has been shown by our whole congregation. I trust that it may long be kept alive, and that much earnest work will still proceed from those who worship within those honoured walls. There are, no doubt, when we meet, as we do to-night-there cannot fail but be—some sad thoughts in one's mind as well; but, still, let us forget the past and look on to what lies before; and let us consecrate our hearts to the service of those high principles for which our fathers lived and worked, and for the furtherance of which we may be truly grateful if God gives us grace to do our humble share and part.

THE REV. EDWIN P. BARROW,—

The day which saw the end of the two hundredth year of the history of Cross Street Chapel was also the last day of the first year of my ministry in that chapel. With only a single year behind me, I have no long and varied experience to draw upon, like my predecessor in office, who has preceded me in speaking to-night. Nor can I contribute anything to that historical summary which has been presented by other speakers -partly because I know very little of that troubled time, and partly because the little that I know somewhat divides my sympathies. If I think of the two thousand ministers who were ejected because they could not conscientiously conform, I think also of the more than two thousand equally faithful ministers who, equally for conscience sake, accepted, as Delinquents and Malignants, the same penalty of their honesty. And, if I allow that in the Act of Uniformity of 1662 there were severities and surprises for which the acting ministers of the Church were not prepared, I must at the same time contend that nothing in that Act was more oppressive than the terms of the Ordinance against Blasphemies and Heresies which was passed by the Presbyterian Parliament in the hour of their power-an Ordinance which, now in force, would make the freedom of

thought we possess impossible, unless we paid for that freedom with our lives. The Bishops may have chastised with whips, but the Assembly of Divines would have chastised us with scorpions. It is very easy to think of the restrictions of the Act of Uniformity, but I am not sure that we ought to forget what deliverances may also have been involved in that Act; for it is clear to the least accomplished student that no party in the State was then fit to be entrusted with power, and, tinged as both Presbyterians and Independents were with the dark colours of Calvinism, I doubt if we should have secured the liberty of thought which we now enjoy, if that liberty had not to a great extent been made more possible for us by the clergy of the Established Church. For there was a time between now and then when thought was more free within the Establishment than without it.

But a thought has been running through my mind all day, which I must give to you in as few words as I can command. We have heard much of what Cross Street Chapel has been in the life of Manchester in the past, of the men whose public services are still remembered by the citizens of Manchester, whose memories are treasured, whose portraits adorn the walls of their public buildings. A stranger still among you, my thoughts naturally and necessarily travel into the future. Passing on Sunday through the surging crowds of people who have no Nonconformist ancestry, who are indifferent to all churches, who sway backwards and forwards seeking rest, but not seeking the rest which comes through prayer and common worship, I ask myself again and again, Is there anything that we-not by ourselves, but in conjunction with other religious bodies in this city-can do to fill the starved, not irreligious, but non-religious, lives of these people? With no Nonconformist ancestry, they stand on different ground. You live within a wall of sacred associations; you cling to great historic names and prominent historic dates; but they have nothing of habit or of memory to attach them,

even in a secondary way, to any place of worship at all. And the young people growing up in our schools-they come to us from every quarter. They have no historic tradition behind them to keep them in the ways of their fathers. "The art of worship," it has been said, "is a lost art." I am not sure that I would like to call worship an art at all-though I feel that it is difficult for public worship to be independent of art. Still, notwithstanding that "inwardness," that power of insulated, concentrated devotion which some of us who have imbibed Puritan principles are able to command, I feel it would be wrong, if these young people are different from the generations gone by, altogether to crush in them the love of the picturesque, of the beautiful in form and sound, if that love can be purified, drawn in, and interwoven with the sense of reverence. The Puritan shade in which you still pleasantly sit may be to them a cold and forbidding shadow. It is a difficult question. Nonconformist places of worship have not been happy in their relations to art as an adjunct of divine service. If they have treated her as a "handmaid," it has been chiefly by keeping her at a respectful distance, not altogether dispensing with her service. I am not going to prophesy, nor would I have you think that I am impressing upon you any opinion expressed to me by others. I would say only this, that it is just possible that by a rearrangement of certain details, by the introduction of fresh elements, we may give warmth, stateliness and brightness to our form of service, not without benefit to those who will come after us.

