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spiritual life, or, as it was termed at the last Congress, 'the life of godliness,' as in the clergy so in the individual souls of all. Three successive conferences have produced papers and addresses of remarkable depth, spiritual and intellectual, to which I do not refer in particular, only because I have made a rule to myself to abstain absolutely from individual references. They have shown how much the High Churchman values personal religion, and how far the Low Churchman has been brought to recognise system and external order in the discharge of the more delicate offices of the Pastorate. At the same time, there is a risk in giving too great amplitude to this branch of the Congressional work. The danger which may be apprehended is, an over-encouragement to lay bare personal experiences, infinitely interesting to the soul which has undergone them, but not of a nature to make public without some deterioration of that finer moral sense in the person himself, which can hardly flourish without the co-existence of scrupulous reticence.
The religious influence of the Congresses makes itself directly felt through the devotional apparatus which is provided as an essential part of their programme. Every Congress, at least from the one at Manchester, has commenced its session with a solemn service in the great church of the meeting place, followed by a concio from some distinguished divine, except in two cases where the want of any leading church caused service and sermon to be multiplied. During the days of sitting, early Communions, more frequent mattins and evensongs, and noteworthy sermons have been provided in the various churches of the town, with the specific recognition of the Congress managers. On three occasions a stately dimissory service has been held upon the morrow Saturday after the session, in the cathedral of the neighbouring city within whose diocese stood the Congress town. On these exhibitions of the worshipping Church of England in the face of week-day
