only a credible profession of faith in Christ as a condition of private membership and communion.

This anomaly has already attracted the attention of the Church and led to measures looking towards its removal. The last Assembly appointed a committee to report to the next some suitable form for universal use in our churches. We trust they will look well to the real spirit and language of our Directory of Worship on this whole subject relative to the admission of the baptized and unbaptized to the Lord's Supper. We hope that all concerned will inquire: 1. Precisely what the Scripture requires or authorizes on the subject. 2. What our standards permit and require. See Directory for Worship, chap. viii., 4. and chap. ix. 3. That they will recommend what is neither in conflict with the Scriptures nor our Constitution. 4. That they will especially note the difference in these respects put between baptized children of the Church and others in making a profession of religion. 5. That all concerned will particularly inquire into the proper aim and scope of the examination of candidates for the communion required in our Directory. It is in regard to their "knowledge and piety." As to the former the object is simply to ascertain whether they understand the import of a Christian profession and of coming to the Lord's Supper. But as to the second, there is more difficulty. Is it for the purpose of finding such positive evidence of a genuine Christian experience, that the session may positively pronounce a judgment that the candidate is regenerated," and of making such a positive judgment so formed a condition sine qua non of admission to the table? Or is it for the purpose of finding negatively whether there are any heresies, scandals or inconsistencies that destroy the credibility of the profession-and therefore should debar from communion? May any qualifications be exacted for the first communion, that may not for all after communion? These have been and may again come to be momentous questions.

Our Congregational brethren give many signs of awakening to new thought and inquiry on this subject. The extreme to which many of their churches pushed the examination of candidates for the Lord's Supper, requiring a written or an oral account in the face of the whole congregation, or even submission to questioning in their presence, of course was bound to suffer reaction; and reactions are very apt to swing to the contrary extreme. This seems to be the present drift, not only in regard to creeds, but examinations for admission to communion. The most marked indication this way, which we have observed, is an article in the New Englander for April, 1872, by Rev. L. W. Bacon, son of Dr. Leonard Bacon. It is mostly made up of extracts from an article in a volume of essays by leading English Independents, entitled Ecclesia. It strongly assails the practice of making an examina

tion as to religious experience by the Church, or before the Church, or by any committee or officer of the Church, a condition of admission to its membership and privileges. It takes the bold ground that such a test is unscriptural, unwarranted, useless, and worse than useless; inasmuch as it keeps from the Lord's Table and church fellowship many pious persons who ought to enjoy them, and drives not a few of Christ's sheep into communions which do not fence them out with such restrictions.

Mr. Bacon is also unsparing in his denunciation of the Congregational practice of requiring assent to church-creeds as a condition of admission to the communion. He considers the former practice intimately connected with the latter, and says, "Considering the complications of our Cis-Atlantic usage with the miserable corruption of imposed creeds, its claim upon the attention of American Congregationalists is a very special one." This is far from being the only symptom we have observed of a similar drift in the Congregational mind.

Now Church-creeds among Congregationalists mean the various creeds of particular churches, to which we have before referred. Hence they included the long and elaborate Calvinistic creeds adopted by so many New England churches, under the lead of godly and orthodox ministers, for the conservation of the faith. In this way many of them became fortresses of some form of Calvinism, when other bulwarks had given away. But it was at length found that, by imposing tests which ought to be exacted of public teachers alone, they were excluding from the Lord's Table many whom he had received, and imposing a yoke which many true disciples were unable to bear. Often the high points of Calvinism, Pedo-Baptism, etc., were made to exclude true Christians from communion. This came more and more to be felt as a sore evil and grievance. Hence these Church-creeds have been largely shortened and simplified to obviate these difficulties, and the cry is waxing louder and louder to abolish them altogether. In the absence of denominational creeds they are made to fulfil two incompatible offices-to be adequate tests of orthodoxy and doctrinal insight in the teachers and officers of the church, and at the same time fair tests of personal piety and fitness for the Lord's Supper.

The reaction that was bound to come against the unwarranted imposition of such long creeds, as likewise against the way of examining into religious experience by Churches or committees reporting the same to Churches, as a condition of communion, is acquiring increased momentum, and, as in all such reactions, is in danger of going to the opposite It threatens to sweep away all creeds and doctrinal standards whether in the Church at large, or individual Churches; to open the

extreme.

door to all who choose, against whom no scandal is provable, to enter and constitute the local Church-the supreme ecclesiastical authorityand establish such standards of doctrine, life and manners as to them may seem good. There is one element of truth in the "new departure" foreshadowed, as to tests of piety and fitness for private membership in the Church. But it is only a perilous half-truth in the absence of proper standards of orthodoxy in the denomination for its officers and ministers. While we fear the results of the experiment now foreshadowed, we will hope for the best.

PROPOSED PROFESSORSHIP OF MISSIONARY INSTRUCTION IN OUR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES.

A venerable missionary for more than a quarter of a century in our Church has sent us an elaborate article on this subject, with the request that it appear in this number, and before the meeting of the next Assembly. We regret that previous engagements of our space make it impossible to comply with this request. But, in order that his positions may be seasonably set before the Church, we give a brief summation of them, without any commitment of ourselves to them.

