tional Chapel Building Society. The scheme was remitted to a special committee, which met at Birmingham in December of the same year, and at Derby on March 9, 1853 at the Derby meeting the Society was formally constituted.

In the Annual Report of the Committee of the Union submitted to the Assembly on May 10, 1853, there occurs this significant passage :

"Your Committee cheerfully undertook the expenses involved in originating this Society, in the hope of repayment at an early day. At the same time they deliberately declined to be responsible in future for its movements, or in any way to stand connected with its operations, beyond that of friendly, affectionate concern, believing, as they do, that while the Union should aid, according to its ability, in forming Societies intended for our denominational advantage, it is in every way desirable that your organisation should not exert any controlling power over their operations, but leave them at perfect liberty to pursue their own plans without the influence of any centralising power."

VI

In the same year-1853-The Congregational Pastors' Insurance Aid Society was founded on a plan approved by the Autumnal Assembly; but this, too, was to be without any organic connection with the Union. For some years, however, both the Chapel Building Society and the Pastors' Insurance Society were expected to submit to the Union an annual report of their proceedings.

VII

It was now becoming apparent that the Assembly of the Union was too large, and the time at its disposal too brief to allow it to exercise any real control over the "affiliated societies." If the annual reports had been sufficiently long to enable the Assembly to form any trustworthy judgment on their policy and efficiency, and if after the reports had been read they had been seriously discussed, the Societies would have occupied nearly the whole time of the May and Autumnal Meetings, and would have excluded the consideration of other subjects in which many of the members of the Union were keenly interested. To prevent the Assembly

from becoming impatient, the Reports were usually condensed into a few paragraphs, and were, therefore, uninteresting and worthless. Even if the Union had cared to interfere with the proceedings of the Societies, it could only have given advice; it had no authority to enforce its decisions. It could not change the constitution of the committees by which the business of the Societies was conducted; nor could it dismiss or elect any of the secretaries. The responsibility for societies which it could not govern caused considerable irritation. In the case of the Congregational Board of Education there was a special cause of dissatisfaction. There were members of the Union who believed that Congregationalists were making a grave mistake in resisting all Government interference with elementary education, and who therefore disapproved of the principle on which the Board was constituted.

In May, 1858, a Special Committee was appointed to consider the connection between the Union and the Societies; and at the Autumnal Meeting at Cheltenham, in October, the Committee recommended that with the concurrence of the Committees of British Missions and of the Board of Education the arrangement which made their officers ex-officio members of the Committee of the Union and the officers of the Union ex-officio members of the Committees of the Societies, should be terminated; and that the three Societies for British Missions, the Board of Education, the English Congregational Chapel Building Society, and the Pastors' Insurance Aid Society, should be released from all obligation to present any statement or report of their proceedings to any meeting of the Union. The Committee also recommended that in future any Societies the Union might originate should stand in only a friendly relation to it and should not be “subject, in any degree, to legislative control or official interference." The recommendations were unanimously approved; and the principle on which they were based has governed the policy of the Union from 1858 to the present time (1891).16

VIII

In another case the Union followed the same policy that it adopted in dealing with the denominational societies. In 16 Congregational Year Book, 1858, 44-45, 58-61. But see p. 698.

1844 it determined to publish a periodical entitled The Christian Witness, and to make it the official organ of the Congregational body. Dr. Campbell, who had not yet withdrawn from the ministry, was appointed editor, and he also took charge of The Christian Penny Magazine, more popular in character, and in its scope more closely confined to questions of faith and conduct. The experiment cannot be said to have proved successful. The editor was a man of boundless vigour, of restless and untiring energy. While responsible for the management of the official publications, he also conducted a periodical of his own-The British Banner, in which he impeached and pilloried any deviation from what he held to be evangelical orthodoxy. It was an impossible position. Many men resented the criticism that appeared in the periodicals for which the Union was responsible, and which it was supposed to control: they resented still more bitterly the utterances of the official editor when he wrote as a freelance in the Banner. On more than one occasion the Union found itself dragged into hot debates over the management of its official publications; and at last, without condemning the editor, they decided to hand over the two magazines to a separate body of trustees.17

