CHAPTER X ness. A CONGREGATIONAL LEADER "If, in the paths of the world Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing-to us thou wast still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm." MATTHEW Arnold. IN 1884 Mackennal had been chosen to preach the annual sermon to the Union. His sermon, from the text "I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir" (Isaiah xiii. 12), was characteristic in its weight and grip of thought, and was delivered with more than usual force and impressiveTwo years later, in 1886, he was nominated for the chairmanship along with Samuel Morley and Alexander Hannay. Samuel Morley was elected by the assembly, but was unable to serve. Hannay came next, but felt it equally impossible to combine the post of secretary and chairman, and to surrender the work of the secretaryship for that of the chair; so he also declined. The situation was then a delicate one, and the committee felt that to offer the chairmanship to Mackennal under such circumstances did something less than justice to his acknowledged position. In this difficulty Mackennal's strong sense of public duty, and his singular freedom from self-consideration, rescued the committee from embarrassment. The following letter, in reply to an enquiry of the committee BOWDON DOWNS CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH-INTERIOR. (The Reliefs are copies of Luca della Robbia's "Singing Boys.") through the Rev. Thomas Robinson, indicates his attitude: "19th June, 1886. "I have headed this letter 'private and confidential' because I want with the utmost frankness to say what I think about the chairmanship, and I could not do so if I thought what I said might be used to help to put me into the chair. "I have always regarded Hannay as being ex officio unable to accept the office; he is therefore entitled to refuse the post, whether offered him by the assembly or the committee. "I don't think any other man ought to refuse it; the chairmanship of the Union is too dignified a post to go a begging; and every man who should show reluctance, on grounds of self-respect, to accept it, would be only increasing the difficulty of offering the honour to any one at all. "Holding this opinion very strougly, I also felt this. The men whose names were put before the Union were in a very delicate position after Morley's refusal. If they are not at liberty to say—as they are not-the assembly rejected us; neither was the committee entitled to say-the Union chose you. It remains still an uncertain thing what the Union would do should those names come before it. If the committee should attach an importance to the first vote which those men honestly do not feel should be attached to it, the position would be a very delicate one. "I therefore thought that if the committee should say we recognise the delicacy of the position; we will leave these men to be dealt with by the Union at some future time; meanwhile let us choose some other person altogether-it would be an admirable solution of the difficulty. I fancied that if this were put before the committee it would at once, and even without discussion, have adopted that course; and the person so chosen might have accepted office. "This, you see, is very different from feeling it infra dig. to take an honour from the hands of the committee. If the committee, sua sponte, should offer the chair to any one, it could be only an honour conferred, even in present circumstances. But the pleasure of taking the post would be much marred by any doubt as to whether the Union was not misinterpreted, and the committee misguided, in the matter. Let me also add that no man ought to feel dishonoured by being put third after Morley and Hannay. "I hope my meaning is clear. Regard for the truth of things might make a man as reluctant as self-respect would, to take an honour which was not clearly marked out as his." This was in June. The committee unanimously agreed to nominate Mackennal, and when the assembly met in the following autumn the choice was confirmed with equal unanimity. Mackennal's May address from the chair was one of the finest products of his mind and pen. His subject was the "Witness of Congregationalism." Beginning with the distinctive ideas of the church which separate Congregationalism as a church polity from mere democracy and separatism in the church, he found two characteristic Biblical principles underlying the Congregational contention that the regulation of the house of God is the charge of the whole household, and that the interpretation of Christ's will is the privilege and responsibility of the company of believers; "the first principle is the trustworthiness of piety; the second is the social perfection of Christians." These principles his own mind and reading were peculiarly fitted to illustrate. His delineation of the rising of the spiritual bond out of the merely natural or topographical tie in the church, is excellent; and the contrast which he draws between the Congregational ideal and the secularised and politically-adulterated ideals of the establishment is quite final for any one who reads sympathetically. The concluding part of his address is so characteristic of his mind, and so manifestly supplies the interpretation of his own action in the Free Church movement that quotation is necessary : "We stretch out hands of cordial fellowship to some whole communities and to many in all the reformed fellowships. Several years ago, I was asked by a lady minister of the Friends, "Why are not you and the Baptists one?" I was obliged to answer that I did not know. I am in a complete ignorance on the point to-day as I was then. Anticipating the conference of next month, our words must be few and well chosen, lest we irritate the susceptibilities we should allay. But, with so near an approach to identity in Christian sentiment, and so |