government. Racial qualities might be classed as follows:-Saxon, masculine ;-Celtic, feminine;-Negro, the servant. Under no circumstances should the inferior race govern the superior; nor should the Negro intermarry with either of the two white races. He could not quite accept the lecturer's final remarks as to the connection between democracy and authority in religion. He Mr. MARTIN L. ROUSE said that such a lecture, as they had listened to that afternoon, warmed their blood and tended to strengthen still further the bonds that united Englishmen and the descendants of England's first colonists in America. The misguided policy of the British Government a hundred and forty years ago had driven those colonies out of political union with ourselves; but they still inherited the same common lauguage and traditions, and the kinship of the two countries was more treasured than ever. had observed with delight the children of many different nationalities in a State school in Buffalo, learning to read the Word of God in common; and he felt that such schools were a great force for welding all the citizens of the country into one compact body imbued with the fear of God. But he was sorry that, through the traditions which had come down from the old slave-holding days, the feelings of brotherhood in Americans seemed blunted when dealing with one large section of their community-the Negroes. Mr. E. WALTER MAUNDER had been much struck with the masterly way in which the lecturer had arranged his paper and ordered his argument. The problem before the United States was a very difficult one, because both the proportion and the character of the immigration had undergone so great a change in the last generation, and it was natural to suppose that, under such changed conditions, the experience of the past was no sufficient guide as to the future. To meet this objection, the lecturer had formulated two laws, which he had defended with great force. With regard to the first law, many illustrations might be brought from history to support the lecturer's contention. Thus, there had been a long succession of waves of population flowing over Greece, so that some of our best ethnologists claimed that the present Greeks had practically no racial connection with ancient Greece. Yet the Greek peasantry of the present day were very little changed in their characteristics from what the inhabitants of the same regions were three thousand years ago. Similarly the Ulstermen of to-day, in many points resembled the population of the same province, as described to us by tradition, long before Strongbow landed in Ireland. As to the second law, he doubted whether the present immigrants were all of the same high type as the earliest. Most of those who went to America in the last half century or so went in search of material advantages, because they hoped to make a living there more easily than they could at home. There was no such thought before the Pilgrim Fathers they gave up all their material advantages for their religious principles. The fundamental question for any nation was not its physical or mental abilities, but its spiritual character: its attitude towards God. For this reason he had not felt quite satisfied with the lecturer's closing words; it did not lie within the province of man to alter religion to suit his convenience: a manmade religion was worthless. If they read the prophets of old, they would see that they always spoke as being directly commissioned from God; it was always "Thus saith the Lord." The LECTURER in replying, thanked the meeting for the very kind reception they had given to him. He was not hurt by any criticism that had been passed on his paper; he had expected it, and indeed much more. Talking to a theological professor of Harvard College before he left home, he had told him of this paper, and the professor had differed from him entirely. Nevertheless there need be no fear of the future. He fully agreed with the closing words of the Secretary, Mr. Maunder. But the fact remained that, though the bulk of the immigrants at the present time might be of an inferior stock, their children were educated and became filled at once with the genuine American spirit. The whole of the country had been settled by genuine Americans, of the Anglo-Saxon stock, and he believed they would assimilate all the new material, though the Anglo-Saxon was apt not to be too considerate of those whom he considered his inferiors. He, the Lecturer, still maintained both his propositions; he believed in God's over-ruling providence, and that He was not conducting any failure either in England or America. Even in the questions of Mexico and Ulster he remained an optimist. The Meeting adjourned at 6.5 p.m. HELD (BY KIND PERMISSION) IN THE ROOMS OF THE THE REV. PREBENDARY H. E. FOX TOOK THE CHAIR. The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. The SECRETARY announced the election of the Rev. Albert J. Nast (Editor, Der Christliche Apologete,) and the Rev. Arthur Louis Breslich, B.A., B.D., President of the Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, as Associates of the Institute. The CHAIRMAN, in introducing the Right Rev. Dr. J. E. C. Welldon, Dean of Manchester, to the Meeting, said that he felt great pleasure in presiding on this occasion, the more so that he was himself an old Harrow boy, and, as all there knew, Bishop Welldon had been Headmaster of Harrow. The Bishop had asked him to apologize to the meeting on his behalf, since he would have to leave early in order to catch the express train to Manchester, where on the morrow he would be taking part in the memorial service for those who had lost their lives in the terrible disaster to the "Empress of Ireland." He would, therefore, not take up any more time of the meeting, but would at once invite Dr. Welldon