7 OCTOBER 1882, Page 3

We have stated elsewhere what seems to us the drift

of the discussions on Church organisation. It is distinctly, to use short words, towards an anti-sacerdotal system, and representa- tive management in the Church. The discussion on the relation of the Church to negative thought was singularly courageous. The Rev. J. M. Wilson, for example, of Clifton College, read a remarkable paper, in which he stated that Churchmen were and must be free thinkers, and could not define the limits. ,of thought, though they could define those of member- ship. The limit of thought could not be contained in a book, still less in an interpretation of a book. Mr. W. B. Brown declared that authority was only one species of evidence, and the Bishop of Bedford maintained that the true

• answer to those who propounded the immutability of law as fatal to the Christian scheme, was to study the phenomena of the will, which constantly interfered with law. Assuming a God, he also must have will. There is no evidence of the general reception of these ideas, but we quote them as evidence of the :stronger and more masculine style in which men are beginning to speak at these Congresses.