tendency of programme committees to overload the programmes of public meetings. The providing of a list of attractive speakers is a legitimate desire on their part, but to do so often sacrifices the real business of the meeting. Invited speakers ought to be assured of the full time promised them by the programme committee, but if the time for their addresses arrives, and the business of the body is not completed and cannot otherwise be fully provided for, the assembly must not hesitate to continue its business in another room, and the speaker will have no occasion to count it a discourtesy if his address is delivered to the popular gathering without the presence of the dele gates. In such cases the duty of the delegate is to attend the business session regardless of his own personal preference, and the delegate who withdraws from the business session to listen to the address will be unfaithful to the church which sends him there.

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The Real Concern of the Assembly. The real concern of the Association or Conference is the transaction of the business of the churches. The addresses important, but distinctly subordinate. There should be ample time for all the business and for the free discussion of it. Nevertheless the time of the Association or Conference should not be consumed in needless and wearisome debate. Details of form and method should be settled in committee, and a plan whose general provisions meet the approval of the body but whose details tend to long debate should be promptly recommitted in order that the time of the assembly may be conserved for its real and important business. While the moderator should not arbitrarily manipulate the programme, he will often be able to save time and facilitate business by timely suggestions concerning the method of adjusting details, and committees in bringing in their reports will do well to

bear in mind their obligation to present their business free from the trivial inaccuracies and ambiguities which tend to consume the time of the body with requests for information or fruitless discussion.

X.

ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS PRO RE NATA.

An Ecclesiastical Council is a body composed of representatives of a group of churches called together for the consideration of a specific matter set forth in a letter missive, which is the charter of the Council. As a body destitute of ecclesiastical authority, but thoroughly representative of the judgment of neighboring churches, the Council has been held in high esteem since the early days of Congregationalism. Though some of its prerogatives will be assumed in the future by permanent associations, the Council continues and bids fair to continue as an important medium for the expression of our fellowship.

The first report on polity presented to the National Council in 1865 said: "Councils of churches, orderly assembled, to declare the opinion of the churches on any matter of common concern, are an ordinance of Christ, and are necessary to a communion of the churches. That Scriptural example, where the church at Antioch sent messengers to the Church at Jerusalem for consultation and advice on a difficult question, is a sufficient warrant for such councils."'

For more than two hundred years the Ecclesiastical Council was the general form of expression of fellowship among our churches. The organization of new churches, the settlement and dismission of pastors, and the determination of grave questions of morals and faith all rested with councils of the vicinage. For many years the conciliar system has suffered proportionate decline in the Congregational denomination. Conferences and associations and the work of the denomination through missionary organizations have

provided forms of fellowship which have relegated the council to a place of secondary importance. At the National Council of 1898 at Portland, Oregon, Rev. H. A. Hazen read a scholarly paper on the "Future of Ecclesiastical Councils," in which he admitted the relative decline of this form of fellowship, but declared that later forms of fellowship, while healthfully supplementing, cannot supersede the Ecclesiastical Council, and predicted for our conciliar system broad and healthy development, and a wider and more benign influence in the Congregationalism of the future.

The prediction of this wise and faithful student of our denominational affairs has not been fulfilled. Councils do not increase in number in their proportion to the growing activities of our denomination. They still are called for the ordination of a minister and less frequently for his installation or dismission, and now and then for the recognition of a church, but all these functions are gradually being taken over by district associations.

Who May Call a Council.

A council may be called by:

1. A Local Church. A local church may call a Council to organize or to recognize a newly organized church; to welcome to fellowship a church of another denomination desiring to become Congregational; to ordain, install or dismiss a pastor; or to advise in any case of need.

2. Two or More Churches. Two or more churches may join in calling a Council where they have common interests in a proposed undertaking as the organization of a new church lying between them.

A mother church having organized a mission or

branch church into an independent church may join with the latter in calling a Council of recognition.

A group of churches may call a Council to determine the wisdom of organizing an Association, or to determine a boundary between Associations, or for other suitable reasons.

In cases where a group of churches having common interests unite in calling a Council, the inviting churches may desire to send delegates and participate in the deliberations of the Council which they call, and this is orderly if their intentions are stated in the letter missive. In cases where a mother church and a daughter church unite in the call of a Council for the recognition of the latter, the mother church may be entitled to representation in the Council if the letter missive so states, but in no case where two or more churches unite in calling a Council may either of the inviting churches be represented in the Council if the occasion for the call be any controversy between the inviting churches or any of them.

3. A Church and One or More of Its Members. In any case where a difference of opinion arises between a church and its minister, or between the church and one or more of its members, and the local church has found no satisfactory solution of the difficulty, the two parties may unite in the call of a Council.

A Council is called by two parties having different interests which they agree to arbitrate before a Council, which is called a Mutual Council; the term is not applied, where two parties are in agreement, as where two churches agree to organize a third church and unite in a letter missive.

4. A Minister or Other Member or Group of Members. A Council may be called by a minister or other member or group of members of a church in a case