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THE    DISCIPLES    DIVINITY    HOUSE 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY    OF   CHICAGO 


Herbert  Lockwood  Willett 
Library 


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in  2012  with  funding  from 

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VOL.  X  NO.  1 

rrGod  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation.  " 


TUT? 

CHRISTIAN  UNION 
QUARTERLY 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

rjnHIS  journal  is  the  organ  of  no  party  other 
JL  than  of  those,  growing  up  in  all  parties,  who 
are  interested  in  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Its  pages  are  friendly  to  all  indications  of  Christian 
unity  and  ventures  of  faith.  It  maintains  that, 
whether  so  accepted  or  not,  all  Christians — Greek 
Orthodox,  Roman  Catholic,  Anglican,  Protestant, 
and  all  who  accept  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour — 
are  parts  of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  that  the 
unity  of  His  disciples  is  the  paramount  issue 
of  modern  times. 

Edited  by  Peter  Ainslie,  Minister  Christian  Temple,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Editorial  Council:  Raymond  Calkins,  Pastor  First  Congregational 
Church,  Cambridge,  Mass.;  Alfred  E.  Garvie,  Principal  New  College, 
London,  England;  Hughell  Fosbroke,  Dean  General  Theological 
Seminary,  New  York;  William  P.  Merrill,  Minister  Brick  Presby- 
terian Church,  New  York  City;  George  W.  Richards,  Professor  of 
Church  History,  Theological  Seminary  of  the  Reformed  Church, 
Lancaster,  Pa. 

I  JULY,  1920 

THE    CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

2710  PINE  STREET  504  N.  FULTON  AVENUE 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.  BALTIMORE,  MD. 

AGENTS: 

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THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

A  Journal  in  the  Interest  of  Peace  in  the  Divided  Church  of 
Christ.     It  is  issued  in  January,  April,  July  and  October. 


Vol.  X.  JULY,  1920  No.  1 


CONTENTS 

EDITOEIAL: 

The  Switzerland  Conferences  of  This   Summer 9 

NOTES  AND  COMMENTS 12 

UNITY  IN  THE  MISSION  FIELD.     Eobert  E.  Speer    ...         .16 

PEESENT    POSSIBILITIES    AND    FUTUEE    STEPS    TOWAEDS 

UNITY.     T.    J.    Pulvertaft 26 

PAUL'S  PLAN  FOE  CHEISTIAN  UNITY.     John  B.  Cowden     .     .     33 

SOME    FALLACIES    CONCEENING    CHUECH    UNITY    AND    A 

HOPEFUL   PLAN.    Eobert   Westly   Peach 49 

SUGGESTIONS  CONCEENING  CONFEEENCES  BETWEEN  THE 
PEOTESTANT  EPISCOPALIANS  AND  CONGEEGATIONAL- 
ISTS 56 

CHEISTIAN  UNITY  IN  AUSTEALIA.    George  Hall 60 

WHAT  PEOIUS  AND  PAPEES  AEE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY     .     63 

BOOK  EEVIEWS 79 


THIS  JOUENAL  IS  INTEEDENOMINATIOAL  AND  INTEENA- 
TIONAL  and  is  the  servant  of  the  whole  Church,  irrespective  of  name  or 
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frank  and  courteous  discussion  of  those  problems  that  have  to  do  with 
the  healing  of  our  unchristian  divisions.    Its  readers  are  in  all  communions. 

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THE  SPIRIT  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

The  favorite  figure  in  which  the  church  of  the  first  century  set  forth  its 
conception  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity  is  that  of  "the  Good  Shepherd." 
The  emblem  which  appears  on  this  page  is  a  reproduction  of  one  of 
the  early  Christian  gems. 

"ONE  FLOCK 


ONE  SHEPHERD." 

"No  one  has  written  more  appreciatively  respecting  this  symbol 
than  Dean  Stanley  in  his  Christian  Institutions.  It  appealed  to  all  his 
warmest  sympathies.  'What,'  he  asks,  'is  the  test  or  sign  of  Christian 
popular  belief,  which  in  these  earliest  representations  of  Christianity 
is  handed  down  to  us  as  the  most  cherished,  the  all-sufficing,  token  of 
their  creed?  It  is  very  simple,  but  it  contains  a  great  deal.  It  is 
a  shepherd  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  with  the  crook,  or  a  shepherd's  pipe, 
in  one  hand,  and  on  his  shoulder  a  lamb,  which  he  carefully  carries,  and 
holds  with  the  other  hand.  We  see  at  once  who  it  is;  we  all  know  with- 
out being  told.  This,  in  that  earliest  chamber,  or  church  of  a  Chris- 
tian family,  is  the  only  sign  of  Christian  life  and  Christian  belief.  But, 
as  it  is  almost  the  only  sign  of  Christian  belief  in  this  earliest  catacomb, 
so  it  continues  always  the  chief,  always  the  prevailing  sign,  as  long  as 
those  burial-places  were  used.' 

"After  alluding  to  the  almost  total  neglect  of  this  lovely  symbol 
by  the  Fathers  and  Theologians,  he  says  that  it  answers  the  question, 
what  was  the  popular  religion  of  the  first  Christians?  'It  was,  in  one 
word,  the  religion  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  The  kindness,  the  courage, 
the  love,  the  beauty,  the  grace,  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  was  to  them,  if 
we  may  so  say,  Prayer  Book  and  Articles,  Creed  arid  Canons,  all  in  one. 
They  looked  on  that  figure,  and  it  conveyed  to  them  all  they  wanted. 
As  ages  passed  on,  the  Good  Shepherd  faded  from  the  mind  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  other  emblems  of  the  Christian  faith  have  taken 
His  place.  Instead  of  the  gracious  and  gentle  Pastor,  there  came  the 
Omnipotent  Judge,  or  the  crucified  Sufferer  or  the  Infant  in  His  mother's 
arms,  or  the  Master  in  His  parting  Supper,  or  the  figures  of  innumerable 
saints  and  angels,  or  the  elaborate  expositions  of  the  various  forms  of 
theological  controversy.'  But  'the  Good  Shepherd  represents  to  us  the 
joyful,  cheerful  side  of  Christianity  of  which  we  spoke  before.  .  .  . 
But  that  is  the  primitive  conception  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  in 
those  earlier  centuries  when  the  first  object  of  the  Christian  community 
was  not  to  repel,  but  to  include;  not  to  condemn,  but  to  save.  The  popular 
conception  of  Christ  in  the  early  church  was  of  the  strong,  the  joyous 
youth,  of  eternal  growth,  of  immortal  grace.'  " — Frederic  W.  Farrar  in 
The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented  in  Art. 


Organizations  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNITY,  Inc. 
Having  its  inception  in  the  work  of  Thomas  Campbell,  1809,  present  or- 
ganization 1910,  President,  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie;  Secretary,  Rev.  H.  C.  Arm- 
strong, Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A.  For  intercessory  prayer, 
friendly  conferences  and  distribution  of  irenic  literature,  ' '  till  we  all  attain 
unto  the  unity  of  the  faith. "  Pentecost  Sunday  is  the  day  named  for 
special  prayers  for  and  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches. 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  CHRIS- 
TENDOM, 1857,  President,  Athelstan  Riley,  Esq.,  2  Kensington  Court, 
London;  Secretary  in  the  United  States,  Rev.  Calbraith  Bourn  Perry,  Cam- 
bridge, N.  Y.  For  intercessory  prayer  for  the  reunion  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic, Greek  and  Anglican  Communions. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  ASSOCIATION  OF  SCOTLAND,  1903,  Secretary, 
Rev.  Robert  W.  "Weir,  Edinburgh.  For  maintaining,  fostering  and  ex- 
pressing the  consciousness  of  the  underlying  unity  that  is  shared  by  many 
members  of  the  different  Churches  in  Scotland. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  FOUNDATION,  1910,  Secretary,  Rev.  W.  C.  Em- 
hardt,  Newtown,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  For  the  promotion  of  Christian  unity 
throughout  the  world  by  research  and  conference. 

CHURCHMEN'S  UNION,  1896,  President,  Prof.  Percy  Gardner;  Hon. 
Secretary,  Rev.  C.  Moxon,  3  St.  George's  Square,  London  S.  W.,  England. 
For  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  between  the  Church  of  England  and 
all  other  Christian  bodies. 

COMMISSION  ON  THE  WORLD  CONFERENCE  ON  FAITH  AND  OR- 
DER, 1910,  President,  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson;  Secretary,  Robert  H. 
Gardiner,  Esq.,  Gardiner,  Me.,  U.  S.  A.  For  a  world  conference  of  all 
Christians  relative  to  the  unity  of  Christendom. 

COUNCIL  ON  ORGANIC  UNION,  1918,  Ad  Interim  Committee,  Chairman, 
Rev.  W.  H.  Roberts,  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Secretary,  Rev.  Rufus  W.  Miller, 
Witherspoon  Building,  Philadelphia.  For  the  organic  union  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Churches  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

FEDERAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  CHURCHES  OF  CHRIST  IN  AMERICA, 
1908,  President,  Rev.  Frank  Mason  North;  Secretary,  Rev.  Charles  S.  Mac- 
farland,  105  E.  22d  St.,  New  York.  For  the  cooperation  of  the  various 
Protestant  Communions  in  service  rather  than  an  attempt  to  unite  upon 
definitions  of  theology  and  polity. 

FREE  CHURCH  FELLOWSHIP,  1911,  Bev.  Malcolm  Spencer,  Colue 
Bridge  House,  Rickmansworth,  London,  N.  For  the  cultivation  of  cor- 
porate prayer  and  thought  for  a  new  spiritual  fellowship  and  communion 
with  all  branches  of  the  Christian  Church. 

INTERCHURCH  WORLD  MOVEMENT  OF  NORTH  AMERICA,  1919, 
Chairman  Executive  Committee,  John  R.  Mott,  New  York;  General  Secre- 
tary, S.  Earl  Taylor,  920  Broadway,  New  York.  For  giving  and  accom- 
plishing an  adequate  programme  for  Protestantism  in  the  world. 

NATIONAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  FREE  CHURCHES 
OF  ENGLAND,  1895,  President,  Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  Mansfield 
College,  Oxford;  Secretary,  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  Memorial  Hall,  E.  O,  Lon- 
don. For  facilitating  fraternal  intercourse  and  cooperation  among  the 
Evangelical  Free  Churches  in  England. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY  CALENDAR 

At  the  instance  of  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian 
Unity,  Pentecost  Sunday  has  been  named  primarily  as  the  day  for 
special  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches,  along  with  prayers 
to  that  end. 


World's  Student  Christian  Federation,  Sweden,  July  30-August 
10. 


Lambeth  Conference,  July  and  August. 


Preliminary  meeting  of  a  proposed  ecumenical  conference  of  Church 
Federations  and  allied  interests  at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  August  9-11- 
For  particulars  write  Rev.  Chas.  S.  Macfarland,  105  E.  22nd  St.,. 
New  York,  Secretary. 


Preliminary  meeting  of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order, 
Geneva,  Switzerland,  August  12.  Robert  H.  Gardiner,  Gardiner, 
Maine,  Secretary. 


International  Committee  of  the  World  Alliance  for  Internationa! 
Friendship  through  the  Churches,  St.  Beatenberg,  Switzerland,  August 
20th.  Rev.  Henry  A.  Atkinson,  70  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York  City,  Secre- 
tary. 


Bibliography  of  Christian  Unity 


THE    BOOKS    included    in    this    list    are   by    Episcopalians,    Presbyterians,    Roman 

Catholics,  Congregationalists,  Unitarians,  Lutherans,  Baptists,  Disciples  of  Christ,  etc. 

CHRISTIAN  UNION,  Van   Dyke,   Appleton,   1885 $1.00 

CHRISTIAN  UNION,  Garrison,    St.    Louis,    Christian    Board   of   Publication, 

1906     LOO 

CHRISTIAN  UNION  IN  EFFORT,  Firth,  Philadelphia,  Lippincott,  1911..  1.50 
CHRISTIAN    UNION    IN    SOCIAL    SERVICE,    Carlile,    London,    Clarke    & 

Co.,    1913     2/6 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY,    Briggs,   Scribner,    1900 1.00 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  AT  WORK,  Macfarland,  Federal   Council 1.00 

CHURCH  DIVISIONS  AND  CHRISTIANITY,  Grane,  Macmillan,   1916 2.00 

HISTORICAL      DOCUMENTS     ADVOCATING      CHRISTIAN      UNION, 

Young,  Chicago,  The  Christian  Century  Co.,   1904 1.00 

HOW    TO    PROMOTE    CHRISTIAN    UNION,    Kershner,    Cincinnati,    The 

Standard   Publishing   Co.,    1916 1.00 

LECTURES  ON  THE  REUNION  OF  THE  CHURCH,  Dollinger,  Dodd,  1872  1.50 
LIBRARY  OF  CHRISTIAN  COOPERATION  (Federal  Council)  Macfar- 
land.     5    Vols 5.00 

OUR  PLEA  FOR  UNION  AND  THE  PRESENT  CRISIS,  Willett,  Chicago, 

Christian    Century    Co f 50 

PASSING    PROTESTANTISM    AND    COMING    CATHOLICISM,    Smyth, 

Scribner,    1908     1.00 

PROGRESS    OF    CHURCH    FEDERATION,    Macfarland,    Revell 50 

RELIGIOUS  SYSTEMS  OF  THE  WORLD,  London,  Swan  Sonnenschein  & 
Co.,    1908    

RESTATEMENT  AND  REUNION,  Streeter,  Macmillan,   1914 75 

SOME    THOUGHTS    OF    CHRISTIAN    REUNION,    Carpenter,    Macmillan, 

1895    1.25 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    THE   PROMOTION   OF    UNITY    IN   CHRISTEN- 
DOM, Tarner,   London,   Elliott  Stock,   1895 

THAT  THEY  ALL  MAY  BE  ONE,  Wells,   Funk  &  Wagnalls  Co.,   1905 75 

THAT  THEY  ALL  MAY  BE  ONE,  Whyte,   Armstrong,    1907    25 

THE  CHRISTIAN   SYSTEM,   Campbell,  St.    Louis,   Christian  Board  of   Pub- 
lication,   1890    1.00 

THE  CHURCH  AND  RELIGIOUS  UNITY,  Kelly,  Longmans,   1913 1.50 

THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  FEDERAL  COUNCIL,  Macfarland,  Revell....  1.00 

THE  LARGER  CHURCH,   Lanier,   Fredericksburg,   Va 1.25 

THE  LEVEL  PLAN  FOR  CHURCH  UNION,  Brown,  Whittaker,  1910 1.50 

THE  MEANING  OF   CHRISTIAN   UNITY,   Cobb,   Crowell,    1915 1.25 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    DISCIPLES    FOR    THE    UNION    OF    THE 

CHURCH,   Ainslie,   Revell,    1913 1.00 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  SECTS,  McComas,  Revell,   1912....     1.25 

THE  SEVENFOLD  UNITY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH,  Hall,  Long- 
mans,   1911     75 

THE  UNION   OF  CHRISTIAN    FORCES   IN    AMERICA,   Ashworth,   Phila- 
delphia.    American   Sunday-School  Union,   1915 75 

THE  UNITED   CHURCH   OF   THE  UNITED   STATES,   Shields,   Scribner, 

1895    , 2.50 

THOUGHTS    OF    THE    PRESENT    POSITION    OF    PROTESTANTISM, 

Harnack,   Macmillan,    1899    1.00 

UNITY  AND  MISSIONS,   Brown,  Revell,   1915 1.50 

WHAT  MUST  THE  CHURCH  DO  TO  BE  SAVED?  Simms,  Revell,  1913..     1.50 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY   PRAYER  LEAGUE 

(Membership  in  this  League  is  open  to  all  Christians — Greek,  Roman, 
Angliean  and  Protestant,  the  only  requirement  being  a  notice  by  post 
card  or  letter  of  one's  desire  to  be  so  enrolled,  stating  the  Church  of 
which  he  is  a  member.  Address,  Association  for  the  Promotion  of 
Christian  Unity,  Seminary  House,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore, 
Md.,  U.  S.  A.) 

MEDITATION: 

On  our  need  of  patience  with  each  other  in  our  approaches  toward 
Christian  unity. 

On  our  need  of  faith  that  God  will  bring  to  pass  the  triumph  of 
His  will  on  the  earth. 

On  our  need  of  the  sense  of  appreciation  of  all  work  that  has  for 
its  end  the  glory  of  God. 

On  the  Switzerland  conferences  and  all  summer  conferences  that 
have  to  do  with  the  cooperation  of  Christians  and  the  unity  of  the 
Church. 


ASSURANCE : 

How  wonderful  is  the  way  in  which,  with  quite  ordinary  folk, 
power  leaps  to  our  aid  in  any  time  of  emergency.  We  lead  timid 
lives,  shrinking  from  difficult  tasks,  till,  perhaps,  we  are  forced  into 
them  or  ourselves  determine  on  them,  and  immediately  we  seem  to 
unlock  the  unseen  forces.  When  we  have  to  face  danger,  then  courage 
comes;  when  trial  puts  a  long  continued  strain  upon  us  we  find  our- 
selves possessed  by  the  power  to  endure;  or  when  disaster  ultimately 
brings  the  fall  which  we  so  long  dreaded,  we  feel  underneath  us  the 
strength  as  of  the  everlasting  arms.  Common  experience  teaches 
that,  when  great  demands  are  made  upon  us,  if  only  we  fearlessly  ac- 
cept the  challenge  and  confidently  expend  our  strength,  every  danger 
or  difficulty  brings  its  own  strength. — "As  thy  days,  so  shall  thy 
strength  be." — The  Spirit  (The  Psychology  of  Power.)  Edited  by 
Canon  Streeter. 


PRAYER: 

ALMIGHTY  FATHER,  Who  art  always  faithful,  look  in  mercy 
upon  us  in  our  unfaithfulness  and  lead  us  away  from  the  shrines  of 
idolatry  and  the  sins  of  the  flesh  into  the  holiness  of  Thy  fellowship. 
Teach  us  the  way  to  faith,  hope  and  love  until  we  shall  express  these 
in  terms  that  are  so  distinctively  Christian  that  the  world  shall  know 
we  have  been  with  Christ;  through  Him,  Whose  we  are  and  Whom 
we  serve.     Amen. 


THREE  QUESTIONS  CONCERNING   UNITY 

Ask  yourselves  these  questions.  Can  a  united  church  find  its  mind  and 
the  mind  of  Christ  better  than  a  divided  church?  And  the  answer  is  not  in 
doubt. 

Can  a  united  church  find  its  voice  and  utter  the  voice  of  Christ  better 
than  a  broken  and  dismembered  church?     And  the  answer  is  not  in  doubt. 

Can  one  church — one  in  its  passion,  one  in  its  spirit,  one  in  its  devotion, 
one  in  its  opposition  to  all  evil,  one  in  its  consecration  to  all  good,  be  used 
by  Christ,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  in  the  world 's  movement  more  effectually 
than  can  the  broken  and  dismembered  portions  of  such  a  church?  The 
answer  is  not  in  doubt. — Bishop  TV.  F.  McDowell  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church. 


=  ■> 

I  ! 

I  I 

(Eijriaitatt  luttg  jtoastbtitttpa       I 

*jftt  ta  altogrtfyrr  poaaibl*  for  tlj^  QUjorrtj         1 
***  of  tl|ta  grnrratton  to  fittf  tfyr  patlfa  of 
nnttg.    Sjtatorg  ta  ahnniant  tmttf  inatanrra         J 
of  tip  rlfang?  of  iljr  ttjoogljt  of  a  wiljotr         j 
nation  in  a  aingl?  gyration.     ottprr  ar£ 
morr  rttifonrra  tor  tljia  poaaibilttjj  r*garfc-         I 
ing  nnitg  tljan  ttfrrr  mm  for  tlfoar  poaathil-         | 
tttra  regarding  tljr  rlfang?  of  ttjongfyt  in 
matters  of  pljtloaopljj},  arirnrr  unh  rtljira.         I 
(6o&  ran  rrratr  nrto  forcra  mljrn  tlfr  mill  of         j 
man  ia  Ijnmht*  an&  pmitrnt     otlf?  mtb  for 
nnttjj  among  QUjriatiana  ia  \\p  grratrat  mth 
of  ttj?  wort&. 


»  ,JH— .»«— mi— «H— KB— »lt— KM— ua— KII'^IIH— NH— .»H— KM— .»H— .BM— -»H— .UK— »|H— »H— »»— -Hi— IK— »M«— »«|» 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  X. 

Among  New  Books 79,  158,  236,  319 

Appeal  to  All  Christian  People,  an. 89 

Bases  of  Unity,  The.     Gaius  Glenn  Atkins. 179 

Christian  Unity  in  Australia.     George  Hall 60 

Declaration  of  Principals  Concerning  the  Lutheran  Church  and  Its    Ex- 
ternal Relationship.     Being  the  Action  of  the  Recent  Convention 

of  the  United  Lutheran  Church  in   America 188 

Disciples'  Programme  for    Union,  The.       George  W.  Brown 121 

Dogmatic  Versus  the  Experimental  Approach  to  Union,  The.    Alva  W. 

Taylor 276 

Fourth  Quadrennial  Meeting  of  the  Federal  Council — Editorial 215 

Has  the  Denominational    School    a    Place    in    Present    Day   Education? 

Peter  Ainslie 289 

Inquiry  Concerning  the  World's  Waiting  and  our  Tarrying,  An.    Being 

Addressed  to  the  Editor  by  Anthony  Openeye 211 

Interpretation  of  the  Lambeth  Appeal,  An.     Ethelbert  Talbot 169 

Letters  to  the  Editor ..' 156,  230,  317 

Notes  and  Comments 12 

Outlook  for  Christian  Unity,  The.      Joseph  A.  Vance 258 

Paul's  Plan  for  Christian  Unity.     John  B.   Cowden... 33 

Pilgrimage  toward  Unity,  A.   Charles  H.   Brent 117 

Practical  Steps  Toward  Christian  Reunion.     Arthur  C.   Headlam .249 

Present  Possibilities  and  Future  Steps  Towards  Unity.     T.  J.  Pulvertaft  26 

Priest  or  Prophet?  A  Question  for  the  Day.     W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 105 

Re-establishment  of  Christian  Peace,  The.       Being  the  Encycle  of  Pope 

Benedict  XV ...__ 201 

St.  Louis  Conference,  The — Editorial 305 

Scottish  Church  Reunion.       Robert  Forgan 94 

Some  Fallacies  Concerning  Church  Unity  and  a  Hopeful  Plan.     Robert 

Westly  Peach 49 

Suggestions  Concerning  Conferences  Between  the  Protestant  Episcopal- 
ians and  Congregationalists 56 

Switzerland  Conference  of  This  Summer,  The — Editorial 9 

Three  Outstanding  Conferences — Editorial 1 29 

Towards  Christian  Unity.     Alexander  Ramsay 269 

Unity  in  the  Mission  Field.     Robert  E.  Speer 16 

What  People  and  Papers  Are  Saying  About  Unity 63,  140,  220,  309 


/ 


/■¥(.%. 


THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

Vol.  X.  JULY,  1920  No.  1 


EDITORIAL 


THE  SWITZERLAND  CONFERENCES  OF  THIS 

SUMMER 

In  the  month  of  August  two  important  conferences  deal- 
ing with  Christian  unity  will  be  held  at  Geneva,  Switzer- 
land, and  one  dealing  with  international  friendship  will 
be  held  at  St.  Beatenberg,  Switzerland,  which  indirectly 
approaches  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

The  first  is  a  preliminary  meeting  of  a  proposed  ecu- 
menical conference.  A  call  to  this  effect  was  issued  in 
the  autumn  of  1914  by  the  neutral  countries  in  war  time 
through  the  Federal  Council  in  the  United  States  of 
America  and  through  representatives  of  the  Church  in 
Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark  and  Holland,  and  later  this 
call  included  two  bishops  in  belligerent  countries — Arch- 
bishop of  Finland  and  Bishop  Ferenez  of  Transylvania. 
In  1917  the  Archbishop  of  Uppsala,  the  bishops  of  See- 
land,  Denmark,  and  Christiania,  Norway,  issued  an  invi- 
tation to  an  ecumenical  conference,  which  was  cordially 
received  by  orthodox  and  evangelical  parts  of  the  Church, 
only  the  Eoman  Catholics  declining.  Cardinal  Gasparri, 
however,  wrote  on  behalf  of  the  pope.  War  conditions 
made  it  impossible  to  hold  the  conference  at  that  time. 
The  invitation  was  twice  repeated  in  1918,  but  war  con- 
ditions again  made  it  impossible.  Similar  movements 
were  in  other  countries.    In  1916  the  Federal  Council  in 


10  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

America  took  definite  action.  In  1917  two  efforts  were 
made  on  the  part  of  the  British — one  through  the  British 
Council,  which  was  founded  to  promote  an  international 
Christian  meeting,  and  the  other  through  the  British 
branch  of  the  World  Alliance;  likewise  similar  efforts 
came  from  Hungary  and  Switzerland.  With  this  back- 
ground this  preliminary  meeting  promises  to  be  of  worth. 

It  begins  with  evangelical  Christians  only  or  the  Prot- 
estant part  of  the  Church,  which  will  be  the  first  attempt 
at  an  ecumenical  conference  in  the  history  of  Protestant- 
ism. Its  field  of  action  is  different  from  that  of  the 
World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order.  It  will  prepare 
for  it  and  supplement  it  but  the  ecumenical  conference 
will  not  deal  with  matters  of  faith  and  order.  Instead 
it  will  deal  with  well-defined,  practical  aims  in  the  realm 
of  moral  or  social  questions  where  all  Christians  can  be- 
gin at  once  to  act  together. 

Following  this  will  be  the  preliminary  meeting  of  the 
World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  which  had  its 
origin  in  the  General  Convention  of  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  of  America  in  1910.  A  commission  was  ap- 
pointed with  Bt.  Eev.  Charles  P.  Anderson,  D.D.,  of  Chi- 
cago, president;  Eev.  W.  T.  Manning,  D.D,  rector  of 
Trinity  Church,  New  York,  chairman  of  the  Executive 
Committee;  George  Zabriskie,  D.C.L.,  New  York,  treas- 
urer, and  Eobert  H.  Gardiner,  Gardiner,  Maine,  secre- 
tary. This  commission  has  done  a  fine  piece  of  states- 
manship work.  Three  deputations  have  been  sent  abroad 
— the  first  to  the  Church  of  England,  the  second  to  the 
non- Anglican  Churches  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and 
the  third  to  the  continental  Churches.  Seventy  commis- 
sions from  as  many  communions  have  been  appointed  to 
take  part  in  the  World  Conference,  only  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Church  declining  the  invitation.  The  Episco- 
pal commission  has  moved  cautiously.  They  have  not 
been  in  a  hurry  and  have  thereby  advanced  further  than 


THE     SWITZERLAND     CONFERENCES  11 

had  they  been  in  a  hurry,  for  Christian  unity  cannot  be 
hurried.  It  must  grow.  Mr.  Gardiner  has  conducted  a 
wide  correspondence  with  all  communions  in  all  parts  of 
the  world. 

This  preliminary  conference  is  not  to  decide  questions 
of  faith  and  order.  These  may  be  discussed,  but  this  con- 
ference is  preliminary  to  the  World  Conference,  which  is 
to  be  held  at  some  time  and  place  to  be  designated.  Such 
a  conference  will  extend  over  months.  This  will  extend 
only  from  the  12th  to  the  20th  of  August.  But  in  this 
conference  there  will  doubtless  be  outlined  plans  cover- 
ing the  whole  field  of  the  World  Conference,  such  as  rep- 
resentation, subjects  for  discussion  and  finances,  the  ap- 
pointing of  an  ad\  interim  committee,  which  shall  work 
constantly  until  the  conference  convenes,  and  many  other 
things  that  fall  naturally  to  a  preliminary  meeting.  The 
preparation  indicates  a  meeting  of  vast  consequence  to 
the  unity  of  the  Church. 

The  third  conference  will  deal  with  international 
friendship.  The  first  of  these  conferences  was  held  last 
year  at  The  Hague.  A  report  of  it  was  given  in  The 
Quarterly  of  January  of  this  year.  This  will  be  the 
meeting  of  the  International  Committee  of  the  World  Al- 
liance for  International  Friendship  Through  the 
Churches,  which  had  its  beginning  in  1914.  The  meeting 
of  last  year  at  The  Hague  was  the  first  attempt  after  the 
war  to  retie  the  broken  threads  of  international  friend- 
ship. This  meeting  ought  to  go  considerably  further 
than  that  of  last  year  and  doubtless  it  will.  The  bringing 
together  of  representatives  from  so  many  nations,  deal- 
ing with  the  great  social  problems,  may  be  welcomed  as 
the  beginning  of  a  new  day,  when  many  contributions  are 
being  made  for  the  permanent  peace  of  the  world. 


NOTES  AND  COMMENTS 

With  this  number  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly 
opens  its  tenth  volume  and  at  the  same  time  in  its  inter- 
denominational and  international  service  the  following 
distinguished  persons  have  been  added  to  its  Board  of 
Editorial  Council:  Rev.  Raymond  Calkins,  D.D.,  pastor 
First  Congregational  Church,  Cambridge,  Mass. ;  Princi- 
pal Alfred  E.  Garvie,  D.D.,  New  College,  London,  Eng- 
land ;  Dean  Hughell  Fosbroke,  D.D.,  of  the  General  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  New  York,  Rev.  William  P.  Merrill, 
D.D.,  Minister  Brick  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York 
City,  and  Professor  George  W.  Richards,  D.D.,  Theologi- 
cal Seminary  of  the  Reformed  Church,  Lancaster,  Pa. 
Other  names  will  be  added  to  the  board  later.  The  Quar- 
terly belongs  to  all  who  are  interested  in  the  unity  of  the 
Church,  however  widely  we  may  differ  regarding  the 
method  of  approach. 

The  Interchurch  World  Movement  started  right.  Its 
purpose  as  stated  by  the  Committee  of  Twenty  was  ' '  To 
present  a  unified  programme  of  Christian  service  and  to 
unite  the  Protestant  Churches  of  North  America  in 
the  performance  of  their  common  task,  thus  making  avail- 
able the  values  of  spiritual  power  which  come  from  unity 
and  coordination  of  Christian  effort  and  meeting  the 
unique  opportunities  of  the  new  era."  That  was  well 
said,  and  had  the  movement  stuck  to  its  original  purpose 
it  would  have  had  opposition,  bitter  opposition  from  ev- 
ery sectarian  quarter,  but  the  possibilities  of  a  united 
Protestantism  would  have  been  permanently  advanced. 
Instead  the  Interchurch  World  Movement  could  rise  only 
as  high  as  the  denominations  are  and  therefore  it  became 
a  denominational  movement,  each  denomination  driving 
for  its  millions  of  dollars  in  order  to  make  its  denomina- 
tion stronger  than  ever,  making  the  purpose  of  the  Inter- 
church World  Movement  the  opposite  of  that  which  ap- 
peared to  have  been  its  original  purpose.    There  is  no 


NOTES     AND     COMMENTS  13 

denomination  in  Christendom  that  can  be  trusted  with 
great  sums  of  money  without  that  denomination's  using 
that  money  for  its  own  denominational  interest  and  there- 
fore retarding  the  progress  of  Christian  unity. 

The  Interchurch  World  Movement  was  a  by-product  of 
the  World  War  and  it  partook  fully  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  governmental  drives  for  loans  and  securing  re- 
cruits for  the  army.  The  armies  of  the  allies,  however^ 
started  in  division  and  ended  in  unity.  The  Interchurch 
World  Movement  started  in  unity  and  ended  in  division, 
each  denomination  driving  for  itself  and  its  denomina- 
tional interests.  A  united  patriotism  could  put  over  gov- 
ernmental affairs,  but  a  divided  Church  could  not  put 
over  its  programme,  from  which  there  ought  to  be  a  sig- 
nificant lesson.  However,  some  of  the  features  of  unifica- 
tion were  not  entirely  lost,  such  as  the  mass  meetings  and 
surveys,  and  these  will  exhibit  the  increasing  failure  of  a 
divided  Christendom.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  there  will 
be  such  survival  of  these  good  elements  that  when  the 
Interchurch  Movement  discovers  itself  it  may  be  coura- 
geous enough  to  definitely  advise  against  overlapping  of 
Churches  in  designated  communities  and  advise  with 
equal  definiteness  the  unifying  of  denominational  col- 
leges in  order  that  education  may  be  taken  out  of  its 
denominational  moulds,  giving  young  men  and  young 
women  of  this  generation  a  chance  of  fellowship  with  the 
whole  Church.  Of  the  movement  The  Christian  Century, 
Chicago,  says, 

1 '  But  the  real  cause,  as  was  apparent  to  all  who  faced  the  situation, 
the  thing  of  which  least  was  said  in  the  open  session,  was  the  denomina- 
tional spirit  that  from  the  first  doomed  the  Movement  to  a  limited  suc- 
cess, and  threatened  a  complete  failure.  More  than  once  the  leaders  spoke 
candidly  of  this  fundamental  weakness  of  the  plan  as  it  was  developed. 
Yet  they  spoke  without  heat,  as  those  who  long  ago  discovered  that  they 
had  been  set  to  do  a  great  work,  and  then  deprived  of  the  only  asset  by 
which  it  could  hope  for  real  success — actual  unity  of  effort. 

"When  two  years  ago  the  missionary  leaders  sat  down  together  and 
studied  the  opportunity  and  responsibility  of  the  post-war  situation,  they 
saw  that  two  things  were  essential  to  the  attainment  of  the  vast  objective 
of  effective  Protestant  service  in  the  new  days  of  peril  ahead — days  far 
more  difficult  than  those  of  the  war.     Those  two  tilings  were  a  careful 


14  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

survey  of  the  entire  field,  and  a  concerted  campaign  to  finance  the  splendid 
task  of  meeting  the  needs  disclosed.  The  vision  took  the  form,  fair  and 
inspiring,  of  the  united  Churches  rousing  themselves  to  achieve  the  united 
work.  It  was  said  at  that  time  by  one  of  the  most  influential  leaders 
in  the  American  Church  that  in  a  cause  so  holy  and  so  compelling  there 
was  compulsion  in  the  thought  of  a  unified  adventure,  and  that  no  dollar 
of  the  funds  raised  should  be  spent  in  merely  sectarian  ways,  or  without 
the  approval  of  all. 

"It  was  that  conception  of  the  plan  which  first  attracted  the  sympa- 
thetic attention  of  the  Christian  public,  and  fired  the  imagination  of  the 
people.  The  assurance  that  the  age  of  sectarian  rivalry  was  closing,  and 
that  the  Churches  actually  could  counsel  and  campaign  together  was 
alluring  and  convincing.  It  kindled  a  real  glow  of  satisfaction  all  over 
the  land.  If  the  enterprise  could  have  been  carried  through  on  that  high 
level,  a  very  different  sequel  would  have  been  recorded. 

"But  a  beginning  had  hardly  been  made  before  the  self-interest  of 
denominationalism  was  disclosed  as  an  obstruction.  One  after  another 
several  of  the  cooperating  bodies  served  notice  that  for  one  reason  and 
another  they  found  it  impossible  to  agree  to  the  original  plan.  One  had 
just  made  a  financial  drive,  and  could  not  repeat  the  process  for  some 
time  to  come,  though  it  has  since  discovered  that  it  is  both  necessary 
and  practicable  to  put  on  almost  at  once  a  greater  drive  than  the  first 
one.  Another  found  that  objection  to  the  Movement  as  a  united  plan  was 
so  pronounced  in  its  ranks  that  only  a  solemn  covenant  that  it  should  be 
permitted  to  conduct  its  own  campaign  in  its  own  way  cleared  the  path 
for  any  participation  at  all.  Other  denominations  found  equally  convinc- 
ing reasons  for  lending  only  a  partial  support.  So  instead  of  a  united  pro- 
gramme and  a  concerted  drive  for  funds,  the  Interchurch  World  Movement 
was  compelled  to  content  itself  with  a  "united  simultaneous ' '  campaign, 
a  deliberately  confusing  and  self -annihilating  term. 

"Every  friend  of  cooperative  work  in  America,  every  Christian  who 
longs  for  the  progress  of  the  Church,  and  fears  the  reaction  that  may 
come  from  any  apparent  failure  of  great  plans,  will  be  much  in  prayer  for 
the  divine  blessing  upon  the  men  and  women  who  are  leading  in  this  im- 
pressive work.  It  must  not  be  allowed  to  fail  of  its  purpose.  Such  an 
issue  would  retard  the  work  of  Christianity  a  generation.  What  is  needed 
is  the  quiet  and  humbling  mastery  of  the  lesson  of  the  futility  of  divided 
effort  and  the  longing  of  men  and  women  of  good  will  throughout  the 
nation  for  a  real  joining  of  the  forces  that  claim  fellowship  with  our 
Lord  in  the  imperial  tasks  to  which  he  is  summoning  his  Church." 


In  all  problems  having  to  do  with  the  unity  of  the 
Church  we  must  stand  out  firmly,  but  kindly,  for  unity. 
One  may  be  subjected  to  severe  criticism  from  the  con- 
servative element  in  his  own  party,  and  from  all  parties 
for  that  matter,  but  unity  can  only  come  by  boldly  dis- 
counting the  present  order  and  with  equal  boldness  seek- 
ing for  the  paths  of  unity.  We  must  be  fair  to  the  other 
man's  point  of  view.  We  must  try  to  put  ourselves  in 
his  place.  We  must  remember  that  he  is  our  brother  and 
because  he  is  our  brother  schism  is  sin ;  but  we  need  not 


NOTES     AND     COMMENTS  15 

be  hesitating  whether  we  should  take  a  stand  for  unity. 
Halting  advocates  of  a  cause  do  not  get  very  far. 

Unity  must  come  and  it  will  come  when  every  oppor- 
tunity is  used  to  emphasize  in  no  uncertain  phrasing,  as 
in  his  address  to  the  synod  of  his  diocese  the  bishop  of 
Montreal  said,  "Only  a  Church  united  can  fully  present 
Christ  to  the  needs  of  mankind."  When  that  is  said  by 
ten  thousand  pulpits  ten  million  times  the  people  will  look 
for  action  and  they  will  not  be  disappointed. 

The  American  Council  on  Organic  Union  of  the  evan- 
gelical Churches  of  America  is  proposing  a  definite  un- 
ion. Some  will  favor  it,  like  the  General  Conference  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  by  appointing  an  au- 
thorized commission  on  that  subject ;  also  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.,  by 
directing  the  presbyteries  to  vote  on  it ;  likewise  both  the 
Eeformed  Church  in  the  U.  S.  and  the  Keformed  Church 
in  the  U.  S.  A.,  directing  the  classes  to  act.  Others  will 
follow  these.  Some  will  reject  the  proposal.  A  few  of 
the  stronger  bodies  going  ahead  will  make  the  road 
smooth  enough  for  the  more  hesitating  bodies  to  follow. 
President  Henry  Churchill  King  wrote  in  a  recent  num- 
ber of  The  C ongr egationalist ,  Boston,  as  follows : 

"I  do  not  myself  hesitate  to  say  that  the  action  of  the  Council  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  most  hopeful  step  yet  taken  toward  the  organic  union  of 
the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America.  If  that  is  even  partly  true,  this  move- 
ment deserves  our  most  careful  attention, 

"It  should  be  said,  from  the  first,  that  the  results  were  not  due  to 
any  sudden  enthusiasm  created  by  emotional  appeals  of  any  kind.  On 
the  contrary,  our  Congregational  delegation — and  quite  evidently  other  dele- 
gations as  well — came  without  much  expectation  of  particularly  significant 
results.  We  were  ready  to  listen  respectfully,  and  then  to  admit  that 
nothing  vital  could  be  done.  But  the  impression  steadily  grew  upon  us 
all,  in  the  course  of  the  Conference,  that  a  great  event  was  taking  place; 
that  the  committee  on  the  'Plan  of  Union'  had  been  guided  by  the  Spirit 
of  God,  and  had  done  a  remarkable  piece  of  work;  and  that  the  members 
of  the  Council  themselves  showed  so  rare  a  freedom  from  selfishness  and 
pretense,  and  so  fine  a  spirit  of  Christian  fellowship  coupled  with  honest 
facing  of  the  facts,  as  to  bear  witness  to  the  presence  of  God  in  their 
deliberations. ' ' 


UNITY  IN  THE  MISSION  FIELD 

By  Eobert  E.  Speer,  D.D.,  Secretary  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions,  New  York. 

I  wish  to  speak  of  the  measure  in  which  cooperation  and 
unity  have  been  already  achieved  in  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary field,  for  there,  more  than  in  any  other  field  of 
Christian  endeavor  and  fellowship,  have  we  made  prog- 
ress toward  these  goals.  In  the  first  place  we  have  dis- 
pensed with  the  names  that  help  to  keep  us  asunder  in 
the  West.  God  be  praised,  many  of  these  names  are 
incapable  of  translation  into  the  languages  of  the  non- 
Christian  world.  You  cannot  translate  Presbyterian  or 
Methodist  or  Protestant  Episcopal  into  Chinese.  There 
are  very  few  languages  in  the  world  in  which  you  can 
find  any  terms  that  by  any  stretch  of  the  imagination  can 
be  made  the  equivalent  of  these.  Missionaries  accord- 
ingly have  devised  terms  and  names  that  fit  one  body  of 
Christians  just  as  well  as  they  fit  any  other  body  of 
Christians.  And  we  have  not  only  taken  the  names  off 
our  denominational  organizations  there,  but  we  have 
taken  them  off  many  forms  of  our  effort.  We  have  es- 
tablished schools  and  colleges  and  most  of  them  bear  no 
denominational  name.  They  may  bear  the  name  of  some 
Christian  character,  but  they  very  seldom  bear  any  de- 
nominational name.  We  are  doing  our  work  in  the  great 
non-Christian  field  under  the  Christian  name  alone. 
There  are  fields  like  the  Philippines,  where  almost  all  of 
the  Christian  churches  came  together  and  where  they 
agreed  on  one  single  name  by  which  they  would  call  all 
of  their  organizations,  the  Church  of  Christ,  perhaps, 
and  then  parenthetically  at  the  end  they  would  put  in 
Presbyterian  or  Methodist.  But  the  parenthesis  has  been 
happily  dropping  out  here  and  there  and  only  the  Chris- 
tian name  stands  out  to  view.  We  have  carried  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  and  the  Church  of  Christ  out  into  the 
non-Christian  world  and  a  great  many  of  these  names 


UNITY     IN     THE     MISSION     FIELD  17 

we  have  left  behind,  and  having  left  the  names  behind,  it 
has  been  easier  to  leave  some  of  the  things  which  the 
names  connote  behind  and  by  which  we  are  held  apart. 
In  the  second  place,  in  the  foreign  mission  field  they 
have  adopted  the  policy  of  wise  distribution  of  the  forces 
that  were  available  for  the  missionary  work.  Men  have 
seen  the  absurdity  and  wrong  of  crowding  little  groups 
of  Christian  workers  into  one  single  section  while  great 
areas  went  absolutely  uncared  for.  And  wise  and  sensi- 
ble men,  in  whom  the  Christian  spirit  worked,  have  be- 
gun to  apportion  this  task  among  themselves.  The 
underlying  principle  was  expressed  in  one  of  the  deliver- 
ances of  the  Church  of  England  not  long  ago  in  the 
Lambeth  Conference  of  1887 :  ' '  That  in  the  foreign  mis- 
sion field  of  the  Church's  work  where  signal  spiritual 
blessings  have  attended  the  labor  of  Christian  mission- 
aries not  connected  with  the  Anglican  community  a  spe- 
cial obligation  has  arisen  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible 
without  compromise  of  principle,  whatever  tends  to  pre- 
vent the  due  growth  and  manifestation  of  that  '  unity  of 
the  Spirit,'  which  should  ever  mark  the  Church  of 
Christ."  And  there  are  very  few  missionaries  now  who 
are  not  of  the  same  mind  with  Alexander  Duff,  who  said 
that  he  would  as  soon  leap  into  the  Ganges  as  take  one 
step  to  entice  a  Christian  believer  away  from  another 
Christian  body  or  to  do  work  that  fell  in  the  natural 
sphere  and  was  the  duty  of  any  other  Christian  organiza- 
tion. 

Here  in  this  city  long  years  ago  the  principle  was  laid 
down  on  the  occasion  of  Alexander  Duff's  visit,  long 
since  forgotten  but  living  in  the  memory  for  generations 
of  those  who  heard  him.  I  have  talked  with  old  men, 
long  since  dead,  who  attended  that  meeting  held  on  the 
occasion  of  Alexander  Duff's  visit  and  who  voted  for  the 
resolutions  that  were  adopted  then : 

Resolved,  That  considering  the  vast  extent  of  the  yet 


a 


18  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

unevangelized  world  of  heathenism,  and  the  limited 
means  of  evangelization  at  the  disposal  of  the  existing 
evangelical  Churches  or  societies,  it  would  be  very  de- 
sirable that  with  the  exception  of  great  centers,  such  as 
the  capitals  of  powerful  kingdoms,  an  efficient  pre-occu- 
pancy  of  any  particular  portion  of  the  heathen  field  by 
an  evangelical  Church  or  society  should  be  respected  and 
left  in  their  undisturbed  possession. " 

It  was  in  accordance  with  these  principles  that  the 
Mexico  missionaries  some  years  ago  after  the  revolution 
decided  not  to  go  back  to  their  old  methods,  but  that  they 
would  see  that  the  whole  country  was  apportioned  so 
that  great  areas  were  no  longer  neglected  as  they  had 
been  by  the  congesting  of  forces  in  certain  areas  and 
leaving  others  untouched.  And  now  a  map  of  IMexico 
may  be  presented  showing  that  whole  country  portioned 
out,  not  with  the  idea  of  exclusion,  but  on  the  principle  of 
taking  care  of  the  whole  task  that  must  be  done,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  two  Christian  bodies  which  retain 
still  their  claim  of  right  to  leap  over  all  these  boundaries 
and  go  anywhere,  all  the  rest  of  the  Christian  organiza- 
tions are  now  doing  their  best  to  see  that  the  whole  of 
Mexico  is  properly  taken  care  of.  That  is  the  second 
great  achievement  in  the  foreign  mission  field. 

In  the  third  place,  the  foreign  mission  work  has  led  all 
other  Christian  activities  in  the  way  it  has  developed 
confidence  and  cooperation  among  all  the  forces  engaged 
in  it.  Here  in  New  York  City  we  began  thirty  years  ago 
an  annual  conference  of  all  the  foreign  missionary  boards 
of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  It  has  been  held  an- 
nually ever  since,  and  it  has  enabled  the  missionary 
agencies  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  to  approach 
their  task  with  a  common  body  of  principles  and  with  an 
almost  common  body  of  resources.  In  almost  every  mis- 
sion field  now  agencies  of  the  same  kind  have  been  de- 
veloped, agencies  of  cooperation  and  confidence.    In  In- 


UNITY     IN     THE     MISSION     FIELD  19 

dia  the  Anglican  Church  has  been  foremost  in  the  great 
movement  that  has  correlated  the  forces  of  India.  And 
all  of  these  bodies,  except  the  Roman  communion,  are 
correlating  their  purposes  and  laying  out  their  plans  not 
in  isolation  but  in  common  conference  and  brotherly  ac^ 
cord. 

In  the  fourth  place,  there  has  been  in  the  mission  field 
for  a  hundred  years  now  such  a  volume  of  united  prayer 
ascending  from  men  and  women  as  has  arisen  from  no 
other  section  of  the  Christian  Church.  What  we  call  the 
Week  of  Prayer,  long  since  diverted  to  other  purposes, 
sprang  out  of  the  missions  of  India,  and  was  designed  by 
these  missions  to  rally  the  whole  Christian  Church  to 
pray  for  the  evangelization  of  the  non-Christian  world. 
Today  I  will  venture  to  assert  there  are  more  foreign 
missionaries  united  in  their  prayer  than  any  other  class 
of  Christians  in  the  world. 

In  the  fifth  place,  there  have  been  achievements  in 
actual  unity  which  have  far  transcended  anything  that 
we  have  won  as  yet  in  any  other  areas  of  the  Church's 
service.  We  see  it  in  the  united  institutions.  I  could 
name  scores  of  union  colleges  and  theological  seminaries 
and  hospitals  and  institutions  of  every  kind.  The  day  has 
gone  by  when  any  separate  communion  undertakes  any 
longer  to  build  up  alone  a  great  educational  institution  of 
higher  learning  on  the  mission  field.  We  have  realized 
that  there  is  nothing  in  truth  that  can  be  sectarian,  that 
the  great  body  of  truth  is  common  truth  and  that  we 
should  unite  in  undertaking  higher  educational  work.  In 
building  a  missionary  university  from  two  to  ten  different 
organizations  will  often  unite.  Further,  all  the  medical 
missionaries  in  China  have  gathered  in  one  medical  as- 
sociation, and  all  the  missionaries  in  educational  work  in 
one  educational  association.  And  we  have  gone  far  be- 
yond this.  One  hears  the  question  raised  now  and  then 
as  to  whether  our  denominational  personalities  are  ever 


20  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

to  be  merged  with  others.  It  is  being  done  all  over  the 
world  to-day.  There  is  scarcely  a  mission  field  where 
there  is  not  an  example  of  this.  Denominations  separate 
in  the  West  are  united  in  the  East.  In  the  East,  in  Japan, 
all  the  Episcopal  Churches  have  united,  likewise  the 
Methodist,  and  more  than  thirty  years  ago  all  the  Pres- 
byterian and  Reformed  bodies,  seven  of  them,  still  apart 
in  the  United  States,  united  into  one  body.  In  China  to- 
day the  Presbyterian  and  the  Reformed  Churches  are 
one,  and  the  Congregationalists  are  uniting  with  them, 
no  matter  what  nation  they  come  from.  All  over  the 
world  we  are  witnessing  the  actual  melting  together  of 
denominations.  The  missionaries  are  not  afraid  to  put 
their  ideals  into  words.  Here  is  the  resolution  of  the 
great  Missionary  Conference  in  Japan  in  1900,  adopted 
by  the  missionaries  of  all  denominations  gathered  there : 
"  This  Conference  of  Missionaries,  assembled  in  the  city 
of  Tokyo,  proclaims  its  belief  that  all  those  who  are  one 
with  Christ  by  faith  are  one  body;  and  it  calls  upon  all 
those  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  and  His  Church  in  sin- 
cerity and  truth  to  pray  and  to  labor  for  the  full  realiza- 
tion of  such  a  corporate  oneness  as  the  Master  himself 
prayed  for  on  that  night  in  which  He  was  betrayed.' ' 
Here  is  the  finding  of  the  Centenary  Conference  in 
Shanghai:  "That  this  Conference  unanimously  holds 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  as  the  su- 
preme standard  of  faith  and  practice  and  holds  firmly  the 
primitive  apostolic  faith.  Further,  while  acknowledging 
the  Apostle's  Creed  and  the  Nicene  Creed  as  substan- 
tially expressing  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  the  Conference  does  not  adopt  any  creed  as  a 
basis  of  Church  unity,  and  leaves  confessional  questions 
for  further  consideration ;  yet,  in  view  of  our  knowledge 
of  each  other's  doctrinal  symbols,  history,  work  and  char- 
acter, we  gladly  recognize  ourselves  as  already  one  body 
in  Christ,  teaching  one  way  of  eternal  life,  and  calling 


UNITY     IN     THE     MISSION     FIELD  21 

men  into  one  holy  fellowship ;  and  as  one  in  regard  to  the 
great  body  of  doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith ;  one  in  our 
teaching  as  to  the  love  of  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son, 
and  God  the  Holy  Ghost ;  in  our  testimony  as  to  sin  and 
salvation,  and  our  homage  to  the  Divine  and  Holy  Re- 
deemer of  men;  one  in  our  call  to  the  purity  of  the 
Christian  life,  and  in  our  witness  to  the  splendors  of  the 
Christian  hope. 

"We  frankly  recognize  that  we  differ  as  to  methods  of 
administration  and  Church  government.  But  we  unite  in 
holding  that  these  differences  do  not  invalidate  the  asser- 
tion of  our  real  unity  in  our  common  witness  to  the  gos- 
pel of  the  grace  of  God. 

i '  That  in  planting  the  Church  of  Christ  on  Chinese  soil 
we  desire  only  to  plant  one  Church  under  the  sole  control 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  governed  by  the  Word  of  the 
living  God  and  led  by  His  guiding  Spirit.  While  freely 
communicating  to  this  Church  the  knowledge  of  truth 
and  the  rich  historical  experience  to  which  older  churches 
have  attained,  we  fully  recognize  the  liberty  in  Christ  of 
the  Churches  in  China  planted  by  means  of  the  missions 
and  Churches  which  we  represent,  in  so  far  as  these 
Churches  are,  by  maturity  of  Christian  character  and  ex- 
perience, fitted  to  exercise  it;  and  we  desire  to  commit 
them  in  faith  and  hope  to  the  continued  safe  keeping  of 
their  Lord  when  the  time  shall  arrive,  which  we  eagerly 
anticipate,  when  they  shall  pass  beyond  our  guidance  and 
control." 

I  have  now  dealt  with  five  regards  in  which  the  foreign 
mission  work  has  gone  in  advance  of  us  and  has  achieved 
already  what  we  pray  and  long  for  here  at  home.  And 
experience  in  the  foreign  mission  field  has  taught  us  cer- 
tain great  and  urgent  lessons. 

For  one  thing,  it  has  shown  us  the  possibility  of  co- 
operation and  unity.  We  ask  whether  this  thing  can  be 
done.    It  has  been  done  far  and  wide  throughout  the  mis- 


22  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

sion  field  to-day.  When  we  ask  whether  certain  prob- 
lems can  be  solved  our  answer  is  they  have  been  solved 
and  they  have  been  solved  under  greater  difficulties  than 
we  encounter  here.  Here  in  America  we  have  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  split  into  two  over  the  issues  that  burst 
forth  in  the  Civil  War.  We  have  not  been  able  to  reunite 
those  two  sections  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  There  is 
not  a  single  non- Christian  land  where  we  are  at  work  to- 
gether where  they  are  not  united.  I  do  not  see  why  if 
Northern  and  Southern  Presbyterians  can  unite  in  the 
atmosphere  of  heathenism  they  can't  unite  in  a  Christian 
land.  Not  only  have  we  been  shown  the  possibility,  we 
have  been  shown  the  duty.  If  it  is  our  duty  to  draw  to- 
gether in  the  face  of  these  problems  that  confront  us  in 
the  foreign  mission  field,  is  there  any  less  duty  before 
the  problems  that  confront  us  here  in  America?  For 
where  are  the  problems  of  the  Christian  Church  more 
urgent  than  here  in  our  own  land?  Every  consideration 
that  argues  for  unity  in  India  or  China  argues  for  unity 
here  in  America.  We  have  no  small  portion  of  the  for- 
eign mission  problem  to  solve  right  here  on  this  island, 
and  if  unity  is  essential  to  its  solution  ten  thousand  miles 
away  unity  is  essential  to  its  solution  here. 

And  not  only  do  foreign  missions  show  us  the  possi- 
bility and  duty  of  unity,  but  they  remind  us  of  the 
method.  They  show  us  for  one  thing  the  solidarity  of  a 
common  task  and  a  great  danger.  We  used  to  think  that 
the  common  task  had  a  great  cementing  power.  We  real- 
ize now  that  there  is  nothing  like  a  common  danger  to 
combine  men  together.  We  have  got  our  common  task 
still  just  as  great  as  we  had  it  four  or  five  years  ago. 
Only  the  shadow  of  Germany  has  gone  by.  And  it  is 
perfectly  obvious  that  a  common  conviction  cannot  do 
what  a  common  peril  can.  But  we  have  still  a  common 
task  and  a  common  duty  and  a  common  peril.    An  idola- 


UNITY     IN     THE     MISSION     FIELD  23 

trous  world  is  not  nearly  so  great  a  peril  as  a  world  that 
has  thrown  its  ideals  away  and  believes  in  no  God  at  all. 
We  are  facing  a  vastly  more  perilous  world  than  the  old 
world  of  one  hundred  years  ago,  a  pagan  world,  with  its 
old  evils  and  sicknesses,  all  its  own  economic  problems 
of  poverty  and  neglect,  with  our  economic  problems  flung 
in  upon  them.  Let  anyone  go  out  and  listen  to  the  whir 
of  the  spindles  to-night  in  Osaka,  let  him  go  up  and  down 
those  long  rows  of  mills  in  Shanghai  and  hear  the  thun- 
der of  the  great  looms,  and  go  in  and  look  at  the  lives 
being  fed  into  those  spindles  and  woven  in  those  looms, 
and  he  will  realize  that  the  world  has  far  more  perils 
and  burdens  to-day  than  it  had  in  the  old  days  gone  by. 
We  cannot  divide  in  the  face  of  a  task  like  that  or  in  the 
face  of  a  peril  so  great. 

