THE REV. GEORGE A. GORDON.

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December 13, 1882, nine months after Dr. Manning's resignation took effect and a week or two after his death, the nominating committee reported the name of the Rev. George A. Gordon, pastor of the Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Connecticut, with the recommendation that he be called to the Old South pastorate. The church voted unanimously to extend a call to Mr. Gordon, and, on the 1st of January, the society concurred. A joint committee, duly instructed, transmitted the call, and on the roth of the same month, Mr. Gordon sent a reply, declining the invitation, in view of what he regarded as the pressing claims of his work at Greenwich at the time. This answer was communicated to the church and society respectively, and, by both, the letter was recommitted to the committee, with instructions to confer further with Mr. Gordon, "with a view to bringing him to us as our pastor at the earliest practicable time."

Mr. Gordon was born at Oyne, Aberdeenshire, January 2, 1853. His father, George Gordon, died in 1881, his mother (Catherine), survives and lives in Aberdeen. He came to this country in his youth, and, a few years later, having determined to devote his life to the Christian ministry, he went to Bangor and took the prescribed course of theological study in the seminary there. He was ordained June 20, 1877, pastor of the Congregational Church, Temple, Maine, and remained there for a year. Wishing then to pursue a more thorough academic course, he went to Harvard College, and graduated there in the class of 1881. On leaving college he was installed pastor of the Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Connecticut, and he had labored there nearly three years when he resigned to come to Boston.

It was a trial to the church, after having had to depend upon supplies for its pulpit Sabbath by Sabbath, not only since Dr. Manning's resignation but for some time before, to be obliged to accept the postponement of its hope for the settlement of a pastor; but the members were not disheartened, and being thoroughly united in Mr. Gordon, they determined not only to wait for him for an uncertain length of time, but also to do their utmost individually to maintain the activity and usefulness of the church in the interim. The deacons, whose duty it was to arrange for the supply of the pulpit, continued to be, as they had been, successful in their difficult task; and, in the summer of 1883, they were most fortunate in being able to secure the services of the Rev. Professor Tucker, of Andover, for the coming autumn and winter. Dr. Tucker spent six months with the church, preaching on the Lord's day and on Friday evening, and his faithful and disinterested labors, both in the pulpit and on various occasions of sorrow and bereavement, won for him the respect and regard of all.

The call to Mr. Gordon was renewed in writing, January 4, 1884, and was accepted by him in a letter dated January 11, the pastorate to begin on the first Sunday in April next following. It was at this point, if at any, that the church and the pastorelect should have invited an expression of opinion from the neighboring churches upon the "expediency" of proceeding further under the call which had been extended and accepted; then, if ever, the neighbors should have been asked "to review the proceedings." To unsettle a pastor, to remove him from a field of activity in which he was happy and useful, to sunder the ties between him and an attached people, to bring him, and his family, perhaps, into a new and strange community, to open the doors of the parsonage to him and his effects, and then to summon a council (in the language of the Congregationalist newspaper) to "examine and express judgment upon the candidate, and only when satisfied that he has fitness for the place, to proceed to his installation," - all this, as it seems to us, is utterly preposterous. No church has a right to put a minister into such a position. It may be urged that in the large majority of cases, the proceedings of the modern installation council, although inquisitorial, are merely formal, and that the pastorelect is settled almost as a matter of course. Undoubtedly this is so in times of peace, and during the last fifty years the system has worked with more annoyance than positive mischief; but let the spirit of party appear in the denomination and in the councils, and the essential harmfulness of this tribunal which ecclesiasticism has imposed upon the churches at once becomes manifest. In the exceptional instances, what can compensate a pastor, who having been persuaded to vacate a pulpit and change his residence in order to accept an invitation elsewhere, finds the pulpit to which he has been called closed against him, because the settled ministers in the neighborhood to whom the "expediency" of his installation has been referred have voted against him? In such a case, the disappointed church, in due time, would find another minister; but how long might it be before the disappointed minister would find another church?

MR. GORDON Joins the old south.

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At the weekly meeting of the church, Friday evening, March 7, Mr. Gordon was formally received into the membership, in compliance with an ancient rule requiring that the pastor-elect shall become a member before his installation. A large congregation was present, and Dr. Tucker conducted the devotional exercises. Mr. Gordon presented a letter of dismission and recommendation from the Fourth Presbyterian Church, Boston, which he had joined soon after his arrival in this country, and made a statement of his belief and experience. Deacon Allen moved that he be received into the membership, and the brethren voted in the affirmative by show of hands. Deacon Plumer then read an adaptation of the covenant, the members of the church rising, and, at the close, joining audibly in the benediction: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Mr. Gordon was now a "brother beloved" in the church; he had entered the long succession of its membership; it was but a step to the long succession of its pastorate.

