§ 178.3. =The Evangelical Alliance.=--An attempt was made in England, on the motion of Dr. Chalmers (§ 202, 7), at a yet more comprehensive confederation of all Protestant churches of all lands against the encroachments of popery and puseyism (§ 202, 2). After several preliminary meetings the first session of the =Evangelical Alliance= was held in London in August, A.D. 1846. Its object was the fraternizing of all evangelical Christians on the basis of agreement upon the fundamental truths of salvation, the vindication and spread of this common faith, and contention for liberty of conscience and religious toleration. Nine articles were laid down as terms of membership: Belief in the inspiration of Scripture, in the Trinity, in the divinity of Christ, in original sin, in justification by faith alone, in the obligatoriness of the two sacraments, in the resurrection of the body, in the last judgment, and in the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal condemnation of the ungodly. It could thus include Baptists, but not Quakers. In A.D. 1855 it held its ninth meeting at the great Paris Industrial Exhibition as a sort of church exhibition, the representatives of different churches reporting on the condition of their several denominations. The tenth meeting, of A.D. 1857, was held in Berlin. The council of the Alliance, presided over by Sir Culling Eardley, presented an address to King Frederick William IV., in which it was said that they aimed a blow not only against the sadduceanism, but also against the pharisaism of the German evangelical church. The confessional Lutherans, who had opposed the Alliance, regarded this latter reference as directed against them. The king, however, received the deputation most graciously, while declaring that he entertained the brightest hopes for the future of the church, and urged cordial brotherly love among Christians. Though many distinguished confessionalists were members of the Alliance none of them put in an appearance. The members of the “Protestantenverein” (§ 180) would not take part because the articles were too orthodox. On the other hand, numerous representatives of pietism, unionism, Melanchthonianism, as well as Baptists, Methodists, and Moravians, crowded in from all parts, and were supported by the leading liberals in church and state. While there was endless talk about the oneness and differences of the children of God, about the universal priesthood, about the superiority of the present meeting over the œcumenical councils of the ancient church, about the want of spiritual life in the churches, even where the theology of the confessions was professed, etc., with denunciations of half-Catholic Lutheranism and its sacramentarianism and officialism, and many a true and admirable statement of what the church’s needs are, Merle d’Aubigné introduced discord by the hearty welcome which