And  not  only  have  we  been  shown  how  a  great  task  and 
peril  can  unite,  but  our  experience  has  revealed  the 
power  of  fellowship  in  living  to  unite  men  in  spite  of 
their  intellectual  disagreement  and  their  divergent  tem- 
peraments. After  all,  one  wonders  whether  we  have  di- 
agnosed correctly  the  real  causes  of  our  continued  sepa- 
ration. One  wonders  whether  it  is  doctrine  or  faith  that 
divides,  or  whether,  after  all,  a  great  deal  more  of  divi- 
sion does  not  spring  from  property  and  temperament, 
and  that  if  only  we  could  deal  with  property  and  temper- 
ament we  could  not  take  care  of  the  questions  of  polity 
and  creed.  Human  friendliness  is  a  great  unifier.  Bishop 
Boone  used  to  take  all  the  newcomers  in  Shanghai  into 
his  home.  There  were  times  when  many  denominations 
of  missionaries  slept  together  under  his  roof. 

And  foreign  missionaries  have  shown  the  method  of 
unity  which  is  to  be  found  not  in  detailed  comparison,  but 
on  the  principle  of  transcendence,  a  larger  principle  than 
any  that  controls  us  now,  that  will  enable  us  to  see  things 
in  a  conspectus  in  which  we  cannot  see  them  now. 


24  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

And  not  only  are  we  to-day  learning  from  foreign  mis- 
sions the  method  by  which  unity  can  be  achieved,  but  we 
ought  to  learn  and  practice  these  lessons  now.  Shall  not 
the  horrors  of  the  discord  and  the  alienation  and  the  dis- 
unity, out  of  which  we  have  not  yet  emerged,  make  us 
ashamed  of  our  divergence?  The  one  great  need  of  the 
world  to-day  is  unity.  The  central  principle  of  Christian- 
ity is  unity.  The  fundamental  element  of  all  life  is  unity. 
How  can  we,  in  the  Christian  Church,  obscure  or  qualify 
that  principle  by  our  diversions?  We  have  learned  the 
peril  of  conscientiousness.  No  man  is  justified  in  any 
course  of  action  merely  because  he  can  conscientiously 
take  it.  Germany  was  just  as  conscientious  as  we.  "The 
day  will  come,"  said  our  Lord,  "when  those  who  kill  you 
will  think  that  they  do  service  unto  God."  Does  con- 
scientious murder  make  a  man  innocent?  We  have  hid- 
den behind  our  conscientiousness  too  long.  We  must  be- 
ware of  letting  conscientiousness  harden  us  to  the  risk 
of  missing  truth. 

And  to-day  as  never  before  unity  is  of  such  importance 
as  to  demand  any  necessary  sacrifice,  such  sacrifices  as 
men  have  never  been  willing  to  make  before.  And  I  set 
foremost  among  those  sacrifices  our  false  loyalty  to  the 
past.  What  is  loyalty  to  the  past?  Loyalty  to  the  past 
does  not  consist  in  trying  to  stay  within  it.  Loyalty  to 
the  past  consists  in  trying  to  rise  above  it.  The  past 
that  did  not  prepare  for  a  better  future  is  an  unfulfilled 
past.  Truth  that  is  truth  opens  the  gates  to  larger  truth. 
And  those  men  are  faithful  to  what  lies  behind  them,  who 
say  to  the  past,  "I  see  thy  meaning.  Thy  meaning  was 
that  greater  things  were  to  be  made  possible  by  thee  and 
I  am  loyal  to  thee  only  when  I  heed  thy  voice  and  go  on 
to  those  greater  and  richer  things."  True  loyalty  does 
not  consist  in  holding  fast  to  an  unchanged  and  unchange- 
able order  that  has  been.    It  consists  in  standing  faith- 


UNITY     IN     THE     MISSION     FIELD  25 

fully  upon  the  foundations  that  have  been  laid  and  open- 
ing ourselves  to  all  the  new  light  and  truth  and  guidance 
which  God  is  waiting  to  give  to  the  Church  if,  like  the 
path  of  the  just,  the  Church  is  not  a  stagnant  station, 
but  a  golden  way  that  grows  brighter  and  brighter  to  the 
fullness  of  the  day  that  has  not  yet  been,  but  that  may 
yet  be. 


PRESENT  POSSIBILITIES  AND  FUTURE  STEPS 

TOWARDS  UNITY 

By  Rev.  T.  J.  Pulvertaft,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  St.  Paul  at  Kilburn. 

The  time  has  come  when  in  the  interests  of  unity  ambigui- 
ties should  cease  and  we  should  approach  the  question 
with  clearness  of  vision  and  a  determination  to  go  straight 
to  the  heart  of  the  problem.  The  theological  as  distinct 
from  the  ecclesiastical  aspect  demands  insistence  upon 
the  claim  that  history  cannot  be  thrown  to  the  winds.  We 
are  faced  by  earnest  and  honest  assertions  that  the  twen- 
tieth century  will  not  accept  a  Christianity  that  holds  the 
miraculous  element  essential  to  its  profession.  For  my 
part  I  can  conceive  of  men  who  have  been  nurtured  in 
Christian  principles  and  have  a  profound  devotion  to 
our  Blessed  Lord  as  the  Son  of  God  maintaining  their 
faith  while  rejecting  or  explaining  away  the  miraculous 
in  the  Gospel.  What  a  few  have  been  able  to  attain  in 
the  stress  of  modern  conceptions  of  nature  and  an  exag- 
gerated attachment  to  current  hypotheses  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent matter  from  acceptance  of  the  historic  Figure  who 
is  portrayed  in  the  Gospel  story.  In  the  web  of  His 
life,  the  warp  of  His  deeds  and  the  woof  of  His  words 
are  so  bound  up  with  miracle  that  we  cannot  disentangle 
the  natural  from  the  supernatural  element — I  use  the 
words  in  their  plain  sense — and  the  whole  faith  of  the 
primitive  Church  as  well  as  the  Church  throughout  the 
ages  has  been  based  on  a  living  Christ  who  rose  from 
the  dead.  We  cannot  divorce  our  faith  from  history. 
We  are  convinced  that  the  sinless  One  was  so  unique 
among  men  that  His  deeds  can  only  be  described  as  mirac- 
ulous, while  really  natural  as  being  the  works  of  One  who 
was  God  incarnate,  and  it  is  impossible  for  us  in  the  in- 
terests of  unity  without  being  false  to  the  revelation  of 
God  and  writing  down  the  apostolic  Church  as  founding 
itself  on  a  series  of  lies,  to  make  concessions  that  will  re- 


FUTUEE     STEPS     TOWARDS     UNITY  27 

duce  our  faith  to  a  series  of  propositions  that  cannot  be 
squared  with  the  contents  of  the  only  documents  we  have 
as  the  source  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  the  Son  of  God. 

It  may  be  that  individuals  will  be  ready  to  acknowledge 
His  divinity  while  rejecting  the  fact  of  His  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  I  do  not  exclude  them  from  brotherhood 
— that  is  their  own  affair,  not  mine — but  the  basis  of  be- 
lief that  will  form  the  foundation  of  the  great  Church 
the  future  will  see  united  in  one  by  bonds  of  spirit  and 
a  common  orientation  of  faith,  must  hold  the  ultimate 
fact  of  the  resurrection  if  it  is  not  to  perish  through 
lack  of  faithfulness  to  its  sources  and  belief  in  its  history. 
Mithraism  was  the  great  rival  of  Christianity.  It  had  its 
ennobling  ideals  and  gripped  some  of  the  best  minds  of 
the  early  Christian  ages.  It  broke  down  through  an 
idealism  divorced  from  fact — historic  fact — and  the 
doom,  not  the  reconstruction,  of  Christianity  will  be  pro- 
nounced by  any  acceptance  of  a  creedless  Christianity  or 
a  studied  vagueness  that  is  supposed  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  a  kaleidoscopic  age.  Creeds  do  not  give  spirit- 
ual life.  They  do  not  even  guarantee  moral  consistency. 
A  man  may  be  as  orthodox  as  the  devil  and  as  wicked  too. 
But  Christian  truth  is  a  matter  of  the  intellect  as  well  as 
an  emotion  of  the  heart.  We  must  know  what  we  believe 
concerning  Him  who  is  our  life.  That  knowledge  is  con- 
tained in  the  New  Testament,  and  the  evacuation  of  its 
plain  meaning  can  only  end  in  the  overthrow  in  time  of 
the  faith  we  profess  to  hold. 

On  the  other  hand  the  institution  that  the  faith  has 
created  as  a  permanent  home  for  its  followers  is  of  less 
importance  than  the  faith  itself.  Just  as  intellectual  defi- 
nitions are  inferior  to  the  person  of  Christ,  so  the  human 
instrumentality  that  constitutes  the  home  of  the  faithful 
is  inferior  to  the  Christ  Himself.  The  Church  to  be  true 
to  its  function  is  a  body  founded  on  Christ  that  grows  up 
into  Christ  its  living  Head.     It  is  a  means  to  an  end — not 


28  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

an  end  in  itself.  If  this  be  true  concerning  the  Church, 
it  is  still  more  true  concerning  its  organisation.  Mem- 
bership of  the  Church,  for  its  vitality  depends  finally  on 
no  outward  link  uniting  individuals  with  the  body,  but 
on  personal  living  union  with  the  Saviour  Himself.  Spir- 
itual life  is  as  great  a  reality  as  animal  life.  We  are 
aware  that  we  are  alive  as  men.  We  must  be  equally 
alive  to  the  fact  that  our  spiritual  life  is  a  reality  de- 
pending on  our  sharing  the  life  of  Christ.  The  way  in 
which  this  knowledge  comes  into  consciousness  may  elude 
definition — it  is  there  when  the  soul  of  man  rises  above 
the  temporal  and  homes  itself  in  God.  All  who  truly  love 
and  follow  the  risen  Christ  are  true  sons  of  God — joint 
heirs  with  Jesus  Christ.  Collectively  they  constitute  the 
Church  of  the  living  God,  and  all  the  organisation  of  the 
Church  is  a  means  for  maintaining  corporate  life  in  an 
historical  institution,  and  preventing  it  from  becoming 
inefficacious  as  an  instrument  for  the  extension  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

Today  we  suffer  from  either  an  unstudied  or  a  delib- 
erate ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  words  Church,  ministry 
and  apostolic  succession.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  have  not 
created  a  new  ambiguity  in  the  employment  of  the  phrase 
historic  episcopate.  Until  we  have  a  definite  and  ac- 
cepted interpretation  of  these  phrases  all  thoughts  of 
Christian  unity  with  any  hope  of  permanence  may  be  dis- 
missed as  a  fatuous  dream.  We  have  schemes  discussed 
that  imply  the  Church  of  God  to  be  definitely  limited  to 
an  institution  that  has  a  certain  type  of  ministry — com- 
monly called  the  Church — with  an  impassable  gulf  be- 
tween it  and  the  laity.  The  ministry  is  confined  to  men 
ordained  by  one  of  the  orders  of  the  ministry,  and  that 
order  has  its  claim  to  superiority  resting  on  a  supposed 
historical  transmission  from  age  to  age  by  a  certain  proc- 
ess of  setting  apart  men  for  the  ministry.  All  who  wish 
for  unity  must  either  now  or  in  the  future  submit  to  that 


FUTUEE     STEPS     TOWARDS     UNITY  29 

ideal,  and  we  are  told  that  unless  those  who  submit  to  or- 
dination acknowledge  by  their  action  the  theory  involved 
as  true  there  is  no  room  for  them  in  the  Church.  That 
ideal  is  in  no  sense  the  ideal  found  in  the  New  Testament 
or  in  primitive  Christianity.  The  upholders  of  this  the- 
ory have  to  face  the  awkward  fact  that  in  Egypt  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  nothing  was  known  of  the 
alleged  necessity  of  episcopal  ordination  for  a  valid  exer- 
cise of  the  ministry.  Today  it  is  forced  on  us  by  the  ex- 
perience of  our  home  work  and  the  triumphs  of  the  mis- 
sion field  that  the  non-episcopal  ministries  and  work  are 
as  richly  blessed  as  those  of  episcopal  Churches,  and  it  is 
only  a  purblind  logic  that  asserts  we  find  ministries  of 
grace  valid  for  the  members  of  the  non-episcopalian 
Churches,  and  not  valid  for  those  who  are  privileged  to 
be  members  of  episcopal  Churches.  If  the  real  test  of 
churchmanship  be  living  union  with  the  head  of  the 
Church,  then  the  fact  that  a  ministry  is  truly  a  ministry 
of  grace  involves  that  all  who  are  brought  under  its  influ- 
ence and  are  participators  of  its  worship — whether  they 
be  Episcopalians  or  non-Episcopalians — are  in  the  way 
of  receiving  grace.  The  implication  that  a  type  of  min- 
istry honoured  by  God  should  be  dishonoured  by  men, 
who  in  agreement  with  a  supposed  Christian  principle 
abstain  from  participating  in  its  sacraments,  means  that 
man  sits  in  judgment  and  pronounces  an  adverse  verdict 
on  the  work  of  God. 

The  sooner,  therefore,  we  free  ourselves  of  any  supe- 
riority on  account  of  our  historical  position  as  specially 
privileged  recipients  of  the  grace  of  God,  the  better  for 
our  Christian  life.  I  cannot  for  one  moment  write  down 
as  spiritually  inferior,  or  as  organically  spurious,  the 
great  non-episcopal  Churches  whose  numbers  far  exceed 
those  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  whose  work  has 
been  signally  honoured  by  God.  I  hold  as  firmly  as  any 
man  the  fact  that  until  the  unity  of  the  Church  was  broken 


30  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

by  the  sins  and  failures  of  episcopal  Christianity,  epis- 
copacy was  the  prevailing  form  of  Church  government  for 
more  than  a  millennium — but  it  was  not  a  millennium  of 
healthy,  spiritual  development  and  moral  progress,  or 
justifiable  institutional  growth.  The  fifteenth  century, 
with  its  united  Western  Church,  is  not  a  model  to  be 
aimed  at  by  those  who  wish  to  follow  the  King  and  do 
His  will.  The  verdict  of  the  Council  of  Trent  is  sufficient 
proof  of  that.  We  must  aim  at  a  flock  with  many  folds, 
not  a  Church  with  a  number  of  orders  whose  present  state 
is  in  complete  contrast  with  the  spirit  that  gave  rise  to 
their  existence.  They  may  be,  as  they  have  been,  institu- 
tionalised out  of  all  relation  to  their  aims  and  ideals. 

In  practice  we  must  be  prepared  to  admit  the  full  valid- 
ity for  all  Christendom  of  the  orders  of  men  who  are  set 
apart  for  the  ministry  by  the  great  non-episcopal 
Churches.  Re-ordination  will  confer  no  new  grace — will 
not  regularise  in  the  sight  of  God  their  ministry,  although 
it  may  regularise  it  from  the  standpoint  of  individual 
communities — folds  of  the  one  flock.  There  is  absolutely 
no  hope  or  prospect  of  the  non-episcopal  Churches  accept- 
ing re-ordination  as  a  gift  from  God  necessary  for  in- 
creased validity  or  Church  catholic  regularity  of  their 
ministry.  They  know  this,  and  while  willing  to  accept 
the  overseership  of  bishops,  they  are  not  ready  to  accept 
the  theory  attached  to  episcopacy  without  which  episco- 
pacy is  meaningless  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  insist  on 
the  Church  acting  as  if  their  view  of  episcopacy  is  the 
only  possible  one.  The  day  will  come  when  that  theory 
will  be  frankly  abandoned,  after  undergoing  many  trans- 
formations in  the  desperation  of  its  upholders  to  defend 
it  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge.  That  day  is  not  yet, 
and  until  it  comes  we  must  maintain  our  strong  protest 
against  the  claims  put  forward  in  its  support. 

We  have  come  to  see  that  until  the  Table  of  the  Lord  is 
acknowledged  to  be  the  Table  round  which  all  His  follow- 


FUTURE     STEPS     TOWARDS     UNITY  31 

ers,  irrespective  of  their  denominationalism,  may  freely 
gather,  we  cannot  talk  of  Christian  unity.  Anything 
short  of  this  is  a  caricature  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  When 
the  fruits  of  a  godly  life  and  the  profession  of  a  living 
faith  in  the  Saviour  are  vouched  for  by  a  responsible 
Christian  community,  there  is  something  almost  blas- 
phemous in  man  saying,  "The  gift  of  the  holy  sacrament 
is  not  for  you — it  is  only  for  those  who  accept  it  as  exclu- 
sively theirs  on  whom  episcopal  hands  have  been  laid." 
Surely  such  a  doctrine  and  practice  is  nothing  but  a  sin 
against  the  whole  teaching  of  Him  who  said  "do  this  in 
remembrance  of  Me!"  If  baptism  can  be  administered 
by  a  layman,  why  should  the  Lord's  Table  be  confined  to 
those  who  have  received  episcopal  confirmation,  to  those 
who  have  either  been  confirmed  directly  as  in  England, 
confirmed  in  bulk  as  in  some  continental  countries,  con- 
firmed by  a  priest  in  infancy  with  the  chrism  consecrated 
by  a  priest?  There  is  something  repulsively  magical  in 
the  contention  that  will  admit  the  indirectly  confirmed  by 
the  bishop  with  the  oil  he  has  blessed,  and  will  exclude 
men  whose  life  and  work  are  honoured  by  God  and  His 
Church. 

The  principle  laid  down  will  involve  our  not  refusing 
to  communicate  at  the  Lord's  Table  when  the  consecra- 
tion has  been  the  act  of  a  non-episcopally  ordained  man 
full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  faith.  To  do  this  is  not  rea- 
son to  our  Church,  which  is  one  of  many  folds.  Brother- 
liness  demands  it  when  occasion  arises,  and  abstention 
from  so  doing  partakes  of  Pharisaism  when  we  look  upon 
the  position  with  the  eyes  of  the  New  Testament  saints. 
The  Table  of  the  Lord  gives  the  great  opportunity  for 
showing  our  brotherhood.  That  opportunity  must  be  re- 
ciprocal if  it  is  to  be  in  any  sense  real. 

The  hour  has  arrived  for  a  step  forward,  and  it  is  only 
in  accord  with  the  findings  of  the  past  for  us  to  declare 
that  no  ministry  of  grace  blessed  by  God  is  not  in  accord 


32  THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUAETEELT 

with  His  will,  that  no  ministry  has  any  inherent  superior- 
ity in  His  sight  over  other  ministries  of  a  different  insti- 
tutional type,  that  unity  is  not  the  child  of  a  uniform 
Church  government,  and  that  the  Table  of  the  Lord  is  the 
place  where  the  spirit  of  unity  must  be  shown  before  any 
real  federated  institutional  unity  in  one  great  Church 
with  many  folds  and  many  forms  of  government  faces 
the  world  that  has  to  be  won  to  God. 


PAUL'S  PLAN  FOR  CHRISTIAN  UNITY 

By  Eev.  John  B.  Cowden,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

A  study  of  .Paul's  plan  for  Christian  unity  should  be  pref- 
aced by  a  study  of  his  teaching  on  Christian  liberty  and 
loyalty,  because  the  three  are  closely  associated  and  inter- 
dependent upon  each  other.  A  correct  understanding 
and  application  of  the  loyalty  and  liberty  of  Christian 
worship  is,  therefore,  essential  to  the  unity  of  the  same. 
These  three  must  be  studied  and  kept  together,  other- 
wise their  Scriptural  use  and  meaning  will  be  missed. 
The  Catholic  Church  has  unity  without  liberty,  and  the 
Protestant  Church  has  liberty  without  unity;  but  the 
apostolic  Church  had  unity  with  liberty,  which  is  Chris- 
tian unity.  Unity  and  liberty  were  inseparably  con- 
nected in  the  New  Testament  Church,  and  the  connecting 
link  between  the  two  was  loyalty.  Liberty,  loyalty  and 
unity  constitute  the  Scriptural  trinity,  the  three  in  one, 
of  the  New  Testament  Church ;  or,  in  other  words,  Chris- 
tian unity  can  not  be  without  the  broadest  liberty  that 
loyalty  will  permit;  nor  is  any  one  of  the  three  truly 
Christian  without  the  other  two.  However,  whenever  it 
is  necessary  to  choose  between  the  three,  loyalty  to  Christ 
must  be  always  placed  before  unity  and  liberty.  Paul 
often  had  to  choose  between  liberty  and  loyalty,  and 
he  always  chose  the  latter.  Luther  was  offered  unity 
without  liberty  within  the  Catholic  Church  at  the  sacrifice 
of  loyalty ;  and  he  chose  the  latter  by  nailing  up  his  theses 
and  burning  the  Papal  decree  at  the  gates  of  Wittenberg, 
thereby  laying  the  foundation  of  his  great  Eeformation 
upon  loyalty  and  liberty;  however,  in  doing  so,  liberty 
was  over-emphasized  and  unity  was  lost.  The  over-em- 
phasis of  liberty  soon  led  to  divisions,  which  have  con- 
tinued to  multiply  from  that  day  to  this.  Luther  solved 
the  problem  of  loyalty  and  liberty,  but  was  unable  to  solve 
the  problem  of  unity,  which  has  come  down  to  us  an  un- 
solved problem. 


34  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  it  can  not  be  solved. 
In  fact,  we  ought  to  be  more  able  and  in  a  better  position 
to  solve  this  problem  than  were  our  forefathers;  other- 
wise Christian  progress  and  development  mean  nothing. 
Christ  evidently  thought  that  all  his  followers  could  and 
would  worship  together  sometime,  for  He  prayed  that 
' '  they  may  all  be  one, ' '  and  stated,  ' '  They  shall  become 
one  flock,  one  shepherd."  So,  then,  the  unity  of  Chris- 
tian worshipers  is  not  a  dream  of  the  millennium  or  some 
religious  Utopia,  but  a  possible  and  probable  state,  for 
which  Christ  prayed  and  Paul  worked,  and  which  actually 
existed  for  several  hundred  years  in  the  apostolic  Church. 
However,  it  must  be  frankly  admitted  that  we  are  still 
far  from  the  final  solution  of  this  problem.  Divisions 
and  sectarianism  are  still  abroad  in  the  land,  with  all 
their  attendant  evils ;  and  the  Church  of  Christ  has  been 
rent  asunder  with  strife  and  contention  into  many  war- 
ring sects  and  parties,  until  today  there  are  nearly  two 
hundred  separate  religious  bodies  in  the  Christian  world. 

However,  the  pendulum  has  begun  to  swing  back  to- 
ward unity.  The  Churches  have  at  last  realized  the  evils 
of  division,  and  are  seeking  the  way  to  unity.  The  de- 
nominations, which  a  few  years  ago  were  the  pride  and 
glory  of  Christians,  have  few  apologists  today,  while 
many  eloquent  tongues  and  pens  in  every  denomination 
are  pleading  for  unity  with  all  God's  people,  and  the 
whole  Church  seems  to  be  possessed  with  a  passion  to  re- 
turn to  "the  one  fold  and  one  shepherd/'  This  wide- 
spread desire  for  unity  has  found  its  way  even  into  the 
seclusive  and  exclusive  Roman  Church,  which  for  centu- 
ries has  dwelt  behind  its  high  "walls  of  partition";  but 
today  there  has  arisen  the  Modernist  Movement  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  that  seems  to  be  trying  to  find  its  way 
into  the  great  common  fold  of  Christ.  Of  this  movement 
Abbe  Houtin  says:  "0  sons  and  heritors  of  the  Reform- 
ers of  the  sixteenth  century,  you  see  beginning  in  the 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOE     CHBISTIAN     UNITY         35 

Church  of  Borne,  which  condemned  your  fathers  without 
listening  to  them — you  see  beginning  a  religious  struggle 
more  far-reaching  than  that  of  Luther  and  Calvin." 
The  Roman  Catholic  scholar,  Mehler,  a  Modernist,  says : 
"Both  communions  [Protestant  and  Catholic]  should 
stretch  out  a  friendly  hand  to  one  another  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  common  guilt.  This  open  confession  of 
guilt  on  both  sides  will  be  followed  by  the  festival  of  rec- 
onciliation. ' '  And  Father  Tyrrell  adds :  "In  the  light 
of  these  centuries  of  necessary  but  costly  experience,  may 
not  the  problem  of  liberty  and  authority  now  admit  of 
some  happier  solution,  and  on  the  ruins  of  two  opposing 
systems  be  built  up  something  more  durable  than  either  1 ' ' 
On  the  other  hand,  the  advocates  of  Christian  unity  in  the 
Protestant  Churches  are  too  numerous  to  quote  or  men- 
tion. The  desire  for  Christian  unity  is  so  far  spread  to- 
day that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  spend  time  in  show- 
ing that  unity  is  the  desirable  thing.  This  has  been  the 
chief  objective  of  the  preaching  and  writing  on  Chris- 
tian unity  in  the  past ;  but  this  is  very  largely,  if  not  al- 
together, conceded  today.  Whatever  was  lacking  to  con- 
vince all  of  the  desirableness  of  Christian  unity  has  been 
supplied  by  the  great  World  War,  which  clearly  demon- 
strated both  the  weakness  and  sinfulness  of  divisions, 
and  the  strength  and  efficiency  of  unity.  This  almost 
unanimous  desire  for  unity  is  the  first  pre-essential  to 
Christian  unity,  because  the  desire  is  the  father  of  the 
deed.  Only  people  that  greatly  desire  to  unite  can  unite. 
In  fact,  the  prevailing  feeling  today  toward  unity  is 
more  than  a  desire;  it  is  a  necessity.  In  view  of  the 
greatness  and  the  urgency  of  the  world's  need  today,  and 
the  greatness  of  the  task  to  supply  this  need,  the  Church 
must  unite,  or  fail  in  its  mission  to  the  world.  The  sup- 
plying of  the  world  's  temporal  and  spiritual  needs  today 
is  too  big  a  task  for  a  divided  Church,  just  as  it  was 
too  big  a  task  during  the  great  World  War.    When  that 


36  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

great,  world-wide  conflagration  of  suffering  and  death 
broke  out  in  the  world,  men  and  women  turned  to  the 
Church  saying:  "Where  is  the  Church  1  Can  not  the 
Church  prevent  this  awful  war?"  And  some  began  to 
ask : ' '  Has  the  Church  failed  % ' '  Yes,  the  Church  did  fail 
— failed  because  of  its  division.  A  united  Church  could 
doubtless  have  prevented  this  war.  Furthermore,  as  the 
war  progressed,  with  its  awful  suffering  and  untold 
deaths,  suffering  and  dying  humanity  again  turned  to  the 
Church,  saying : ' '  Can't  you  feed  us  ?  Can't  you  bind  up 
our  wounds?  Can't  you  pour  in  the  oil  of  consolation 
and  salvation  in  the  hour  of  our  death!"  And  again,  on 
account  of  division,  the  Church  had  to  sit  helpless  and  un- 
able to  respond  to  this  world  call,  while  such  institutions 
as  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  Red  Cross,  the  Knights  of  Colum- 
bus, the  Salvation  Army,  etc.,  did  this  work  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  was  organized  to  do.  If  there  have-  ever 
been  tears  shed  in  heaven,  undoubtedly  they  were  shed 
then,  when  Jesus  Christ  looked  down  upon  this  starving, 
bleeding,  dying  world  crying  for  help,  and  His  Church, 
weakened  and  incapacitated  through  division,  unable  to 
respond  to  these  needs.  But  you  say:  "The  above  insti- 
tutions that  did  this  work  are  Christian  institutions." 
That  is  true ;  but  they  are  not  the  Church,  and  the  Church 
as  an  institution  had  to  sit  idly  by,  while  the  world  suf- 
fered and  died,  because  it  was  too  big  a  task  for  a  divided 
Church.  While  the  war  has  passed,  the  need  for  a  united 
Church  is  no  less  now  than  during  the  war,  because  the 
Church  today  is  confronted  by  other  world  tasks  and 
problems  that  are  too  big  for  a  divided  Church.  The  war 
brought  the  nations  of  the  earth  together  in  a  common 
cause,  and  bound  their  welfare  and  destiny  together  in 
such  a  way  that  the  world  today  is  one,  and  the  tasks  and 
problems  that  confront  us  today  are  world  problems  and 
tasks.  National  seclusiveness  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Nothing  short  of  a  united  League  of  Nations  can  meet 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOE     CHEISTIAN     UNITY         37 

and  solve  the  governmental  problems  and  tasks  of  the  fu- 
ture, and  nothing  short  of  a  united  Church  can  meet  and 
solve  the  religious  problems  and  tasks  of  the  future. 
Wherefore,  the  time  has  come  when  the  Churches  must 
unite.  It  is  not  a  time  to  preach  Christian  unity,  but  to 
practice  it. 

But  is  Christian  unity  possible  ?  Surely  Christ  would 
not  have  prayed  for  an  impossibility,  nor  would  He  have 
declared,  " There  shall  be  one  fold  and  one  shepherd," 
if  such  were  impossible;  and  Paul  declares:  "I  can  do 
all  things  in  Him  that  strengthened  me. ' '  What  people 
can  do  depends  largely  on  the  impelling  motive  behind 
the  deed.  With  a  sufficient  motive,  Christian  unity  is 
not  only  possible,  but  highly  probable.  The  strongest 
motive  power  of  which  men  and  women  are  capable,  says 
Paul,  is  love,  which  he  sets  forth  as  the  only  influence 
sufficient  to  effect  and  maintain  Christian  unity.  "Who 
shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  Shall  tribu- 
lation, or  anguish,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  naked- 
ness, or  peril,  or  sword?    Even  as  it  is  written, 

For  thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long ; 
We  are  counted  as  sheep  for  the  slaughter. 

Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors 
through  Him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am  persuaded  that 
neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor 
things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor 
height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able 
to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord."  Paul  asks  the  question,  "Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?"  and  then  answers 
it  by  affirming  that  absolutely  nothing  can  break  this  tie 
in  Christ.  He  mentions  some  of  the  greatest  alienating 
causes,  such  as  tribulation,  anguish,  persecution,  famine, 
nakedness,  peril  and  sword,  so,  if  none  of  these  terrible 
experiences  can  alienate  us  from  Christ,  then  there  is 


38  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

nothing  that  can.   We,  therefore,  have  a  tie  in  Christ  that 
binds  in  spite  of  all  the  alienating  causes. 

Note,  furthermore,  that  this  tie  not  only  binds,  but  it 
triumphs.  "We  are  more  than  conquerors  through  Him 
that  loved  us."  We  are  victorious  in  spite  of  all  difficul- 
ties that  may  arise  in  life  or  death,  from  principalities 
and  powers  in  high  places  or  low,  or  from  any  creature 
whatsoever.  We,  therefore,  have  a  tie  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord  that  binds  and  triumphs  in  spite  of  all  the  alien- 
ating causes  and  defeating  difficulties  that  beset  the  pil- 
grimage of  Christian  life. 

Love  is  the  only  motive  power  that  can  bind  and  tri- 
umph over  all  opposition  in  this  life.  There  are  other 
motive  powers  that  can  bind  and  triumph  for  awhile. 
For  instance,  hatred,  the  opposite  of  love,  can  bind  peo- 
ple together  for  awhile,  and  lead  them  to  victory  over 
some  difficulties,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  the  enemies  of 
Christ,  who  were  bound  together  by  a  common  hatred, 
and  were  led  by  the  same  to  the  victory  of  His  death; 
but  they  did  not  remain  together  long,  but  soon  parted, 
and  the  cause  of  Christ  triumphed  over  them.  Hope  also 
is  a  strong  motive  power  in  one's  life,  and  those  that  are 
led  on  by  the  bright  star  of  hope  accomplish  great  vic- 
tories ;  but  hope  is  not  invincible.  ' '  Hope  deferred  mak- 
eth  the  heart  sick" — is  easily  discouraged  and  gives  up 
the  fight.  Also,  the  human  will  is  a  great  motive  power, 
so  great  that  there  are  few  limitations  on  what  those  that 
say, ' '  I  can  and  will, ' '  can  do ;  but  even  the  human  will  is 
not  invincible.  Mr.  Henley  was  mistaken  when  he  said : 
"I  thank  God  for  my  unconquerable  soul.' '  The  human 
soul  is  not  invincible.  There  are  roads  too  rough  and 
mountains  too  high  to  be  traveled  and  scaled  by  the  hu- 
man will ;  and  there  are  burdens  too  heavy  to  be  borne  by 
the  human  will;  such  burdens  as  poor,  frail,  delicate 
women  are  carrying  to-day — loads  that  would  crush  the 
will  of  the  strongest  man  in  the  world.    The  only  reason 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY         39 

that  any  one  can  carry  such  a  burden  is  that  love  is  under- 
neath the  load.  Love  can  carry  any  burden,  and  endure 
any  hardship.  In  other  words,  love  alone  is  invincible ; 
and  this  is  what  Paul  meant  when  he  said : ' '  We  are  more 
than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us." 

But  has  not  Paul  in  his  zeal  overstated  the  power  of 
love?  Not  so,  when  we  take  into  consideration  Paul's 
conception  of  love.  Love,  to  Paul,  is  the  vital,  central 
motive  power  that  controls  and  regulates  the  whole  so- 
cial and  spiritual  world.  Love  is  to  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse what  the  force  of  gravity  is  to  the  physical  uni- 
verse. When  God  created  the  universe,  He  created  and 
set  in  operation  the  law  of  gravity  that  was  to  control 
and  regulate  everything  in  the  universe;  and  through 
the  operation  of  this  great  law  of  matter  everything  is 
held  in  position,  and  moves  on  in  such  perfect  unison 
and  harmony  that,  listening,  you  can  almost  hear  the 
music  of  the  spheres.  However,  there  come  times — times 
of  storm, — when  it  seems  that  the  world  is  about  to  go  to 
pieces ;  but  you  know  that  down  beneath  the  storm  is  a 
mightier  power  than  the  storm,  the  power  of  gravity, 
which  you  can  trust  to  hold  the  world  together ;  and  so  it 
has  been  with  all  the  storms  that  have  assailed  the  earth. 
The  storm  in  all  its  fury  passed;  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  rent  here  and  a  gash  there,  the  old  world  was 
left  the  same.  Just  so  there  come  storms  in  the  social  and 
spiritual  world  that  threaten  and  disturb  the  safety  and 
peace  of  the  world  for  the  time,  and  at  times  it  looks  as 
if  everything  is  going  to  pieces.  Especially  was  this  the 
case  in  the  last  war,  which  was  the  greatest  social 
storm  that  this  world  has  ever  seen;  but  we  have  seen 
it  pass,  and  the  old  world  is  left  largely  the  same  as  it 
was.  God  is  still  at  the  center  of  things,  and  His  love,  a 
great  attractive  force,  permeates  the  whole  social  uni- 
verse, and  holds  things  together,  and  will  continue  to  do 
so  even  to  the  end.    Wherefore  Paul  says,  "We  are  more 


40  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us ; ' '  which  is 
no  exaggerated  statement  of  the  power  of  love,  but  the 
simple  truth  that  underlies  the  whole  social  and  spiritual 
world;  and  through  this  love  as  the  motive  power,  and 
through  it  alone,  Christians  can  and  will  unite. 

Yes,  they  can  unite,  but  will  they!  In  view  of  their 
great  differences  and  strong  feelings,  will  they  be  will- 
ing to  lay  these  aside  and  let  love  have  its  way?  If  they 
have  the  love  of  which  Paul  speaks  above,  they  will,  and 
it  matters  not  how  great  the  differences  and  how  bitter 
the  feelings.  One  illustration  will  suffice  to  show  this. 
A  husband  and  wife  became  alienated,  and  separated ;  a 
third  party  undertook  to  reunite  them.  He  talked  to  the 
man  first,  and  he  thought  that  he  never  heard  a  man  say 
uglier,  meaner  things  about  any  woman  than  the  husband 
said  about  his  wife.  He  talked  with  the  wife  next,  and 
then  he  decided  that  the  man  had  not  said  anything  about 
his  wife.  Well,  he  concluded,  of  course,  that  it  was  use- 
less to  try  further  to  get  these  people  together.  They 
were  too  far  apart,  and  their  feelings  toward  each  other 
were  too  bitter  and  intense.  But  they  were  united,  and 
how?  They  had  a  little  child;  and  this  little  child  came 
over  to  the  father,  and,  taking  him  by  the  hand,  led  him 
over  to  the  mother;  and  they  fell  on  each  other's  necks, 
and  wept,  and  were  united  again.  They  had  a  common 
love ;  they  both  loved  that  little  child ;  and  this  common 
love  brought  them  together  and  kept  them  together. 
Christians  have  a  common  love;  they  all  love  Jesus 
Christ;  and  Paul  says  that  this  tie  binds  in  spite  of  all 
alienating  causes  and  difficulties.  If  Christians  would 
only  let  Christ  bring  them  together,  where  they  could  see 
the  nail-prints  in  His  hands  and  the  sword-thrust  in  His 
side,  they  could,  and  would  come  together  and  unite. 
"  Nothing/ '  says  Paul,  "  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord." 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY         41 

Note,  next,  to  what  this  tie  unites  us.  In  the  first 
place,  it  unites  us  to  God;  and  what  a  blessed  thing  it 
is  to  be  united  to  God!  In  the  second  place,  it  unites 
us  to  each  other.  Paul  says  that  nothing  shall  be  able 
to  separate  "us,"  not  me,  from  the  love  of  God.  The 
Christian  tie  is  not  an  individual  tie,  but  a  fraternal  tie. 
It  is  a  tie  that  binds  Christians  together,  and  thus  united 
they  are  united  to  God.  No  Christian  can  separate  him- 
self from  his  brethren,  and  claim  an  individual  tie  with 
God.  * '  For  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath 
seen,  can  not  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen."  Love  is 
the  only  influence  in  the  world  that  can  bring  people  to- 
gether and  keep  them  together.  Love  is  the  only  tie  that 
can  keep  a  home  together,  and  it  is  the  only  tie  that  can 
keep  a  Church  together.  Many  Christians  have  trusted 
a  common  faith  to  keep  them  together.  They  believed 
the  same  things,  and  they  trusted  this  tie  to  keep  them 
together  in  the  bond  of  peace ;  but  it  failed.  A  common 
faith,  however  strong,  can  not  maintain  the  bond  of 
Christian  brotherhood.  Only  a  common  love  can  do  this. 
The  strong  heat  of  a  fervent  common  love  is  the  only 
influence  that  can  melt  and  unite  human  hearts  in  a  last- 
ing bond  of  Christian  unity ;  but  this  can,  and  will,  unite 
all  Christians  that  allow  the  love  of  God  to  have  its  way 
in  their  hearts  and  over  their  lives. 

But  love  is  not  the  only  essential  to  Christian  unity, 
as  some  seem  to  think.  Love  only  makes  unity  possible 
or  probable.  It  is  the  only  possible  approach  to  unity, 
and  the  only  probable  way  of  realizing  the  same;  yet 
love  alone  can  not  unite  the  Christian  world.  Love  is 
the  only  impelling  motive  that  can  surmount  all  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  unity,  but  the  way  to  unity  must 
be  made  practical.  Love  alone  is  not  practical,  but 
rather  visionary,  so  love  alone  can  not  be  trusted  to  lead 
the  way  to  unity.  In  addition  to  love,  Paul  says  there 
must  be  ' '  faith  working  through  love ; ' '  and  through  this 


42  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

working  combination  all  Christian  problems  can  be 
solved.  " Faith  is  assurance  and  conviction;"  or,  in 
other  words,  faith  rests  upon  evidence,  and  follows  the 
light  of  reason,  and  is,  therefore,  practical  in  its  lead- 
ings and  conclusions.  So,  then,  we  look  to  faith  for  the 
practical  side  of  unity.  Any  unity  that  does  not  fulfill 
the  requirements  of  faith  can  not  be  a  practical  or  a 
lasting  unity;  and,  furthermore,  it  must  satisfy  the  re- 
quirements of  a  Scriptural  faith,  otherwise  it  would  not 
be  Scriptural  unity.  Scriptural  faith  is  "  faith  that 
Cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the  word  of  God." 
Wherefore,  we  look  to  the  word  of  God  for  the  practical 
realization  of  Christian  unity. 

Before  Christian  unity  can  be  made  practical,  a  prac- 
tical plan,  by  which,  and  upon  which,  all  Christians  can 
unite,  must  be  found.  This  seems  to  be  the  one  thing 
lacking  to-day  to  make  unity  practicable.  In  answer  to 
this  demand  for  a  practical  plan  for  Christian  unity, 
four  plans  have  so  far  been  offered.  The  Eoman  Cath- 
olic Church  proposes  a  return  to  the  mother  Church, 
where,  they  claim,  there  was  unity  until  Luther  and 
other  reformers  broke  it  up.  This  plan  would  undoubt- 
edly secure  unity,  but  it  would  do  so  at  the  price  of  two 
things  in  the  world  that  are  worth  more  than  unity; 
namely,  loyalty  and  liberty,  without  which,  as  we  have 
shown,  it  would  not  be  Christian  unity ;  and  besides,  such 
a  unity  would  not  satisfy  the  requirements  of  Scriptural 
faith,  and  could  not,  therefore,  be  Scriptural  unity.  The 
Episcopalians  also  have  a  plan  to  bring  the  Christian 
world  together.  The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has 
always  claimed  to  be  a  sort  of  half-way  house  between 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism,  and  has  hoped  to  bring 
Eome  down  and  Geneva  up  to  this  common  level ;  and  to 
this  end  this  communion  offers  what  is  known  as  the 
Lambeth  Quadrilateral  as  a  practical  plan  for  Christian 
unity.    But  one  of  the  items  in  this  plan  is  the  historic 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOE     CHRISTIAN     UNITY         43 

bishopric,  or  apostolic  succession,  which  excludes  its 
acceptance  by  all  congregational  or  democratic  com- 
munions. The  Presbyterians,  Congregationalists  and 
Methodists  propose  a  federation  of  all  the  Churches, 
which,  of  course,  is  not  unity  at  all,  and,  for  this  rea- 
son, has  not  been  seriously  considered  by  the  Churches. 
Another  plan,  first  proposed  by  the  Campbells  and  ad- 
vocated to  the  present  by  those  committed  to  this  plan, 
is  a  restoration  of  the  apostolic  Church  and  unity  upon 
the  same.  But  there  have  arisen  differences  as  to  what 
the  apostolic  Church  was  in  all  respects,  and  some  doubt 
the  propriety  of  restoring  the  apostolic  Church  in  some 
respects,  so  this  plan  has  so  far  failed  to  unite  the 
Churches.  There  is  good  in  all  the  above  plans,  but  all 
of  them  have  so  far  failed  to  restore  the  unity  of  the 
Church ;  however,  they  have  taught  us  some  very  impor- 
tant negative  lessons. 

In  the  first  place,  the  failure  of  the  above  plans  has 
taught  us  that  Christian  unity  can  not  be  an  ecclesias- 
ticism,  where  one  man  or  a  number  of  men  constitute  the 
head  of  the  Church;  that  has  always  been  religious  tyr- 
anny and  spiritual  despotism.  Not  a  union  of  denomina- 
tions, where  one  denomination  swallows  up  all  the  oth- 
ers; that  would  be  a  denominational  monster,  or  mon- 
strosity. Not  a  federation  of  sects,  where  each  sect  is 
fitted  into  its  allotted  niche  and  place,  and  agrees  to  oc- 
cupy as  little  space  as  possible ;  that  would  be  stagnation 
and  death.  Not  an  aggregation  of  unreconciled  sects, 
where  each  has  signed  an  armistice ;  that  has  always  re- 
sulted in  renewed  hostilities.  Not  a  peace  by  compro- 
mise, where  all  agree  to  maintain  a  respectful  silence 
such  as  the  tombs  of  a  graveyard ;  that  would  be  a  living 
death.  Not  a  bargain,  where  one  thing  is  given  up  by 
one,  and  another  thing  is  given  up  in  return  by  another ; 
that  would  be  selling  out.  Not  a  forced  union,  where  all 
speak  the  same  thing  through  slavish  fear ;  that  would  be 


44  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

a  new  edition  of  "The  Book  of  Martyrs."  Not  a  uni- 
formity of  opinions,  where  each  one  sneezes  when  the 
other  takes  snuff;  that  would  he  religious  hypocrisy. 
Not  a  union  of  all  the  theories  and  philosophies  of  the  re- 
ligious thinkers  and  dreamers  of  the  past ;  that  would  be 
a  religious  museum.  Not  a  union  of  all  the  modern  cults 
and  isms ;  that  would  be  fanaticism,  of  which  the  world 
is  full  already.  Not  a  union  in  theory  or  name  only,  but 
a  real,  practical,  organic  union  of  the  dismembered  parts 
of  the  divided  body  of  Christ ;  and  that  which  is  needed 
most  to  eif  ect  such  a  union  is  a  practical,  acceptable  plan. 

In  view  of  the  failure  of  the  above  plans,  which  were 
wrought  out  of  the  best  thought  and  experience  of  the 
past,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Churches  of  to-day 
have  no  other  to  offer,  where  shall  we  look  for  a  better 
plan!  When  we  have  exhausted  all  human  resources  of 
the  past  and  the  present,  where  do  we  usually  look  for 
help?  "My  help  cometh  from  Jehovah,  who  made 
heaven  and  earth."  Yes,  but  God  has  not  given  us  any 
help  at  this  point ;  He  has  left  us  in  the  darkness  to  find 
our  own  way  out  of  the  confusion  of  division  into  the  light 
of  unity.  If  this  be  true,  Christian  unity  is  indeed  a  hope- 
less undertaking.  However,  is  it  not  strange  that  Christ 
would  have  prayed  for  the  unity  of  all  His  disciples,  and 
commanded  them  to  work  for  the  same,  without  giving 
them  some  plan  and  basis  for  unity?  Furthermore,  if 
"the  scriptures  furnish  us  completely  unto  every  good 
work,"  as  Paul  says  they  do,  is  it  not  strange  that  they 
do  not  give  us  a  practical  working  plan  for  Christian 
unity,  the  greatest  of  good  works?  Before  we  conclude 
that  there  is  no  Scriptural  plan  for  Christian  unity, 
let  us  search  the  Scriptures  for  light  on  this  point. 

We  find  in  Paul's  letter  to  the  Ephesians  a  plan  out- 
lined, which  united  the  religious  sects  of  that  day,  both 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  who  hated  each  other  with  all  the 
animosity  and  bitterness  of  which  the  soul  is  capable. 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY         45 

The  religious  sects  of  to-day  are  no  further  apart,  and 
have  no  greater  hatred  for  each  other,  than  they  had 
in  Paul's  day,  so  a  plan  that  united  the  sects  of  that 
day  can,  we  believe,  do  the  same  to-day.  This  plan  is  as 
follows : 

"For  He  [Christ]  is  our  peace,  who  made  both  one,  and  brake  down 
the  middle  wall  of  partition,  having  abolished  in  His  flesh  the  enmity, 
even  the  law  of  commandments  contained  in  ordinances;  that  He  might 
create  in  Himself  of  the  two  one  new  man,  so  making  peace;  and  might 
reconcile  them  both  in  one  body  unto  Cod  through  the  cross,  having  slain 
the  enmity  thereby:  and  he  came  and  preached  peace  to  you  that  were 
far  off,  and  peace  to  them  that  were  nigh:  for  through  Him  we  both  have 
our  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father.  So  then  ye  are  no  more  strangers 
and  sojourners,  but  ye  are  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the 
household  of  God,  being  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and 
prophets,  Christ  Jesus  Himself  being  the  chief  corner  stone;  in  whom  each 
several  building,  fitly  framed  together,  groweth  into  a  holy  temple  in  the 
Lord;  in  Whom  ye  also  are  builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God  in 
the  Spirit"  (Eph.  2:14-22). 

By  analytical  study  of  the  above  plan,  outlined  by 
Paul,  it  will  be  found  to  contain  seven  basic  items  or 
fundamental  principles  (a  heptagon  instead  of  a  quad- 
rilateral), which  constituted  the  plan  and  basis  for  unity 
in  Paul's  day,  and  which,  we  believe,  is  sufficient  for 
unity  to-day: 

(1)  A  common  standard  of  authority.  "For  He 
(Christ)  is  our  peace,  Who  made  both  (Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles) one."  (2)  The  removal  of  differences.  "And 
brake  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition,  having  abol- 
ished in  His  flesh  the  enmity,  even  the  law  of  command- 
ments contained  in  ordinances ;  that  He  might  create  in 
Himself  of  the  two  one  new  man,  so  making  peace."  (3) 
Reconciliation.  "And  might  reconcile  them  both  in  one 
body  unto  Christ  through  the  cross,  having  slain  the  en- 
mity thereby."  (4)  A  common  access  unto  the  Father. 
"Through  Him  ive  both  have  our  access  in  one  Spirit 
unto  the  Father.  (5)  A  democratic  brotherhood.  "So 
then  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  sojourners,  but  ye  are 
fellow -citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of 
God."  (6)  The  foundation  of  unity.  "Being  built  upon 
the  foundation   of   the   apostles   and  prophets,   Christ 


46  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

Jesus  Himself  being  the  chief  corner  stone/'  (7)  The 
units  of  union.  "In  Whom  each  several  building,  fitly 
framed  together,  groweth  into  a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord; 
in  Whom  ye  also  are  builded  together  for  a  habitation  of 
God  in  the  Spirit." 

This  is  Paul's  plan,  so  let  no  individual  or  denomina- 
tion make  claim  to  the  same,  but  let  all  accept  it,  and 
unite  by  it.  It  is  the  only  undenominational  plan,  be- 
cause it  was  formed  centuries  before  any  of  the  modern 
denominations  existed,  so  it  has  no  denominational  bias 
or  sectarian  associations  to  prejudice  any  one  against  it- 
It  is  also  the  only  Scriptural  plan,  because  all  that  is 
claimed  for  other  plans  is  that  they  are  only  deductions 
from  the  Scriptures,  while  every  step  or  item  in  the 
above  plan  was  expressly  prescribed  verbatim  by  the  di- 
vinely inspired  apostle  Paul.  While  we  have  analyzed 
and  commented  on  the  several  items  or  steps  in  this  plan, 
we  were  careful  to  add  to  or  take  nothing  from  it.  The 
comments  are  ours;  the  plan  is  Paul's.  Furthermore, 
it  is  the  only  truly  catholic  plan,  the  only  plan  that  all 
can  accept.  It  contains  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
final  essential  deposit  of  Christianity,  as  conceived  and 
stated  by  Paul,  the  master  builder  of  Christianity.  No 
other  plan  offers  a  programme  that  appeals  to  all  com- 
munions. It  is  also  the  only  practical  plan,  because  no 
other  plan  has  succeeded  in  uniting  a  divided  Church, 
while  it  successfully  united  all  the  sects  of  Paul's  day, 
and  maintained  unity  in  the  Church  for  several  hundred 
years ;  and  it  will  do  the  same  to-day,  if  it  is  only  given 
a  fair  trial.  Unity  by  this  plan,  of  course,  would  be  a 
drastic  and  far-reaching  step  on  the  part  of  the  Churches 
to-day — one  that  involves  many  denominational  sacri- 
fices. This  is  what  makes  all  hesitate  and  draw  back 
from  such  a  union.  To  be  sure,  only  by  the  sacrifice  of 
everything  sectarian  and  denominational,  can  Christian 
unity  be  realized,  because  unity,  purchased  at  any  less 


PAUL'S     PLAN     FOE     CHRISTIAN     UNITY         47 

price,  would  be  only  a  continuation,  more  or  less,  of  sec- 
tarianism. Lastly,  Paul's  plan  is  the  only  perfect  plan, 
lacking  nothing  necessary  to  unite  the  whole  Christian 
world,  except  to  be  accepted  and  tried. 

Yes,  but  will  this  ever  be!  If  the  signs  of  the  times 
and  the  words  of  many  of  the  religious  leaders  are  to 
be  believed,  such  a  union  can  and  will  be  realized.  There 
are  evidences  on  all  hands  of  an  increasing  acceptance 
of  Paul's  plan,  or  the  New  Testament  basis  for  Chris- 
tian unity,  as  the  following  quotations  from  leaders  to- 
day clearly  show : 

"We  must  go  back  to  essential  New  Testament  principles,  for  their 
ancient  programme,  re-emphasized  in  the  largest  way,  is  the  conquering  pro- 
gramme of  the  future. " — Rev.  Oliver  HucTcel,  D.I).  (Congregationalist), 
Baltimore,  Md. 

"The  only  solid  basis  of  Church  union  is  the  general  abandonment  of 
doctrines,  traditions,  theories  and  rites  not  found  in  the  New  Testament. 
So  long  as  Christians  cling  to  the  traditions  of  the  later  fathers,  and  re- 
fuse to  go  back  to  the  plain  teachings  and  simple  ordinances  of  the  New 
Testament,  there  will  be  irreconcilable  divisions  in  the  body  of  Christ. 
The  true  basis  of  the  union  of  Christendom,  for  which  so  many  to-day  are 
longing,  is  a  general  return  to  primitive  Christianity.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
determine  what  that  is,  for  it  is  writ  large  on  the  pages  of  the  Book. 
Let  us  all  cheerfully  give  up  every  dogma,  every  ceremonial,  not  found 
there,  and  Christian  and  Church  union  will  come  of  itself.  Any  attempt 
at  union  on  a  lower  plane  will  prove  a  failure. " — Examiner  (Baptist). 

"All  things  are  calling  us  just  now  to  give  ourselves  and  our  Church  to 
primary  things,  and  to  keep  out  of  the  way  all  secondary  things,  how- 
ever good  and  true,  however  much  we  prize  them.  It  is  time  to  rally  to 
the  defence  of  our  common  Christianity,  and  let  our  private,  partisan  and 
denominational  pecularities  shift  for  themselves.  If  they  die,  so  much  gain 
for  the  kingdom  of  God." — Br.  Wm.  P.  Merrill  (Presbyterian). 

"We,  the  representatives  of  the  Presbyterian,  the  Methodist  and  the 
Congregational  branches  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Canada,  do  hereby  set 
forth  the  substance  of  the  Christian  faith  as  commonly  held  among  us. 
In  doing  so  we  build  upon  the  foundation  laid  by  the  apostles  and  prophets, 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone. ' ' — From  * '  The  Published 
Basis  of  Union.'1 

"There  is  a  necessity  of  a  return  to  first  principles;  we  must  get  be- 
hind the  prejudices,  interests,  errors  and  associations  of  history  to  the 
fountain-head  of  Christianity;  we  must  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  Master,  and 
move  again  in  the  company  of  the  apostles.  We  must  become  in  temper 
and  in  spirit,  and  not  merely  in  name  and  in  claim,  an  apostolic  Church." 
— Canon  Hensley  Henson   (Episcopalian). 

"The  Church  that  we  need  is  a  Church  that  stands  for  the  simplicity 
and  the  sufficiency  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  calling  itself  by  no  name 
but  one.  The  best  men  in  all  the  Churches  are  seeking  to  a  common  basis 
of  union,  to  come  together  on  some  large  Christian  confession,  and  to  live 
with  one  another  as  becomes  disciples  of  Christ." — Dr.  John  Hunter,  of 
Trinity  Church,  Glasgow,  Scotland. 

"We  do  hereby  affirm  that  Christian  unity,  now  so  earnestly  desired  by 


48  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  memorialists,  can  be  restored  only  by  the  return  of  all  Christian  com- 
munions to  the  principles  of  unity  exemplified  by  the  undivided  catholic 
Church  during  the  first  ages  of  its  existence,  which  principles  we  believe 
to  be  the  substantial  deposit  of  Christian  faith  and  order  committed  by 
His  apostles  to  the  Church  unto  the  end  of  the  world,  and,  therefore, 
incapable  of  compromise  or  surrender  by  those  who  have  been  ordained 
to  be  its  stewards  for  the  common  and  equal  benefit  of  all  men." — The 
Bishops  of  the  Episcopal  Church  to  the  Whole  Church. 

"We  want  a  Christianity  more  pure,  more  practical,  more  conformed  to 
the  original  Gospel. " — Catholic  Modernist. 

