are simply an officer of the State, and as long as the State maintains certain formulas you ought to maintain them.' Brethren, I have an interest also in the welfare of my Church and country just because I am the officer of a national institution. I am not merely in the position of the member of a club who does not happen to like the laws of his club; although, even in that case I might, through the club committee, agitate for a reform; but, as a clergyman of the Established Church of England, I have a national position independent of my position as a member of a Society.

Now you have often heard the argument flung at all who sigh for any reform in Church or State-'If you don't like the Church, leave the Church.' It is also an argument to which political reformers have been very freely treated of late-'If you want to have the ballot or manhood suffrage, or such-like plebian abominations, why don't you go to America, or some place where these institutions are encouraged?' But ought we to speak thus to citizens, to our fellow-countrymen, who have an interest in the soil, and a voice in the government of the country? Is it either generous or just? Ought we to address such language to the ministers of a Church which still boasts that it represents the national religion?

I, as a minister-if I were a member of any Christian sect outside the Church it would be otherwise-I ought to have a right to say my say just as much as people who are engaged in carrying on the government of the country have a right to protest against the abuses they

may discover, or think they discover.1 Is any other professional man treated as the clergyman is treated? Do we say to the doctor, 'You must not investigate the truth about medicine, because you are a doctor?' It is because he is a doctor that he is entitled to do so. Would you say to the lawyer or the judge, 'You must not point out what is wrong in the law?' Why, the judges on the bench, when they find something in the law which is opposed to their sense of justice, say, 'I am sorry I cannot punish you more, but the law won't let me;' or, 'I am sorry I am obliged to punish you so much, but it is the law of the land. I register my protest, and I will agitate for a reform.' And any lawyer may publish a pamphlet, or make a speech, to show where he thinks. the required alteration is needed. He may He may be wrong, but he is not punished for that. He may be mistaken, but he need not retire from his profession because he chooses to speak out. And had we lived in the days of rotten boroughs, we should have voted under protest; or, under the Test Acts, we should have kept our places under protest, and used our influence to bring about a change in the law. And that ought to be the present position of the Liberal clergy. Whether our liberty of teaching is abridged or not by the late decisions is still a

''The Prayer Book and the Thirty-nine Articles,' says Mr. Froude, in his 'Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties,' 'so far as they are made obligatory by Act of Parliament, are as much laws as any other statute. They are a rule to conduct; it is not easy to see why they should be more-it is not easy to see why they should have been supposed to deprive clergymen of a right to their opinions, or to forbid discussion of their contents.'

matter of some dispute; but as that is the case, we have a right to claim the benefit of the doubt.

We may be told that our position is not like that of the lawyer who preaches reform, because the terms of his engagement do not bind him not to teach contrary to the law, but only not to act contrary to it. But our point is just this, that our ecclesiastical law cannot be reformed unless we be permitted to teach that reform is needful, and to point out where. We do not decline to use the Church's formularies or conform to the Church's discipline; we merely claim the liberty of saying that, as in past times both have been modified, so in future times both may be modified. If, then, we are engaged by any law not to teach this, that is the very point wherein such a law must be seen to be unjust above all other laws, and that would be the point for which we should claim a reform. We claim for the clergyman no more than that liberty which is enjoyed by every other professional man; no more, but no less. The reform in the law which we plead for is simply this, that it should not be illegal to say of the formularies which we are willing to 'assent to,' and the ceremonies which we are willing to use, that both might be improved; and further, to move for such improvement as we may or may not be able to compass, now or at any future time.

6. Lastly, we are told that Broad Church teaching is vague. When people are giving up old things, what is new may seem vague at first because the mind has not

mastered it. We hear that we have nothing to teach. It seems hardly worth while to meet so impudent an assertion. It would be more true, on the contrary, to say that the Liberal clergy have everything to teach which can be properly taught, because they are willing to teach everything about religion that can be properly known at all. But, standing in this pulpit for five years, I might well ask those who have been with me during the greater part of that time, and even those who have not been here before to-day,-Is there nothing to teach in the message we bring to you of an invisible God behind the universe, in whom we live and move and have our being, and with whom we can have sympathy and communion-so that all progress, social, scientific, and political, is a progress conducted under moral and interpenetrating religious influences? Is there no good teaching in the doctrine of communion between the Divine Spirit and men's hearts? Is there nothing in the Christ-life constantly held up before you in spirit and in truth? And do we not preach a real gospel when we insist upon the orderly development of the moral faculties, when we tell a man he has that within him which will respond to what is holy and true, if he brings his actions under the dominion of such feeble glimmer of conscience as he may possess? We have nothing to teach! We have everything to teach. A vast field of religious inquiry opens up before us, ever fresh, ever fertile, and full of heavenly blossoms. Into that field I now invite you to accompany me; and I pray that on the threshold we may cast away the fetters of bigotry and prejudice,

and walk as children of the light in the garden of the Lord.

If, then, forgetting for one moment our morbid horror of nicknames, we are asked, What is Rationalism? let us answer,-Rationalism is reverence for all that is true and good in the past, thankfulness for every advancement in knowledge, willing acceptance of all the new revelations of science, and a belief in the infinite possibilities of the human soul. In three words, Rationalism means infinite Sincerity, infinite Aspiration, and infinite Faith.