on the largest scale, with the utmost faithfulness and persistency, and backed by a seemingly inexhaustible treasury have resulted in total failure. It goes without argument that this lack of success is not due to any intelligent objection on the part of the negroes to the peculiar tenets and doctrines of the Romish Church. It is due the rather to inherent incompatibility between the rollicking, fun loving, clannish temperament of the black, and the austere and cut and dried. forms of Romanism. An intelligent gentlemen born and educated in the Southern States, when speaking to the writer upon this topic, said; "The negroes always take either to fire or water. Hence they are, by an immense majority either Methodists or Baptists."

To come now to a somewhat critical examination of the various forms of church organization known in Western lands, what serious. reason is there to lead us to strive for the introduction here of any one form rather than any other? With rare or no exception among protestant Christians, there is no indissoluble or important connection between the form of government of a denomination and its articles of faith. Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists might all change places and still not be required to make the least alteration in the essential articles of their religious belief. No candid and intelligent student of the Bible in the present age pretends to find in any of its pages a positive "thus saith the Lord" in favor of any particular form of church organization. It cannot be successfully claimed for any one denomination that its history shows it to be, on the whole, better adapted to the Western mind, taken en masse, than any other. Neither does the record of missionary work in this Empire as conducted by the different churches, show any such greater success for one over and above the others, as would for an instant warrant the belief that any one is especially and preeminently adapted to the conformation of the Chinese mind. None of them can claim divine origin or command for itself. They are at best but shrewd guesses as to what comes most nearly to the system adopted by the early church. And none of them can point to any such overwhelming successes as will serve for its own supreme vindication at the expense of the others. They are all serviceable, all good, perhaps equally good. But they are all only human. They are but scaffolding, having no necessary connection with the real structure. They are but the clothing, having no absolute relation to the mind and soul of the man whom they sometimes cover and sometimes embarrass. And so one Christian criticises the overtight fit of what he pleasantly denominates the "straight jacket" of his Presbyterian friend, who in turn objects to the over loose and ill fitting-ulster, shall we call it?of Congregationalism, and both join in good natured raillery at the antique and old fashioned doublet and tights of Episcopacy.

To come still nearer home, who among us entered the particular church of which he is a member, after a careful preliminary examination of all forms of church government and resultant profound conviction that it was of all the best. Probably not one. We entered this or that church because our fathers and mothers were there, or because our more intimate friends were among its members, or because we attended its Sunday School, or were first approached upon the subject of Christianity by its pastor or some person connected with it. It was accident and not choice which led us into this or that denomination.

And this rule holds good too, in a large degree, in cases where some particular rite or article of belief is inseparably connected with the church organization. It is true that some persons are born Baptists, as certain young men have an inherent predilection for the navy. Others are blessed with such large lung power that they must shout when they are happy, and they are Methodists. But, as a whole, leaving out of sight the vital doctrines of evangelical faith, on which all substantially agree, is it not true that, in an immense majority of instances, each person enters this or that church because of personal and friendly association of one kind or another with its adherents, and not because of any special examination of the peculiar forms and tenets of the church itself. Is there among the total membership of all Christian churches, an average of say one individual in each ten thousand who has determined his church connection by any such prior examination ?

Then again some of the denominational divisions in the church had their origin in theological issues which were dead and buried generations since. Others were political and in the march of humanity have long since been left in the rear. Aside from the old war horses of dogmatic theology, who knows or cares anything, in the energy and vigorous life of practical Christianity of to-day, about the subtle wordy distinctions between predestination and free will or foreordination and election? What missionary in China can even put these technical phrases into elegant Chinese, or cares to waste his time in endeavoring to educate the Christian natives under his charge in such subtleties. Even at home the rank and file of the Christian Church know little and care less about them. They have come to be distinctions without a difference, and a battle over them is a useless and untimely war of words. A gentleman in New York some two or three years ago after attending a Presbyterian and a Methodist Church upon the same Sabbath remarked that in the former he heard the rankest Armenianism preached, while the Methodist pastor delivered one of the strongest Calvinistic sermons to which he had ever listened. And so it is. Our Presbyterian friends hold, in

opposition to their Methodist brethren, that a true Christian cannot fall from grace. Yet as a matter of fact and practice there is quite as much perseverance of the saints among the latter as the former, and Presbyterians constantly fall from grace with the same eminent success as marks similar performances among the disciples of Wesley.

If the foregoing statements are correct, and it is believed that they are made with all due moderation, it naturally and indeed almost necessarily follows that these minor and unimportant denominational differences should find no place in the graver and more essential work of preaching Christian faith among the Chinese. No good but much harm will be the probable result of any attempt to fill their minds with the petty differences of organization and administration by which the church in Western lands is divided. Doubt, distrust and suspicion will probably be the issue of such an effort, and certainly that most objectionable and pernicious form of Pharisaism, a spirit of denominational proselytism will be engendered, if, indeed, they come permanently to accept any of our forms of church organization. There is not the least occasion or necessity for the interjection of these petty questions into their simple faith. They will be better Christians without than with such additions to their knowledge, at least until they have acquired such increased grasp and capacity as will enable them to relegate such questions to their proper relative. positions.

