on this platform of the Church Congress one day in the year, and scold the clergy, we do not in the least resent it. There was one layman who even ventured to give advice to the right reverend prelates on the bench yesterday. I am quite sure that the bishops did not resent the advice, though they may not have felt themselves bound to take it. But we of the clergy will take any advice which will help us to do better the spiritual work which God has given us in the Church. And not only the clergy, but the laity have their part to do in this spiritual work. I do not mean to say that every layman is to preach, though a great many laymen can preach very well indeed, but there is a great deal of work to be done by laymen which will help forward the spiritual work of the Church. And the women, too, have their part in the spiritual work of the Church. If this were done, clergy, laity, men, women, and children, each doing their part, not merely in asserting the claims of the Church and exposing the designs of her foes, but doing especially the spiritual work which the Church is called upon to do, I, for one, should have no fear of any amount of political dissent. I should have no fear of any attacks that are made upon the Church. I should have no fear of even Mr. Joseph Chamberlain himself. But, I feel quite sure, that when the Church is put upon her trial, it would be the unanimous verdict both of the rich and of the poor, both of churchmen and of dissenters, and, I may add, both of Conservatives and of Liberals, that there is a blessing in her, and, therefore, that she ought not to be destroyed.

The Rev. H. GRANVILLE DICKSON, Clerical Secretary of the Church Defence Institution.

THERE has been very eloquent testimony borne by two speakers, Mr. Dale Hart and Lord Henry Scott, to the work of the Church Defence Institution, and I hope that their words will take such effect that to-morrow morning we shall find that we have a thousand more subscribers. There is one point on which I should like to hear the opinion of the Congress. No word has been said about the special attack that is being made on the Church in Wales. I do hope that we shall all recognise that that attack is against ourselves. There is no Church of Wales at all. The Church in England and the Church in Wales are absolutely identical. Their battle is ours, and it is our duty as well as our interest to fight their battle. Another word as to the manifesto from the great Liberal leader, which I think has been to a certain extent misunderstood. At least I hope so. There is, at any rate, a single sentence in it on which I should like you to fix and fasten your eyes. It is this, that no motion for the disestablishment of the Church of England should come on until after thorough discussion. I take that to be a challenge to the Church of England to show her right to her position, her right to her endowments, and her right to call herself the Church of the poor. I think that if we use that warning well, and take Mr. Gladstone's advice, and take care that this subject is thoroughly discussed, and that the people of England know the truth, there will be no fear whatever that the Church of England shall ever be disestablished and disendowed. On the contrary, I think that we shall owe something to our friends and the enemy on account of such discussion. We shall all have a better knowledge of our position and our history. The Church will grow stronger, because she will rest on the more intelligent support of the people of Eng land generally. But, after all, surely this question lies altogether apart from and outside of political manifestoes. We believe that the union of Church and State is pleasing to Almighty God. We think that we read in the history of England a record of His blessing on this nation in and through an Established Church; and if we believe that, it cannot matter to us what statesmen say, or what Liberationists propose. Our duty is plain. We have nothing to do with success or failure. Our duty is to set this Church fairly and fully before the people of England, and to do our best that she shall not be in the coming day, as a previous speaker has said, judged and condemned by default.

The Rev. EDWARD HOARE, Vicar of Tunbridge Wells, and Hon. Canon of Canterbury.

