MODERATOR'S ADDRESS: OPPORTUNITY AND

EXPANSION.

THOMAS C. MAC MILLAN, ILLINOIS.

This occasion is no ordinary one.

While we are convened

as a National Council, we are at the same time assembled to celebrate the one hundredth year of the life of the American Board. And there are also gathered, "with one accord, in one place," many others, representing our churches, who have come hither from the East and from the West, and from the North and from the South, to attend the several meetings of our other denominational agencies. So that this is a place to recall the achievements of the past century, and to afford an opportunity to express thanksgiving for its countless blessings, as well as a time to consider large plans for service in the century upon which we are about to enter.

Such a union of the anniversaries of our national societies has never before come to us as a body of Christian people. And that the meetings are to be held in the city of the Puritans is certainly an event in itself which well expresses the fraternal relationships that thrive between our boards, associations, and societies; and highly illustrates the coöperative value of such assemblies; and deeply impresses upon us the desirability, not to say necessity, of making provision here and now for their regular continuance; and moves us to recall with reverence, and to repeat with sincerity, the prayer which is graven on the municipal seal as the motto of Boston: "Sicut Patribus sit Deus Nobis," - May God be with us, as he was with our fathers!

The National Council of 1907, held in Cleveland, was overshadowed by the questions attending the proposed union of the Congregational, the United Brethren, and the Methodist Protestant communions. Consideration of that important matter had for months been the foremost theme in our denominational press, in State Conferences, and in District Associations. Pending a decision upon the merger, all related subjects pertaining to the life and work of our denomination were held in suspense; and suggested changes in our polity, as, for instance,

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in the powers and nomenclature of our District and State bodies, were considered, and somewhat shaped, by the prospect of the consummation of that union.

Negotiations looking toward the proposed merger have come to a pause. While our own denomination stands committed to the vote adopted three years ago, in Cleveland, as favorable to the union, if the proposed plan could be modified in some of its substantial parts, no present general discussion appears to hinge upon an immediate prospect of such an agreement as this would involve.

A STATEMENT OF POSITION.

"The Congregational Churches of the United States, by elders and messengers assembled, do now associate themselves in National Council, "To express and foster their substantial unity in doctrine, polity, and work." - CONSTITUTION, adopted November 17, 1871.

As we are about to enter upon another triennium, it seems not unfitting that we again make known our position as Congregationalists, concerning what we hold to be the essentials of the faith of the founders of our church and of our Republic; and that we once more resolve to send forth into all the world the Gospel which shall contain the same vital doctrines believed and taught and proclaimed by our first missionaries of one hundred years ago.

Our Congregational heritage is a heritage of freedom. With great price have we acquired the liberty we possess; and in that liberty we propose, God helping us, to stand fast.

Efforts to preserve, from declensions from the faith, professors of Christianity, by compulsory assent to arbitrary standards, or by investing in others what we conceive to be unscriptural powers, appear to us to be as incorrect in theory as they have been ineffectual in practice.

The occasional revolt against certain doctrinal declarations of councils and assemblies has sometimes led to that other extreme which would repudiate all authority. There is an Authority, however, whom we as Christians are bound to recognize, to whom we are ever compelled to turn, and who must be accepted as final in the realm of our religious thinking and life, if we are to retain with consistency, and in all conscience, the name we bear; and if we are to live, and profess, and preach,

the divinest Good News to our fellow-men. And that Authority is Jesus as we have Him and His teachings unfolded to us in the New Testament.

In this era of doubt and debate, we as Congregationalists would utter no uncertain sound. We would speak in distinct, affirmative terms regarding the things which we believe to be fundamental. We would express what we hold to be essentially evangelical Christianity, with no purpose, however, to fetter either ourselves or our churches to statements of past centuries, valuable though they may be as testimonies and as marks along the historic highways, nor yet to lay upon our children a yoke which our fathers felt themselves unable to bear.

Once more the center of theological discussion has shifted. Now again it is the New Testament. Whatever the averments may be, the point of attack is the personality of Jesus. This issue is not to be evaded. We shall have to continue to insist that culture is not salvation; that education is not the new birth; that Socrates cannot take the place of Jesus.

When men see and know what Jesus can do and does, for and in and with their fellow-men's hearts and lives, it does not appear to be a mark of too high credulity to believe that while He was here on earth, the Master wrought mightily in the realm of nature.

The platform of our principles, the statement of our belief, should, therefore, be affirmative, unequivocal, evangelical.

The preparation provided by our institutions of learning for our young men in training for our ministry should be thorough, evangelical, constructive.

The purpose for which the church and its preachers and its teachers are in the world should be understood to be, and be, not to furnish a forum in which to exploit negations, not to provide esthetic and literary and social circles, but as a means, an agency, to bring men to God.

THE WORLD'S MISSIONARY CONFERENCE IN EDINBURGH,

SCOTLAND.

In an emphatic sense, this is the missionary's year. We have had the Laymen's Missionary Congress in Chicago; we are about to have here the American Board's centennial celebration; and we have also had the World's Missionary Conference,

in Edinburgh, Scotland, two similar conferences having been held, one in London, in 1888, and the second in New York, in 1900.

Its central feature and subject was: How best to make Jesus and His message known to the non-Christian peoples.

While it was a union of Protestants, those present were "assured [by Rev. Wallace Williamson, in St. Giles, Edinburgh] of the prayers and sympathy of the Greek and Roman churches." It was in the broadest sense a conference. Designed to give representatives of all the parties in interest an opportunity to discuss missionary problems, it yet left the delegates, and those whom they represented, perfectly free regarding the adoption of policies.

The Chicago Congress had as its object the creation and enlarged continuance of missionary consciousness, so that contributors and non-contributors to foreign work might be made to feel and make more effective their opportunities and responsibilities.

The Edinburgh World's Conference was devoted to a study by Christians of the best means by which, and to a study of the best training of the men and women by whom, the gospel shall be conveyed to the non-Christian nations.

The watchword of the conference was Coöperation. It met the difficulties of the foreign fields frankly and courageously. Duplication of work was fearlessly and fraternally faced, and sincerely deplored, and by none more than by the missionaries themselves.

The most important measure proposed and adopted was that which provided for the formation of an International Missionary Commission "to extend and standardize the work on the mission fields."

The spirit of Christian brotherhood was pervasive and impressive. It was a mighty object lesson of the vitality of modern Christianity. It demonstrated in the large the unbroken success of Christian missions. It made clear that the Christian Church was and is an aggressive church. It brought strongly before all the necessity of the development of the independent native ministry and of the native church. As Prof. Harlan P. Beach so well said, it was remarkable socially, technically, ecclesiastically, prophetically, and dynamically.