INDEPENDENTS. The first body of Dissenters which actually broke away from the Church of England was that of the _Independents_, or--as they are nowadays perhaps more intelligibly called--the _Congregationalists_. An Independent sect seems to have existed about the year 1568, the whole question in dispute between them and the Church being then, as it is still, essentially one of "discipline," or Church Polity. They made each congregation a body corporate, governed exclusively by itself, and disclaim, more or less, every form of union between churches. In doctrine they are strictly Calvinistic, and, reviving the ancient heresy of Donatus, they profess to receive only accredited or really serious Christians into their fellowship, and to exclude any who may prove themselves unworthy members. The Independents are sometimes called _Brownists_, from Robert Brown, a clergyman of the Church of England, who was the first to secede from her ranks, and who, retreating to Holland, set up a separatist communion. There are 76 County and other Associations at home and in the Colonies, with 3,895 meetinghouses, and 1,039 preaching stations, 300 being foreign mission stations; of ministers and missionaries they have about 3,500. They reckon to have about 360,000 members in the British dominions. INDUCTION. The ceremony whereby a minister is put in actual possession of the living to which he has been presented. INFALLIBILITY. The claim set up by the Church of Rome, either for the Pope, or the Church, or for the Pope and the Church consenting together; of absolute freedom from error in deciding questions of faith and doctrine. Roman divines are not agreed among themselves as to precisely _where_ the infallibility of their Church is found. Certain it is that Councils and Popes have contradicted and anathematized each other. INNOCENTS' DAY, THE HOLY. This festival has been observed ever since the 3rd century, in memory of the slaughtered children of Bethlehem (Matt. ii. 16.) Its old English name is Childermas, and it is kept on December 28th; the attendants on the nativity being St. Stephen, a martyr in will and deed, December 26th; St. John the Divine, a martyr in will though not in deed, December 27th; and The Holy Innocents, martyrs in deed but not in will, December 28th. INSPIRATION. The extraordinary and supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit on the human mind, by which the sacred writers were qualified to set forth the things of God. In this sense the word occurs in 2 Tim. iii. 16. (See _Bible_.) The word is also used of the ordinary influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart of man, as "Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the _inspiration_ of Thy Holy Spirit." INSTITUTION. The legal act by which the Bishop commits to a clergyman the cure of a church. INSTITUTIONS, CHURCH, _see_ Societies. INTROIT, _see_ Church Music