progress the good From our side of

been gathered into a focus, burning with light and heat from heaven. You have heard from the European Section of the work has been making during the past four years. the Atlantic we have a corresponding report to make. We have been in goodly fellowship with our brethren of the European Section; and while each section has been left to work out its problem in its own way, I think you will discover that there has been a most remarkable unanimity of sentiment, as well as a strong, earnest conviction that has led us to this one point. Four years ago this Committee was organised, and sent forth a circular letter to missionary boards and committees, and missionaries of the Churches uniting in the Alliance, suggesting topics, and requesting replies in the light of their experience and observations. To these inquiries responses were received, all of which are characterised by ample deliberation and careful statements of results and reasons for them. In addition to this fruitful correspondence, a public meeting was held in the city of New York, in January 1886, under the joint auspices of this Committee and of the American Section of the Executive Commission of the Alliance. The unanimity and power of the addresses gave a strong impetus to public sentiment and official action on the main aspects of the question. The conclusions of your Committee, from a review of the official deliverances thus far reported, are as follows:-(1) All the ecclesiastical bodies and missionary boards and conferences heartily favour the most friendly and active co-operation of the churches at home and the missions abroad, so as to avoid conflict, secure harmony, and save needless waste of labourers, money, and other missionary agencies and efforts on the fields of service. (2) For the establishment and maintenance of separate ecclesiastical organisations in each mission-field, as in the home churches, only one positive declaration has been made, viz. by the Board of foreign missions of the United Presbyterian Church, which has since then ceased to co-operate with the Alliance. (3) For organic union, at the earliest practical period; that is, for the organisation of one independent self-governing National Church on each great mission land, all of the ecclesiastical bodies now connected with the Alliance that have reported to us have responded affirmatively to the inquiries of this committee. (4) Minor questions, such as the prospective relations of foreign missionaries to the churches at home and to native churches; the relations of home and native churches to each other; the time and methods of separate organisations; the measure of preparation and capacity for selfsupport and self-government requisite to the independence of the home churches, etc., can be best decided by the missionaries in each field and the mission boards that sustain them. (5) There is a com

mon desire for more frequent and stated conferences of missionaries in foreign lands, and of the officers, and boards, and committees of the home churches, with careful public statements of facts in the progress of the work in the religious press, and in missionary meetings, and in ecclesiastical assemblies.

Then follows the statement as to the practical adoption, with small verbal alterations in one or two instances, of the resolutions of the European Section. The fourth resolution of the Reformed Church in America commissioned the Rev. Dr. Jacob Chamberlain to present to such of the Presbyterian General Assemblies as he may be able to visit (in passing through Great Britain on his expected return to India in 1887), the fraternal greetings of this body, and to draw their attention to the unanimous action taken by this body in favour of organic union in mission-fields, of those holding the Reformed faith with the Presbyterian polity, in the hope that similar permissive action may be taken by their respective bodies, authorising their missions to take part in such a Union. In the line of these proceedings, the Board of Foreign Missions of the same Church has recently given its sanction to the plan of union of Congregational, Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches in the United Church of Christ in Japan, and has urged its missionaries" to do all in their power to bring about such a union," and also "to secure in the final formulas of the new Church as clear and definite statements as possible." Equally important, especially on account of the number and extent of its missions, is the verdict of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (North) at its last Annual Session in 1887. Your Committee also report that, upon representations made to them, and without desiring to trespass in the least upon the prerogative of the Churches conducting missions in Japan, their secretary was instructed to inquire concerning the hindrances to the complete unification of Presbyterian missions in that country, so that, if possible, they might be able to make any useful suggestions on the matter. The kindly correspondence thus initiated has developed facts, and has been coincident with events in the progress of missionary and church union, which tend towards a speedy removal of all obstacles to a more perfect unification of the whole family of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian system in that Empire. It is also a most gratifying fact that the latest action of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, whose mission has hitherto done its noble work alone, has prepared the way for its permanent alliance with those of sister churches within the united Church of Christ in Japan. The importance of these movements cannot be over-estimated at this critical juncture in the life of a great people who are "changing their

gods," and laying the foundations of Christian churches amid the wonderful revolutions that have placed them in the advance of the new civilisation of the Asiatic races. We therefore submit the following resolutions:-(1) Resolved, That this Council gratefully acknowledges the wisdom and grace of God so abundantly manifested in the progress of the movement of the alliance of Reformed Churches throughout the world, holding the Presbyterian system, for co-operation and union in foreign missions, which was begun in the faith and prayers of the first General Council, held at Edinburgh, in the year of our Lord 1877, and has continued to this day. (2) Resolved, That this Council also gladly recognises the patient study, the careful investigations, the cautious deliberations, and the finally decisive proceedings of the various ecclesiastical synods and assemblies, and the missionary agencies in the home churches, and also the active zeal and practical aid of the missionary labourers and native churches in foreign lands, for the accomplishment of the greatest possible unity and co-operation in the evangelisation of the nations. (3) Resolved, That in the opinion of this Council the successes of the past decade imperatively claim, and greatly encourage, the continuance of this work of the Alliance in obedience to the manifestations of Providence and grace, and in agreement with our Lord's prayer, "That they all may be one." (4) Resolved, That in the prosecution of this work, and inasmuch as the Alliance and its Councils have no legislative or official powers, the committees having it in charge be, and hereby are, instructed to make a careful study of the deliverances of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Bodies that have been, or shall be, made on the subject, with a view to aid in carrying out into practice the important principles, suggestions, and decisions that are necessarily involved in the formation of actual unity and co-operation, for the self-support, self-extension, and self-government of Native Mission Churches, and for the settlement of the ecclesiastical relations of missionaries to the native churches and to the home churches who send and sustain them.

