they are to keep-perhaps a letter or some little paper-especially at the New Year, wishing them the blessings of the season, and giving them a few words of Christian counsel. Then I find that our Bible classes afford us great opportunities for the circulation of Christian literature. At seasons of Confirmation and First Communion, it is most important to give a book to young people. For instance, what an inestimable blessing "The Pathway of Safety has been to hundreds and thousands of such. Again, could not we, from our own shelves, again and again lend the members of our congregations books that have done good service for us. As to existing papers, I think the whole Church is under a debt of obligation to the Record for what it has done with reference to the Disestablishment of the Church. I hear frequently, at Church Congresses, of the bitterness and uncharitableness of party newspapers. I am sure this is not true of the Record in its altered form. Whilst holding fast by Reformation principles, I believe it is almost wholly free from such personalities and uncharitable remarks as are contrary to the mind of Christ.

The Rev. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D., Rector of Scarning,

Norfolk.

I CAME here this morning rather from curiosity than with any intention or desire to take part in the discussion of this question. There are so many points connected with the subject, that it is impossible for any one man to touch upon them all in the time allotted to him; and it seems to me that it is only by emphasising one or two points that one can help forward a discussion of this kind. The one point which seems to me important is the advisability of starting either a Church daily or weekly paper. In starting such a paper the question would be, of course, as to what is specially needed in order to give it wide circulation. One speaker insisted strongly on the necessity of starting first and foremost upon certain grand principles. In my young days I accepted Edmund Burke as one of my great teachers, and one lesson I learned from him was that "Men, not measures," was a safer maxim than "Measures, not men.' What we want in carrying forward any great warfare in politics or anything else is having men whom you can trust.

"If being right's the first concern,

The 'fore the first's cast iron leaders."

In journalism your first requisite is, not first a good flag, but first a good chief. You talk of the great success of Lloyd's newspaper. How has it come? You talk of the circulation of the Daily Telegraph. How did that circulation grow? Not from the principles on which those papers started. The proprietors found the editor whom they could trust, and, having found the man, they left him alone. A man who is not fit to be left alone is not fit to be there. First and foremost, then, you want your editor, and there is your difficulty. Give me my editor with such powers as Mr. Maclure, who is sitting there, and guarantee the success of your paper, just as I may say, give me such a Secretary as Mr. Maclure, and the vast development of the business of the Christian Knowledge Society is assured. The second thing you want is money. The sinews of war are after all in the cash-box. But if there be one thing we as clergy ought to know, it is that if we are to raise any large capital it certainly won't come from us. We have wanted and always do want to keep things in our own hands. I, for one, am sick of that; I do not want to direct and advise, and teach and preach to the whole body of the laity. I want to be taught by them. And I do not want to manage all the financial affairs of the Church at any rate. God forbid! I want to have that done for me by shrewd men of business who know what success is, and are not afraid of failure. Again, when you have got your editor and your money, the next thing is to fill your paper. I do not believe in volunteer contributions to the press or anything else. I know that they have been tried two or three times. I have more or less myself written nonsense for nothing, and had it printed-so much the worse for the editor! I have known several very benevolent efforts made to sow truth broadcast in the world, and to do that thing which will cost nothing, at the cost of nothing, and with the results of nothing; but I am quite sure of this, that any newspaper which is to succeed cannot succeed upon the benevolent principle. You must, having got your good editor, get your good men, and the best men are not those who

have leisure, but men who in point of fact earn their bread by their pens. First, then, the editor, secondly the money—that will come when you have got the right man— and thirdly, the contributors, who must not be those random gentlemen who occasionally send in an article, and, having tired, stop short, but regular contributors having their regular work. What should these writers contribute? When I was young we used to be warned against reading novels-it was a dreadful thing to read novels-reading novels was a sinful waste of time. We don't think so now. One of the great blessings of Almighty God to the literature of this country has been the inspiration of some of our highest fiction. There is nothing, it seems to me, which we, as churchmen, as men, have to be more grateful for than the immense lift that has been given to the literature of fiction in this country during the last half century—a literature in the main so healthy, so manly, and so good. It is said there has been a corrupt stream running through it, but if so I do not believe it has been so deeply quaffed of. I believe the great engine for disseminating right sentiment, and for raising the tone of sentiment throughout the country, has been the prose fiction of the country, and if you are to pooh-pooh fiction I think you will prove yourselves blind to the logic of facts. Science, too, has its mission in our time, natural history, astronomy, and the like. Open your eyes to the logic of facts, and see where the currents are running. And as to politics-well-I know nothing about politics, but principles, even political principles, admit of being formulated in varying terms with the change of times and circumstances, and everything admits of being studied in different lights. But, as I said at starting, right principles are not the first conditions of success in journalism, but the right man in the right place.

