The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-09 00:00:00

CONGIZEGATIONAL UNIONS.

A conference of tho ministers and delegates from the prin-•
cipal Congregational churches of Lancashire has been held
at Liverpool. The Rev. W. Condor, of Manchester, took the
chair, and delivered a long address on Church questions.
He claimed for the Nonconformists that they had been the
salvation of England from Papal tyranny and kingly misrule.
After enumerating the several Acts of religious liberty
by tho energy of Dissent, Mr Condor said, in reference to the
Irish Church Bill, that the principle of the Establishment
had received its death wound. From it a large portion
of the more thoughtful members of the English Church
hail Av ibely begun to familiarise themselves with a
possible future. The needless and bitter strife between
Church and Dissent had wasted much valuable energy, and
he believed tl e dividing lino would be soon removed. Many
excellent men objected to what they called the un-
christianizing of tho state. They hold that the nation
by its representatives should avow itself Christian.
Mr. Conder professed his inability to see the
matter from that point of view. A nation was
Christian, so far as the individuals who composed it
were Christian, and no further. Mr. Conder went on to say
that the sharply defined doctrinal divisions have begun to
melt away, and wl at is common to both sides is coming to
bo regarded as of greater importance than the things that
caused division. Why could not all agree to divide the
home and foreign missionary work among thorn ? We had
four evangelists, but one gospel ; so we might have a score
of Christian bodies, but one Church, all the more
one for not being organised into a visible oneness.
Later in the conference the Rev. Thomas Green, M.A., of
Ashton, read a paper on "The Relation of Independency to
Modern Scepticism." Ho admitted that all scepticism did
not spring from a hostile spirit, but much of it arose from an
earnest seeking after truth; but went on to say that the
State Church fostered scepticism in the form of Rationalism
and was the nursing mother of heresy.
The West Riding Congregational Union are also holding
a conference at Halifax. The Rev. Enoch Mellor delivered
the inaugural address, congratulating the (union upon the
progress which their opinions had made, as shown in the
measures taken with regard to the Irish Church. The
thought was rapidly growing even in the Establishment
itself that more freedom should be allowed for the sake of
the prosperity of the Episcopal Church. As a denomination
the Independents need not fear the readjustment
which was ecclesiastically coming about, for they
boasted, in the elasticity of their policy. At a
public meeting the Rev. D. Loxton, of Sheffield, spoke
in the same strain. If religion could prosper in Ireland
without an Established Church, as he believed it would, the
people of this country would soon begin to ask why they
should not disestablish the Church in England too. The
- Established Church, as it now existed, was one great
cause of the present commercial immorality, from the fact
that so many persons in the Church took the pay, and did
little or no work. The only way in which he could aceount
for the growth of Ritualism and Romanism in the Church
was because of its connection with the State.