Another thought is always present to my mind. I would like you to cherish with me that hope of comprehension to which the old Presbyterian congregations always clung. They hoped and longed for a National Church, reformed, but still national. That hope is cherished in the Church of England, and there are many worshipping members of that Church who, by a faith unfaithful, are-if I may use such words- kept falsely true, simply because

they cannot allow this hope to be lost to them. They want to see the Church broadened out—not abandoned-but broadened out until her borders shall include every religious community in the land. The Church of England tolerates heresy-more than tolerates it; but sets its face against schism. Directly heresy has become denominational, schism, in the eyes of churchmen, has begun, and in schism they see a conscious intention to overthrow that idea of one, undivided, National Church to which they cling. I am not justifying their position. They put a nonnatural sense upon the formularies of the Church, and, using the the words of those formularies, mentally substitute others. course, when it comes to a question of veracity—the speaking only that we believe-then it is difficult for the worshipper, however ardent, to justify this position. Still, I think our aim ought to be the aim of our Presbyterian forefathers-to form a fraternity, if distinct from, still auxiliary to the work of the Church, and not wilfully hostile.

Of

Further, I would like to think that Cross Street Chapel would always be a reminder to the busy men of this busy city that man does not live by bread alone, or even by the sale of cotton. It ought to be possible even for the busiest men, on the busiest of days, to withdraw for a few minutes from the pressure and turmoil of professional, commercial, or industrial life, and to spend them in quiet self-communing, meditation, reflection, prayer. Gladly would I see those doors open all day long. There are those who like in worship to feel that they are alone, and do not come under observation. We do not, perhaps, make enough of the devotional side of worship, as apart from the social side; forget, perhaps, that worship need not always be a social act. I often wish that our working men and women could find in our chapels that which the poor find in Roman Catholic places of worship-an ever open door. Might it not be part of our plan in the future to give increased facilities for worship, chiefly

of this silent sort?

Might we not make it easier for those who seek place and time for higher thoughts than those which make the lower cares of life, to go in and out amongst us, unquestioned and unobserved ?

PRAYER.

God of truth, guide us, we beseech Thee, into all truth. Scatter our darkness, and let the light of Thy countenance be around us. In Thy wisdom make us wise.

Give us the truth of the inward parts, fidelity to the truth which we know. Cleanse us from secret faults, and establish our lives in righteousness.

When work is wearisome, and duty hard, and our strength seems to have been spent in vain, help us, we beseech Thee, to think of Thy patience and long-suffering, and of him who walked to-day and to-morrow, that the third day he might be perfected, that so we may again take up our labour and our burdens, and persevere with them unto the end. Amen.

BENEDICTION.

bistorical Collection.

(EXHIBITED IN THE MEMORIAL HALL.)

PORTRAITS.

(1) Rev. HENRY NEWCOME, A.M. (Founder of the Congregation). Born in Huntingdonshire, Nov. 27th, 1627; Rector of Gawsworth, nr. Macclesfield, 1650 to 1656; Preacher at Manchester Collegiate Church, 1656 to 1662; Conducted First Service in the Chapel, June 24th, 1694; died September 17th, 1695. (Lent by the Trustees of the Lancashire Independent College.)

(2) Rev. JOSEPH Mottershead, Minister from 1717 until 1771. (Lent by Lord Wantage.)

(3) Rev. THOMAS BARNES, D.D., Minister from 1780 until 1810. Professor of Theology in Manchester Academy from 1786 until 1798.

(4) Rev. JOHN GRUNDY, Minister 1811 to 1824; 1824. (Lent by the Rev. A. Gordon.)

removed to Liverpool