I AM quite sure that every one amongst us has been thoroughly convinced by all the most important statements and proofs respecting the origin of Church endowments. I cannot help thinking that it must, after all, be a layman's matter. You will not find as a general rule that the clergy will do that which was recommended to usintroduce the subject of endowments into the pulpit. We have other things to preach about than our own endowments, and I believe that we should suffer as much as political dissenters have suffered if we were to introduce such a subject into our ministry. But that does not mean that we are to be apathetic, and, more than that, it does not mean that the laymen are to be apathetic. It is a layman's question, and you laymen must fight the battle and be banded together in prayer and effort to make a nobler struggle for the dear old Church of our fathers than you have ever made yet. What is the question? It is not whether a certain class of people are going to retain endowments which belong to them. There is a higher question. The question is whether this great nation of ours is to be openly and avowedly a Christian nation or merely a great country with certain Christian people in it. Is it to be a Christian nation? Is it to make a Christian profession? How then is it to do it? Is it to fritter away all distinctive teaching and leave merely a kind of vague Christianity that is supposed to comprehend the Protestant and the Romanist, the believer and the infidel all together, with nothing to offend anybody? What will it be? You may cut and cut till you leave nothing to offend the infidel, but what will you do? You will cut till you deeply wound the loving heart of every Christian man that lives in the country. You cannot do it. The question is, Is God to be honoured in England or is He not? Is this great nation of ours to stand up as a witness for Christ? God grant that England may long remain true to her principles, and God grant that England, whatever she gives up, may never give up her testimony for truth. Men may hesitate to speak about endowments, and many a conscientious clergyman will continue to hesitate. But they must not hesitate to speak out respecting our principles. We must not hesitate to preach the great principles of Divine truth; but must stick fast by them. They are the strength of the Church of England. Its real strength lies in its principles. I believe that the Thirty-nine Articles bring more power to the Church than all its endowments, because they have great, solid, sound, Scriptural principles. And one thing I may say in conclusion. If we wish the Church of England to stand as we do pray that it may stand we must be verily faithful to its Scriptural principles. The heart of England is true to the principles of the Church of England, and there must be nothing amongst us to shake confidence. There must be nothing in us to weaken the trust of the great body of the thinking laity of England. While we uphold it, let it be felt that we uphold it because of its principles, and that its principles are dearer to us than our very lives. Let us pray that God will move the hearts of men at this election, as the waving corn is moved by the wind, and that after all our anxieties we may see God's truth standing out more clearly, more conspicuously, and more beloved than ever.

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LECTURE HALL,

THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 8 тн.

The Right Rev, the BISHOP OF NEWCASTLE in the Chair.

SOLDIERS AND SAILORS' MEETING.

The CHAIRMAN.

MY FRIENDS.-In the absence of Lord Nelson, who would have been a fitting man to fill the chair in such a place as this-as well as any other place in England-I have undertaken to occupy this post. I have something to say to you on my own behalf, but our friend the Dean of York wishes to catch a train, therefore, he will speak to you first.

The Very Rev. ARTHUR P. PUREY-CUST, D.D., Dean of York.

MY LORD BISHOP, AND MY FRIENDS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.-I do not know for what reason the Lord Bishop of Winchester selected me to come and speak to you to-night. But the moment I got the letter inviting me, I had no hesitation in accepting his invitation at once. I have come from York to Portsmouth, so far as the Congress is concerned, for this meeting alone; and if it had been twice the dis tance, I should still have come without the slightest hesitation. No distance that I could possibly compass would prevent my taking the opportunity of saying a few words to the soldiers and sailors of England. Perhaps some of you will be inclined to think this is strong language, and, in common parlance, I might be told to "draw it a little mild"; but I will tell you why I take such an interest in soldiers and sailors. It is because, though I am neither a soldier nor sailor myself, yet I am very closely identified with the Army and Navy, by such ties of family as must ever give one the greatest and deepest interest in those noble services. I am a member of a family, some of whom were entitled to wear on their breasts medals and clasps showing they had been through a number of engagements in the Peninsular War, and one of whom lost his life at the battle of Alma. Of my own three brothers, two of them were in the Army, and one in the Navy. One of them early laid down his life in his country's cause, at the battle of Feroze Shah. You may have read the history of that battle-one of the most remarkable of the battles in the Punjaub. It was a twodays' battle-a battle which, begun on one day, did not finish for the greater part of the next. Sir Henry Harding, then commanding the English troops, mentioned in his dispatches the extraordinary coldness of the night; and, though my brother had escaped the dangers of the battle, the inclement night which followed proved fatal to so young an officer. Having to spend that cold night without a cloak or coat, he took a fever which caused him very soon to pass to his rest. Then, with regard to my brother who was a sailor, I have in my room now at home-and it is a treasure I value much-the medal he gained at Acre; and I have my youngest son now far away on the coast of China, in the "Rambler," engaged in the surveying department in that distant part, and on that intricate and rocky coast. I might name other near relatives of mine in the service-among them a general officer, at this moment administering the affairs of that great continent, I might almost call it, or group of islands, known as New Zealand. So you will see, when I say I take a great interest in soldiers or sailors, I have cause for what I say. I cannot forget how deeply the dif ferent circumstances I have touched upon, have commended them through life to my affections and my appreciation. So, you will understand, that when I say I came here

