What is the allegiance due to its head? A deep and all-yielding spirit of obedience to him by whom its members are justified, accepted and exalted to the fullest fellowship and heirship of grace and glory, and whose supreme and absolute right it is to claim in ali their practice that his will shall be their only and invariable rule, and that their lives, substance, talents, and all shall be fully surrendered according to his pleasure for the benefit of the church and the world, and also as a manifestation of their sincere attachment to him.

What is it in its laws and methods of government? Constitutionalism! It is not a species of blind and erring absolutism which ever needs some strong foreign force or check to control its action, bind its energy, and stay its arm, in order to prevent its degeneration into the worst of tyranny-tyranny over the minds and consciences of men. Nor is it a lax, effete, and powerless latitudinarianism, involving no responsibilities, allowing its provisions to receive every variety of interpretation, and admitting almost every form of opinion. It is a system of clear, well defined, distinct, and rational constitutionalism which provides that its true and legitimate aims, principles, powers, and provisions shall be carried into effect according to approved constitutional means and methods, and by these alone.

What is it in its aims? It is an embodiment of living faith in a living God; an effusion of the rarest beneficence towards the whole human race. It is grace and truth in force and form for the world's good; divinest thought and devoutest feeling conspire in its provision to promote man's highest weal; elevating hope and all-embracing love put forth in it their mighty efforts with only such outer means as can proceed from those whose consecration and whose present and continuous service is entire, spontaneous, and in some degree after the example of Jesus, and those who in the first Christian ages were his.

What is it in its past? It is not perfection. There may have been in its precedure occasionally the adoption of questionable expedients; the false schemes of the interested, the ebullitions] of selfishness, and the eddyings of human folly may sometimes have diminished its strength, blemished its records, and grieved its genuine friends; but in these the rule of its action is not to be sought. Wherever and whenever introduced, they have been the exceptional-unwarrantably and dangerously exceptional-and certainly ought not to be repeated until they have the force of precedents, and superinduce in the body a general and fatally chronic cause of weakness and decay. In these questionable or obviously erroneous expedients we are not furnished with the characteristic past of the Connexion; this is to be seen in such scenes as that at Bemersley, when the great, good, and now glorified Hugh Bourne received the grace of God, and when to him all

things became new, and he desired in his heart that friends and foes, and even the whole world, if possible, should be saved. The characteristic past of the Connexion is seen in that power of faith and love which led its earliest preachers to pass from village to village without episcopal ordination, educational preparation, or a cleared way, to preach Christ to the wanderer, till the reclaimed abounded in neighbouring churches, and a new and separate community, of which they had been the unintentional founders, startled them by its necessary and pressing demand for leadership. The past of the Connexion may be read in that nobleness which ever since the conviction dawned upon its leading minds, that God had a distinct work for it to do in the world, has dared the utmost, met enraged mobs without fear, carried God's truth into the neglected and depraved abodes of infamy, conquered the most rugged hearts by the power of quenchless love, planted churches, built chapels, and established schools without aid from the state, and spent life and strength until the three kingdoms, several of the colonies, parts of the United States, and even isolated places in India and Africa have resounded with the songs of its ransomed ones. This past is—as we desire the future to be-in harmony with the wise and judicious words of one of our leading connexional missionaries (Rev. J. Long), "When in the course of Providence and in the path of duty it is clear that a work should be undertaken for Christ, it is the best way to do it, to do it at once, and above all to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will give the needful blessing."

What is it in its present? Its present the gathered fruit of innumerable toils the precious result of devotedness to God and intense love for man-is a position of impregnable strength in the hearts of the people, securing a constantly accumulating power in property, resources, institutions, and means of doing good in the world; and also a respectful, confiding deference and recognition among the various classes of British society, and developing a wonderful elasticity and adaptation in meeting the wants of those places accessible to its agency.

And what is it in the immediate future? A marvellous power for good or for evil over vast multitudes of men. It has a great and constantly growing responsibility. If it is faithful unto its Divine Head, itself, its spirit, its duty, its laws, its aim, its past and even its present, its influence may increase unto the last day; but if unfaithful it must wane, or be changed into a deceitful and misleading influence.

Focalise, therefore, all these considerations:-the divine spirituality which unites this body in its members to Christ; its duty to the Lord Jesus, of which voluntaryism, similar in operation to the unworldly, self-abnegating voluntaryism of the man Christ

Jesus, and to that of his first disciples, is undoubtedly a prominent part; its essential constitutionalism, including conditions under which Christian and scriptural voluntaryism has had, and will continue to have ample scope for developement, but which will not, by any possibility of construction admit of what is so opposite and contrary to the spirit and tendency as the reception of state aid for religious educational purposes. Its glorious, world-wide, and beneficent aims; its vast accumulation of accomplished deeds; its unshaded reputation of being a sound and useful section of the Christian church; its influence, which is sure to grow with the accomplishment of its specific work; and in the concentrated light of these vitally important considerations it must be evident that there can be no supposed advantages which will warrant the acceptance of an aid that will change the whole connexional character, strip it of its peculiar power, and unfit it for its great and glorious mission, and that it is utterly wrong and absolutely unnecessary for the Connexion to adopt such a miserable makeshift, and resort to an expedient so questionable as this proposed reception of government aid for its day schools.

