The Church Congress at Birmingham was opened on Tues- day
with a sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which in parts was unusually eloquent and full of thought. Its first idea, that of the " enchantments " which now surround men, fair forms of philanthropy, of science, of economy, which offer to do more for him and for humanity than religion can, was singularly well-timed. So also was the exhortation to enter on the three fields spread in almost boundless expanse before us, the "exhausted soil" of heathenism, "the wilderness of the poor," the rich rewarding harvest of the Scriptures,—in which last, we presume, the Archbishop includes all material of spiritual life. And lastly, so also was his counsel to take as the forces of the Church, quietness, unworldliness, and sin- cerity,—in which word Dr. Benson includes abstinence from party diplomacy. It was a device which, if allowable, as the preacher hinted, in secular affairs, was an error in a Church which can neither forsake nor adopt any plan, save in obedience to divine law. It was a living sermon ; and we only wish the Archbishop could have pressed harder home his advocacy of " quietness," which with him includes confidence in divine pro- tection, the weakest point in all Churches of to-day. They all think they are going to be crushed unless they scream.
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