Thus it appears that on the 18th of September, when the accounts of the Treasurer were audited, he had received from the churches, on assessments, $9,238.98, and at the same date there was due from them the sum of $3,930.63, which, if fully paid, would meet the indebtedness, which, at that time, was $3,018.59, and leave in the treasury the sum of $912.05. We may reasonably expect that a large proportion of these dues will be paid, as some have already been, and that the present Council will find it necessary to provide only for the expenses which it is pleased to authorize.

LAVALETTE PERRIN, Treasurer.

HARTFORD, Oct. 1, 1883.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON A SUITABLE MONUMENT IN LEYDEN TO JOHN ROBINSON.

Six years ago this National Council appointed a committee to "take action looking toward the erection in some suitable place in

the city of Leyden, Holland, of a monument to the memory of John Robinson." That committee at first thought well of some endeavor to erect in the old Clock Square, in front of the house where that great and good man taught and died, and of the Cathedral of St. Pierre, under which he lies buried, a suitable statue, by a' competent artist, in the necessary cost of which there were intimations that our English brethren of the same polity and descent might share. But as such a statue, from the necessity of the case, must be purely ideal, they abandoned that plan for something else; and, after meditating one or two designs for an obelisk in the same spot, various considerations prevailed to lead them to favor the simpler and safer course of affixing a monumental tablet, properly ornamented and inscribed, upon the interior wall of the cathedral, where they are assured it would be welcomed, valued, and sacredly guarded by the civic and ecclesiastical authorities. They were led to suppose that such a work might be creditably done at a total cost not to exceed fifteen hundred ($1,500) or two thousand ($2,000) dollars, and tacitly decided upon it as the best result of the movement, which they had fondly hoped might be completed before this fifth session of the Council. In the providence of God, however, the time has not yet seemed to come when either of the committee could give that energetic and somewhat continuous personal labor to the matter which is essential to its satisfactory performance, and the pious design remains unaccomplished.

Your committee can only add that two of their number, who have been more than once in Leyden already, and whose occasions may lead them again to that city, are not without the hope to be able to go thither together in the course of another year; and should the Council think it wise-overlooking their past inefficiency-to continue the commission, they, with such aid as their colleagues and others may kindly give, will do their endeavor that so creditable a desire on the part of the Congregational churches of the United State to mark the burial-place and honor the memory of their illustrious and amiable founder, may not remain forever unsatisfied. For the committee,

HENRY M. DEXTER, Chairman.

GREYSTONES, NEW BEDFORD, MASS., Oct. 10, 1883.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON THE PASTORATE.

"Regarding the recognition of persons virtually pastors, though not installed by council."

THE Committee appointed in 1880 by this body to confer with the general State organizations as to the method by which both the communion of the churches and the recognition of persons virtually pastors, though not installed by council, may be secured, beg leave to report.

Whatever value we may attach to installation by council both as a means of fellowship and as a guard to purity, we must answer the question submitted to us on grounds of principle, and ascertain whether our principles may conserve the purity of church fellowship and at the same time recognize as pastors any ministers not installed by council.

Our fundamental standard is the Bible. But we find in it no evidence that those called therein pastors were installed by council. If they were, some intimation of the fact would most probably have been preserved.

The Cambridge Platform (1648) knows nothing of installation by council. On the contrary, it says: "The essence and substance of the out ward calling of an ordinary officer in the church doth not consist in his ordination, but in his voluntary and free election by the church, and in his accepting of that election; whereupon is founded that relation between pastor and flock, between such a minister and such a people. Ordination doth not constitute an officer nor give him the essentials of his office." (Ch. IX. 2.)

Since by the theory of the ministry, held by the framers of that Platform, no ordained man was a minister except while a pastor, we must understand ordination is this passage as including both ordination and installation.

By this passage "the essence and substance" of the pastorate, "the essentials of the office," are election and acceptance. Not one word is said there or elsewhere in the Platform of installing councils. They are even discarded by the provision that the elders of the local church, or, in case there were none, 66 some of the brethren orderly chosen by the church thereunto," should lay hands upon the pastor in ordination. Or, if the church which had no elders should desire, the Platform says: "We see not why imposition of hands may not be performed by the elders of other

churches." Thus doubtfully were elders of other churches to take part in ordination and installation, and then not as members of a council. (Ch. IX. 3, 4, 5.)