From  the  above  statements  it  is  clear  that  there  is  a 
decided  leaning  in  all  the  Churches  toward  Paul's  plan 
for  Christian  unity,  which  is  indicative  of  the  coming  of 
this  union.  In  fact,  it  is  already  being  realized  in  a  large 
degree  on  the  foreign  field,  as  is  seen  from  the  following 
from  J.  Campbell  Gibson,  Presbyterian  missionary  in 
China:  "When  we  met  in  Shanghai  two  years  ago,  the 
representatives  of  over  fifty  missions  of  the  Western 
Churches,  we  found  ourselves  able  to  declare  cordially 
that  we  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and  we  assured  the  Chi- 
nese Church  that  we  desire  only  to  plant  one  Church  un- 
der the  sole  control  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  governed 
by  the  word  of  the  living  God  and  led  by  His  guiding 
Spirit.  When  you  speak  the  words  of  division,  your 
voice  is  the  voice  of  strangers;  and  the  flock  of  Christ 
will  neither  hear  nor  follow. ' '  He  who  said,  ' '  Christian 
unity  will  proceed  from  the  circumference  to  the  cen- 
ter, ' '  seems  to  have  been  a  true  prophet.  Christian  unity 
can  be  fully  realized  everywhere,  both  at  the  center  and 
on  the  circumference  and  throughout  the  whole  of  Chris- 
tendom, if  only  Paul's  plan  for  unity  is  accepted  and 
followed.  While  this  plan  for  unity  and  the  vision  of  a 
united  Church  come  to  us  out  of  the  distant  past,  yet  it  is 
not  a  passing  dream  of  the  dark,  closing  night,  but  a  sure 
promise  of  the  red,  opening  dawn ;  and,  if  all  the  signs  of 
Christian  unity  on  the  horizon  of  the  future  are  to  be 
believed,  the  glad  day  of  the  unity  of  all  God's  people  in 
the  Church  of  His  Son,  when  all  shall  bow  down  and  wor- 
ship Him  together,  is  not  far  distant;  and  we  pray  God 
that  it  may  speedily  come. 


SOME  FALLACIES  CONCERNING  CHURCH 
UNION  AND  A  HOPEFUL  PLAN 

By  Eev.  Eobert  Westly  Peach,  D.D.,  Bector  Emanuel  Reformed  Epis- 
copal Church,  Newark,  N.  J. 

The  unity  of  Christ's  people  for  which  He  prayed  is 
indisputably  a  spiritual  unity.  He  compares  it  with  His 
own  unity  with  the  Father :  ' '  That  they  may  be  one,  even 
as  we  are  one ' '  (v.  22) .  It  is  the  communion  of  those  who 
avow  Him  as  their  Saviour,  obey  Him  as  their  Lord,  be- 
cause they  believe  in  His  coessential  deity  with  the  Fa- 
ther. 

This  spiritual  unity  has  not  yet  been  attained  by  the 
whole  body  of  people  who  call  themselves  by  His  Name. 
Even  after  eliminating  those  who  are  not  sincere,  there 
remain  those  who  deny  His  deity,  and  those  who  in  their 
thought  destroy  it  by  division  in  deifying  His  mother. 
Throughout  the  centuries,  a  partial  fulfilment  of  His 
prayer  has  been  granted.  For  the  sum  total  of  all  true 
believers  in  Him  as  Saviour,  Lord,  and  God,  we  have  an 
ancient  and  honored  title :  ' '  The  Holy  Catholic  Church. ' ' 
This  is  a  Church  invisible,  a  spirit  disembodied.  Is  it  the 
only  possible  unity  of  His  people  on  this  sphere,  or  in  this 
dispensation?  Is  it,  with  its  progressive  enlargement, 
the  nearest  possible  fulfilment  of  the  Saviour's  prayer? 

Those  who  believe  that  it  is,  and  who  advance  argu- 
ments against  every  movement  to  bring  together  at  least 
and  at  first  some  of  the  scattered  branches  of  the  visible 
Church,  and  equally  some  of  those  who  believe  in  a  visible 
unity  and  set  forth  arguments  in  favor  of  a  oneness  of 
order  or  of  modes,  make  some  contentions  which  are 
clearly  fallacious.  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  article  to 
deal  with  a  few  of  these  fallacies. 

(1)  The  Spiritual  Fallacy. — This  is  the  argument  that 
because  the  unity  for  which  Christ  prayed  is  spiritual, 
therefore  a  visible  embodiment  of  this  unity  would  be 


50  THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

contrary  to  His  wish.  That  is,  man  being  a  spirit,  his  en- 
templing  in  the  flesh  is  contrary  to  the  creative  purpose ; 
that  is,  the  Son  of  God,  equally  with  the  Father  and  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  being  a  spirit,  His  incarna- 
tion was  a  violation  of  the  divine  will.  Nay  rather,  as 
St.  Paul  voices  the  universal  desire,  even  now  and  all  the 
more  after  the  decay  of  this  earthly  body  we  have  and 
shall  have  the  ' '  longing  to  be  clothed  upon  with  our  habi- 
tation which  is  from  heaven' '  (2  Cor.  v.  2) ;  and  he  adds 
to  this  the  assurance  of  God's  sanction  (v.  5).  And  as 
to  the  Christ,  St.  Paul  says,  "He  Who  was  manifested  in 
the  flesh"  (1  Tim.  3:16),  and  St.  Peter  adds,  "was  mani- 
fested at  the  end  of  the  times  for  your  sake"  (1  Pet. 
1:20).  For  man's  sake,  yea  also,  for  Christ's  sake,  that 
is,  for  His  glory,  a  body  for  the  spiritual  unity  of  His 
people  is  worthily  to  be  longed  for. 

And  now,  leaving  the  first  century  for  the  twentieth,  let 
us  consider  some  of  the  current  erroneous  arguments. 

(2)  The  Egotistical  Fallacy. — This  is  the  argument 
that  the  union  of  one's  Church,  or  one's  branch  of  the 
Church,  with  another  or  others  would  be  a  lowering  of 
its  standard.  They  have  not  so  valid  and  historic  a  min- 
istry; or  so  close  fidelity  to  the  Scriptures;  or  so  great 
missionary  zeal  and  beneficence ;  or  such  a  venerable  and 
beautiful  liturgy,  if  any;  or  such  evangelistic  enthusi- 
asm ;  or  such  a  necrology  of  great  names ;  or  such  a  ros- 
ter of  living  leaders  of  eminence;  or  educational  stand- 
ards so  high ;  or  comparable  religious  statesmanship ;  or 
what  not?  The  argumentum  ad  hominem  is  the  reply: 
"by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  The  devotional 
classics,  the  great  hymns,  the  noblest  sermons,  the  famous 
commentaries,  of  our  literature  were  produced  by  the 
ministers  and  members  of  no  one  Church  but  of  many. 
Heroic  missionaries,  Pentecostal  evangelists,  self-sacri- 
ficing pastors,  have  not  emerged  preponderatingly  from 


FALLACIES    CONCERNING    CHURCH     UNION    51 

any  one  denomination  but  from  many.  The  saintliest 
lives  in  any  community  will  not  be  found  confined  to  any 
one  of  its  Churches,  and  in  the  country  at  large  they  will 
surely  be  found  proportionately  dispersed  throughout  all 
the  communions.  The  genius  of  every  denomination  has 
wrought  out  some  distinguishing  merits  and  developed 
some  structural  weaknesses.  A  union  of  two  or  more  of 
these  bodies  would  uncover  their  several  defects  for  rem- 
edy and  bring  into  relief  their  several  elements  of 
strength  for  development. 

(3)  The  Homogeneal  Fallacy. — This  argues  the  fear 
that  combination  of  branches  of  the  Church  would  de- 
stroy the  homogeneity  now  characterizing  any  one  of 
them.  The  argument  is  premised  upon  a  condition  non- 
existent. In  a  single  denomination  are  found  evangel- 
icals, sacramentalists  and  rationalists;  Calvinists  and 
Arminians;  premillenarians  and  postmillennialists ; 
open-  and  close-communion  advocates;  believers  in  the 
verbal  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  higher  critics;  and, 
for  an  extreme  example,  believers  that  foot-washing  is 
an  ordinance,  who  differ  as  to  whether  one  or  both  feet 
should  be  washed  therein.  Without  contradiction,  the 
fallacy  is  exposed  by  a  fact  precisely  the  opposite ;  there 
is  an  outstanding  and  far  more  characteristic  homogen- 
eity now  appearing  in  the  worship,  the  preaching  and  the 
work-methods  of  the  divided  Churches;  so  that  given  a 
non-liturgical  Church,  the  visitor  who  does  not  know  its 
name  will  not  be  able  to  tell  from  the  service,  and  even 
ordinarily  from  the  sermon,  whether  he  is  worshiping  in 
a  Methodist  or  a  Baptist  or  a  Presbyterian  or  a  Disci- 
ples '  or  a  Congregational  or  a  Reformed  or  a  United 
Brethren,  or  some  other  sanctuary. 

(4)  The  Regimental  Fallacy. — How  often  we  have 
heard  it  declared,  each  time  with  an  air  implying  an 
original  figure  of  speech,  "We  are  all  regiments  of  the 


52  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

one  great  army."  Let  us  follow  that  figure  in  an  illus- 
tration: Two  national  guard  regiments  are  ordered  out 
on  a  practise  march  and  encampment.  The  colonel  of 
one  locates  a  field  as  the  sun  is  westering  and  commands 
the  regiment  to  halt  and  fix  camp.  As  the  work  nears 
completion  the  other  regiment  approaches  from  the  op- 
posite direction,  and  its  colonel  commands  it  to  halt  and 
fix  camp  on  the  same  spot,  his  men  to  run  a  row  of  tents 
down  the  middle  of  each  company  street  and  beyond,  and 
to  erect  a  mess-tent  on  the  site  selected  by  the  first  for 
a  drill-ground.  The  results  can  easily  be  imagined.  Yet 
this  is  precisely  what  our  Churches  of  different  denom- 
inations have  long  been  doing.  New  parishes  crowd  into 
fields  already  fully  occupied,  either  to  succeed  by  rob- 
bing the  older  parishes  or  to  fail  with  complete  loss  of 
all  labor  and  money  spent.  The  Interchurch  World 
Movement  survey  of  Southern  Ohio  has  revealed  many 
settlements  in  which  such  overcrowding  has  resulted  in 
practically  killing  all  the  Churches  in  such  communities, 
so  that  there  is  not  left  a  single  resident  minister  or  a 
single  Church  with  regular  weekly  services.  Of  course 
the  illegitimacy-rate  and  the  death-rate  in  these  places 
have  been  found  abnormally  high.  Eegiments  of  the 
same  army  do  not  fight  each  other  to  depletion  or  mutual 
extinction. 

(5)  The  Numerical  Fallacy. — This  argument  runs 
thus:  Denominationalism  has  not  resulted  in  over- 
churching,  save  in  exceptional  places;  there  are  plenty 
of  people  to  fill  the  churches  if  only  pastors  and  people 
would  go  out  after  them;  empty  pews  are  not  found  in 
churches  where  men  of  ability  and  unfeigned  piety 
preach  with  freshness  of  presentation  and  with  unction 
the  blessed  old  truths  of  the  Gospel.  By  way  of  illustra- 
tion some  exceptional  cases  of  a  crowded  church  where 
the  latter  conditions  are  fulfilled  are  cited.    By  way  of 


FALLACIES    CONCERNING    CHURCH     UNION    53 

refutation  multiple  cases  of  half -empty  churches  where 
the  same  conditions  are  fulfilled  may  be  adduced.  The 
implicit  charge  in  the  statement  is  a  cruel  misjudgment 
and  a  slander.  Devout  men  of  learning  and  eloquence 
and  fidelity  to  the  Son  of  God  Whom  they  proclaim, 
filled  with  love  for  their  fellow  men,  are  preaching  in 
all  denominations  all  over  our  country  to  small  and  grad- 
ually diminishing  congregations.  And  why?  because 
there  are  not  available  people  enough  to  fill  their 
churches  by  half.  Based  upon  figures  drawn  from  the 
religious  census  of  the  United  States  of  America  for  the 
years  1906  and  1916,  if  on  a  given  day  by  edict  all  people 
could  be  ordered  to  abandon  work  at  a  given  hour  and 
assemble  in  the  houses  of  worship  of  their  choice,  and  if 
the  order  were  obeyed,  the  synagogues  and  the  Roman 
churches  would  be  filled  to  suffocation  and  the  streets  in 
front  crowded  from  curb  to  curb;  while  the  Protestant 
churches,  supposing  that  the  ill  were  borne  on  stretchers 
and  the  infants  in  arms,  would  still  not  be  filled.  It  may 
be  added  that  the  1920  estimate  by  the  Federal  Council 
of  Churches  of  the  entire  Protestant  population  of  our 
country  falls  short  by  three  millions  of  the  1906  census 
estimates  of  the  seating  capacity  of  six-sevenths  of  the 
Protestant  churches ! 

(6)  The  Ordinal  Fallacy. — Here  is  an  adjective  forced 
into  an  unusual  meaning,  because  there  is  no  other  ad- 
jective that  will  serve.  The  fallacy  so  described  is  not 
used  by  opponents  of  organic  union  but  by  advocates 
who  can  see  no  possibility  of  such  union  without  unifor- 
mity of  ordination  of  all  ministers  by  successors  of  the 
Apostles  of  Christ.  Eschewing  all  controversy,  it  will 
suffice  simply  to  state  that  the  great  majority  of  Protes- 
tant ministers  believe  that  there  is  no  Scriptural  warrant 
or  historical  proof  of  the  doctrine  that  there  is  anywhere 
in  the  world  a  line  of  tactual  succession  from  the  Apos- 


54  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

ties,  down  which  apostolic  authority  has  been  transmit- 
ted. A  fundamental  of  unity  must  be  respect  of  the 
standing  of  communicants  of  the  uniting  Churches  and 
of  their  ministers.  Either  re-confession  or  re-ordination 
as  a  condition  would  block  any  movement  toward  union, 
— as  would,  to  take  another  case,  re-baptism  of  those  who 
had  not  been  immersed.  The  fallacy  lies  in  overlooking 
the  fact  that  the  true  unity  is  that  of  the  spirit,  and  that 
the  visible  expression  of  that  true  unity  may  be  attained 
by  agreement  of  the  divided  Churches  of  the  evangelical 
faith  to  dwell  together  as  one  body.  As  I  have  said  else- 
where, the  only  feasible  organic  unity  is  of  organization, 
not  of  order. 

With  every  one  of  these  and  many  other  fallacies  we 
who  advocate  organic  union  must  grapple.  Cool  intel- 
lectual assent  to  the  principles  of  union  will  not  suffice ; 
we  must  have  glowing  zeal. 

Happily,  we  are  not  left  to-day  without  a  definite  plan 
to  advance.  There  is,  indeed,  a  better  plan,  for  complete 
organic  union,  held  in  abeyance,  because  the  time  for  it 
seems  not  yet  at  hand.  The  plan  for  federal  organic 
union  is  now  before  the  Churches.  It  is  the  plan  of  union 
of  the  American  Council  on  Organic  Union  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Churches  which  was  fully  presented  in  the  April 
number  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly.  This  plan 
is  being  presented  to  the  supreme  governing  or  advisory 
body  of  every  evangelical  Church  in  our  country.  After 
it  has  been  adopted  by  at  least  six  of  these  denomina- 
tions it  will  become  operative,  and  they  will  unite  as  the 
"Churches  of  Christ  in  America,"  each  retaining  its 
present  name  and  organization,  and  uniting  in  a  super- 
body  with  delegated  functions  and  authority,  legislative, 
judicial  and  executive,  after  the  pattern  of  the  federal 
union  of  the  states.  In  this  the  present  evils  of  over- 
churching,  overlapping  efforts  in  missions  and  educa- 


FALLACIES     CONCERNING     CHURCH     UNION    55 

tion,  etc.,  will  be  dealt  with  and  progressively  elimi- 
nated; constructive  programmes  will  be  adopted;  the 
United  Churches  will  present  a  solid  front  to  the  forces 
arrayed  against  Christ  and  His  Kingdom.  Doubtless 
the  number  of  uniting  Churches  will  increase  from  year 
to  year,  until  the  evangelical  Christians  of  our  land  will 
nearly  all  be  represented  in  the  United  Churches.  Until 
then,  and  thenceforth,  Forward !  Let  not  the  good  work 
drag.  It  means  the  revivifying  of  Christ's  people;  it 
means  the  winning  of  thousands  in  place  of  hundreds  of 
recruits  for  the  army  of  the  Lord ;  it  means  the  greatest 
step  in  modern  ages  toward  the  fulfilment  of  our  Sav- 
iour's prayer,  "That  they  all  may  be  one." 


SUGGESTIONS  CONCERNING   CONFERENCES 
BETWEEN  THE  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPA- 
LIANS AND  CONGREGATIONALISTS* 

The  word  Church  is  used  in  the  New  Testament  in  two 
distinct  senses.  Our  Lord,  as  His  words  are  recorded  in 
the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  used  twice,  and  twice  only  the 
word  ecclesia,  and  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  significant 
that  He  employed  the  word  with  these  two  connotations. 
When  He  said, '  *  Upon  this  rock  will  I  build  My  Church, ' ' 
it  is  manifest  He  did  not  mean  a  single,  local  congrega- 
tion. When  He  said, ' ■  Tell  it  to  the  Church, ' '  it  is  mani- 
fest that  He  did  not  mean  a  world-wide  company  existing 
through  the  centuries. 

This  distinction  is  in  accordance  with  apostolic  usage. 
The  Church  is  the  whole  company  of  the  disciples  of 
which  the  risen  Lord  is  the  spiritual  and  living  Head, 
which  St.  Paul  has  in  mind  when  he  says,  "Christ  also 
loved  the  Church,  and  gave  Himself  up  for  it;  that  He 
might  sanctify  it,  *  *  #  that  He  might  present  the 
Church  to  Himself  a  glorious  Church,  not  having  spot  or 
wrinkle  or  any  such  thing.  "It  is  this  all  comprehensive 
Church  which  is  the  one  body  possessing  ' '  one  Lord,  one 
faith,  one  baptism,"  which  is  "built  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  Himself  be- 
ing the  chief  cornerstone. ? ' 

But  again  the  New  Testament  uses  the  word  Church  re- 
ferring to  a  local  congregation,  ' '  the  Church  which  is  in 
Corinth/ '  "the  Church  of  Galatia,"  "the  Church  which 
is  at  Cenchreae,"  "the  Church  that  is  in  the  house  of 
Prisca  and  Aquila."  When  the  Apostle  exhorts  the  Cor- 
inthian congregation  to  discipline  the  unworthy  members 
it  is  clearly  action  by  the  local  Church  that  he  has  in 
mind.    Early  Church  history  furnishes  abundant  exam- 

*A  paper  adopted  at  a  meeting  of  the  two  commissions  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
and  Congregational  Churches  regarding  the  proposed  canon. 


CONCERNING  CONFERENCES         57 

pies  of  this  two-fold  usage.  An  appeal  therefore  to  Scrip- 
ture and  to  Christian  history  in  defense  of  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  emphases  is  alike  possible.  Both  present 
real  and  important  truths.  Both  should  be  equally  kept  in 
mind.  Unfortunately  Christian  history  too  often  shows 
the  emphasis  on  the  one  aspect  of  the  Church  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other.  An  over-emphasis  on  the  organized 
unity  has  resulted  in  the  papacy,  with  consequent  rigidity 
of  uniformity,  centralization,  and  the  stupendous  asser- 
tion of  infallibility. 

An  over-emphasis  on  the  unity  of  the  local  Church  re- 
sults in  independency,  in  the  obscuration  of  the  sense  of 
historic  continuity,  and  in  the  weakening  of  the  feel- 
ing of  the  organic  whole  of  which  the  local  congregation 
should  be  a  part. 

Yet  each  of  these  aspects  and  uses  of  the  word  Church, 
consecrated  by  apostolic  usage,  contains  truth  which  can- 
not be  ignored,  and  both  must  be  recognized  as  we  seek 
a  greater  unity  among  the  now  divided  membership  of 
the  household  of  God. 

The  time  is  now  fully  come  when  each  Church  is  called 
upon  to  consider  anew  its  own  position  in  relation  to  the 
whole  Church  of  God  in  the  world.  Each  Church  is  to 
judge  for  itself,  as  it  would  be  judged  by  its  Lord, 
whether  it  so  hold  its  own  position  as  to  prevent  any 
other  part  of  the  Church  from  communion  with  the  whole 
Church. 

In  the  providence  of  God  there  has  been  laid  upon  this 
Joint  Commission  the  solemn  responsibility  of  consider- 
ing in  what  manner  it  may  become  possible  for  the  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  Church  and  the  Congregational 
Churches  to  overcome  at  a  particular  point  the  separa- 
tion between  them  which  is  deplored  alike  by  them  all. 
The  point  so  specified  is  central  and  vital.  It  means  one- 
ness at  the  very  place,  in  the  same  act,  in  which  the  whole 
Church  had  its  beginning  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord — 


58  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

in  the  upper  chamber  and  at  the  Last  Supper.  This  is  the 
vital  significance  of  the  proposals  and  the  questions  sub- 
mitted by  the  action  of  the  last  General  Convention  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  and  the  response  of  the 
National  Council  of  the  Congregational  Churches.  By 
this  concurrent  action  the  entire  discussion  of  Church 
unity  is  brought  down  from  the  air  and  placed  before 
the  Churches  as  a  practical  question,  which  requires 
definitive  action. 

It  will  be  obvious  to  thoughtful  men  that  we  may  vainly 
hope  to  render  any  worthy  and  effective  answer  if  we  be- 
gin merely  by  restating  our  respective  ecclesiastical  posi- 
tions and  then  proceeding  by  some  give  and  take  method 
of  compromise  to  some  merely  external  adjustment  of  our 
differences.  Our  respective  communions  may  well  re- 
quire of  us  to  render  an  answer  to  the  particular  points 
submitted  to  us  which  shall  be  more  than  an  endeavor  to 
throw  a  temporary  bridge  of  expediency  over  the  exist- 
ing separation  between  us. 

In  entering  therefore  upon  the  duties  with  which  we 
are  charged  we  deem  it  to  be  our  first  obligation  to  de- 
termine together  a  method  of  procedure  in  which  most 
hopefully  the  visible  organic  unity  of  the  Churches  may 
be  sought  until  it  shall  be  found.  Such  method  seems  to 
us  to  be  not  far  to  seek. 

First,  and  always  throughout  our  conferences  and  dis- 
cussions, we  are  to  keep  in  mind  our  part  and  obligation 
as  partakers  in  the  one  succession  of  the  life  of  Christ 
with  His  disciples.  In  the  continuity  of  His  life,  spirit- 
ually and  historically,  always  with  His  disciples,  is  the 
continuity  of  His  Church  in  the  world.  Consequently  the 
Christian  method  to  be  pursued  in  relation  to  the  particu- 
lar questions  before  us  becomes  clearer.  (1)  It  will  lead 
us  first  to  seek  out  the  religious  values  of  the  distinctive 
beliefs  and  customs  of  our  communions.  (2)  These  vital 
values  are  to  be  found  both  in  their  historical  develop- 


CONCERNING  CONFERENCES  59 

ment  and  in  the  present  religious  experience  and  worship 
of  the  Christian  communions.  (3)  Given  these  values,  we 
may  then  proceed  to  inquire  of  one  another  what  guaran- 
tees, certified  in  our  history  or  now  of  approved  worth 
among  us  we  may  give  to  one  another  in  Christ's  name 
and  for  the  extension  of  His  rule  in  our  time  throughout 
the  world.  (4)  Then,  and  by  these  signs,  we  may  by  the 
grace  of  God  find  ourselves  prepared  to  render  an  as- 
sured account  to  the  two  Christian  bodies,  whose  action 
has  committed  to  us  this  great  and  solemn  engagement, 
and  meanwhile  we  may  appeal  to  all  the  brethren  in  their 
conferences  and  discussions  to  labor  with  us  for  these 
same  ends,  and,  in  methods  beyond  all  controversy,  pray- 
ing that  in  this  providential  hour  of  history  the  living 
Christ  may  be  made  manifest  through  His  Church  as 
Lord  of  the  nations,  and  Redeemer  of  our  civilization. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY  IN   AUSTRALIA 

By  Eev.  George  Hall,  ex-President  Methodist  Conference,  Eiverton, 

South  Australia. 

Such  a  movement  as  that  undertaken  by  the  promoters  of 
the  proposed  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  can- 
not be  expected  to  advance  very  rapidly  because  of  its 
proportions  and  the  number  of  persons  and  interests  to 
consider.  There  has,  however,  already  been  a  definite 
advance.  The  war  has  given  the  movement  a  decided 
momentum.  The  desire  for  a  closer  union  of  all  the 
Churches  is  becoming  more  and  more  pronounced  in 
nearly  every  part  of  the  world.  If  an  organic  union  can- 
not be  achieved  comparatively  early,  some  form  of  fed- 
eration, to  prevent  the  overcrowding  of  agencies,  must 
be  attempted  at  once,  while  organized  union  remains  the 
objective.  Meanwhile  the  idea  that  the  Churches  are 
working  in  antagonism  to  each  other  is  very  wide  of  the 
truth.  There  is  really  a  fine  spirit  of  unity ;  but,  lacking 
visibility,  it  does  not  sufficiently  impress  men.  During 
the  octave — January  18-25 — Christians  in  every  land 
were  called  upon  to  offer  ardent  supplication  to  God  for 
the  fulfilment  of  our  Lord's  prayer  for  the  visible  unity  of 
all  the  followers.  The  appeal  came  from  the  leaders  of 
the  proposed  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order ;  and 
in  South  Australia  it  is  supported  by  the  bishops  of  the 
Episcopal  Church,  the  president  of  the  Methodist  Confer- 
ence, and  the  chief  officers  of  some  of  the  other  Churches. 
In  many  social  and  political  questions  Great  Britain  has 
followed  the  example  of  Australia,  and  why  should  we 
not  set  an  example  in  Church  union!  We  have  only  to 
satisfy  ourselves  that  a  united  Church  is  the  will  of  God, 
and  we  are  at  liberty  to  work  to  realize  it. 

To-day  all  Methodism  in  every  part  of  Australasia  is 
one,  and  very  happily  one.  The  Presbyterian  Churches 
many  years  ago  became  substantially  one.     The  Congre- 


CHRISTIAN     UNITY     IN     AUSTRALIA  61 

gationalists  and  Baptists  have  their  Australian  general 
Assemblies  in  which  their  unity  is  manifested.  The  joint 
meetings  of  the  various  Church  commissions  on  faith  and 
order,  and  the  happy  conference  of  Anglican  and  non- 
Anglican  Churches  held  in  this  city  a  year  ago  prove  a 
disposition  to  bring  about  a  real  spiritual  unity,  until  a 
visible  unity  shall  be  found  practicable.  Just  now  the 
most  interesting  attempt  at  organic  union  in  the  common- 
wealth is  that  initiated  by  the  chief  courts  of  the  Pres- 
byterian, Methodist,  and  Congregational  Churches  in 
1906  and  1917.  A  basis  of  doctrine  and  polity  was  pre- 
pared and  agreed  to  at  a  conference  of  representatives 
from  all  the  states,  which  met  in  Melbourne  in  Septem- 
ber, 1918.  This  basis  has  since  been  submitted  to  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Austra- 
lia and  the  Congregational  Union  of  Australia  and 
New  Zealand,  and  with  reservations  was  accepted  by 
large  majorities.  The  question  has  also  been  consid- 
ered by  the  annual  assemblies  of  the  three  Churches  and 
by  the  presbyteries  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  the 
district  synods  of  the  Methodist  Church  in  all  parts  of 
the  commonwealth.  Every  quarterly  meeting  of  Austra- 
lian Methodism  has  discussed  the  same  basis.  Should 
the  negotiation  be  continued  beyond  May,  the  question 
will  probably  be  also  submitted  to  all  the  members  of  the 
Methodist  Church.  The  voting  thus  far  on  the  accept- 
ance or  otherwise  of  the  proposed  basis  shows  these  re- 
sults:— 1.  Presbyterian  Church. — Six  state  assemblies, 
236  for;  100  against.  Presbyteries — 26  " approved/'  18 
' '  disapproved. ' '  Persons  at  presbyteries  voting  ' 6  Yes , ' ' 
259;  voting  "No,"  208.  2.  Methodist  Church.— Voting 
in  38  synods— 1,058  ' 'Yes ; ' '  278,  " No ; "  47  neutral.  Vot- 
ing 351  circuit  quarterly  meetings. — Persons  present — 
7,359;  "Yes,"  5,138;  "No,"  1,748;  neutral,  473.  3.  Con- 
gregational Church. — Victorian  Union — 83  "Yes;"  11 
"No."    N.  S.  W.  Union—  72  "Yes;"  3   "No."     Trien- 


62  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

nial  Union  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand. — 81  "Yes,"  4 
"No."  The  question  will  receive  further  attention  from 
the  Methodist  Conferences  after  which  the  verdict  of  all 
the  chief  states'  courts  will  be  known.  The  voting  is  ac- 
companied by  many  suggested  amendments  of  the  basis, 
and  those  will  be  dealt  with  by  State  committees  and  the 
general  committee  in  Melbourne,  and  probably  also  by 
the  joint  general  committee  or  its  executive.  The  oppo- 
sition by  Presbyterians  in  New  South  Wales  and  in  Vic- 
toria is  encouraged  by  the  Presbyterian  Church  Defence 
Association,  which,  under  the  direction  of  Professor  Ren- 
toul,  D.D.,  is  issuing  an  extensive  literature,  and  other- 
wise carrying  on  an  active  propaganda;  but  even  this  op- 
position to  an  organic  union  claims  to  desire  some  effec- 
tive form  of  federation.  It  will  be  unfortunate  if  the 
Presbyterians  should  again  be  responsible  in  Australia, 
as  they  are  in  Canada,  for  preventing  a  union  of  Churches 
which  are  practically  one  in  doctrine,  and  the  leaders  of 
which  agreed  on  a  policy  of  Church  government  that 
seems  to  retain  the  most  desirable  features  of  each 
Church.  The  Australian  Churches  are  interested  in  the 
coming  American  conference^  and  already  the  Bishop  of 
Willochra  has  been  appointed  to  represent  the  Anglican 
Church  of  the  commonwealth.  It  is  hoped  that  the  aims 
of  the  promoters  of  that  World  Conference  will  be  ad- 
vanced by  the  general  and  earnest  observance  of  the  Oc- 
tave of  Prayer. 


WHAT  PEOPLE   AND   PAPERS 
ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY 


In  The  Constructive  Quarterly,  New  York,  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth  has  an  article  under  the  heading  ' '  A  Proposed  Ap- 
proach Towards  Unity  in  the  United  States,"  giving  the 
history  of  the  proposed  concordat  between  the  Episcopa- 
lians and  the  Congregationalists,  which  reaches  back  to 
the  Lambeth  Conference  of  Anglican  bishops  in  London 
in  1908.  The  documents  appeared  in  the  July  Quarterly 
of  1919  (page  41).  One  of  the  Episcopal  bishops  writes 
Dr.  Smyth,  "We  have  put  the  key  in  the  lock."  Dr. 
Smyth,  commenting  on  this  statement,  says,  "At  least  it 
may  be  said  that  a  door  has  been  put  ajar  in  the  waif  of 
separation  between  these  two  communions,  which  if  once 
it  shall  be  opened,  no  man  can  shut."  Continuing  he 
says: 

"Its  reception  was  such  as  usually  befalls  any  new  departure  of  faith. 
Thoughtful  men  waiting  to  see  what  may  be  the  leading  of  the  Spirit  for 
the  Churches  in  this  time,  refrained  from  hasty  judgment,  while  extremists 
on  both  sides  were  quick  to  condemn  it,  and,  apparently  unconscious  of  it 
themselves,  from  quite  similar  reasons.  Indeed,  it  is  interesting  and  some- 
what instructive  to  observe  how  extreme  denominationalists  and  extreme 
churchmen  threw  back  and  forth  very  much  the  same  ecclesiastical  stones 
at  each  other.  If  their  objections  were  printed  in  one  column,  and  their 
names  printed  in  parallel  columns  on  both  sides  of  it,  the  names  might  be 
easily  transposed;  it  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  them  to  seek  first 
for  the  fundamental  unities  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  But  more  than  ever 
the  intrinsic  values  of  our  beliefs  are  to  be  sought  for,  like  hid  treasures, 
and  when  found  put  to  use  in  exchange,  if  the  Churches  shall  do  the 
Lord's  business  for  our  world  now  as  good  and  profitable  servants.  When 
each  Church  shall  cease  to  think  of  the  Church  in  terms  of  its  own  inter- 
ests, and  think  rather  of  the  things  that  are  its  own  in  terms  of  the 
whole  Church  of  God,  then  the  day  of  the  visible  and  efficient  unity  of  the 
Church  will  be  at  hand. 

"Emphasis  is  to  be  laid  on  the  method  which  has  been  followed  in  this 
approach  towards  unity.  1.  It  aims  at  a  particular  point.  It  does  not 
begin  by  submitting  a  complete  plan  for  Church  union.  It  does  not  in- 
volve a  general  ecclesiastical  reconstruction.  The  point  from  which  it 
proceeds  is  central,  not  peripheral;  vital,  not  governmental.  It  would  be- 
gin where  Christ  began  with  His  disciples — the  Communion.  2.  The  pro- 
posed canon  consequently  is  a  common  endeavor  to  find  some  way  in 
which  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  desired  intercommunion  of  believers  may  be 
removed.  It  would  seek  to  do  this  without  violence  to  the  principles  or 
disregard  of  the  conscientious  scruples  of  any  who  hold  the  sacrament  to 


64  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

be  a  gift  of  Christ  to  His  Church  to  be  kept  and  administered  as  a  sacred 
trust.  The  great  difficulty  in  the  way  has  been  the  question  of  a  valid 
ordination. 

' l  The  proposed  canon  opens  a  way  round  the,  divisive  obstacle  of  validity 
of  ordination,  so  that  we  may  meet  on  the  other  side  of  it  and  go  on  our 
way  rejoicing.  It  offers  to  accomplish  this  by  giving  guarantees  which  in 
the  estimation  of  both  may  be  sufficient  for  the  right  administration  of 
the  sacrament.  It  offers  a  guarantee  which  it  is  believed  may  be  accept- 
able to  the  scruples  of  the  strictest  episcopal  theologian,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  may  be  freely  acceded  to  by  a  minister  of  another  communion 
without  violence  to  his  own  denominational  convictions.  The  concordat 
offers  a  way  to  solve  the  vexed  question  of  the  validity  of  orders.  It 
does  not  raise  the  question  of  differences  of  views  concerning  the  inten- 
tion of  the  sacrament.  It  is  to  both  a  divinely  instituted  means  of  grace 
— a  visible  means  of  realizing  the  presence  of  Christ. ' ' 

Dr.  Wendel,  formerly  a  Congregational  minister, 
now  an  Episcopal  rector,  writing  in  The  American 
Church  Monthly,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  (Episcopalian) 
says : 

"Is  it  the  purpose  of  the  proposed  amendment  to  our  constitution  and 
of  the  proposed  new  canon  on  ordination  to  make  an  easy  way  for  Con- 
gregational ministers  to  enter  the  ministry  of  our  Church,  while  they 
still  hold  fast  to  their  old  status  of  Congregational  ministers'?  I  have  no 
doubt  that  there  are  those  who  think  that  these  supplementary  orders 
would  actually  enable  Congregational  ministers  to  serve  our  Churches,  and 
that  they  could  pass  from  the  pastorate  of  one  of  their  societies  to  the 
rectorate  of  one  of  our  Churches  with  the  same  facility  with  which  they 
pass  from  a  Congregational  to  a  Presbyterian  pastorate,  and  vice  versa. 
Also  by  such  supplementary  orders  they  and  many  of  our  Broad  Church 
rectors  would  consider  the  way  open  to  a  free  and  untrammelled  'exchange 
of  pulpits/  with  all  that  implies. 

1  ( And  what  of  our  mission  field  I  I  fear  in  many  a  New  England  village 
where  Congregationalism  is  strong  and  our  Church  is  weak,  a  Congrega- 
tional pastor  with  supplementary  episcopal  orders,  could  so  exercise  his 
functions,  as  either  to  prevent  the  formation  of  a  new  mission,  or  to 
swallow  up  an  old  but  weak  mission,  unless  the  people  were  unusually 
strong  in  their  churchmanship. ' ' 

In  commenting  on  the  concordat  The  Living  Church, 
Milwaukee,  (Episcopalian)  says: 

"All  of  us  must  keep  an  open  mind  as  to  this  question,  for  the  two 
commissions  are  trying  earnestly  and  honestly  to  answer  it,  and  by  no 
word  of  ours  shall  the  answer  be  made  more  difficult.  If  a  relationship 
is  to  become  possible,  it  is  certain  that  the  people,  as  well  as  the  minister, 
must  become  active  parties  to  it;  that  it  must  be  made  perfectly  clear  to 
them  that  the  sacrament  that  will  be  administered  to  them  by  their  priests 
will  be  different  in  Trind  from  what  they  have  been  accustomed  to.  They 
must  show  by  their  changed  attitude  toward  it  that  in  that  sacrament  they 
truly  'discern  the  Lord's  Body.'  They  must  prepare  for  it,  as  the  de- 
vout of  all  ages  have  prepared.  We  should  suppose  that  the  confirmation 
of  the  entire  congregation  by  the  bishop  (so  far  as  they  were  baptized  and 
desired  to  become  communicants)  would  be  the  step,  in  which  both  parties 
would  agree,  by  which  the  congregation  would  give  evidence  of  its  accept- 
ance of  the  new  relationship. 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPEES  SAY       65 

"We  believe,  too,  that  the  provisions  as  to  the  celebration  of  Holy 
Communion  noted  in  the  resolutions  of  General  Convention  can  only  be- 
come effective  by  means  of  a  form  fox  such  celebration.  This  need  not 
be  our  own  Order  for  Holy  Communion,  but  any  form  submitted  should 
be  passed  on  not  only  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  but  by  a  commission  of 
experts  representing  the  national  Church. 

"And  finally,  we  believe  that  for  the  protection  of  the  Congregational 
priest  he  must  be  brought  within  the  purview  of  at  least  a  considerable 
part  of  our  canon  law,  or  its  equivalent. 

"These  three  observations  seem  to  us  to  cover  the  chief  essentials,  other 
than  those  that  have  already  been  made  clear,  if  such  a  relationship  as  is 
proposed  shall  be  worked  out.  And  if  that  form  of  relationship  be  desir- 
able at  all,  we  cannot  believe  that  the  eminent  Congregationalists  will 
take  exception  to  any  of  the  propositions.  Without  these  the  plan  would 
certainly  fail.  On  our  own  side,  the  relationship,  though  anomalous,  and 
only  an  'approach'  to  unity,  would  not  be  absolutely  without  precedent, 
for  the  early  connection  of  the  Swedish  Churches  in  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware  with  the  American  Church  presented  somewhat  similar  anomalies. 
And  strict  logic  is  a  poor  guide  in  things  spiritual." 

Eef  erring  to  the  concordat  in  his  recent  convention  ad- 
dress, the  Rt.  Rev.  F.  F.  Reese,  Bishop  of  Georgia,  says : 

' '  There  are  some  things  for  us  to  remember  in  this  connection.  This 
is  an  effort  on  the  part  of  our  own  Church  and  certain  distinguished  and 
godly  members  of  Congregational  Churches  to  find  an  approach  toward 
Christian  unity.  As  such  it  merits  our  sympathetic,  reverent,  and  prayer- 
ful consideration.  If  the  Church  has  been  sincere  and  honest  in  its  efforts 
to  promote  such  unity,  if  we  meant  what  we  said  in  the  Chicago -Lambeth 
Declaration,  we  cannot  reject  or  repudiate  this  effort  without  stultifying 
ourselves  in  the  sight  of  God  and  of  all  honest  men.  If  we  say  we  are 
willing  to  confer  with  our  Christian  brethren  on  the  basis  of  our  declara- 
tion, but  really  mean  to  say  that  we  intend  to  stand  pat  and  require  all 
men  to  repudiate  their  own  past,  humbly  to  offer  themselves  to  us  on  our 
own  terms  alone  and  to  become  Protestant  Episcopalians  in  every  jot  and 
tittle,  we  may  be  in  our  judgment  most  unimpeachable  catholic  church- 
men, but  we  shall  be  mighty  lonely  in  the  world  and  deservedly  so.  Our 
attitude  will  be  understood  only  at  the  Vatican,  for  it  is  precisely  similar 
to  it's  attitude.  But  the  Vatican  will  not  be  drawn  to  us  nevertheless,  for 
it  has  its  own  opinion  of  what  it  calls  our  pretensions.  It  understands  the 
stand-pat  attitude  but  it  reserves  to  itself  the  privilege  of  maintaining  it 
as  a  basis  of  unity.  In  the  meantime  Christian  unity  so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned will  be  an  irridescent  dream. 

"There  are  indeed,  principles  of  catholic  faith  and  order  for  which 
we  are  responsible  and  which  it  would  be  disloyalty  not  only  to  our  historic 
heritage  but  to  the  Christian  world  to  impair  or  surrender.  But  let  us 
be  sure  that  what  we  so  denominate  are  really  such  principles.  Nothing 
in  the  past  has  so  promoted  division  as  an  obstinate  temper,  and  a  nar- 
row misconception  of  what  constitute  principles.  Unreasonable  and  nar- 
row conscientiousness  is  one  of  the  most  fatal  endowments  of  mankind. 
Ecclesiastical  self-complacency  and  hauteur  is  not  an  attractive  but  a 
repellent  force.  There  can  be  no  unity  or  approach  to  unity  without  sweet, 
reasonableness  and  without  mutual  friendliness  and  respect  and  without 
the  spirit  of  reasonable  and  brotherly  compromise.  'In  essentials,  unity, 
in  non-essentials,  liberty,  in  all  things  charity.'  " 


66  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  following  announcement  has  been  sent  out  by  the 
Commission  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  on  the 
World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  which  will  hold 
its  preliminary  session  at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  August 
12-20: 

"The  Spirit  of  God  is  moving  over  the  chaos  of  the  divisions  of  Chris- 
tians and  slowly,  but  surely,  the  world  is  coming  to  see,  first,  that  only  by 
universal  obedience  to  Christ's  new  commandment  of  love  is  there  any 
hope  for  the  future  of  civilization  and  for  enduring  peace  and  righteous- 
ness, international,  industrial  or  social.  Next  that  only  the  visible  unity 
of  Christians  can  convert  the  world  to  Christ  and  so  establish  that  new 
commandment.  Then  that  only  through  fervent  and  regular  prayer  can 
Christians  obtain  grace  to  surrender  their  wills  to  God's,  that  His  will  for 
unity  may  be  achieved  and  Christ,  the  one  Way,  the  one  Truth,  the  one 
Life,  be  all  in  all.  Lastly  it  has  become  clear  that  if  Christians  be  truly 
filled  with  Christ 's  love,  they  will  seek  unity  through  conference,  not  con- 
troversy, for  in  conference  they  can  understand  and  appreciate  one  another 
and  so  help  one  another  to  a  more  complete  comprehension  of  infinite  truth. 

1 1  So  the  World  Conference  on  the  Faith  and  Order  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  seems  now  assured,  and  a  preliminary  meeting  to  discuss  how  best 
to  proceed  further,  and  perhaps  to  fix  the  date  and  place  of  the  World 
Conference  itself,  will  be  held,  God  willing,  at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  August 
12  (western  calendar),  1920.  All  the  great  family  groups,  save  one.  of 
the  Churches  which  worship  Jesus  Christ  as  God  Incarnate  and  Saviour 
will  be  represented  by  delegates  from  every  quarter  of  the  earth,  and  of 
almost  every  race  and  every  tongue.  Invitations  have  been  sent  to,  and 
been  accepted  by,  all  Europe,  Australia  and  America,  all  Christian  Asia  and 
Africa,  and  the  islands  of  the  sea.  The  languages  of  the  various  dele- 
gates will  be  English,  French,  German,  Swedish,  Norwegian,  Danish,  Dutch, 
Italian,  Russian,  Greek,  Roumanian,  Bulgarian,  Serbian  and  perhaps  Ar- 
menian and  Arabic. 

' '  Notices  of  the  appointment  of  delegates  to  the  Geneva  meeting  are  be- 
ginning to  be  received.     Already  the  following  have  been  named: 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church. — Rt.  Rev.  C.  P.  Anderson,  D.D.,  1612 
Prairie  Avenue,  Chicago,  Illinois;  Rt.  Rev.  William  T.  Manning,  D.D.,  187 
Pulton  Street,  New  York,  New  York;  Robert  H.  Gardiner,  174  Water 
street,  Gardiner,  Maine.  Seventh  Bay  Baptist  General  Conference:  Rev. 
Gerard  Velthuysen,  Jr.,  22  Weteringplantsoen,  Amsterdam,  Holland. 
Ecumenical  Patriarclmte,  Constantinople:  His  Grace  Germanos,  Rector  of 
the  Theological  Academy,  Halki,  via  Constantinople,  Turkey.  Church  of 
Greece:  Very  Rev.  Archimandrite  Chrysostom  Papadopoulos,  The  University, 
Athens,  Greece;  Dr.  Hamilcar  Alivisatos,  7  Odos  Massalias,  Athens, 
Greece;  Very  Rev.  Constantine  Callinicos,  B.  D.,  Hr.  Broughton,  Man- 
chester, England.  Methodist  Conference  of  New  Zealand:  Rev.  E.  O. 
Blamires,  care  W.  Aykroyd,  Methodist  Times,  London,  England,  Bisciples 
of  Christ:  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie,  D.D.,  Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Mary- 
land; Rev.  F.  W.  Burnham,  LL.D.,  Carew  Bldg.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio;  Rev. 
F.  S.  Idleman,  D.D.,  142  West  81st  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.;  Rev.  R.  H. 
Miller,  Kansas  City,  Mo.  (Alternate)  ;  Rev.  H.  C.  Armstrong,  504  N.  Ful- 
ton Avenue,  Baltimore,  Maryland  (alternate).  Church  of  Serbia:  Rt. 
Rev.  Nicolai  Velimirovic,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Zicha,  Serbia  (to  be  accompa- 
nied by  two  priests).  Beformed  Church  in  the  United  States:  Rev.  James  I. 
Good,  D.D.,  3262  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia,  P'a.;  Rev.  George  W.  Rich- 
ards, D.D.,  Lancaster,  Pa. ;  Rev.  Charles  E.  Schaeff er,  D.D.,  422  South  50th 
Street,   Philadelphia,   Pa.     Baptist   Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland: 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  SAY       67 

Rev.  J.  E.  Roberts,  M.  A.,  B.D.,  32  Heaton  Road,  Withington,  Manchester, 
England;  Rev.  F.  C.  Spurr,  3  Dartmouth  Road,  Brondesbury,  London,  N. 
W.  2,  England.  Presbyterian  Church  of  New  Zealand:  Rev.  W.  Gray 
Dixon,  M.A.,  Roslyn  Manse,  Dunedin,  New  Zealand.  Church  of  Norway: 
Rt.  Rev.  Bishop  J.  Tandberg,  Christiania,  Norway;  Prof.  Dr.  Juris  A. 
Taranger,  LL.D.,  Slemdal,  Christiania,  Norway;  Rev.  N.  B.  Thvedt,  M.A., 
C.  T.,  Nils  Juelsgt  4,  Christiania,  Norway.  Alternates:  Archdeacon  J. 
Gleditsch,  D.D.,  Vor  Frelsers  Kirke,  Christiania,  Norway;  Supreme  Judge 
Edward  Hambro,  Oscarsgt,  78b,  Christiania,  Norway;  Pastor  V.  Koren, 
Nordstrand,  Christiania,  Norway. 

1  i  The  Commission  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church  is  deeply  grateful 
to  God  who  has  permitted  it  thus  to  accomplish  its  function  of  securing 
the  cooperation  of  the  Churches  of  the  world  in  this  great  effort  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  that  visible  unity  of  Christians  which  will  set  free  the 
power  of  the  Gospel  of  man's  redemption.  That  Commission  has  fre- 
quently urged  the  paramount  need  of  prayer.  It  now  repeats  that  request 
and  especially  begs  that  all  the  Christian  world  will  make  the  next  Feast 
of  Pentecost,  or  Whitsunday,  May  23  (western  calendar),  a  special  day 
of  earnest  prayer  that  God  the  Holy  Spirit  will  preside  over  the  meeting 
at  Geneva  and  guide  the  diversity  of  race  and  tongue,  of  modes  of  wor- 
ship, of  creedal  statements,  toward  visible  harmony  in  the  one  faith  they  all 
share  in  common  in  the  one  Lord. 

"And  we  urge  our  brethren  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  join  with 
us  in  prayer  that  day.  We  are  grieved  that  they  will  not  be  represented 
officially  at  Geneva,  and  we  know  that  our  grief  will  be  shared  by  many 
thousands  of  them,  all  over  the  world,  who  are  looking  with  eager  hope  to 
this  movement. ' ' 

William  T.  Manning,  Chairman  Executive  Committee. 

Robert  H.  Gardiner,  Secretary. 

Then  follows  another  communication  addressed  to  the 
members  of  the  Commission  as  follows : 

To  all  the  members  of  all  the  Commissions  on  the  World  Conference  on 
Faith  and  Order,  and  to  all  the  delegates  to  the  'preliminary  meeting 
at  Geneva: 

To  avoid  waste  of  time,  the  meeting  at  Geneva  next  August  will  need 
to  adopt  a  programme  to  guide  its  discussions  and  concentrate  its  thoughts. 
The  following  suggestions  have  come  from  different  sources,  but  for  them 
no  Commission  or  individual  is  specially  responsible.  It  is  hoped  that  out 
of  them,  with  the  help  of  careful  criticism  by  all  who  are  engaged  in  the 
undertaking,  a  useful  programme  can  be  made,  to  be  proposed  at  the  first 
session  for  adoption  or  amendment. 

This  paper  is  sent  not  only  to  all  the  delegates  to  Geneva  of  whose 
appointment  notice  has  been  received,  but  to  all  the  members  of  all  the 
Commissions,  in  the  hope   that  they  will  contribute  their  criticisms. 

Suggestions  should  be  sent  immediately  to  Robert  H.  Gardiner,  174 
Water  Street,  Gardiner,  Maine,  U.  S.  A.  Letters  which  cannot  reach  him 
before  July  1,  1920,  should  be  addressed  in  care  of  Lombard  Odier  and 
Co.,  Geneva,  Switzerland. 

The  Commission  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church,  having  practically 
completed  the  work  of  issuing  the  invitations  for  participation  in  the 
movement,  now  looks  to  all  the  Commissions  to  join  in  the  active  prepara- 
tions for  the  Geneva  meeting  and  for  the  World  Conference  itself. 

Our  Lord  prayed  for  the  unity  of  His  disciples  as  the  evidence  potent 
to  convince  the  world  of  His  mission  by  the  Father.  Therefore  the  object 
of  the  World  Conference  is  to  prepare  the  way  for  effective  lifting  up 
of  Christ  before  the  world. 


68  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  World  Conference  is  world-wide,  including  in  its  scope  every  Church 
which  confesses  Jesus  Christ  as  God  made  man. 

The  World  Conference  is  not  to  undertake  direct  effort  for  unity,  but  to 
prepare  the  way  for  such  efforts  by  the  clear  statement  and  full  consid- 
eration of  those  things  in  which  we  differ,  as  well  as  of  those  things  in 
which  we  are  at  one. 

It  will  take  time  to  complete  the  preparations  for  the  World  Conference. 
The  object  of  the  Geneva  meeting  is  to  consider  the  lines  of  preparation, 
and  what  should  be  done  to  spread  the  spirit  of  conference,  as  distin- 
guished from  that  of  controversy  and  proselytism,  among  the  Churches,  and 
to  prepare  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  faithful  for  the  results  of  the 
World  Conference. 

During  the  preparation,  partial  and  local  efforts  at  reunion  should  be 
encouraged,  for  every  success  in  such  efforts  may  spread  the  desire  for 
complete  reunion,  foster  the  conference  spirit,  and  show  that  difficulties 
may  not  be  insuperable. 

SUGGESTIONS 

1.  Do  the  Churches  meanwhile  need,  as  a  part  of  the  preparation  for 
the  Conference,  a  deeper  and  more  efficient  recognition  of  the  necessity 
of  a  genuine  and  true  repentance  for  their  sins  in  their  relations  with  one 
another  ? 

2.  Do  we  need  to  dwell  more  on  the  unity  of  personal  devotion  to  Christ? 

3.  Should  the  distinction  be  made  more  clear  between  matters  of  opin- 
ion and  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the' saints? 

4.  How  far  are  matters  of  order  and  government  necessary  to  essential 
unity  ? 

5.  How  far  can  the  Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds,  or  either  of  them,  be 
taken  as  statements  of  our  agreements  in  matters  of  faith,  and  as  guides 
for  the  effort  to  understand  our  differences? 

6.  What  are  the  actual  groups,  considered  with  regard  to  their  standards 
of  faith  and  order,  which  should  be  represented  at  the  World  Confer- 
ence? 

7.  How  far  can  groups  which  hold  certain  positions  in  common  (for 
example,  Congregational,  Presbyterian  or  Episcopal  polities),  act  in  com- 
mon with  regard  to  those  positions? 

8.  How  shall  the  ultimate  Conference  be  composed  so  as  to  include 
adequate  representation  of  the  different  communions  or  groups  of  com- 
munions ? 

9.  What  preparations  should  the  representatives  of  the  different  groups 
be  called  upon  to  make,  and  what  ad  interim  committees  should  be  ap- 
pointed to  bring  them  about? 

10.  What  further  invitations,  if  any,  shall  be  issued  for  participation 
in  the  movement? 

11.  Date  and  place  of  the  ultimate  Conference. 

12.  Appointment  of  a  committee  representative  of  various  views  on 
faith  and  order,  to  make  all  further  arrangements  for  the  World  Con- 
ference. Or  shall  there  be  a  very  small  executive  committee  with  a  cen- 
tral office?  Shall  there  be  one  or  more  executive  secretaries,  in  either 
case  ? 

13.  What,  if  any,  publications  or  preliminary  reports  shall  be  issued? 
Who  shall  edit  them? 

14.  How  shall  the  expenses  of  the  movement,  after  the  adjournment  of 
this  meeting,  be  met? 

The  awakening  of  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Chnrch  in 
Christian  nnity  is  attested  by  The  Ecclesiastical  Truthr 
Constantinople,  as  follows: 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPEBS  SAY       69 

"Union  when  attained  will  undoubtedly  centralize  the  spiritual,  moral, 
and  material  forces  already  separately  operative,  and  will  dispose  and 
direct  them  to  better  effect,  so  that  the  great  and  high  purpose  which 
underlies  the  teaching  of  the  Lord  may  be  realized  to  the  fullest  extent. 
But  is  it  easy  (someone  will  ask)  to  do  away  so  readily  with  the  discords 
and  differences  existing  between  the  Churches,  differences  which  have 
worked  like  leaven  in  the  Churches,  and  which  have  formed  a  substantial 
part  of  their  individual  life?  Psychologically,  is  it  easy  for  Church  A 
or  Church  B  to  proclaim  today  publicly  as  unfounded  that  which  for  cen- 
turies it  has  held  as  well-grounded  and  right?  Is  not  hypersensitiveness 
common  to  the  Churches  too?  And  will  it  not  be  kindled  the  more  by  the 
very  idea  that  by  the  denial  and  rejection  of  this  or  that  opinion  their 
attraction  and  prestige  would  risk  diminution  in  the  eyes  of  their  own 
Christians? 

"Admittedly,  from  such  a  standpoint,  the  question  appears  pretty  hard 
to  solve.  But  the  difficulty  or  ease  of  its  solution  depends  chiefly  upon 
the  dispositions  in  which  participating  Churches  assemble,  and  the  basis 
upon  which  the  discussion  is  placed. 

