Provisional committee.

It was voted, That the provisional committee be authorized to appoint any committees ordered but not appointed, and that committees so appointed be entered in the minutes as by the action of the Council.

Publishing committee.

It was voted, That the minutes, sermon, reports, papers, and other documents presented at this session be issued by the publishing committee, and also the Year Books of 1893, 1894, and 1895, and that said committee be allowed to contract for the Year Book of 1896.

American Missionary Association.1

The committee on the statement of the American Missionary Association presented a report which was accepted.

A resolution concerning John Penry was laid on the table.

Amendment of by-laws as to committees.

A proposed amendment of the by-laws relating to committees was referred to the committee on business. Said committee reported adversely on the proposal. The subject was then referred to the following committee:

Rev. Marcus W. Montgomery, of Illinois; Rev. Edward B. Furbish, of New York; and Rev. James P. Field, of Missouri, who made a report which was amended and adopted as follows:

Resolved, (1) We recommend that in the selection of committees, the nominating committee seek to give work to as many members of the Council as may be possible with due regard to the important interests to be submitted, in order that the results of our Councils may reflect the opinions of the churches; and, further, that they seek to avoid, as far as may be wise, the appointment of the same man on more than one committee, or on the same standing committee through more than one Council.

Resolved, (2) That the secretary be instructed to place a copy of this resolution in the hands of the nominating committee at the opening of each Council.

The place of meeting in 1895.

The provisional committee gave notice that they had selected San Francisco as the place for the meeting in 1895, if satisfactory arrangements can be made therefor.

Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society.

The committee on the statement of the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society presented a report which was adopted.

Minutes.

The minutes of the day were revised and approved, and the registrar was authorized to complete the minutes.

Thanks and conclusion.

After a brief recess, it was

Resolved, That the thanks of this Council are hereby tendered to the local committee of arrangements for their laborious and efficient services in providing for the comfort and convenience of the Council; to Plymouth church for the use of their commodious house of worship; to the pastor of this church for his helpful and genial co-operation in furthering the work of the Council; to Mr. Andrews, the organist, and to the choir, for their delightful and inspiring service of song; to the press for its reports of our proceedings; to such lines of railroads as have granted reduction in fare; and, above all, to the families whose graceful and abundant hospitality we have enjoyed. As we part, we shall carry with us pleasant memories of the days spent in these homes and in this beautiful city. Upon all, both hosts and guests, who have enjoyed the fellowship of these days, we unite in invoking the blessing of our heavenly Father by whose grace we all hope at last to enjoy the larger and more enduring fellowship of the home on high.

After addresses by the moderator and the pastor of Plymouth church, the body united in singing, "Come, let us join our cheerful songs," prayer was offered by Rev. Erastus M. Cravath, of Tennessee, the benediction was pronounced by the moderator and at 4.30 the eighth triennial session of the National Council was dissolved.

THE CHURCH. - A COVENANT, WITH A PURPOSE.

SERMON.

BY REV. CHARLES M. LAMSON, ST. JOHNSBURY, VT.

Text: Matthew xxiii. 8. "One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren."

All Christians are under orders and therefore must keep in order. Christ is their authority and brotherhood in love and service, the proof and consequence of their obedience. Our church, rightly comprehended, is not a sect but a union striving for the ideal of human unity. It is fraternity through loyalty; democracy, but democracy with a King. It is the body of Christ, and its liberty is the liberty of doing as we have a mind to, because we have the "mind of Christ." There can be no permanent democracy without loyalty to an authority, and that authority in the Church is not an abstraction nor a social contract, but a living person. Church is the absolute loyalty of a free commonwealth.

