difference in capacity between boys and girls, the difference is certainly not greater than between the brightest boys and the dullest boys. Our school systems have to be. sufficiently flexible to suit all grades of capacity in boys, and just now in our high institutions of learning-notably at Cambridge the tendency is to make the system more and more adaptable to every variety of taste and ability. If we travel on an express train on long routes we find that even there where the aim is to get the maximum of speed, the schedule of time allows some margin for possible increase, so that if from any cause a delay occurs and at some given point the train is behind time, the conductor will tell us he hopes to make it up before the end of the route. Unless our college curriculum is fixed at a strain beyond that of the "Lightning Express," it will be possible to make up for any occasional absences and periods of rest that considerations of health may require by extra effort at other times.

There are, however, other difficulties bearing on this question of co-education, and we regard it as not yet settled. We shall hereafter consider it in other points of view. It is a question of great interest and importance, and happily it is in the way of being determined in the only satisfactory way, that is, by the practical testing of it in some of the best institutions of the land.

CONGREGATIONALISM AND MR. BEECHER.

An Ecclesiastical Council has been called by the Church of the Pilgrims and the Clinton Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., and will be in session before this Review appears, which promises to be an occasion of much importance in settling the degree of ecclesiastical authority to which individual Congregational churches in the Orthodox body are willing to submit. The occasion of the Council is to consider the action. of the Plymouth Church (Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's) in disregarding the remonstrances of sister churches in a matter of internal discipline connected with the calumnies brought by Mr. Tilton, a member of the society, against the pastor. In reply to a friendly protest by the churches of Dr. Storrs and Dr. Buddington against what they deemed too loose a method of procedure in regard to

the offending member, Mr. Beecher had said, "The Congregational churches have no more right to interfere with us than the Presbyterian churches have," and in a formal reply to the letters of the sister churches it was declared that it is the view of the Plymouth Church that "Congregationalism is the conduct of the affairs of the church by the whole brotherhood, not embarrassed by the unasked interference of other churches." The Committee of the two churches inviting the Council have prepared a lengthy statement in which they say that the position assumed by Mr. Beecher and his society "is simply insupportable. If this is to be Congregational practice many churches will certainly prefer to identify themselves with some other communion." "For who can predict what further divergencies from the accepted Congregational system may be encouraged by the authorized consciousness in a church of such entire independence of others as here is affirmed? If the Plymouth Church were at any time hereafter to alter essentially its Articles of Faith, even omitting from among them the Divinity of our Lord, we should plainly be debarred by its recent resolution from any remonstrance against its action, while it still might insist, as emphatically as now, that from 'fellowship' with us it would not withdraw." Thus on both sides there appears to be recognized the right to "bolt," and on both sides a spirit of determination which will hardly permit this to be a merely formal convention. Eighty churches have been invited to take part in the Council, from all parts of the country, and it will be one of the most important ever assembled, considering especially the prominent and marked ability of the men on both sides.

We cannot refer to this subject without saying a word upon the unhappy circumstance which gave rise to the whole dispute. A member of Mr. Beecher's society had circulated gross charges against Mr. Beecher's personal character, and when the case was brought before the church, Mr. Beecher, instead of yielding to the wish of many of his friends that he should demand a thorough investigation, chose to be content with the simple retraction on the part of his accuser. The public generally have joined in denouncing his course, and have insisted that it is due to his reputation and to the honor and purity of the Christian pulpit that if the charges were all an unfounded scan

dal it should be so proved. For our own part, we. wish to declare our approval of Mr. Beecher's course. If there is any

one symptom in the public mind that ought to be checked, it is its morbid craving for scandal of every kind—and a public investigation such as would follow from Mr. Beecher's or Mr. Tilton's trial, no matter how triumphantly Mr. Beecher's innocence could be established, would vastly stimulate this unhealthy craving, and would involve the discussion about private persons such as must give great pain. We know nothing whatever about the matter, and have hardly read any of the reports concerning it, but we find it vastly easier to believe that considerations like these have determined Mr. Beecher in declining the investigation, than to believe that one who has been before us thirty years and more, known as few men are known, and who if he has shown any one quality has manifested that of courage and manly candorhas now been guilty of mean criminality, and is afraid to own it!

THE TEMPERANCE CRUSADE.