"If  each  Church  comes  to  the  conference-table  convinced  that  its  points 
of  view  and  its  arguments  are  the  only  right  and  well-founded  ones,  and  has 
determined  in  advance  to  insist  steadily  upon  them,  with  intent  to  impose 
its  opinions  dictatorily  upon  the  others,  without  any  doubt  the  hope  of 
union  will  again  be  frustrated  and  the  chasm  between  the  Churches  will 
be  still  further  widened.  If,  on  the  contrary,  each  Church  is  possessed  by 
the  holy  desire  and  the  pure  disposition  to  see  this  destructive  disunion 
ended,  and,  guided  thereby,  proceeds  with  efforts  at  reconciliation  and  con- 
cession wherever  and  to  whatever  extent  it  gives  way  without  injury  to 
things  of  importanc,  the  success  of  the  union  of  all  will  inevitably  be  as- 
sured. ' ' 


The  bishop  of  Uganda  contributes  an  article  in  The 
Nineteenth  Century,  London,  dealing  with  the  way  to 
Christian  reunion  and  says : 

"What  shall  we  say  of  the  fact  that,  with  the  Apostles  themselves  still 
living,  with  the  new  order  but  just  established,  God  chose  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
a  man  who  stood  outside  the  apostolic  succession,  disclaiming  expressly  any 
authority  from  Jerusalem?  *  *  *  Actually  He  is  so  working  to-day. 
However  strongly  we  may  hold  to  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession  as 
the  means  through  which  God  normally  works,  we  cannot  close  our  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  actually,  in  every  part  of  the  world  to-day,  He  is  work- 
ing also  and  equally  through  other  means. " 


Sherwood  Eddy,  associate  general  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secre- 
tary for  India,  writing  in  The  Christian  Work,  New 
York,  says: 

"The  Syrian  Church  has  not  yet  taken  final  action  on  the  proposed 
union.  But  their  Committee  on  Union  has  drawn  up  a  report  which  shows 
the  spirit  of  the  Church.     We  quote  it  in  part: 

PROPOSAL  FOR  CHURCH  UNION 

'As  a  Committee  on  Union  of  the  Mar  Thoma  Syrian  Church,  we  have 
received  the  invitation  from  certain  pastors  of  the  Anglican  Communion 
and  the  South  India  United  Church  who  met  at  Tranquebar,  May  1  and  2, 
1919,  in  the  Ministers'  Conference  on  Church  Union,  requesting  the  mem- 


70  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

bers  of  the  Mar  Thoma  Syrian  Church  prayerfully  to  consider  with  them 
the  question  of  uniting  the  divided  Churches  of  Christ  in  India.  This 
appeals  to  us  the  more  deeply  as  we  ourselves  have  been  praying  fervently 
for  years  for  the  healing  of  the  sad  divisions  which  have  rent  asunder  the 
Church  of  Christ.  These  divisions  have  been  particularly  disastrous  and 
destructive  in  India,  where  the  Church  has  at  times  become  almost  a  by- 
word among  the  non-Christians,  where  religion  which  was  meant  to  unite 
mankind  has  actually  divided  it. 

'We  agree  with  you  that  union  is  the  will  of  God,  and  that  instead  of 
being  responsible  for  perpetuating  the  divisions  of  Christ's  Church  we 
should  seek  to  answer  our  Lord's  prayer  that  we  all  may  be  one. 

'  We  also  believe  that  the  awakening  of  a  new  national  consciousness 
in  India  and  the  entry  upon  a  new  era  of  responsible  government  makes  it 
imperative  that  the  Church  also,  instead  of  wasting  its  strength  in  internal 
strife,  should  face  the  new  conditions  and  work  for  unity  in  order  to  meet 
the  overwhelming  demand  of  the  hour.  After  centuries  of  the  bitter  ex- 
perience of  disunion  we,  like  yourselves,  do  not  desire  to  perpetuate  such 
divisions. 

'We  are  glad  to  see  that  you  propose  union  not  on  any  basis  of  com- 
promise but  on  one  of  comprehension,  where  each  body  shall  contribute  its 
treasures  and  tradition  to  the  enrichment  of  the  whole.  We  understand 
that  you  do  not  ask  us  to  change  our  long  cherished  convictions,  principles 
and  practices,  which  we  have  maintained  for  centuries  in  the  face  of  bit- 
ter persecution.  We  also  understand  that  you  do  not  ask  us  to  surrender 
our  autonomy  or  lose  our  freedom  of  action  in  things  pertaining  to  our  own 
communion. 

'  (1)  We  have  held  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  contain  all  things  necessary 
for  salvation  and  have  stood  for  the  principle  of  the  open  Bible,  which 
has  never  been  forbidden  to  the  people. 

'  (2)  We  have  always  held  the  Nicene  Creed  and  it  forms  a  part  of  our 
regular  services.  While  we  accept  all  the  doctrines  contained  in  the  Apos- 
tles' Creed,  it  has  not  been  our  practice  to  use  it  in  formal  worship. 

'  (3)  We  have  always  held  the  two  sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper,  administered  with  Christ's  words  of  institution  and  the 
elements  He  used. 

'  (4)  We  have  always  stood  strongly  for  maintaining  the  historic  episco- 
pate, but  we  agree  with  you  that  it  is  no  part  of  our  duty  to  call  in  ques- 
tion the  validity  of  each  others'  orders. 

'From  1054  A.D.,  when  the  Western  and  Eastern  Churches  divided,  we 
stood  with  the  Eastern  Churches  and  maintained  the  original  word- 
ing of  the  Nicene  Creed,  objecting  to  the  later  Western  in- 
sertion of  the  single  word  filioque  (from  the  Son).  We  even  now  say  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  "proceeding  from  the  Father  is  worshipped  with  the 
Father  and  the  Son.'.'  (St.  John  15:25.)  While  under  this  controversy 
there  lay  deep  race  prejudice  between  the  East  and  West,  and  the  firm 
refusal  of  the  East  to  admit  the  growingly  exclusive  claims  of  the  Papacy, 
we  nevertheless  feel  to-day  that  it  is  incomprehensible  to  think  of  perpetu- 
ating the  division  of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  shattering  its  strength  over 
a  contention  about  a  word.  Confronted  to-day  by  the  call  to  return  to  our 
original  obligation  of  winning  the  world,  we  find  ourselves  united  by  a 
common  task  and  in  the  very  presence  of  Christ  our  Lord  lifted  to  a  plane 
which  transcends  the  medieval  dissensions  which  formerly  divided  us.  A 
century  ago  a  mission  of  help  was  sent  by  the  Anglican  Church  which  led 
to  the  quickening  and  vitalizing  of  our  own  isolated  communion.  Deeply 
indebted  as  we  are  for  the  self-denying  labors  of  the  representatives  of 
the  Anglican  Church  on  our  behalf,  we  are  all  the  more  glad  that  the  pro- 
posal for  union  comes  also  from  the  Church  to  which  we  have  been  so  long 
indebted.     *     *     * 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  SAY       71 

'We  are  ready  to  consider  union  now  that  a  definite  proposal  has  come 
from  members  of  the  Anglican  and  South  India  United  Churches.  As  the 
Church  of  England  has  for  three  decades  suggested  conditions  for  union, 
we  hope  that  our  synod  will  also  favorably  consider  the  same  and  take 
steps  for  effecting  union  upon  this  common  ground.  We  understand  that 
there  is  no  question  of  the  absorption  of  one  Church  by  another,  but  that 
standing  on  the  principle  of  spiritual  equality  before  our  common  Lord,  we 
shall  each  seek  to  contribute  the  riches  of  our  own  spiritual  inheritance  to 
the  united  Church  of  the  future.  We  shall  be  glad  if  this  union  brings 
the  long  desired  dawn  of  a  new  day  of  Christian  unity,  when  there  shall 
be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  East  nor  West,  but 
as  our  Lord  prayed  we  shall  all  be  one  in  Him. 

'While  writing  unofficially  without  committing  our  Metropolitan  and  the 
synod  of  our  Church,  which  will  have  to  take  final  action  upon  the  matter, 
we  as  the  Corresponding  Committee  on  Union  of  the  Mar  Thoma  Syrian 
Church,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  agree  to  pray  and  work  toward  union 
upon  such  a  basis. 

1  Abraham  Mar  Thoma,  Malabar,  Suffragen. 

'C.  P.  Philipose. 
'V.  P.  Mamman.' 

( l  The  coming  together  of  these  three  Churches  upon  the  mission  field 
would  unite  in  one  body  the  converts  of  the  mission  work  of  England, 
Scotland  and  America.  The  Anglicans  would  contribute  the  strength  and 
world  communion  of  the  Western  Church,  the  Syrians  would  bring  their 
loyalty  to  primitive,  apostolic  tradition,  while  the  South  India  United 
Church  would  bring  its  evangelistic  fervor,  its  development  of  the  laity 
and  its  abundant  life  and  service. 

1  i  These  three  bodies  in  South  India  _alone  have  some  550,000  Christians. 
Would  not  this  be  the  first  time  in  nine  hundred  years  that  the  breach  be- 
tween the  East  and  the  West  has  been  healed?  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  split  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  Church  came  over  one  word 
in  the  Creed,  the  Latin  word  filioqu&,  ' '  and  the  Son. ' '  Should  the  Churches 
of  Christendom  be  divided  forever  over  the  question  of  a  single  word,  ever 
disputing  concerning  dogmas  and  doctrines?  The  whole  world,  in  des- 
perate need,  calls  for  the  whole  Church  to  face  in  unity  such  a  titanic 
task.  Would  it  not  be  the  first  time  in  four  centuries  the  great  division 
between  the  Episcopal  and  non-Episcopal  Churches  has  been  united?  Surely 
all  who  desire  the  realization  of  spiritual  unity  and  its  embodiment  in 
corporate  and  visible  union  will  hope  that  these  Churches  may  not  only 
effect  such  a  union,  but  may  bring  their  message  to  the  divided  Churches 
of  the  West.  May  not  these  Churches  upon  the  mission  field  be  leading 
the  way  toward  the  Church  of  the  future  and  the  reunion  of  a  divided 
Christendom  ? ' ' 


The  manifesto  signed  by  seven  hundred  British  Wes- 
leyan  ministers  presents  their  attitude  both  toward 
Methodist  reunion  and  the  larger  reunion  as  follows : 

"In  view  of  the  suggestions  submitted  to  the  last  Conference  by  the 
Committee  on  Methodist  Union,  we  think  the  time  has  come  when  we  should 
make  known  our  attitude  in  regard  to  the  whole  question.  We  desire  to 
state  most  clearly  that  we  are  not  in  any  sense  hostile  to  union  with  the 
other  Methodist  Churches,  or  any  other  branch  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
are  willing  to  do  all  in  our  power  to  promote  union,  earnestly  desiring  to 
see  the  speedy  fulfilment  of  our  Lord's  prayer,  'that  they  may  all  be  one.' 


72  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

But  since  we  value  the  heritage  bequeathed  to  us,  not  only  or  mainly  for 
reasons  of  sentiment,  but  as  the  product  of  experience  in  actual  Church 
life  and  work  from  "Wesley's  to  the  present  day,  we  question  the  wisdom  of 
effecting  a  small  measure  of  reunion  by  abandoning  principles  and  a  posi- 
tion which  peculiarly  fit  us  for  reunion  on  a  much  larger  scale.  We  are  un- 
willing to  take  any  step  which  would  destroy  or  weaken  the  distinctive  fea- 
tures and  traditions  of  our  Church,  and  keenly  desire  to  preserve  those 
traditions  which  have  always  made  Wesleyan  Methodism  to  be  conspicu- 
ously a  Church  which  is  the  friend  of  all  schools  of  ecclesiastical  and  po- 
litical faith,  and  the  enemy  of  none.  We  maintain  therefore  that  if  union 
is  to  be  effected  with  the  other  Methodist  Churches,  the  following  condi- 
tions are  essential:— 

"It  shall  be  a  union  that  will  really  unite  Methodists,  and  not  cause 
numerous  defections  on  the  one  hand  of  such  Wesleyans  as  preserve  their 
traditional  sympathy  with  the  Church  of  England,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  such  Methodists  as  lean  to  independency  and  to  political  partisanship. 

"The  pastoral  office  shall  be  so  guarded  as  to  make  it  quite  clear  that 
ministers  are  employes  of  the  Church,  but  men  ordained  to  exercise  specific 
functions  set  forth  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 

"The  general  Wesleyan  custom,  sanctioned  by  the  almost  unbroken 
usage  of  the  Church,  shall  be  preserved  in  regard  to  the  sacraments — 
namely,  that  the  administration  be  confined  to  ordained  persons. 

"There  shall  be  safeguards  assuring  that  nothing  be  done  so  contrary 
to  the  conception  of  orders  in  other  Churches  as  to  make  wider  reunion  more 
difficult. 

"The  Conference  in  its  pastoral  session  shall  in  no  sense  be  a  sub- 
committee of  the  Conference,  submitting  any  of  its  decisions  to  that  Con- 
ference, but  shall  be  in  every  way  independent  of  any  relation  thereto,  and 
that  legally,  as  at  present.  The  Pastoral  Conference,  too,  shall  continue 
to  give  access  and  voting  power  to  all  ministers  as  at  present. 

"We  appeal  therefore  to  all  who  in  general  agree  with  the  views  here 
set  forth  to  join  us  in  taking  such  action  as  may  be  deemed  advisable. 
There  is  clear  evidence  that  if  some  action  or  protest  be  not  made  soon 
we  shall  be  committed  as  a  Church  to  some  scheme  on  the  lines  of  the  sug- 
gestions made  to  the  last  Conference,  and  told  that  we  have  gone  too  far  to 
be  able  honourably  to  turn  back." 

Upon  this  The  Guardian,  London,  (Anglican)  com- 
ments as  follows : 

"Clearly,  then,  the  Wesleyans,  in  relation  to  the  minor  bodies  on  the 
one  hand  and  to  the  Church  of  England  on  the  other,  have  reached  a  posi- 
tion precisely  analogous  to  that  of  the  Church  of  England  in  relation  to 
Nonconformity  on  the  one  hand  and  to  the  two  great  branches  of  the 
Catholic  Church  on  the  other.  They  desire  reunion  with  the  separated 
Methodists  just  as  we  desire  reunion  with  the  Nonconformists,  and  they 
have  the  question  of  the  larger  reunion  in  England  to  consider,  just  as  we 
have  to  consider  the  ultimate  reunion  of  Catholic  Christendom.  Hence 
their  embarrassment  and  ours.  They  naturally  desire  the  reunion  of  all 
that  shares  the  common  name  of  Methodism,  but  they  recognise  that  they 
would  be  paying  too  dear  for  that  reunion  if  it  should  imperil  the  re- 
union of  English  Christianity.  We  also  naturally  desire  the  reunion  of  all 
that  shares  the  common  heritage  of  English  Christendom,  but  we  are  as- 
sured that  thereby  to  imperil  the  reunion  of  Christendom  at  large  would 
be  in  the  highest  degree  unwise. 

What,  then  is  the  way  out  of  this  embarrassing  situation  for  the  Wes- 
leyans and  for  ourselves?  Already  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no  prospect 
whatever  of  a  return  to  absolute  uniformity.     We  may  deprecate  the  Ref- 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPEES  SAY       73 

ormation  as  much  as  we  will,  but  it  remains  a  fact  of  history  that,  ever 
since  the  Eeformation,  Englishmen  have  claimed  the  right  to  do  as  they 
like  in  the  matter  of  Church  allegiance,  and  they  have  done  it  and  will 
do  it.  We  shall  always  have  to  reckon  with  the  fact  that  any  man  who 
happens  to  be  dissatisfied,  and  to  possess  enough  money  to  build  a  meet- 
ing-house, is  at  liberty  to  start  a  new  sect,  and  no  power  exists  to  hin- 
der him.  Within  the  Church  of  England  itself  there  is  now  more  freedom 
than  was  ever  dreamt  of  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Church's  history. 
It  is  one  of  the  sources  of  our  strength  though  it  may  also  be  a  source  of 
embarrassment  in  our  ecclesiastical  administration.  Anything  therefore  in 
the  way  of  a  reunion  which  is  to  be  practicable  or  possible  must  be  based 
upon  a  liberal  toleration  of  everything  not  absolutely  contrary  to  the 
Catholic  faith  and  use.  The  advice  we  would  give  to  the  Wesleyans,  if 
they  ask  for  our  advice,  would  be  that  they  should  by  all  means  seek  the 
reunion  of  Methodism  upon  a  broad  and  tolerant  basis,  but  that  they  should 
resolutely  and  steadfastly  withstand  any  surrender  of  principles  which  they 
regard  as  vital  and  should  cheerfully  accept  the  consequence,  whatever  it 
may  be. " 


Lord  Hugh  Cecil,  in  the  London  Morning  Post,  pleads 
for  an  international  Christianity  rather  than  national 
and  says: 

"If  Christian  reunion  means  only  the  reunion  of  British  Christians,  I 
do  not  even  desire  it.  If  it  were  possible  to  join  together  all  the  Chris- 
tians of  Great  Britain  except  those  of  the  Eoman  communion  in  one  Brit- 
ish Church,  I  should  view  that  Church  with  profound  dislike  and  distrust. 
For  it  would  be  saturated  with  nationalism,  and  we  ought  to  have  learnt, 
if  never  before  then  from  the  war,  how  alien  nationalism  is  from  Chris- 
tianity. It  was  nationalism  that  made  the  war;  we  hope  to  chain  that 
evil  spirit  even  in  secular  affairs  by  the  League  of  Nations;  let  us  not 
suffer  its  wicked  influence  in  the  Church.  A  great  British  Church  could 
not  hope  to  escape  this  danger.  What  we  need  in  Christian  reunion  is  to 
gain  that  element  of  catholicity  which  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
Free  Churches  alike  now  lack— namely,  an  international  character.  It 
is  in  this  respect  that  popery  may  most  fairly  claim  to  be  more  catholic 
than  the  Church  of  England.  If  we  want  to  shut  the  mouths  of  Eoman 
critics  here  is  their  strongest  theme.  Here  they  have  the  advantage  of  us, 
and  we  can  but  be  silent  and 'ashamed. 

Is  it  a  dream  to  fancy  the  divisions  of  Christendom  reduced  to  four — a 
Papal  Church,  an  Episcopal  Church,  a  Presbyterian  Church,  and  a  Congre- 
gationalist  Union  of  Churches?  All  four  would  be  international,  all  four 
would  be  world-wide.  This  would  certainly  make  the  remaining  process 
of  reunion  easier.  Strong  bodies  can  more  flexibly  concede;  they  do  not 
stand  on  points  of  dignity;  they  are  not  afraid  of  being  swallowed  up  and 
lost  in  some  larger  and  more  powerful  body.  Moreover,  in  a  world-wide 
religious  body  there  would  be  a  different  atmosphere.  National  prejudices 
and  peculiarities  would  be  exorcised.  Episcopalians,  Presbyterians,  and 
Congregationalists  would  all  be  better  catholics  than  to-day." 


The  Living  Church,  Milwaukee,  (Episcopalian)  re- 
gards all  Churches  as  reflecting  national  characteristics 
and  says : 


74  THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

"All  national  Churches  present  particular  types  and  characteristics- 
National  Churches  that  are  self-governing  differ  in  many  respects  from  each 
other.  In  that  manner  the  Catholic  Church,  though  spiritually  one,  is  ev- 
erywhere presented  with  local  variations. 

"It  may  probably  be  said  that  in  no  single  land  is  the  Church  per- 
fectly catholic;  that  is  to  say,  so  devoid  of  local  or  national  characteris- 
tics as  to  reflect  perfectly  all  the  long  history  of  the  Church,  unmarked  by 
the  particular  history  or  bias  of  the  particular  Church. 

"It  follows  that  the  totality  of  Christian  experience  throughout  the 
whole  Catholic  Church  much  exceeds  the  experience  of  the  Church  in  any 
one  land.  Roman  theory  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  Latin 
Churches  are  the  poorer  for  being  at  swords'  points  with  the  conservative 
Churches  of  Greece  and  Russia  and  the  radical  Churches  of  England  and 
the  United  States;  and  our  own  Churches  are  the  poorer  for  their  isola- 
tion from  the  intimate  life  and  thought  both  of  the  Greek  and  of  the 
Latin  communions.  The  balance  between  the  national  and  the  catholic 
has  been  sadly  wrenched  by  the  loss  of  unity  between  the  three  groups  of 
Churches,  and  the  three  types  that  have  thus  been  created  are  probably, 
all  of  them,  provincialized.  What  is  common  to  them  all  is  'catholic'; 
wherein  the  groups  differ  among  themselves  they  are,  respectively,  Roman, 
Greek,  and  Anglican. ' ' 

The  Mansfield  resolutions,  which  appeared  in  the  Jan- 
uary Quarterly  (p.  8),  are  faring  badly.  The  Chris- 
tian World,  London  (Free  Church),  speaking  of  the  in- 
terpretation made  by  Canons  Temple  and  Lacy,  says : 

"The  Free  Church  members  of  the  Mansfield  College  Conference  have 
had  little  to  say  about  it,  but  the  High  Anglican  members  have  been  kept 
busy  since  trying  to  placate  their  alarmed  friends.  Their  explanations  are 
a  little  disappointing.  They  say  the  Free  Church  members  quite  under- 
stood that  episcopacy  was  taken  for  granted  in  the  reunited  Church,  and 
the  phrases  of  the  resolutions  were  clearly  chosen  and  accepted  as  a  sort  of 
camouflage.  Both  Canon  Temple  and  Canon  Lacy  meant,  and  mean,  by  re- 
union that  the  Anglican  Church  organization  and  doctrine  are  to  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  Free  Churches,  and  that  all  ministers,  sooner  or  later,  must  be 
ordained  under  the  apostolic  succession. 

' '  Canon  Temple  says  plainly  in  last  week 's  Church  Times  that  he  cares 
more  for  the  present  unity  of  the  Anglican  Church  than  for  any  union 
with  Nonconformists,  and  adds:  'I  would  rather  wait  indefinitely  than 
drive  out  from  the  Church  even  the  extreme  ''Catholic"  section  or  outrage 
the  consciences  of  any  devout  churchmen.'  The  two  canons,  when  they 
signed  the  statement  that  the  different  denominations  'are  equally,  as  cor- 
porate groups,  within  the  one  Church  of  Christ,'  now  explain  that  they  did 
not  mean  that  they  are  'on  terms  of  perfect  equality  in  status  and  func- 
tion.' All  they  meant  (they  say)  is  that  the  various  groups  are  'equally 
within'  the  Church.  This  is  only  juggling  with  words,  and  we  remain 
pretty  much  where  we  were. ' ' 

Sir  Robertson  Nicoll  of  The  British  Weekly,  London, 
(Free  Church),  says: 

"We  earnestly  and  respectfully  remonstrate  against  the  continuance 
of  these  conferences.  It  ought  to  be  evident  to  the  dullest  eyes  that  any 
little  concession  made  is  immediately  retracted,  or  rather,  we  ought  perhaps 
to  say,  is  expressed  so  doubtfully  that  it  may  mean  anything  or  nothing. 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPEES  SAY       75 

"It  is  our  deliberate  opinion  that  those  mischievous  meetings  have  done 
more  to  separate  Nonconformists  from  the  Church  than  to  attract  them. 
It  is  a  great  evil  that  some  of  our  leaders  have  talked  as  if  episcopacy  must 
be  the  form  of  government  for  the  future  Church.  To  that  we  have  the 
very  strongest  objection.  Episcopacy  has  not  worked  so  well  either  in 
England  or  Scotland  as  to  give  ground  for  any  such  belief,  and  those  Free 
Church  leaders  who  have  conceded  it  are  not  speaking  of  the  rank  and 
file,  who  are  watching  this  question  and  have  their  minds  made  up.  Cou- 
rageous Christian  bishops  and  clergymen  may  do  much  by  taking  their  own 
line,  and  the  fulminations  of  their  opponents  only  provoke  ridicule  among 
the  general  public  who  are  not  narrow  and  take  small  account  of  ecclesias- 
tical and  doctrinal  differences. ' ' 

At  the  instance  of  Canon  T.  A.  Lacy,  of  Worcester, 
according  to  Public  Opinion,  London,  the  English 
Church  Union  adopted  March  the  24th  the  following  res- 
olutions : 

"This  council,  humbly  adhering  to  the  prescriptions  of  the  sacred 
canons  and  the  practice  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  regard  to  the  avoidance 
of  communion  with  schismatics,  approves  the  following  propositions  in 
principle: — 

"(1)  Corporate  groups  of  Christians,  separated  by  schism,  ought  to 
be  received  into  communion  by  the  proper  authority,  if  they  show  a  de- 
sire to  close  the  schism  and  are  found  orthodox. 

"(2)  They  may  then  lawfully  continue  as  corporate  groups,  retaining 
such  features  of  their  former  organisation  as  are  consistent  with  catholic 
faith  and  practice. 

"(3)  Their  ministers,  if  they  desire  it  and  are  found  to  be  personally 
qualified,  should  forthwith  be  admitted  to  Holy  Orders. ' ' 

"A  rider  in  the  following  terms  was  moved  by  the  Eev.  C.  B.  Lucas  and 
adopted,  together  with  the  resolution: — 

"That  the  council  cannot  accept  the  Mansfield  College  statement  on 
reunion  since  this  statement  is  at  least  capable  of  being  interpreted  as  lay- 
ing down  a  position  with  reference  to  the  Church  which  the  council  cannot 
admit,  and  as  obscuring  the  truth  as  to  the  necessity  of  episcopal  ordina- 
tion." 

The  Challenge,  London  (Anglican),  has  this  to  say  re- 
garding the  Mansfield  resolutions: 

"A  group  of  leading  churchmen  have  issued  a  manifesto  in  reply  to 
the _ Mansfield  resolutions;  they  claim  that  reunion  is  only  possible  on  the 
basis  of  the  episcopal  succession.  So  far  we  entirely  agree.  We  think 
the  authors  of  this  manifesto  might  in  ordinary  fairness  have  inserted 
words  to  show  that  they  recognize  the  fact  that  many  signatories  of  the 
Mansfield  resolutions  also  agree  with  them,  and  signed  those  resolutions  on 
that  understanding.  This,  however,  is  relatively  unimportant.  Our  trouble 
with  this  manifesto  is  that,  like  most  utterances  proceeding  from  the 
'Catholic  school,  it  offers  no  suggestion  for  advance  beyond  the  neces- 
sity for  maintaining  the  principle  of  episcopacy.  The  Council  of  the 
English  Church  Union  did  lately  issue  a  pronouncement  which,  though 
couched  in  terms  unfamiliar  to  our  generation,  made  a  very  substantial  ad- 
vance; if  the  Mansfield  Conference  has  no  other  effect  than  the  calling 
forth  of  that  pronouncement,  it  will  have  done  great  good.     For  the  prob- 


76  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

lem  of  reunion  on  this  side  is  mainly  a  problem  of  preserving  what  the 
Catholic  school  specially  upholds.  It  may  be  that  when  the  problem  of 
reunion  with  Rome  or  the  East  becomes  a  matter  of  practical  politics,  it 
will  be  chiefly  a  problem  of  preserving  what  Evangelicals  specially  uphold. 
Any  advance  on  the  definitely  Catholic  side  towards  reunion  is  of  immense 
importance.  Meanwhile,  the  most  important  task  is  to  explain  the  reasons 
why  we  uphold  the  principle  of  episcopacy  so  rigorously.  It  is  because 
we  believe  that  we  have  here  something  of  supreme  value  to  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Church.  We  do  not  even  desire  that  it  should  be  accepted  as 
a  concession  to  our  prejudices  or  convictions;  we  do  not  desire  that  it  should 
be  accepted  in  the  spirit  that  prompts  the  enquiry  'If  we  do  this  for  you, 
what  do  you  propose  to  do  for  us?'  We  believe  episcopacy  to  be  of  su- 
preme value;  we  hope  that  those  who  are  now  without  it  will  come  to  de- 
sire it  for  itself,  just  as  we  desire  certain  gifts  which  they  have  in  greater 
measure  than  ourselves." 


Commenting  on  the  proposals  of  Mansfield  Conference 
The  Challenge,  London,  again  says, 

"Indeed,  the  principles  insisted  on  by  that  Conference  command  our 
complete  support.  The  first  of  these  is  that  the  great  denominations 
should  be  dealt  with  as  'Churches,'  really  constituent  part  of  the  one 
Holy  Catholic  Church.  This  is  fundamental.  Members  of  those  bodies 
cannot  consent  to  negotiate  on  any  other  terms,  not  from  reasons  of 
corporate  self-respect  or  pride,  but  because  to  do  so  would  be  to  deny 
their  own  experience  of  the  grace  of  God  and  therefore  to  commit  blas- 
phemy. Many  Anglicans  still  hope  for  reunion  by  way  of  submission; 
that  cannot  come  and  ought  not  to  come.  It  is  not  only  that  the 
Free  Churches  ought  not  to  deny  their  own  experience  of  divine  grace; 
the  peculiar  emphasis  and  balance  which  each  of  them  has  achieved 
represents  something  of  permanent  spiritual  value,  which  the  united 
Church  will  need.  It  appears,  therefore,  that  both  principle  and  expe- 
diency require  the  recognition  of  the  separated  denominations  as  being 
^orporately,  and  as  groups,  within  the  One  Body  of  Christ,  and  of  the 
reality  of  their  ministries.  In  this  connection  it  will  be  an  advantage 
if  we  can  leave  behind  the  technical  questions  of  guarantees  and  turn 
our  attention  to  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  a  matter  of  indis- 
putable fact,  in  those  denominations.  Our  attitude  to  them  cannot  be 
more  grudging  of  recognition  than  was  the  Apostolic  Church  of  Jeru- 
salem towards  the  Gentile  Christians.  Among  them  as  amongst  our- 
selves we  recognise  Christ  in  His  members. 

"From  that  starting  point  we  pass  to  the  consideration  of  practical 
steps.  If  these  are  to  lead  towards  reunion  they  must  be  taken  by  the 
whole  body  in  every  case  and  not  isolated  demonstrations  by  individuals 
who  represent  only  themselves.  Owing  to  the  immense  emphasis  laid 
by  the  Free  Churches  on  the  ministry  of  the  Word  it  is  natural  for  them 
to  desire  that  recognition  of  their  Church  status  should  express  itself 
in  an  occasional  'interchange  of  pulpits.'  The  phrase  is  unfortunate, 
but  it  has  established  itself  in  popular  usage.  Further  we  agree  with  the 
Oxford  resolutions  in  their  desire  that,  subject  to  the  same  authority, 
there  should  be  mutual  admission  to  the  Lord's  Table.  This  does  not 
mean  any  encouragement  to  Anglicans  to  communicate  with  Free  church- 
men or  vice  versa;  it  means  exactly  what  it  says,  namely,  that  when  a 
communicant  member  of  one  body  presents  himself  at  the  altar  of  another 
he  should  be  received  and  not  repelled.     Indeed,  we  believe  it  is  already 


WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPEES  SAY       77 

the  law  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  no  man  so  presenting  himself  of  his 
own  motion  can  be  repelled  unless  he  is  personally  and  individually  ex- 
communicate. We  would  especially  urge  upon  Anglicans  that  just  be- 
cause we  believe  that  we  are  entrusted  with  a  special  treasure  in  the 
communion  celebrated  according  to  Catholic  order,  we  should  be  ready  to 
welcome  those  who  are  not  Anglicans  so  that  they  may  begin  to  ap- 
preciate what  we  have  and  they  lack.  If  such  persons  begin  to  attend 
frequently,  they  must  of  course  be  asked  to  accept  the  full  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  whose  ministrations  they  are  availing  themselves.  But 
we  would  discourage  Anglicans  from  communicating  with  Free  churchmen 
just  because  it  is  here  that  we  have  something  to  safeguard;  our  own 
position  in  the  matter  of  order  is  not  so  secure  in  the  recognition  of 
Christendom  (to  put  it  mildly)  as  to  permit  us  to  compromise  it,  and 
what  is  sometimes  called  'The  return  visit'  is  bound  to  lead  many  to 
suppose  that  we  attach  little  importance  to  order  in  relation  to  the 
Eucharist.  Yet  one  great  part  of  the  significance  of  the  Eucharist — 
fellowship  with  the  Church  of  all  times  and  all  places — is  liable  to  be 
lost  if  the  expression  of  it  in  an  episcopally  ordained  ministry  is  allowed 
to  lapse. if 

The  recent  general  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.  made  interesting  record  in  its 
favorable  attitude  toward  unity.  Of  the  meeting  The 
Congregationalist,  Boston,  says: 

''The  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  meeting  in  Philadelphia,  was 
able  to  take  a  joyful  share  in  great  forward  strides  toward  the  reunion 
of  the  Churches  of  its  order.  First  presented  themselves  the  delegates 
of  the  Welsh  Presbyterian  Church,  representing  a  communion  of  some 
15,000  members,  which  has  just  merged  itself  with  the  main  current  of 
Northern  Presbyterianism,  with  power  to  perfect  that  union.  Next  came 
news  of  the  unanimous  vote  by  which  the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church 
had  adopted  the  plan  for  the  union,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct 
to  say,  the  confederation  of  the  Reformed  bodies  holding  the  Presby- 
terian system.  The  plan  involves  the  retention  of  a  legal  autonomy  by 
the  present  communions,  with  a  biennial  General  Assembly  in  which  all 
would  be  represented.  Difficulties  would  thus  be  avoided  in  regard  to 
endowments  and  all  that  is  valuable  in  the  history  and  traditions  of  the 
now  separate  bodies  retained.  It  is  expected  to  unite  under  this  con- 
federation the  larger  Presbyterian  Churches  North  and  South,  the  Dutch 
and  the  German  Reformed  Churches  and  other  Presbyterian  bodies." 


In  The  Contemporary  Review,  London,  Eev.  J.  Scott 
Lidgett  writes  under  "The  Anglican  Church  and  Evan- 
gelical Nonconformity, ' '  as  follows: 

Limiting  the  subject,  then,  to  that  of  the  Reunion  of  the  Anglican 
Church  and  the  non-Episcopal  Evangelical  Churches  it  may  confidently 
be  affirmed  that  any  projects  of  reunion  will  be  hopeless  from  the  out- 
set unless  they  satisfy  the  four  following  conditions: — 

"1.  They  must  be  based  upon  the  amplest  recognition,  in  regard  to 
all  concerned,  not  merely  of  common  Christianity  but  of  common  church- 


78  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

manship.  To  adopt  words  that  have  already  been  used  by  the  conference 
held  in  Oxford  last  January,  all  those  who  seek  to  negotiate  reunion 
must  be  in  entire  accord  in  a  'common  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
denominations  to  which  they  severally  belong  are  equally,  as  corporate 
groups,  within  the  one  Church  of  Christ ;  and  that  the  efficacy  of  their 
ministrations  is  verified  in  the  history  of  the  Church/  'All  dealings  be- 
tween them  should  be  conducted  on  the  basis  of  this  recognition.'  Not 
only  must  no  repudiation  of  the  past,  however  adroitly  veiled,  be  re- 
quired from  any  of  the  non-Episcopal  Churches,  but  their  place  in  the 
divine  ordering  of  history  must  be  fully  accorded  to  them  and  must  be 
recognised  in  the  terms  of  reunion. 

' '  2.  Care  must  be  taken  to  gather  together  and  preserve  for  the  united 
Church  all  the  permanent  deposits  of  faith  and  order  by  which  the  va- 
rious uniting  denominations  have  been  enriched,  and  through  which  they 
have  severally  made  their  respective  contributions  'to  the  building  up 
of  the  Body  of  Christ.'  In  this  spirit  the  Lambeth  Quadrilateral  may 
well  be  accepted  as  the  basis  of  a  constructive  effort  which  will  seek 
to  embody  in  a  new  declaration  of  faith  and  a  reformed  constitution  all 
the  living  products  of  the  Spirit  working  in  and  through  the  uniting 
communities. 

"3.  There  must  be  no  attempt  to  substitute  uniformity  for  diversity, 
or  to  subject  the  united  Church,  or  any  parts  of  it,  to  autocratic  rule. 
Reunion  must  stand  for  something  other  and  less  than  fusion;  for  some- 
thing other  and  more  than  federation.  There  must  be  a  supreme  order, 
and  a  common  organisation  that  is  sufficiently  free  and  elastic,  not 
merely  to  tolerate,  but  to  encourage  such  freedom  and  diversity  as  may 
serve  to  carry  on  outstanding  historic  traditions  and  to  satisfy  different 
temperaments  within  the  harmony  and  fellowship  of  the  whole.  Within 
such  an  order  the  appropriate  place  must  be  found  for  a  reformed  epis- 
copate, a  fully  recognised  presbyterate,  a  restored  diaconate,  and,  not 
least  of  all,  for  the  laity,  with  the  rights  of  both  sexes  secured  and 
'liberty  of  prophesying'  guaranteed. 

"4.  Finally,  there  must  be  the  abrogation  of  the  existing  state  es- 
tablishment, in  order  that  the  united  Church  may  have  complete  free- 
dom and  full  power  of  shaping  its  life  and  action  in  the  exercise  of  the 
amplest  spiritual  autonomy. 

"Undoubtedly  a  strong  body  of  opinion  within  the  Anglican  Church, 
representing  what  is  broadest  and  most  thoughtful  in  all  its  schools  of 
thought,  would  accept,  and  even  contend  for,  these  principles  in  any 
scheme  of  reunion.  Without  them,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  considerable 
section  of  Nonconformists  would  consider  any  plan  of  reunion,  however 
eagerly  they  may  long  for  reunion  if  it  be  possible  without  sacrifice  of 
what  they  regard  as  divine  authority  and  of  essential  importance. 


As  we  go  to  press  this  word  comes  from  Mr.  Eobert 
H.  Gardiner,  secretary  of  the  Commission  on  the  World 
Conference  on  Faith  and  Order: 

"We  are  assured  of  the  presence  at  Geneva  of  representatives  of  at 
least  forty  different  commissions,  representing  every  part  of  the  world, 
and  more  important  than  the  number  is  the  fact  that  in  almost  every 
case,  each  commission  is  sending  those  who  are  among  its  strongest  men. 
It  will  be  the  most  representative  assemblage  of  Christians  which  has 
been  held  since  the  schism  between  the  East  and  West." 


BOOK  REVIEWS 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  RECONCILIATION.  By  the  late 
Principal  James  Denny,  D.  D.  Author  of  ' '  The  Death  of  Christ, ' ' 
"Jesus  and  the  Gospel,"  etc.  The  Cunningham  Lectures  for  1917, 
New  York:     George  H.  Doran  Company.     339  pages. 

Among  the  books  that  have  appeared  in  recent  years,  this  would  be  named 
in  any  group  of  a  dozen  of  the  best.  Dr.  Denny  was  the  possessor  of  an 
unusual  mind,  and  in  the  historical,  critical  and  constructive  discussion  of 
the  central  truth  of  the  New  Testament  he  has  left  us  a  path  of  thinking 
that  is  surrounded  by  an  exhilarating  atmosphere  of  spiritual  truth.  The 
first  problem  facing  us  in  a  life  so  short  and  difficult  as  human  life  is  to 
adjust  ourselves  to  the  laws  and  possibilities  of  that  life.  Our  task  is  to 
know  how  to  release  our  original  and  indefeasible  unity  with  nature. 
Philosophers  like  Spinoza,  Goethe,  Kant  and  Wordsworth  have  thought 
with  a  great  deal  of  attraction  in  this  field.  The  reconciling  power  is  in 
the  historical  Christ,  not  merely  of  Palestine  two  thousand  years  ago, 
but  the  historical  Christ  of  now,  for  the  Spirit  of  God  not  only  makes 
Him  present  and  eternal,  but  gives  Him  actual  intercourse  with  the  sin- 
ful. Here  He  appears  as  both  minister  and  mediator  of  reconciliation. 
These  facts  are  made  plain  in  our  realization  that  Jesus  is  the  same  yes- 
terday, to-day  and  forever. 

The  Church  established  its  dogmas  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation, 
but  it  has  never  established  in  the  same  sense  the  dogma  of  reconciliation. 
While  there  was  much  thinking  on  this  subject  through  the  centuries  prior 
to  the  Reformation,  it  was  not  until  after  the  Reformation,  when  dogmas 
in  the  old  sense  had  become  impossible,  that  the  various  branches  of  the 
Church  began  to  form  statements  about  the  way  of  Christ 's  reconciling  man 
to  God,  and  especially  about  the  meaning  of  His  sufferings  and  death. 
Reconciliation  was  to  be  treated  on  the  basis  of  experience.  The  more 
distressing  the  experience  of  sin,  the  more  serious  must  be  the  problem  of 
redemption  and  reconciliation.  Consequently  it  has  to  do  more  with 
ethics  than  metaphysics. 

The  ideal  is  absolute  faith  in  Christ,  when  neither  the  flesh  nor  the 
law  can  depress  or  discomfort  the  believer.  There  are  instances  in  the 
life  of  Paul,  as  when  he  wrote  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans,  that  he 
seems  to  have  realized  it.  Reconciliation  to  God  is  a  blessing  which  is 
fully  enjoyed  in  the  present  time  on  the  abandoning  of  self  to  the  sin- 
bearing  love  of  Christ.  The  greatest  need  in  human  experience  is  recon- 
ciliation to  God.  Augustine  was  perfectly  sure  that  he  could  not  save 
himself  from  his  sins;  without  divine  help  he  was  a  lost  man.  Christ  lived 
in  our  nature  an  absolutely  sinless  life.  His  sufferings  had  to  do  with 
sin  and  on  that  ground  alone  He  achieved  our  reconciliation  to  God.  His 
reconciliation  is  realized  in  human  life,  reaching  out  into  the  unseen  and 
sustaining   the   hope    of    immortality.     The    closing    sentence    of    the   book 


80  THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUAETEELY 

sums  up  in  fine,  practical  fashion  the  elevating  and  satisfying  presenta- 
tion in  these  pages :  ' '  The  Christian 's  faith  in  reconciliation  does  not 
find  its  full  expression  till  it  finds  it  here." 


THE  MENACE  OF  IMMOEALITY  IN  CHUECH  AND  STATE.  MES- 
SAGES OF  WRATH  AND  JUDGMENT.  By  Rev.  John  Roach 
Straton,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  Calvary  Baptist  Church,  New  York  City,, 
New  York:     George  H.  Doran  Company.     253  pages. 

This  volume  of  fifteen  sermons  deals  with  those  practices  that  are  in- 
sidiously substituting  immorality  for  morality.  Dr.  Straton  is  one  of 
the  fearless  American  preachers  who  is  not  afraid  to  condemn  where 
condemnation  should  be  given  and  uncover  where  sins  have  been  covered 
under  the  guise  of  religion.  He  speaks  in  the  terms  of  wrath  and  judg- 
ment regarding  modern  conditions.  These  sermons  cover  a  period  of  twc^ 
years,  not  being  delivered  in  a  series  but  periodically  as  the  occasion  de- 
manded. His  merciless  arraignment  of  worldly  practices  in  the  Church 
is  a  healthy  call  at  an  opportune  time. 


RELIGION  AMONG  AMERICAN  MEN:  AS  REVEALED  BY  A  STUDY 
OF  CONDITIONS  IN  THE  ARMY.  Issued  by  The  Committee  on  the 
War  and  the  Religious  Outlook.     Association  Press,  New  York,  1920. 

The  work  published  under  the  above  title  is  more  than  a  book.  It  is 
the  constructive  report  of  a  widespread  and  thoroughgoing  investigation 
concerning  the  status  of  religion  among  American  men  as  reflected  by  the 
attitudes  of  the  American  soldier.  It  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  such 
studies  being  prepared  by  the  Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Religious 
Outlook,  a  committee  made  up  of  representative  men  and  women  of  the 
various  Protestant  Churches  and  appointed  "to  consider  the  state  of  re- 
ligion as  revealed  or  affected  by  the  war,  with  special  reference  to  the 
duty  and  opportunity  of  the  Churches,  and  to  prepare  these  findings  for 
submission  to  the  Churches." 

The  Report  deals  with  all  phases  of  the  Church's  problem  as  reflected 
in  the  attitude  of  men  of  the  army  toward  religion  and  the  Church. 
Necessarily  it  gives  much  space  to  the  Church's  chief  problem;  namely, 
that  of  division  and  reunion.  In  this  connection  the  findings  of  the  Com- 
mittee are  unanimous  and  emphatic.  Indifference  to  denominationalism  is 
an  outstanding  fact.  "The  soldier  knew  very  little  about  doctrinal 
differences  between  Churches  and  cared  less.  It  seemed  senseless  to  him 
that  the  Protestant  Church  should  be  divided  into  denominations." 

Among  the  chaplains  there  was  found  a  real  desire  for  unity  and  the  be- 
lief in  the  possibility  of  union;  in  fact,  a  large  proportion  of  the  chaplains 
interviewed  regarded  unity  as  the  end  most  desirable.  Their  general  atti- 
tude is  seen  in  the  following  reply  to  the  questionnaire  sent  out: 

"It  is  time  that  the  Church  put  a  stop  to  its  competition  and  strife 
among  denominations  and  applied  itself  definitely  and  unreservedly  to 
ministering  to  the  deep  social  and  religious  needs  of  mankind." 


VOL.  X  NO.  2 

"God  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation. " 

tot? 

CHRISTIAN  UNION 
QUARTERLY 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 


rHIS  journal  is  the  organ  of  no  party  other 
than  of  those,  growing  up  in  all  parties,  who 
are  interested  in  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Its  pages  are  friendly  to  all  indications  of  Christian 
unity  and  ventures  of  faith.  It  maintains  that, 
whether  so  accepted  or  not,  all  Christians — Eastern 
Orthodox,  Roman  Catholic,  Anglican,  Protestant, 
and  all  who  accept  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour-*- 
are  parts  of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  that  the 
unity  of  His^disciples  is  the  paramount  issue 
of  modern  times. 


OCTOBER,  1920 


THE    CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

2710  PINE  STREET  504  N.  FULTON  AVENUE 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.  BALTIMORE,  MD. 

AGENTS: 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company,  New  York 

Maruzen  Company,  Ltd.,  Tokyo,  Osaka,  Kyoto,  Fukuoka  and  Sendai 

Oliphants,  Ltd.,  21  Paternoster  Scpiare,  London,  E.  C.  4;  100,  Princes  Street,  Edinburgh 

TWO  DOLLARS  A  YEAR  FIFTY  GENTS  A  COPY 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

The  favorite  figure  in  which  the  church  of  the  first  century  set  forth  its 
conception  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity  is  that  of  "the  Good  Shepherd." 
The  emblem  which  appears  on  this  page  is  a  reproduction  of  one  of 
the  early  Christian  gems. 

"ONE  FLOCK 


ONE  SHEPHERD." 

"No  one  has  written  more  appreciatively  respecting  this  symbol 
than  Dean  Stanley  in  his  Christian  Institutions.  It  appealed  to  all  his 
warmest  sympathies.  'What/  he  asks,  'is  the  test  or  sign  of  Christian 
popular  belief,  which  in  these  earliest  representations  of  Christianity 
is  handed  down  to  us  as  the  most  cherished,  the  all-sufficing,  token  of 
their  creed  f  It  is  very  simple,  but  it  contains  a  great  deal.  It  is 
a  shepherd  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  with  the  crook,  or  a  shepherd's  pipe, 
in  one  hand,  and  on  his  shoulder  a  lamb,  which  he  carefully  carries,  and 
holds  with  the  other  hand.  We  see  at  once  who  it  is;  we  all  know  with- 
out being  told.  This,  in  that  earliest  chamber,  or  church  of  a  Chris- 
tian family,  is  the  only  sign  of  Christian  life  and  Christian  belief.  But, 
as  it  is  almost  the  only  sign  of  Christian  belief  in  this  earliest  catacomb, 
so  it  continues  always  the  chief,  always  the  prevailing  sign,  as  long  as 
those  burial-places  were  used.' 

"After  alluding  to  the  almost  total  neglect  of  this  lovely  symbol 
by  the  Fathers  and  Theologians,  he  says  that  it  answers  the  question, 
what  was  the  popular  religion  of  the  first  Christians?  'It  was,  in  one 
word,  the  religion  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  The  kindness,  the  courage, 
the  love,  the  beauty,  the  grace,  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  was  to  them,  if 
we  may  so  say,  Prayer  Book  and  Articles,  Creed  and  Canons,  all  in  one. 
They  looked  on  that  figure,  and  it  conveyed  to  them  all  they  wanted. 
As  ages  passed  on,  the  Good  Shepherd  faded  from  the  mind  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  other  emblems  of  the  Christian  faith  have  taken 
His  place.  Instead  of  the  gracious  and  gentle  Pastor,  there  came  the 
Omnipotent  Judge,  or  the  crucified  Sufferer  or  the  Infant  in  His  mother's 
arms,  or  the  Master  in  His  parting  Supper,  or  the  figures  of  innumerable 
saints  and  angels,  or  the  elaborate  expositions  of  the  various  forms  of 
theological  controversy. '  But  'the  Good  Shepherd  represents  to  us  the 
joyful,  cheerful  side  of  Christianity  of  which  we  spoke  before.  .  .  . 
But  that  is  the  primitive  conception  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  in 
those  earlier  centuries  when  the  first  object  of  the  Christian  community 
was  not  to  repel,  but  to  include ;  not  to  condemn,  but  to  save.  The  popular 
conception  of  Christ  in  the  early  church  was  of  the  strong,  the  joyous 
youth,  of  eternal  growth,  of  immortal  grace.'  " — Frederic  W.  Farrar  in 
The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented  in  Art. 


THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

A  Journal  in  the  Interest  of  He  conciliation  in  the  Divided  Church 
of  Christ.  Interdenominational  and  International.  Each  Com- 
munion may  svealc  with  Freedom  for  itself  in  these  Pages  as  to 
what    Offering   it   has   to    bring    to   the   Altar   of  Eeconciliation. 


Vol.  X.  OCTOBER,  1920  No.  2 


CONTENTS 

AN  APPEAL  TO  ALL  CHRISTIAN  PEOPLE     .........       89 

SCOTTISH   CHUECH  REUNION 94 

By  Robert  F organ 

PRIEST  OR  PROPHET?     A  QUESTION  FOR  THE  DAY     ...     105 
By  W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 

A  PILGRIMAGE  TOWARDS  UNITY 117 

By  Charles  H.  Brent 

THE  DISCIPLES'  PROGRAMME  FOR  UNION     .......     121 

By  George  W.  Brown 

EDITORIAL: 

Three  Outstanding  Conferences 129 

WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY     .     140 

LETTER   TO    THE    EDITOR 156 

BOOK    REVIEWS , 158 


THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY  is  issued  in  January,  April, 
July  and  October.  It  is  the  servant  of  the  whole  Church,  irrespective  of 
name  or  creed.  It  offers  its  pages  as  a  forum  to  the  entire  Qhurch  of 
Christ  for  a  frank  and  courteous  discussion  of  those  problems  that  have 
to  do  with  the  healing  of  our  unchristian  divisions.  Its  contributors  and 
readers  are  in  all  communions. 

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should  be  made  by  New  York  draft,  express  order  or  money  order. 

Entered  as  second-class  matter  in  the  Post  Office  at   St.  Louis,  Mo. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY  CALENDAR 

Quadrennial  meeting  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America,  Boston,  Mass.,  Dec.  1-6,  1920.  Eev.  Charles  S. 
Maefarland,  105  E.  22d  Street,  New  York  City,  Secretary. 


World's  Evangelical  Alliance  announces  the  Annual  Universal 
Week  of  Prayer,  Jan.  2-8,  1921.  Henry  Martyn  Gooch,  19  Eussell 
Square,  London,  General  Secretary. 


American  Council  on  Organic  Union,  some  time  in  1921.     Eev. 
Eufus  W.  Miller,  Witherspoon  Building,  Philadelphia,  Secretary. 


Universal  Conference  of  the  Church  of  Christ  on  Life  and 
Work,  two  or  three  years  hence.  Eev.  Charles  S.  Maefarland,  105  E. 
22d  Street,  New  York  City,  Provisional  Secretary. 


World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  time  and  place  unnamed. 
Eobert  H.  Gardiner,  Gardiner,  Maine,  Secretary. 


At  the  instance  of  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian 
Unity,  Pentecost  Sunday  has  been  named  primarily  as  the  day  for 
special  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches,  along  with  prayers 
to  that  end.  Eev.  H.  C.  Armstrong,  Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Md., 
Secretary. 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY   PRAYER   LEAGUE 

(Membership  in  this  League  is  open  to  all  Christians — Eastern,  Bo- 
man,  Anglican  and  Protestant,  the  only  requirement  being  a  notice 
by  post  card  or  letter  of  one's  desire  to  be  so  enrolled,  stating  the 
Church  of  which  he  is  a  member.  Address,  Association  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Christian  Unity,  Seminary  House,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave., 
Baltimore,  Mdv  U.  S.  A.) 

THANKSGIVING : 

FOE  the  conferences   dealing  with  Christian  unity   held  in  various 

parts  of  the  world,  especially  those  in  Switzerland. 

FOE  the   opportunity  of  facing  great  problems  in  the  life   of   the 

Church. 

FOE  the  kindly  approach  of  Christians  toward  each  other. 

FOE   the  dawn   of  hope   in  the   discovery   of    better  understanding 

among  Christians. 

FOE  the  promise  that  He  will  never  leave  us  nor  forsake  us. 


PEAYEE : 

O  LOED,  the  one  Father  whom  all  Thy  children  confess,  we  be- 
seech Thee  for  Thy  church  that  its  life  may  be  more  truly  one  life 
as  its  faith  is  one  faith.  We  would  confess  the  failure  and  weakness 
of  the  church  through  its  divisions  and  its  sectarianism.  In  a  world 
whose  many  and  grave  needs  demand  a  united  body  for  Thy  spirit  to 
dwell  in,  we  own  in  humility  and  penitence  the  unworthiness  of  the 
body  we  offer  Thee.  Thrust  our  hearts  through  with  the  shame  of 
our  divisions.  Smite  our  consciences  with  the  guilt  of  hindering  Thy 
Spirit  by  our  party  pride  and  rivalry  and  strife.  Show  us  how  use- 
less and  how  false  are  our  sectarian  claims.  How  meaningless  must 
they  seem  to  Thee,  O  Lord! 

Call  us  all,  we  beseech  Thee,  from  our  separate  altars,  these  way- 
side shrines  where  now  we  tarry — call  us  away  from  them  to  the  one 
altar  where  our  hearts  find  true  peace.  We  do  not  wish  to  come  to 
Thee  by  any  partisan  path,  in  any  private  way,  but  we  would  ap- 
proach Thee  by  the  common  road  whereon  all  men  of  simple  faith 
seek  Thy  presence.  Deliver  us  from  those  over-refinements  of  thought 
which  enslave  us  and  obscure  from  our  sight  the  common  human 
way.  When  we  stand  at  Thine  august  altar,  Thou  God  of  the  burly 
realities,  how  unreal  and  hollow  seem  those  nice  distinctions  by  which 
we  separate  ourselves  from  our  brothers!  Deliver  us  from  this  nar- 
rowing pride  of  opinion,  this  microscopic  and  selfish  view  of  truth  and 
life  and  of  Thee.  Teach  us  the  spiritual  art  of  finding  agreements 
with  those  from  whom  we  differ,  and  make  us  glad  to  work  and 
worship  with  all  who  seek  in  sincerity  to  do  the  will  of  God. 

Quicken  in  all  the  churches  the  sense  of  their  common  share  in 
the  one  church  of  Christ.  Pour  out  Thy  favor  upon  all  the  efforts 
now  being  made  to  bring  Thy  followers  of  many  names  closer  together 
in  acquaintance,  in  sympathy,  in  fellowship  and  in  common  work. 
By  this  workaday  and  open  pathway  lead  us  out  of  the  follies  into 
which  our  creeds  have  lured  us,  and  bring  us  at  last  and  speedily 
into  the  unity  of  spirit  and  of  body  for  which  our  Saviour  prayed. 
It  is  in  his  name  we  ask  it. — Amen. 

— The  Christian  Century. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

EDITED  BY  PETER  AINSLIE, 
Minister   Christian   Temple,   Baltimore,   Md. 

Editorial  Council 

RAYMOND   CALKINS, 

Pastor   First   Congregational   Church,   Cambridge,   Mass. 

J.   A.   CRAMER, 

Minister  Dutch  Reformed  Church,   The  Hague,  Holland 

ADOLF  DEIS SM AN 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Berlin,   Germany 

ALFRED  E.  GARVIE, 
Principal    of    New    College,    University    of    London,    London,    England 

HUGHELL  FOSBROKE 

Dean   General   Episcopal  Theological   Seminary,   New  York   City 

WILLIAM  P.  MERRILL 

Minister  Brick  Presbyterian   Church,   New  York  City 

GEORGE  W.  RICHARDS 

Professor    of    Church    History,    Theological    Seminary    of    the    Reformed    Church, 

Lancaster,   Pa. 

WILLIAM  TEMPLE 

Canon   of   Westminster,   London,   England 

NATHAN   SODERBLOM, 

Archbishop   of   Uppsala,    Sweden 


ALL  editorial  communications  should  be  addressed  to  Peter  Ainslie,  Editor  THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A. 

