Excerpt from The York Congress and Church Rites: From the "Christian Remembrancer", January, 1867 Rates,' which are alone recorded against the York Congress in this class, were not its most felicitous elements. An extempore feature was introduced into the York gathering by the invitation from the Working Men's Association for the Congress to meet and address it. In consequence, the Congress Hall was crowded with workmen, accompanied with their wives, who were successively addressed by chosen speakers, such as the Archbishop of York and the Dean of Cork. The attention of the hearers was exemplary, and the speeches of a decidedly good quality. All we wished for was, that there should have been a little more distinct allusion to the Church as such, if only as a social organization. When the working men ask a Church gathering, as such to address them, the time had surely come to show them inoffensively and tolerantly, but still boldly, that the Church, as such, was in every way an institution which was of great benefit to themselves, and of which they would feel the loss, both temporal and Spiritual, were it to be removed. As it was, many of the speeches would have been nearly as appropriate if they had been delivered at a Wesleyan or a Baptist Congress. Upon the whole we should say that the Manchester Congress was characterised in its choice of subjects by a bold, though rather unsystematic, grasp of large questions; that of Bristol by the desire to realize practical points; Norwich by a well balanced system of carefully adjusted topics and York by business-like caution. After all, however, the bill of fare in any case, like that of many a Corporation feast, was more truly comprehended by the retrospective enquirer than the bewildered participant. As we have shown, the feature of the York Congress which will stamp it with individuality, was the fulness of the recognition which it won from the Church itself in its established dignity. As three days cannot cover every thing, it was worth making the list of subjects which secured the Primate of All England as preacher in York Minster, less than five years after the first little Congress gathered at Cambridge in King's College Hall. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.