogether. In this article, copied into the Church Opinion, the editor sa}'s . — " It is not of the clergy of the Establishment only that we would speak. Let the Dissenting ministry, the Congregational ministry, look to it. A charge is even now brought against them that they hold certain doctrines in reserve — that they have an exoteric and esoteric creed — that they preach one thing in the pulpit and say another thing in the parlour. If this charge if confined to one doctrine, or set of doctrines, on one particular theme, while it is admitted that the men are on all otlier points, or at bottom and in the main honest and true, it must surely be founded on mistake. Ob, if with regard to that particular doctrine the charge is true, the construction which we are bound to put upon their conduct is that they find it impossible to dogmatise about it, * fciee a paper read 10 tbe Union, en the " Edition of Children to ths Church,' pp. 16 and 8GS, Congregational Year Book for 1889. 369 and that believing the subject to be very imperfectly explained in Scripture, they are themselves very cautious in their language. Our ministers must, as a body, be too sensible to the penalties attending insincerity in the pulpit to dare to preach that "which they do not believe. The ministry of a voluntary Church are not in much danger of sinking into formalism ; and there is no one that would dare to charge the Dissenting ministry of England with general hypocrisy ." '• But there may he much unfaithfulness and accommodation without hypocrisy." "It may he. too, that some considerable changes in the forms of our theology and the methods of presenting truth will be needed for the great struggle with unbelief that is at hand. Perhaps the power of the Reformation of Luther and Calvin is worn out, and that a new one is needed. Perfect candour and honesty of soul can alone prepare our ministry for a crisis such as this. " At the St. James's Hall meeting in May the Rev. Alexander Kannay urged with great force and eloquence that upon the Congregationalists of England lay the honourable service of placing the faith and religion of England on the basis of intelligent conviction. If such be then- duty, how ill can our ministers afford the least suspicion of the sincerity, of the thoroughness, either of their character or of their speech." — English Independent, August 19, 1869. Now this very office of " placing the faith and religion of England on the basis of intelligent conviction " means nothing more than accommodating religious doctrines to rationalistic pretensions. To suppose that now, for the first time, Christianity has to be "placed on a basis of intelligent conviction," and that " we are the people to do it," is as great an insult to former believers and to the Gospel itself, as it is a considerable compliment to our own conceit. The only testimonial for securing this office to us is that we have settled nothing yet, but retreated out of every " intelligent conviction " of which we have boasted. Mr. Binney told the students at New College that older ministers had " found out what a terrible thing it was to attempt to do a divine thing if they were not divine men," — to "put their hands to the doing of a divine thing" — to say, " I am the gift of Christ to man." — (English Independent, July 2, 1868.) Now, these " divine men" and their '"divine'' predecessors should be able to do this " divine thing " of " placing religion" on an "intelligent" basis ; but even this great teacher told them respecting the atonement, (November 26, 1868) — " He did not attempt to explain it ; there was more satisfaction in broadly stating the truth. He did not care for the philosophies of the atone- ment : he would be saved by eaith, not by the understanding." Now " faith" is " the understanding" in opposition to sense, and also in opposition to ignorance. " ye of little faith," " how is it that ye do not understand ?" It seems however that we Congregationalists are looking out for a faith that will settle on "intelligent conviction" — a flight beyond the Apostle Paul, no doubt, for he says : — " I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also." He preferred " five words" " with the understanding " to instruct others" before " ten thousand" in this " new tongue" of a blind Roman " faith." It is modestly admitted by our oracle that ' it would be a little too audacious and self-complaisant to say that the Congregationalists in their Union had set a model for all Protestant Church Assemblies." (October 8, 1869.) They might say that last May they set a model for Papist Churches, in the way of persecu- tion, and in the evasions to escape the odium of it. The same paper contains a letter sensibly recommending " Bishoprics or Archbishoprics" to look after the Churches, — " to organise disturbed elements 370 into peaceful strength," for " we are in a good deal of sad confusion in con- sequence of trying to proceed on the principle that we are all equally able to take care of ourselves and do what is right." ri- " "With respect to the denomination in its more general interests, what is our boast ? That we exist in England in order to testify to certain [query, uncertain?] essential principles of the Christian Church — that we are a witness- ing body." (August 12, 1869 ; " from a correspondent," in leader type.) Besides many letters urging amalgamation with the " United Methodist Free Churches," a specific and spasmodic effort in another direction is to be proposed at the autumnal meetings at Wolverhampton: since "Dr. Morton Brown will propose a possible basis of union between Congregationalists and Presby- terians." (English Independent, August 12, 1869.) " Let it not be supposed that we wish to point to Congregationalism as the only resource of bewildered Christians who have become detached from their old moorings." This is modest again. We are next told that we have not to read the scores of letters in the Daily Telegraph "to prove that there are hosts of malcontents within our borders, or that the organization of the denomination is so very