SUBSCRIPTIONS  may  be  sent  direct  or  placed  through  Fleming  H.  Revell  Com- 
pany, New  York  City;  Maruzen  Company,  Ltd.,  Tokyo,  Osaka,  Kyoto,  Fukuoka  and 
Sendai;  Oliphants,  Ltd.,  21  Paternoster  Square,  London,  E.  C.  4,  or  100  Princes 
Street,   Edinburgh. 

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CONTENTS  OF 

THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

FOR  JULY,  1920 

EDITORIAL: 

The  Switzerland  Conferences  of  This  Summer    .      9 

NOTES  AND  COMMENTS 12 

UNITY  IN  THE  MISSION  FIELD.     Robert  E.  Speer     .     16 

PRESENT  POSSIBILITIES  AND  FUTURE  STEPS  TO- 
WARDS UNITY.     T.  J.  Pulvertaft 26 

PAUL'S  PLAN  FOR  CHRISTIAN   UNITY.     John   B. 

Cowden       33 

SOME   FALLACIES   CONCERNING  CHURCH   UNITY 

AND  A  HOPEFUL  PLAN.     Robert  Westly  Peach     49 

SUGGESTIONS  CONCERNING  CONFERENCES  BE- 
TWEEN THE  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPALIANS 
AND    CONGREGATIONALISTS 56 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  IN  AUSTRALIA.     George  Hall    60 

WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  ARE  SAYING  ABOUT 

UNITY       63 

BOOK  REVIEWS .79 


A  PRAYER  FOR  UNITY 

O  Lord,  we  thank  thee  that  in  spite  of  our  di- 
visions, Thou  hast  loved  us  and  art  ever  seeking 
to  make  Thyself  so  known  to  us  that  we  may 
love  each  other  fervently  with  pure  minds  and 
true  hearts.  Shine  thou  upon  us  that  we  may 
have  light  enough  to  find  the  way  to  each  other, 
for  there  is  a  path  of  brotherhood  among  men 
as  sure  as  there  are  paths  for  the  stars.  For- 
give us  in  that  we  have  found  the  upper  path, 
but  are  still  stumbling  across  the  earth  in 
search  of  a  path  which  thou  didst  make  of  old 
and  which  in  our  blindness  we  know  not  of. 
Guide  us,  O  Lord,  that  our  footsteps  may  honor 
thee,  Whose  we  are  and  Whom  we  serve. 
Amen. 


THE  WAY  TO  UNITY 

No  mortal  need  fancy  that  he  shall  have  the  honour  of  devis- 
ing either  the  plan  of  uniting  Christians  into  one  holy  band  of 
zealous  cooperation,  or  of  converting  Jews  and  Gentiles  to  the 
faith  that  Jesus  is  that  seed  in  Whom  all  the  families  of  the 
earth  are  yet  to  be  blessed.  The  plan  is  divine.  It  is  ordained 
by  God;  and,  better  still,  it  is  already  revealed.  Is  any  one 
impatient  to  hear  it?  Let  him  again  read  the  intercessions  of 
the  Lord  Messiah  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John.  Let  him 
then  examine  the  two  following  propositions,  and  say  whether 
these  do  not  express  heaven's  own  scheme  of  augmenting  and 
conservating  the  Body  of  Christ.  Nothing  is  essential  to  the 
conversion  of  the  world  but  the  union  and  cooperation  of 
Christians.  Nothing  is  essential  to  the  union  of  Christians 
but  the  Apostles'  teaching  or  testimony.  Or  does  he  choose 
to  express  the  plan  of  the  Self -Existent  in  other  words?  Then 
he  may  change  the  order,  and  say — The  Testimony  of  the  Apos- 
tles is  the  only  and  all-sufficient  means  of  uniting  all  Chris- 
tians. The  union  of  Christians  with  the  Apostles'  testimony  is 
all-sufficient  and  alone  sufficient  to  the  conversion  of  the 
world.  Neither  truth  alone  nor  union  alone  is  sufficient  to  sub- 
due the  unbelieving  nations;  but  truth  and  union  combined  are 
omnipotent.  They  are  omnipotent,  for  God  is  in  them  and  with 
them,  and  has  consecrated  and  blessed  them  for  this  very  pur- 
pose.— Alexander  Campbell. 


TF  a  man  isolates  himself 
from  other  Christians  on 
the  theory  that  he  is  better 
than  others  personally  or 
theologically,  pray  for  that 
man,  for  he  has  a  plague  that 
is  the  most  deadly  disease  in 
the  world. 


AN  APPEAL  TO  ALL  CHRISTIAN  PEOPLE 

From  the  Bisnors  Assembled  in  the  Lambeth  Conference  of  1920 

We,  archbishops,  bishops  metropolitan,  and  other  bishops 
of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  in  full  communion  with 
the  Church  of  England,  in  conference  assembled,  real- 
izing the  responsibility  which  rests  upon  us  at  this 
time,  and  sensible  of  the  sympathy  and  the  prayers  of 
many,  both  within  and  without  our  own  communion, 
make  this  appeal  to  all  Christian  people. 

We  acknowledge  all  those  who  believe  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  have  been  baptized  into  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Trinity,  as  sharing  with  us  membership  in  the 
universal  Church  of  Christ  which  is  His  Body.  We  be- 
lieve that  the  Holy  Spirit  has  called  us  in  a  very  solemn 
and  special  manner  to  associate  ourselves  in  penitence 
and  prayer  with  all  those  who  deplore  the  divisions  of 
Christian  people,  and  are  inspired  by  the  vision  and 
hope  of  a  visible  unity  of  the  whole  Church. 

I.  We  believe  that  God  wills  fellowship.  By  God's 
own  act  this  fellowship  was  made  in  and  through  Jesus 
Christ  and  its  life  is  in  His  Spirit.  We  believe  that  it 
is  God's  purpose  to  manifest  this  fellowship,  so  far  as 
this  world  is  concerned,  in  an  outward,  visible,  and 
united  society,  holding  one  faith,  having  its  own  recog- 
nised officers,  using  God-given  means  of  grace,  and  in- 
spiring all  its  members  to  the  world-wide  service  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  This  is  what  we  mean  by  the  Catholic 
Church. 

II.  This  united  fellowship  is  not  visible  in  the  world 
to-day.  On  the  one  hand  there  are  other  ancient  epis- 
copal communions  in  East  and  West,  to  whom  ours  is 
bound  by  many  ties  of  common  faith  and  tradition.  On 
the  other  hand  there  are  the  great  non-episcopal  com- 
munions, standing  for  rich  elements  of  truth,  liberty  and 
life  which  might  otherwise  have  been  obscured  or  neg- 
lected.   With  them  we  are  closely  linked  by  many  affini- 


90  THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

ties,  racial,  historical  and  spiritual.  We  cherish  the 
earnest  hope  that  all  these  communions,  and  our  own, 
may  be  led  by  the  Spirit  into  the  unity  of  the  faith  and 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God.  But  in  fact  we  are 
all  organized  in  different  groups,  each  one  keeping  to 
itself  gifts  that  rightly  belong  to  the  whole  fellowship, 
and  tending  to  live  its  own  life  apart  from  the  rest. 

III.  The  causes  of  division  lie  deep  in  the  past,  and 
are  by  no  means  simple  or  wholly  blameworthy.  Yet 
none  can  doubt  that  self-will,  ambition,  and  lack  of  char- 
ity among  Christians  have  been  principal  factors  in  the 
mingled  process,  and  that  these,  together  with  blindness 
to  the  sin  of  disunion,  are  still  mainly  responsible  for  the 
breaches  of  Christendom.  We  acknowledge  this  condi- 
tion of  broken  fellowship  to  be  contrary  to  God's  will, 
and  we  desire  frankly  to  confess  our  share  in  the  guilt 
of  thus  crippling  the  Body  of  Christ  and  hindering  the 
activity  of  His  Spirit. 

IV.  The  times  call  us  to  a  new  outlook  and  new 
measures.  The  faith  cannot  be  adequately  apprehended 
and  the  battle  of  the  kingdom  cannot  be  worthily  fought 
while  the  body  is  divided,  and  is  thus  unable  to  grow 
up  into  the  fulness  of  the  life  of  Christ.  The  time  has 
come,  we  believe,  for  all  the  separated  groups  of  Chris- 
tians to  agree  in  forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind 
and  reaching  out  towards  the  goal  of  a  reunited  Catho- 
lic Church.  The  removal  of  the  barriers  which  have 
arisen  between  them  will  only  be  brought  about  by  a  new 
comradeship  of  those  whose  faces  are  definitely  set  this 
way. 

The  vision  which  rises  before  us  is  that  of  a  Church, 
genuinely  catholic,  loyal  to  all  truth,  and  gathering  into 
its  fellowship  all  "who  profess  and  call  themselves 
Christians,"  within  whose  visible  unity  all  the  treasures 
of  faith  and  order,  bequeathed  as  a  heritage  by  the  past 
to  the  present,  shall  be  possessed  in  common,  and  made 


AN     APPEAL     TO     ALL     CHRISTIAN     PEOPLE    91 

serviceable  to  the  whole  body  of  Christ.  Within  this 
unity  Christian  communions  now  separated  from  one  an- 
other would  retain  much  that  has  long  been  distinctive 
in  their  methods  of  worship  and  service.  It  is  through 
a  rich  diversity  of  life  and  devotion  that  the  unity  of  the 
whole  fellowship  will  be  fulfilled. 

V.  This  means  an  adventure  of  goodwill  and  still 
more  of  faith,  for  nothing  less  is  required  than  a  new 
discovery  of  the  creative  resources  of  God.  To  this  ad- 
venture we  are  convinced  that  God  is  now  calling  all  the 
members  of  His  Church. 

VI.  We  believe  that  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church 
will  be  found  to  involve  the  whole-hearted  acceptance 
of: 

The  Holy  Scriptures,  as  the  record  of  God's  revela- 
tion of  Himself  to  man,  and  as  being  the  rule  and  ulti- 
mate standard  of  faith;  and  the  creed  commonly  called 
Nicene,  as  the  sufficient  statement  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  either  it  or  the  Apostles'  Creed  as  the  baptismal  con- 
fession of  belief : 

The  divinely  instituted  sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the 
Holy  Communion,  as  expressing  for  all  the  corporate 
life  of  the  whole  fellowship  in  and  with  Christ : 

A  ministry  acknowledged  by  every  part  of  the  Church 
as  possessing  not  only  the  inward  call  of  the  Spirit,  but 
also  the  commission  of  Christ  and  the  authority  of  the 
whole  body. 

VII.  May  we  not  reasonably  claim  that  the  epis- 
copate is  the  one  means  of  providing  such  a  ministry? 
It  is  not  that  we  call  in  question  for  a  moment  the  spir- 
itual reality  of  the  ministries  of  those  communions  which 
do  not  possess  the  episcopate.  On  the  contrary  we 
thankfully  acknowledge  that  these  ministries  have  been 
manifestly  blessed  and  owned  by  the  Holy  Spirit  as  ef- 
fective means  of  grace.  But  we  submit  that  considera- 
tions alike  of  history  and  of  present  experience  justify 


92  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  claim  which  we  make  on  behalf  of  the  episcopate. 
Moreover,  we  would  urge  that  it  is  now  and  will  prove 
to  be  in  the  future  the  best  instrument  for  maintaining 
the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  Church.  But  we  greatly 
desire  that  the  office  of  a  bishop  should  be  everywhere 
exercised  in  a  representative  and  constitutional  manner, 
and  more  truly  express  all  that  ought  to  be  involved  for 
the  life  of  the  Christian  family  in  the  title  of  Father-in- 
God.  Nay  more,  we  eagerly  look  forward  to  the  day 
when  through  its  acceptance  in  a  united  Church  we  may 
all  share  in  that  grace  which  is  pledged  to  the  members 
of  the  whole  body  in  the  apostolic  rite  of  the  laying-on 
of  hands,  and  in  the  joy  and  fellowship  of  a  Eucharist 
in  which  as  one  family  we  may  together,  without  any 
doubtfulness  of  mind,  offer  to  the  one  Lord  our  worship 
and  service. 

VIII.  We  believe  that  for  all  the  truly  equitable  ap- 
proach to  union  is  by  the  way  of  mutual  deference  to  one 
another's  consciences.  To  this  end,  we  who  send  forth 
this  appeal  would  say  that  if  the  authorities  of  other 
communions  should  so  desire,  we  are  persuaded  that, 
terms  of  union  having  been  otherwise  satisfactorily  ad- 
justed, bishops  and  clergy  of  our  communion  would  will- 
ingly accept  from  these  authorities  a  form  of  commis- 
sion or  recognition  which  would  commend  our  ministry 
to  their  congregations,  as  having  its  place  in  the  one 
family  life.  It  is  not  in  our  power  to  know  how  far  this 
suggestion  may  be  acceptable  to  those  to  whom  we  offer 
it.  We  can  only  say  that  we  offer  it  in  all  sincerity  as 
a  token  of  our  longing  that  all  ministries  of  grace,  theirs 
and  ours,  shall  be  available  for  the  service  of  our  Lord 
in  a  united  Church. 

It  is  our  hope  that  the  same  motive  would  lead  min- 
isters who  have  not  received  it  to  accept  a  commission 
through  episcopal  ordination,  as  obtaining  for  them  a 
ministry  throughout  the  whole  fellowship. 


AN    APPEAL     TO     ALiL     CHRISTIAN     PEOPLE    93 

In  so  acting  no  one  of  us  could  possibly  be  taken  to 
repudiate  bis  past  ministry.  God  forbid  that  any  man 
should  repudiate  a  past  experience  rich  in  spiritual  bless- 
ings for  himself  and  others.  Nor  would  any  of  us  be 
dishonouring  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  Whose  call  led  us 
all  to  our  several  ministries,  and  Whose  power  enabled 
us  to  perform  them.  We  shall  be  publicly  and  formally 
seeking  additional  recognition  of  a  new  call  to  wider  serv- 
ice in  a  reunited  Church,  and  imploring  for  ourselves 
God's  grace  and  strength  to  fulfil  the  same. 

IX.  The  spiritual  leadership  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  days  to  come,  for  which  the  world  is  manifestly  wait- 
ing, depends  upon  the  readiness  with  which  each  group 
is  prepared  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  a  common 
fellowship,  a  common  ministry,  and  a  common  service 
to  the  world. 

We  place  this  ideal  first  and  foremost  before  ourselves 
and  our  own  people.  We  call  upon  them  to  make  the 
effort  to  meet  the  demands  of  a  new  age  with  a  new  out- 
look. To  all  other  Christian  people  whom  our  words 
may  reach  we  make  the  same  appeal.  We  do  not  ask 
that  any  one  communion  should  consent  to  be  absorbed 
in  another.  We  do  ask  that  all  should  unite  in  a  new 
and  great  endeavour  to  recover  and  to  manifest  to  the 
world  the  unity  of  the  Body  of  Christ  for  which  He 
prayed. 


SCOTTISH  CHURCH  REUNION 

By  Eev.  Robert  Forgan,  D.D.,  Minister  United  Free  Church, 

Aberdeen,  Scotland 

The  specific  subject  of  this  paper  is  the  movement 
towards  union  between  the  Church  of  Scotland  and  the 
United  Free  Church  of  Scotland.  This  is  not  the  occa- 
sion on  which  to  discuss  the  duty  or  desirability  of 
Church  union  in  the  abstract,  or  to  enlarge  upon  the  high 
spiritual  aspects  of  the  subject.  Let  it  suffice  to  say 
in  one  word  that  while  an  ecclesiastically  engineered 
amalgamation  of  Church  machinery  might  do  very  little 
for  the  real  religious  good  of  Scotland,  a  genuine  incor- 
porating union  of  the  two  Churches  concerned,  if  carried 
through  in  an  earnest  and  sympathetic  spirit,  ought 
surely  to  result  in  a  great  quickening  of  the  religious 
zeal  and  the  spiritual  life  of  our  Scottish  people.  Tak- 
ing that  for  granted,  I  propose  to  come  to  close  quarters 
at  once  with  the  actual  movement  towards  union  about 
which  I  am  to  write  in  these  brief  pages.  First  of  all, 
I  shall  briefly  set  forth  the  object,  origin,  and  course  of 
the  movement,  and  then  second,  I  shall  try  to  state  as 
exactly  as  possible  the  position  which  the  movement  has 
now  reached. 

The  object  of  the  movement  has  from  the  first  been 
severely  practical.  Every  step  taken  has  had  in  view 
the  removal  of  the  main  causes  which  at  present  keep 
the  two  Churches  apart  in  the  hope  of  preparing  the  way 
for  the  reunion  of  Presbyterianism  in  Scotland.  It  is 
essential  to  remember  this  practical  aim,  otherwise  we 
may  all  too  easily  find  ourselves  bogged  and  befogged  in 
a  discussion  of  theoretical  abstractions.  We  cannot  in- 
deed avoid  referring  to  certain  historical  fundamental 
principles.  These  have  to  be  dealt  with,  but  always  with 
the  practical  object  of  the  movement  in  full  vieAv. 

The  origin  of  the  movement  dates  from  the  "Church 
crisis ' '  of  our  United  Free  Church,  which  followed  upon 


SCOTTISH     CHURCH     REUNION  95 

the  House  of  Lords'  judgment  in  the  Church  Case  in 
1904.  That  judgment,  though  not  so  designed,  seriously 
affected  by  implication  the  doctrinal  position  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland.  And  one  immediate  result  was  that 
in  the  Act  of  Parliament  passed  to  put  right  the  wrong 
done  to  the  United  Free  Church,  occasion  was  taken  to 
insert  a  clause  empowering  the  Church  of  Scotland  to 
adjust  its  relation  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  by  chang- 
ing the  formula  of  subscription.  But  that  was  not  all. 
Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh  has  publicly  stated  that  from 
the  day  of  the  House  of  Lords'  judgment  he  felt  that  a 
union  of  the  Churches  would  be  the  result.  It  is  one 
more  illustration  of  the  fine  irony  of  Providence  that 
Lord  Halsbury's  "smashing  blow  to  Non-conformity," 
as  he  called  it,  should  first  render  the  Established 
Church  doctrinally  restive  and  then  lead  to  proposals 
for  union  on  terms  which  involve  the  absolute  setting 
aside  of  the  positions  he  laid  down. 

In  1906  came  our  United  Free  Church  Declaration  of 
Spiritual  Independence.  With  this  declaration  very 
many  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  sympathised.  They  dis- 
liked the  position  of  antiquated  exclusiveness  assigned  to 
them  by  the  law  as  interpreted  by  Lord  Halsbury.  They 
felt  it  was  not  true  that  they  were  the  only  body  in  Scot- 
land entitled  to  be  regarded  as  a  Church.  To  their 
credit,  they  perceived  that  the  situation  was  intolerable. 
Something  had  to  be  done.  The  more  they  reflected, 
the  more  clearly  they  recognized  the  value  of  the  great 
principle  of  spiritual  freedom  for  which  we  of  the  United 
Free  Church  had  so  long  fought  and  so  often  suffered. 
The  upshot  was  a  growing  desire  that  the  two  Scottish 
Churches  should  draw  together.  Thus  the  movement 
originated.     Now  we  come  to  the  course  it  has  followed. 

The  first  proposal  made  by  the  Church  of  Scotland  in 
1908  was  that  the  two  Churches  should  appoint  commit- 
tees to  confer  on  possible  methods  of  cooperation.     To 


96  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

this  proposal  the  United  Free  Church  replied  that  while 
informal  cooperation  might  be  possible,  officially  organ- 
ised cooperation  on  equal  terms  seemed  impracticable, 
and  suggested  that,  instead,  the  two  Churches  ought  to 
appoint  committees  to  enter  upon  unrestricted  confer- 
ence regarding  the  main  causes  which  keep  the  Churches 
apart  in  the  hope  of  thereby  promoting  the  reunion  of 
Scottish  Presbyterianism.  This  suggestion  the  Church 
of  Scotland  accepted,  and  in  1909,  the  two  committees 
were  appointed.  The  members  were  largely  strangers  to 
each  other,  and  for  a  time  progress  was  slow ;  but  by  and 
by  a  spirit  of  mutual  confidence  arose,  and  on  both  sides 
an  educative  process  was  entered  upon,  A  profound  im- 
pression was  produced  by  the  results  of  a  careful  inves- 
tigation of  the  religious  condition  of  the  country.  A 
report  and  a  map,  largely  prepared  by  Dr.  Henderson, 
showed  that  where  the  population  was  greatest,  i.  e.,  in 
the  belt  of  country  between  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow, 
there  the  Church  provision  was  least,  while  in  other  parts 
of  the  country  where  the  population  was  least,  there  the 
Church  provision  was  greatest.  The  absolute  moral 
necessity  for  a  vast  re-adjustment  of  agencies  and  re- 
sources was  demonstrated,  and  the  urgent  desirability 
for  a  union  of  the  Churches  with  this  practical  object 
in  view  was  tremendously  reinforced.  The  task  even 
for  a  reunited  Church  was  seen  to  be  a  formidable  one, 
but  the  religious  future  of  Scotland  demanded  that  it 
should  be  faced. 

Thus  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the  need  and  the 
duty  of  union,  our  friends  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  now 
made  a  disconcerting  discovery.  By  the  terms  of  their 
connection  with  the  State,  they  found  themselves  unable 
to  carry  through  any  effective  union.  They  had  not  suf- 
ficient power  of  independent  action.  They  could  not 
change  their  methods  or  transfer  their  resources.  By 
the  sheer  necessities  of  the  situation  they  were  accord- 


SCOTTISH     CHURCH     EEUNION  97 

ingly  compelled  to  reconsider  their  relation  to  the  State. 
At  this  stage,  a  great  day  of  hope  dawned  when  at  a 
meeting  of  the  two  committees  Dr.  Wallace  Williamson, 
then  simply  a  private,  though,  of  course,  an  influential 
member,  bravely  and  frankly  declared  that  he  was  no 
longer  to  be  hampered  by  shibboleths,  or  by  controver- 
sial terms  such  as  establishment  or  disestablishment,  but 
was  out  to  discover  the  right  relation  between  Church 
and  State,  and  to  go  in  for  that,  whatever  might  be  the 
cost. 

Soon  after  this  there  appeared  in  1912  the  epoch-mak- 
ing "Memorandum"  of  the  Procurator,  Christopher 
Johnston,  (now  Lord  Sands).  This  statesmanlike 
memorandum  outlined  a  course  of  procedure  which 
seemed  to  point  in  the  direction  of  a  possible  solution  of 
the  main  difficulties  which  had  been  found  to  block  the 
way. 

The  principal  proposal  was  that  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land should  draw  up  certain  Articles  declaratory  of  its 
constitution  in  matters  spiritual,  and  get  these  recog- 
nised by  Parliament  as  lawful,  because  it  was  clear  that 
only  then  would  the  Church  of  Scotland  be  in  a  position 
to  enter  with  free  hands  into  negotiations  for  a  possible 
union. 

In  response  to  this  memorandum,  we  of  the  United 
Free  Church  naturally  requested  to  see  a  draft  of  the 
Articles  in  this  proposed  constitution.  This  draft  the 
committee  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  set  itself  to  pre- 
pare, frankly  welcoming  help  from  our  committee  and 
more  especially  in  an  informal  way  from  some  of  our 
leading  members.  The  avowed  object,  I  repeat  once 
more,  was  the  practical  one  of  placing  the  Church  of 
Scotland  in  a  position  in  which  it  would  be  free  to  enter 
on  negotiations  for  union  in  an  honourable  way,  not  by 
one  Church  absorbing  the  other,  but  by  each  acting  in 
its  corporate  capacity  and  so  securing  a  union  on  terms 


98  THE     GHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

of  equality  as  Churches.  In  May,  1914,  a  draft  of  the 
Articles  was  presented  to  the  General  Assembly,  which 
ordered  them  to  be  sent  down  to  presbyteries  for  discus- 
sion. But  the  war  broke  out  in  August,  and  the  presby- 
teries found  themselves  too  preoccupied ;  and  for  several 
years  no  further  progress  was  made  except  that  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  ministers  and  congregations  of 
both  Churches  were  drawn  together  in  mutual  helpful- 
ness and  cooperation  by  the  exigencies  of  the  situation 
such  as  the  absence  of  ministers  as  chaplains  and  the 
like.  At  length,  however,  the  Assembly  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  in  1918,  instructed  their  committee  to  re- 
sume its  work  and  to  report  on  the  whole  matter  in  1919. 
Last  May  this  was  done,  and  the  draft  constitution  was 
sent  down  to  presbyteries  for  their  approval  or  other- 
wise as  a  basis  of  approach  to  the  Government  with  a 
view  to  ascertaining  whether  facilities  would  be  given 
for  an  Enabling  Bill.  The  presbyteries  were  instructed 
to  report  to  the  Commission  of  the  Assembly,  and  did 
so  last  December.  As  88  per  cent  of  the  presbyteries 
signified  their  approval,  the  Commission,  as  empowered 
by  the  Assembly,  authorised  the  committee  to  approach 
the  Government  and  reported  the  result  to  the  Assembly 
in  May,  1920. 

Having  thus  set  forth  the  object,  origin  and  course  of 
the  movement  towards  union,  I  come  now  to  say  some- 
thing of  its  present  position.  And  as  I  have  already  had 
to  indicate  the  position  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  so  far, 
I  must  now  deal  more  particularly  with  the  position  of 
the  United  Free  Church.  Where,  then,  does  our  Church 
stand  in  relation  to  all  these  doings  on  the  part  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  1  We  have  neither  been  idle  specta- 
tors nor  neutrals.  Our  committee  has  gladly  and  sym- 
pathetically given  all  the  help  in  its  power,  directly  and 
indirectly,  formally  and  informally,  and  on  the  part  of 
some  members  very  confidentially.     But  let  us  not  for- 


SCOTTISH     CHURCH     REUNION  99 

get  that  we  have  necessarily  had  to  wait,  and  are  still 
waiting,  until  the  Church  of  Scotland  gets  into  a  position 
in  which  it  will  be  free  to  consider  a  plan  of  union  and 
give  actual  and  practical  effect  to  any  plan  of  which  they 
and  we  may  together  finally  approve.  Suppose,  how- 
ever, that  the  proposed  Enabling  Bill  should  be  passed, 
what  will  follow?  The  turn  of  the  United  Free  Church 
will  then  have  come  for  making  a  momentous  decision. 
The  Church  of  Scotland  will  then  have  it  in  its  power  to 
adopt  these  Articles  as  declaring  its  constitution  in  mat- 
ters spiritual.  Can  we  then  regard  it  as  a  Church  with 
which  we  can  hopefully  enter  into  negotiations  for  an 
incorporating  union? 

Before  venturing  to  suggest  how  our  Church  should 
answer  that  momentous  question,  let  me  clear  the  ground 
a  little  by  referring  here  to  two  subordinate  points. 
First,  what  about  consulting  our  kirk  sessions  and  con- 
gregations? Our  General  Assembly  has  already  twice, 
if  not  three  times,  sent  down  our  committee's  reports 
on  this  important  matter  and  invited  and  received  ex- 
pressions of  opinion  from  presbyteries,  sessions,  and 
congregations.  And  though  I  have  no  formal  decision  to 
go  by,  I  fully  expect  that  further  expressions  of  opinion 
will  be  similarly  invited;  and  for  myself,  I  should  like 
every  session  and  congregation  to  be  given  the  opportu- 
nity of  formally  voting  "Yes"  or  "No"  on  the  question 
of  union  before  the  presbyteries  and  the  Assembly  take 
the  final  constitutional  decision  in  the  matter. 

The  second  point  is  a  point  of  strategic  or  tactical  im- 
portance. It  is  not  very  commonly  known,  but  the 
Church  of  Scotland  has  plainly  stated  that  it  is  not  for- 
mally to  adopt  the  Articles  or  send  them  down  under  the 
Barrier  Act  for  adoption  except  as  part  and  parcel  of  a 
scheme  of  union.  The  Enabling  Act  of  Parliament  will 
leave  the  Church  free  to  adopt  or  not  adopt  these  Articles 
as  it  sees  fit.     From  the  point  of  view  of  spiritual  free- 


100         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

dom,  this  is  as  it  should  be,  for  such  Articles  ought  not 
to  be  imposed  or  even  ratified  or  confirmed  by  Parlia- 
ment. It  is  enough  that  they  be  recognised  by  Parlia- 
ment as  "lawful."  But  observe  what  this  involves.  If 
negotiations  were  entered  on  and  broke  down  over  any 
matter,  say,  over  the  disposal  of  the  endowments,  then 
the  Church  of  Scotland  intends  to  fall  back  on  its  present 
position  and  let  the  Articles  become  a  dead  letter.  Some 
critical  persons  say  that  this  will  give  the  Church  of 
Scotland  a  certain  leverage  in  dealing  with  us.  But  as 
against  that,  it  seems  to  me  sufficient  to  point  out  that 
it  will  not  be  easy  for  the  Church  of  Scotland,  after  go- 
ing to  Parliament  for  liberty  to  adopt  these  Articles, 
lightly  to  turn  round  and  say  they  won't  make  any  use 
of  them.  That  would  put  them  in  a  very  unfavourable 
position  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation.  So  we  may  set  aside 
all  unworthy  suspicions  that  the  dice  are  to  be  loaded 
against  us.  Both  Churches  ought  to  negotiate  the  plan 
of  union  unhampered  by  any  fear  of  public  opinion,  and 
trust  to  the  sense  of  honour  in  each  Church  not  to  take 
any  unworthy  advantage  in  the  interval. 

After  these  digressions,  I  now  come  back  to  the  one 
great  question  which  lies  before  our  United  Free  Church 
— Are  we  prepared  to  unite,  or  is  there  any  fundamental 
principle  forbidding  our  Church  to  unite,  with  a  Church 
possessing,  or  willing  to  adopt  these  Articles  as  the  pre- 
vailing and  over-ruling  element  in  its  constitution?  As- 
suming our  Church's  objections  to  the  present  constitu- 
tion of  the  Church  of  Scotland  to  be  valid,  are  those  ob- 
jections removed  by  these  Articles?  There  can  be  no 
question  that  our  Church  of  Scotland  friends  believe 
honestly  that  they  have  set  forth  a  position  on  which  we 
should  be  able  to  meet  them.  And  it  is  not  a  position  of 
compromise.  To  my  mind  there  is  absolutely  no  ele- 
ment of  compromise  in  their  proposals.  The  objections 
of  the  United  Free  Church  to  the  present  constitution  of 


SCOTTISH     CHURCH     REUNION  101 

the  Established  Church  gather  round  two  matters  of  vast 
importance — you  may  call  them  principles,  if  you  like. 
One  is  the  matter  of  spiritual  freedom,  the  other  is  the 
matter  of  State  endowments.  Both  sections  of  our 
United  Free  Church  have  contended  all  through  their 
separate  history  for  spiritual  freedom;  and  they  have 
also  more  than  once  suffered  grievous  material  loss 
rather  than  accept  State  support  under  conditions  which 
in  their  view  hampered  or  destroyed  that  spiritual  free- 
dom which  they  cherished  as  above  all  price.  Both  mat- 
ters, therefore,  raise  the  question  of  the  relation  between 
Church  and  State.  And  it  follows  that  if  that  relation 
can  be  so  changed  as  to  vindicate,  preserve,  and  main- 
tain the  Church's  spiritual  freedom,  then  our  objections 
vanish,  or  ought  to  vanish. 

Now,  I  believe  it  is  universally  granted  that  the  inher- 
ent spiritual  freedom  of  the  Church  as  a  Church  of 
Christ  is  adequately  claimed  and  set  forth  in  the  Articles. 
These  Articles  frankly  and  unmistakably  adopt  what 
was  the  position  of  the  fathers  of  the  Secession  and  of 
the  Evangelical  party  in  the  Established  Church  as 
against  the  Erastians  in  the  Ten  Years'  Conflict  before 
the  Disruption  of  1843.  If  Parliament  recognises  the 
present  Established  Church  to  be  still  the  Church  of 
Scotland  with  the  spiritual  liberties  and  powers  claimed 
in  these  Articles,  we  of  the  United  Free  Church  are 
bound  to  confess  that,  so  far  at  least,  the  way  has  been 
cleared  for  entering  upon  negotiations  for  union.  At 
the  same  time,  it  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  when 
negotiations  are  entered  on,  our  Church's  relation  to 
these  Articles  and  the  exact  position  which  these  Articles 
are  to  hold  in  the  reunited  Church  will  still  remain  open 
for  adjustment.  And  it  ought  also  to  be  added  here  that 
the  liberties  and  powers  of  action  claimed  in  the  Articles 
with  reference  to  changes  in  administration,  mode  of 
electing  ministers,  setting  up  of  new  charges,  and  giving 


102         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

ministers  seats  in  the  Church  courts,  transfer  of  re- 
sources, and  the  like  are  not  to  remain  so  many  mere  good 
words,  but  are  to  be  exercised  and  acted  upon.  Some  of 
our  leaders  quite  recently  felt  certain  misgivings  lest 
possible  misunderstandings  on  these  points  should  break 
out  in  the  reunited  Church,  and  a  whole  series  of  most 
testing  questions  were  asked,  with  the  result  that  our 
Church  of  Scotland  friends  were  found  to  be  quite  pre- 
pared for  the  most  drastic  application  of  the  powers  and 
liberties  claimed  in  the  Articles. 

And  now,  what  of  the  other  matter — the  State  endow- 
ments 1  Well,  all  through  the  old  Disestablishment  cam- 
paign, the  contention  was  that  these  endowments  were 
national  property,  and  as  such  ought  to  be  disposed  of 
by  Parliament.  And  what  do  we  find  to-day?  The 
Church  of  Scotland  is  ready  to  agree  that  a  Parliamen- 
tary Commission  shall  be  set  up  for  the  express  purpose 
of  disposing  once  for  all  of  these  national  endowments, 
provided  only  that  they  are  not  to  be  secularised,  but 
shall  be  applied  for  " pious  uses."  And  still  further 
they  apparently  agree  also  to  the  position  we  of  the 
United  Free  Church  have  taken  up  in  this  matter,  viz., 
that  when  this  Parliamentary  Commission  has  done  its 
work,  the  endowments  turned  into  money  from  commuted 
teinds  and  the  like  and  paid  over  in  satisfaction  of  the 
personal  interests  of  ministers  and  of  congregations 
(for  surely  congregations  have  pecuniary  rights  as  well 
as  ministers),  shall  become  the  private  property  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  in  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same 
effect  as  the  property  of  the  United  Free  Church  is  its 
private  property.  And  mark  what  will  be  the  conse- 
quence of  this :  Not  one  vestige  of  State  control  over  any 
part  of  the  Church's  property  will  be  left. 

How  precisely  a  Parliamentary  Commission  will  act, 
how  much  or  how  little  it  will  assign  to  the  Church,  and 
how  much  or  how  little  to  other  " pious  uses,"  such  as 
education  or  hospitals  or  district  nursing,  it  will  not  be 


SCOTTISH     CHURCH     REUNION  103 

in  the  power  of  either  Church,  as  a  Church,  to  determine. 
Church  members,  as  citizens  and  voters,  may  approve  or 
disapprove,  but  that  will  be  all. 

For  the  rest,  if  the  Church  with  which  our  Church  is 
asked  to  unite  possesses  all  its  property  on  the  same 
terms  as  we  possess  ours,  then  it  would  seem  to  follow 
that  even  the  keenest  voluntary  can  have  nothing  to  say. 

One  other  aspect  of  this  matter,  however,  still  requires 
to  be  referred  to.  In  what  position  will  a  reunited 
Church  of  Scotland,  possessing  complete  spiritual  free- 
dom and  absolute  private  ownership  of  its  property, 
stand  towards  the  State?  Will  it  still  be  an  Established 
Church?  Or  will  it  have  been  disestablished  and  more 
or  less  disendowed?  The  answer  is  that  it  will  be  the 
Church  of  Scotland  recognised  as  such  by  the  State,  but 
no  longer  established  on  the  old  disabling  conditions  nor 
holding  endowments  subject  to  any  special  State  control. 
Its  historic  identity  will  be  formally  and  officially  recog- 
nised and  declared  by  Parliament  as  remaining  undis- 
turbed notwithstanding  these  sweeping  changes  in  its 
constitution,  and  it  will  continue  to  be  and  to  act  as  the 
Church  of  Scotland  in  all  the  public  life  of  the  nation. 
All  ancient  statutes  inconsistent  with  the  Articles  will 
stand  repealed ;  but  the  statutory  relation  of  the  Church 
to  the  State  will  not  be  violently  ruptured,  as  it  would 
be  by  a  formal  Act  of  Disestablishment.  All  power  of 
State  interference  will  have  gone,  but  the  historic  tie 
will  remain,  purified  from  every  element  of  Erastianism 
which  in  the  past  has  poisoned  the  relationship  to  the 
injury  of  the  State  quite  as  much  as  to  the  injury  of  the 
Church.  Eemember  always  in  this  connection  that  if 
the  proposed  union  is  carried  out,  it  is  to  be  the  act  of 
the  two  Churches  on  terms  determined  solely  by  them- 
selves, without  even  being  so  much  as  reported  to  Par- 
liament. And  how  a  United  Church  so  set  up  can  be 
called  a  State  institution  or  an  Established  Church  in  the 
old  sense,  I  for  my  part  am  unable  to  see. 


104         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

Still  further,  it  has  been  expressly  laid  down  that  no 
special  position  of  privilege  for  the  United  Church  will 
remain  of  a  kind  that  would  either  depress  the  position 
of  other  Churches  in  the  land  or  deny  their  right  to  be 
regarded  by  the  law  as  Churches.  A  statutory  dis- 
claimer to  this  effect  has  been  promised. 

The  one  serious  question  about  which  some  may  still 
require  fuller  satisfaction  is  how  much  precisely  may  be 
involved  in  the  statutory  relation  of  the  Church  to  the 
State  which  is  to  remain.  The  difficulty  is  that  in  the 
ancient  statutes  of  the  Realm  of  Scotland  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  references  to  the  kirk,  many  of  them  merely  in- 
cidental, and  many  more  mixed  up  with  other  legislative 
matters,  so  that  it  would  be  a  task  passing  the  wit  or 
skill  of  man  to  disentangle  and  repeal  every  detail  which 
may  now  be  deemed  objectionable.  It  is  conceivable  that 
some  ingenious  Lord  Halsbury  of  the  future  might  at- 
tempt to  find  in  the  terms  of  one  of  these  statutes  ground 
upon  which  the  State  might  still  interfere  with  the 
Church's  spiritual  freedom.  But  against  such  a  con- 
tingency it  is  to  be  expressly  provided  in  the  Enabling 
Act  that  in  all  questions  of  construing  or  interpreting  the 
ancient  statutes  the  new  Articles  are  to  prevail  and  that 
provision  seems  to  offer  as  full  security  as  is  humanly 
possible. 

For  the  rest,  some  risks  must  be  run,  if  any  changes 
at  all  are  ever  to  be  made  either  in  Church  or  State. 
And  in  view  of  the  extraordinary,  and,  I  will  add,  the 
noble  advance  towards  our  position  made  by  the  Church 
of  Scotland  as  it  is  at  present  constituted,  it  seems  to  me 
that  our  Church  is  being  asked  to  take  by  far  the  smaller 
risk  in  the  matter.  They  have  done  a  bold  thing,  and  it 
requires  much  less  courage  on  our  part  to  respond  to 
their  offer  and  grasp  the  hand  they  hold  out  to  us.  May 
God  give  to  both  Churches  the  vision  and  the  faith  with- 
out which  nothing  great  or  good  can  ever  be  achieved. 


PRIEST  OR  PROPHET?     A  QUESTION  FOR 

THE  DAY 

By  the  Eev.  W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas,  D.D.,    Professor    of    Systematic 
Theology,  Wyeliffe  College,  Episcopal,   Toronto 

In  the  Old  Testament,  and  also  in  the  New,  the  fact  of 
a  "ministry"  is  clearly  recorded.  In  the  former  the 
ministry  consists  chiefly  of  two  orders  or  classes  of  men 
— the  priests  and  the  prophets,  each  with  its  own  sphere 
more  or  less  clearly  defined,  and  with  a  work  of  great 
importance  and  absolute  necessity,  because  of  divine  ap- 
pointment. 

The  essence  of  the  priesthood  was  the  representation 
of  man  to  God;  the  essence  of  the  prophetic  office  was 
the  representation  of  God  to  man.  Anything  else  done 
by  priest  or  prophet  was  accidental  and  additional,  and 
not  a  necessary  part  of  his  office.  The  essential  work 
of  the  priest  was  expressed  in  sacrifice  and  intercession, 
and  may  be  summed  up  in  the  word  "mediator."  The 
essential  work  of  the  prophet  was  expressed  in  revela- 
tion and  instruction,  and  may  be  summed  up  in  the  word 
"ambassador."  The  priesthood  meant  propitiation; 
the  prophetic  office,  revelation.  The  priest  was  con- 
cerned with  the  way  of  man  to  God;  the  prophet  with 
the  will  of  God  to  man.  The  two  offices  were  thus  com- 
plementary and,  together,  fulfilled  all  the  requirements 
of  the  relationship  between  God  and  man. 

The  ministry  of  the  New  Testament  is  equally  clear 
and  undoubted,  but  with  certain  great  and  notable  dif- 
ferences. There  is  absolutely  nothing  about  a  special 
order  or  class  of  men  called  priests.  The  only  priest- 
hood, apart  from  the  Lord's,  is  the  spiritual  priesthood 
of  all  believers.  There  is,  however,  much  that  answers 
to  the  essential  ministry  of  the  Old  Testament  prophet, 
but  with  this  difference,  that  ministry  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  not  confined  to  any  one  class  of  believers,  it  is 
the  privilege  and  duty  of  all.     Diversities  of  gifts  in  that 


106         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUABTEKLY 

ministry  there  are  most  assuredly,  but  ministry  gener- 
ally and  of  some  kind  is  for  all.  Indeed,  the  various 
gifts  are  for  the  express  purpose  of  "equipping  the 
saints  for  their  work  of  ministering"  (Eph.  4:12,  Greek 
and  E.  V.). 

Whether,  then,  we  think  of  the  ministry  of  the  priest 
or  of  the  prophet,  it  is  clear  from  the  New  Testament 
that  there  is  no  class  of  believers  to  which  spiritual  func- 
tions exclusively  belong  as  of  absolute  and  divine  ap- 
pointment. What  is  required  for  "decency  and  order" 
is  quite  another  question,  and  though  important  and  es- 
sential, is  assuredly  secondary  to  the  above-named  fun- 
damental principle  of  the  New  Testament. 

From  these  differences  between  the  Old  and  New  Tes- 
taments the  subject  of  this  paper  emerges,  viz.,  "The 
Silence  of  the  New  Testament  as  to  any  Special  Order 
of  Priests  and  Its  Insistence  on  the  Ministry  of  the 
Word." 

THE    SILENCE    OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   AS   TO   ANY    SPECIAL 

ORDER  OF  PRIESTS 

This  silence  is  a  simple  fact.  There  are  twenty-seven 
books,  and.  not  a  single  reference  can  be  found  to  a  spe- 
cial human  priesthood.  But  this  conveys  only  a  little 
of  the  strength  of  the  evidence.  The  New  Testament 
is  not  so  much  a  volume  as  a  library,  and  its  evidence 
consists  of  several  independent  parts,  and  has  a  cumu- 
lative force.  Let  us  take  seven  of  these  representative 
and  distinctive  parts  and  notice  the  result,  (a)  There 
are  the  instructions  of  our  Lord  to  His  disciples  and 
apostles  in  the  four  Gospels,  but  not  a  word  about  a 
special  priesthood,  (b)  There  is  the  first  book  of  gen- 
eral Church  history,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  but  not  a 
hint  of  such  a  priesthood,  (c)  There  is  the  first  detailed 
picture  of  one  particular  Apostolic  Church  in  the  Epistles 
to  the  Corinthians,  but  not  a  sign  of  any  such  priest- 


PRIEST     OR     PROPHET?  107 

hood,  (d)  There  are  the  two  great  doctrinal  Epistles 
for  Gentile  Christians,  Eomans  and  Ephesians,  but  no 
instruction  whatever  as  to  such  a  priesthood,  (e)  There 
is  the  great  doctrinal  Epistle  for  Jewish  Christians,  He- 
brews, but  nothing  in  it  except  our  Lord's  priesthood, 
(f )  There  are  the  three  Epistles  of  pastoral  and  eccle- 
siastical instructions,  1  and  2  Timothy  and  Titus,  but  not 
a  word  of  any  special  priesthood,  (g)  There  are  the 
mature  writings  of  the  two  great  Apostles  of  the  Circum- 
cision, St.  Peter  and  St.  John,  but  no  trace  whatever  of 
this  priesthood.  This  evidence  taken  separately  in  its 
parts  is  striking,  but  taken  as  a  whole  it  is  cumulative 
and  absolutely  overwhelming. 

This  silence  is  a  striking  fact.  Here  twenty-seven 
books,  covering  a  period  of  at  least  forty  to  fifty  years, 
referring  to  the  foundation  and  early  history  of  the 
Church  amid  differences  of  place,  country,  race,  capacity, 
and  conditions  of  life.  Yet  there  is  no  provision  for  a 
special  order  of  priesthood.  It  is  also  a  striking  silence, 
because  (with  one  possible  exception)  all  the  writers 
were  Jews,  and,  as  such,  steeped  in  sacerdotal  ideas, 
language,  and  associations  from  their  earliest  childhood. 
The  Apostles  use  sacrificial  and  sacerdotal  language  on 
several  occasions  to  describe  certain  elements  and  aspects 
of  the  Gospel,  notably,  St.  Paul  in  Eomans  15 :16,  where 
he  speaks  of  his  preaching  as  his  sacred  and  sacrificial 
service,  and  his  Gentile  converts  as  his  sacrificial  offer- 
ing. But  this,  as  the  whole  context  shows,  is  manifestly 
spiritual  and  symbolical  in  meaning,  and  is  at  once  de- 
scriptive and  illustrative  of  his  work  as  a  " prophet' '  or 
preacher  of  the  Gospel.  But  not  one  of  them  ever  used 
the  word  a  sacrificing  priest,  to  distinguish  a  Christian 
minister  from  a  layman.  How  can  we  account  for  the 
avoidance  of  this  familiar  term? 

Bishop  Westcott  is  recorded  to  have  observed  in  some 
of  his  lectures  at  Cambridge  that  this  avoidance  was  the 


108         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

nearest  approach  lie  knew  to  verbal  inspiration.  Some 
of  us  would  venture  to  go  a  step  further,  and  claim  it 
as  an  unmistakable  example  of  the  superintending  con- 
trol of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  composition  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Humanly  speaking,  the  chances  against  avoiding 
the  use  of  Upeus  in  this  connection  are  as  ten  thousand  to 
one.  Indeed,  we  may  almost  say  that  to  refuse  to  ex- 
plain it  by  the  guiding  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  require 
for  its  explanation  what  is  virtually  a  miracle  of  human 
thought,  foresight,  and  mutual  pre-arrangement  among 
several  writers. 

If  it  be  said  that  the  question  is  one  not  of  words  but 
of  things,  we  reply  with  Bishop  Lightfoot,  "This  is  un- 
deniable ;  but  words  express  things,  and  the  silence  of  the 
Apostles  still  requires  an  explanation' '  (Philippians, 
Essays,  p.  264).  Neither  the  word  nor  the  thing  can  be 
discovered  in  the  New  Testament. 

This  silence  is  a  significant  fact.  It  is  what  Bishop 
Lightfoot  calls  "the  eloquent  silence  of  the  Apostolic 
writings"  (Ut  supra,  p.  182).  There  is  no  mention  be- 
cause there  is  no  place  for  it  and  no  need  of  it  in  the 
New  Testament.  In  the  Jewish  economy  a  mediatorial 
priesthood  was  necessary,  because  of  alienation  from 
God,  because  sin  was  not  put  away,  because  the  way  to 
God  was  not  open.  But  now  sin  has  been  put  away,  the 
way  into  the  holiest  is  manifest,  and  for  this  Christ,  our 
divine  Priest,  is  all.  This  the  burden  of  the  teaching  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  the  one  and  only  priesthood, 
inviolable,  undelegated  a7ra/oa/?aTov,  (Heb.  7:24),  of  our 
Lord.  Christ's  priesthood  is  unique,  perfect,  and  per- 
manent; and  as  long  as  He  is  Priest  there  is  no  room 
for  and  no  need  of  any  other  mediator. 

This  silence  as  to  a  special  human  priesthood  shows 
that  such  a  priesthood  is  irreconcilable  with  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  Apostolic  Christianity.  In  this  respect 
"Christianity  stands  apart  from  all  the  other  religions," 


PRIEST     OR     PROPHET?  109 

It  is  the  "characteristic  distinction  of  Christianity" 
(Lightfoot,  ut  supra,  p.  182)  to  have  no  such  provision. 
Where  there  is  no  repeated  offering,  there  is  no  need  of 
an  altar;  where  there  is  no  altar,  there  is  no  sacrifice; 
where  there  is  no  sacrifice,  there  is,  there  can  be,  no 
priest.  The  benefits  of  the  sacrifice  once  for  all  offered 
are  now  being  continually  bestowed  by  Christ  and  appro- 
priated by  the  penitent  believer  without  any  human  medi- 
ator, because  "the  kingdom  of  Christ  *  *  *  has  no  sacer- 
dotal system"  (Lightfoot,  p.  181). 

Of  late,  however,  the  argument  has  been  frequently 
used  that  ministerial  priesthood,  or  the  priesthood  of  the 
ministry,  is  only  the  universal  priesthood  of  believers  ex- 
pressed through  their  representatives,  that  as  the  human 
body  acts  through  its  members,  so  the  Church  as  the 
Body  of  Christ  acts  through  the  ministry  as  its  instru- 
ments and  that,  consequently,  when  the  "priest"  is  ex- 
ercising his  ministerial  functions,  it  is  really  the  Church 
acting  through  him. 

To  this  line  of  argument  the  answer  seems  clear: — 
(1)  There  is  an  entire  silence  in  the  New  Testament  as 
to  this  special,  and,  as  it  were,  localized  priesthood. 
Surely  if  the  ministry  had  been  regarded  as  exercising  a 
priesthood  distinguishable  from  the  priesthood  of  all  be- 
lievers, or  regarded  as  the  priesthood  of  the  Church 
specialized,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  show  that 
this  ministerial  priesthood  existed  in  the  Christian 
Church.  Yet  there  are  no  priestly  functions  associated 
with  the  Christian  ministry  as  such  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  priesthood  of  all  believers  is  inherent  in  their 
relation  to  Christ.  This  is  the  divine  warrant  for  it  and 
there  is  no  such  warrant  for  any  narrower  or  modified 
form  of  it. 

(2)  Is  it  not  at  least  unsafe,  even  if  not  perilous,  to 
base  such  a  novel  and  far-reaching  claim  on  a  metaphor, 
the  figure  of  the  human  body? 


110         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

(3)  The  Scriptural  use  of  this  metaphor  never  dif- 
ferentiates between  the  spiritual  body  and  its  instru- 
ments, but  only  between  members  and  members. 

(4)  The  modern  use  of  the  metaphor  now  in  question 
proves  too  much,  for  while  in  the  natural  body  certain 
members  alone  can  act  and  "minister"  in  certain  ways, 
as  the  hand  does  in  one  way  and  the  foot  in  another, 
in  the  Scripture  idea  of  the  Body  of  Christ  each  member 
has  real  "priestly"  functions.  "That  which  every  joint 
supplieth"  (Eph.  4:16).  These  differences  of  function 
are  only  of  degree,  not  of  kind,  and  do  not  constitute 
the  ministry  a  special  and  localized  priesthood,  a  posi- 
tion which  would  involve  a  difference  of  kind. 

(5)  This  idea  of  a  ministerial  priesthood  as  expressive 
of  the  universal  priesthood  is  a  novel  and  significant  de- 
parture from  the  older  and  still  generally  accepted  idea 
of  the  sacerdotalism  of  the  Christian  ministry.  It  rep- 
resents an  almost  entire  shifting  of  the  ground.  The 
prevalent  conception  of  the  priesthood  of  the  ministry  has 
been  that  of  an  order  of  men  in  direct  touch  with  Christ, 
and,  as  such,  acting  on  the  body  rather  than  for  it.  But 
the  new  use  of  the  metaphor  really  implies  that  the  in- 
struments act  for  the  body  and  through  the  body,  in  the 
sense  of  not  being  immediately  in  contact  with  the  Head. 
The  older  sacerdotalism  maintains  that  the  priesthood 
receives  and  represents  "an  attribute  of  grace  distinct 
from"  that  received  by  the  Church,  "by  virtue  of  which 
grace,  men  are  brought  into  such  relationship  with  God 
that  through  this  instrumentality  they  obtain  the  prom- 
ised blessings  of  the  covenant  under  which  they  live" 
(Canon  T.  T.  Carter,  On  the  Priesthood,  p.  99).  But 
this  view  involves  much  more  than  a  concentration  of  the 
priesthood  of  the  whole  of  the  Church  in  a  part  of  it.  It 
represents  another  line  of  grace  different  from  the  gen- 
eral one  in  kind  as  well  as  in  degree.  Yet  Scripture 
knows  nothing  of  two  separate  lines  of  grace,  one  from 


P  E  I E  S  T     OR     P  R  O  P  H  E  T  f  111 

the  Head  direct  to  the  Church,  and  the  other  from  the 
Head  to  the  ministry. 

The  older  and  nearer  views  of  the  priestly  character 
of  the  ministry  are  therefore  incompatible,  and  sacerdo- 
talists  cannot  have  both.  It  is  impossible  on  any  true 
analogy  to  distinguish  between  the  spiritual  body  and 
its  ministerial  organs  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  or- 
gans the  instruments  of  the  body,  according  to  the  new 
view,  and  yet  in  authority  over  it,  according  to  the  old 
view.  Upholders  of  ministerial  priesthood  must  choose 
between  these  positions,  though  for  neither  of  them  is 
there  any  warrant  or  authority  in  the  Word  of  God. 

(6)  The  functions  of  the  Christian  ministry,  as  such, 
and  considered  in  themselves,  are  those  of  a  personal 
medium,  not  of  a  priestly  mediator;  they  are  prophetic, 
not  priestly,  they  are  exercised  on  behalf  of  Christ  rather 
than  on  behalf  of  the  Church,  and  represent  the  Head 
rather  than  the  Body.  And  even  so  far  as  they  may  be 
said  in  certain  aspects  to  represent  the  Church,  the 
functions  are  "representative  and  not  vicarial"  (Light- 
foot,  Philippians,  p.  267).  In  short,  the  essential  idea 
of  the  ministry  is  8ia*ona,  not  UpdTevfia,  service,  not  sacer- 
dotalism, and  it  can  never  be  too  frequently  asserted 
that  the  fundamental  conception  of  the  Christian  min- 
istry is  that  it  represents  God  to  the  Church  rather 
than  the  Church  to  God,  that  it  is  prophetic  and  not 
priestly. 

(7)  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  this  new  idea 
or  application  of  "ministerial  priesthood"  is  the  refuge 
of  men  who  have  been  driven  from  the  older  position  by 
the  logic  of  Scripture  truth  concerning  the  priesthood  of 
all  believers,  the  uniqueness  of  our  Lord's  priesthood  and 
the  entire  absence  of  any  essentially  sacerdotal  functions 
(such  as  offering  sacrifice)  from  the  New  Testament  con- 
ception of  the  Christian  minister.  In  so  far,  therefore, 
as  the  new  view  implies  a  modification  of,  or  rather  a 


112         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

departure  from  the  older  sacerdotal  view,  it  may  be  wel- 
comed as  at  least  a  significant  change,  but  it  cannot  be 
accepted  as  a  means  of  bringing  back  and  preserving  the 
old  view.  As  already  stated,  the  two  positions  are  in- 
compatible, and  if  the  new  be  true  the  old  was  false.  But, 
in  fact,  neither  the  new  nor  the  old  view  is  Scriptural, 
and  it  may  be  stated  fearlessly  that  there  is  no  function 
or  office  of  the  Christian  priesthood  which  cannot  be  ex- 
ercised by  any  and  every  individual  believer  in  Christ 
of  either  sex,  wherever  and  whatever  they  may  be.  Dif- 
ferences of  function  in  the  Christian  ministry  there  are, 
but  in  the  Christian  priesthood  there  are  not.  So  we 
return  to  our  point  and  call  renewed  attention  to  the 
simple,  striking  and  significant  silence  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  to  any  new  and  special  order  of  priests. 