H. ALGERNON COLVILE, Esq., Lay Evangelist, Denstone, Uttoxeter.

I THINK this is an important meeting, and I am sorry it is so poorly attended. Well, I think this-knowing a good deal about the working-people—that very few people have any idea of the awful literature that is spread among them, and the harm done thereby. As to Church newspapers, some twelve months ago I got the consent of my own Bishop to let us try in our diocese to start a cheap newspaper for the people, giving interesting Church matters, and interesting news for the people; and we started, in connection with our Lichfield Church Mission, a paper called The Church Evangelist. People thought it was one of my go-ahead sort of things, but I stuck to it. We had no money to start with. I had no money myself, and our friends were poor; but we started it, and so far it has been successful. It is a halfpenny weekly Church paper for the people, and, I am thankful to say that I know cases where that paper has been made a great blessing to people. We have now a circulation of something like 22,000 copies per week. We have paid all the expenses of bringing it out, and we are now making a small profit towards the mission work of the diocese out of that newspaper. My object in asking to be allowed to say a few words, was in order to try to do a little advertising at the Church Congress. I wanted to bring that paper before the notice of the meeting as admirably suitable for circulating among the working-classes. The thing is to get it sold by boys in the market-places and streets, and from door to door, and spread it about. We have not got money to pay able contributors to the paper, and we are glad of contributions from any friends who will send them in gratis-especially interesting matter in connection with mission work. If any clergymen would send us short, telling accounts of mission work, we should be obliged. As I have given the advertisement, I have said all I wish to say.

The Rev. S. HOBSON, Vicar of Uppington, Shropshire. I WILL try to do what a former speaker has done, and that is, to keep to the one point on which I wish to address you, for I quite appreciate the impatience of an audience when a man gets up to make general remarks about everything, and spends a few minutes talking about nothing till the general ideas come; and my one point is the utilisation of the local country papers. Reference has been made to the nature of many of the chief journals circulated among some of our poor, and rich too, in

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our large towns; but I wish to speak of the papers that go to almost every house in our country villages, and our mining villages, too-the local papers that come out once a week. Those papers have a very great influence, and are much read, and I think we Church-people are apt to undervalue them. I wish to say this. I have read a great many of them, and I read my own local paper regularly, and what surprises me most is the absence of matter to which any honest person could fairly take objection. A neighbour of mine sometimes comes in, and takes up the local paper. He picks it up as if it were red hot, and says, Why ever do you take this in? Look what a paltry tale!" I say, "The tale may be paltry, but it is not harmful," and there are, besides other things, reports of our missionary meetings, and so on. I send an account, or get some one to send an account of our own meetings, and of any special service we may hold. My people have often spoken to me about it, and said, "We take the paper every week-we Church-people-and we like to see the notices. We see notices of the harvest festivals in the chapels, and like to see our own as well." Papers cannot afford to send special people to collect information from every village, and they have to depend, whether about church matters, or chapel matters, or general matters, on some of the local people for information. If you treat the newspaper people fairly, and help them fairly to report what goes on in the Church, I say they will treat you fairly. I have always found it so. And I do feel, also, that we owe a very great debt indeed to many country newspapers for the noble way in which they have often resisted a temptation, which some London papers have not always resisted, and those, too, journals which made special claims to the championship of virtue. They have resisted the temptation to indulge a craving for filthiness, while professing to expose vice. I say to all, try each in your own neighbourhood to make your influence felt-try to make the Church's influence felt; and do not, in doing this, forget the day of small things, and the enormous power exercised all over the country by the printing press, through the circulation of the local paper. That paper penetrates into every home, and must have vast influence.

The Ven. WILLIAM EMERY, Archdeacon and Canon of Ely; Permanent Secretary of the Church Congress.