loose and imperfect as to have small claim to the title of a system at all." (September 3, 1868.) As to religious and voluntary education we have turned round ; and are not yet sure whetber still to agree to last year's acceptance of Government denominational schools. The report to the Annual Assembly, Tuesday, May 7, 1850 ("Year Book" for 1850, p. 17 — 36,) says : — " Had your Union existed for no other purpose than for the struggle in favour of voluntary and religious education, which it commenced, and has all along steadily maintained, through evil report and through good report, its work herein would have remained its lasting vindication and honour." It will be recorded, probably, as it is anticipated by the English Independent, respecting the autumnal meeting of 1869, that this Union sitting on " the basis of intelligent conviction," heartily repudiates both religious and voluntary education, and goes for a Government secular scheme, to enforce church rates on Christian people for the support of a form of education from which they con- scientiously dissent. It may be called an infidel church-rate. Last year the " intelligent conviction" was that we should take whatmoney we could get for our small State Churches, called " denominational schools :" this year we may repudiate that, to liberate Gladstone from the priests of Ireland — if that be possible. In 1850 " The Congregational Board of Education," having been so highly lauded as the gem of the Union in the general report, makes these observations in its own special report : — " They feel satisfaction in being able to express continued confidence in the principle they have adopted :" — religious and voluntary education ! " Under the influence of this growing conviction, and having entire confidence in the vitality of their principles, they cannot but cherish [in italics] bright hopes for the future," p. 29. These "bright hopes for the future" were connected with the fact that — " The annual petition against Government interference in education was presented in March last, by Mr. Bright," (34.) " The Crosby Hall Lectures," now the silent witnesses against Congrega- tionalists and for the voluntary principle, sent to the members of Parliament " had been thoughtfully read. The Board hopes the day is not far distant when the spirit of the House of Commons will be more decidedly in favour of the prin- ciple of voluntary education." 371 But now, as Mr. Gladstone lately believed in disendowment only for the province of Ireland, so we believe in the voluntary principle only, so far as to disendowthe clergy, and to endow secular schools, or denominational, if feasible : for we are in transition. But " Willinghood " is gone ! The failure of the free churches to establish a platform of polity, finance, and doctrine as an example for those that are or may be "disestablished," is too painfully manifest in the disorder and uncertainty in all these three respects which " the Dissenting World" manifests at the present time. As a free element dissent is destroying itself or being destroyed by factitious organisations over-riding Congregationalism ; so that while " a rope of sand " as to unity of doctrine, it is a rope of strangulation and red tapeism as to officialism and the usurpation of those who " lord it over" the heritage more haughtily if not more handsomely than any prelatical authority. Our voluntaryism is often an excuse for not being obliged to do or give any- thing : and while we boast of voluntaryism, the compulsory churchman practices it. "We perpetually speak of the disadvantage of being endowed, and in the same breath complain of the injustice of others enjoying that disadvantage : we patronized the Irish peasant, as no more to be a slave working for the Irish Church : not that we cared for the poor any more than our political leader did, but because we envy the English clergyman. We cry out against the ritualism of the church, and instead of joining as citizens to call for an enforcement of the law, we rather prefer the evil, as a ground for " disestablishing " the Evangelical party. We follow as our "heaven-sent" liberator, the greatest ritualistic layman in England, whose theological testimonial was afforded by the greatest ritualistic bishop — late of Salisbury — assuring the world that " Mr. Gladstone would be true to the end to God's truth" — that is, to ritualism, which we, his dissenting followers so loudly lament. When red-handed murder led the way of a red-hatted cardinal, he was accompanied in his triumph by Quaker peacemon, liberation Baptists, Indepen- dents, and United Free Church Methodists, with Bradlaugh and Finlen, followed by the rearguard of agrarian sharpshooters, who levelled down Protes- tant landlords to prepare the way for the Pope's legate to demand government pay for educating men in treason and assassination, as the sole lords paramount of the human mind and dictators to civil governors in all affairs ecclesiastical, agrarian, and scholastical. Our great leader, Mr. Miall, in the Nonconformist, argued for putting all power into their hands, when he said — " We want to adopt a policy which will hear evidence on the face of it that it has been framed with a view to satisfy Irish Roman Catholic feeling. It is their will, not ours, that we desire that policy to express." (Nonconformist, Oct. 14, 1808 ) A more ultra- montane sentiment has never been uttered. In seeking the casting votes of the Irish Roman Catholic voters at Bradford, he renounced voluntaryism in education, and specially told them that he had " opposed the inspection of nunneries" — those living- tombs of women misled in the romance of youth to bid farewell to the world, at a time when they are unfit to decide, and after which all retreat is cut off — by Liberation Conformers to ecclesiastical domination. "These," said he. " are my titles to the political confidence of the Roman Catholic voters of Bradford." This is the road in which Liberation is leading us ; while our abandonment of gospel truth, and general melting down of dogmas, or specific religious doctrine, will leave our people exposed to all Roman wiles and seductions. 