has an opinion diametrically opposite to that which it defended four years ago: "The sacred right of free speech is being interfered with unjustifiably by the City Council. There is no need of any such ordinance." That is from the "Congregationalist" of July 24, 1884.

In taking its present position, the "Congregationalist" echoes an opinion of the "Boston Journal" of February 28. Now I have great respect for the "Boston Journal," and I would not be misunderstood here to undervalue this worthy sheet. I think the "Journal" improves rapidly from year to year. Thirty years ago at Phillips Academy I used to look into the "Boston Journal" every night to see whether Michael Flanagan and Patrick O'Dougherty had been put in the lock-up. But more important news is now given in most of our journals, and it is better sifted and better arranged in every way. I rejoice in the vigor of the Boston press. But this "Journal" said not long ago that your present lecturer seemed to be in advance of the other complainants at the hearing; he was willing, this lecturer, to allow anybody to be heard who observed statute law on the Common. "Mr. Cook recognized that this must be granted, and met the difficulty candidly." The "Journal" thinks the other complainants would not have gone so far. Now I have no right to speak for the other complainants, but I never understood that we disagreed on this point. The "Journal" is misled if anybody has informed it that we disagree. We all petitioned for the same thing-the abolition of that ordinance, every word of it. Not only evangelical preachers protested, but representatives of Unitarian bodies. The protest was a very broad one, as well as a very earnest one, and it is minimized here in the strangest way by one representative of the secular press. And now I beg to assert that it is not quite the right thing for the religious press to take its cue in reformatory matters from the secular press. If the religious journals of this land would stand together, they might lead almost any great moral reform, in spite of any attitude the secular press could take. But the mischief is that our religious journals, with the exception of about a dozen, echo the secular press on all topics of reform, until the people become impatient and insist that there shall be a change.

Then the religious journals are sometimes the first to respect the will of the people. It is greatly to be desired that the religious press should be well enough supported to stand on its own bottom, and never echo a misleading opinion that happens to be popular with secular journals.

Now that I am speaking of the religious press, let me praise the journal published in this building. I have a high reverence for the "Watchman," for it is a thunderbolt in support of sound orthodoxy. And yet the "Watchman" said the other day that this case cannot be carried up to the Supreme Court. A legal expert has assured me that this position of that paper indicates a large amount of misinformation. I have here a book of high legal authority; it is Desty's "Federal Procedure," sixth edition. If you will turn to the 331st page you will find high authority for the assertion that a case like the one now under discussion can be carried up by a writ of error to the Supreme Court.

"A final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of a State in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity; or where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held, or authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or immunity specially set up or claimed by either party, under such Constitution, treaty, statute, commission, or authority,—may be reexamined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon a writ of error. The writ shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree complained of had been rendered or passed in a court of the United States. The Supreme Court may reverse, modify, or affirm the judgment or decree of such State court, and may, at their discretion, award execution or remand the same to the court from which it was removed by the writ."

I have here in my hand a letter in which an eminent lawyer, who appeared at the hearing the other night [applause], cites me to the very page of Cushing's reports, containing Justice Shaw's famous decision that no town or city can be allowed to make an ordinance manufacturing a new crime. Now, preach

ing on the Common without a permit is not a crime under the statute laws. It is made a crime only by a city ordinance; and this lawyer says he believes this single case shows the unconstitutionality of the ordinance. That same lawyer tells me that the religious journals are all wrong if they think the case cannot be carried up to the Supreme Court.

8. If unnecessary, the ordinance is unreasonable, and, therefore, of questionable constitutionality.

I know what has been the decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, but the Supreme Court of Michigan has decided an ordinance touching street parades of the Salvation Army to be open to such an interpretation as to allow the parades and the preaching connected with them. The Supreme Court of Michigan decided with the decision of the Massachusetts court before it, and proceeded upon principles that show that the Massachusetts decision is, at least, questionable. Certainly it is questioned, and, therefore, some of us think it ought to be carried up to a higher tribunal and the question settled. Mr. Davis tells me that the only thing he wants settled is whether the Supreme Court of the land will cut or rivet for the whole nation the chains Boston has put around its Common.

9. The ordinance is unprecedented for two hundred years. 10. As liable to dangerous perversion, as actually perverted, as a hardship to the poor, as unnecessary, and as unprecedented, the ordinance is impolitic.

It is impolitic to give Protestants the unregulated power to grant permits for Catholic preaching. It is impolitic to give Catholics similar power to regulate Protestant preaching. It is impolitic for rumsellers to require temperance preachers to obtain permits to warn the people against the gin-mills. It is impolitic for any city government so to act as to bring upon itself justly or unjustly the charge that it is largely ruled by gin and Jesuitism.

11. The repeal of the ordinance has twice been asked for by the Evangelical Alliance, an organization representing hundreds of churches of Boston and vicinity. It has been asked for by a delegation representing a large number of Unitarian preachers and laymen. It has been asked for in a petition of hundreds

of citizens of all parties and denominations. The mayor of the city has given the municipal council official notice that he would gladly sign a bill for its abolition.

George Whitefield, on the 12th day of October, 1740, preached his farewell sermon on Boston Common. He had no permission to speak there, but he addressed 30,000 people yonder in the open air. There are two pictures which I wish some great artist would paint: George Whitefield standing on the stairs leading up to his chamber, at Newburyport, and holding in his hands a candle, and preaching to a great crowd until the candle went out. He then ascended to his chamber, and within a few hours he ascended to his God. John Wesley standing on his father's tomb in England, and preaching there every day at sunset in the open air, to all who were willing to listen to God's word! It is by such preaching as that which your city government is trying to suppress that more than one nation has been religiously revolutionized. George Whitefield's sacred eloquence throws a halo of fire around the Common, and that fire ought to be intense enough to melt these chains of a city ordinance constructed on the model of paternal government in Prague and Vienna, Cork and Dublin. Unlicensed open-air preaching has reformed two continents, and unlicensed open-air preaching is yet necessary for the political and religious welfare of every free people. [Applause.]

LECTURE IV.

CHRIST'S ESTIMATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIP

TURES.

THE UNITY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

THERE are moments of loneliness when perhaps some of us, walking on the edge of the ocean's shore, have touched the water, as I personally have often done, with an electric thrill at the thought that the sea touches all shores; and that we are in connection with England, with Germany, with France, with Italy, with Greece, with the Holy Land, with the Orient, with all the isles of the sea, and both the wheeling poles, when we lay our hands upon ocean's mane. As once it used to be my delight to go down to the physical sea and thus touch all lands, so, as years advance, it becomes more and more my delight to go down to the edge of the ocean of time and touch history, remembering that when I put my hand on the mane of that great deep I am in some way electrically connected with prophets and apostles and martyrs; I touch Plato and Socrates; I touch John and Isaiah; I touch Moses and Abraham; and I touch the father of the human race; I touch the morning of creation and that Unseen Holy out of which the universe came, as God's selfrevelation. Matthew Arnold says that when we walk to and fro on the shore of the ocean of history, we ought to listen to the surges and not to our own voices. Standing here, not far from Plymouth Rock, and looking back, I wish so to touch time as to touch the period of the Old Testament Scriptures. Your cause and mine were at stake in the religious, and even to some extent in the political experiences of that period. That time led

to ours.

INDISPUTABLE ELEMENTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

What are some of the great indisputable facts concerning the Old Testament Scriptures? We live in an era of criticism of