jority force it? Would the minority accept it? The line of danger was reached, but it was not crossed. The moment came when division was made possible, but the moment passed by, and we believe that it cannot return. When the President of the Board declared, at the critical time, his recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that there are two wings in the Board, and that each has the right to its own opinions, his declaration marked the turning point in the long continued controversy. His exact words were these:

"Brethren, I have no single desire in the world for this Board except as it may be in consistent harmony with the principle, which is a controlling one with me, to bring the members of this Board together. There was a party in the city some years ago that was described as angelic being, because it had two wings. Now, this Board has two wings, and it is perfectly legitimate that it should. We have the right, all of us, to our opinion, and we are to deal rightly and fairly with one another. I have believed as strongly as I have ever believed in anything in the future, not the subject of prophecy, that in the course of a year or two, if we could only hold together without these personal questions coming in, we should find ourselves agreeing, not in opinion necessarily, but in feeling, in purpose, and in work."

In these words he struck the note of comprehensiveness. It was the word for which men had waited, for without it it was felt that there could be no progress, no peace. When it came, it was seen that the true word had been uttered, and that in accepting it the Board had reached the beginning of the end of the controversy. It was the utterance of this declaration which justified the hope under which Dr. Storrs two years ago accepted the presidency of the Board. In his letter of acceptance he said, "It was only in the hope that some way might appear in which we could all walk together that I consented to review the question which had appeared already decided," namely, the question of accepting or declining the presidency. And in the prospect of realizing this hope, through the use which he made of his personal influence, we repeat with enlarged meaning the words which we then used in commenting on his letter of acceptance: "If Dr. Storrs shall prove to be a leader into this way of peace, none will rejoice more heartily than we nor will we allow ourselves to question that his devotion to justice and liberty is as controlling now as in the days when he was associated in the editorship of 'The Independent' with Joseph P. Thompson and Leonard Bacon.”

As we have intimated, the real outcome of the meeting at New York was the formal recognition of the fact that there are two wings in the Board, and that each has the right to its opinions. This granted the way to peace, and coöperation is open. It was natural that a committee should be appointed "to inquire into the methods of administration pursued at the missionary rooms in Boston, and to recommend any changes which shall appear to them needful and important," but the work of this Committee, apart from the reiteration of the policy which called it into

being, is the work of adjustment, the settlement of methods rather than of principles. The principle has been established. It is the principle of comprehensiveness, of which the spiritual expression is fellowship and the practical expression coöperation.

Meanwhile the question arises, what of the immediate future? Pending the report of the committee of inquiry and recommendation, what shall be the working policy of the Board, especially with regard to the acceptance of missionary candidates? To this question the Board gave a direct answer. The letter of Dr. Storrs in accepting the presidency was made at his request, or rather as a condition of his acceptance of a reëlection, the platform of the Board for the ensuing year. We do not understand that this action absolutely repeals the resolutions of the Board under which the Prudential Committee has acted for the past two years, but we do understand that it is to be interpretative of these resolutions. And with this important circumstance in addition: Dr. Storrs, as President of the Board, has been added to the Prudential Committee, where we very naturally expect that he will act, as occasion may offer, as the interpreter of his own words. This fact, taken in connection with his more recent declaration to which we have referred, invests his opinions then expressed with great interest. We quote so much of his letter as refers to the proper method of dealing with missionary candidates, with

out comment.

"The Prudential Committee has been instructed for the second time to exercise caution as to the appointment of any candidates holding a doctrine which the Board yet esteems an unacceptable innovation, and whose tendencies it judges, as at present advised, to be perversive and dangerous. But this instruction clearly allows, if it does not suggest, that the Committee is to consider each case by itself, and, in the few instances likely to arise where there is any uncertainty on the subject, is to form its judgment with kindness and candor, as to the amount and the spiritual force of any tendency which may appear toward the opinion which it must not indorse. It has already unanimously decided, as I understand it, that when one does not find the new theory sustained by the Bible, and does not hold it as part of an accepted speculative scheme, but leaves the whole momentous matter to which it refers in the hands of Him who, as Judge of all the earth, will do what is right in wisdom and love, no hindrance is interposed to immediate appointment. This seems to me entirely accordant, in letter and spirit, with the repeated instruction of the Board; and I have no doubt that the same course will hereafter be pursued, and that considerate care will be exercised to discriminate between the want of an opinion and the presence of one which implies or favors the objectionable theory, - between even a vague hope, acknowledged to be unsupported by the Scripture, only personal to one's self, held in silent submission to subsequent correction, and a distinct dogmatic tendency or a formulated conviction.

No doubt the shadings of thought at this point will be delicate and intricate in some minds; while in most, the fact that the Master said nothing about any

future opportunities, with the intensity of his appeals for immediate repentance, and the solemn urgency of his imperative command for instantaneous missionary effort will make the theory of such future opportunities appear quite incredible. In the other and smaller class of cases, I am sure that the majority of the Board would wish, as I should, that great pains should be taken to disentangle feeling from conviction, a sympathetic impulse from a controlling theological bias; that constant tenderness should be shown to those who are treading with diffident steps on the high places of inquiry for the truth; and that due regard should always be had to the probable influence of an earnest missionary zeal, and the educational force of missionary work pursued in a temper of loyalty to Christ, upon the formation of future opinion in those whose impressions are tentative and unfixed. I do not imagine that any material difference of judgment will here arise between the Committee with the Secretaries, on the one hand, and the Board on the other. The Committee may not pass certain definite lines; but affectionate sympathy and Christian solicitude toward any whose minds are not set toward conclusions which the Board as a body does not accept will no doubt be the common impulse."