Side  by  side  with  this  silence  as  to  any  new  order  of 
priests  we  find 

THE  INSISTENCE  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ON  THE  MINISTRY 

OF  THE  WORD 

The  Neiv  Testament  emphasizes  the  nature  of  the  min- 
istry.— The  ministry  of  the  New  Testament  is  twofold, 
for  evangelization  and  edification:  the  ministry  to  the 
sinner  and  to  the  saint.  There  are  at  least  seven  series 
of  titles  associated  with  the  ministry  which  show  the 
character  and  necessity  of  it  in  the  Church.  The  min- 
ister is  a  herald  (K.rjpv$  and  cognates),  a  messenger  of 
good  news  {dayyeXicrr^  and  cognates),  a  witness  {pAprvs 
and  cognates),  an  ambassador  (Upearpevo)) ,  a  servant 
(8ia/covos  and  cognates),  a  shepherd  (iloi/^i/,  obcovofws,  and 
cognates),  and  a  teacher  (SiSaovmAo?,  Upo<f>rjrr^9  and  cog- 
nates). The  variety  and  fulness  of  reference  plainly 
show  the  paramount  importance  placed  on  the  ministry 
of  the  Word. 

The  New  Testament  emphasises  the  message  of  the  min- 
istry.— There  are  two  phrases  that  sum  up  this  message, 


PRIEST     OE     PROPHET?  113 

one  referring  chiefly  to  its  relation  to  God  and  the  other 
to  its  relation  to  man.  "The  Word"  is  the  message  as 
it  expresses  the  mind  of  God.  "The  Gospel"  is  the  mes- 
sage as  it  describes  its  destination  for  and  acceptable- 
ness  to  man.  Associated  with  "the  Word"  we  find  at 
least  seven  series  of  titles  of  the  mesage :  The  Word  of 
God,  the  Word  of  Christ,  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  the  Word 
of  reconciliation,  the  Word  of  salvation,  the  Word  of 
grace,  the  Word  of  righteousness,  the  Word  of  truth, 
the  Word  of  life.  There  are  also  seven  series  connected 
with  "the  Gospel":  The  Gospel  of  God,  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God,  the  Gospel  of 
salvation,  the  Gospel  of  peace,  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom, 
the  Gospel  of  the  glory  of  God. 

These  various  aspects,  so  clear,  so  full,  so  important, 
may  be  all  summed  up  in  three  well-known  passages: 
"  It  is  I " ;  "  It  is  finished  " ;  "  It  is  written. ' '  The  Person 
of  Christ,  the  Work  of  Christ,  the  Word  of  Christ.  Sal- 
vation provided,  wrought,  and  assured.  This  is  essen- 
tially the  complete  yet  remarkably  varied  message  of  the 
ministry  of  Christianity. 

The  Neiv  Testament  emphasizes  the  purpose  of  the 
ministry. — The  ministry  of  the  Word  is  intended  to  bring 
God  and  man  face  to  face — God  revealing,  man  respond- 
ing. It  claims  to  do  for  man  all  that  he  needs  or  can 
need.  Regeneration,  sanctification,  edification,  glorifi- 
cation, are  all  associated  with  the  Word  of  God,  and  at 
every  step  of  the  Christian  life  the  ministry  of  that  Word 
finds  its  place  and  power. 

This  purpose  becomes  realized  in  the  response  of  man 
through  faith.  The  Word  of  God  and  faith  are  correla- 
tives, and  faith  is  emphasized  in  the  New  Testament  be- 
cause it  is  the  only,  as  it  is  the  adequate,  response  to 
the  revelation  of  God.  Faith  brings  the  soul  into  direct 
contact  with  God,  and  the  result  is  "righteousness 
through  faith."    The  Gospel  is  the  power  of  God  unto 


114         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

salvation,  because  in  it  is  revealed  God's  righteousness 
from  faith  to  faith,  having  faith  as  its  correlative  and 
channel  from  first  to  last  (Eom.  1:16,  17).  Faith  re- 
sponds to  God's  Word  and  appropriates  Christ  as  God's 
righteousness  "for  us"  for  justification,  and  God's 
righteousness  "in  us"  for  sanctification. 

This  is  the  New  Testament  "ministry  of  the  Word," 
and  in  all  it  is  ministerial  and  instrumental,  not  media- 
torial and  vicarious.  Who  are  we  but  ministers  through 
whom  men  "believe"?  And  this  ministry  is  a  perma- 
nent element.  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the 
Gospel."  Among  St.  Paul's  concluding  exhortations 
was,  "Preach  the  Word."  St.  Peter's  last  teaching  em- 
phasizes the  Word  of  God.  St.  John's  closing  writings 
exhort  to  ' '  abiding  in  the  Truth. ' '  The  permanent  min- 
istry of  the  Word  is  a  threefold  guarantee  to  the  Church. 

It  is  a  guarantee  of  the  purity  of  the  Church.  When- 
ever it  has  been  neglected,  the  course  of  the  Church  has 
been  deflected ;  and  whenever,  as  at  the  Reformation,  this 
has  been  predominant,  her  purity  has  been  prominent. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  every  backsliding,  the  secret 
of  every  recovery.  There  must  ever  be  in  this  sense  ' '  a 
reversion  to  type." 

It  is  a  guarantee  of  the  progress  of  the  Church.  When- 
ever it  has  been  honored,  there  has  been  extension ;  when- 
ever it  has  been  neglected,  stagnation.  Missionary  work 
at  home  and  abroad  finds  its  definite  trend  and  full  im- 
petus in  the  ministry  of  the  Word. 

It  is  a  guarantee  of  the  power  of  the  Church.  As  a 
protection  against  all  foes  and  for  the  good  of  all  friends, 
let  us  honor  the  ministry  of  the  Word.  There  is  no 
weapon  Rome  fears  more  than  the  Word  of  God.  It  was 
with  a  sure  spiritual  perception  that  Luther  emphasized 
justification  by  faith  as  the  articulus  out  stantis  aut  ca~ 
dentis  ecclesiae,  and  it  is  with  an  equally  sure  instinct 
from  another  standpoint  that  Rome  sees  in  this  doctrine 


PRIEST     OE     PROPHET?  115 

her  most  powerful  enemy,  and  assails  it  with  the  most 
virulent  opposition.  Not  because  of  the  supposed  dan- 
ger to  morality  through  "Solifidianism,"  but,  as  Litton 
well  says,  because  it  cuts  at  the  root  of  all  her  priestly 
power,  Eome  wages  warfare  against  justification  by 
faith. 

This  truth  brings  the  soul  into  direct,  conscious, 
blessed,  satisfying  contact  and  union  with  Christ,  and 
thereby  dispenses  at  once  and  forever  with  a  human 
mediator.  Christ  is  thereby  present  and  no  longer 
merely  represented. 

The  ministry  of  the  Word,  too,  is  our  great  power 
against  Neo-Anglicanism.  In  proportion  as  the  sacer- 
dotal element  goes  up,  the  ministry  of  the  Word  goes 
down.  Exalt  the  priest  and  you  depose  the  teacher,  for 
the  inherent  tendency  of  Sacerdotalism  is  directly  op- 
posed to  that  of  the  preaching  and  teaching  ministry  of 
the  Word  of  God.  Let  our  people  be  saturated  with  the 
truth  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  they  will  find  in  it  their 
power  against  all  Sacerdotalism. 

The  ministry  of  the  Word  is  also  our  power  against 
the  worldliness  of  the  Church  and  congregation.  Let 
the  standard  of  the  Word  be  uplifted  and  pressed  on 
heart  and  conscience,  and  the  worldly  devices  and  ele- 
ments in  our  Church  life  will  fall  away  and  die.  The 
message  of  the  Word  for  holiness  of  heart  and  life  will 
soon  settle  questionable  methods  of  Church  finance, 
Church  life,  and  Church  work.  And  all  this  will  be  so 
because  of  its  power  to  " edify' '  the  believer.  More  and 
better  Bible  classes,  more  expository  teaching  in  our  ser- 
mons, more  individual  meditation  and  study  and  teach- 
ing of  the  Word  will  soon  have  its  blessed  effects  in  the 
individual  and  congregation  life. 

Let  us,  therefore,  honor  the  Word  of  God.  Honor  it 
in  the  soul,  in  the  home,  in  the  study,  in  the  pulpit,  in  the 
congregation,  in  the  college,  in  the  university,  in  the  na- 


116         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

tion.  Preach  it  out  of  a  full  heart,  a  clear  mind,  a  strong 
conviction,  and  a  consistent  life.  Keceive  it  by  faith, 
welcome  it  by  love,  and  prove  it  by  obedience.  Then 
shall  we  have  no  fear  for  present  or  future,  for  the  Word 
is  still  the  seed  that  quickens,  the  sword  that  pierces,  the 
light  that  guides,  the  hammer  that  breaks,  the  meat  that 
strengthens,  the  milk  that  nourishes,  and  the  honey  that 
delights,  because  it  is  the  Word  of  God  that  liveth  and 
abideth  forever. 


THE  LAST  ADVENTURE 

All  forms  of  life  are  endless;  each  frail  vase 
Is  emptied  o'er  and  o'er — but  filled  again; 
And  never  tangled  is  the  wondrous  maze 
Of  nature's  melodies  through  endless  days — 
And  yet  forever  new  and  sweet  to  men. 

Gleams  hint  that  life  upon  some  future  waits ; 

The  worm  cannot  forecast  the  butterfly — 
And  yet  the  transformation  but  creates 
A  step  in  the  same  nature  which  now  mates 

Our  own — and  may  life's  mystery  untie. 

Mayhap  the  butterfly  this  message  brings : 

"The  law  uncomprehended,  I  obey; 
Although  the  lowliest  of  earth-bred  things, 
Even  I  have  been  reborn  with  urgent  wings, 

And  heavenward  fly — who  crept  but  yesterday." 

In  life 's  fair  mansion  I  am  but  a  guest ; 

And  life  will  bring  fulfillment  of  the  gleam. 
I  trust  this  last  adventure  is  the  best, 
The  crowning  of  this  earthly  life's  behest, 

The  consummation  of  the  poet's  dream. 

— Jannes  Terry  White. 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TOWARDS  UNITY 

By  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  H.  Brent,  D.D.,  Chairman  of  the  Preliminary  Meet- 
ing of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  at  Geneva,  Switzerland. 

Ten  years  ago  a  little  group  of  Christians  embraced  the 
purpose,  first  conceived  at  an  early  Eucharist,  of  join- 
ing together  in  a  special  pilgrimage  towards  unity  in  the 
broken  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  not  a  man-made 
scheme  but  a  humble  endeavor  to  put  ourselves  in  ac- 
cord with  the  mind  of  our  Lord  expressed  in  His  prayer 
that  they  all  may  be  one.  From  this  modest  beginning  a 
world-wide  movement  has  grown,  so  that  at  the  prelimi- 
nary meeting  of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and 
Order  which  has  just  closed  at  Geneva,  eighty  Churches 
and  forty  nations  were  represented.  This  Conference 
marks  a  stage  on  our  journey  and  also  exhibits  the  spirit 
of  the  pilgrims  some  of  whom,  such  as  the  Germans  and 
the  Boumanians,  came  at  great  cost  to  themselves. 

Our  journey  is  a  long  one.  Christians  have  taken  more 
than  a  thousand  years  to  reach  the  far  country  of  dis- 
union where  they  now  reside.  We  cannot  return  home 
again  in  a  moment.  Some  of  the  pilgrims  who  first 
caught  the  vision  a  decade  since  had  hardly  hoped  to  get 
as  far  as  they  have  in  so  brief  a  space  of  time.  The  temp- 
tation is  to  be  content  with  slow  progress,  and  to  rest 
satisfied  with  something  less  than  the  goal  of  God's  plac- 
ing— a  Church,  on  earth,  among  men,  visibly  and  organ- 
ically one.  Partial  unities  seem  more  possible  and  feder- 
ation has  alluring  features,  but  they  fall  far  short  of 
home.  Then,  too,  according  to  God's  design,  impossibili- 
ties are  the  only  aim  high  enough  for  human  capacity. 
We  have  allowed  ourselves  to  take  for  granted  the  ne- 
cessity of  Christian  disunion,  blind  to  the  fact  that  one- 
ness is  the  first,  not  the  last,  requirement  for  God's  firm 
foothold  among  men.  The  tinkling  ambitions  of  separa- 
tion are  shocking  in  the  face  of  a  shattered,  bewildered 


118         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

world  that  is  looking  for  leadership  and  finding  none. 
The  performance  of  the  Churches,  first  and  last,  indi- 
vidually and  collectively,  is  pitiful  measured  by  their 
highsounding  professions  and  claims.  The  failure  of 
Christianity — and  it  has  failed — is  the  inevitable  failure 
of  a  kingdom  divided  against  itself.  It  will  go  on  failing 
until  it  manifests  unity  and  all  the  privileges  and  wealth 
which  each  enjoys  separately  are  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  all. 

The  pilgrims  do  not  maintain  that  theirs  is  the  only 
method  of  travel,  by  the  way  of  conference  on  Faith  and 
Order,  but  they  do  contend  that  theirs  is  the  only  goal 
and  that  the  spirit  for  which  conference  stands  is  the 
only  spirit  for  a  pilgrim  towards  unity — the  filial  spirit 
which  embraces  God's  purpose  as  its  own  and  the  fra- 
ternal spirit  which  claims  each  Christian  as  a  brother  be- 
loved. Through  a  long  stretch  of  time  controversy  has 
burned  with  fierce  flame  in  the  Churches,  great  and  small, 
and  has  blackened  and  scorched  many  a  fair  subject.  It 
is  not  extinguished  yet.  The  spirit  of  controversy  re- 
joices in  dialectic  victory — what  a  hollow  triumph  it  is ! 
— and  gloats  over  a  defeated  foe.  The  spirit  of  confer- 
ence is  the  slave  of  the  Truth  and  weeps  because  gulfs 
remain  unbridged  and  good  men  are  alienated  from  one 
another.  Controversy  loves  war  and  conference  loves 
peace.  Controversy  has  great  respect  for  its  own  con- 
victions and  little  for  those  of  others.  Conference  ap- 
plies the  Golden  Kule  to  the  separated  and  demands  mu- 
tual respect  for  each  other's  convictions. 

For  a  week  the  pilgrims  were  in  conference  in  Geneva. 
Differences  of  thought  were  sketched  in  clear  out- 
line nor  did  any  immediate  reconciliation  appear  on  the 
horizon,  but  never  was  there  a  word  of  harshness  or  self- 
will.  The  common  conviction  at  the  centre  of  being,  was 
that  difficulties  boldly  exposed  and  openly  met,  were  the 
only  difficulties  in  a  fair  way  to  settlement.    "What  ap- 


A     PILGRIMAGE     TOWARDS     UNITY  119 

pear  as  contradictions  have,  as  the  secret  of  their 
strength,  riches  of  being  which,  when  at  length  put  into 
harmonious  relation  to  the  whole  of  God's  scheme,  will 
be  revealed  as  supplementary  elements  necessary  to  per- 
fection. The  study  of  the  Church  as  it  exists  in  the  mind 
of  God,  of  what  we  mean  by  unity,  of  the  sources  of  the 
Church's  inspiration,  of  the  best  expression  in  language 
of  a  living  faith,  occupied  the  prayers  and  thoughts  of 
the  pilgrims  during  the  conference,  and  for  a  long  time 
to  come  will  continue  to  occupy  them.  Faith  first  and 
then  Order.  The  inner  principle  of  life,  the  ideal,  and 
then  the  mode  of  propagating  and  protecting  by  organic 
self-government  of  what  is  within. 

The  competition  of  Churches  received  a  body  blow 
from  the  united  action  of  the  pilgrims.  It  is  a  sin  against 
love  to  endeavor  to  detach  a  Christian  from  his  own 
Church  in  order  to  aid  another  Church  to  increase  its  roll. 
Sheep-stealing  in  the  cattle  world  is  held  to  be  a  crime. 
How  then  ought  it  to  be  viewed  by  the  under-shepherds 
of  the  Good  Shepherd  1  That  is  a  question  which  the  pil- 
grims ask  of  all  the  Churches.  It  is  not  as  though  the 
whole  world  were  evangelized  or  there  were  any  dearth 
of  opportunity  anywhere.  The  number  of  unconverted 
and  untouchd  in  almost  any  given  community  form  the 
majority  of  that  community.  A  combined  effort  in  the 
direction  of  those  who  know  not  Christ  is  our  elementary 
duty. 

The  Spirit  of  God  was  the  strength  of  the  pilgrims. 
He  made  us  one  in  our  fellowship.  The  conference  was 
a  living  body.  Life  touched  life,  nation  touched  nation, 
the  spirit  of  the  East  held  communion  with  the  spirit  of 
the  "West  as  perhaps  never  before.  By  invitation  on  the 
last  day  of  the  conference  we  gathered  together — it  was 
the  Feast  of  the  Transfiguration  in  the  Eastern  calendar 
— in  the  Eussian  Orthodox  Church  in  Geneva  for  the  sol- 
emn worship  of  the  divine  liturgy.     Anglican,  Baptist, 


120         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

Old  Catholic,  Presbyterian,  Wesleyan,  Lutheran,  Quaker, 
were  all  there,  and  all  there  to  worship.  The  Metropoli- 
tan of  Seleukia  in  a  spiritual  address  spoke  to  the  pil- 
grims of  his  own  joy  in  the  vision  of  unity,  and  told  how, 
out  of  the  transfigured  troubles  and  pains  of  the  present, 
would  rise  the  glory  of  the  future.  We  of  the  West  need 
the  fragrant,  graceful  worship  of  the  East.  The  beauty 
of  God  filled  His  temple.  We  felt  that  we  had  been  drawn 
within  the  pearly  gates  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  we  came 
away  with  pain  benit  and  grapes  in  our  hands,  and  sweet- 
ness in  our  souls,  under  the  spell  of  the  mystic  East.  It 
was  fitting  that  we  should  forthwith  consider  certain  pro- 
posals of  the  Orthodox  Churches,  sane  and  strong,  touch- 
ing on  cooperation  and  fellowship.  A  few  minutes  later 
and  the  conference  became  a  fact  of  history,  a  hope  and 
a  vision. 

The  pilgrims  go  home  with  added  inspiration,  convic- 
tion and  responsibility.  No  one  departed  unmoved. 
What  another  decade  will  bring  forth  in  this  movement 
who  can  say  ?  But  it  is  in  the  hands  of  God  from  Whom 
it  came  and  to  Whom  it  belongs.  It  is  ours  only  so  far 
as  we  recognize  it  to  be  His.  Directly  and  indirectly  it 
has  already  reached  far.  Its  possibilities  are  measured 
only  by  our  willingness  to  explore  them.  They  will  be 
realized  fully  if  we  pilgrims  continue  to  aim  to  do  our 
little  share  as  God  whose  coworkers  we  are,  does  His 
great  share.  Some  day  there  will  be  one  flock  under  one 
Shepherd.  We  pilgrims  register  our  active  belief  in  this 
fact  and  promise  to  pursue  our  journey  until  we  reach 
the  Heaven  where  we  would  be. 


THE  DISCIPLES'  PROGRAMME  FOR  UNION 

By  Prof.  George  W.  Brown,  Ph.D.,  Transylvania  College, 

Lexington,  Ky. 

The  movement  of  the  Disciples  was  born  of  a  sentiment 
for  Christian  union.  According  to  Eichardson  (Memoirs 
of  Alexander  Campbell),  when  Thomas  Campbell  settled 
in  Western  Pennsylvania,  "the  Seceder  congregations 
(to  which  sect  Campbell  belonged)  were  much  pleased  at 
having  so  important  an  accession  to  their  ministry,    *    * 

*  *  they  came  to  regard  him  as  the  most  Jearned  and 
talented  in  their  ranks.  He  had  not,  however,  been  very 
long  engaged  in  his  regular  ministrations  among  the 
churches  before  some  suspicions  began  to  arise  in  the 
minds  of  his  ministerial  brethren  that  he  was  disposed 
to  relax  too  much  the  rigidness  of  their  ecclesiastical 
rules,  and  to  cherish  for  other  denominations  feelings  of 
fraternity  and  respect  in  which  they  could  not  share. 

*  *  *  It  happened  that  about  this  time  he  was  deputed 
to  visit  a  few  scattered  members  of  the  flock  who  were 
living  at  some  distance  up  the  Alleghany,  above  Pitts- 
burg, and  to  hold  among  them,  in  company  with  a  young 
minister,  a  Mr.  Wilson,  a  communion  celebration.  This 
part  of  the  country  was  then  thinly  settled,  and  it  was 
seldom  that  ministerial  services  were  enjoyed  by  the  va- 
rious fragments  of  religious  parties  which  had  been 
thrown  together  in  the  circling  eddies  of  these  new  set- 
tlements. Mr.  Campbell's  sympathies  were  strongly 
aroused  in  regard  to  the  destitute  condition  of  some  of 
the  vicinity  who  belonged  to  other  branches  of  the  Pres- 
byterian family,  and  who  had  not,  for  a  long  time,  had 
the  opportunity  of  partaking  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and 
he  felt  it  his  duty,  in  the  preparation  sermon,  to  lament 
the  existing  divisions,  and  to  suggest  that  all  his  pious 
hearers,  who  felt  so  disposed  and  duly  prepared,  should, 
without  respect  to  party  differences,  enjoy  the  benefits 
of  the  communion  season  then  providentially  afforded 


122         THE     CHKISTIAN     UNION     QUART  EELY 

them.  Mr.  Wilson  did  not,  at  that  time,  publicly  oppose 
these  overtures,  but  finding  that  Mr,  Campbell  had  lit- 
tle respect  for  the  division  walls  which  the  different  par- 
ties had  built  up  with  so  much  pains,  his  sectarian  prej- 
udices became  fully  aroused.  He  felt  it  his  duty,  there- 
fore, at  the  next  meeting  of  the  presbytery,  to  lay  the 
case  before  it  in  the  usual  form  of  '  libel. '  ? '  It  was  this 
regard  for  the  conditions  of  others  not  of  his  own  sect, 
and  the  resulting  opposition  of  Mr.  "Wilson,  which  led  to 
the  dispute  between  Mr.  Campbell  and  the  Seceder  pres- 
bytery, and  eventually  to  his  separation  from  that  com- 
munion, and  the  establishment  of  the  Disciple  movement. 

The  great  fundamental  document  of  the  new  move- 
ment, written  by  Thomas  Campbell  and  given  to  the 
world  shortly  after  the  culmination  of  the  dispute  with 
the  presbytery,  is  the  " Declaration  and  Address."  Per- 
haps the  most  significant  passage  in  this  great  document 
is  this  one ;  ' '  You  are  all,  dear  brethren,  equally  included 
as  the  objects  of  our  esteem  and  love.  With  you  all  we 
desire  to  unite  in  the  bonds  of  an  entire  Christian  unity — 
Christ  alone  being  the  head,  the  center,  His  word  the 
rule,  and  explicit  belief  of  and  manifest  conformity  to  it 
in  all  things,  the  terms."  Here  we  have  set  forth  the 
great  purpose  of  the  movement,  union  in  Christ;  the 
platform  proposed  is  the  Word  of  Christ.  Thirteen 
propositions  subjoined  to  the  document  are  intended  to 
set  forth  succinctly  the  principles  of  the  movement.  The 
first  one  of  these  affirms  that  the  Church  of  Christ  upon 
earth  is  essentially,  intentionally  and  constitutionally 
one ;  the  second  that  there  ought  to  be  no  schisms  in  the 
Church;  third  declares  that  nothing  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered an  article  of  faith  except  what  is  expressly 
taught  and  enjoined  in  the  Word  of  God.  The  remaining 
articles  are  explanations  of  these  three. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  go  further  into  the  early  history 
of  the  Disciple  movement.     Enough  has  been  said  to 


DISCIPLE     PROGEAMME     FOR     UNION  123 

make  it  clear  that  union  was  the  primary  thing  in  the 
movement.  The  programme  for  union  was  the  whole 
programme.  The  platform  might  be  stated  as  loyalty  to 
Christ.  To  be  sure,  it  was  a  spirit  of  loyalty  to  Christ 
which  led  to  the  formulation  of  the  programme  itself,  to 
the  initial  purpose  of  the  movement.  For  a  desire  for 
union  might  grow  out  of  the  ambition  to  rule,  to  magnify 
and  enlarge  one's  own  sect,  or  one's  personal  power  or 
influence.  But  among  the  founders  of  this  movement 
this  was  not  the  case.  The  desire  was  to  live  according 
to  the  principles  of  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John. 

A  pertinent  question  is  this;  Did  this  programme  al- 
ways remain  to  the  front  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Dis- 
ciples f  The  answer  would  be,  that  for  a  time  it  did.  But 
the  movement  suffered  the  same  fate  that  all  other  great 
movements  have  suffered.  That  is,  after  the  first  great 
impulse,  and  especially  after  new  hands  took  control  of 
things,  interest  was  centered  more  on  the  mechanics  of 
the  movement  than  on  the  movement  itself,  more  on  the 
platform  than  on  the  purpose,  more  on  the  formal  than 
on  the  spiritual.  At  first  it  was  a  movement  for  union ; 
it  was  referred  to  as  a  reformation,  or  the  "current  ref- 
ormation.'' During  their  sojourn  in  the  tents  of  the 
Baptists,  the  Disciples  began  to  concentrate  attention  on 
the  restoration  of  the  ancient  order  of  things.  But  this 
was  but  a  means  to  the  end.  The  interest  of  the  early 
Disciples  in  the  ancient  order  could  not  outweigh  their 
broad  sympathies  and  their  desire  for  union.  After  the 
separation  from  the  Baptists,  interest  in  the  ancient  or- 
der, at  least  in  the  minds  of  some,  continued  to  increase. 
Eventually  a  new  name  was  proposed  for  the  movement. 
Perhaps  a  half  century  after  its  successful  launching  as 
a  union  movement,  some  began  to  feel  that  the  primary 
purpose  of  the  movement  was  the  restoration  of  the  con- 
ditions of  the  early  Church,  and  they  began  to  speak  of 
the  movement  as  the  "restoration  movement."    In  time 


124         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

this  view  began  to  be  held  by  a  large  number  of  Disciples. 
They  placed  an  ever  increasing  emphasis  on  restoration, 
with  a  constantly  decreasing  emphasis  on  Christian 
union.  So  pronounced  did  this  attitude  become  that  the 
restoration  wing  of  this  movement,  if  I  may  be  permit- 
ted to  use  the  term,  finally  gave  up  all  direct  efforts  to- 
ward union,  and  centered  its  attention  on  the  elaboration 
of  the  details  of  the  organization,  faith,  and  polity  of  the 
primitive  Church.  To  be  sure,  even  this  wing  professes 
an  academic  interest  in  union.  It  conceives  its  task  to  be 
the  proclaiming  of  the  conditions  of  the  primitive 
Church.  It  feels  that  it  is  the  duty  of  all  to  accept  these 
conditions,  and  when  this  is  done,  union  will  come  auto- 
matically. Some  representatives  of  this  branch  may  oc- 
casionally be  found  who  go  so  far  as  to  deny  the  essen- 
tial Christianity  of  those  who  are  unwilling  to  accept 
these  primitive  beliefs  and  practices  for  themselves,  at 
least  as  these  are  understood  by  them.  To  be  sure,  this 
does  not  represent  the  feeling  of  the  great  mass  of  Disci- 
ples. Nor  is  such  a  feeling  conducive  to  union;  it  sim- 
ply makes  the  holder  of  such  a  view  quite  as  sectarian  as 
any  one  else  and  reduces  him  to  zero  as  a  factor  in  bring- 
ing about  Christian  union. 

One  can  not  question  the  right  of  a  person  or  a  group 
of  persons,  to  change  the  purpose  which  dominates  the 
person  or  the  group.  The  Disciples  have  the  right,  if  they 
choose  to  exercise  it,  of  changing  their  original  union 
movement  into  a  restoration  movement.  One  can  raise 
no  question  as  to  the  motive  which  leads  some  to  cease 
emphasizing  Christian  union  and  to  place  their  emphasis 
on  restoration  as  an  end  in  itself.  But  one  who  has  a 
primary  interest  in  union  can  only  regret  this,  for  he  can 
not  feel  other  than  that  if  this  movement  had  only  the 
present  restoration  programme  before  them,  they  could 
not  legitimately  be  spoken  of  as  having  a  union  pro- 
gramme. 


DISCIPLE     PROGRAMME     FOR     UNION  125 

But  not  all  Disciples  have  joined  in  the  restoration 
programme.  The  majority  of  them  still  keep  before 
them  the  original  union  programme.  Necessarily,  that 
programme  has  to  be  modified  from  time  to  time  in  some 
of  its  details  along  with  the  changing  thought  and  life 
of  the  world.  For  one  thing,  when  the  movement  first 
arose  there  was  a  practically  universal  acceptance  among 
Protestants  of  the  doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration.  Very 
much  of  the  reasoning  and  some  of  the  specific  matters 
advanced  have  had  to  be  changed  because  of  the  fact  that 
relatively  few  thinkers  hold  to  that  doctrine  to-day.  An 
earlier  generation  considered  any  statement  in  the  Bible 
as  having  equal  force  with  all  other  statements  in  it,  for 
is  it  not  all  the  Word  of  God?  True,  some  drew  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments.  All 
written  statements,  though,  had  the  same  value  as  some- 
thing said  by  Christ  Himself.  But  the  present  genera- 
tion does  not  so  regard  the  Bible.  It  looks  for  its  author- 
ity rather  in  the  person  and  character  of  Christ  Himself, 
and  for  guidance  to  the  Holy  Spirit.  Hence  there  is  a 
growing  tendency  among  Disciples,  as  in  the  Christian 
world  at  large,  to  lay  an  ever  larger  emphasis  on  making 
Christ  alone  the  head,  the  center,  to  use  Thomas  Camp- 
bell's words,  with  a  corresponding  tendency  to  look  upon 
the  Bible  as  being  the  history  of  God's  revelation  to  man 
through  the  Jewish  people,  and  the  Prophets,  Apostles, 
and  Saviour  who  appeared  among  them.  In  other  words, 
the  tendency  is  to  exalt  Christ  more  and  more  above  the 
Book  which  contains  the  record  of  His  life  and  mighty 
works.  And  so  the  current  union  programme  of  this 
movement,  and  I  use  the  term  in  contradistinction  to  the 
restoration  programme  advocated  by  some,  centers  more 
on  Christ  than  on  the  practices  or  polity  of  the  Church. 
It  pleads  primarily  for  union  in  Christ,  seeking  only  to 
restore  so  much  of  the  primitive  Church  as  may  be  nec- 
essary to  bring  about  unity,  and  is  not  interested  in  the 


126         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUAETEBLY 

complete  restoration  of  all  the  conditions  of  the  early 
Church.  Union  is  of  greater  importance  than  the  re- 
production of  early  forms;  the  spirit  rather  than  the 
letter  is  dominant. 

This  movement  has  a  big  and  positive  programme  for 
Christian  union  before  it.  A  large  number  of  Disci- 
ples are  most  deeply  interested  in  it,  and  are  firmly  con- 
vinced that  the  plea  for  the  reunion  of  the  Church  is 
the  greatest  message  which  has  been  given  to  the  Chris- 
tian world  since  the  day  of  Pentecost.  They  are  heart 
and  soul  in  favor  of  the  content  and  presentation  of  this 
plea.  Internal  differences  have  kept  many  silent  when 
they  would  have  liked  to  speak,  and  have  held  back  many 
because  of  the  lack  of  strong  leadership  to  take  them 
where  they  want  to  go.  But  the  yearning  is  there,  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands,  who  are  waiting  to  hear  the  clear 
and  definite  enunciation  of  a  programme  which  shall 
come  from  the  whole  united  body. 

The  programme  of  the  Disciples,  as  far  as  it  has  been 
formulated,  exalts  Jesus  to  the  highest  possible  place, 
finding  in  Him  the  revelation  of  the  character  of  God 
presented  to  man  for  his  guidance  in  the  long  journey  he 
is  making  toward  the  attainment  of  the  divine  character. 
It  lays  its  great  emphasis  on  the  Spirit  and  the  Spirit 
filled  life.  It  looks  with  reverence  and  respect  on  all 
who  follow  Jesus  as  being  fellow  Christians,  giving  them 
all  credit  for  their  loyalty  to  Him,  and  pleading  for  union 
with  them,  not  so  much  on  a  categorical  platform  as  in 
Christ  Himself.  It  believes  that  the  reconciliation  of  the 
separated  members  of  the  body  of  Christ  is  to  be  brought 
about  by  love  rather  than  by  logic.  The  programme  for 
union  presents  Christ  as  the  basis  of  union. 

The  present  programme  for  union  concurs  fully  in 
Thomas  Campbell's  dictum,  "That  although  inferences 
and  deductions,  from  Scripture  premises,  when  fairly 
inferred,  may  be  truly  called  the  doctrine  of  God's  holy 


DISCIPLE     PROGRAMME     FOR     UNION  127 

Word,  yet  they  are  not  formally  binding  on  the  con- 
sciences of  Christians  further  than  they  perceive  the  con- 
nection, and  evidently  see  that  they  are  so."  And  prob- 
ably this  generation  would  be  much  more  conservative  in 
the  making  of  such  deductions  than  even  the  generation 
of  Thomas  Campbell.  For  since  Christ  is  being  pre- 
sented as  the  basis  of  union,  and  the  present  generation 
is  conscious  of  its  finiteness  before  him,  it  is  extremely 
careful  about  assuming  a  dogmatic  attitude.  For  Dis- 
ciples are  well  aware  that  many  of  Christ's  followers, 
who  are  on  as  high  a  spiritual  level  as  they  are  them- 
selves, who  have  received  the  earnest  of  His  Spirit  as 
well  as  they  themselves  have,  men  who  are  just  as  keen 
in  intellect  and  just  as  loyal  in  heart  to  Christ  as  they  are 
themselves,  have  come  to  quite  different  conclusions  on 
many  matters  relating  to  the  Church.  And  so  the  Dis- 
ciple who  has  a  union  programme  does  not  assume  a  su- 
perior or  dictatorial  air;  he  meets  others  with  humility 
and  love,  that  together  they  may  be  able  to  find  out  the 
will  of  God.  This  programme  for  union  involves  a  broad 
charity  to  all,  whether  of  their  own  brotherhood  or  not,  a 
bearing  with  differences  of  opinion  and  practice,  a  con- 
stant reconsideration  of  all  the  elements  which  enter 
into  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  Christian  world.  It  in- 
volves a  lessened  confidence  in  the  infallibility  of  one's 
own  judgment,  and  a  greater  turning  to  God,  that  He 
may  lead  to  the  performance  of  His  will. 

The  Disciples'  programme  for  union  involves  harmony 
among  themselves.  The  evil  of  overemphasizing  the 
method  to  be  followed  in  the  obtaining  of  union  rather 
than  placing  the  emphasis  on  union  itself  early  led  to  sad 
fruits  among  them.  It  led  to  a  very  literalistic  way  of 
interpreting  the  Bible.  Things  not  mentioned  in  the 
Scripture  as  part  of  the  polity  or  practice  of  the  early 
Church  were  put  under  the  ban  and  made  a  test  of  fel- 
lowship.    There  were  controversies  over  the  organ,  the 


128         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

Sunday-school,  the  missionary  society.  A  large  number 
who  started  with  the  movement  withdrew,  and  are  now 
known  to  the  census  as  "Churches  of  Christ."  There 
are  over  300,000  of  these,  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  number 
who  ought  to  be  travelling  the  road  together.  Even  now 
there  is  more  controversy.  Again  the  missionary  society 
has  been  brought  to  the  front.  Other  clouds  darken  the 
skies.  That  those  who  opposed  the  main  current  of  Dis- 
ciple thought  and  progress  in  the  past,  or  who  may  be 
opposing  it  at  the  present  have  been  or  are  lacking  in  a 
desire  to  be  loyal  to  Christ  is  not  to  be  thought  of.  No 
doubt  here  and  there  persons  may  be  found  who  from 
some  other  motive  than  this  may  be  taking  the  course 
they  have  taken,  but  this  is  not  true  of  most.  They  are 
frying,  each  in  his  own  way,  to  be  loyal  to  Christ,  but 
they  differ  in  their  conception  of  what  loyalty  demands. 
The  ultimate  triumph  of  the  Disciples'  programme  for 
union  demands  that  their  discordant  elements  get  to- 
gether and  then  live  and  work  together  in  love  and  har- 
mony. The  great  mass  of  Disciples  feels  a  warm  sym- 
pathy with  all  cooperative  movements  and  gladly  join 
in  conferences  with  other  Christians  for  the  furtherance 
of  the  unity  of  the  Church. 


EDITORIAL 


THREE  OUTSTANDING  CONFERENCES 

Switzerland  was  the  meeting  place  during  the  month 
of  August  of  three  conferences,  so  outstanding  in  their 
results  and  purposes  that  it  is  not  inappropriate  to 
name  them  among  the  definite  events  of  the  year  that 
make  for  better  conditions  among  men,  especially  as 
related  to  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  good  will  toward 
all  mankind.  The  first  had  to  do  with  life  and  work; 
the  second  with  faith  and  order;  the  third  with  inter- 
national friendship.  The  three  movements  are  entirely 
independent  of  each  other,  but  they  nevertheless  sup- 
plement each  other.  When  men  come  from  all  parts  of 
the  world  to  confer  regarding  the  principles  embodied 
in  the  phrases  descriptive  of  these  movements,  these  are 
the  indications  of  a  new  and  better  day  in  human  affairs. 
The  combined  delegations  would  not  exceed  four  or  five 
hundred,  but  the  delegates  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  so  that  nearly  a  hundred  different  Christian 
Churches  were  represented  from  nearly  fifty  countries. 
Switzerland  was  the  proper  place  for  such  gatherings, 
especially  Geneva  as  the  starting  place,  because  in  Gen- 
eva near  the  spot  where  John  Calvin  had  Michael  Ser- 
ve tus  burned  alive  at  the  stake  because  of  some  theolog- 
ical differences  between  them,  there  now  stands  a  granite 
shaft  upon  one  side  of  which  is  inscribed  the  simple  fact 
that  at  that  place  Michael  Servetus  died  at  the  stake, 
October  27,  1553,  having  been  born  in  the  village  of 
Agrogan,  September  29,  1511.  On  the  opposite  side  is 
this  inscription: 

We  the  respectful  and  grateful  sons  of  Calvin, 
our  great  reformer,  condemning  his  error,  which 
was  one  of  his  age,  and  holding  firmly  to  the  liberty 
of  conscience,  according  to  the  true  principles  of  the 
Reformation  and  of  the  Gospel,  have  erected  this 
expiatory  monument,  October  27,  1903. 


130         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

There  may  be  as  courageous  Christians  elsewhere 
ready  to  erect  such  expiatory  monuments  as  this  Swiss 
committee,  of  which  Dr.  J.  Eugene  Choisy,  of  the  Geneva 
University,  was  chairman,  but  we  have  not  found  them. 
Although  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  intervened  be- 
fore this  expiatory  monument  could  be  erected,  never- 
theless it  is  erected  and  its  confession  may  be  read  by  the 
whole  world.  There  are  ten  thousand  others  like  it  to 
be  set  up  before  we  can  have  permanent  Christian  unity 
and  permanent  international  friendship.  The  inscrip- 
tions need  not  be  in  stone,  but  they  have  got  to  be  some- 
where, especially  on  the  heart.  Eepentance  is  the 
boundary  line  in  our  approaches  toward  all  permanency 
in  Christian  unity  and  international  friendship.  Per- 
haps the  committees  that  had  charge  of  selecting  the 
places  of  meeting  did  not  know  of  this  modest  monument 
on  Champel.  It  is  likely  that  they  did  not.  Then  it  is 
all  the  more  evident  that  the  Holy  Spirit  called  us  to  this 
beginning  place  for  the  most  difficult  lesson  in  human 
experience. 


CONFERENCE    ON   LIFE   AND   WORK 

This  preliminary  conference,  which  held  its  sessions  at 
Hotel  Beau  Sejour,  Geneva,  was  composed  of  eighty-eight 
delegates  from  fifteen  different  countries.  Out  of  this 
conference  of  little  more  than  two  days  came  what  ap- 
pears to  be  one  of  the  most  important  movements  of  our 
times.  Its  emphasis  is  on  Christian  life  and  Christian 
work.  It  avoids  the  technical  and  goes  at  once  to  the 
simple  and  practical.  There  is  a  democracy  in  its  prin- 
ciples that  must  commend  it  to  all  who  see  the  world's 
need  of  a  better  Christian  life  and  better  Christian  work. 
Its  title  indicates  the  prophetic  element  and  its  catho- 
licity includes  the  whole  Church  if  the  whole  Church  cares 
to  meet  the  world's  greatest  need. 

The  Archbishop  of  Uppsala  has  been  one  of  the  fore- 
most prophets  in  this  movement,  having  proclaimed  it, 


THREE  OUTSTANDING  CONFERENCES    131 

first  in  the  Scandinavian  countries  and  later  throughout 
Europe.  Dr.  Frederick  Lynch  and  Dr.  Charles  S.  Mae- 
f  arland  of  the  American  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches 
of  Christ  have  been  the  spokesmen  on  the  American  side 
of  the  Atlantic  for  internationalizing  the  Federal  Council 
idea.  At  the  meeting  of  the  International  Committee  of 
the  World  Alliance  for  International  Friendship  through 
the  Churches  last  October  at  The  Hague,  the  Archbishop 
ably  laid  this  matter  before  the  committee.  It  was  de- 
cided then  to  make  it  an  independent  movement  and  the 
recent  meeting  at  the  Hotel  Beau  Sejour  was  the  result. 
The  plans  outlined  are  adequate  for  bringing  together 
the  Christian  forces  of  the  whole  world.  The  delegates 
present  were  larger  from  that  part  of  Christendom  des- 
ignated as  the  evangelicals.  All  parts  of  Christendom 
will  be  approached  relative  to  cooperation  in  the  life  and 
work  of  Christianity.  This  makes  an  appeal  for  Chris- 
tian unity  from  an  angle  that  must  arrest  the  thoughtful 
in  the  cause  of  unity  in  all  Churches.  Our  theories  about 
the  unity  of  Christendom  may  be  what  they  may,  but 
Christian  life  and  Christian  work  are  two  forces  that  are 
least  in  the  realm  of  controversy  and  their  service  is 
more  needed  than  that  of  those  subjects  that  are  in  the 
realm  of  controversy. 

It  is  an  introduction  of  the  ethical  element  in  the  prob- 
lem of  Christian  unity,  which  is  greatly  needed,  for  it 
is  altogether  possible  that  the  first  basis  in  Christian 
unity  will  be  ethical  rather  than  theological.  The  first 
is  not  entirely  new  to  many  who  are  already  pioneers  in 
these  ethical  principles  of  cooperation.  Its  newness  con- 
sists in  its  emphasis  upon  life  as  well  as  work  and  the 
international  character  of  both  life  and  work.  Multi- 
tudes of  things  can  be  done  by  this  movement  and  done 
well,  while  without  such  a  movement  divided  Christendom 
might  indefinitely  continue  its  weak  and  unsatisfactory 
contributions  to  the  solution  of  problems  that  have  to  do 


132         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

with  the  common  needs  of  all  nations.  It  will  take  time 
for  this  movement  to  properly  adjust  itself  to  the  imme- 
diate needs,  but  it  is  headed  toward  a  great  task  with 
hopeful  results. 


CONFERENCE  ON  FAITH  AND  ORDER 

Since  1910  all  persons  interested  in  Christian  unity 
have  been  looking  forward  eagerly  to  the  preliminary 
meeting  of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order. 
No  man  has  been  so  tireless  in  bringing  this  to  pass  as 
Kobert  H.  Gardiner,  Gardiner,  Maine,  whose  secretarial 
service  has  brought  him  in  touch  with  all  parts  of  the 
Church  in  every  part  of  the  world.  His  patient  and 
gentle  spirit,  his  strong  and  unfailing  faith  in  the  idea  of 
a  united  Christendom,  his  world  grasp  and  untiring  en- 
ergies have  had  their  reward  in  this  preliminary  meeting, 
held  at  the  Athenee,  one  of  the  university  buildings, 
Geneva,  August  12-19,  1920. 

The  year  1910  was  the  year  of  a  general  awakening  in 
Christian  unity  affairs.  In  the  early  summer  of  that  year 
some  American  Episcopalians  organized  the  Christian 
Unity  Foundation  in  New  York  for  research  and  confer- 
ence. That  fall  the  General  Convention  of  the  Episco- 
pal Church  appointed  a  committee  on  a  world  conference 
on  faith  and  order.  On  the  same  dav  the  American  Dis- 
ciples  of  Christ  in  their  General  Convention  organized 
their  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity. 
About  that  time  the  American  Congregational  Church 
in  their  National  Council  appointed  a  committee  on 
Christian  union.  The  Church  of  England  and  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  Australia  and  Tasmania  made  ap- 
proaches toward  each  other.  Likewise  the  Eastern  Or- 
thodox Church  had  its  interest  quickened  in  the  unity 
©f  Christendom  about  that  time.  The  plans  of  the  Amer- 
ican Episcopal  commission  for  a  wrorld  conference  soon 
put  it  in  the  position  of  leadership  and  the  other  move- 


THREE  OUTSTANDING  CONFERENCES    133 

ments  gladly  cooperated  with  and  supplemented  in  the 
work  of  the  Episcopal  commission. 

In  this  recent  preliminary  conference  eighty  Churches 
were  represented  from  forty  countries.  The  purpose  of 
this  conference  was  to  devise  plans  for  the  World  Con- 
ference, which  is  to  be  held  at  some  time  and  place  not 
yet  decided.  There  was  no  published  programme.  The 
business  committee  arranged  the  programme  for  each 
succeeding  day  as  its  judgment  directed,  consequently 
there  were  no  prepared  addresses  during  any  of  the  ses- 
sions, all  topics  being  informally  discussed.  The  first 
topic  was  "The  Church  and  the  Nature  of  the  United 
Church.' '  The  point  of  contrast  between  the  opposing 
views  was  voiced  by  Bishop  Gore,  of  England,  in  the 
questions :  Must  there  be  an  authoritative  creed,  authori- 
tative sacraments  and  an  authoritative  ministry!  Or  is 
freedom  incompatible  with  such  conditions!  The  dis- 
cussion of  these  topics  revealed  the  difficulties  of  ad- 
justment between  the  institutional  and  non-institutional 
interpretations.  The  sacramentalist  and  the  sacramen- 
tarian  see  things  differently.  There  is  always  progress 
in  a  conference,  however,  when  the  differences  are  clearly 
seen  by  all  parties.  The  next  step  is  for  adjustment. 
Because  men  are  Christians  there  lies  the  possibility  of 
adjusting  Christian  principles  however  widely  they  may 
appear  to  differ.  This  is  the  work  of  the  World  Con- 
ference. 

The  second  topic  had  to  do  with  the  question,  "What 
Is  the  Place  of  the  Bible  and  a  Creed  in  Belation  to 
Beunion?"  Dr.  C.  Anderson  Scott,  of  England,  in  his 
addresses  which  opened  and  closed  the  discussion  on  this 
subject,  recognized  the  permanent  place  of  the  Bible  and 
pointed  out  the  necessity  of  a  revised  creedal  statement 
in  keeping  with  scriptural  declaration  and  modern  times. 
This  at  once  raised  the  question  as  to  the  Church's  atti- 
tude toward  the  ancient  creeds  and  again  there  were  two 
groups — those  who  revered  the  past  so  devoutly  that  they 


134         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

felt  the  ancient  creeds  such  as  the  Nicean  Creed  and  the 
Apostles'  Creed  should  be  incorporated  into  the  life  of 
the  present  day  Church,  holding  continuity  with  all  the 
past,  and  those  who  likewise  revered  the  past  and  honored 
the  long  line  of  the  faithful  in  Christ,  but  who  felt  that 
we  must  speak  to  the  people  of  this  day  in  the  language 
of  to-day.  This  was  carried  further  in  these  questions 
of  the  Continuation  Committee : 

1.  What  degree  of  unity  in  faith  will  be  necessary  in 
a  reunited  Church? 

2.  Is  the  statement  of  this  one  faith  in  the  form  of  a 
creed  necessary  or  desirable? 

3.  If  so,  what  creed  should  be  used,  or  what  other  for- 
mulary would  be  desirable? 

4.  What  are  the  proper  uses  of  a  creed  and  of  a  con- 
fession of  faith? 

These  are  the  questions  for  the  World  Conference. 
Around  these  and  others  like  them  local  conferences  may 
be  and  doubtless  will  be  held  in  preparation  for  the 
World  Conference,  so  as  to  find  the  mind  of  the  whole 
Church  on  these  subjects. 

As  important  as  these  subjects  are  and  no  one  doubts 
their  importance,  there  is  another  transcendently  more 
important,  which  must  have  a  place  in  the  World  Con- 
ference. There  is  a  possibility  that  in  time  there  may 
be  a  unanimity  throughout  the  whole  Church  on  the  sub- 
jects presented  or  there  will  be  such  adjustment  as  to 
make  it  possible  for  the  whole  Church  to  work  together, 
but  without  this  third  element  all  agreements  would  be 
formal  and  meaningless.  Indeed  unity  cannot  come 
without  this.  It  is  expressed  in  the  words  of  Jesus :  "By 
this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples  if  ye 
have  love  one  to  another."  There  may  be  historic  va- 
lidity in  the  creeds,  sacraments,  ministry  and  the  Bible, 
but  no  one  of  these,  nor  all  of  these  combined  are  the 
real  evidences  of  discipleship.  Love  is  that  divine  in- 
signia.    Society  has  not  accepted  it.     Political  govern- 


THREE     OUT  STAN  DING    CONFERENCES        135 

ments  know  nothing  about  it.  The  Church  is  largely  ig- 
norant of  it  and  the  best  evidence  of  its  lack  of  knowledge 
is  its  complacency  in  the  midst  of  its  multiplicity  of 
divisions  and  its  patronage  of  the  inequitable  conditions 
around  us.  Love  is  so  revolutionary  that  its  practice 
would  upset  the  present  social  order.  The  way  to  its 
understanding  is  not  easy.  The  other  subjects  may  be 
worked  out  satisfactorily  in  the  library  and  around 
the  conference  table,  but  the  meaning  of  love  can  only 
be  found  as  Jesus  revealed  it  in  his  life  and  death. 
Well  might  He  say  to  the  various  Christian  commun- 
ions, as  He  said  to  His  disciples  of  old,  "Are  ye  able 
to  drink  the  cup  that  I  drink  of  and  be  baptized  with 
the  baptism  which  I  am  baptized  with?"  It  is  a  costly 
pathway,  but  it  is  the  way  to  the  unity  of  the  Church  of 
Christ.  The  adjusting  of  other  things  will  help;  only 
love  will  clothe  the  Church  with  divine  power  and  we  look 
for  it. 

The  presence  of  the  Eastern  Orthodox  delegates  was 
a  fine  contribution  to  the  conference.  The  suggestions 
of  the  Metropolitan  of  Seleukia,  Bishop  Germanos,  rela- 
tive to  the  steps  toward  unity  were  as  timely  and  practi- 
cal as  though  they  had  been  formulated  in  a  conference 
in  America.  The  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  has  turned 
its  face  toward  the  front  with  an  understanding  and  pur- 
pose that  means  a  new  day  in  its  history  as  well  as  a  new 
force  in  the  Christian  unity  problem.  Sectional  unions 
must  come  first  and  the  presence  of  the  Eastern  Ortho- 
dox delegates  in  the  conference  may  mean  the  opening 
of  the  way  toward  union  between  themselves  and  the 
Anglicans.  It  would  heal  one  of  the  divisions  in  the 
episcopacy  to  say  the  least.  Such  a  union  would  hasten 
the  union  of  the  Protestant  household,  which  is  already 
discovering  itself  to  be  embarrassingly  too  nearly  agreed 
to  be  apart.     Turns  in  the  road  indicate  new  possibilities. 

The  Continuation  Committee  will  carry  forward  the 


136         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

work  of  the  conference.  Bishop  Brent,  in  his  closing 
words  as  chairman,  emphasized  that  the  preliminary  con- 
ference is  a  fact,  a  reality,  a  hope,  that  only  the  difficul- 
ties that  are  fairly  faced  have  hope  of  solution,  that  we 
are  a  group  of  constructionists,  that  the  major  difficulties 
are  moral  rather  than  theological  and  that  we  must 
pray  as  well  as  think.  A  sense  of  brotherhood  was 
estazblished  in  the  conference.  The  approaches  toward 
each  other  were  frank  and  friendly.  A  hopeful  out- 
look will  go  from  this  preliminary  conference  upon  the 
great  problems  that  face  us. 


CONFERENCE  ON  INTERNATIONAL  FRIENDSHIP 

The  International  Committee  of  the  World  Alliance 
for  Promoting  International  Friendship  through  the 
Churches  had  its  beginning  in  a  conference  of  represen- 
tatives of  the  various  Churches  held  in  Constance,  Au- 
gust 1, 1914 — the  fateful  day  that  marked  the  opening  of 
the  world  war.  Every  other  means  having  been  tried  to 
promote  the  peace  of  the  world  and  failed,  it  was  the 
belief  of  some  that  the  only  way  to  secure  permanent 
peace  would  be  to  bring  to  bear  upon  international  life 
the  principles  of  Christian  fellowship.  Many  main- 
tained these  ideals  throughout  the  war  and  see  now  more 
than  ever  the  need  of  pressing  them  upon  the  conscience 
of  the  world,  both  for  healing  the  sore  of  the  recent  war 
and  for  preventing  further  conflicts. 

Last  October  the  International  Committee  met  at  The 
Hague.  This  year  it  met  at  St.  Beatenberg,  Switzerland, 
August  24-28.  No  more  beautiful  spot  in  all  Europe 
could  have  been  found — isolated  from  the  world  and 
there  amid  the  Alps  with  Jungfrau,  Monch  and  Eiger 
looking  down  upon  us,  as  we  half  way  up  the  sides  of  the 
opposite  mountain  at  Hotel  Victoria  looked  out  upon 
their  snow  capped  peaks  thirteen  miles  away,  with  the 
glow  of  the  morning  reaching  from  the  face  of  the  blue 


THREE  OUTSTANDING  CONFERENCES    137 

waters  of  Lake  Thune  up  the  deep  green  sides  of  the 
mountains  to  the  snow  and  on  to  the  dome  of  the  sky  and 
fourteen  hours  later  with  sunset  draperies  covering  the 
lake,  the  vale,  the  mountains,  the  sky.  Sunday  preced- 
ing the  conference  and  the  closing  day  of  the  conference 
were  almost  cloudless.  The  other  days  clouds  hung 
heavy  over  the  mountains  far  down  into  the  valley  as 
though  to  remind  us  of  the  smouldering  fires  of  war,  the 
threatening  of  a  clash  between  the  Orient  and  the  Occi- 
dent and  the  suspicious  attitudes  of  the  nations  toward 
each  other.    But  with  the  Psalmist  it  might  be  said, 

I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  mountains: 
From  whence  shall  my  help  come? 
My  help  cometh  from  Jehovah, 
Who  made  heaven  and  earth. 

Our  help  is  not  in  great  fortresses  and  vast  arma- 
ments, but  in  the  Lord  Almighty.  We  who  are  believers 
in  Him  are  to  set  ourselves  to  the  task  of  international 
reconciliation  by  better  understanding  among  the  na- 
tions, cultivation  of  good  will  and  tolerance.  The  world 
must  come  to  know  that  the  ethical  principles  that  con- 
trol individuals  must  control  nations.  A  Christian  civ- 
ilization can  only  be  maintained  by  applying  the  princi- 
ple's of  Christ  to  whole  nations  as  well  as  individuals. 
The  World  Alliance  has  a  place  in  the  affairs  of  the  world 
and  the  recent  meeting  of  the  International  Committee 
indicated  the  seriousness  with  which  it  is  going  to  its 
task. 

There  are  now  twenty-two  nations  with  their  national 
councils,  which  are  auxiliaries  to  the  World  Alliance  and 
these  are  represented  on  the  International  Committee. 
They  are  the  United  States,  13  members;  Great  Britain, 
8;  France,  8;  Germany,  8;  and  four  to  each  of  the  follow- 
ing: Denmark,  Holland,  Italy,  Norway,  Sweden,  Swit- 
zerland, Belgium,  Greece,  Esthonia,  Finland,  Hungary, 
Lettland,  Austria,  Czecho-Slovakia,  Serb-Croat-Slovene 
State,  Eoumania,  Bulgaria  and  Japan.      Other   nations 


138         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

will  be  brought  into  the  movement.  Cordial  relations 
have  been  established  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Commit- 
tee on  international  studies  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Baron  de  Montenach  at  Fribourg,  Switzerland.  The  task 
of  the  national  councils  is  to  promote  good  will  between 
the  nations. 