I HOPE I may be pardoned, though I am permanent secretary, and my voice is often heard in official announcements, if I speak simply now as a member of the Church Congress on this subject. I desire to follow the last speaker, because he seems to me to have decidedly touched the right point. The Church of England, as represented by the clergy and laity, have not, up to the present time, made that use of the press which they ought to have done for the sake of true religion, and for the sake of the Church they love. Our eyes are now being opened by current facts, and the facts which have been given you by the last speaker should be laid to heart. There are thousands of local papers of various kinds, circulated through the country, and what he has said of the one paper, is true of almost all. You would imagine that, instead of the Church people being as worshippers, half the nation, and that another quarter of the nation consists of those to whom the Church is missionary, you would think from the papers that the whole of the population nearly were Nonconformists. You would suppose, too, that Nonconformist bodies were doing most of the religious work of the country; that they were the preachers, the upholders of harvest, choral, and other festivals, while Church-people comparatively had not the cause of God and man at heart. What you have just been told is true. Look through any local paper, and you will find a sad absence of the work which the Church of England is doing in her parishes, and in various ways, to meet the wants of the people. Not, indeed, that the Church of England is not doing it, but the clergy, and the laity too, of the Church, are too modest to notify publicly what they are doing. I spoke to an editor in a certain important town, of a Church paper. I said, Why don't you put in your paper the information from my Archdeaconry? I know there is important work going on, but I seldom see it mentioned?" "Well," he answered, "it is because the clergy won't send us the information, nor anybody else connected with the Church, and whenever they do send information, they send such long statements, and so dry, that we are obliged to put it aside and insert the shorter and more interesting pieces, supplied from other quarters." "We are," he continued, "most anxious to get

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Church information, but the clergy and our correspondents must remember we cannot give much space for any particular parish. We can only give the substance, and we must expect our correspondents to give us, in as short a way as possible, what they wish to inform the public about.' I look through the papers and see often sermons printed there. But who are they preached by? Nonconformist preachers and American preachers generally. Yet we have as godly and powerful men in the Church of England as are to be found in any other body. Why don't they furnish various publications with some of their sermons and addresses. I met, some time ago, the editor of a largely circulated paper, a Congregational minister, and his conversation with me showed that papers were quite willing to put in interesting religious matter if supplied with it. He showed me his own paper. He said, "We put in sermons by the divines of the English Church, as well as of preachers of other denomi nations." Well, friends, we are taught that we cannot give the benefit of our thoughts to too wide a circle in the present day if we wish for good to influence the masses; and we ought, therefore, to take a lesson out of the experience of others in this matter. So with harvest festivals. Try to give the substance of what is being done for the encouragement and assistance of others. The influence of your good work and example may thus be widely spread. Again, take another matter. We are now much agitated with respect to attacks made on our Church. We ask what is to come -what are we to do? Well, I know what others have done and are doing. The Liberation Society, of which I always speak with respect-because members of it are thoroughly in earnest in what they do has for the last forty years and more, especially the last ten years, circulated without stint, information of their views concerning the union of Church and State, till every village and town is permeated with it. I was at Brighton not long ago, and it was full of the leaflets of the Liberation Society, and now when the whole country is permeated with real error concerning the National Church, and country populations have got extremely wrong notions in regard to the matter, now we are waking up when we ought to have awakened long before. I will give you two or three personal instances to show what can be done. A gentleman called a meeting for a highly religious purpose in London, some time ago; he circulated a notice of the meeting. Nobody came but a good lady and a gentleman who looked like a dignitary, but who turned out to be a reporter. The gentleman was in a fix. But the reporter said, "Sir, if that lady will form the meeting, I will be the reporter, and the public shall have information to-morrow." The lady agreed, the reporter took the notes, and next morning it was stated in the papers that at a meeting not numerously attended, So and So made an important statement with regard to a certain mission, and this brought in much which did valuable work. Once more pardon my egotism for a moment. I started the volunteer movement in Cambridge. and through it widely in the country. I called the first meeting, with help of others, and got town and University to move in the matter. But the Lord Lieutenant resisted, and no county movement seemed to follow. So I got a paper printed without name, and merely headed it "County Volunteer Corps-Is it to be Infantry or Cavalry?" I circulated that paper by my agents, in the market and other places on the Saturday. What was the result? In a fortnight afterwards the Lord Lieutenant called a meeting, and we got a splendid county corps in addition to those of the University and town. Again, the Diocesan Conferences have been started, and I have been called the father of them. How were they spread over the country? With all respect to the right reverend bench, I must say they hesitated a good deal-not the present Bishop of Winchester, then of Ely, but a good many others. Well, I happened to meet at the moment a good fellow, since dead, who was a writer in the daily press. I was full of this matter. He said, "Excellent work, you write me some information about it." I said, "Don't use my name; I can't write articles." But I wrote an account for him. Two days afterwards I found a head and a tail put to my account in the Globe. I had slips printed off, and widely circulated it. Conferences came, and now all but the diocese of Worcester has a Diocesan Conference. Churchmen, "Awake, awake!" and do what others are doing for what you believe to be right.