372 The Fvglhh Independent, on " Congregationalists and Education," Oct. 29, 18(i8, says : — *' The repeated conferences which were held last year by the Con- gregationalists on the subject of education have resulted in the opening of some new day-schools in connection with our chapels (we have no means of knowing how many), in the acceptance of the Government grants by the managers of others, and in the conversion of Homerton College into a Government training school under advantageous conditions. The College has been favoured, for the training schools already subsidised by Government produce more teachers than are required ; but to Homerton we look for a supply of earnest religious teachers, who, it may be hoped, will hereafter be in great request." It appears that we have been bribed by the "favour" of introduction to compete with poor men and women ''already subsidised" into an overcrowded profession, who may join the emigrant ship — carpenters and other economically " dis- established" individuals. This cruelty to "subsidised" schoolmasters and mistresses — deliberately increasing the number of educated paupers, for the good of our denomination that others may starve, or go back to trades that they have forgotten, is a principle proposed even for ode Ministry, which is too generally regarded as simply a convenience "for the good of the cause," having neither manly nor sacred rights to support and honour. Perhaps the most wicked and cruel specimen of this is presented in a long communicated article, in leader type, English Independent, Aug. 12, 1869, wherein it is acknowledged that our ranks are over- crowded by non-collegiately educated men: " Our colleges in five years' time have trained 185 men, when 440 were wanted," and were supplied from other sources. Then comes this cool commercial suggestion: — " If ever we are to have a ministry of thorough efficiency, then we ought to have in training con- siderably MORE THAN WE REALLY WANT, in order that AFTER THEIR TRAINING, we may have a selection of the best for the work of the ministry." A large " stock " is to be kept on hand ! I cannot imagine anything more insulting to the Ministry, more cruel to poor students, who are thus deliberately trained for non- selection ! But then our Congregationalist teachers who are to glut the market are to be "religious:" and so the proper objects of Government support by taxation! Even Mr. Turberville, who edit* that paper and leads our Congregational dance through all figures and moods, theological, neological, secular, and communistic, with a kind word for the Atheist, whom he invented and flattered, — Chapter XIX, " Dissenting World," says : — " Let us frankly own that the change has been all on our part," Oct. 29, 1868. In fact we have done nothing but change, and as one writer says are now " rounding the point " on the educational question, — oscillating between government "religious" and government " secular" education — so that we have at least the " only demon- stration,'' of the unity of the church, in the anarchy of our principles ; as is pro- foundly observed by the English Independent, May 14, 18G9, on the President's Address to the Annual Assembly : — " No passage of his (Mr. Dale's) address more profoundly affected the assembly than that in which he insisted that the existing and living unity of the Church was only demonstrated by the violent differences about doctrine and organisation, in the midst of which, and in spite of which, a great multitude of believers retain tha same essential characteristics of heart and soul, the same repentance, faith, and love." This " same faith," with contradictory belief, is full-blown Godwinianism, as expounded in chap. xv. Now if contradictory doctrines prove " one Lord, one 373 faith ;" " Ecclesiastical anarchy" — (as the state of the churches is headed, English Independent, Sept. 3, 1869) — is -visible unity, and is all that [we have to show. "This general breaking up," says our editor, "is but a part of the revolt for which the Eeformers gave the signal when they departed from Eome. It is the Protestantism of the Protestant Eeligion." — Sept. 3, 1869. None but Jesuits should say so ; and none but Jesuits should introduce the "anarchy" here described to show the "unity" — in the "same faith" — in "violent differences about doctrine and organisation." No better argument could be held for going back to Eome, than this account of the Eeformation and its effects. The wretched pun invented by Professor Godwin, and adopted (let us hope inadvertently) by Mr. Dale, but so glorified by our editor, — that faith is the same whatever we believe, since believing is believing all the world over ; the same process of mental machinery ; and therefore we have ' ' the same faith," whether we accept Mormonism. Hahoniedanism, orEomanism deservedly gains for its inventor this emphatic description — plus ariis adhibuisse quam Fidei* They have displayed more of artifice than of Faith, which also means Fidelity. Whoever masters this " with the understanding," knows the whole trick of our " Liberal pastors," and the danger to our innocent flocks. Some will say, — Hcec ludibria religionum non pudere in lucem proferre, etvix pueris dignas ambiges, scnes ac consulares fall end cejidei exquirire ?f Do you not blush to bring out such mockeries of sacred obligations ; and you, being grave and reverend seniors, excogitate quirks scarcely worthy of schoolboys playing with words, and all this in order to undermine the faith of the people ? Our doctrinal vagaries were painfully exhibited in Dr. Ealeigh's inau- gural address, Hay, 1868, in which he offered to take the "facts" of science if the scientific sceptic world would take ours, giving them free licence to hold the doctrines of religion in abeyance. The pretence to this new power of licensing unbelief was thus defended — " If we claim the right to reason on scientific data, to draw our own deductions," " shall we deny that they [scientific men] have the