What then should be done with converts to Christianity from among the Chinese ?

There are two courses open. The first, and, in the mind of the writer, by far the better would be to organize them into Union churches or congregations, with as simple a form of organization as possible. There might perhaps be gathered to-day in this city two such congregations, of sufficient numbers and intelligence to be nearly or quite self-controlling and self-supporting. The gain by such an arrangement over the present system would be very great and in a variety of directions. In the opinion of the writer it would accelerate the progress of the work very materially. We all know how timid each Chinese is by himself, and how among them, courage and confidence increase in a large ratio to any increase of numbers. Instead of a half dozen frightened Chinese in the corners of each of some six or seven different chapels there would be one or two congregations respectable in number, and aggressive if for no other reason than their numerical respectability. Much money now spent in the construction of "domestic chapels" which are seldom or never half filled would be saved; a large portion of the time of three-fourths of the missionary body in Peking would be relieved of present demands; and last, but by no means least, that suspicion and dislike which

exists in the minds of outside Chinese towards Christian converts, and which bids fair to exist so long as such converts seek close shelter under the wing of the foreign missionary would be to a large extent disarmed.

It is admitted that very serious difficulties lie in the way of the adoption of any such system. Those difficulties lie, however, not in the nature of the field nor in the Chinese mind, nor yet in the Gospel which the missionary comes here to preach, but in the human nature of the missionary himself, and of the directors of the various boards of missions at home. Yet these difficulties are more imaginary than real. And it should not be forgotten that for many years some of the Missionary Boards represented here were supported by several different denominations, and the work of those boards during those periods was, to say the least, not less prosperous than at present. A foreign mission field is a poor place for denominational or sectarian effort, and let us hope that the time will come when Christian human nature may differ more widely from unchristian human nature. Then some such plan as that sketched above may be practicable, and greater success to missionary effort will be the result.

The second course would be to keep the so-called church organizations separate as they are at present, but to give to each no specific denominational bias or tendency, to connect these churches into some sort of church Union, or ecclesiastical organization; and then leave them free to permanently affiliate into a permanent combination or to form separate general organizations as their own opinions when developed and matured should determine. An action of this sort would be simple and easily taken, since, to the credit of our missionary body be it said, so little attention seems to have been hitherto given to purely denominational effort, that it may well be doubted whether there is to be found in this province one Chinese convert who is able to pass the simplest possible examination upon questions of sectarian differences. The follower of the London Mission would probably content himself with the declaration of his adherence to the "Ying Kuo Chiao," while a convert under the American Methodist Mission would, in a similar manner, begin and end his answers with the assertion that he was of the "Mei Kuo Chiao."

The second course suggested with regard to the so-called Chinese churches leads naturally to the second question propounded at the outset; "Into what general form of ecclesiastical organization shall these churches be combined ?"

'Much that has been said in regard to the first topic applies with equal pertinency to the second and need not be here repeated. The writer is convinced that some simple form of general organization among the Chinese churches is not only eminently desirable-it is

entirely practicable. If it served no other end than to bring the few and timid members of the several Churches together more frequently, so that they might gain thereby courage and confidence, the result would be a great benefit. Similar organizations of an ecclesiastical character have existed in Christian lands and have served a good purpose.

The writer does not propose at this moment to suggest any plan for such an organization. There are, however, one or two points in connection with the general question of all ecclesiastical systems in China upon which a word may be said. It is to be taken for granted that the sole object of all missionary effort in this Empire is the building up of a vigorous aggressive church. It is to be a Chinese church, either of one or of several denominations. When the work is so far advanced that the Chinese church is self-reliant and able to cope with the remnants of heathenism about it, then missionary efforts on our part are to cease and foreigners are to withdraw from further control of or interference with its affairs. In the nature of things all the efforts of Christian missionaries should therefore be aimed to secure a termination of their labors at the earliest possible moment, and to leave the church, when the time comes for them to withdraw from it, compactly built up, free from tendency to schism, and with no unnecessary complications of church machinery, and with no vicious systems which originated not in China but elsewhere, which may hamper the freedom and usefulness of the church. It may be necessary to leave her because of the weakness of our human nature-divided into several denominational organizations. But it is assuredly unnecessary and inexcusable for us to perpetuate here divisions within denominations, divisions originated in political or other causes of which the Chinese know nothing and with which they have no possible concern. To speak to the point, there are to-day two American Presbyterian organizations at work in China, one English Presbyterian, and one Irish. The Scotch Presbyterians work, it is understood, with the Congregationalists. There are thus four Presbyterian organizations doing work in this Empire. It assuredly would be unpardonable, if these four should fail to combine here their efforts into one Chinese Presbyterian Church. Again there are a Northern and a Southern Baptist Society, and a Northern and a Southern Methodist Society at labor in China. It is well known to us all that the rupture in these two denominations in the United States was caused by slavery and that this cause has long since ceased to exist. There is assuredly no reason why these two Societies of the same denomination, identical in belief and in church form, should fail to work heartily to build up one undivided Methodist Church, or Baptist Church in China. Nor is there any good cause why English Baptists and Methodists should not work with them, and so