The theological significance of the result at New York may be wrongly estimated by those who are not familiar with the doctrinal views of the different parties in the constituency of the Board. Strictly speaking, the action had no theological significance. No one's opinion was changed or affected by it. The majority did not thereby withdraw their disavowal and censure of the theory or hope which had given rise to the theological controversy, and the minority did not withdraw their entertainment of it, or sympathy with it, or acknowledgment of its rights. If the theological attitude of the constituency of the Board toward the vexed question of Eschatology, especially as related to the salvation of the heathen, were analyzed, it would probably be found to show some such result as this. A part of the majority holding to the traditional theory of the Board as set forth in quotations and references in the pamphlet of the Rev. Dr. A. C. Thompson, the Chairman of the Prudential Committee: another and probably larger part repudiating this conception of the universal perdition of the heathen, and finding in the Atonement the ground on which, through various unknown agencies, the heathen are actually being saved in vast numbers without the knowledge of Christ. Of the minority, some entertaining the theory or hope that the knowledge of the love of God in Christ will at some time and in some way be given to all as a motive to repentance and faith: others not accepting this particular view, but allowing that it is as permissible as any view which they, or any of the majority, may hold. The range of opinion upon this subject is wide, and varying in degrees of positiveness, with a large element of agnosticism in the holding of all opinion at the point of application to the destiny of particular persons or classes of perFor there are two great truths involved in the discussion of which no one can see the complete adjustment, or tell what the result will be in their application to a particular case, namely, the truth of the univer

sons.

sality of Christianity in its relation of motive to the race, and that of the self-determining power of sin in the individual. Evidently there ought to be liberty of opinion in regard to the relative place of these truths in the Christian system. As was said at the meeting, "We must differ in opinion unless one or both parties are false to their convictions, which above all things may God forbid " a liberty of difference which was expressly recognized in the closing words of Dr. Storrs's plea for agreement, "not in opinion necessarily, but in feeling, in purpose and in work."

The one effect of the action at New York in its theological bearings is to remand theological discussion to the place where it belongs, and where it always has belonged, outside the American Board. A Board constituted for missionary ends is no place for the philosophical or critical or even spiritual treatment of controverted truth. That demands its own time and place. It belongs within the domain of reverent Christian scholarship, where each and every truth has a fair field, and must expect to abide the issue. To quote again from Dr. Storrs's letter of acceptance: The questions of Eschatology, vast as they are, wide in their relations, intensely attractive to many minds, are sure to be discussed in years to come, perhaps more largely and more profoundly than they have been hitherto. Congregational scholars and divines will take, no doubt, a distinguished part in such discussions; and it may be that in their final result the new opinion is to gain such a power as it has not yet received; or it may be on the other hand, as many anticipate, that it will disappear, except from individual minds, and that to the general devout thought of the earnest missionary church it will dissolve itself into the baseless fabric of a dream."

The theology of the Board, in its Eschatology, must always be that of the individuals and churches making up its constituency. At present the constituency of the Board has no clear and well-defined Eschatology. Nothing is more evident than the rejection, even on the part of a majority of the majority, of the belief in regard to the universal perdition of the heathen, held at the date of the origin of the Board, and constituting one of the chief motives of its origin. All discussion, therefore, is timely and necessary which may serve in the end to replace the abandoned belief on this subject with a belief which is at once positive and tenable, a belief which, if it is not in itself the missionary motive, shall be in harmony with and support the motive which is now dominant and active. The understanding now is that such discussion shall go on outside the Board and not within.

The result at New York in its missionary bearings cannot be overestimated. Even in advance of the final settlement, the principle of coöperation can be put at work for immediate results. Without doubt the missions which belong to that branch of the Church which the Board

represents have suffered through dissensions. As Congregationalists we have not kept pace in our missionary efforts with the growth of the denomination, nor with the advance in missionary zeal and enthusiasm in some of the other denominations. Occupying the great vantage ground inherited through the American Board, we have not fully used our present opportunities. The large and unexpected legacies bequeathed the Board have allowed some enlargement of the work; but we ought to make ourselves more and more independent of this uncertain element of progress. Missions belong to the living church, and are its peculiar responsibility and privilege. We have begun the settlement of our differences none too soon to take our part in the general advance of Christianity throughout the world. The call for reinforcement and enlargement which came from every quarter, the call not of despair but of hope and opportunity, was a plea for union, fellowship, and coöperation. Especially is this true of the appeal from Japan so urgent, so inspiring, so definite with its specification of towns, cities, and provinces, open to and in waiting for Christianity. It is a matter of profound gratitude that in the face of these appeals from brethren of our own and of other races we can turn our thoughts and our energies from the things about which we differ to those in which we agree, relegating opinions to their legitimate fields of discussions, and uniting in the active and aggressive work of Christ among the nations.

CONCILIATION NOT COMPROMISE: THE COLOR QUESTION IN THE CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL.

Ar the recent Congregational Council convened at Worcester, two sets of delegates presented themselves from the churches in Georgia. They represented respectively colored and white churches. But this fact did not prove that the color question was involved, because the churches had had an independent history. The colored churches, fifteen in number, had been organized in connection with the work of the American Missionary Association. The white churches, fifty-eight in number, were originally Free Protestant Methodist churches, which had about a year and a half ago adopted the Congregational polity and creed.

The colored delegates were admitted without question. An ecclesiastical difficulty arose in regard to the reception of the white delegates, which was intensified by the fear that the difficulty might in some way conceal the color question. The difficulty upon its face was that the white churches had presented not only delegates from the district or local conferences, but also a delegate from the general conference, corresponding to a State association. But there was already a State association composed of colored churches, which held the ground and was entitled to representation. And it soon came out in discussion that continued but unsuccessful attempts had been made to unite the two into