The movement which under this name has within the last few weeks been so prominent as to command universal attention appears to have originated in one of the small towns of Ohio where intemperance prevailed to a fearful extent, and where some earnest women, to many of whom its horrors come terribly near, united to bring their arguments and entreaties to bear upon the sellers of whiskey, joining with them fervent prayers to God. By the intensity of their earnestness they won a glorious success. The idea spread, and now all over the land the experiment is either being already tried, or is being actively discussed and eagerly proposed.

The movement is interesting if only as a social phenomenon. It has received the name of "Crusade." The rapidity of the contagion naturally suggests the rememberance of those vast movements of the middle ages, and if we couple with this movement a good many kindred illustrations as for example the recent Pilgrimages in France the "Internationalist" movement that flashed all over Europe with a sudden blaze - the" Grange organization" that in so short a time developed over a wide extent of

country

and very many more that will readily occur to the mind, we are led to believe that there is something in the present condition of society in Christendom favorable to that quickness of sympathy and that spirit of contagion which makes possible quick and widespread movements in any direction in which interest can be awakened.

But at present we wish to speak of this movement not as a social phenomenon, but as to its bearing on the cause of Temperance. Is it wise? Is it likely to effect any real, lasting good? Or is the good likely to be more than counterbalanced by the harm? It is evident that opinion is seriously divided on these points even among those most sincerely interested in the suppression of Intemperance.

In the first place we have, as reported, certain definite results; for example, that in fifty-five of the smaller towns in Ohio two hundred and forty-five saloons have been closed and fifteen thousand people have signed the pledge. Making all allowance for exaggeration, and for the ephemeral character of many of these pledges, it is hard not to believe that there is a great residuum of good. We cannot believe that in the reaction which it is said. must come, it will not be found that the roused public sentiment which occasioned the temporary suppression has gained some ground -and that some individuals who were checked in their career of intemperance have been permanently saved.

But there are other considerations pertaining to the details of the method used which give occasion to reasonable distrust. The course pursued is something like this. A number of women join together, in what are called "praying bands," and visit the places where liquor is sold, and beset them by every kind of proper influence till by their persistency they exact a promise that the selling shall cease. Now we can understand that such an attempt might be made in a way that would not only be effective, but in every point of view worthy of our heartiest sympathy and almost reverent admiration. If the wives and mothers whose homes had been saddened, whose hearts broken, whose lives darkened by the ruin these haunts had caused, who saw their loved ones powerless to resist the temptations that glared upon them in these drinking hells—if these women, strong in

their mighty love, should go to such places and beg, by all the considerations they could plead so well, that these sellers should cease their traffic-if they should mingle these entreaties with persistent threats, and all with prayers to God, we can easily conceive of its being a perfectly natural outgrowth of deep feeling,

such as none could rebuke and few could resist.

But when, because of its success in such an instance, you attempt to copy the method as a general plan of operation, it is altogether a different thing. The very same acts which are sublime and impressive when obviously inspired by an impulse of exalted feeling, may become ridiculous and reprehensible when employed by deliberate purpose as part of a contrived machinery to accomplish an end.

We are not surprised that already one of the judges in Ohio has issued an injunction forbidding, "as a nuisance," the crowds of women "obstructing the public pavements and interfering with persons engaged in lawful business." We are not surprised that in many places the women are followed about by such crowds of idle boys and men as always enjoy any kind of novel excitement, and appear to awaken scoffing and jeering as they kneel on the sidewalk, and pray and sing their pious hymns. We are not surprised that many religious people feel that when the forms of prayer are employed for sensational effect it is likely to bring religion into contempt. And some of the accounts, as for example when the keeper of one of the noted saloons in New York invited the women to his establishment and made their visit a splendid advertisment, and the subject of roistering ridicule, have made us fear that the whole movement was coming to a disastrous failure.

But from all these considerations what is the conclusion but simply this that in this great movement there are elements that are good and others that are bad, and that it is of the utmost importance that we should try to eliminate the good so that an instrumentality that has shown such possibility of effectiveness may not be abandoned by reason of such accompaniments, provided these are not inseparable from it?

1. In the first place, it is natural to say that the movement illustrates the power of moral influence. The whole history of attempts to control intemperance by legislation has shown that no