It is universally conceded, that there is no more important branch of ministerial service than missions-none therefore, on which adequate instruction is more needed-why then should it not be duly provided? The past experience of missionaries has taught what nothing else could teach as to the best method of Missionary work. Why should not our Missionary candidates have the benefit of it? Different forms of heathenism are fortified by different forms of philosophy, often the most acute and formidable. Why should not the Missionary be previously furnished to combat them? As those governments are most successful in war that have the most perfectly trained officers, who are best informed about their work and field, must it not be so as respects the Church militant and her officers?. Foreign Churches, Romish and Protestant, provide such special instruction. It is there, however, too much aside from other ministerial training. It should be mingled with it.

A mere lectureship is inadequate, though well enough as an adjunct to a professorship.

The matters to be taught from such a chair are: 1. The greatness of the work, and the riches of Christ's inheritance in connection with it. 2. An account of each of the missions of our Church and of the countries where

4. The

they are located. 3. The results of Missionary experience. hindrances. 5. The requisites to success. 6. The best manner of approaching the heathen. Instruction in these topics would be interesting to all classes, and beneficial to the future home pastor as well as the missionary.

Such a Professor could give the private personal advice to the future missionary, or one aspiring to be such, which he so much needs. He would contribute to promote that increase of devotees to the missionary work which is so greatly needed, also of missionary zeal and consecration in the church at large.

The need of such a Professorship being proved, how can it be established? It would be in vain to attempt to establish it in each seminary at once. The most that should be attempted at the outset is the founding of a single Professorship of missions for the six seminaries of the Church. Delivering his lectures and instructions to all the students of two of the six seminaries in each year, he would in this way reach all the students in all the seminaries during a three years' course.

As to expense the resources of the Church are ample. As to the time required of the students for this purpose, it could not be better employed. Other objections readily vanish when the importance of the work is appreciated.

We have given only the heads of the argument. We leave to our readers to judge of their weight.

QUESTIONS CONCERNING CANDIDATES AND THE PRESBYTERIES TO

WHICH THEY NATURALLY BELONG.

A valued correspondent sends us the following questions, which deserve consideration in the discussions now going on upon this and related subjects:

Is is not evident from Form of Gov't, Ch. XIV. Sec. II.

1. That the Constitution interprets the phrase Presbytery to which he "naturally belongs," to mean not the Presbytery with one of whose churches the candidate has become connected, but that "within the bounds of which he has ordinarily resided."

2. That a candidate may, if more convenient, (and of this convenience the Constitution makes him the judge, not his Presbytery, nor even the two ministers), put himself under the care of a Presbytery at a distance on producing testimonials of good standing and other requisite qualifications.

3. That the distant Presbytery may receive him, if it pleases, without requiring him to become a member of one of its churches.

4. On the other hand, without such testimonials it cannot receive him, even though he have united with one of its churches.

5. That no Assembly or Board has the right to interfere with this constitutional privilege of candidates for licensure, directly or indirectly, unless some good reason can be given, such as greater expense involved to the funds of the church, &c.

6. That the Assembly and the Board of Education have no right thus to abridge the constitutional privilege of the candidate, simply because he is indigent, more especially when Assembly and Boards have repeatedly declared the principle that their aid is not to be regarded as eleemosynary, but due to those who are presenting themselves as candidates for the work of the Lord in the ministry.

7. Presbyteries cannot hinder candidates from going to the distant but more convenient Presbyteries. It is implied that they, or two ministers belonging to them, are (morally) bound, when called upon, to give the testimonials required if the candidate is deserving of them, and have no other judgment to exercise in the premises.

If these things be so, where was the authority of the last Assembly, and of the Board of Education, in restricting candidates of the Board to the Presbyteries to which they "naturally belong?" What right have they to make distinctions between candidates for the ministry, in face of a Constitutional Rule, giving the candidate the privilege of selecting a more convenient Presbytery?

ART. XII.-CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

THEOLOGY.

Sermons on Living Subjects. By HORACE BUSHNELL. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872. These twenty-two sermons give a very just representation of their distinguished author. The most cursory examination of them will discover the strong points, whether better or worse, which constitute his individuality, and have made him famous; the object at once of unbounded admiration and unflinching opposition, and this not merely in the world, or even the church, at large, but among the best and truest Christians. Genius, poetry, eloquence, originality, and brilliancy of thought and diction, marvellous and enchanting, till they sometimes run to an extreme of oddity and quaintness that suggests an affectation which we are sure must be altogether alien to such a hater of cant, conspire to charm all cultivated readers and hearers. Not only so. But they abound in sagacious, practical observations, in fervid devotional passages, in just and discriminating moral reasonings, and in spiritual inculcations which are fitted to charm and edify our most advanced Christians. It is rare that we read a discourse more lofty, beautiful, or quickening, than the third, entitled "Feet and Wings," and it is none the less so for the tinge of mysticism that contributes to etherialize it. Of an entirely different kind, but equally excellent in its way, is that entitled, "How to be a Christian in trade;" and, although run to an extreme, "Self-examination Examined" is a fair equipoise to Edwards on the Affections and other like