The Council next proceeded to hear Delegates from the Colonies of Great Britain.

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The Rev. J. YULE (Carlton, Victoria, Australia), said :—On the other side of the world there are seven great British colonies, the smallest of which is larger in extent than England; and they contain a population of over 3,000,000. In those seven colonies we have at least seven organised Presbyterian Churches, with about 500 minisWe maintain the ordinances of religion according to the Presbyterian form at 1200 or 1400 different places. While we have many opportunities, we have also many difficulties. One difficulty is to get attention to spiritual things on account of the tremendous rush of worldly interests. People have come out to the Australian continent, not, as the Pilgrim Fathers did, for freedom to worship God, but for the most part to make money. Another difficulty is popular ignorance, to a large extent, of the Scriptures. A considerable proportion of the community read little or nothing else than the newspapers.

In Victoria the difficulty is to be encountered of a system of education, under which the Bible is excluded from the common school curriculum. That has, I believe, led to the prevailing ignorance respecting the Word of God. We need special efforts to meet this difficulty, for, without a knowledge of Scripture, the Gospel of Christ cannot make the progress we desire to see. We find not only difficulties in the cities, such as are common to all great centres of population, but in our country places there is too much shifting of our ministers, whom we cannot retain in their particular charges for any length of time. No wonder, however, that such is the case, when we remember how lonely and wearisome is life in the bush. In Victoria I have met men who had not been in a church for twenty years, because they had never been within the reach of one all that time. I have met 100 people who had the chance of hearing the Gospel preached once in six months. In order to remedy that we want some system intermediate between our own and that of the Methodists. There are no churches that need your prayers and the dew of heaven more than the Presbyterian Churches in Australia.

The Rev. Dr. DONALD M'N. STUART (Chancellor of the University of Dunedin, Otago) :-I come from New Zealand, the Britain of the South; a country very like England, and that part to which I belong, Old Scotland over again. Captain Cargill and Dr. Burns, the Moses and Aaron of our settlement, came over forty years ago. When they dropped anchor they did precisely what the Pilgrim Fathers did when they dropped anchor in December 1619 in New England-they sang the Hundredth Psalm, and that Psalm has given direction and shape

to the settlement down to this day. We ministers count it no selfsacrifice to labour there, for we are among people that love the Bible. Go where we will, they rally round us. Before the settlement was twenty years old, every man, woman, and minor in the place petitioned not merely for a grammar-school, but for a university; and when that university was founded, the little Presbyterian church endowed three chairs in it—one for moral philosophy, one for English language and literature, and one for natural philosophy. We then proceeded to found a theological college; and not a day too soon, though we had some capable men from the old country no doubt. The churches did their best to send us men who have rendered the noblest services; but sometimes they sent us duffers. You churches at home, pray send us men that can speak in the language of the present day, and not as some excellent men who speak in the language of the seventeenth century-and extremely rich they are in the phraseology of that learned period. Men of faith, of good common-sense, and of good capacity never fail, whether located in town or country, to draw together the people who, as I have said, are ever eager to hear the Gospel. When Dr. Somerville came, they rallied in thousands around him. There we believe in family life, in the school, and in the Church. Shame to the people who would despair of the Gospel where there is the family with its Bible; the church with its Bible; and if we have the school with its Bible, so much the better.

Rev. T. NISBET (New South Wales) said:-The progress made by the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales during the past six years had been almost phenomenal. During sixteen years, from the Union in 1865 up to 1881, they had increased their charges by 13 only. Since then they have added over fifty charges and 390 preaching centres, or almost doubled their church in six years. As illustrative of the manner in which the country was being opened up, and as indicating one of the causes of the increase, he quoted from the Church Reports for the current year, showing "how what were formerly fifteen charges supporting fifteen ministers, with total stipends of £3315, have been divided into thirty-nine charges supporting thirty-nine ministers, with total stipends of £9408 per annum, each of the thirty-nine charges paying stipends about equal to each of the fifteen which previously covered the same ground, and creating a large army of Christian workers besides." Three of the church funds alone showed on increase during these years of £104,499. He felt it was only right to state that the remarkable growth of the church was due in great measure to the exertions of their general agent, the Rev. J. M. Ross, who was appointed in 1881. By organising the Sustentation Fund, introducing improved methods of administering

their affairs, and by his own untiring devotion, he had infused new life and energy into their church.

In New South Wales education was secular, but with a proviso of exceptional importance for the church. The Education Act provided that the minister of every recognised denomination should have the right, once a week, to go to the public schools, and for one hour, or if he takes boys and girls separately, for two hours, instruct the children of his own denomination in the Word of God. This privilege had only been taken advantage of so far by the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, and by them it was highly valued.

He suggested that when emigrants set out for New South Wales, parents, friends, or minister should send a note to the Presbyterian minister of the district in which they settled, informing him of the fact. In that way many might be saved from lapsing into nonchurch-going.

The Rev. J. C. REYNEKE (Dutch Reformed Church, South Africa). -The Dutch Reformed Church was established in Cape Colony about the year 1665, when that country was in the possession of the Dutch. The Church in South Africa consists essentially of the Dutch element, and likewise of the descendants of the pious Huguenots, who came there from France during the great persecution. The latter probably preponderate over the former. Before the year 1800 there were about seven congregations; in 1850 about forty-six; and this year 170, with 150 ordained ministers. The total number of communicants is 121,600, and of adherents 286,700. That is the whole Church in South Africa.