same right to reason freely from the Christian data, the historical facts relating to our Lord Jesus Christ ?" " We are surely bound to allow exactly the liberty that we take." That is, we Christians claiming a liberty to hold different opinions on scientific questions, ought to give to scientific men the same liberty on Christian doctrines. Undoubtedly, as between men and men anybody can reject any fact or any theory, but we have no license to make any compromise as to the claims of Christianity. Whether men believe in Christ or not is no compact between them and the Congregational Union, even though its meeting is " as good a church council as ever was summoned by bishop or pope." The vigorous vapidity of that inaugural address is beyond criticism ; the whole was a vain logomachy, and tended to lower the claims of the Saviour and Judge of the world. It seems that while the pope and his cardinals condemn modern science, we accept it, if its professors will accept our "facts; which is all we insist on. For we do not know that " facts " are not science nor religion ; the one being theory, and the other, doctrine ; and both are to be ignored as a compromise between the Church and the World. For as to "facts" in science — the earth, the sun, moon, and stars ; the first may be as fiat as a pancake, or "as round as a horse's head;" the moon maybe the size of a pancake ; the sun, twice its diameter ; and the stars, " little diamonds in the * Livii, Lib. iv., cap. xliv. f Livi, Lib. is. cap. xi. 374 sky." These are the visible " facts : " but the science is, our present astronomy, by which, sun, moon, and stars are enlarged, and the earth rounded like an orange, only flattened at the poles. Now just as " facts," to the untutored senses, eeduce the sun, so " facts" in religion — apart from its momentous truths, reduce the Saviour's glory, as much as the eye of sense for visible facts, reduces the vastness and magnificence of the eye of day. The Christ of the Gospels, in the " historical facts of his life," Who. when presented again as He lived on earth — is to conquer the world, is that same Christ Whom, as Dr. Baleigh said in another address, the " nations crucified ; " as if He appeared again, and came to our Union meetings, it would perhaps be said of Him, as by an editorial Committeeman in 1866, and by the Christian World in 1869, that He was " extinguished." To tell the Congregational Union, as Mr. Dale did in his inaugural discourse, May, 1869, — weakly following Dr. Baleigh's " fact " theory, — that Christ, when on earth, conquered men by his acts and character, which, being so presented, would conquer the world afresh, is to forget the whole story of Christ crucified. Even Mr. Turberville, in our " representative" organ, observed that Mr. Dale did not make enough of the Christ of the epistles. No ! this is the part which we ignore — the revelation of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. We are now to " know Christ after the flesh ! " — and put the facts of His life to scientific analysis. Mr. Dale's declaration, that we should preach Jesus Christ Himself, rather than about Christ, was only that fatal Godwinian language which repudiates all " propositions " about the Saviour's rank and work, and presents " Jesus Christ Himself," just as the priest does in the Eucharist ; and to our new cry, that we have •' Jesus Christ Himself," that idol is their old answer. This form of speech is sufficiently expounded in Chapter XV. of this Autobiography. To help the Papists in their educational demand for Ireland, nothing- better could be said, than what this English Independent says, October 29, 1868 : — " As matters stand, however, no one would dream of interfering with the existing system of grants in aid ; and the Congregationalists can do nothing better than multiply good schools as fast as they can, and take as much of the Government money as they can fairly get. A writer glancing but obliquely at the position lately assumed by the Con- gregational Board of Education, asks — "Are we in a Jesuit-like spirit to take pay and patronage professedly for secular results V " As to those Independents who are in favour of Denominational Schools, I should like them," says he, " to state clearly the difference between establishing and endowing Denominational Schools and establishing and endowing Congre- gational Churches.'''' He reminds the Congregational Union, preparatory to its meetings at Wolverhampion, October, lb69, that " Denominational Schools"* are exactly what the Irish priests are demanding. We Liberationists are opening the door for them. Even the English Independent, which recommended us to get all the Government money we can for our Denominational Schools, now gays: — " If we are determined at all hazards to resist the claims of the Irish priests for money for schools, we must be prepared to give up denominational grants in England." In the Congregational meeting at Leeds, October, 1808, Mr. E. Baixes. M.P., who like Mr. Miall so long opposed Government edncation. and advocated the * The Rev. F. S. Johnstone, English Independent, September 16, 1869. 375 voluntary principle instead, when joining with " voluntaries" to make Homerton Training School "compulsory,' 1 said: — "They might expect the aid of State grants for education, and let them be assured that by doing so there would be no interference with conscience, or with any amount of religious instruction which they might think it their duty to give. (Hear, hear.) Before sitting down he declared his solemn conviction that it would be vain as well as wrong for them' to seek to discharge the religious element from the education of the people. (Hear, hear.)" English Independent, October 29, 1868. But we are " rounding that point " also, for the same oracle puts down for "the autumnal session" at Wolverhampton, 1869: — "On Friday evening, a public meeting on Education is announced, Mr. S. Morley, M.P., presiding ; and after so long an interval for discussion and formation of opinion, the Congregationalisms of England and Wales will