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complicated machinery, yet equally respectable. But I am not content with a negative; for, while I very fully admit the extent of the responsibility thrown upon the casual organisers, and while I reserve the desirability of a larger permanent element (which is growing up), I contend that, upon the whole, admitting the powerful factor of outside opinion, there could not well have been devised a less offensive machinery for summarising the appointed work. The Congress, however constituted, can only debate upon a limited selection of questions; and it would be plainly monstrous to leave them to the accident of 'first come, first served,' by letting the aspirants fill up the notice papers by a chance priority. The committee steps in, with the feeling of responsibility which English plain-speaking brings home to all who are bold enough to accept voluntary work of a confessedly delicate description. The list of subjects has varied in interest from year to year; and there have, perhaps, been occasions on which it has erred on the side of timidity. On the other hand, the successive choice of selected readers and speakers has been subjected to much sharp, though legitimate, criticism from those who are certainly not the meekest of mankind — the controversialists of the religious press. The assignment of parts after the entertainment had been settled is even a greater difficulty than the preliminary one. Only the abstract merit of the subject-matter has to be appraised; but when the from four to six selected athletes have to be entered, a bewildering variety of cross considerations arises within an area full small for their sufficient adjustment. Those who know too much may sometimes be as ineligible as those who know too little. The Church has, for some questions, to be assumed as composed of two, and for others as of three parties, or else to be dealt with as an united fraternity. The general success of the Congress demands a certain recognition of official, political, and social distinction, as well as of technical knowledge;