The Church in Cape Colony, which I represent in this Conference, has about 100 congregations with 83,232 members. The first ministers of our church, of course, came from Holland, the mother country; and later on, many came from Scotland. Later still, the necessity was felt of having a training theological seminary for ministers. This is situated at Stellenbosch. About 110 ministers have gone from that institution, and are doing good work all over South Africa, in Cape Colony, in the Free State, in the Transvaal, and even in Natal.

Our church has thus far done very little for mission work, one of the reasons being that the ministers have their hands full of other duties, including the onerous one of visiting their people, who are scattered sometimes thirty, and even fifty, miles apart. The church commenced mission work about 1857. Now there are twenty mission churches with coloured congregations, twenty ordained missionaries in Cape Colony, and 3958 communicants. We are also doing a little for foreign missions. There are four principal stations with seven

ordained missionaries in the Transvaal, on the banks of the Orange River, and in Bechuanaland. Of late years great interest has been shown in Sunday-schools, which are in a flourishing condition. Education is going forward rapidly in Cape Colony and other States. One blessed result of this Alliance, I hope, will be to unite not only the Continental, but more especially the far-off Colonial churches, in one brotherly bond.

The Council then proceeded further to discussion on the subject of Thursday forenoon, "The Duty of the Church in reference to tendencies of a more intellectual kind bearing on Christian faith and life." Intending speakers were asked to send up their names, and were called on accordingly:

The Rev. JOHN H. ORR, D.D. (Antrim), said :—I am thankful that the Council of the Alliance has consented to give a half-hour or more to the further discussion of the important papers which were read on last Thursday morning. To only one of these papers, namely that of Dr. Marcus Dods, shall I direct attention; and any criticism I may offer will be tendered in no captious or fault-finding spirit, but simply from a sense of duty to this Alliance, to the truth, to the Church of God, and to the Church's Great King and Head.

The paper of Dr. Dods, it will be remembered, was entitled"How far is the Church responsible for Present Scepticism?" In answering that question, the writer, as it seems to me, needlessly fell into errors, against which it behoves us to raise our protest. If it be said his errors were errors of expression, rather than of intellectual conception, I would only observe that expression and conception usually correspond, and that upon such a subject as the writer treated, both careful conception and careful expression were requisite.

First, the paper conveyed this error, that the Church might produce such a type of Christianity-nay, was bound to produce such a type of Christianity, as would render misconceptions of Christianity impossible. Now, I submit, that is making a demand which is unreasonable a demand which in the nature of things it is beyond the power of the Church to satisfy. Misconception of Christianity will not only be possible but certain, irrespective altogether of the type of Christianity which the Church may exhibit, so long as human nature remains what it is in other words, so long as the human understanding is naturally blinded, and the human will is naturally antagonistic to God and to holiness.

Our Lord and Saviour, it will be admitted, produced in His person, teaching, and work, a type of Christianity which was perfect -absolutely faultless. Yet were there not misconceptions regarding

Himself and His doctrine, by the sceptics of His day, as serious as any into which men now fall? Did the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Herodians believe on Him? Did they not say He was Beelzebub, and had a devil, and was mad, that He was "a gluttonous man and winebibber "? And His doctrine they entirely misconceived, and even the disciples partially misconceived. Light, it should never be forgotten, does not confer on man the seeing faculty. When He who was the Light of the World came and shone in the darkness, "the darkness comprehended it not." If the Church today could present to men the very truth and holiness of heaven, there would still be misconception, and the race of sceptics would not disappear.

But the paper also conveyed that the Church has allowed faith in Christ to become identified in the popular mind with faith in a number of doctrines respecting Christ. This certainly is not true of the Evangelical Church. She has taught throughout all her branches, in her creeds and from her pulpits, that saving faith is not the intellectual belief of any number of doctrines, however Scriptural; or even the belief of any number of doctrines concerning the Son of God; but that it is the reception by the soul of Christ Himself, and reliance upon His finished work for life and salvation.

Then I take exception to the view presented in the paper as to the demand of the Saviour, and the binding of men to faith in the

infallibility of Scripture. Dr. Dods said, "What Christ required was that men should follow Him. He did not require them to accept a number of propositions about Him." But were men to follow only His example? Were they not to follow His teachings as well? Is He not the Great Prophet whom the Church is to hear? I thought the Voice from heaven said to the disciples, and to all men, "Hear ye Him;" and that He himself declared, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death; ""If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." Men and brethren, whether we be Christians or not, we are bound to accept every proposition that is in the Bible, whether it respects doctrine or worship, Christ or duty. We are not at liberty to reject anything. But our salvation depends upon our acceptance of, and submission to, Christ Himself."

Rev. Dr. PETTI CREW (Londonderry) said the papers read on Thursday morning were able, and, on the whole, very valuable. There was one of them, however, with which, in common with other friends, he did not find himself in cordial sympathy-he referred to the paper on the question, "How far is the Church responsible for present unbelief?" He took very serious exception to the whole tone and tendency of that paper. He was sorry to say there was scarcely a