IX

In preparing and publishing a hymn-book for the use of the Churches, the Union did not meet with the same difficulties ; and they were able to maintain a more consistent policy. During the earlier years of the nineteenth century Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns were in general use among the Congregational Churches throughout the kingdom. They had long since ceased to be regarded as an innovation, and had become a part of the established order. But the time came when the fate that had overtaken Patrick overtook Watts in turn.18 His voice was the voice of the past-there were new thoughts, new emotions, that he did not express, or that he expressed inadequately; preachers had adapted their sermons to the

17 Stoughton, Religion in England (1800-1850), ii. 280-82. Waddington, v. (1850-1880), 12-17, 182. Congregational Year Book, 1858, 8-16, 38-40. 18 See ante, pp. 509–510.

changed conditions of the time-they spoke to the new generation in its own tongue of "the mighty works of God." It was natural-it was inevitable-that worship should follow the same law.

At the meetings held in 1833 the Union resolved to issue a supplement to Watts's Psalms and Hymns. Watts was not to be dethroned; but he was to reign alone no longer. Three years later, in 1836, the new book-The Congregational Hymn-Book-was issued under the editorship of Josiah Conder. It made its way steadily; and by 1844, 90,000 copies had been sold. In that year it was reprinted, with a few changes in the earlier versions. In 1855 a fresh demand was made. Some congregations had expressed an opinion that one book would be better and more convenient than the combination of Dr. Watts and a supplement; and the Union decided that a new book should be prepared, which "should include all the poetical compositions of Watts best adapted to congregational worship, and such other superior hymns and psalms as the language could supply." In accordance with the resolutions of the Union, The New Congregational Hymn-Book was prepared by a committee—perhaps by two-and was issued in 1859. More than 120,000 copies of it were put in circulation in less than two years.19 A supplement was called for in the early seventies; and the Union took the matter up-" with a reluctance," they say, "that they do not care to disguise." But as the Union had already published a hymnal, it might reasonably be expected to make improvements in it from time to time, “to secure its property, and to prevent undue multiplication of hymnbooks." On this occasion, the committee to whom the work was entrusted, in their anxiety to make the book complete and serviceable, placed the first draft of it in the hands of " a number of pastors and others, whose tastes and studies made it desirable that they should be consulted." As a result, there was discussion and delay; but the book at last appeared in 1873.20

After an interval of years dissatisfaction again made itself felt. The existing collections, it was urged, were out of date. Many of the hymns included in them were never 19 Congregational Year Book, 1860, 22; 1861, 15; 1862, 27. 20 Ibid., 1872, 23-24, 30; 1874, 6. Julian, Hymnology, 256–261.

used in public worship; and it did not include noble hymns with which the Church had been enriched of late years. In some cases, too, it was felt that the original text had been handled with a freedom that set editorial ethics at defiance. The Union, again with reluctance, determined to issue a new hymnal, but without withdrawing the book at that time in use. The Rev. George Barrett, of Norwich, was appointed editor, with an advisory committee to help him. But the editor had the last word; and to his knowledge and skill the success of The Congregational Hymnal is largely due; though the services of E. J. Hopkins, Mus. Doc., who was responsible for the musical part of the book, should not be overlooked. The Hymnal, including a selection of chants, anthems, and litanies, was published in 1887, and by December, 1905, the sale had amounted to nearly 1,500,000 copies. A mission hymn-book issued a little later, and a Sunday-school hymnbook published ten years earlier, have had sales of 250,000 and 800,000 copies respectively.

X

In 1833 the leaders of the London Congregational Churches came to the opinion that they must have a central meetingplace of their own. Dr. Williams's Library, which had served the Three Denominations for many years, was in the hands of "Presbyterian " trustees; and though the trustees were willing that the building should still be used by the representatives of the orthodox Churches, the associations of the place led to the refusal of their offer. To meet in the rooms of the London Missionary Society in Austin Friars, it was felt, would have been an unwarrantable encroachment, as that Society at that time was strictly undenominational. And yet it was unseemly that the Congregational Board and other similar societies should be forced to frequent taverns and coffee-houses, for lack of better accommodation.

It was resolved, therefore, to establish a Congregational Library, with rooms attached to it that would house the societies of the denomination. A building in Blomfield Street was bought, that had been a concert-room. It was adapted to its new purposes; and by degrees, mainly through the activity of the Rev. John Blackburn, Joshua Wilson, an