exception, and both those who stood by the church and those who stood by the minister parted, at the end of 1845, without rancour and without malice, which did honour to both sides alike. His friends—and he had made many in less than eighteen months—were determined not to let him go. They joined together to build a new chapel for him under conditions that should ensure perfect freedom, and in August, 1847, the Church of the Saviour was opened, based on these principles; that no pledge should be required of minister or congregation; that no form of theological belief should be implied by membership; that difference of creed should be no bar to union in practical Christian work. In that church George Dawson carried on his work for nearly thirty years. How the principles worked out in practice, and to what extent his pastoral work was lasting, I do not attempt to inquire. It is enough to know this —that he drew round him hundreds and thousands of men and women who would have found no religious home elsewhere; and that from his teaching they gained such strength, and such hope, and such repose of heart as they needed, and such hold as might be on the things that belong to eternity and not to time. And now he settled down to the work of his life—his religious work in the church, as preacher and pastor, his intellectual work as a lecturer and teacher, his public work as a citizen and a patriot. It will be convenient to deal separately with these three fields or provinces of service. But you must allow me to handle them broadly rather than in detail, leaving much to be filled in by yourselves.
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