THE CHURCH CONGRESS.
(To TRH EDITOR OF TEE l'ElFEOUTOn."1 Snt,—Perhaps you will allow me, as a subscriber to the ,,Speciator, and as one who attended the recent Church Congress -at Croydon, to say that I think your article of last Saturday on 4‘ Ecclesiastical Optimism" is based on an extravagant idea of the potentialities of such an assembly as the Church Congress. You certainly allow that there would be great difficulties in doing what you suggest, but you might have gone farther, and called them impossibilities. A meeting, consisting largely of ladies, which any one can attend who chooses to buy a ticket, and in which the speakers, who are nearly all fixed beforehand, are limited to -very short allowances of time, cannot reasonably be expected to hold on any subject such a discussion as can fairly be called a 44 debate," much less on subjects certain to variously rouse the most excitable feelings. I would ask you if political subjects, though not so complex, or delicate, or combustible, are ever so de- bated in such meetings. Our experience in these parts is that two different political parties cannot hold a meeting together at all, and It ought to go to the credit of the Congress that its meetings Went off so good-humouredly, although there were such strong differences of opinion.
I do not see that you can expect much more from a Church Congress than that it shall throw out a few ideas and generate some feelings, and I think the one at Croydon has done this. It may be said that if this is all, they are not worth the trouble, but I fancy those will not share this opinion who believe that many of the difficulties of the Church will be better solved by proper feelings than by delicate argument. —I am, Sir, &c.,
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