3. That for the furtherance of unity and co-operation in missions, as well as for the stimulating of missionary zeal generally, the Council recommend that united public meetings be held from time to time, in as many important places as possible-the meetings to be addressed by representatives of the various churches.

4. That the Council, while pursuing its special object of promoting union in the mission-field among the Presbyterian churches connected with the Alliance, expresses its earnest hope that all Evangelical churches in each foreign field may ultimately unite in one, and that, where incorporation is not yet practical, co-operation be increasingly sought.

5. That the Council again express its conviction that the evangelising of the nations is one of the highest privileges and most solemn duties of the Church, as such, and needs to be prosecuted with the full advantage of church organisation and control.

6. That the subject of foreign mission work be again remitted to a committee to carry out the views of the Council, and give further consideration to the whole matter, and that the resolutions of the Council be communicated to the churches represented in this Alliance.

A vote of thanks was passed to the committees for the great labour bestowed on the subject, and especially to the conveners.

EVENING MEETING, Friday, 6th June.

EXETER HALL, 8th July 1888, 7 o'clock, P. M., the Council again met according to adjournment-HUGH M. MATHESON, Esq., London (Convener of Foreign Missions Committee of the Presbyterian Church of England), in the Chair, and was constituted by devotional exercises led by the Rev. Dr. JOHN HALL, New York.

The CHAIRMAN said :-The proceedings of this Council would be glaringly incomplete if there were not put before you a record of the work done by the churches of the Alliance in the great mission-fields of the world, for it is positively axiomatic that no evangelical church can claim to be fully equipped unless it has a mission to the heathen, and that the life and prosperity of a church is to a large extent dependent on the measure of activity which it displays in the glorious work of giving the Gospel to the world. Accordingly, in the reports presented to this Council in a printed form, by far the larger portion of the volume is occupied with missions and with suggestions for further efficiency. It is a happy thing, and we reckon it to be a feature of no little importance, that the nature of the organisation of the Presbyterian churches has enabled them to take up the work of missions as part of their systematic action, and not by means of separate societies; and we heartily congratulate the various churches upon the position they have taken upon the great missionary question. I, for one, rejoice greatly that all our churches have gone in emphatically for foreign missions. We often wonder that the Christian church was so long in finding out and recognising the call to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." But whatever may be thought of the long delay, now that, in the wonderful ways of God, the means of locomotion, both by sea and land, have been so enormously increased, and the barriers of centuries have been all removed, the solemn responsibility that rests upon the Church to Christianise the world is infinitely greater than it was fifty years ago, or even ten. Our venerable and beloved father, Dr. Cairns, expressed last night his great satisfaction and delight at the Missionary Conference lately held within these walls. Most heartily do I enter into his joy. trust sincerely that our churches will be awakened through the means

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of that conference, and will rise to the greatness of the occasion that has arrived. It is for the churches to show that they understand and appreciate the point that has now been reached-barriers everywhere broken down, wide doors opened, a wonderful welcome given to the message, fields absolutely white to the harvest. I rejoice in what has been accomplished, but I believe we have reached a crisis in missions, the combination of a glorious opportunity, with a responsibility such as has never before rested upon the Church, considering the vastness of the work that remains, and that can be done, if only we set ourselves in strong faith and effort to do it. Let nobody rob us of our firm belief in the Bible as the Word of God. It is perfectly vain to theorise about other religious systems in the world as containing elements of blessing for mankind. Their practical outcome is moral debasement and death. Beloved brethren, it is the old story of free grace and dying love, which alone can break down the walls of heathenism, and produce in a people fruit unto holiness. When, by the power of the Spirit of God, the individual members of our churches rise up to some sense of their responsibility, and the consecrated life and consecrated substance become the normal result of an acceptance of the Gospel, we shall see glorious progress made in the elevation of

our race.

A PLEA FOR UNION IN INDIA.

