After further investigation, Mr. Forster found that he could not even subscribe to that—that he had ceased to regard Christ as a mediator at all—and, consequently, he resigned the charge of a church, which, owing to his labours, had become flourishing and great. Now his banner bears the motto of ‘Free Inquiry.’ He preaches in a handsome chapel in Camden Town. His church calls itself a Free Church. It promises to be a successful one. It is well attended, though it has much to contend against. The orthodox will not forgive Mr. Forster his desertion of their camp; and the Unitarians, who, in their way, are often as narrow-minded and dogmatic as the most orthodox themselves, cannot exactly hold out the right hand of fellowship to a man who professes to be free—who claims to know no master—whose appeal is to the law and to the testimony, rather than to the doctrines and opinions of men. Thus Mr. Forster gravitates, like Mahomet’s coffin, between heaven and earth. Yet his condition is by no means a rare one. That a large number sympathise with him, the attendance at his chapel is convincing proof. Coming out from the orthodox, he bears testimony against them. In his farewell sermon to his Kentish Town congregation he says: ‘How little have the contents of the Bible to do with men’s personal belief! How seldom are men taught to rely on their own powers in the investigation of the truth! How few are the Christians who sit at the feet of Jesus, or frequent the apostolic college! If Dissenters have renounced the infallibility of the Pope, have they not bowed their necks to a yoke almost as heavy and galling? If they have given up the Thirty-nine Articles, have they on that account conceded to each other the right of judging all things for themselves? If the Trentine pandects are not retained as the law of their religious faith and life, are they not bound by the Institutes of Calvin, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Assembly’s Catechism, the Minutes of Conference, and the Sermons of Wesley—the creeds of chapel trust-deeds, the Congregational Union Confession of Faith, or by the writings of Howe, Watts, Doddridge, Gill, Fuller, Hall, Priestly, Watson, Channing, and of other great men, who ought to be dear to their hearts, but not lords of their faith? Are we not all of us more or less guilty of this servility? Have we not yet to learn that there is no _via media_—no middle way between Reason and Rome? There is, unhappily, floating over us an invisible and unexpressed opinion, to which all, in the main, must agree. It hovers over the pulpit and the pew; over the church and congregation; over the professor’s chair and the students’ form; over the family and the school; over the Bible and the Commentary. All thought, all sentiment, all investigation, all conclusions, all teachings, are controlled by it. It is this which checks free inquiry; shuts the mouths of those who have