Dr. Wisner says in his History: "At least since the settlement of Mr. Cumming [1761], the following has been the uniform practice in this particular. The pastor-elect having signified his acceptance of the call, attends a meeting of the church, where his testimonials are exhibited, and he declares his consent to the Confession of Faith owned and consented unto by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches convened at Boston in 1680; after which he is received a member of the church." This custom seems to have been introduced when the Old South for the first time called a minister from the Presbyterian Church. When Dr. Manning was received into the membership previously to his installation, in 1857, he declared his consent to the Confession of 1680 in the sense in which the authors of that symbol would explain themselves, if they were then living. In arranging for the admission of Mr. Gordon, the church committee decided to make no reference to the Confession of 1680 in that service, but to leave the pastorelect entirely free to make a statement of his belief in his own way, and this he did.1

A few days later letters-missive were issued for the installation. The form which these should take, involving, of course, a definition of the powers delegated to the council, had been talked over by some of the committee before it was certain that Mr. Gordon would be the choice of the church. Members of the committee had been appealed to more than once, in anticipation of the event, to return in this particular to the ancient and approved usage of the Congregational churches of Massachusetts, not so much for the sake of the Old South, which, it was said, could take care of itself, as for the sake of churches less able, perhaps, to withstand pressure from without. In its letters for the last two, and perhaps three, installations, the church had conformed to the modern custom, but it was not bound by these precedents, if it saw fit to return substantially to the terms which the churches of its order in Massachusetts had employed for two hundred years. The issuance of letters-missive is a sovereign act upon the part of the local church, which may fix the form, and vary this from time to time, according to its pleasure. It has an unquestionable right, if it prefers to do so, but only with the full consent of its pastor-elect, to use such language as the following: We request your attendance "to examine the candidate, review our proceedings and advise with us in reference to the same, and, if judged expedient, to assist in the installation service." On the other hand, if a church considers itself competent to make choice of a pastor, and proposes to stand by its choice, it is also its unquestionable right to draw up its letters of invitation in conformity with this conviction and this purpose.

On a comparison of the Old South letter of 1884 with similar letters to be found in these volumes, it will be seen that so far as it varies from them in terms, it does so in the interest of Christian courtesy and church fellowship. It says expressly: "The action of the church and society, and the correspondence in connection with the call, will be laid before you, and the pastor-elect will make a statement of his religious belief." Full information was promised; but the council was not requested "to review the proceedings;" the time for that, in the judgment of the church, had passed several months before. The letter was as follows :

THE LETTER-MISSIVE,

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The Old South Church, Boston,
To the

Dear Brethren :

SENDETH GREETING.

The Great Head of the Church having graciously united our hearts in the choice of the Rev. George A. Gordon, now pastor of the Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Conn., as our pastor and teacher, and he having accepted our call to this office, an Ecclesiastical Council for installation and recognition will be held on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, the second day of April next. You are hereby cordially invited to participate, by your pastor and a delegate, in the proceedings of this Council, which will be convened in our MeetingHouse, Boylston Street, Boston, on the day aforesaid, at three o'clock P. M., when the action of the Church and Society, and the correspondence in connection with the call, will be laid before you, and the pastor-elect will make a statement of his religious belief, preliminary to the usual public services in the evening.

In behalf of the Old South Church and Society,

By a few of the neighboring pastors this letter was not received in the spirit in which it had been sent. From their comments upon it one would almost have thought that it threatened to interfere with what they had come to regard as their just prerogative, their vested right of visitation in the churches, and that the control in matters of faith and polity, which they had assumed and for a long time had been allowed to exercise without challenge, was now in imminent danger. The Creed Commission had recently reaffirmed the ancient article, that the churches, "under the guidance of the Holy Scriptures and in fellowship with one another," might, each for itself, "appoint and set apart their own ministers." The letter-missive had been prepared, as was believed, in accordance with this utterance. The only question that could possibly arise was in relation to the meaning of the word "fellowship." The Old South committee had assumed that it meant - fellowship; of course, if it could be explained as meaning something else, — dictation, for example, there might be ground for serious mis