Rev. Dr. SHOOLBRED, India (United Presbyterian Church of Scotland). To the rapid progress and ultimate triumphs of the Gospel in India two things are especially necessary. The first great need lies in the raising up and training of native pastors and preachers-men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and inspired with apostolic zeal and devotion, that they may go forth to preach the great salvation, and gather thousands into the Church of Christ. The second great need lies in the knitting together in closer union all the native Christians and Christian communities scattered throughout India, so that standing shoulder to shoulder, as one great united army, they may do battle for their Lord and King. Uniting, as this Council does, almost all the Presbyterian churches in Christendom, and met together as we are to proclaim and foster the true and essential unity which knits all together in the bond of the one faith and spirit of our Divine Master, I think it fitting, during the few minutes given me, to address you on the necessity of Presbyterian union in India. And I would press home this great necessity, first of all, by the grandest of all considerations, this, viz., that it is very dear to the Saviour's heart. His all-seeing eye, looking forward to the future ages of His Church's history, must have seen and deplored the many and great

evils which would arise from the divisions that were to exist within it. And in that last grand intercessory prayer of His, how His heart went forth in earnest pleadings to the Father in behalf of His disciples, "that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." And so, in all ages, the divisions in the Church have been the main cause of dishonour to her Lord and damage to His cause; while in unity have always been found her chief strength, and the best and highest testimony to the divinity of her Founder. Nor is it otherwise in India now. Nothing so much puzzles our native Christians in Rajpootana as the many denominational distinctions which obtain within the Church. Our own church is known to them as the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland; they have heard of the Free and Established Churches of Scotland. On three sides they are surrounded by the Irish Presbyterian Church, several American Presbyterian Churches, and the Canadian Presbyterian Church; and they come to me in utter bewilderment and ask, “What all these denominational differences mean, and how they have arisen?" I have tried to explain that they are chiefly due to territorial causes. But then comes the pertinent question, "Why, living side by side here in India, should they stand aloof, and not combine into one grand united church ?" And before that question I am obliged to stand silent and abashed.

But not only do our native Christians note and comment on these denominational differences; the outside natives are no less keenly alive to their existence, and are not slow to found upon them an argument against the truth of our religion and the divinity of its Founder. "How is it possible," they ask, "that all these various and often conflicting creeds can have arisen from one Founder, and that Founder be divine? Dear friends, let us see to it, that we do what in us lies to wipe away this reproach, and cut off this occasion for the enemy to blaspheme. I believe that the day is coming, ay, and is not very far distant, when the Church in India shall free herself from denominationalism, and stand forth and be known simply as the Church of Christ. I deprecate as a great calamity the imposing upon sections of the Indian Church our denominational distinctions and party names; and the importing into her creeds all the petty shibboleths and paltry questions which divide our churches at home. I believe the day is coming when she will throw off and rise above all these; and I hope and pray that it may speedily come. Meantime, I rejoice in the fact that over so large a portion of India the infant churches are receiving a Presbyterian training in the art of self-government and the management of their own affairs; that they are being taught a

system at once of freedom and order, both in ecclesiastical and municipal matters. And I am glad to be able to report that the natives of one part of India at least are not slow to avail themselves of this training, or to put in practice its lessons. At my own station of Beawar in Rajpootana, we have now a thoroughly organised and independent church, with a native pastor, supported by itself, with an eldership of its own choosing-and well and wisely chosen too. Our people are eagerly seeking to know their rights and privileges according to the Church's constitution, and are not slack to claim and exercise these. From being mere units, oppressed and crushed down beneath the grinding-wheels of caste rules and observances, they have become individual members of a free and well-ordered community. But why should the Churches thus formed and trained be kept apart by denominational distinctions? Why should they have separate organisations, separate theological colleges and Supreme Courts? There are reasons apparent enough for some of the existing divisions among the home churches, much as these may be deplored. There are territorial reasons, for instance. There is the Irish Channel, which separates us from closer union with our brethren of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. There is the greater and more stubborn fact of the Atlantic Ocean, which rolls high its billows between us and our brethren of the Presbyterian Churches of America. But no such territorial barriers divide our Churches in India; no wide seas roll between us there. Then there are other reasons of division connected with the rise and historical development of our home churches, which may lead some of their members to cling to their distinctive names. But in our Indian Churches these reasons are wholly awanting. The growth of the oldest is a matter of but a few decades of years; and as yet they have no historical basis of any depth on which such denominational distinction could be raised. Why then should they be imposed upon them? In face of the lapsed masses, and the wide-spread practical heathenism, which have to be met and grappled with at home, how utterly mean and paltry appears, even here, those denominational distinctions and differences which divide the Church. Out there in India, with two hundred million souls sunk in the darkness of error and superstition, or hopelessly groping in quest of light and leading, all these distinctions and divisions sink into utter insignificance, and should for ever disappear before the prime necessity for united counsel and combined action against the common foe.

The missionaries of your Churches in India are ready and eager for organic union. So long ago as the first great missionary conference, held at Allahabad in 1871, the question was mooted, and a Presbyterian Council somewhat of the nature of this Alliance formed.