The following addresses were then delivered bearing on some of the points adverted to in the foregoing Reports.

EVANGELISATION OF THE HEATHEN THE SPECIAL DUTY AND PRIVILEGE OF THE CHURCH.

The Rev. JAS. BUCHANAN, Foreign Mission Secretary of the United Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh, said:-If the Council will kindly grant me a few minutes, I should like to emphasise one of the

points set forth in the Report of the European Section of the Committee,-I refer to the recommendation which stands as No. 5 in the conclusion as to the evangelising of the nations. I do not wish to say one word against individual effort in missionary work. Every man who feels himself called to this work must be left free to carry it on in the way that seems to him best. He may not be disposed to attach himself to any church organisation, and though I think this is much to be regretted, I shall be the last person to say that the worker is to be blamed. Nor do I wish to say a word against societies which are composed of individuals connected with any church, or with all the churches. I cannot forget that much of the missionary work of modern times was begun by individuals associating themselves together for this purpose. I cannot think of the splendid work that has been done by the London Missionary Society, and the American Board, without feeling grateful to God that it was put into the hearts of those who formed these societies to inaugurate and carry on such work. The very existence of these societies reminds us that the churches, as churches, were slow to take up the work, and there is no doubt that the churches were awakened and stimulated by the success of their efforts. But while admitting all this, I believe that there is 66 a more excellent way," and this more excellent way is that the Church, as such, should be the Missionary Society. (1) What is the idea of the Church? For what does it exist? Surely it is not simply that the members of the Church may enjoy the ordinances of religion for themselves, even though they may be thus fed with spiritual food and grow in grace. We are all of opinion that the Church exists, not more for the benefit of those who are within her own borders, than for extending the blessings of the Gospel to those who are still without. A church that is not a missionary church has only one side of her spiritual life developed. She is somewhat selfishly enjoying the good things of the Gospel, while she is neglecting the great duty to which she is called of sharing those good things with others. While it is the duty and the interest of the Church steadily and liberally to maintain ordinances within herself for the nourishing of her own spiritual life, it is not less her duty, ay, and her interest too, to extend the Kingdom of God throughout the world. I am persuaded that a church has not reached her ideal position in this respect until she is devoting at least as much of her thought and her sympathy, her energy and her effort, ay, and as much of her money too, to the extending of the Gospel as to her own support. We have far to travel before we reach to this position. The Church which I represent is credited by Christlieb with being one of the largest contributors for Missions in proportion to her

numbers; but, after all, what we give for missions is only about oneeighth of our entire income. It is time we were done with the idea of having a missionary society connected with a church, or with a congregation it is each congregation as a whole, 'it is the Church as a whole, that is to be the missionary society. It is not more our privilege and duty to honour the last command of the Saviour before His death, "Do this in remembrance of me," than it is our privilege and duty to honour the last command which he gave before He ascended" Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." And it is only when the one takes the same place in our regard as the other that the blessing of the once-crucified but now exalted Saviour can be expected to rest upon the Church. (2) But passing from this, which may all be drawn from our very idea of the Church, what is the precise work we are to do among the heathen? We are not only to "teach," we are to "make disciples of" all nations. We are to seek to gather them into the Church, and secure for them all the nourishment and the protection, all the guidance and the help, all the Christian training and culture which the Church and its ordinances alone can supply. I do not suggest for a moment that we are to carry our narrow denominational distinctions along with us, and insist upon having these repeated and perpetuated in the churches of the mission-field. It is something very different from this that we should aim at. It is something very different from this that the Council has already substantially approved, that the Council will approve to-day, I trust, more distinctly and emphatically than before. Leaving behind us, then, our narrow distinctions, which we are all, I am sure, prepared to do, it is our sacred duty, as a church of Christ, to show to the converts from heathenism that they must gather themselves together into a Christian society, that they must observe the ordinances of Christ, and that in this way they must seek so to strengthen themselves that, not as isolated individuals, but as a united Christian band, they may tell upon the heathenism around them, and eventually themselves carry the Gospel to the regions beyond as we have carried it to them. Surely the Presbyterian churches of the world are sufficiently one to agree, not only upon the great essentials of Christian doctrine, but also upon the essentials of Christian worship and Christian life-upon what is necessary, in short, not only to make a believer, but to make a church of the faithful; and to resolve that as a church, or as so many sections of one church, we shall carry those essentials with us into other lands, and establish there the Kingdom of God-the Church of Christ-with all its gracious provision for the wants of men. I believe that it is only when the Church goes out as a Church to the mission-field that she can fully overtake