The Congregational Union has made its mark this year, by
the ability and dash of two of its speakers, the President of the year, the Rev. Alexander Thomson, and the Rev.•Edward White, the ablest of the Congregational editors, as well as one of the ablest preachers in that communion. Mr. Thomson's address was on the relation of " Culture " to " Nonconformity," and was chiefly a clever criticism on articles in the Times and the Spectator which appeared in May last on occasion of certain very liberal speeches made in the new Congregational Memorial Hall. On some controversial parts of Mr. Thomson's speech we have commented elsewhere. We may add here that it was very happy in its style, though there was evidence of considerable prejudice in its substance. For instance, Mr. Thomson said that the National Church "threw a strange glamour over men, as when the gipay rover was taken for a gallant knight and the withered beldame for a young beauty," and he illustrated his meaning by comparing such blunders as the Bishop of Lincoln's and the Vicar of Owaton Ferry's refusal to give the title of " Reverend " to a Wesleyan Minister, and the Vicar of Spald- ing's silliness and narrowness in imprisoning a child for the theft of a geranium, with the language held about the liberalising influence of the Established Church. But where was the " glamour " which misled the public as to the character of these blunders? Not the most cordial of the apologists for an Establishment ever suggested that it ensures against bigotry and folly, but only that it ensures that a fresh current of healthy criticism shall be turned full on bigotry and folly,—as happened in these cases. The sects can do, without comment or rebuke, what the National Church cannot do without exciting ridicule and indignation. And so much the better for the National Church.
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