Church of Christ has ever clustered, subject, like all else on earth, to failures and imperfections, stained many a time with the disgrace of falling short of its high calling, chastened for its shortcomings, but wondrously blessed when it awakened to the sense of its mighty mission. This organisation we steadfastly maintain as being, next to God's written revelation, His greatest gift to struggling men. "We cannot afford," I quote one of the last utterances of Bishop Lightfoot, "we cannot afford to sacrifice any portion of the faith once delivered to the saints; we cannot surrender for any immediate advantages the threefold ministry which we have inherited from Apostolic times, and which is the historic backbone of the Church." It is this historic Church which Congregationalism entirely sacrifices. Not only has the past history of the Church been a vast blunder, but it shall have no history in the future. Each congregation is to be free and independent, and is to rest on its own consciousness of communion with the Lord. It is as though in civil life we believed in home and heaven, and took no account of city or of state.
We of the Church of England have increasing reason to rejoice that our country, in its time of trial, preserved the immemorial heritage of the Catholic Church. The days are past when it can be regarded as a matter of policy or convenient arrangement. It has become the object of our deepest reverence, of our most passionate regard. We can point, as to the witness of God's presence, to the marvellous recuperative power which it has shown and is showing; to its capacity to adapt itself to altered circumstances and conditions