be prepared to make an unequi- vocal declaration in favour of a scheme of public education in which all denominational differences shall be completelg ignored. We are not called upon to say that such a scheme is immediately possible, or that it would be desirable to abolish the existing system of grants in aid of denominational effort ; but we are called upon to declare that that is the end which we desire to see resulting from all our educational experiments, and at which we shall always steadily aim." Here it is stated that we shall give up "the religious element" in the educa- tion of the people, but we are to " get as much Government money as we can," under the pretence that we " always steadily aimed'' at doing without it. But so thoroughly are we opposed to endowments, and especially religious and public endowments — not Lady Hewley's Charity, which we fought the Unitarians for — that as another specimen of our " steady aim" : — " Papers will be read on several topics of the very first importance and urgency. How we may best avail ourselves of the [Endowed /] Universities of Oxford and Cambridge for the education of our ministers," is the title of a paper which Mr. Neville Goodman proposes to read. Dr. Morton Brown will propound " A possible basis of union between Congregationalists and Presbyterians ;" and the Bev. E. R. Conder, of Leeds, will read a paper on ' The Church and the Congregation.' " After these dislocations of our principles, we are treated to this finale : — " It is proposed to hold a public meeting in Queen-street Chapel on the Tuesday evening, and a meeting for working men next evening in the Agricultural Hall. A conversazione in the Com Exchange will wind up the general meetings of the Union on Thursday evening, but on the same evening a detachment of Congrega- tional leaders will be told off for duty in Birmingham, and the noble town hall of the midland metropolis will be used for the enunciation or our victorious principles." Now, if the editor had said " the renunciation of our victorious principles " the whole would be complete. Perhaps '• enunciation of our victorious principles " is a misprint for the " renunciation " of them. For what have we left, of all that was " most surely believed amongst us" when I entered the Congregational ministry? His ego gratiora dictu alia esse scio : sed me vera pro gratis loqui, etsi meum ingenium non moneret, necessitas cogit. Vellem equidem vobis placere, Quirites, sed multo malo vos salvos esse, qualicumque erga me animo futuri estis.* * Livii, Lib. Ill, cap. lxTiii. 37G I know that there are other things to be said that are more agreeable ; bnt even if my disposition did not prompt me to speak truth in preference to flattery, necessity forces me. I could wish, indeed, to please you, but I would far rather that you should be safe, with whatever feelings you may hereafter regard me. Broomhall Park, Sheffield, October, 1869. THE DISSENTING WOBLD : AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. By the BEV. BREWIN GRANT, B.A., Congregational Minister of Twenty-jive Years'' standing. WITH TESTIMONIALS As to Ability, Character, and Usefulness, from the following EMINENT NONCONFORMIST DIVINES: — DR. JOSEPH PARKER JOHN ANGELL JAMES JAMES PARSONS DR. MORTON BROWN DR. S. M'CALL T. ARNOLD ROBERT A. VAUCHAN, BA. ALEX. THOMSON, M.A. R. D. WILSON CEORCE LEGGE, LL.D. DAVID LOXTON THOMAS RAFFLES DR. HALLEY ISAAC NEW, (Eaptist.) WATSON SMITH J. M. CHARLTON, M.A. CHARLES VIKGE, (Baptist. ENOCH MELLOR, M.A. WM. ANDERSON, LL D. (Presbyterian.) J. W. RICHARDSON THOS. SWANN, (Baptist.) THIRD ENLARGED EDITION, PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS, WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. London : W. Macintosh, Paternoster Row ; and direct by Post from the Author, (Sheffield,) for GO Stamps. 377 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. From the PALL MALL GAZETTE. "AN EXTRAORDINARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. " No doubt it must have been a great relief to him (the author) to sit down and write out his grievances, greater still to publish them, greatest of all to induce the public to buy and read them. And with some such slight comment we were at first disposed to take our leave of Mr. Brewin Grant and his book, but as we were alternately attracted and repelled by the naive sincerity and virulence of the style, it struck us that both the man and the book threw a very singular tiqht upon the manners and the customs of the Dissenting world, and might afford the GENERAL PUBLIC SOME USEFUL MATTER FOR REFLECTION. " His superiors evidently recognised iu him a young man of considerable talent, and were glad to employ him in a wild raid against the Infidel and the Romanist, but when it was found that, like an exceedingly explosive shell, he might go off at any moment and injure friends and foes alike [by attacking ' heresy ' among themselves] we can hardly wonder at their desire to get rid of him, although we may regret that they were not more scrupulous in the MEANS THEY USED. " He preached before his examiners on the appropriate text, ' Who art thou, great mountain ? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.' At college he appears to have been an incorrigible wag. " Mr. Grant showed that he could be independent as well as witty, by refusing to submit to a method of inquisitorial discipline which certainly reflects little credit upon the college." " It is surprising that with his very extensive course of reading he failed to imbibe more enlightened views of human life, and more liberal [heterodox] ideas of theology." Respecting the Rivulet Controversy the Reviewer, who is " Broad Church," says : — " In a rash moment a reverend brother published a book of poems called 'The Rivulet; Hymns for the Heart and Voice,' which were found to deviate in some parts from the orthodox doctrine. The scathing satirist, the British. Banner, was immediately down on the poor little ' Rivulet ' with a very severe article. In vain does the venerable Mr. Binney intercede. Mr. Newman