The  first  resolution  passed  at  the  St.  Beatenberg  meet- 
ing indicated  the  purpose  and  passion  of  this  movement. 
The  resolution  is  as  follows : 

That  the  members  of  the  World  Alliance,  gathered 
from  many  lands  and  various  communions  and  associated 
for  the  purpose  of  promoting  friendship  and  good  will 
between  nations,  declare  their  convictions  that  these 
blessings  can  only  be  attained  by  the  divine  power  of 
Christ  working  upon  the  hearts  of  men  and  creating 
therein  the  true  spirit  of  brotherhood ;  they  believe  that 
that  power  may  be  evoked  by  a  common  effort  of  prayer 
and  sacrifice ;  and  whilst  acknowledging  their  own  short- 
comings and  unfitness  for  this  task,  they  hereby  humbly 
devote  themselves  to  it  as  followers  of  Christ  and  serv- 
ants of  all  mankind.' ' 

From  this  prophetic  outlook,  the  conference  passed 
from  subject  to  subject,  discussing  frankly  questions  hav- 
ing to  do  with  the  double  standard  of  morality,  by  which 
ethical  demands  are  limited  to  private  life  and  the  evil 
of  nations  acting  by  their  own  standards,  when  the  only 
hope  of  peace  among  nations  is  the  application  of  Chris- 
tian principles  to  international  affairs;  the  publicity  of 
diplomatic  transactions;  the  rights  of  religious  minor- 
ities; foreign  missionary  activities  and  the  cooperation 
of  the  foreign  missionaries  in  the  work  of  the  Alliance : 
the  duty  of  the  Church  in  putting  forth  such  "fraternal 
effort  to  overcome  the  bitterness  and  rancour  of  strife' ' 
so  that  "all  may  feel  themselves  to  be  brethren;"  the 
League  of  Nations  as  a  possibility  "to  achieve  inter- 
national peace  and  security,"  especially  emphasizing  all 
nations  to  become  members  as  speedily  as  possible,  for 
the ' '  alternative  of  the  League  can  be  nothing  else  than  a 


THREE  OUTSTANDING  CONFERENCES    139 

crushing  increase  in  competitive  armaments  in  all  na- 
tions and  desperate  preparation  for  a  war  more  deadly 
and  destructive  than  anything  the  world  has  seen." 
Other  topics  of  like  character  followed  these.  It  was  a 
meeting  for  direct  action  for  a  better  world. 

Eastern  Orthodox  and  Quakers,  Anglicans  and  Non- 
conformists, Christians  from  various  communions  in 
America  and  in  Europe  mingled  together  in  apparent 
f orgetfulness  of  their  theological  differences.  All  looked 
out  upon  the  immediate  needs  of  a  weary  world.  Dr. 
George  Nasmyth  did  praiseworthy  service  the  past  year 
as  international  organizer.  Et.  Hon.  Sir  Willoughby  H. 
Dickinson  directed  the  affairs  of  the  Alliance  with  com- 
mendable statesmanship  as  the  honorary  secretary.  The 
Most  Rev.  R.  T.  Davidson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
was  elected  president  of  the  Alliance.  Rev.  Nehemiah 
Boynton,  of  America,  was  elected  chairman  of  the  Inter- 
national Committee.  The  St.  Beatenberg  conference 
furnished  a  clearing  house  for  some  misunderstandings ; 
an  open  door  for  service ;  an  inspiration  for  the  prophets 
of  common  betterment.  Bringing  groups  together  from 
so  many  nations  is  of  itself  a  great  service.  The  worth 
of  that  service  is  intensified  when  these  groups  unite  their 
interest  for  a  common  cause.  The  "World  Alliance  is  do- 
ing courageous  service  and  its  influence  will  go  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth. 


WHAT  PEOPLE   AND   PAPERS 
ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY 


With  the  Archbishop  of  Uppsala  in  Europe  and  the 
Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America 
agitating  a  world  movement  dealing  with  the  life  and 
work  of  the  Church  a  new  movement  came  into  being  at 
Geneva,  Switzerland,  August  9-12,  1920,  under  the 
name,  "Universal  Conference  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
on  Life  and  Work. ' '  The  brief  of  the  preliminary  meet- 
ing as  taken  from  the  published  records  is  as  follows : 

Actions  were  taken  in  response  to  the  request  of  a  preliminary  con- 
ference held  in  Paris,  November  17,  1919,  at  which  there  were  present  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Scandinavian,  Swiss  and  American  Churches.  This  con- 
ference was  called  by  a  committee  consisting  of  the  Archbishop  of  Uppsala, 
Bean  Herold  of  Switzerland  and  Rev.  Chas.  S.  Macfarland  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federal  Council.  From  this  meeting  invitations  were  sent  by  Dr. 
Macfarland  as  the  general  secretary.  Representatives  were  selected  for- 
mally or  informally  as  the  bodies  sending  them  made  choice.  It  was  the 
sense  of  the  Federal  Council  committee  that  the  representatives  be  selected 
from  the  Protestant  evangelical  Churches  as  a  group  in  each  country.  In 
those  nations  where  there  were  federations  of  Churches,  selections  were 
made  by  the  federations.  In  other  countries  joint  action  was  taken  so 
that  the  delegates  represented  the  Protestant  evangelical  Churches. 

Prof.  Eugene  Choisy  called  the  meeting  to  order  in  the  Hotel  Beau 
Sejour,  Geneva,  on  the  morning  of  August  10th  and  was  the  chairman  of 
the  first  session.  Mr.  F.  P.  Turner,  Dr.  Yngre  Brilioth  and  Pastor  Adolf 
Keller  were  named  as  recording  secretaries.  Dr.  Macfarland  outlined  the 
steps  leading  up  to  the  present  meeting  and  the  Archbishop  of  Uppsala 
delivered  an  informing  address  on  "The  Idea",  Purpose  and  Need  of  an 
Ecumenical  Conference. ' '  Dr.  Frederick  Lynch,  of  New  York,  followed 
in  cordial  support  of  the  Archbishop's  plans  and  proposed  that  the  regular 
conference  be  called  two  or  three  years  hence  or  at  such  time  as  the  com- 
mittee of  arrangements  may  decide  which  was  agreed  to. 

Three  sessions  occupied  each  day.  Dr.  A.  J.  Brown,  of  New  York,  Dr. 
J.  A.  McClymont  of  Edinburgh,  Bishop  Harald  Ostenfeld  of  Copenhagen 
and  Dr.  J.  A.  Cramer  of  The  Hague  were  chairmen  of  the  various  sessions. 
Suggestions  regarding  the  programme  of  the  conference  were  fully  dis- 
cussed. It  was  recommended  to  the  committee  on  arrangements  to  provide 
for  discussion  on  the  programme  as  follows: 

1.  Christian  brotherhood  and  righteousness  in  international  relations. 
Creation  of  a  Christian  disposition  of  mind  as  a  necessary  soul  to  the  com- 
monwealth of  nations.  2.  The  Christian  conception  of  the  system  of  law 
as  a  gift  of  God;  necessity  of  its  extension.  3.  Christian  principles  in 
social  life  and  in  the  social  and  economic  construction  of  society.  Relation 
to  labour  movement.  It  was  further  recommended  that  there  should  be  dis- 
cussion of  Christian  education,  liberty  of  conscience,  protection  of  religious 
minorities,  white  slave  traffic,  bad  business  morals,  exploitation  of  natives, 
intemperance,   gambling,   protection   of   family   life,   recreation,   recruiting 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  141 

Visitors  from  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  were  welcomed  in  an  ad- 
dress delivered  in  Greek  by  Rev.  Herman  Neander  to  which  the  Metropoli- 
tan of  Seleukia,  Germanos  Strinopoulos,  responded,  closing  his  address  with 
prayer.  The  Archbishop  of  Uppsala  replied  in  a  message  of  good  fellow- 
ship. 

It  was  decided  to  invite  all  Christian  communions  to  participate  in  the 
proposed  conference  and  that  the  committee  of  arrangements  be  requested 
to  consider  the  advisability  of  inviting  representatives  of  the  outstanding 
auxiliary  agencies  of  the  Church.  The  place  of  holding  the  conference  was 
left  to  the  committee  of  arrangements.  The  nucleus  of  that  committee  is 
as  follows:  Archbishop  of  Uppsala,  provisional  chairman,  Dr.  Chas.  S. 
Macfarland  and  Dr.  Frederick  Lynch,  provisional  general  secretaries,  Dr. 
Ainslie  of  America,  Dr.  Aulen  of  Sweden,  Dr.  Boynton  of  America,  Bishop 
Brent  of  America,  Dr.  Brown  of  America,  Bishop  Cannon  of  America,  Dr. 
Chester  of  America,  Prof.  Choisy  of  Switzerland,  Dr.  Cramer  of  Holland, 
Pastor  Giampiccoli  of  Italy,  Dr.  Gleditsch  of  Norway,  Bishop  Hurst  of 
America,  Pastor  Keller  of  Switzerland,  Dr.  Larsen  of  America,  Dr.  Me- 
Clymont  of  Scotland,  Dr.  MacGilp  of  Scotland,  Dr.  Merrill  of  America, 
Mr.  Nightingale  of  England,  Bishop  Nuelsen  of  Switzerland,  Bishop 
Ostenfeld  of  Denmark,  Bishop  Raffay  of  Hungary  and  Dr.  Szabo  of 
Hungary.  There  are  to  be  three  groups  in  the  committee  of  arrangements 
— one  in  America,  one  in  Great  Britain  and  one  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
Each  group  is  to  select  its  own  chairman  and  secretary  and  three  other 
members  with  power  to  act  in  their  sphere.  Dr.  Lynch  was  appointed  chair- 
man for  the  American  group  and  the  Archbishop  of  Uppsala  for  the  Euro- 
pean group.  The  executive  committee  will  meet  in  London  in  January 
1921.  The  spirit  of  the  meeting  was  rich  in  fellowship.  Eighty-eight  dele- 
gates from  fifteen  countries  were  present.  The  meeting  closed  with  the 
following  appeal  for  prayer: 

' 'The  members  of  this  preliminary  international  commission  at  Geneva, 
drawn  together  by  a  consciousness  of  the  painful  and  urgent  need  of  the 
world,  and  by  a  conviction  that  only  the  Gospel  and  spirit  and  leadership 
of  Jesus  Christ  can  meet  that  need,  and  that  only  a  Church  united,  conse- 
crated, daring,  and  self -forgetful  can  form  the  body,  through  which  this 
spirit  may  do  His  gracious  and  healing  work,  earnestly  and  solemnly  ap- 
peal to  Christians  of  every  name  and  form,  of  every  land  and  race,  to  pray 
now  and  continually  for  the  coming  of  a  fuller  unity  of  spirit  and  of  ac- 
tion in  the  entire  Church  of  Christ  throughout  the  world;  for  a  readiness 
on  the  part  of  all  Christians  to  make  new  ventures  of  faith,  and  to  take 
more  seriously  the  implications  of  the  Gospel;  for  the  deepening  and  broad- 
ening of  love  among  all  Christ's  followers  toward  all  men;  for  the  elimina- 
tion of  all  passion  and  prejudice,  and  the  growth  of  peace  and  brotherhood; 
for  clearer  vision  of  the  will  of  God  and  of  the  work  of  Christ  in  this  day; 
and  for  all  that  may  further  the  coming  of  His  Kingdom. 

"Especially  do  we  ask  our  fellow-Christians,  everywhere,  to  pray  for  the 
success  of  the  conference  which  is  to  consider  the  place  and  duty  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  and  the  claims  upon  it  of  the  Master  and  of  mankind. 
The  united  and  unceasing  intercession  of  all  Christians  is  asked,  that, 
through  this  gathering  of  Christians  from  all  the  world,  the  Church  may 
come  to  a  clear  realisation  of  its  unity,  its  opportunity,  and  its  responsibil- 
ity ;  that  the  spirit  of  Christ  may  fill  and  control  His  body,  the  Church ;  and 
that,  through  His  mighty  and  gracious  working,  mankind  may  be  led  into 
the  larger  life  which  is  in  Him,  and  the  whole  creation  now  groaning  and 
travailing  in  pain,  may  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  and 
brought  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. ' ' 


142         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  preliminary  meeting  of  the  World  Conference  on 
Faith  and  Order  was  held  at  the  Athenee,  Geneva,  August 
12-19,  and  a  brief  record  of  the  transaction  there  is  taken 
from  the  report  of  Eobert  H.  Gardiner,  the  secretary,  as 
follows : 

The  meeting  was  called  to  order  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  H.  Brent, 
D.D.,  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  in  the  absence  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  A.  Anderson, 
D.D.,  of  Chicago,  who  is  the  president  of  the  American  Episcopal  commis- 
sion. Bishop  Brent  was  elected  as  permanent  chairman,  Rev.  John  G. 
Taska,  D.D.,  of  England  as  vice-chairman  and  Robert  H.  Gardiner  as  sec- 
retary. Bishop  Herzog,  of  the  Old  Catholic  Churches  in  Europe,  was  asked 
to  open  the  meeting  with  prayer.  He  gave  a  few  words  of  welcome,  read 
Ephesians  4:1-6,  offered  prayer  in  German,  concluding  with  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  in  which  all  present  joined,  each  in  his  own  language. 

Bishop  Brent  made  an  address  explaining  the  objects  and  method  of 
the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  and  the  functions  of  this  pre- 
liminary meeting.  Addresses  of  welcome  were  given  by  Rev.  Charles  Mar- 
tin, of  Geneva,  and  by  Rev.  Adolf  Keller,  of  Zurich.  It  was  decided  that 
the  languages  of  the  conference  should  be  English,  French  and  German  and 
those  of  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  to  speak  in  Greek  if  they  so  desired 
and  it  would  be  translated  into  the  three  languages  already  named.  Each 
speaker  had  his  remarks  translated  into  two  languages  different  from  the 
one  in  which  he  spoke  so  that  every  person  could  fully  understand  what 
was  being  said  and  done.  A  business  committee  had  charge  of  the  details 
of  the  conference.  The  registration  showed  that  eighty  Churches  from 
forty  countries  were  represented.  On  the  topic  ' '  The  Church  and  the  Nature 
of  the  United  Church, ' '  Prof.  W.  A.  Curtis,  D.D.,  of  Scotland,  spoke  for  the 
Presbyterians,  the  Bishop  of  Bombay  for  the  Anglicans,  reading  the  Ap- 
peal of  the  recent  Lambeth  Conference  and  commenting  on  it,  Rev.  Nehe- 
miah  Boynton,  D.D.,  of  America,  for  the  Congregationalists,  Bishop  John 
L.  Nuelsen,  D.D.,  of  Switzerland,  for  the  American  Methodists,  Rev.  Peter 
Ainslie,  D.D.,  of  America,  for  the  Disciples  of  Christ,  the  Metropolitan  of 
Seleukia,  Germanos,  for  the  Eastern  Orthodox,  speaking  in  Greek  and  Prof. 
Alivisatos  continuing  the  same  subject  in  English,  Rev.  H.  M.  Hughes, 
D.D.,  of  England,  for  the  English  Wesleyans,  Bishop  Harald  Ostenfeld, 
D.D.,  of  Denmark  and  Prof.  G.  E.  H.  Aulen,  D.D.,  of  Sweden,  for  the 
Lutherans.  Supplementary  statements  from  others  followed  these  speakers 
who  had  been  named  by  the  business  committee  to  open  the  discussion. 

Bishop  Charles  Gore,  of  England,  said  that  it  is  necessary,  if  we  are  to 
progress,  to  face  fully  what  our  differences  are  as  to  the  Church  and  the 
nature  of  unity.  This  Conference  is  only  preparatory,  not  to  devise  plans 
of  unity  but  to  make  ready  for  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order. 
The  present  Conference  has  to  appoint  committees  to  deal  with  certain 
subjects  and  prepare  them  for  consideration  by  the  World  Conference. 
But  we  need  to  test  whether  it  will  be  possible  for  us  to  agree  on  what  we 
think  the  United  Church  should  be.  Federation  would  be  short  of  the  New 
Testament  ideal.  There  is  a  degree  of  variety  which  destroys  unity.  A 
divine  discipline  upon  the  tendency  to  variations  seems  essential.  Must 
there  be  an  authoritative  creed,  authoritative  sacraments  and  an  authorita- 
tive ministry  or  is  freedom  incompatible  with  such  a  condition?  Here  per- 
haps is  the  first  point  of  contact  between  opposing  views. 

Continuing  the  discussion,  Rev.  James  Vernon  Bartlet,  D.D.,  of  Eng- 
land, emphasized  the  necessity  of  careful  consideration  of  the  question  of 
how  far  coercive  discipline  upon  Christian  freedom  within  the  Church  is 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  143 

to  go,  how  far  it  is  according  to  the  genius  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
the  importance  of  making  the  watchword  to  be  'educate/  in  which  there 
must  be  no  relaxing  of  effort.     Many  spoke  on  the  same  topic. 

''What  Is  the  Place  of  the  Bible  and  of  a  Creed  in  Relation  to  Reun- 
ion?" was  assigned  to  Rev.  C.  Anderson  Scott,  D.D.,  of  England,  to  open 
and  close  the  discussion.  He  assumed  that  all  Christian  communions  accorded 
to  the  Bible  the  supreme  place  of  authority  and  then  spoke  at  length  re- 
garding the  value  of  holding  the  central  idea  embodied  in  the  creeds,  but 
the  necessity  of  adopting  the  language  of  modern  experience  rather  than 
in  the  term,  and  phrases  of  the  fourth  century.  Rev.  J.  E.  Roberts,  D.D.,  of 
England,  and  others  spoke  on  this  subject. 

The  continuation  committee  was  requested  to  secure  the  proper  consid- 
eration and  discussion  of  both  of  these  topics  in  such  manner  as  is  deemed 
most  expedient  in  order  that  the  subjects  may  be  properly  prepared  for 
discussion  at  the  World  Conference. 

A  communication  was  presented  from  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem, 
Damianos,  inviting  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  to  hold  its 
next  session  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  voted  that  the  Conference  express  its 
thanks  for  the  invitation  and  its  joy  that  events  had  made  it  possible  for 
such  an  invitation  to  be  extended.  The  invitation  was  referred  to  the 
continuation  committee  for  consideration. 

In  the  view  of  the  presence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Volhynia,  Eulogius, 
the  following  action  was  taken: 

That  the  conference  put  on  record  its  deep  regret  that  the  venerable 
Church  of  Russia  has  been  prevented  from  sending  representatives  to  its 
meetings,  and  that  the  conference  express  its  profound  sympathy  with  the 
Russian  Church  under  her  severe  afflictions,  and  assure  her  of  their  prayers 
to  Almighty  God  to  give  her  a  happy  issue  from  all  her  sufferings,  and 
grant  her  the  reward  of  faithful  endurance. 

The  Archbishop  of  Volhynia  addressed  the  meeting  in  Russian,  and 
Archpriest  Orloff  of  the  Russian  Church  of  Geneva,  who  accompanied  him, 
was  made  welcome  to  the  conference. 

The  continuation  committee  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  carrying  on 
the  work  of  preparation  for  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  con- 
ducting correspondence,  raising  funds,  fixing  the  time  and  place  of  the  con- 
ference, and  performing  such  other  duties  as  may  be  necessary  in  arrang- 
ing for  the  conference.  The  continuation  committee  consists  of  Bishop 
Brent,  chairman,  Robert  Gardiner,  secretary,  George  Zabriskie,  treasurer, 
and  for  the  Anglicans,  Bishop  of  Bombay,  Bishop  of  Willochra,  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  Rev.  W.  T.  Manning,  D.D.,  Rev.  W.  E.  S.  Holland;  for  Ar- 
menians, Archbishop  DoUrian,  Bishop  Abrahamian;  for  the  Baptists,  Rev. 
J.  E.  Roberts,  D.D.,  Rev.  W.  C.  P.  Rhoades,  D.D.,  Rev.  J.  H.  Shakespeare, 
D.D.,  Rev.  Cornelius  Woelfkin,  D.D.,  Rev.  Dr.  Ruth;  for  the  Congrega- 
tionalists,  Rev.  Nehemiah  Boynton,  D.D.,  Principal  A.  E.  Garvie,  D.D., 
Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  D.D.,  Rev.  Dr.  Chang;  for  the  Disciples,  Rev. 
Peter  Ainslie,  D.D. ;  for  the  Eastern  Orthodox,  Metropolitan  of  Seleukia, 
Archbishop  Platon,  Bishop  of  Timok,  Archimandrite  Papadopoulous, 
Archimandirte  Gheorghieff,  Prof.  Alivisatos,  Prof.  Sokolof,  Prof. 
Demetrescu;  for  the  German  Evangelical,  Dr.  Freidrich  Sieg- 
mund-Schultze ;  for  the  Lutherans,  Archbishop  Soderblom,  Bishop 
Harald  Ostenfeld,  Bishop  Tandberg,  Pastor  N.  B.  Thvedt,  Rev.  Dr.  More- 
head,  Rev.  Dr.  Ehmelr;  for  the  Methodist,  Bishop  James  Cannon,  Bishop 
McConnell,  Rev.  George  Hall,  Rev.  H.  M.  Hughes,  D.D.,  Rev.  J.  G.  Taska, 
D.D. ;  for  the  Old  Catholics,  Bishop  Edward  Herzog;  for  the  Presby- 
terians and  Reformed,  Rev.  A.  J.  Brown,  D.D.,  Rev.  Dr.  Chester,  Rev.  Dr. 
Datta,  Prof.  Alexius  de  Boer,  Principal  Alexander  Martin,  Rev.  J.  A. 
McClymont,  D.D.,  and  for  the  Friends,  Prof.  Rufus  M.  Jones. 


144         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  Lambeth  Appeal  takes  its  place  among  the  signifi- 
cant utterances  of  these  times  relative  to  the  reunion  of 
Christendom.  One  of  the  Anglican  bishops  in  Africa 
says  that  it  is  only  a  change  in  good-will  over  former 
Lambeth  utterances.  A  British  Nonconformist  says  that 
it  is  a  decided  advance.  The  Bishop  of  Winchester  says 
that  it  may  be  described  as  a  change  only  in  the  perspec- 
tive.   The  Guardian,  London  (Anglican),  says: 

"Sufficient  time  has  now  elapsed  since  the  issue  of  the  Lambeth  ut- 
terances to  enable  us  to  form  some  fairly  definite  impression  of  the  effect 
produced  upon  the  public  mind  by  that  portion  of  them  which  relates  to 
reunion — the  subject  which  transcends  all  the  others  upon  which  the  Fa- 
thers of  the  Church  have  pronounced.  Speaking  generally,  the  reception 
of  the  reunion  proposals  has  been  such  as  to  warrant  warmer  hopes  than 
would  have  seemed  possible  on  the  first  day  of  the  conference.  Those  who 
are  most  closely  in  touch  with  Church  feeling,  those  who  from  their  great 
central  position  can  most  distinctly  test  the  pulse  of  the  Church,  although 
they  hoped  much,  were  by  no  means  assured  of  the  results  that  have  act- 
ually been  achieved.  The  triumph  of  conciliation  of  good  sense,  and  of 
higher  qualities  than  either,  has  indeed  been  complete.  Men  whom  there 
was  every  reason  to  fear  would  stand  out  stubbornly  for  their  own  terms 
of  reunion  have  fallen  into  line  with  the  rest  of  the  episcopate  and  have 
given  their  adhesion  to  decisions  the  importance  of  which  will  probably 
not  be  fully  revealed  to  this  generation.  The  happy  consequence  is  that 
reunion  is  no  longer  merely  a  pious  aspiration,  but  has  come  at  last  into 
the  region  of  practical  politics.  Candid  Nonconformists  are  bound  to  ad- 
mit, and  many  of  them  have  admitted,  that  the  conference  has  finally  dis- 
pelled all  possibility  of  suspicion  that  the  Church  of  England  is  in  the 
least  degree  insincere  in  its  desire  for  reunion,  or  retains  any  vestige  of 
disdain  towards  Nonconformity.  The  Church  of  England  is  now  irrev- 
ocably committed  to  reunion,  and  it  is  only  the  Nonconformists  who 
hesitate. 

This  hesitation  appears  now  to  be  concerned  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  with 
the  one  question  of  re-ordination,  unless  it  be  true  that  the  Nonconformist 
people  in  general  are  not  yet  greatly  concerned  about  reunion.  At  all  events 
it  is  evident  that  those  of  them  who  care  at  all  care  more  about  re-ordina- 
tion than  about  any  other  aspect  of  the  situation.  Even  this  last  barrier 
seems  slowly  to  be  yielding.  Among  the  Wesleyans,  the  nearest  to  the 
Church  of  all  Nonconforming  bodies,  reunion,  with  all  its  implications,  is 
surely  winning  assent,  and  the  more  rapidly  since  it  has  come  to  be  under- 
stood that  it  does  not  mean  the  abandonment  of  Wesleyan  usages.  Of 
the  two  Wesleyan  newspapers,  the  one  which  is  the  organ  of  the  younger 
men  heartily  advocates  it,  and  the  other  is  finding  it  necessary  to  follow 
the  younger  men's  lead,  though  perhaps  a  little  reluctantly.  As  to  the 
other  Nonconformist  communions,  there  are  many  hopeful  indications, 
though  here  again  the  most  notable  opponent  of  change  is  that  irrecon- 
cilable divine,  Dr.  Clifford.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  Dr.  Fleming  and 
other  Presbyterians  are  still  stumbling  over  the  roots  of  the  re-ordination 
question — the  principle  of  episcopacy.  It  is  naturally  difficult  for  them 
to  dissociate  episcopacy  from  that  'prelacy'  which  has  been  their  secular 
bugbear.  But  the  two  things  are  not  necessarily  the  same.  The  Presby- 
terian Church  is  itself  not  destitute  of  hierarchical  degrees — -indeed  it  is 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  145 

difficult  to  see  how  aDy  Church  can  be  entirely  without  them.  Nor  are 
what  is  called  the  'monarchical  episcopate'  and  ' episcopacy'  quite  the 
same  thing.  The  latter  is  a  principle;  the  former  is  only  a  particular  ap- 
plication of  that  principle,  and  perhaps  not  the  best  application.  The 
Mansfield  College  Conferences  have  accepted  the  principle  without  com- 
mitting themselves  to  details.  All  they  have  stipulated  for  is  that  episco- 
pacy, to  be  acceptable  all  round,  must  be  '  constitutional. '  There  may 
be  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  that  word  in  this  connection, 
but  so  many  differences  have  already  been  reconciled  that  there  should 
be  no  very  serious  difficulty  in  arriving  at  an  agreement  upon  this  head. 

The  same  journal  further  says : 

"The  conference,  in  recognising  that  reunion  must  be  a  matter  of  time, 
has  set  out  proposals  for  'the  period  when  a  definite  scheme  of  union  is 
maturing.'  A  general  scheme  of  intercommunion  or  exchange  of  pulpits 
is  not  approved.  But  bishops,  in  cases  where  non-episcopally  and  episco- 
pally  ordained  ministers  are  working  towards  the  ideal  union,  will  be  justi- 
fied in  'giving  occasional  authorisation'  for  the  interchange  of  pulpits. 
Such  interchange,  therefore,  will  depend  upon  the  bishops,  and  since  the 
resolution  is  their  own,  it  should  follow  that  all  those  clergy  who  are  work- 
ing towards  reunion  with  non-episcopal  bodies  will  receive  the  direct  en- 
couragement of  their  diocesans.  In  their  further  suggestion  that  baptised 
but  unconfirmed  members  of  non-episcopal  congregations  should  be  ad- 
mitted to  Holy  Communion  during  the  period  of  the  planning  of  reunion, 
the  bishops  will  have  the  support  of  all  liberal-minded  Churchpeople.  They 
will  have  the  support  of  the  same  opinion  in  their  resolution  that  during 
the  period  of  arrangement  there  should  be  no  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Communion  in  Anglican  churches  for  members  of  the  Anglican  Church  by 
ministers  who  have  not  been  episcopally  ordained,  and  that  Anglican  com- 
municants should  only  receive  the  Sacraments  at  the  hands  of  ministers  of 
their  own  Church.  These  are  points  of  the  utmost  importance,  and  em- 
phasise the  basis  upon  which  the  resolutions  on  reunion  have  been  arrived 
at."       • 

Prof.  C.  Anderson  Scott,  D.D.,  of  Cambridge  (Presby- 
terian), writes  in  The  British  Weekly,  London,  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Perhaps  the  strangest  thing  about  the  Appeal  is  that,  in  spite  of  its 
'address,'  it  soK  completely  ignores  all  others  but  the  'authorities'  or  the 
ministers  of  our  Churches.  The  one  arrangement  which  it  contemplates  or 
suggests  is  an  arrangement  for  facilitating  '  intercelebration, '  or  reciprocal 
functioning  of  ministers  in  the  Sacrament.  We  have  never  suceeded  in 
getting  our  Anglican  friends  to  understand  that  this  is  not  a  thing  which 
any  of  us  desires,  probably  not  a  thing  which  many  of  us  would  care  to 
allow.  What  we  have  asked  for,  and  what  we  do  ask  for,  is  the  privelege 
in  case  of  need,  or  when  circumstances  make  it  natural,  of  together  par- 
taking at  the  Table  of  our  common  Lord.  We  ask  for  it  as  a  symbol,  the 
most  natural  and  the  most  obvious  symbol,  of  that  unity  of  the  one  Church 
which  the  bishops  so  frankly  recognise.  We  ask  for  it  as  the  best  way  of 
witnessing  to  the  world  that  we  are  one  in  the  Lord  Jesus.  We  ask  for  it 
as  the  first  step  and  the  one  hopeful  step  towards  a  completer  union,  should 
that  be  in  accordance  with  the  mind  of  God. 

"On  this  matter,  however,  which  touches  us  so  deeply,  the  Lambeth 
resolutions   show  distinct  retrogression.     The   distinct   hardening   of  prac- 


146         THE     CHBISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

tiee  which  has  been  manifest  since  'Kikuyu'  receives  now  for  the  first  time, 
if  we  mistake  not,  author ative  sanction.  The  report  of  the  committee  on 
the  subject  would  appear  not  to  have  been  accepted;  and  in  its  stead  we 
have  what  can  only  be  described  as  the  most  guarded  and  grudging  per- 
mission to  admit  '  unconfirmed  communicants  of  the  non-episcopal 
congregations '  'in  the  few  years  between  the  initiation  and  the  completion 
of  a  definite  scheme  of  union.'  This  would  appear  to  be  the  one  concrete 
result  of  the  conference  so  far  as  reunion  is  concerned,  and  it  fills  us  with 
sadness.  And  also  with  perplexity;  for  the  bishops  tell  us  that  'God 
wills  fellowship. ' 

"The  fact  is  that  either  we  have  been  discussing  the  wrong  things  or 
we  have  failed  to  get  the  bishops  to  understand  how  entirely  secondary  for 
us  are  these  things  with  which  they  deal  in  this  appeal.  They  appear  to 
think  that  all  that  is  needed  is  to  construct  a  bridge  over  which  we  can 
cross  without  the  loss  of  self-respect  or  without  incurring  reproach  from 
the  outside  world.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  some  of  our  own  people 
have  encouraged  them  in  this  fallacy,  partly  by  allowing  the  discussion  to 
harp  perpetually  on  this  question  of  reordination.  It  is  perhaps  not  their 
fault  that  they  cannot  see  that  we  could  not  cross  such  a  bridge  to  form 
part  of  a  sacerdotal  Church  without  abandoning  much  treasure,  without, 
as  we  think,  impoverishing  British  Christianity  in  all  its  future." 

The  Living  Church,  Milwaukee,  (Episcopal)  says: 

"In  some  respects  they  may  be  said  to  have  adopted  a  new  line  of 
thought  on  this  well-worn  subject.  They  are  certainly  much  more  definite 
in  their  appeal.  We  can  appreciate  that  it  was  with  grave  anxiety  that 
some  of  the  bishops  cast  their  vote.  Yet  all  the  reports  speak  of  the  re- 
markable unamimity  with  which  the  pronouncements  on  unity  were  adopted. 
The  fact  that  the  Bishop  of  Zanzibar  has  reviewed  the  action  most  sym- 
pathetically in  the  Church  Times,  and  the  Bishop  of  Edinburgh  equally 
so  in  the  Guardian,  bears  witness  that  there  is  no  hidden  danger  lurking 
somewhere  in  obscure  language  that  can  emerge  to  plague  us  in  later  days. 
We  may  say  frankly  that  there  are  details  that  we  should  not  be  willing 
to  incorporate  in  the  law  of  the  American  Church,  and  there  are  obscuri- 
ties in  which  only  great  wisdom  in  administration  can  prevent  grave 
danger;  yet  on  the  wrhole  we  deem  the  action  wise  and  statesmanlike  be- 
yond almost  anything  that  has  heretofore  been  set  forth  by  the  Anglican 
episcopate. ' ' 

The  Congregationalist,  Boston,  says: 

"The  spirit  of  this  Appeal  must  commend  it  to  thoughtful  and  prayer- 
ful consideration  among  all  Christian  people.  It  is  not,  like  the  famous 
Lambeth  Quadrilateral,  a  statement  of  conditions  without  which  unity  is 
impossible.  In  its  breadth  of  vision  it  includes  the  ancient  communions  of 
the  East  as  well  as  the  separate  communions  and  Churches  of  Great  Britain 
and  America.  It  sets  before  us  the  vision  of  a  universal  Church  which  is 
the  body  of  Christ,  not  now  manifest,  but  to  be  manifested  by  an  adven- 
ture with  Christ  Himself  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  in 
recognition  and  brotherhood.  It  may  become  a  step  toward  that  ultimate 
attainment  of  federated  unity  which  is  the  dream  and  desire  of  all  true 
followers  of  Christ.  We  must  be  careful,  therefore,  lest  any  contemptu- 
ous or  narrow  word  should  prove  a  hindance.  We  who  have  always  believed 
in  the  Universal  Church,  in  which  each  is  united  to  Christ  and  through 
Christ  each  to  all,  must  watch  this  new  adventure  in  fellowship  with  sym- 
pathy and  warm  desire  to  aid. " 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  147 

A  London  correspondent  of  The  Christian  Century, 
Chicago,  writes : 

' '  They  go  much  further  than  the  most  sanguine  advocates  of  Christian 
unity  had  dared  to  expect,  and  reveal  a  clearer  and  more  generous  appreci- 
ation of  the  Free  Church  position  and  point  of  view  than  previous  similar 
pronouncements  from  the  same  source.  The  membership  of  all  Christians 
in  the  Church  universal  is  frankly  recognized.  'We  acknowledge  all  those 
who  believe  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  have  been  baptized  into  the 
name  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  as  sharing  with  us  membership  in  the  universal 
Church  of  Christ,  which  is  His  Body.  The  one  body  needs  not  to  be  made, 
nor  to  be  remade,  but  to  become  organic  and  visible.  The  fellowship  of 
the  members  of  the  one  body  exists.  We  have  only  to  discover  it  and  to 
set  free  its  activities. '  No  repudiation  of  past  ministry  is  suggested. 
'Free  Church  ministers  have  been  manifestly  blessed  and  owned  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  as  effective  means  of  grace.  *  *  *  God  forbid  that  any 
man  should  repudiate  a  past  experience  rich  in  spiritual  blessing  for  him- 
self and  others.'  Any  idea  of  absorbing  any  one  communion  in  another  is 
likewise  disavowed.  'We  do  ask  that  all  should  unite  in  a  new  and  great 
endeavor  to  recover  and  to  manifest  to  the  world  the  unity  of  the  body  of 
Christ  for  which  he  prayed. '  The  bishops'  advance  is  being  met  by  Free 
Church  leaders  in  a  spirit  of  fraternity  and  responsiveness,  the  universal 
desire  among  Nonconformists  being  to  go  as  far  as  possible  toward  meet- 
ing their  brethren  of  the  Anglican  Church  without  the  sacrifice  of  funda- 
mental principle.' ' 

The  Manchester  Guardian,  (Free  Church)  says: 

"There  are  signs  already  that  the  bishops'  Appeal  for  Christian  union 
will  be  seriously  and  sympathetically  received  by  the  Free  Churches.  An  au- 
thority on  the  Free  Church  side  assured  me  to-day  that  in  his  opinion  not 
a  single  denomination  would  refuse  to  take  part  in  a  conference  between 
the  bishops  and  Nonconformist  leaders  to  explore  the  possibilities  of  prac- 
tical action.  It  is  thought  that  nothing  but  good  would  ensue  if  the  Arch- 
bishop were  to  follow  up  the  appeal  by  calling  such  a  conference.  The 
language  of  the  appeal,  with  its  moderation  and  generosity,  is  held  to 
mark  a  great  advance  on  earlier  advances  from  the  Anglican  side.  The 
Free  Churches  are  no  longer  spoken  of  as  'other  Christian  bodies;'  they 
are  referred  to  as  'the  great  non-episcopal  Communions.'  Then  there  are 
the  vitally  important  passages  in  the  appeal  assuring  the  other  Churches 
that  there  is  no  wish  to  interfere  with  distinctive  methods  of  worship,  and 
saying  that  the  only  way  to  approach  union  is  by  '  mutual  deference  to  one 
another's  consciences.'  " 

A  London  correspondent  in  The  Living  Church,  Mil- 
waukee, (Episcopal)  says: 

"In  the  first  place,  it  is  evident  that  most  Nonconformists  who  have 
expressed  themselves  as  favorably  disposed  towards  the  bishops'  proposal 
have  had  in  view  but  one  aspect  of  the  matter — that  of  home  reunion — 
overlooking  the  fact  that  the  scheme  is  of  a  universal  character,  and  seeks 
to  embrace  not  only  Protestant  Nonconformity  but  the  Churches  of  the 
East  and  the  Church  of  Rome  also.  Reading  the  report  in  the  light  of 
Protestant  reunion  only,  it  is  conceiveable  that  many  Free  Churchmen 
were  puzzled  by  the  offer  of  the  bishops,  in  certain  cases,  to  submit  them- 
selves to  a  conditional  re-ordination  if  necessary.  With  the  broader  aspect 
in  view,  of  reunion  with  the  East  and  Rome,  their  lordships'  offer  is  per- 


148         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

fectly  comprehensible.  The  bishops  are  obviously  convinced  that  no  prog- 
ress can  be  made  until  Nonconformists  are  willing  to  submit  to  episcopal 
ordination;  it  is  certain  that  neither  Rome  nor  the  East  would  contem- 
plate reunion  on  any  other  basis.  Many  Nonconformists  are  frankly  hostile 
to  any  such  suggestion;  others  view  the  proposal  with  misgivings.  Even 
those  who  accept  it  appear  to  assume  that  the  sacramental  theory  of  the 
priesthood  has  been  abandoned  by  the  bishops.  That  this  is  not  so,  is 
made  clear  by  the  definite  statement  in  the  report  that  fwe  (the  bishops) 
regard  ordination  as  conferring  grace,  and  not  only  as  a  mere  setting 
apart  to  an  ecclestical  office. ' 

11  Although,  as  I  have  said,  there  are  many  Free  Churchmen  who  regard 
the  proposals  as  a  whole  with  sympathy,  it  is  useless  to  disguise  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  strong  opposition.  Principal  Griffith  Jones,  a  leading  Non- 
conformist, claims,  indeed,  that  the  vast  majority  of  Free  Church  min- 
isters will  never  submit  to  conditions  of  reunion  which  include  episcopal 
ordination  and  the  Nicene  Creed,  and  will  accept  no  creed  as  authoritative 
which  over-rides  their  own  judgment  and  conscience.  If  this  is  so,  it  Is 
manifestly  impossible  to  include  such  thinkers  in  any  scheme  of  real  re- 
union, which  must  necessarily  adopt  a  common  creed,  A  Christian  Church 
must  stand  to  teach  something  authoritatively.  Probably  the  outcome  will 
be  to  continue  the  present  friendly  negotiations  with  the  Orthodox  Eastern 
Churches,  and  do  all  that  is  possible  to  be  done  in  that  direction,  while 
leaving  an  'open  door'  for  the  Protestants.  Discouragement  need  not  be 
felt,  nor  surprise  that  there  is  not  an  immediate  and  favorable  response  to 
the  conference  proposals.  The  non-episcopal  bodies  may  yet  recognize 
how  far  the  bishops  have  gone  to  meet  them,  and  will  be  brought  to  see 
that  the  cause  of  reunion  is  worth  every  sacrifice  that  does  not  involve  a 
surrender  of  principle. 

r'From  the  Catholic  point  of  view,  it  may  be  said  that  reunion  stands 
out  as  the  most  momentous  of  the  problems  dealt  with  by  the  conference, 
and  all  good  Churchmen  will  accord  the  proposals  the  most  careful  and 
respectful  attention,  with  a  profound  sympathy  for  the  high  ideal  which 
the  bishops  have  set  before  themselves.  There  is  a  strong  feeling,  how- 
ever, that  the  prospects  of  general  acceptance  of  the  scheme  have  been 
handicapped  by  simultaneously  bringing  forward  the  resolutions  on  the  oc- 
casional interchange  of  pulpits  (Resolution  12,  A,  i)  and  the  ministrations 
of  women  (Resolution  52).  These  two  proposals  stand  little  chance  of  be- 
ing accepted  by  Catholics  in  England,  and  their  effect  on  the  Eastern 
Orthodox  Church  will  undoubtedly  be  to  postpone  reunion  in  that  quarter. 

"It  may  be  mentioned,  in  connection  with  the  resolutions  concerning 
ministrations  of  women,  that  the  Bishop  of  Zanzibar  has  given  notice  to 
his  diocese  that  in  the  next  session  of  his  sacred  synod  he  will  advise  them: 

"(a)  To  ask  him  not  to  promulgate  resolutions  52  (d)  and  53  of  the 
Lambeth  Conference; 

"  (b)  To  help  him  to  define  quite  strictly  the  sense  in  which  the  diocese 
expects  him  to  interpret  resolutions  46,  52  (a),  and  12  A  (i). 

"The  consideration  of  the  Lambeth  resolutions  will  undoubtedly  arouse 
the  greatest  interest  at  the  forthcoming  Church  Congress  at  Southend. 
The  view  of  the  Orthodox  Churches  on  the  reunion  question  will  on  that 
occasion  be  presented  by  Mr.  Athelstan  Riley,  than  whom  no  English 
Churchman  is  in  closer  touch  with  the  opinions  of  Eastern  ecclesiastics, 
nor  better  qualified  to  speak  on  their  behalf. " 

The  Eoman  Catholic  opinion  is  expressed  by  the  Lon- 
don Tablet,  which  is  the  leading  British  Eoman  Catholic 
journal,  as  follows : 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  149 

"Three  hundred  millions  of  Catholics,  the  bulk  of  the  Christian  world, 
stand  irreconcilably  aloof — not,  of  course,  because  they  do  not  yearn  for 
Christian  reunion,  but  because,  as  Catholics,  they  never  could  accept  that 
notion  of  the  Christian  Church  or  that  notion  of  Christian  unity  which, 
so  far,  is  the  only  one  which  the  Anglican  bishops  can  afford  to  propose. ' ' 

Continuing  the  same  journal  says : 

"As  an  abstract  aspiration,  no  doubt,  it  was  meant  in  all  sincerity  for 
all  Christendom;  but  as  a  practical  project  they  must  have  known  that  it 
had  no  chance  of  being  considered  by  any  except  their  fellow-Protestants, 
the  Dissenters,  for  whom  it  was  definitely  intended,  and  who,  we  think, 
ought  to  be  deeply  grateful  for  the  conciliatory  concessions  that  have  so 
generously  been  made  to  them.     ***** 

"We  know,  and  rejoice  to  know,  that  in  the  Anglican  and  in  the  Dis- 
senting bodies,  as  in  the  Lutheran  and  in  the  Calvinistic  (as  in  the  early 
Christian  sects),  there  are  multitudes  of  sincere  and  earnest  souls  who  are 
pleasing  to  God  by  their  honesty  and  their  exemplary  Christian  lives. 
These  groups  of  good  Christians  do  not  make  the  Church  holding  Christ's 
authority  to  teach  and  sanctify  the  world.  *  *  *  It  [such  a  scheme  of 
reunion]  would  mean  that  she,  the  Church  sent  to  teach  all  nations,  was 
nothing  more  than  a  federation  of  sects — a  Church,  not  Catholic,  but  con- 
glomerate— a  chaos  and  confusion  of  contradictory  voices  in  which  no  man 
would  have  anything  but  his  private  judgment  to  tell  him  the  true  mean- 
ing of  what  his  Saviour  came  to  teach  him.  It  is  a  concept  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  which  is  plainly  characteristic  of  the  Reformation  in  the  later 
stage  of  its  experience,  and  the  product  of  Protestantism,  hopeless  in  its 
efforts  to  unite  its  followers  in  doctrinal  agreement,  and  yet  unwilling  to 
unchurch  any  who  clung  to  Baptism  and  justifying  faith  in  Christ.  To  a 
Catholic  such  a  notion  is  irredeemably  unworthy  and  repulsive.7 ' 

Another  Eoman  Catholic  journal,  the  Columbus  Jo- 
sephinum  Weekly,  says: 

"Except  that  it  provides  an  excellent  opportunity  for  a  number  of 
aged  clergymen  in  different  parts  of  the  world  to  take  a  pleasant  holiday, 
and  affords  in  addition  a  medium  for  getting  numberless  things  off  their 
minds,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  useful  purpose  the  Lambeth  Conference 
fulfils." 

The  Christian  World,  London,  (Free  Church)  writing 
of  Dr.  R.  F.  Horton's  sermon    on   the    subject   of   the 
Appeal,"  says: 


i  i 


"In  his  view  the  Lambeth  message  is  a  real  turning-point,  a  bridge  be- 
tween the  episcopal  and  non-episcopal  Churches.  Instead  of  the  old  atti- 
tude of  'You  must  submit,'  there  was  a  new  spirit  of  humility  and 
gentleness,  and  a  frank  acknowledgment  of  the  Free  Churches  as  part  of 
the  Church  of  Christ.  The  response  should  be  as  reasonable,  as  humble, 
and  as  generous  as  the  invitation.  They  should  consider  in  a  spirit  of 
prayerful  goodwill  whether  they  could  adopt  the  method  proposed.  After 
the  service  a  conference  was  held,  to  which  members  of  the  Church  of 
England  were  invited.     The  following  resolution  was  passed: — 

"That  this  conference  urges  upon  the  Free  Church  Council  to  en- 
deavor to  arrange  at  an  early  date  a  conference  of  representatives  of  the 


150         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

non-episcopal  religious  bodies,  the  object  of  this  conference  to  be  to  see  if 
any  practical  basis  can  be  found  for  giving  expression  to  the  spirit  of  the 
bishops'  message  or  to  form  a  reply  to  the  same. " 

Et.  Eev.  Philip  M.  Ehinelander,  D.  D.,  Philadelphia, 
Pa.,  a  member  of  the  Lambeth  Conference,  sums  up  the 
'  '  Appeal' '  in  these  two  well  worded  paragraphs  which 
appeared  in  The  British  Weekly,  London : 

"It  is  not  for  me  here  to  commend  or  explain  our  'Appeal.'  It  must 
speak  for  itself.  I  would  point  out,  however,  wherein  it  seems  to  us  who 
put  it  forth  to  say  a  new  thing  in  a  new  way.  It  is  obviously  natural  to 
contrast  it  with  the  ' Lambeth  Quadrilateral.'  That  contrast  really  tells 
the  story.  For  in  the  'Quadrilateral'  not  a  word  is  said  about  the  Church. 
It  is  passed  over  in  a  silence  which  is  not  less  significant  because  it  is  en- 
tirely unconscious.  The  Scriptures  are  mentioned,  and  next  to  them  the 
creeds.  Then  come  the  Sacraments,  and,  following  them,  the  ministry. 
But  of  the  Church  itself,  to  which  the  Scriptures  and  the  creeds  bear  wit- 
ness, for  which  the  Sacraments  and  ministry  exist,  there  is  no  hint,  But 
of  our  new  appeal  the  Church  is  the  beginning  and  the  ending.  We  are 
concerned  with  nothing  else.  Bible,  Sacraments  and  ministry  are  certainly 
included  and  insisted  on,  but  they  are  included  in  their  due  subordination 
and  proportion.  They  are  the  means,  the  necessary  and  God-given  means, 
to  the  paramount  end  of  the  whole  Church's  full  continuous  and  indissoluble 
life.  They  are  judged  and  valued,  commended  and  vindicated,  solely  with 
that  end  in  view. 

"This  notable  change  in  emphasis  signifies  a  corresponding  change  in 
outlook.  In  the  'Quadrilateral'  we  were  Anglicans  speaking  to  non-Angli- 
cans. Our  proposals  were  in  the  nature  of  a  peace  treaty  between  sepa- 
rate and  self -sufficient  groups.  We  set  down  our  lowest  terms,  our  mini- 
mum requirements  for  those  who  might  desire  to  keep  spiritual  company 
with  us.  That  was  a  clear  and  quite  intelligible  line  to  take,  and  we  took 
it  in  all  sincerity  and  truth.  But  now  we  have  set  our  faces  in  quite  an- 
other way.  Now  we  speak,  not  as  Anglicans  to  non- Anglicans,  but  as  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  Catholic  to  other  members,  all  of  us  members  who  to- 
gether have  been  made  one  by  Cod's  own  act  and  grace  in  Jesus  Christ, 
but  who  have  on  every  side  broken  and  frustrated  that  unity  which  was 
and  is  the  highest  gifts  of  our  Father's  love,  and  the  most  sure  proof  of 
His  Self -revelation  in  His  Son.  The  knitting  together  of  the  broken  frag- 
ments of  the  Body  according  to  His  will  so  that  we  all  together  may  know 
the  fulness  of  our  common  heritage,  the  edification  of  the  whole  Fellow- 
ship in  all  its  rich  diversity  of  thought,  character  and  temperament,  so  that 
'all  the  nations  may  flow  into  it,'  each  bringing  its  peculiar  differences 
and  special  gifts,  and  finding  its  home  and  sanctification  in  one  family 
life,  this  aim  and  desire  spoke  in  us  and  controlled  us.  It  marked,  for  us 
at  least,  a  new  and  deeply-moving  purpose.  It  came  with  the  authority  of 
truth.' ' 


When  the  whole  Church  realizes  that  it  is  in  a  schis- 
matic condition  there  will  be  a  brightening  hope  of  rec- 
onciliation. Concerning  this  The  Challenge,  London, 
(Anglican)  says, 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  151 

"The  omens  are  propitious.  In  quite  recent  times  there  has  been  a 
remarkable  convergence  of  opinion  upon  a  new  point  of  view,  the  adoption 
of  which  would  bring  the  practical  accomplishment  of  re-union  immeas- 
urably nearer.  It  had  been  customary  for  '  Catholics '  to  maintain  that 
only  societies  constituted  and  organised  in  a  certain  way  could  be  re- 
garded as  within  the  Catholic  Church.  Eome  still  adopts  this  attitude. 
But  we  hear  less  of  the  traditional  Anglo-Catholic  theory  of  three  branches 
— the  Eoman,  the  Orthodox,  the  Anglican — as  alone  constituting  the  true 
Church.  In  its  place  we  have  the  glad  confession  from  many  sides  that 
there  is  only  one  Catholic  Church  and  that  the  non-episcopalian  bodies,  as 
truly  as  the  three  'branches,'  are  even  now  within  it.  This  was  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  'Mansfield  Eesolutions, ;  about  which  controversy 
lately  raged.  It  has  received  endorsement  from  many  quarters  in  which 
the  immediate  practical  proposals  of  the  Mansfield  Conference  were  un- 
acceptable. It  provides  a  new  starting  point.  It  does  not  involve  those 
who  accept  it  in  any  abandonment  of  their  own  convictions  with  regard  to 
the  order  necessary  to  be  preserved  and  maintained  in  the  re-united  Church 
of  the  future,  but  it  does  save  any  proposals  from  being  or  even  appearing 
to  be  an  invitation  from  one  body  to  others  that  they  should  join  it.  If 
Anglicans  adopt  this  principle,  we  shall  not  invite  Congregationalists  (for 
instance)  to  join  the  Anglican  Communion,  but  we  shall  invite  them  to 
consider  with  us  how  we  may  join  together  to  form  the  re-united  Church. 
For  this  principle  involves  the  confession  that  there  is  no  one  outward 
society  from  which  others  are  in  schism,  and  that  we  are  all  schismatics 
together. ' ' 


The  proposed  concordat  between  the  Anglican,  Eastern 
Orthodox  and  old  Catholic  Churches  is  receiving  some 
interesting  comments  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  circles 
in  America.  Kt.  Rev.  Beverley  D.  Tucker,  Protestant 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  Southern  Virginia,  writes  to  The 
Southern  Churchman,  Richmond,  Va.,  as  follows : 

"As  a  member  of  the  Joint  Commission  to  confer  with  Eastern  Ortho- 
dox Churches  and  Old  Catholics,  I  wish  to  make,  through  your  courtesy, 
the  following  statement: 

"It  was  with  great  regret  that  I  had  to  decline  the  earnest  and  court- 
eous invitation  of  the  Bishop  of  Harrisburg  to  accompany  the  members  of 
the  commission  to  Europe.  I  was  not  present  at  the  meeting  of  the  com- 
mission last  winter,  as  the  notification  did  not  reach  me,  and  therefore  the 
Preliminary  Statement  was  not  seen  by  me  until  this  week. 

"I  have  the  highest  respect  for  the  members  of  the  commission  and 
recognize  their  ability  and  their  pure  consecration  to  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian unity.  In  both  the  Preliminary  Statement  and  the  Proposed  Terms 
of  Agreement,  however,  there  are  expressed  positions  which  I  cannot  take 
conscientiously  with  my  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  Church  of  which  I  am  a 
member. 

"I  find  myself  unable  to  disagree  with  the  definition,  and  what  I  feel 
to  be  the  limitation  of  the  number  of  Sacraments  given  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  and  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  our  own  Church. 

"I  cannot  join  in  the  apology,  which  is  made  in  the  Preliminary  State- 
ment of  the  American  Commission,  for  the  English  reformation,  nor  share 
the  regret  expressed  for  the  Protestant  atmosphere  in  which  the  Anglican 
Church  was  compelled  to  set  forth  its  liturgy  and  its  foundation  of  doe- 
trine.    Nor  can  I  share  in  the  hope  that  in  the  near  future,  when  '  the  Cath- 


152         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

olic  movement  of  which  the  Tractarian  movement  beginning  in  1833  is  an 
example, '  has  reached  its  zenith,  the  Church  will  be  thoroughly  de-pro- 
testanized.  Nor  am  I  ready  to  accept  the  decrees  of  the  seventh  council 
and  to  lend  my  sanction  to  the  worship  of  relics  and  icons. 

For  these  reasons  I  have  cabled  to  the  chairman  of  the  commission  not 
to  sign  my  name  as  a  member  of  the  commission,  to  either  the  Preliminary 
Statement  or  the  Terms  of  Agreement.  I  do  not  desire  to  enter  into  controv- 
ersy. For  my  associates  on  the  commission  I  have  a  feeling  of  affection  and 
sympathy  in  their  desire  to  promote  Christian  unity.  Their  judgment  may 
be  better  than  mine,  but  I  am  compelled  to  follow  my  convictions  and  do 
my  duty  as  God  seems  by  His  Holy  Spirit  to  indicate  it  to  me.  I  shall 
reserve  the  right  to  express  my  views,  as  a  member  of  the  commission,  when 
its  report  is  presented  to  the  General  Convention. ' ' 

That  journal  commenting  editorially  says, 

"A  committee  or  commission  of  the  General  Convention  of  many  years 
standing,  to  confer  with  officials  of  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Churches  and  the 
Old  Catholics,  has  drawn  up  certain  Terms  of  Agreement  as  a  proposed  '  Ba- 
sis of  Restoration  of  Corporate  Unity  and  Intercommunion. '  This  proposed 
Concordat  has  been  accepted,  we  are  informed,  by  Bishop  Herzog,  of  the  Old 
Catholics,  and  by  several  dignitaries  of  the  Armenian  Church,  and  has  been 
' cordially  received'  by  a  Synod  of  Greek  and  Russian  ecclesiastics  at  Athens, 
whose  formal  reply,  however,  has  not  yet  been  published.  It  is  this  paper, 
with  its  < Preliminary  Statement'  of  our  Committee,  to  which  Bishop 
Tucker,  of  Southern  Virginia,  refers." 