The

In the Romanic nations where the Roman Catholic Church is dominant, the word for church signifies the authority of the assembly, a popular control, the rule of the ecclesia. The Italian "Chiesa," the French "Eglise," the Spanish "Iglesia," represent in name a church under the authority of the people, actually a church with a central control, the Papacy; and "ecclesiastical" does not represent, as one would suppose, the government of the people, but a hierarchy. The church of the supreme Pontiff has a name that implies the popular administration. The Teutonic nations did not receive their name "church" from Rome or through Latin Christianity. Before these races were converted through the Italian church the Goths of the lower Danube bad become Christian and taken their name directly from the Greeks, in whose language the word "church" signified that which is the Lord's. The Latin church gave Christianity to the Northern races, but their brethren from the East gave them the name for the new society, "Kuriake," the Lord's society. Rome brought us to the church, but the Greeks christened us. Thus it comes that in the nations where Protestantism is dominant, where there is essential democ

racy, the government of the people, the word "church" means the government of the one Lord. In the German "Kirche," the Scotch "Kirk," the English "Church," we confess the authority of the King; and thus perpetuate the wise unconscious prophecy of the early Christian society that the secret of human unity is in loyalty to the Monarch. It would be well if Catholic and Protestant were to work, each toward its own name. It would be for us a supreme blessing if we constantly remembered and lived the large significance of our full name, "Congregational Church," the Ecclesia Kuriake, the democratic kingdom. This name unites the most elevated excellence in the Romish and Protestant churches, and forms in idea the true Catholic church, the church of the people and the church of the Lord. We may, therefore, give to our Church an unreserved affection and a reasonable devotion, for our name must be the quality of the church of the future, the Catholic Church; and through this must be woven as a text the sacred Scripture, "One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren."

been in cycles.

The movements of history, as Clark says, have and epicycles. In real progress the great ideas, the burning questions, repeat themselves in familiar order, but the centre itself, about which social advance moves, is all the while moving about another centre, as the sun, about which the planets revolve, moves. about another sun. There is nothing new under the sun, but the old sun is always in a new place. The church that is conservative

and progressive keeps with the sun.

The church has considered and afterwards reconsidered the questions of theology and asked with the earnestness of a man at prayer, What is God? the questions of anthropology, What is man? of soteriology, How are God and man related and how can they be made one? of administration, How shall the church be governed? of liturgy, How shall men worship? To-day the old question under new forms is the insistent query, What is man in society? What is human society, through what does it cohere, under what authority, and for what end does it move? The supreme question is not that of the rights of individuals but of classes. The solemn query, What am I? is for the present yielding to the equally solemn question, What are we? To treat a man as an individual, a unit, is as antiquated as to say "thou." Philosophy and religion and courtesy now say "you," plural, when addressing

one man.

Decisions are now thought for, fought for, not concerning "my" rights but "our" rights. The pronoun "" our is becoming a mighty and a sacred word. In all the tumults of the day, the blind nobilities of corporate human nature, this is the question that is asserting itself. What are societies, what is society? What makes it, what shall it make? Is it an addition of individuals or a growth with individuals, as the feet or hands, eyes or heart grow with the body of which each is at the same time the means and end of all the rest? The church is appointed to answer this question and to illustrate its reply; and the world will accept from the Church no reply that is not well illustrated. It must define man as society by means of a society of men. It must tell men what has a right to organize by being itself an organization of righteousness. It must be at the same time a proclamation and a guide of social rights and social duties. By teaching that the society of the Lord is the only complete human society, the true humanity, it should give to every partial union its high purpose and destiny. It should make clear to men that while the whole exists for the part, the part, if it be a part, must live for the whole. The Church has in its constitution and in itself, as the illustration of the corporate immortality of its Lord, the real meaning of the social man. It can make clear to each man that unity is not the coercion nor restraint of the individual, but his expanse and security. By thus giving to the world the meaning of the social man, the church will best teach the unity of God, for when men love and practise human unity they will love and worship one God. Christian socialism is the modern school of theology.

Christ has a two fold life. He came as a Man, and under what the Apocrypha calls the "holy spirit of education "; centuries were given to define Him as an individual in history and establish the doctrine of the Person of Christ. He came also as humanity, and the seriousness and passion of the present under the guidance of the same holy spirit are given to defining Him as the Social Man. The scripture for modern life is "till we all come in the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect social man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

When churches meet in sacred representative assembly, as the Methodists in Ecumenical Conference, the Episcopalians in the Church Congress, or Congregationalists in a National Council, the first useful and determining question should be, What is the