Hall, Mr. Baldwin Brown, and a few other leading Dissenters tried to cast their aegis over the prostrate poet. But Mr. Brewin Grant leads on the attack. Can anything be too severe for a man who is weak on the Atonement ?" On the New College Neological Controversy, the Reviewer observes : — " It seems that Professor Godwin, of New College, St. John's Wood, hailing the rise of liberal opinions amongst Dissenters, and priming himself for a little more freedom of speech, published a book in which he advocated a mild form of what is commonly known as Broad Church theology. This proved too much for the self-constituted champion of orthodoxy. The liberal pastors " Messrs. Binney, Newman Hall, and a few other liberal-minded leaders of Dissent," again try to stop their" "impulsive" "friend," who "appears hardly aware" of the "slow but sure progress" "the new tenets" have been " making amongst Dissenters." This opposition to ' the new tenets ' fostered by the ' liberal pastors,' was the author's first offence ; when he found it ' necessary to write ' — ' in 378 capitals of no ordinary dimensions ' — " Christ shall be magnified." But his ' capital ' offence was in not lauding and magnifying Mr. Gladstone, with ' the liberal pastors.' They had borne much and long with him, but this was too much : — "After a dashing attack upon Mr. Gladstone his own long-suffering com- munity became too 'hot for him. They seem to have borne long with him for the sake of his great talents, but when it became evident that his zeal was not according to knowledge — [i.e., not according to Gladstone] — we regret to write that they cast him out of their synagogue [where Gladstone is worshipped]. The act was no doubt an act or flagrant injustice. There was no trial, no defence, and no formal proceedings of any kind. They objected to what he himself calls his ' offensive honesty,' and the Congregational Union simply omitted his name from the list of their accredited ministers. This is nearly equivalent to depriving a man of his orders, for no congeegation will engage a minister so discredited." " It is just as well to note these blots in Dissent at a time when a new con- stitution is being framed for the disestablished Church in Ireland. Another blot which Mr. Grant points out and from which he has suffered is, that the school and college is allowed to extend over and influence a man's future career." " His (Mr. Grant's) earnestness) makes one regret that no room can be found for him in the religious community to which he belongs. At the same time, the unfortunate narrowness of his opinions [not being Broad Church] and the unbridled nature of his eloquence [not being pliable] renders it exceedingly difficult to utilize him at a time when something like an intellectual [i.e. rational] revival is traversing the Dissenting sects. However, we suppose all religious bodies have their difficulties in connection with ministers whom it is neither possible to silence nor to soothe, but it is certainly remarkable that whilst the Congregational Union are turning out the Eev. Brewin Grant for his orthodoxy, the Bishops of the English Church are trying to eject the Kev. Charles Voysey for heresy." N.B. — The above review instinctively fixes on the Autobiographer's original offence — orthodoxy — which was completed by his "dashing attack on Mr. Gladstone." From the EDINBURGH EVENING C OUR ANT. This ' Hal o' the Wynd,' who has fought hitherto for the cause of a consistent orthodoxy, and is now, in the book before us, forced to fight ' for his ain hand.' Mr. Brewin Grant and all his brethren may suffer from every possible evil which a prejudiced Presbytery may, under malign influences, inflict, while neither he nor any one of them has a single advantage, such as trial by one's peers, appeal from court to court, and fair play in public reports, which are guaranteed as the most elementary advantages of Presbyterian brotherhood. The book has all the interest which we always feel in vigorous personal collisions, especially when in the record of these we find questions answered and points cleared up, regarding which the ordinary reader of the newspapers has only a very vague and hazy notion. The Congregational Dissenters are handled rather roughly in this autobiography. We have no pleasure in seeing any large and respectable body of men, especially religious men, under 'such unmerciful mauling ; but it seems to be the only means of redress an individual has in the body where Mr. Grant has had a standing of twenty-five years. We promise his readers a rich treat. 379 From THE PUBLIC OPINION. The Dissenting World: An Autobiography, by the Rev. Brewin Grant, has reached a second [now third] edition. In it the author makes a fearless, open, and straightforward attack upon certain practices which have lately obtain- ed among Congregationalists, and the exposure here made tells sadly against them. To keligious bodies, whether Dissenters or not, this volume WILL BE OF MORE THAN ORDINARY INTEREST." From THE 3IORNING ADVERTISER. " It is a work that cannot fail to nutter the Volscians of the Congregational world. The Rev. Brewin Grant, of Sheffield, has long been known amongst the Independent portion of the Nonconformist denominations for his ability and bold ness, and his eminent controversial talents, both as a speaker and writer.'' " Such an insight into the secret working of Congregationalism as will create no small interest in the religious world. The work is, certainly, a racy one — ' spicy' would probably be a better term." From THE ROCK. "Avery clever and caustic exposure of the worst features of Dissent, and the less scrupulous editors of Dissenting periodicals, by one who evidently knows them too well." The KELSO MAIL AND GAZETTE for the Counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk, Berwick, and Northumberland. The author of this work, a minister of the Congregational body, has made some noise in the religious world. It must be admitted that he has fought with indomitable energy. A giant in controversy, his autobiography has some pages of stirring