Periodicals that are published in the interest of our different Denominations. That list has been nearly doubled in size, while a beginning has been made of a Catalogue of works that, written by members of some of our Churches, have been published during the last four years. The list given is submitted only as a specimen of what would be a useful compilation, and which may be largely added to on future occasions. In conclusion, your Committee would impress on the Delegates to this Council the importance of assisting to the utmost of their power in the collecting of these Statistics. One of the special objects contemplated at the formation of the Alliance was the " 'gathering and circulating of information respecting the different Churches"-that thus there might be strengthened that most legitimate denominational spirit whose absence rather than whose presence has so frequently characterised our Churches. Nothing is so fitted to do this as the knowledge by our people of the history and condition of the Churches of their faith and order, and hence, the necessity for having full and accurate Statistical Returns. When such Returns have been fully gathered and made known to other Christian Churches, there will then be accorded to us by other Communions that recognition to which our Churches are entitled, but which may be at present oftentimes withheld, but withheld simply because of ignorance of our position. It is within the knowledge of your Committee, that a deep impression has been made on other Churches by the Report of 1884. But that Report was only the beginning of our inquiry as to a multitude of facts that have never yet been adequately collected and arranged. The work then begun must therefore be carried forward to an extent far beyond the limits of a solitary Report to any one Council, for till this be done our people will never know the greatness or the grandeur of that Reformed Church to which it is our privilege and our honour to belong. Ours is an inheritance second to none among the Churches of Christendom, and the very Mission of this Alliance is to bring home the profoundest certainty of that fact to each member of our Communion. Every consideration, therefore, of Denominational pride and affection should lead the delegates to cooperate most zealously in this work; and then, as we walk about Zion and go round about her, telling her towers and marking her bulwarks, we shall be able to see and to show that our portion of those battlements and defences is in good order, well built, well manned, well kept, and that we, as a branch of the great Church of Christ, while standing shoulder to shoulder with brethren of other Churches, are diligent in our guardianship of the high interests entrusted to our keeping, and are doing our part in holding fast and in holding forth the Faith once delivered to the saints. In the hope that the Council agrees with the Committee in its sense of the value of this work, it is respectfully suggested that in receiving this Report, the Council adopt the following Resolutions "1st. That this Council gratefully acknowledges the assistance rendered by brethren in many lands to its Committee on Statistics, by which there has been laid before it to-day so many facts of the deepest interest to the Churches of this Alliance; that it most cordially thanks those brethren for their services, and earnestly requests that they will continue to aid in the preparation of the Reports to be presented to successive Councils of the Alliance. "2d. That this Council desires that, by means of these Reports, there may ultimately be placed on record the whole series of facts connected with or bearing on the history, condition, and working of the various Churches of this Alliance, and therefore, in re-appointing the Committee, authorises and instructs it to include in its Report to next Council all such matters as may come legitimately within the range of this commission." All which is respectfully submitted. G. D. MATHEWS. |