gladly and readily to speak a few words to you soldiers and sailors, that I am speaking that which is true, and which, if it was not true, I should be utterly unworthy of the position I hold. Now, having come here, what have I to say? I know what some people would tell you I ought to say, and that is, that war and everything connected with it is utterly inconsistent with the calling of a Christian man, and that everyone who professes and calls himself a Christian ought to renounce and have nothing to do with it. Well, I am not going to say that. A preacher, far greater than I, once spoke to soldiers, and spoke to them on the very eve of the advent of the Prince of Peace: but he did not tell them to forsake their calling, only not to abuse it. If the world could be without any occasion for soldiers and sailors, and there could be nothing but peace, I am sure it would be a happy and blessed thing, and a thing we might well wish and long for; but to my mind that is a mere Utopian dream, which will never be fulfilled in our day. And when I hear people say very eloquent things against the noble calling in which you are engaged, and speak in such confident terms about the happiness and peace of the world, if all armies and navies were at once disbanded, I always think it a pity they don't follow the old adage, and, as "charity begins at home," advocate the disbanding of the police force. They would see how things got on without the forces of order, and they would understand then what the world would be without a very strong force to keep down what was wrong, and to maintain order and liberty and freedom throughout the world. No; I don't ask you to give up your calling. I rather say live up to it. Live up to your ideal that ideal which always rises before us when we speak of gallant deeds, of heroic men-of gallant warriors and brave mariners. Yes, live up to that ideal, for I am quite sure that the calling in which you are engaged is really, if rightly used, a training capable of developing some of the highest qualities of which humanity is capable. Now, I am not going to speak of the value and power of the Army and Navy politically. That is clearly not my province. Neither am I going to speak of those heroic deeds, in the doing of which so much precious blood has been spilt, and who no doubt have surrounded the memories of the Army and Navy with haloes of undying glory. These clearly would not be within my scope. I am rather going to speak of those traits in the character of your profession which commend themselves to me, looking upon them as a parson, and which, I think, if only rightly remembered, ought to have a happy, elevating, blessed influence upon all the members of your noble service. In the first place, I would say that the duties of the Army and Navy, rightly regarded and used, have a tendency to elevate the whole personal character. I could give you many instances of thisand I met with one the other day, which, I think, may not be without interest to you all. At the conclusion of the "Life of Admiral Sir Henry Codrington," his biographer writes thus of him :-"As in his father, so in him, was the spirit of duty -the ruling principle of daily life-warmed and cheered as it was by the spirit of love for gentleness and manliness were in him so welded together, that neither was ever lost sight of in the courtesy of his bearing. His acquaintance with the Bible was unusually close and extensive." Now, I do not think you could have a more touching, or a more admirable record of a man's life than that contained in those words. I venture to say, that those words may not only be written about Admiral Codrington, but of many an admiral and general; aye, and many of all ranks and grades in the Army and Navy. But does not that show that to be a real soldier and a genuine sailor does not need roughness and blustering, but may bring out all that is high and noble, as well as all that is gentle amongst men. I knew one of your profession who won the Victoria Cross at the time that he had only his left hand to use; and, in recognition of his courage, a" round robin was signed by everybody in the regiment, asking that he might have it granted to him; yet he was so modest and gentle that he never could be persuaded to say much about it, and he seemed to me certainly one of the gentlest, if he was one of the most fearless of men. Another of the great traits also, which appear to me to stand out so prominently among our soldiers and sailors, is the power of endurance. This is shown in the wonderful stories we have of the Arctic expeditions. Perhaps I am speaking to some who were members of those expeditions. Whether we think of the first, under Sir Edward Parry, or of others, how they endured those long winter nights and the dreadful darkness so cheerfully and orderly; or, if we look at that terrible expedition of 1845, in which Sir John Franklin and so many of his gallant companions perished in the ice. Or, whether we read of the last expedition-of the "Alert" and the "Discovery "-in 1875, with such names as Nares and Markham, and, last but not least, the gallant young Lieutenant Parr, who made that wonderful march all by himself, in order to rescue his companions. Then we have many accounts of the wonderful endurance men have shown in times of their own suffering. Let me read you this extract from