interest. If Mr. Grant's ex-parte statements are to be taken as correct, The English Independent must be as great an anomaly as the Scotch Free Churchman. The author's name has been erased from the roll of the Congregational ministers in a manner which would have done no discredit to the Holy Inquisition. We wish him all success, and meantime assure our readers they will find in the volume he has written much entertainment. From THE CAERMARTHEN JOURNAL. ' ' The Rev. Brewin Grant has done signal service by exhibiting the inner life of ' The Dissenting World.' " " The book deserves a wide circulation." "Even for youth it provides most pleasant reading. It illustrates the labours of one who has ever evinced a love of truth and a hatred of tyranny, and who now casts off the political shackles of his religious brethren from pure love of country and Protestantism." From the ESSEX AND WEST SUSSEX GAZETTE. " Mr. Grant is a remarkable man, and his eventful career is, for several reasons, well worth recording. We admire his talents and his fearlessness, and sturdy consistency and adherence to his principles. His book is valuable as a description of the training and experiences of a Dissenting Minister of more than ordinary intelligence. We purpose to make extracts from it from time to time. Churchmen, as well as Dissenters, ought also to read Mr. Grant's very able pamphlet entitled, ' Gladstone, and Justice to Ireland.' " From the KING'S COUNTY CHRONICLE. " The revelations made as to the working of the Congregational Union, in this volume, will at once show how inapplicable such a system would be to the 380 conditions of society in Ireland, even with the assistance of Mr. Gladstone's 'church body.' "We are thankful to Mr. Grant for his exertions in favour of a persecuted church, although he has reaped the reward of being persecuted him- self. The Autobiography commences with the boyhood of the author, and brings us through his college career, when he evinced that independence of disposition, and energy, which has characterised him through life." From the INQUIRER. (A Unitarian Organ.) " Mr. Brewin Grant is not a person with whom we can feel any particular interest. He is diametrically opposed to us in theological opinioiix, represent- ing that narrow, hard, and dogged orthodoxy, of which the late Dr. Campbell, of the British Standard was the hierophant. Like bis great chieftain, he is a redoubtable malleus hereticorum; wages fierce warfare against 'the three R.'s' — Romanism, Eitualism, and Rationalism. It is clear that he still professes to he a Congregational minister; equally clear that the Year-Book, like our own Unitarian Almanack, comprises the names of both settled and unsettled ministers." " We cannot help feeling a little sympathy with him. We hope he will come off the victor in the approaching contest" [with the Congregational Union.] " Mr. Grant's amusing sketches of his college life, both at Highbury and at Glasgow, will be interesting to old students." "In Mr. Grant's contests with the Secularists" "his ready wit seems to have silenced many of the usual captious objections of his opponents. One of his audience at Sheffield having asked the usual infidel question : Does Mr. Grant believe that Balaam's ass spoke?" he replied, "Why skouldn"t I ? It might have been a miracle in those times ; but it is very common now-a-days." "Notwithstanding our essential differences from Mr. Grant, we close his book with a kindly feeling towards him." From the BATH CHRONICLE. " The volume has made so much stir in the English Nonconformist world, and has brought the writer so prominently before the English public, that but few of our readers can need to be informed of its existence. The book has a more permanent interest than that which relates to the author's share in the Irish Church controversy. Mr. Grant's book is most important," From the YORKSHIRE POST AND LEEDS INTELLIGENCER. " The Rev. Brewin Grant has achieved a reputation, which extends far beyond the denomination to which he belongs, for his energetic labours in his vocation, and his fearless denunciation of rationalism and sacerdotalism, which, in mysterious concert and with renewed vigour, are assailing in these days, from opposite quarters, the simplicity of the Christian religion. For a quarter of a century he has laboured in the ministry of the Congregational body, with a zeal and ability which, had they been combined with a due regard of sycophancy, would have obtained for him a commanding position among the leaders of that denomination. But unfortunately for Mr. Grant, there is nothing so offensive to modern Independency as independence. Belief in Mr. Gladstone is practically imposed as an indispensable article of faith on all who minister in their pulpits. Disloyalty to that sacred name is treated as an unpardonable sin, drawing after it ministerial deposition and secret excommunication." " Mr. Grant's work will be welcome to his numerous friends as a record of his active career, and will be useful amongst a wider cirrfe, as showing how apt ultra-Liberalism is to degenerate into the gror-scst illiberality, and how ecclesiastical tyranny of the meanest kind can indulge its malevolence under the cloak of evangelical freedom." 331 From the EXETER AND PLYMOUTH GAZETTE. " To a large section of the community — indeed to two or three sections — the name of the Eev. Brewin Grant is familiar. In the first place, he is a Congre- gationalist Minister, noted for considerable ability and a rare facility of expres- sion in the pulpit and on the platform. There have been disputes within the Congregationalist body in which Mr. Grant has been ranged on one side, while such men of mark as Newman Hall, Edward Miall, and Thomas Binney have been prominent on the other." " He upsets them, routs them, and disturbs tbe common-place placidity of their lives. 