A consideration of the Connexion's peculiar position in relation to day schools will render it still more obvious that government aid is unnecessary. The Connexion's power of adaptation to the wants of many places, and its general ability to obtain standing and support in the smallest of them, make it impossible for it to establish schools wherever its operations extend. Day schools are not a necessity of its existence; they are important to it, and will hereafter be more so; but they are as yet few in number, and it is highly probable that the proportion of their increase will be small for a considerable period, as the Connexion is in no degree dependent upon their establishment for the accomplishment of its specific work amongst the ignorant and degraded. Of the 6,175 reported preaching places, there are probably more than 5,000 in which it is not possible to establish connexional day schools. In a few of the larger of these places there are ably conducted and voluntarily supported undenominational day schools already; in the smaller places connexional day schools could not be sustained, either with government aid or without it; now if the Connexion introduced day schools into these larger places, already supplied with educational facilities, the step would not be necessary, and its usefulness exceedingly questionable, and the attempt in the smaller places would be beset with difficulties that could not be removed. This appears to us the peculiar relation in which the Connexion stands to day schools. Wherever it has established day schools, wherever it is possible or prudent for it to establish them, it has the "practicable" and requisite power to call forth all the means needed for their support. The Connexion in all cases where a day school is

indispensable, can command parental influence and support, and in most instances this will be found amply sufficient; but when, in town or village, it may not be adequate to meet the necessary outlay, then the Connexion can fall back upon the invaluable auxiliary aid of its members, brethren, and friends, who, understanding the obligation to give as God hath prospered them, and feeling sufficiently interested in educational measures, are prepared to contribute "as good stewards of the manifest grace of God." This invaluable aid may always be found, either in the places where the schools are required and established, or in other parts of the Connexion. And now that educational measures are under consideration, and while so much monetary power is lying comparatively undeveloped and unutilised for connexional purposes, an excellent opportunity is offered to direct general attention to the importance of free-will offerings to God, and also to institute other means for the establishment and maintenance of a General Day School Auxiliary Fund, by which denominational education could be promoted without any revolution of principle or taking wrongly and unnecessarily government grants, or resorting to means at all unquestionable. Let the Connexion rise to the greatness of its privileged position and in the strength of allbelieving confidence and trust in God, its all-sufficient and living Head, meet its weighty obligation, and the result will speedily prove that, baptised afresh with the Holy Spirit's power, strong in the consciousness of a living Saviour's presence, and rich in the blessings of a Triune God, it is capable of accomplishing all that legitimately falls within its province of action.

R. T.

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ART. VIII. METAPHYSICAL PREACHING.

HE institution of preaching is designed to convince man of his spiritual need, lead him to God, and establish him in truth and righteousness; and any inquiry designed to render preaching more effective cannot be regarded as unimportant. This is all we offer in justification of the following observations on metaphysical preaching. It may be proper to state that the metaphysical method is not advanced as a model of what all preaching ought to be. Probably no specific kind of preaching-whether the distinctive

characteristic be found in the form under which a subject is discussed, the nature of the subject itself, or the philosophical spirit in which the discussion is conducted-ought to be elevated to the dignity of model preaching. The intellectual proclivities of men differ widely, and what constitutes the excellence of one may not appear as the distinguishing excellence of another. In preaching the particular endowments of men may find extensive scope for development, and be directed by unity of spirit to the accomplishment of the same great design. Within this sphere the imagination may find ample space and sufficient material, and here also the faculty of abstraction may realise its highest exercise; the minutest criticism, and the loftiest philosophical generalisation have equally a place and function in the institution of preaching. But while the metaphysical method cannot be advanced as the model to which all preaching ought to conform, and while allowance must be made for predominant mental tendencies, we are nevertheless disposed to invest it with considerable importance, and hesitate not to avow a conviction that its more extensive cultivation would be an unquestionable advantage both to preachers and churches.

Against metaphysical preaching there exists a considerable degree of prejudice, arising principally from misunderstanding. It is commonly regarded as dreamy, indefinite, pithless discourse, divorced from practical aim, and beyond the apprehension of the great majority of hearers. Metaphysical method in preaching is confounded with the preaching of metaphysics. Now, whatever occasion there may have been given in the progress of speculative thought for the common opinion concerning metaphysical science, we demur to this dictum as furnishing a correct view of metaphysical preaching. It is acknowledged that Christian truth affords amplest scope for the highest exercise of human thought, and it is also allowed that it is definitely and directly related to human life and destiny; but it is equally unquestionable that the relations of Christian truth to human life can only be fully realised when that truth is clearly apprehended and fully understood. The speculative and practical elements in human nature are so closely related that whatever affects the one is felt through the entire extent of the other. Every speculative error has its corresponding practical sin. False views of truth produce sinful practice in life. A man's duties arise from his relationship to God on the one hand, and to his fellows on the other; now let him have false conceptions of God, and erroneous views of human nature, and he will have correspondingly false views of his duties. By the metaphysical method Christian truth is presented in its great and guiding principles, its fundamental relations to human life are developed, so that instead of being indefinite and unpractical, it is

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