And,

"Kinglake's Crimea," and remember these are the words, not of a parson, but of a lawyer. Lawyers, as a rule, have not much softness about them, and this is the record of a man who looks at things in a matter-of-fact way. What does he say: "There reigned in this suffering army so noble a spirit that many, though ́ill, refused to increase the labours of their comrades by going into the hospital. All their hardships-hardships too often fatal-our officers and men endured with a heroism, as the Sebastopol Committee declared, ‘unsurpassed in the annals of war.' It is remembered that once they showed indignant displeasure; but the feeling in that instance sprung from a purely unselfish even delicate sentiment. An order had been given that the blanket in which a dead soldier lay wrapped when carried to the edge of the grave, should be removed from his body before consigning it to the earth. And that measure our men disapproved. In the midst of their own bodily sufferings they condemned what they thought a slight to the remains of their departed comrade."-Vol. vii. p. 181. Then here is another record, in the same book, of what occurred in the hospital at Kullali. It shows the softened demeanour of the soldiers as they laid there on a bed of sickness :—“ Oh,” said one to the lady he saw bending over his pallet, "you are taking me on the way to heaven; don't forsake me."-Vol. vii. p. 304. I do not think there is any incident in the history of the Crimean war more touching or more elevating than that of young Denham Massey. He was severely wounded and left upon the ground, alone as he thought. And he called out as he laid there, "Are there any soldiers of Queen Victoria here?" And several voices of wounded men, like himself, answered "Yes, yes.' "Then," he said, "let us show these Russians, by our patience and fortitude, that English soldiers not only have courage to fight, but courage to endure." Some times people think that the whole occupation of a soldier or a sailor is to take human life. On the contrary, it seems to me that by far the greater part of the record of their heroism, both in war and in peace, has been to save and preserve human life. Turning again to the Arctic expeditions, I do not think there is anything more touch. ing than the efforts made to find, if possible, some trace of Sir John Franklin, and the crews of the "Erebus" and "Terror," by Sir James Ross, M'Clure, Forsyth, Austin, Belcher, Highfield, M'Clintock, Ommaney, and their brave companions and this to console and soothe his heart-broken widow and the anxious families of his men. And we know they were successful in bringing back that which comforted and cheered their hearts, and assured them that their gallant husbands, sons, or fathers had long since been at rest and peace in that bourne "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." If there is one sorrow that wrings the heart more than another, it is not merely death. That comes to all. The most dreadful thing is suspense-the feeling that you don't know whether it is death or life, whether it is suffering or whether it is peace. And it is something to know that Lady Franklin's last years were soothed by the knowledge that her husband was at rest, and that she was passing to meet him in the Paradise whither he had gone before. So, in connec tion with the Navy, how many instances also are there of gallant efforts to save life at sea, however stormy or infested with sharks. Need I remind you that one of the most gallant deeds ever done in the annals of missionary work, was done by Captain Allan Gardiner, who laid down his life in his effort to found a mission at Terra del Fuego. And if you turn to the record of the Indian mutiny, what episode is more touching than that of Cawnpore. The women and children were parched with thirst for the want of water, and the only well of water was right under the fire of the rebel Sepoys, and men went out day by day with their lives in their hands to draw this water. What could be more gallant and touching than the incident about young Lieutenant Dyneley, who, being wounded, Corporal Kneld went out, under fire, and found him. He then returned, and fetched Surgeon Sylvester, and with him went back again, and together they bound up his wounds, and brought him in through all the dangers, to the security of the camp. I need not mention a name enshrined in all our hearts as the ideal of an English soldier-I mean General Gordon. I need not dilate upon his life and career, because you know them. You know how cheerfully he gave up his life to promote what he felt to be the welfare of others, and how calmly he met death. And there are many besides General Gordon who have done Do you remember that story of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the comrade of Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins, one of the old "sea dogs," as they were called, the discoverer of Newfoundland with only two ships-the "Golden Hind" and the Squirrel"-a little cock-boat of 10 tons burden. Like a gallant man, the Admiral himself embarked on board the smallest and least seaworthy of them; and when a tremendous storm came on, and the little vessel was about to founder, the old Admiral took the Testament in his hands and said," Courage, my lads! remember that heaven

the same.

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