'Can't you let it alone?' is the ordinary sentiment about a good many troublesome subjects. Now Mr. Grant cannot ' let it alone' He will make no sacrifice for a quiet lite." " Something more than a year ago he found that Protestantism was being undermined by the Romish Church and the extreme Bitualists, and he deter- mined to resign his living, and to go on a crusade against these enemies, as he had gone fifteen years before on a crusade against Secularism. But there was something more. His inquiries led him, as they would any impartial investigator, to the conclusion that there was a close connection between the secret warfare against Protestantism and the movement for the disestablishment and disen- dowment of the Irish Church." " Thereupon Mr. Grant became an ardent opponent of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church scheme. But in the Congregationalist body this was heresy. "What was to be done ? Why the Bev. Brewin Grant has been made an outcast of the sect. His name has been struck off the list of ministers in the most arbitrary possible manner. No charge has been made. He has never been called upon for an explanation, and the committee have refused to explain; but his name has been quietly erased from the Year Book. Anything so monstrous and so inexcusable we never read of in the history of ecclesiastical polity or Church government. It is the crowning instance of the Liberal intolerance of which we have read so many examples of late. Dissenters and Churchmen, Liberals and Tories alike should read the book. His autobiography is very frank. All must agree that he is an honest, able, zealous man, and a faithful minister of Protestant Christianity." From the WILTS AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE STANDARD. " Mr. Grant writes as one who being a Dissenter in heart as well as in profession, is very jealous for the honour of Dissent, and wishes to remove from it a crying evil, which mars its usefulness, tarnishes its honour, and cripples its power. "He is as loyal to Nonconformity as ever he was ; and it is to his brother Nonconformists, particularly those of his own sect, that he addresses his book ; which should be read by the members as well as the ministers of evert Dissenting body in the kingdom. From the SHREWSBURY JOURNAL . " TVe have never seen Dissent so completely turned inside out, as in this able book." ,; For being so outspoken and politically independent, the (officials of the) religious body of which Mr. Grant has been so long a distinguished member, attempted to put him down and altogether extinguish* him. The attempt has failed, as is well known. We recommend Mr. Grant's interesting volume to our readers." *' : Extinguish him. : ' — N.B. In 1866, a member of the Congregational Union Committee announced on the placard of his paper — ' The Eev. Brewin Grant extinguished." In 1869, the so-called Christian World put the same announce- ment on its placards : probably in a few more years he may be "extinguished " again ! From the STAFFORDSHIRE SENTINEL. (A Liberal Organ.) " At the instigation of the Eev. J. A. James, he entered on a crusade" " in which he did signal service to the cause of Christianity." " He has unfortunately" taken " a position of antagonism" to leading men of his sect. " The statements, however, (being founded en " letters,") we may assume to be correct." " His present isolation from his own denomination appears to have arisen chiefly from his erratic course againt Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church policy." " Such a book cannot well be matched." " Charity would have witheld it from the world." From the CARLISLE PATRIOT. " A curious and most interesting book, the moral of which is that the Independent body (the most pronounced political section of Dissenters) will tolerate no species of Independence which they have the means of crushing. Mr. Grant was for 25 years a distinguished minister of that persuasion ; but last year he ventured to oppose Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church policy, as inimical to the best interests of Protestantism ; and for that reason the wire-pullers of the body executed him ministerially, — that is, with a paltry meanness unparalleled, they omitted his name from the official list of ministers for 1869, which is tantamount to unfrocking him. If this Dissenting inquisition had their way, they would rival Hildebrand in intolerance, if not in genius. We commend Mr. Grant's autobiography to all those who wish, inferentially, to know the value of a State Church." From the CHURCH OPINION. " An extraordinary book, brimful of matter of a readable and novel kind. It seems a genuine autobiography ; incidents in Mr. Grant's earlier career being related, unimportant in themselves perhaps, and yet greatly adding to the value of the book as the authentic record of a man's life, — a bold and a brave man too, as he has had the hardihood and courage to stand up against the community of which he was, and still is, a minister. " No such book as this has been published for many years — not since Mr. Frazer published " My Life," " Your Life," &c, Those books were avowedly fictions, based on fact perhaps, but this is said to be fact throughout. Places are referred to, dates are given, names are added, so that verification is possible and easy. "We have Mr. Grant's early training, his going to college, then to Glasgow University, his seeking a settlement, his removal to Birmingham, his discussion with Mr. Holyoake, the Rivulet controversy, his settlement at Sheffield, &c, &c, down to the present time, shewing that in all matters that came before him Mr. Grant has taken no unimportant part." " The entire book is very amusing and even entertaining, and will be read by all those icho wish to know something of the inner life of Nonconformity. When a third edition is demanded, we would suggest that it should be better printed and bound — even if that would entail a slight increase of price ; we think it destined to become very popular — the life it depicts being so new and STKANGE TO MANY OF US." N.B. — The English Independent declined to advertise the above. PAWSON AND BRAILSFORD, PRINTERS, HIGH-ST. AND MULBERRT-ST., SHEFFIELD. ^s> mpTS£ m ■ HI I H H m m u:V ■ I 1 1 . Hr 3Vb5 •Mas I ■