The REV. ROBERT R. RESKER, Vicar of Purley, Surrey.

I ONLY venture to address this meeting as a parochial clergyman, who for sixteen years has used the printing press to a very large extent, and has found the benefit of so doing. I should like to speak of the value which I have derived from the Magazine

Association. I found in the little bookseller's shops in my late parish in South London, literature of a description with which some members of the Congress possibly are familiar, but to which others are happily strangers. The Magazine Association has done good service in taking to the homes of the people, and putting in the hands of our Sunday and day scholars, good and interesting literature; and it has done much to lessen the circulation of "penny dreadfuls" and books of that description. The Magazine Association can be worked without any loss whatever, and I have found that it has this advantage, that it enables you to employ as church-workers some who may not be altogether fitted for teaching in the Sunday School or for other work in the parish. Many of my people in South London have been most useful in acting as magazine visitors and canvassers. may mention that we have circulated in a parish which can hardly be said to have a "reading population, from 18,000 to 20,000 copies per year of pure literature. In connection with this, we had a parish magazine. I do feel that every parish with a sufficient population ought to have some means whereby the pastor of the parish may communicate with his people. During the last month or two I have found the magazine of great service in supplying information about the Church of England, specially with reference to the question of disestablishment; and I am sure, from what I have been told, that the facts communicated were altogether new to very many of those before whom they came. There is the question of expense, and if local matter is employed to any large extent the ordinary penny cannot cover the cost. No doubt part may be met by advertisements, but there is rather a difficulty in some of our poor London parishes, where the magazine has to be managed by the clergy, in their seeking advertisements from tradesmen in the parish But what I should like to throw out would be this, that recognising the importance of the local matter, the magazine should be reckoned as a distinct agency in parochial work, and that some of the parochial funds should be set aside for that purpose. It has occurred to me that if a somewhat shorter but equally attractive magazine as those in circulation could be published at a cost which would allow the magazine and local sheet to be sold for a penny, without the trouble of getting advertisements, it would be a boon to many parishes. On leaving my London parish last week, I had to get something like 18 to wipe off the arrears on the magazine account. At the same time, I believe the money to have been well spent. With all due respect to the Christian Knowledge Society, the Dawn of Day is not exactly the magazine we want; something more in the style of Home Words would be of very great service indeed in enabling us to provide this desirable agency in communicating with the homes of the people, without the financial difficulty referred to. There is one further difficulty that, after all, a great number of our parishioners do not purchase the parochial magazine. I think it would be well occasionally to print an additional number of the local sheet, and send them round to every family which does not take the magazine. One further use I have made of a different kind of printing press. Occasionally, at the new year, or at an annual gathering for former confirmation candidates, I have sent round a letter lithographed by the papyrograph or cyclostyle, which has been of great service. I venture to commend to the notice of the Congress what I have found of great use in furthering the parish work.

STEPHEN BOURNE, Esq., Wallington, Surrey.

I AM ashamed to appear so often, but as a speaker, understanding that no layman was in the field, I am asked to address you on this subject; and though I have not much to say as to the use of the press for the prosecution of religious or philanthropic efforts, I have all my life long found it to be exceedingly valuable in disseminating the particular branches of information with which I am more immediately concerned, that is, in matters connected with the trade of the country. I believe it is the true policy of the Church to enquire into and examine the methods used by ordinary men in the prosecution of their ordinary work, and follow their steps when they find it to be successful. I know this, that oftentimes an account of a paper which has cost a great deal of time, and on which a great deal of attention has been paid, is circum scribed in its influence unless it finds its way into the periodicals of the day, or its information disseminated through some established journal. With regard to the newspapers, there is no more powerful instrument for the diffusion of knowledge than by the employment of that agency. It has happened to myself to find that an expression, a single statement, has been reproduced over and over again by those who knew