to give them his address. THE SUPREMACY OF CHRISTIANITY. BY THE RIGHT REV. J. E. C. WELLDON, D.D., Dean of Manchester. SUMMARY. YHRISTIANITY claims to be the one ultimate universal religion among mankind. But the spirit of Christian missionaries towards other religions than their own should, as far as possible, be one of sympathy. Such was St. Paul's spirit when at Athens he took the inscription 'Ayvoor be on an altar in the city as the basis of his appeal for faith in Jesus Christ and His Resurrection. I have often regretted that there is no epistle to the Athenians among St. Paul's extant writings. The universality of the religious instinct is recognized by anthropologists of the highest distinction, such as Tiele and Tylor, and, I may add, by Frazer in his book, "The Belief in Immortality." It is not difficult to trace the evolution of religious belief from Animism to Polytheism, then, with some diversion in favour of a dualistic system, such as Manichaeism to Monotheism, and, ultimately, to that finer Christian Monotheism in which God is held to be not only one God, but to be the Father of all His children upon the earth. In the comparison of religious systems it is possible to put aside, as not aspiring to universal supremacy, all purely local, tribal, racial, or national religions. Among these religions the most remarkable is, of course, Judaism, as the Hebrew genius for religion was unrivalled, and the Hebrew religious literature has been far more influential than any similar literature upon the moral and spiritual fortunes of humanity. Not less is it possible, I think, to put aside such religions as not only were originally, but have remained, in their essential features, Oriental. To this class of religions belong Hinduism, Parseeism, Shintoism, and, I think it is not unfair to add, Buddhism. All these religions have found, and still find, their natural homes in the East. There was a time when the religion of Islam threatened to inundate Europe; but the overflowing tide was driven back by Charles Martel and John Sobieski, and in spite of Gibbon's ironically regretful words about the lost teaching of the Koran in the University of Oxford, it has never seemed probable that Islam would become acclimatised in Europe, or that Mohammed would be treated as a rival of Jesus Christ. Two great religions there are which by a singular fortune have flourished, not in the countries where they were born, but in the countries to which they were transplanted, viz., Buddhism and Christianity. But Buddhism, if it migrated from India to Ceylon, Burma, China and Siam, never lost its Oriental character. Christianity is the sole example of an Oriental religion achieving ascendancy over the minds and hearts of nations in the West. I put, then, first as a proof of the supremacy which Christianity claims among the religions of the world, that it alone has shown its capacity of fusing in spiritual sympathy the East and the West. Jesus Christ, it is clear, contemplated the universality of His religion; for He bade His disciples to make converts of all nations. His Church, after evangelising the Western World, has within the last two or more centuries reacted upon the East, in India, in China, and in Japan. Nor is it too much to say that in all these countries, as also in Africa, the Church has proved its capacity for evoking, at least among certain select representatives of the native population, the distinctive virtues and graces of the Christian life. It is not necessary to accept all the glowing tribute of a religious reformer like Keshub Chunder Sen to the ascendancy of Jesus Christ in India; but the fact remains, I believe, that even to-day the East and the West are never so nearly harmonized as when in Southern India, for example, native converts, both men and women, are seen kneeling side by side with European missionaries at the Holy Communion of Christ's Body and Blood. For myself, I cherish the hope that, if India embraces Christianity, its intellectual and spiritual effect upon the Church of Christ will be surpassed only by the effect of Greece in the second, third and fourth centuries of the Christian era. Another point of Christian supremacy I hold to be the Bible. To me the sacred literatures of the world are, upon the whole, disappointing. No one of them is comparable with the Old or, a fortiori, with the New Testament. The noble series of the Religious Books of the East, published under the auspices of the late Professor Max Müller, has for the first time afforded the Western World an opportunity of acquainting itself with the literary expression of Oriental creeds. I can only say that those books are in my judgment not only inferior to the Bible, but that the later parts of them are generally inferior to the earlier; whereas the Bible exhibits a continuous moral and spiritual advance from Genesis to Revelation. At any rate, there can be no higher authority upon Oriental literature than that illustrious scholar, Sir William Jones, and he wrote in his Bible, "I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written." Yet another point of supremacy in the Creed of Christendom is its moral elevation. It will not, I think, be denied that Mohammedanism, by its toleration of slavery and polygamy, or Hinduism, by such practices as sati and such ceremonies as the holi festival, to say nothing about the worship of cows, stand upon a lower moral platform than Christianity. The Brahmo Somaj is, in fact, on its moral side a protest against the degradation of Hinduism. Contrast with Mohammedanism or Hinduism the morality of the Sermon on the Mount, of which a critic so dispassionate as Goethe could say that it represented the unsurpassable ideal of human conduct, and the gulf between Christianity and the other religions of the world at their best is S |