The Boston Platform (1865) recognizes the same elements as constituting the pastorate. "Officers chosen by the church are also to be ordained by it with prayer and, customarily, with laying on of hands." (p. 27.) It, like the Cambridge Platform, regards installation as incidental to the office, like the inauguration of a magistrate, "whose power in the commonwealth comes not from his inauguration but from his election."

But when the Boston Platform touches the recognition of a pastor made such by election and acceptance by other churches its voice is imperative. It says: "A due respect to the communion of the churches requires that no man assuming to be a pastor of a church shall be acknowledged as such by other churches, unless at or after his entrance on the duties of the office, he has been publicly recognized by receiving the right hand of fellowship from neighboring churches through a council convened for that purpose. The welfare of the churches, in their intimate communion with each other, requires this safeguard." (51, 52.)

The reason here assigned for making an installing council essential to the acknowledgment of a pastor, as pastor of a church, is the need of such a safeguard to the welfare of the churches in their intimate communion with one another. Yet why did that communion demand this safeguard in 1865, when no such protection was required in 1648? Surely, no revolution had taken place in the principles of our polity to cause the change. The stress laid upon installing councils by the Boston Platform arose, we believe, not from our principles, but from circumstances. The churches in early New England relied for purity, not on councils of any kind, but chiefly on the sword of the State. Among other things, "heresy, venting corrupt and pernicious opinions that destroy the foundations," 66 separation from the communion of other churches," "walking in any corrupt way," were to be restrained and punished by civil authority." "In such case the magistrate is to put forth his coercive power, as the matter shall require." (Camb. Plat. XVII. 8, 9.) Here was a ready safeguard often brought into exercise, more potent and trusted than councils.

But the church slowly became separated from the State, and councils were relied on for protection. Hence an incident of the pastorate became essential to purity; and what was performed at

first by the local church without a council became so fundamental to fellowship that it must not only be performed by a church, but performed by advice of council, or else its chosen pastor could not be acknowledged as pastor. This change grew out of circumstances, and is not a development of principle. Hence, in spite of repeated and strenuous efforts to keep installation in this abnormal position, it is slowly falling into disuse. The per cent of churches with pastors in 1858 was 40.91; in 1883, 23.55; a loss of 17.36 per cent. During the same time, the per cent of churches with "acting pastors" has increased from 25.57 to 45.89,- a gain of 20.32 per cent. Even in New England a similar change has taken place. In 1858 the per cent of churches with pastors was 55.82; in 1883, only 41.12, a decrease of 14.80; while the "acting pastors" increased, in the same time, from 24.96 to 37.95,

a gain of 12.99. Thus in the matter of the pastorate the churches are returning to the position of the New Testament and the Cambridge Platform, namely, that election and acceptance constitute the essentials of the office of pastor.

There has been an increase in the number of our churches since 1858 of 1,621; but a decrease in the number of those having pastors since 1858 of 20. There has thus been an absolute decadence of installation in the last quarter of a century. The absolute decrease has been small, but the relative decrease has been great, until at the present time not one quarter of our churches have installed pastors. It should seem, therefore, both unwise and uncongregational for this small fraction to insist on a distinction which the majority ignore.

The legal element in installation has, in the judgment of your committee, been one cause of the decadence in installation to which we refer. That legal element requires a dismissing council in case a pastor leaves his church, which gives the power to a pastor to prolong his pastorate over an unwilling people, and requires too often a dismissing council to enact a farce, to advise to be done, what has already been done. This element, it is believed, has made many churches afraid of an installed pastorate. To remove this objection councils of recognition should be had instead of councils of installation, as is already the case in one State. Such councils of recognition should examine the candidate and advise respecting his fitness for the pastorate, as in councils of installation; but when the pastorate is to be terminated "for any cause except death, the pastor and church, or either of them in case the other refuses,