The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-12
CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL.
ADDRESS AT THE SESSION OF THE
 NATIONAL BODY BY DR. LYMAN,

On 'Tho Spirit of Mediation in Mod ern COngregatiOnalism''- to a Distinguished New Haven Scholar and Church Historian,
 At the recent meeting of the Congre- gational council, which is being held at Portland, Oregon, the sermon was de- livered by Rev. Dr. Albert J. Lyman of Brooklyn, from Ephesians il: 4, the theme being "The spirit of mediation in modern Congregationalism." Dr. Ly- man recalled the fact that the first pas tor of the church in which he spoke was Rev. Horace Lyman, his uncle, who nearly fifty years ago went to Or egon, and who with his own team drew out of the forest the beams which had been hewn for the first house of wor- ship erected in Portland. As to present conditions he noted that they were tense with the thrill of intellectual con- fiict, but the debate was in the interest Of the truer freedom and the larger fel- 1owship. This deeper impulse toward fellowship is associated with fresh ened and loftier sense of Christ A more spiritual alliance is discoverable between freedom and faith. What is the supreme need of the hour? Peace. Christ is our peace, not the peace of surrender or compromise, but the peace of the higher mediation-the peace of the transformed sword, for mediator must be q swordsman first; the sword of rational and righteous conviction coming first as Christ foretold inaugu- rates at last the era of the higher peace the peace of the New man." the union on higher levels between ele- ments of good which on lower levels had been divided
 The simple thought Is this: Christian mediation between differing parties of men, while it springs from love, is yet also the peculiar product of liberty that is to say intellectual liberty. h. tellectual liberty in union with love Is the specific antecedent of Christian me- diation and peace. If any Christian man, therefore, or body of men or na- tion of men, if any Christian scholar or school, if any Christian church or de- nomination, claims to stand for Chris tian freedom, and does historically stand for such freedom in Christ, then, so far forth, that man, that institution, that denomination, is under special command and commission of Christ to be mediator, a peacemaker, in His name. The Congregational communion does stand for such freedom in conjunc- tion with faith. Surely not in any con- ceit of primary, for as of superiority ,,t ;a,, but simply in view of it's own special history and genius, the Congregational communion Is free, and bound, there fore, under Christ to exhibit the medi- atorial spirit And last of all, this is t be accomplished chiefly through fresh and overmastering realization of Christ, as man and God; "He is our peace"
 Against the pseudo-science which f1aunts the philosophy of fatalism- agtinst the current fatalistic litera- lures, the literature of the iron chain, the literature of Ibsen and Maeterlinck and Hardy and Hall Caine, which plays the dead march in front of the Jail, which invokes for its art the benedic- tion of despair, let us dare, with a so- Der gayety and faith, still to maintain that the ultimate force is force not of
 
 important particulars each of the great denominations is our superior. I doubt if we have anything that in it's way equals the Flying squadron" of our Methodist brethren, or the twelve inch armor-p plated Battle ships" of the Presbyterians. And both are indeed in this war. Congregationalism, will not say eminently, but specifically, 1ai +n Su ho ni,N1a nf o1i gious liberty.
 In both state and church we stand for the fine balance in living man of things that differ so that If you add Jefferson and Hamilton together and divide by two, and the result is a Con gregationalist. What other finer note, then for us, as a denomination, be- meath the ensign either of country or of Christ, than this note of mediation as the correlative of our freedom? This spirit of mediation is, on the whole, in- creasing among us. It is increasing in all our great Protestant bodies. It is not merely denomnational philosophy or ideal It has been often and is now on the whole, more and more illustrated in the actual temper, In the personal endeavor and achievement of our rep resentative Christian men and schools. The whole drift of things, the pressure of the environment as well as the nat ural evolution of the Christian spirit, is full of gathering emphasis upon the ob- ligation to conjoin mediation with free- dom, and so approach the grander peace.
 If this were the fitting moment, one would quickly speak the name of our own noble scholar and church historian, the enthusiasm of forty classes of stu dents in Divinity hall, who, in the envi- ronment of g. great university and fear lessly sympathetic with it's spirit if lib- erty and scientific criticism, has yet il- lustrated with singular breadth and constancy the spirit of fidelity to the ancient faith. (Professor George P. Fisher, D. D., IL. D., of Yale semina- ry.)
 One would speak that other name which seems to shine across the land with a certain serent splendor, of him who sits crowned in oud Congregational fellowship about whose honored head the shadow of a supreme bereavement fell with last winters snows; who, for