namely: a temporary right of courtesy and general consent, until-finding that the Great Head does not call him to any pastorship-he shall subside into a mere layman; or until he shall be chosen and ordained by some other church as its pastor, and become a minister again. This, we say, is the necessary verdict of the principles of Congregationalism in regard to this matter; as it was the practice of the Fathers."'-Congregationalism, p. 150.

But this theory, logical as it appeared, was obsolete in Dr. Dexter's day, and had begun to be so as far back as the day of Cotton Mather; in which it was the opinion of the ministry and churches that a minister might administer the sacraments to a church without a pastor, and that a minister did not leave his ordination behind him whenever he went from home.

In truth, we are more nearly logical in this matter than we ever were before. Ordination is for life, and not for a single pastorate. Installation is a wholly different thing from ordination, or if it is not, then installation must go. And membership in an association, which now has become necessary to good standing in the ministry, is no longer in any proper sense voluntary. The old theory is obsolete, and it never

was logical.

It is the right of every church to ordain its own minister, but the minister so ordained has standing only in that church, excepting as other churches in fellowship may have knowledge of the act and acknowledge it as authoritative and orderly. For the protection of the churches, however, the responsibility of ordaining ministers is delegated by the churches to councils or associations. Any church may delegate to one of its members authority to administer baptism or the Lord's Supper within that church. Even the Roman Catholic church believes in the right of lay baptism

when no priest can be procured, and in the administration of the Lord's Supper the need has more frequently arisen, in scattered communities, that an unordained person, acting for the time as the spiritual leader of the church, should be empowered to administer the ordinances of the church. The occasions for the exercise of such power on the part of the local body, however, are increasingly infrequent, and no church should avail itself of this liberty except in extreme emergencies. So far as orderly Congregational procedure is concerned we may treat of entrance into the ministry as a function of the Church at large through an association or a council the churches call for that purpose.

As a matter of Congregational usage, a minister ordained by a local church to be its pastor, and having no other relation to the churches at large, would have no standing, ecclesiastical or legal, as a minister outside that church. His name could not appear in the Year Book as a minister, but would be bracketed as being that of a layman to the denomination at large; in short he would be, in our theory, just what he was in the old New England theory, a minister within his own church, but in no other local congregation. The Massachusetts courts in a test case decided that such a man is not a Congregational minister, and is liable to the penalty of the law if he performs a marriage service.

When a church ordains a minister it does more than elevate a layman to a temporary office, to be terminated at its pleasure. It calls for the churches that in their assembling the mind of the Spirit may be discerned, and that his ministry may be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

So neither can the local church terminate that ministry. Even in the pastorate of that local church the

minister has other and wider relations that are affected by his ministry.

The Value of Installation. A church, therefore, in calling a minister, ought to make his settlement conditional upon the approval of the Association to which the church belongs, or to a council invited to ordain or install the minister. And when the pastorate is completed, no mere whim based upon the theory that the minister is the hired man of the church should terminate the pastorate; but the churches concerned should concur, for his protection, for the good name of the church itself, and for the common interest of the denomination and the Church at large.

Churches sometimes have been slow to install their ministers for fear they might not so easily get rid of them if their reasons must be submitted to a council. But for every church that has been oppressed by a council in such matters, ten ministers have been wronged in the unreasonable termination of their pastorates. And for every church that suffered from the advice of a council in such matters, ten have suffered through the employment of adventurers from which a well-ordered council would have saved them.

For,

The Termination of a Pastorate. That the termination of a pastorate so seldom occasions trouble in the church is greatly to the honor of the ministry, and somewhat to the honor of the churches as well. while a majority vote is necessary to dismiss a minister, and in case of his installation the concurrence of council or association as well, still there are few churches in which a small determined minority cannot force a pastor's resignation. Churches with practical unanimity spend their entire revenue and have little financial margin from year to year; so that the mere refusal of a very few people to continue their support is often sufficient to occasion a feeling of restiveness on

the part of those who bear the financial burdens. It is disheartening to remember how a single sermon that offends a few influential families may terminate a most useful pastorate, or how a single untactful act or unwise utterance on the part of the pastor may destroy the usefulness of a good man in the ministry. On the other hand it is to be confessed that many churches have shown great patience with the infirmities of their ministers.

Legally, there are three causes, and only three, that can drive an installed Congregational minister from his pulpit. These are,—

1. Gross immorality, which the courts have declared must mean not a mere inadvertence or trivial misdeed, but something inconsistent with ministerial character. 2. Important change in doctrinal views. That a minister is a heretic is not a legal ground for his removal if the church knew him to be such when he came, and if his heresies remain of the same sort. Nor is it necessary that he should prove that he has made no change in his beliefs, but only that he has continued to be able to assent to the creed of the church of which he is pastor in the same essential spirit in which he signified his assent on becoming its pastor.

3. Neglect of duty, which, of course, would include inability to perform the service through failing strength.

A church may reduce a minister's salary, if it can show that its attendance has so fallen off through his unpopularity that it can no longer raise his support; but if a council should find that the support had been withdrawn by reason of the minister's faithfulness to duty, then, though the salary might be reduced, it could not be lowered below a living wage; and he could collect a reasonable support by civil process if a council, agreed upon by both parties, declared that he ought

to stay and the church support him in his fight for truth.

Possession counts for something. A church once notified a minister that his pastorate would end with a given month, and on the first Sunday of the next month (which chanced to be Communion Sunday) they employed a supply and had him in the pulpit early. The pastor entering, and finding his pulpit occupied, and risking no struggle for its possession, walked to the communion table, announced a hymn, and began the service. The intruder did not risk the legal fine for disturbing a religious service, and the church had to reckon with the minister on some other basis than forcible eviction.

Locking the minister out of the church would not help matters. A Baptist church once tried it, and the minister preached from the steps, and was held to be in possession. And if he had been evicted from the steps, or refused admission to the church yard, he still could have collected his salary.

The courts have repeatedly decided that a minister who is on hand, ready to discharge his duties, is in possession. He need not fight for physical possession; the courts will declare him the minister de jure and award him his salary until he is regularly dismissed. This applies, of course, only to installed ministers, or to those whose office is without limitation, or whose time has not expired, and not to those "hired" by the year, or subject to a three or six-months' notice, unless the year is at an end, or the notice has been given and expired.

So far, then, as a minister's contractual relations to a church are concerned, the installed minister has reasonable, and not unreasonable, protection. It is not in the power, legally, of a church to turn an installed pastor adrift at will for a mere whim, nor because