The  Protestant  section  referred  to  is  as  follows : 

uWe  have  been  informed  from  time  to  time  that  the  Orthodox  Easterns 
have  some  difficulty  in  reconciling  certain  Protestant  aspects  of  our  posi- 
tion and  policy  with  full  and  genuine  orthodoxy — in  particular  the  phrase- 
ology of  some  of  our  Articles  of  Religion,  the  laxity  of  our  discipline  towards 
certain  Protestant  errors,  and  the  existence,  even  among  many  of  our  clergy, 
of  opinions  inconsistent  with  loyalty  to  the  catholic  faith  and  order.  For 
a  right  understanding  of  these  things  care  should  be  taken  to  allow  for  the 
peculiar  and  providential  mission  of  the  Anglican  Churches. 

1 1  When  the  English  reformation  took  place,  those  who  threw  off  the  papal 
supremacy  were  driven  by  serious  corruption  in  the  lives  and  administration 
of  the  prelates  of  that  day  to  radical  reaction  against  the  system  which 
they  administered;  and  they  often  failed  to  distinguish  between  necessary 
elements  of  Christian  faith  and  order  and  the  corruptions  with  which  they 
were  overlaid.  The  English  'Church  alone  among  those  who  at  that  time 
abandoned  the  papal  rule  succeeded  in  retaining  the  catholic  ministry  and 
sacraments,  and  the  faith  which  goes  with  them.  But  this  Church  was  beset 
by  earnest  efforts  both  from  within  and  from  without  to  go  further  in  the 
Protestant  direction.  Accordingly,  while  the  English  Church  retained  its 
catholic  heritage,  it  did  so  under  great  difficulties,  and  with  the  necessity 
of  dealing  kindly  and  tactfully  with  those  who  were  impatient  and  wished 
to  go  further.  The  policy  of  conformity  was  adopted.  That  is,  the  Prayer 
Booh  was  set  forth,  embodying  the  catholic  working  system,  but  in  forms 
and  language  which  it  was  hoped  would  retain  the  loyalty  of  those  impatient 
souls.  To  make  their  conformity  easier  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  of  Religion 
were  adopted  as  an  eirenicon  or  peace-making  platform.  In  these  Articles 
Protestant  feelings  were  allowed  for,  and  as  many  things  as  possible  were 
said  in  terms  that  would  be  pleasing  to  them,  which  explains  the  Protestant 
flavor  that  some  of  these  Articles  show.     But  close  examination  of  them, 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  153 

and  of  the  use  of  language  in  that  troublesome  period,  will  prove  that 
great  care  was  taken  to  avoid  any  statement  contrary  to  the  catholic  faith 
and  order.  These  are  indeed  inserted  in  them.  It  should  be  said  in  this 
connection  that  in  our  Article  XIX,  wherein  the  possibility  of  particular 
Churches  falling  into  error  is  illustrated  by  examples  of  erring  Churches, 
the  Church  of  Constantinople  is  not  included.  Its  orthodoxy  was  plainly 
recognized  by  the  framers  of  the  Articles.  The  Protestants  were  not  satis- 
fied, and  so  arose  the  dissenting  denominations  in  England,  and  their  sub- 
sequent appearance  in  America  and  the  British  Colonies.  The  political 
association  of  the  Church  with  an  unpopular  crown  in  England  had  much 
to  do  with  this  result,  so  that  Anglicans  have  felt  partly  responsible,  and 
believe  that  it  is  their  duty  by  all  means  to  win  Protestants  back  to  the 
Church. 

"Accordingly,  our  discipline  has  always  been  tender  and  sympathetic  in 
that  direction,  and  we  are  indisposed  to  drive  out  these  among  ourselves 
who  fail  to  realize  the  fulness  of  their  catholic  heritage,  lest  we  alienate 
Protestants  altogether  and  thus  end  all  hope  of  winning  them.  This  policy 
has  worked  as  well  as  could  reasonably  be  expected.  Those  who  fully  and 
loyally  adhere  to  the  Prayer  Book  working  system  do  become  more  and  more 
consistently  catholic  and  every  revival  of  loyalty  to  this  working  system 
results  in  what  is  called  a  '  catholic  movement '  of  which  the  Tractarian 
movement  beginning  in  1833  is  an  example.  And  each  new  movement  of 
this  kind  is  more  gratifying  in  its  catholic  results  than  its  predecessors. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that  our  history  establishes  the  catholic  nature 
and  tendency  of  our  position  and  system;  and  the  seemingly  lax  aspects  of 
conditions  show  merely  that  we  are  adhering  to  the  great  work  of  helping 
Protestants  to  recover  what  they  have  lost." 

A  part  of  the  section  referring  to  the  honors  paid  to 
relics,  images  and  pictures  says, 

"With  regard  to  the  councils  that  have  been  accepted  as  ecumenical 
subject  to  an  explanation  by  the  Anglicans  which  is  accepted  as  satisfac- 
tory by  the  Easterns  and  by  the  Old  Catholics,  we  agree  in  accepting  seven 
councils  as  truly  ecumenical,  viz.,  those  of  Nicea,  325  A.  D.,  Constantinople, 
381  A.  D.,  Ephesus,  431  A.  D.,  Chalcedon,  451  A.  D.,  Constantinople,  553 
A.  D.,  Constantinople,  680-681  A.  D.,  and  Mcea,  787  A.  D.  The  explana- 
tions referred  to  are  as  follows: 

In  view  of  an  impression  of  many  English  speaking  Christians  that  the 
decree  on  image  worship  set  forth  by  the  council  of  Nicea,  787  A.  D., 
which  sanctions  prostrations,  irpoaKvvf]<ns  [proskunesis], before  images,  is  equiv- 
alent to  a  sanction  of  such  adoration  as  is  unlawful  when  paid  to  a  creature, 
we,  the  Anglicans,  do  not  feel  justified  in  accepting  that  council  as  ecumeni- 
cal without  explanation,  and  without  assurance  from  the  Easterns  and  Old 
Catholics  that  our  explanation  is  satisfactory.  The  Anglican  manner  of 
showing  honor  differs  from  that  of  the  Eastern  in  confining  such  ceremony  as 
npo<rKvvt]<ns  to  acts  of  adoration  or  \arpela  [latreia].  We  do  use  and  honor 
representations  of  Christ  and  His  saints,  but  in  less  ceremonious  ways. 
Therefore  it  would  be  misleading  and  contrary  to  any  meaning  that  the 
Eastern  Christians  and  Old  Catholics  would  wish  to  maintain  if  we  should 
without  explanation  describe  the  relative  honor  which  we  regard  as  lawfully 
paid  to  relies,  images,  or  pictures  by  the  term  irpoanvriais  or  its  literal 
equivalent,  '  prostration  \ 

"In  accepting  the  seventh  ecumenical  council,  therefore,  we  feel  it  to  be 
our  duty  to  explain  that  we  interpret  and  accept  its  decree  as  commending 
no  higher  honor  to  be  paid  to  relics,  images,  or  pictures  than  is  involved  in 


154         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

using  them  as  ereaturely  adjuncts  of  devotion  to  God.     All  adoration  or 
IMreia  being  due  exclusively  to  the  Divine  Being.  ■  ' 


The  Southern  Churchman  defends  Bishop  Tucker's 
position  as  follows: 

*  *  *  ' '  In  the  '  Preliminary  Statement '  also  of  our  commission  to  confer, 
etc.,  is  a  long  section  of  'Our  relations  with  Protestants'  which  is  little 
more  than  an  abject  apology  for  the  Protestant  position  of  this  Church  as 
set  forth  in  her  articles  of  Religion  and  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and  for 
her  'tender  and  sympathetic '  attitude  towards  Protestants  within  as  well  as 
without  her  fold.  It  is  altogether  the  crudest  and  most  partisan  presenta- 
tion we  have  ever  seen  from  a  body  of  men  claiming  in  any  way  officially 
to  speak  for  the  Anglican  Churches. " 

Of  Bishop  Tucker's  attitude,  The  Living  Church,  Mil- 
waukee, Wis.,  (Episcopal)  says, 

"That  the  bishop  has  deemed  this  divergence  from  the  view  presented 
by  the  commission  so  weighty  as  to  justify  him  in  cabling  his  refusal  to 
allow  his  name  to  be  used  among  the  signatures  to  the  papers  is  a  matter 
for  keen  regret.  A  signature  to  a  formal  document  does  not  imply  indorse- 
ment in  every  detail,  or  complete  satisfaction  with  language  used,  but  rather 
a  general  acquiescence;  there  could  be  joint  signatures  to  a  few  reports  on 
difficule  subjects  if  more  were  involved.  In  connection  with  the  bishop's 
comments  there  is  not  one  in  which  his  position  would  seem  to  us  to  make 
it  impossible  for  him  to  sign  the  document  as  jt  is  expressed,  not  one  in 
which  his  view  may  be  held  to  have  been  excluded  from  the  Anglican  position 
as  stated  by  the  commission.  He  has  the  right  to  demand  that  that  position 
be  so  stated  as  to  comprehend  himself  and  his  theological  associates;  he  is 
not  justified  in  demanding  that  it  be  so  stated  as  to  comprehend  nobody  else. 
His  use  of  the  three  mooted  words  is  a  legitimate  use.  It  is  not  the  only 
legitimate  use  of  them.  It  would  be  absurd  to  demand  that  Greeks  abandon 
their  use  and  accept  his,  when  theirs  has  at  least  as  many  centuries  of 
authority  behind  it  as  has  his  own. ' ' 

The  C ongregationalist,  Boston,  says, 

"An  announcement  of  unusual  importance  in  the  field  of  the  union  of 
the  Churches  is  made  by  a  commission  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
and  printed  in  full  in  The  Living  Church.  It  is  a  concordat  drawn  up  and 
presented  by  that  commission  to  the  Old  (not  Roman)  Catholic  and  the 
Oriental  (Orthodox)  Churches,  Greek,  Russian  and  Armenian.  Bishop  Her- 
zog,  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church,  signed  it  for  that  Church  in  Switzerland 
over  which  he  presides.  It  was  later  signed  by  the  Armenian  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople  and  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  Armenian  Patriarch  of  Jeru- 
salem. And  it  was  submitted  to  the  Synod  at  Athens  of  the  Greek  and 
Russian  (Orthodox)  Churches,  the  synod  appointing  a  commission,  which 
agreed  that  a  confederation  of  the  Churches  might  be  made  immediately, 
though  further  steps  would  be  necessary  for  a  formal  union.  Such  a  union 
would  give  nearly  a  world-wide  Church,  the  Old  Catholics  being  sparsely 
scattered  on  the  European  continent  in  the  strongholds  of  the  Papal  Roman 
Catholic  Church. 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  155 

' '  The  concordat  traverses  the  doctrinal,  liturgical  and  governmental  points 
at  issue  between  the  Churches  directly  concerned,  meeting  some  debated 
question  by  complete  agreement  and  explaining  differences  of  tradition  and 
usage  and  of  points  of  view  for  others,  while  referring  the  ancient  moot 
point  between  East  and  West  of  the  ' procedure'  of  the  Holy  Spirit  'from  the 
Father/  or  from  the  ' Father  and  the  Son'  to  an  ecumenical  council  hoped 
for  later.  As  to  the  question  whether  there  are  two  or  seven  Sacraments,  the 
difference  of  opinion  and  usage  is  avoided  by  a  re-definition  of  the  word 
'Sacrament'  which  makes  a  special  place  for  the  two  (of  Baptism  and 
the  Supper)  and  leaves  the  five  (confirmation,  penance,  holy  order,  holy 
matrimony  and  holy  unction)  as  'Means  of  grace  bestowed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit'  and  in  that  wider  sense  sacramental.  The  question  of  prostration 
before  relics,  pictures  and  images  is  also  met  by  definition  and  allowance. 
Acceptance  of  the  validity  of  the  sacraments  administered  by  any  of  the 
communions  and  intercommunion  are  thus  led  up  to  and  accepted. 

"What  concerns  us  most  directly  in  these  steps  toward  a  union  of  the 
Eastern,  Old  Catholic  and  Anglican  Churches  is  the  explanatory  statement 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Commission  which  took  the  initiative  in  this 
approach  and  tentative  agreement.  The  commission  sketches  the  history 
of  previous  attempts  to  bring  together  these  separated  communions  and  then 
goes  on  to  the  historical  statement  that  while  the  English  Church  at  the 
reformation  '  Retained  its  catholic  heritage,  it  did  so  under  great  difficulties, 
and  with  the  necessity  of  dealing  kindly  and  tactfully  with  those  who  were 
impatient  and  wished  to  go  further  in  the  Protestant  direction.' 

"We  would  not  lay  a  straw  in  the  way  of  such  a  reunion  of  communion 
as  this  concordat  contemplates.  That  is  entirely  for  the  members  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  lay  and  clerical,  and  of  all  schools  of  thought 
to  decide.  But  there  is  much  in  the  concordat  itself  which  would  make  it 
more  difficult  than  ever  for  the  Congregational  Churches  to  enter  into  an 
agreement  with  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  which  would  in  any  wise 
commit  them  to  some  of  the  views  of  worship,  Church  authority  and  tradi- 
tions outlined  in  this  proposed  union  of  Churches. " 


The  Southern  Churchman,  Bichmond,  Va.,  drops  this 
wise  word  regarding  patience  in  Christian  unity, 

It  took  about  twelve  centuries  for  the  sordid  ambitions,  the  short- 
sighted enthusiasms  and  narrow-minded  policies  of  Christian  men,  aided 
by  the  political  machinations  of  the  world,  to  bring  the  Church  of  Christ 
into  the  disorganized  and  chaotic  condition  in  which  it  now  finds  itself,  with 
its  consequent  impotency  and  failure  of  trust.  It  is  only  about  fifty  years 
that  a  considerable  element  in  the  Church  has  been  looking  for  the  way 
out  of  this  awful  muddle  and  for  the  healing  of  these  deadly  ruptures  in 
the  body  of  Christ.  Is  it  a  wonder  that  in  so  short  a  time  the  whole 
Church  has  not  been  brought  even  to  a  sincere  desire  for  unity,  much  less  to 
an  agreement  as  to  how  this  ancient  and  deep-seated  evil  is  to  be  cured? 
It  has  been  so  long  lost  sight  of  that  not  the*  wisest  of  us  knows  what 
organic  union  will  be  like  when  it  comes.  Age-long  and  world-wide  errors 
are  not  corrected  in  a  day.  Only  one  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than 
to  suppose  that  unity  is  coming  very  soon,  and  that  would  be  to  despair 
of  its  coming  at  all. 


LETTERS  TO  THE  EDITOR 

DIFFICULTIES  TO  FREEDOM 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly. 

Dear  Sir: — I  am  asked  to  write  about  the  problem  of  Christian  unity, 
but  what  shall  I  write?  I  am  asked  to  be  free,  but  how  free  am  I  to  be? 
Freedom  is  a  very  indefinite  term.  To  define  its  limitations  is  difficult.  If 
as  a  Congregationalist  I  should  be  free  in  rambling  through  the  fields  of 
Congregationalism  but  dared  to  include  in  my  freedom  the  endorsement  of 
the  concordat  and  affirm  therewith  that  I  was  awaiting  ordination  by  the 
Episcopal  bishops  as  soon  as  the  General  Convention  had  passed  the  dis- 
puted canon,  I  would  have  scores  of  Congregationalists  whacking  me  over 
the  head  for  my  departure  from  Congregational  tradition.  If  as  an  Epis- 
copalian I  should  exercise  my  freedom  in  inviting  non-episcopal  clergy- 
men into  my  pulpit  the  bishop  of  my  diocese  would  be  calling  me  to  ac- 
count and  great  numbers  of  Episcopalians  would  charge  me  with  violation 
of  the  vows  of  my  ordination  and  desecrating  the  pulpit  of  the  Church. 
If  as  a  Disciple  I  should  be  so  free  in  advocating  those  things  for  which 
the  Disciples  stand  I  would  be  hailed  by  them  as  a  champion  of  their 
traditions.  But  if  on  the  other  hand  I  should  use  my  freedom  on  the  mat- 
ters of  Baptism,  receiving  into  full  membership  in  my  church  those  who 
had  been  baptized  by  sprinkling  or  pouring,  there  would  be  an  uprising 
among  many  of  those  Disciple  churches  that  hold  exclusively  to  member- 
ship on  Baptism  by  immersion  only.  I  might  go  down  the  list  of  all  the 
Churches  and  the  fact  is  that  so  long  as  I  maintained  the  tradition  of  that 
peculiar  Church  I  would  be  regarded  as  their  champion,  but  when  I  at- 
tempted to  follow  the  passion  of  a  larger  freedom,  the  member  who  sees 
only  through  the  keyhole  of  his  own  sect,  and  usually  the  keyhole  that 
opens  into  the  back  yard  of  his  own  premises,  would  charge  me  with  being 
an  unfaithful  upstart. 

Now  the  family  of  that  member  is  larger  than  the  family  of  those  who 
are  seeking  for  freedom.  A  test  vote  would  give  him  the  majority.  It 
would  put  me  in  the  minority.  I  think  this  would  be  true  regarding  the 
ministry  in  particular.  I  am  wondering  whether  it  would  be  true  regard- 
ing the  masses  of  Church  membership.  Scores  of  people  in  the  Churches 
are  wearied  with  the  policy  the  ministry  is  trying  to  put  over  on  them. 
Talking  to  a  group  of  ministers  recently  they  expressed  the  opinion  that 
they  were  unwilling  for  the  people  to  decide  this  question,  for  they  were 
sure  the  people  would  bolt  the  traditional  methods.  The  the  question  is 
whether  the  time  has  not  come  for  the  people  to  do  some  thinking  for  them- 
selves. The  ministry  is  now  divided.  They  cannot  get  together  on  very 
many  things.  The  chief  reason  for  this  is  that  they  have  been  taught 
those  attitudes  that  necessarily  keep  them  apart,  but  the  ministry  is  fre- 
quently wrong.  I  think  the  war  illustrated  one  of  the  greatest  errors  in 
the  thought  of  the  modern  ministry  that  has  been  revealed  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  church.  Because  the  war  in  all  countries  touched  off  a  uni- 
versal explosion  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  and  men  and  women  everywhere 
willingly  worked  for  war  interests,  the  ministry  concluded  that  that  en- 
thusiasm was  religion  and  most  of  the  ministers  took  the  illusion  that  the 
nations  were  undergoing  a  moral,  ennobling  experience.  To  have  talked 
otherwise  was  regarded  as  both  unpatriotic  and  unwise.  The  ministry  ap- 
peared to  have  been  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  facts  of  history  as 
well  as  human  experience,  which  show  that  every  war  has  been  followed 
by  a  period  of  moral  apathy  and  exhaustion.  The  result  of  this  ministerial 
illusion  has  been  that  great  numbers  of  men  have  left  the  ministry  for 


LETTERS     TO     THE     EDITOR  157 

mercantile  pursuits  and  likewise  great  numbers  of  laymen  have  shown  a 
marked  indifference  in  Church  affairs.  If  the  ministry  that  has  been  trained 
to  interpret  God  drops  wholesale  and  pell-mell  into  such  an  illusion  in  a 
manner  so  manifest,  is  it  not  time  for  the  ministry  to  take  its  reckoning 
regarding  other  matters  that  are  just  as  vital  as  this? 

Jesus  Christ  came  to  make  men  free.  The  slavery  of  tradition  is  the 
most  difficult  servitude  from  which  to  be  freed  in  human  history.  To 
think  as  one's  father  thought,  to  think  as  one's  community  thinks,  to  think 
as  one's  denomination  thinks  cannot  be  accepted  as  final.  Jesus  stands  out 
as  the  first  freeman  of  mankind.  He  took  issue  with  the  traditions  of  the 
past,  whether  they  were  incorporated  in  the  Scriptures  or  not.  Every  man 
seeking  for  freedom  must  be  equally  fearless  in  freeing  himself  from  the 
traditions  of  his  Church  and  other  Churches,  traditions  of  his  community 
and  other  communities  or  his  nation  and  other  imtions,  unless  those  tradi- 
tions conform  to  the  great  principles  embodied  in  Jesus  Christ. 

I  recognize  that  a  man  can  abuse  his  freedom  and  go  to  as  dangerous 
and  hurtful  extreme  as  the  man  who  nurses  his  slavery  in  holding  all  of 
his  traditions  with  divine  sacredness.  There  is  a  middle  ground  and  it  is 
the  middle  ground  that  we  as  ministers  of  reconciliation  are  to  find  and 
hold.  On  that  ground  is  to  be  maintained  cooperation,  orderliness,  tolera- 
tion, long  suffering,  gentleness,  selfcontrol  and  love.  Whatever  may  be 
the  attitudes  of  men,  so  these  principles  predominate  rather  than  the 
principles  incorporated  in  the  traditions  of  a  denomination  or  those  incor- 
porated in  the  traditions  of  a  community,  there  will  cease  to  be  these  closed 
corporations,  for  such  is  every  modern  denomination.  This  is  no  little  un- 
dertaking and  many  a  member  of  a  denomination  would  hold  the  way  it 
does  things  on  an  equality  with  the  way  God  is  trying  to  do  things.  I 
sometimes  think  we  have  got  to  discover  that  much  of  our  way  of  doing 
things  is  the  highmindedness  and  stubbornness  of  man  in  undoing  and 
thwarting  the  handiwork  of  God. 

I  dropped  into  a  minister's  library  and  after  going  over  his  books  I 
found  there  books  by  Roman  Catholics  and  by  Protestants  of  nearly  every 
denomination.  I  asked  him  if  he  made  use  of  all  these  books  and  he  an- 
swered with  some  surpise,  "Of  course  I  do."  I  then  said,  "You  mean  to 
say  you  use  these  to  help  you  preach  ? ' '  He  said,  ' '  Certainly. ' '  Then  I 
said,  "You  use  these  to  help  you  preach,  but  you  do  not  associate  with 
those  denominations  to  help  you  live.  If  you  use  the  books  of  all  these 
denominations  to  help  you  preach,  are  you  not  under  obligation  to  help  all 
these  denominations  from  which  you  make  quotations  by  speaking  in  friend- 
ly terms  of  them  and  giving  them  a  fair  chance  to  show  to  you  and  your  peo- 
ple the  trust  that  they  hold?"  He  did  not  seem  to  see  that  one  necessarily 
followed  the  other.  The  difficulty  with  us  is  we  are  still  going  around 
selecting  something  here  and  something  there  that  suits  our  notions,  making 
a  kind  of  crazy-quilt,  when  if  we  practiced  fellowship  with  souls  as  well  as 
with  books  we  could  receive  such  soul  enrichment  as  would  help  us  to  a 
larger  freedom  in  the  service  to  our  fellows  and  in  the  work  of  God. 

Yours  truly, 

Anthony  Openeye. 


BOOK  REVIEWS 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND  CHRISTIAN  REUNION. 
Being  the  Bampton  Lectures  for  the  Year  1920.  By  the  Rev.  A.  C. 
Headlam,  D.D.,  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford.    John  Murray,  Albemarle  St.,  W.  1,  London. 

This  book  will  command  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  for  years  to  come. 
It  is  the  fulfilment  of  a  design  which  Dr.  Headlam  has  carried  for  more 
than  thirty  years.  It  is  a  book  of  real  merit  in  that  it  is  scholarly,  being 
true  to  the  facts,  free  without  being  radical,  logical  in  most  instances, 
and  an  argument  of  unusual  power.  Its  method  is  primarily  historical, 
examining  the  evidence  and  drawing  conclusions  accordingly.  He  plunges 
into  his  subject  in  the  opening  lecture  with  the  statement  of  the  British 
Army  in  France  being  denied  Roman  Catholic  Church  buildings  for  the 
service  of  the  troops  and  the  Church  of  England  chaplains  in  Prance  re- 
fusing communion  to  pious  members  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Nonconform- 
ist Churches  on  the  eve  of  battle,  illustrating  the  evils  of  a  divided  Chris- 
tendom, and  then  through  the  eight  lectures  he  speaks  with  such  freedom 
that  the  whole  horizon  of  one's  thinking  is  lighted  up  with  the  possibilities 
of  that  Christian  charity  which  Augustine  so  frequently  emphasized  and 
which  he  manifested  in  his  dealings  with  the  Donatists. 

The  eight  lectures  are  divided  as  follows:  "The  Origins  of  the 
Church, ' '  going  back  for  the  sources  of  the  Church  into  Judaism,  especially 
emphasizing  the  significance  of  the  word  ecolesia  and  its  later  use  in  the 
Gospels,  the  significations  of  the  term  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  place  of 
Discipleship,  Apostolate,  the  Sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, etc.;  "The  Apostolic  Church,"  finding  his  authorities  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  and  the  Apostolic  Epistles,  and  dealing  there  with  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostles  regarding  Baptism,  Communion,  appointment  of 
the  seven,  missionary  ministers,  authority  of  the  Twelve,  position  of  St. 
Peter,  laying  on  of  hands,  confirmation,  unity  of  the  Church,  the  ministry, 
living  power  of  the  Church,  etc.;  "The  Catholic  Church,"  emphasizing 
the  distinction  between  the  Catholic  Church,  which  was  the  Church  before 
divisions  occurred,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  is  the  Latin 
Church  of  the  eleventh  century  and  on,  and  giving  an  account  of  the 
changes  in  the  Church,  the  development  of  monarchical  episcopacy,  mean- 
ing of  the  word  Church,  its  principles  and  ministry,  constitutional  position 
of  a  bishop,  theories  of  orders,  etc.;  "The  Teaching  of  St.  Augustine," 
including  the  influence  of  his  thought  on  theology,  his  arguments  against 
the  Donatists,  the  nature  of  the  Christian  ministry,  the  Church  and  Chris- 
tian charity,  etc.;  "The  Divisions  of  the  Church,"  including  the  Nes- 
torian  and  Monophysite  heresies,  schism  of  East  and  "West,  the  filioque 
clause,  claims  of  the  Papacy,  the  Medieval  Church,  the  Reformation,  Coun- 
cil of  Trent,  etc.;  "The  Doctrine  of  the  Church — I,"  emphasizing  the 
teaching  of  the  creed,  catholicity,  unity  of  the  Church,  Roman  solution, 
Protestant  view,  meaning  of  schism,  authority   and  merits  of  the   creed, 


B«0  OK     REVIEWS  159 

etc.;  "The  Doctrine  of  the  Church— -II, ' '  emphasizing  the  authority  and 
value  of  episcopacy,  valid  ordination,  meaning  of  orders,  apostolic  succes- 
sion, recognition  of  non-episcopal  orders,  episcopacy  and  episcopal  ordina- 
tion necessary  for  unity,  causes  of  division,  etc. ;  ( '  Reunion, ' '  emphasizing 
the  right  attitude  of  mind,  inadequacy  of  federations,  wrong  methods  of  ap- 
proach, recognition  of  other  episcopal  churches  and  non-episcopal  churches, 
unity  without  uniformity,  need  of  reconciliation,  etc.  This  is  only  a  scant 
and  imperfect  survey  of  the  book. 

Dr.  Headlam  speaks  at  times  with  astonishing  frankness  and  so  true 
to  the  facts  that  he  awakens  confidence  and  holds  it  to  the  close  of  the 
volume.  He  has  dropped  seed  thoughts,  like  Newman,  who  made  possible 
the  Modernist  movement  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  a  fact  which  many 
perhaps  would  deny,  and  like  Augustine,  avIio  sowed  the  seeds  which  made 
possible  both  Roman  Catholicism  and  Protestantism.  The  Oxford  profes- 
sor has  so  presented  his  thought  that  to  the  free  and  thoughtful  it  shows 
that  forms  of  Church  government,  not  even  episcopacy,  are  of  such  vital 
consequence  as  to  keep  the  Church  apart,  and  opens  the  way  to  the  removal 
of  one  of  the  age  long  contentions  of  the  Church.  He,  however,  holds  to 
episcopacy  as  the  organ  of  unity.  He  does  not  prove  that  it  is  such  an 
organ.  He  affirms  it  with  a  devotion  that  indicates  his  reverence  for  this 
ancient  order  of  Church  government,  although  he  likewise  affirms  that  no 
one  of  the  rival  systems  of  Church  polity  which  prevail  at  the  present  time — 
Episcopacy,  Papacy,  Presbyterianism  or  Congregationalism — can  find  any 
direct  support  in  the  Bible,  nor  is  it  possible  to  trace  the  process  and 
stages  of  the  development  of  episcopal  ordination.  He  says,  "The  only 
practical  policy  for  reunion  will  be  based  on  the  mutual  recognition  of  or- 
ders. We  know  what  our  feelings  are  in  the  Church  of  England;  we  will 
certainly  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Church  of  Rome  unless  Rome  is  pre- 
pared to  recognize  our  orders.  It  is  exactly  the  same  with  the  Eastern 
Church.  If  they  were  to  come  to  us  and  say  that  our  orders  were  invalid 
or  doubtful,  and  that  a  condition  of  reunion  would  be  that  our  clergy 
should  be  reordained,  do  you  suppose  that  we  should  pay  any  attention  to 
them?  If  that  be  so,  cannot  we  understand  that  that  may  be  exactly  the 
position  in  regard  to  the  Presbyterians?  Do  you  suppose  that  the  Presby- 
terian Church  of  Scotland  would  accede  to  any  proposals  for  reunion  unless 
we  were  prepared  to  recognize  the  validity  of  their  orders  and  ministry? 
And  that  recognition  would  have  to  be  mutual. ' ' 

Regarding  the  Eucharist,  which  he  treats  with  due  reverence,  he  says, 
"The  great  mistake  that  the  Christian  Church  has  made  from  the  Middle 
Ages  to  the  present  day  is  to  have  attempted  to  define  dogmatically  what 
no  human  language  can  define  and  what  it  has  never  been  intended  that 
the  Church  should  define,  and  we  shall  never  end  our  many  troubles  concern- 
ing the  Eucharist  until  we  have  been  willing  to  dispense  entirely  with  defi- 
nitions; and  this  I  would  say  not  intending  to  depreciate  or  lower  our  Eu- 
charist worship.  Definition  does  not  explain ;  it  limits  and  curtails. ' '  This 
is  finely  said.  But  the  same  argument  applies  to  Jesus  Christ,  Whom  the 
creeds  have  sought  to  define,  especially  the  Nicene  Creed,  whose  early 
history  Dr.  Headlam  rightly  says  is  somewhat  doubtful.     If  we  should  hesi- 


160         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

tate  to  define  the  institution  which  Christ  established,  how  much  more 
hesitancy  ought  there  to  be  in  defining  Christ  Himself?  And  has  not  the 
attempt  to  make  these  definitions  the  test  of  Christian  fellowship  been  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  disunion?  There  must  be  a  creed.  There  can  be 
no  Church  without  a  creed,  but  the  creed  should  be  in  the  Person  Jesus 
Christ,  as  in  Apostolic  times,  rather  than  in  a  definition  of  the  Person,  which 
limits  the  Person  and  is  a  subject  of  constant  controversy.  The  Nicene 
Creed  did  not  hold  the  Church  together  and  its  terms  of  expression  are  too 
archaic  to  hold  it  together  now.  It  appears  to  be  more  reasonable  to  find 
the  way  to  unity  by  faith  in  and  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  around  whom  the 
early  Church  was  a  united  body.  There  is  no  necessity  of  "wiping  the 
slate  and  starting  afresh, ' '  which  Dr.  Forsyth  says  is  impossible.  Quite 
so.  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  been  in  His  Church  through  all  ages,  alone  gives 
to  us  the  sense  of  historical  continuity.  The  ancient  creeds  can  be  re- 
tained by  those  who  desire  them  without  the  slightest  molestation,  but  as 
a  basis  of  reunion  it  raises  another  question. 

In  Dr.  Headlam's  holding  to  the  kinder  side  of  human  nature,  he  has 
opened  new  routes  of  travel  for  those  who  are  concerned  for  the  will  of  God 
in  the  unity  of  His  Church.  Dr.  Headlam's  contribution  must  rank  by  the 
side  of  the  best  thought  on  the  subject  of  reunion. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  FOREIGN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONARY  SO- 
CIETY. By  Archibald  McLean,  President.  Illustrated.  Fleming  H. 
Revell  Company,  New  York. 

The  record  of  foreign  missionary  work  is  always  fascinating.  This  volume 
is  no  exception  to  that  rule.  Dr.  McLean's  long  presidency  of  the  Society, 
whose  achievements  ne  recites  in  these  more  than  four  hundred  pages,  has 
made  him  one  of  the  foremost  authorities  in  foreign  missionary  activities., 
He  traces  the  origin  of  this  Society  from  its  humble  beginning  in  1875  to 
its  present  strength,  with  stations  in  nearly  every  nation  on  the  globe.  It 
is  a  story  of  a  great  mission  and  the  author's  passion  for  the  whole  world 
to  have  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  is  clothed  in  such  finely  worded 
sentences  that  it  awakens  like  passion  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  peruse 
the  pages  of  this  important  volume  in  missionary  annals.  The  time  is 
coming  when  all  missionary  work  in  foreign  countries  will  have  to  be  done 
under  a  general  board.  That  time  already  is  and  we  look  for  its  realiza- 
tion in  the  quickening  activities  of  missionary  work.  The  converts  to 
Christianity  have  little  interest  in  the  things  that  separate  Christians  in 
America  and  Europe  and  the  likelihood  is  they  will  have  less  as  time  goes 
on,  which  means  that  from  the  foreign  missionary  field  we  are  to  get  our 
finest  inspiration  for  permanent  unity.     This  volume  is  a  help  to  that  end. 


Organizations  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNITY,  Inc. 
Having  its  inception  in  the  work  of  Thomas  Campbell,  1809,  present  or- 
ganization 1910,  President,  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie;  Secretary,  Rev.  H.  C.  Arm- 
strong, Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Md.,  TJ.  S.  A.  For  intercessory  prayer, 
friendly  conferences  and  distribution  of  irenic  literature,  ' '  till  we  all  attain 
unto  the  unity  of  the  faith. "  Pentecost  Sunday  is  the  day  named  for 
special  prayers  for  and  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches. 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  CHRIS- 
TENDOM, 1857,  President,  Athelstan  Riley,  Esq.,  2  Kensington  Court, 
London ;  Secretary  in  the  United  States,  Rev.  Calbraith  Bourn  Perry,  Cam- 
bridge, N.  Y.  For  intercessory  prayer  for  the  reunion  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic, Greek  and  Anglican  Communions. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  ASSOCIATION  OF  SCOTLAND,  1903,  Secretary, 
Rev.  Robert  W.  Weir,  Edinburgh.  For  maintaining,  fostering  and  ex- 
pressing the  consciousness  of  the  underlying  unity  that  is  shared  by  many 
members  of  the  different  Churches  in  Scotland. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  FOUNDATION,  1910,  Secretary,  Rev.  W.  C.  Em- 
hardt,  Newtown,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  For  the  promotion  of  Christian  unity 
throughout  the  world  by  research  and  conference. 

CHURCHMEN'S  UNION,  1896,  President,  Prof.  Percy  Gardner;  Hon. 
Secretary,  Rev.  C.  Moxon,  3  St.  George's  Square,  London  S.  W.,  England. 
For  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  between  the  Church  of  England  and 
all  other  Christian  bodies. 

COMMISSION  ON  THE  WORLD  CONFERENCE  ON  FAITH  AND  OR- 
DER, 1910,  President,  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson;  Secretary,  Robert  H. 
Gardiner,  Esq.,  Gardiner,  Me.,  U.  S.  A.  For  a  world  conference  of  all 
Christians  relative  to  the  unity  of  Christendom. 

COUNCIL  ON  ORGANIC  UNION,  1918,  Ad  Interim  Committee,  Chairman, 
Rev.  W.  H.  Roberts,  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Secretary,  Rev.  Rufus  W.  Miller, 
Wither3poon  Building,  Philadelphia.  For  the  organic  union  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Churches  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

FEDERAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  CHURCHES  OF  CHRIST  IN  AMERICA, 
1908,  President,  Rev.  Frank  Mason  North;  Secretary,  Rev.  Charles  S.  Mac- 
farland,  105  E.  22d  St.,  New  York.  For  the  cooperation  of  the  various 
Protestant  Communions  in  service  rather  than  an  attempt  to  unite  upon 
definitions  of  theology  and  polity. 

FREE  CHURCH  FELLOWSHIP,  1911,  Rev.  Malcolm  Spencer,  Colue 
Bridge  House,  Rickmansworth,  London,  N.  For  the  cultivation  of  cor- 
porate prayer  and  thought  for  a  new  spiritual  fellowship  and  communion 
with  all  branches  of  the  Christian  Church. 

NATIONAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  FREE  CHURCHES 
OF  ENGLAND,  1895,  President,  Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  Mansfield 
College,  Oxford;  Secretary,  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  Memorial  Hall,  E.  C,  Lon- 
don. For  facilitating  fraternal  intercourse  and  cooperation  among  the 
Evangelical  Free  Churches  in  England. 

WORLD  ALLIANCE  FOR  PROMOTING  INTERNATIONAL  FRIEND- 
SHIP THROUGH  THE  CHURCHES,  1914,  Chairman,  Most  Rev.  Randall 
Thomas  Davidson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Hon.  Secretary,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir 
Willoughby  H.  Dickinson,  41  Parliament  St.,  London,  S.  W.  1.  For  joint 
endeavour  to  achieve  the  promotion  of  international  friendship  through  the 
churches  and  the  avoidance  of  war. 


VOL.  X  NO.  3 

"God  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation. " 

THE 

CHRISTIAN  UNION 

QUARTERLY 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 


rHIS  journal  is  the  organ  of  no  party  other 
than  of  those,  growing  up  in  all  parties,  who 
are  interested  in  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Its  pages  are  friendly  to  all  indications  of  Christian 
unity  and  ventures  of  faith.  It  maintains  that, 
whether  so  accepted  or  not,  all  Christians — Eastern 
Orthodox,  Roman  Catholic,  Anglican,  Protestant, 
and  all  who  accept  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour — 
are  parts  of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  that  the 
unity  of  His  disciples  is  the  paramount  issue 
of  modern  times. 


JANUARY,  1921 


THE    CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

2710  PINE  STREET  504  N.  FULTON  AVENUE 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.  BALTIMORE,  MD. 

AGENTS: 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company,  New  York 

Marnzen  Company,  Ltd.,  Tokyo,  Osaka,  Kyoto,  Fukuoka  and  Sendai 

Oliphants,  Ltd.,  21  Paternoster  Square,  London,  E.  C.  4;  100,  Princes  Street,  Edinburgh 


TWO  DOLLARS  A  YEAR  FIFTY  GENTS  A  COPY 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

The  favorite  figure  in  which  the  church  of  the  first  century  set  forth  its 
conception  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity  is  that  of  "the  Good  Shepherd." 
The  emblem  which  appears  on  this  page  is  a  reproduction  of  one  of 
the  early  Christian  gams. 

"ONE  FLOCK 


ONE  SHEPHERD.' ' 

"No  one  has  written  more  appreciatively  respecting  this  symbol 
than  Dean  Stanley  in  his  Christian  Institutions.  It  appealed  to  all  his 
warmest  sympathies.  'What,'  he  asks,  'is  the  test  or  sign  of  Christian 
popular  belief,  which  in  these  earliest  representations  of  Christianity 
is  handed  down  to  us  as  the  most  cherished,  the  all-sufficing,  token  of 
their  creed?  It  is  very  simple,  but  it  contains  a  great  deal.  It  is 
a  shepherd  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  with  the  crook,  or  a  shepherd's  pipe, 
in  one  hand,  and  on  his  shoulder  a  lamb,  which  he  carefully  carries,  and 
holds  with  the  other'  hand.  We  see  at  once  who  it  is;  we  all  know  with- 
out being  told.  This,  in  that  earliest  chamber,  or  church  of  a  Chris- 
tian family,  is  the  only  sign  of  Christian  life  and  Christian  belief.  But, 
as  it  is  almost  the  only  sign  of  Christian  belief  in  this  earliest  catacomb, 
so  it  continues  always  the  chief,  always  the  prevailing  sign,  as  long  as 
those  burial-places  were  used.' 

"After  alluding  to  the  almost  total  neglect  of  this  lovely  symbol 
by  the  Fathers  and.  Theologians,  he  says  that  it  answers  the  question, 
what  was  the  popular  religion  of  the  first  Christians?  'It  was,  in  one 
word,  the  religion  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  The  kindness,  the  courage, 
the  love,  the  beauty,  the  grace,  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  was  to  them,  if 
we  may  so  say,  Prayer  Book  and  Articles,  Creed  and  Canons,  all  in  one. 
They  looked  on  that  figure,  and  it  conveyed  to  them  all  they  wanted. 
As  ages  passed  on,  the  Good  Shepherd  faded  from  the  mind  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  other  emblems  of  the  Christian  faith  have  taken 
His  place.  Instead  of  the  gracious  and  gentle  Pastor,  there  came  the 
Omnipotent  Judge,  or  the  crucified  Sufferer  or  the  Infant  in  His  mother's 
arms,  or  the  Master  in  His  parting  Supper,  or  the  figures  of  innumerable 
saints  and  angels,  or  the  elaborate  expositions  of  the  various  forms  of 
theological  controversy.'  But  'the  Good  Shepherd  represents  to  us  the 
joyful,  cheerful  side  of  Christianity  of  which  we  spoke  before.  .  .  . 
But  that  is  the  primitive  conception  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  in 
those  earlier  centuries  when  the  first  object  of  the  Christian  community 
was  not  to  repel,  but  to  include;  not  to  condemn,  but  to  save.  The  popular 
conception  of  Christ  in  the  early  church  was  of  the  strong,  the  joyous 
youth,  of  eternal  growth,  of  immortal  grace.'  " — Frederic  W.  Farrar  in 
The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented  in  Art. 


THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

A  Journal  in  the  Interest  of  'Reconciliation  in  the  Divided  Church 
of  Christ.  Interdenominational  and  International.  Each  Com- 
munion may  sneak  with  Freedom  for  itself  in  these  Pages  as  to 
what    Offering*  it   has   to   bring   to   the  Altar   of  Reconciliation. 


Vol.  X.  JANUARY,  1921  No.  3 


CONTENTS 

AN   INTERPRETATION   OF   THE   LAMBETH   APPEAL     ...     169 
By  Rt.  Rev.  Ethelbert  Talbot,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Bethlehem 

THE   BASES   OF    UNITY 179 

By  Rev.  Gaius  Glenn  Atkins,  D.D.,  Minister  First  Congrega- 
tional Church,  Detroit,  Mich. 

DECLARATION  OF  PRINCIPLES  CONCERNING  THE  LU- 
THERAN CHURCH  AND  ITS  EXTERNAL  RELATION- 
SHIPS  188 

Being  the  Action  of  the  Recent  Convention  of  the  United  Lu- 
theran Church  in  America. 

THE  RE-ESTABLISHMENT   OF  CHRISTIAN  PEACE     ....     201 
Being  the  Encycle  of  Pope  Benedict  XV. 

AN   INQUIRY   CONCERNING   THE   WORLD'S   WAITING  AND 
OUR  TARRYING 211 

Being  Addressed  to  the  Editor  by  Anthony  Openeye. 

EDITORIAL: 

Fourth  Quadrennial  Meeting  of  the  Federal  Council    .     .    215 

WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY     .     220 

LETTERS  TO  THE  EDITOR 230 

AMONG  NEW  BOOKS 236 

THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY  is  issued  in  January,  April, 
July  and  October.  It  is  the  servant  of  the  whole  Church,  irrespective  of 
name  or  creed.  It  offers  its  pages  as  a  forum  to  the  entire  Church  of 
Christ  for  a  frank  and  courteous  discussion  of  those  problems  that  have 
to  do  with  the  healing  of  our  unchristian  divisions.  Its  contributors  and 
readers  are  in  all  communions. 

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CHRISTIAN  UNITY  CALENDAR 

Week  of  Prayer  for  the  Churches,  January  2-8,  1921,  January  the  4th 
being  in  the  interest  of  Christian  unity. 


At  the  instance  of  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 
a  series  of  Christian  unity  conferences  in  America  are  being  arranged.  The 
first  will  be  in  St.  Louis,  February  2-4,  1921,  at  the  Second  Baptist  Church. 
The  causes  presented  will  be  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order, 
the  American  Council  on  Organic  Union  of  Protestants,  the  Lambeth  Ap- 
peal, the  World  Alliance  for  International  Friendship  through  the  Churches, 
the  Universal  Conference  of  the  Church  of  Christ  on  Life  and  Work,  the 
Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America. 

There  will  be  a  similar  conference  in  Dallas,  Texas,  the  week  following. 
For  particulars  write   the  Association  for  the   Promotion  of   Christian 
Unity,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md. 


Pentecost  Sunday  has  been  named  by  both  the  World  Conference  on  Faith 
and  Order  and  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity  as 
the  day  for  special  sermons  on  Christian  unity,  along  with  prayers  to  that 
end. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY   PRAYER  LEAGUE 

(Membership  in  this  League  is  open  to  all  Christians — Eastern,  Eoman, 
Anglican  and  Protestant,  the  only  requirement  being  a  notice  by  post  card 
or  letter  of  one's  desire  to  be  so  enrolled,  stating  the  Church  of  which  he 
is  a  member.  Address,  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity, 
Seminary  House,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A.) 


PETITION: 

FOR  blessing  upon  all  who  have  confessed  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour. 
FOE  blessing  upon  all  cooperative  movements  looking  toward  unity. 

FOR  blessing  upon  editors,  authors  and  speakers  whose  thoughts  contribute 
toward  brotherhood. 

Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  to  you:  seek,  and  ye  shall  find:  knock,  and  it 
shall  be  opened  to  you.  For,  every  one  that  asketh,  receiveth:  and  he  that 
seeketh,  findeth;  and  to  him  that  knocketh,  it  shall  be  opened.  For  what 
man  is  there  among  you,  of  whom  if  his  son  ask  bread,  will  he  reach  him 
a  stone?  Or  if  he  ask  of  him  a  fish,  will  he  reach  him  a  serpent?  If  ye, 
then,  who  are  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  how  much 
more  will  your  Father  Who  is  in  heaven  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask 
Him.— Matt.  7:7-11    (Syriac). 

The  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  upon  the  righteous,  and  His  ears  (ready)  to  hear 
them:  but  the  face  of  the  Lord  is  against  the  wicked. — 1  Peter  3:12 
(Syriac). 

O  Lord,  perfect,  we  beseech  Thee,  the  faith  of  us  who  believe,  and  sow  the 
good  seed  of  faith  in  their  hearts  who  as  yet  lack  it;  that  we  all  may  look 
steadfastly  unto  Thee,  and  run  with  patience  the  race  that  is  set  before  us. 
Give  us  grace  to  show  our  faith  by  our  works;  teach  us  to  walk  by  faith, 
having  respect  unto  the  promises:  which  of  Thy  mercy  make  good  to  us  in 
Thine  own  good  time,  O  our  most  gracious  Lord  God  and  Saviour.     Amen. 

— Christina  G.  Bosetti. 

In  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  the  whole  is  far  greater  than  the  sum  of  its 
parts.  The  future  of  religion  shall  not  always  be  endangered  by  suspicion 
and  intolerance  and  narrowness  among  professed  disciples  of  truth.  It  is 
permissible  to  hope  for  more  union  than  exists  at  present  among  professing 
Christians  and  among  the  branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  In  spite  of 
legitimate  differences  on  difficult  and  infinite  problems,  there  must  be  a 
mass  of  fundamental  material  on  which  a  great  majority  are  really  agreed. 

— Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

EDITED  BY  PETER  AINSLIE, 
Minister  Christian  Temple,   Baltimore,   Md. 

Editorial  Council 

RAYMOND    CALKINS, 

Pastor   First   Congregational   Church,   Cambridge,   Mass. 

J.  A.   CRAMER, 

Minister  Dutch  Reformed  Church,   The  Hague,  Holland 

ADOLF  DEISSMAN 
Professor  in  the  University   of   Berlin,   Germany 

ALFRED  E.  GARVIE, 
Principal    of    New    College,    University    of    London,    London,    England 

HUGHELL  FOSBROKE 
Dean  General  Episcopal  Theological   Seminary,  New  York  City 

WILLIAM  P.  MERRILL 

Minister  Brick  Presbyterian   Church,   New  York  City 

GEORGE  W.  RICHARDS 

Professor    of    Church    History,    Theological    Seminary    of    the    Reformed    Church, 

Lancaster,   Pa. 

WILLIAM  TEMPLE 
Canon   of  Westminster,   London,   England 

NATHAN  SODERBLOM, 
Archbishop   of  Uppsala,   Sweden 


ALL  editorial  communications  should  be  addressed  to  Peter  Ainslie,  Editor  THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A. 

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Sendai;  Oliphants,  Ltd.,  21  Paternoster  Square,  London,  E.  C.  4,  or  100  Princes 
Street,   Edinburgh. 

SUBSCRIPTION  price  $2.00  a  year— 50  cents  a  copy. 


CONTENTS  OF 

THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

FOR  OCTOBER,  1920 

AN  APPEAL  TO  ALL  CHRISTIAN  PEOPLE.     (Lam- 
beth)        89 

SCOTTISH  CHURCH  REUNION.     By  Robert  Forgan      94 

PRIEST   OR   PROPHET?     A   QUESTION   FOR   THE 

DAY.     By  W,  H.   Griffith   Thomas 105 

A  PILGRIMAGE  TOWARDS  UNITY.    By  Charles  H. 

Brent 117 

THE   DISCIPLES'  PROGRxlMME   FOR  UNION.     By 

George  W.  Brown 121 

EDITORIAL:     Three  Outstanding  Conferences     .     .    129 

WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  ARE  SAYING  ABOUT 

UNITY 140 

LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR 156 

BOOK  REVIEWS 158 


A  PRAYER 


LORD,  be  Thou  patient  with  us  in  our 
loyalty  to  our  opinions  and  traditions,  which 
so  frequently  is  disloyalty  to  Thee.  Grant  that 
we  may  see  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  Forgive 
our  self-will,  teach  us  through  suffering  the  way 
to  brotherhood  and  lead  us  by  the  shadow  of 
the  cross  into  perfect  submission,  for  Thou  alone 
art  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life.  In  finding 
Thee  we  have  found  the  fellowship  that  is  to 
break  all  fellowships  until  there  shall  be  one  flock 
as  there  is  one  Shepherd,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.     Amen. 


THE  REMEMBRANCE  OF  CHRIST 

And  so,  when  it  became  clear  that  He  was  going  to  be  taken 
from  them,  on  the  night  before  He  died,  when  too  it  must  have 
seemed  that  it  was  all  a  failure  except  for  His  own  obedience 
to  His  Father's  will,  and  that  all  His  effort  had  been  thrown 
away — for  what  distressed  Him  most  of  all  was  that  His 
closest  friends,  on  whom  everything  must  now  depend,  and  who 
He  had  hoped  would  carry  on  His  work,  had  failed  to  pene- 
trate His  mind;  you  remember  that  they  were  contending,  on 
the  night  before  He  died,  as  regards  their  precedence  in  His 
Kingdom — on  that  night  He  made  a  last  appeal.  He  asked 
them  very  simply  to  remember  Him,  and  He  suggested 
that  they  could  do  so  best  by  sharing  in  a  common  meal  at 
which  He  said  that  they  would  all  be  one,  because  they  would 
all  share  in  Him,  the  Body  broken  and  the  Blood  outpoured. 
He  thought  too,  that  this  might  help  them  to  be  like  Him,  and 
might  make  them  wish  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  do  His 
work,  the  work  which  He  had  hoped  to  do;  so  that  perhaps  it 
might  turn  out  after  all  that  His  great  work  had  not  been 
thrown  away;  that  men  might  even  yet  believe  that  God  had 
sent  Him;  and  that  they  might  realise  how,  in  spite  of  great 
difficulty,  very  great  difficulty,  He  had  all  along  most  dearly 
loved. — B.  H.  Lightfoot,  from  a  sermon  recently  preached  in 
Westminster  Abbey. 


«S»ii_»hh^—iii:— — iw^— nu^— mi— na— -nn— bh— tin—  un— mi— :in— mi— •  mi— »««— «i— .  hu— —  mi— nn— tiu— iih— nu—  *?» 

i  1 

I  I 


taatnnarg  Wntk  lalkffc 


i 
I 
I 
I 
I 

U   nf  %  mi^sinnanj   work  nf  j 

tij?  tmirift  ta  balktfin  heranH?  nf  I 

Mtttonns  in  it}?  ©Ijurrlj.     Sttrimnna 

I         mmt  ht  remold  if  %  misainnarg  | 

I        mmt  wtmlh  aimanr^     Jt  te  tint  a  I 

matter  of  rfjmr?;    it  is  an  impelling 

I         nmHBitg*  j 


I  1 

I  I 

I  I 

A,  — iiu^— m— iiii— mi— mi— nn— an— wi— nu— mi— bu— nu-^iin—  mi— »uu— mi— nn— 11,1— n;t= •na— •»!!•— —un— a<& 


AN  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  LAMBETH 

APPEAL 

I  have  been  requested  to  give  an  interpretation  of  the 
Appeal  on  reunion  to  all  Christian  people  issued  by  the 
252  bishops,  assembled  at  the  Lambeth  Conference  in 
London  last  July,  1920. 

May  I  say  in  the  first  place  that  the  Lambeth  Confer- 
ence has  no  legislative  functions,  and  its  resolutions  and 
recommendations  therefore  must  be  ratified  by  the  va- 
rious national  Churches  and  dioceses,  before  they  become 
effective.  What  the  Conference  recommends  however 
would  naturally  carry  great  weight  throughout  the 
Church,  as  the  bishops  come  from  all  sections  of  the  An- 
glican Communion  scattered  throughout  the  world. 

It  is  true  that  both  the  secular  and  religious  press  of 
America  at  the  time  published  the  Appeal  and  commented 
upon  it  more  or  less  fully.  More  recently  attention  has 
been  drawn  to  it  by  the  published  opinions  of  many 
prominent,  religious  leaders,  both  in  England  and  Amer- 
ica. Notwithstanding,  a  certain  measure  of  publicity 
thus  given  to  this  declaration  of  the  bishops,  it  is  still  true 
that  comparatively  few  American  Christians  have  had  an 
opportunity  to  study  or  even  to  read  the  Appeal.  This 
may  be  said  both  of  the  clergy  and  laity  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Moreover,  there  are  many  persons  who 
have  derived  from  the  newspapers  a  very  inadequate,  if 
not  entirely  mistaken,  view  of  what  was  actually  set  forth 
in  the  statement.  It  has  seemed  wise,  therefore,  before  at- 
tempting anything  in  the  way  of  a  commentary  on  the 
Appeal,  that  it  should  be  presented  fully  to  the  readers 
of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly,*  thus  giving  them 
an  opportunity  to  form  their  own  opinions  as  well  as  to 
judge  more  intelligently  as  to  the  correctness  of  any  ex- 
planations I  may  feel  disposed  to  offer. 


*The   Appeal   was   published   in   full    in    the    October    number   of    The   Christian 
Union  Quarterly. 


170  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

How  wide-spread  and  unusual  an  interest  has  been 
aroused  in  England  upon  the  subject  may  be  understood 
by  the  simple  statement  that  in  a  recent  copy  of  the 
Church  Family  Netvspaper,  of  London,  six  columns  of 
short  communications  from  prominent  Free  Church  min- 
isters appear.  The  recommendations  of  the  bishops  are 
heartily  endorsed  by  every  one  of  these  various  writers 
belonging  to  many  denominations.  Dr.  Scott  Lidgett  re- 
fers to  the  bishop's  Appeal  on  the  reunion  of  Christen- 
dom as,  "the  greatest  ecclesiastical  event  since  the  Ref- 
ormation;" and  the  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  ex-secretary  of 
the  Free  Church  Council,  says  it  is  a  "triumph  of  Chris- 
tian statesmanship. ' ' 

May  I  remind  the  reader  that  the  Appeal  re- 
ceived an  almost  unanimous  approval  from  the  252  bish- 
ops present,  and  that  only  four  among  the  entire  number 
dissented.  When  it  is  considered  how  many  differences 
of  opinion  have  been  entertained  among  the  bishops  on 
this  anxious  problem  of  Christian  reunion,  and  that 
schools  of  thought  which  have  been  strongly  opposed  to 
each  other  were  all  brought  to  enthusiastic  agreement,  as 
here  set  forth,  it  will  not  be  surprising  that  we  felt  that 
a  power  beyond  our  own  had  influenced  and  guided  us. 

It  ought  also  to  be  stated  that  the  wide-spread  and  al- 
most pathetic  need  of  reunion  among  Christians  has  long 
been  felt  by  the  bishops,  and  that  they  came  to  the  Con- 
ference with  a  strong  and  solemn  conviction  that  the  time 
had  fully  come  when  some  positive  step,  far  in  advance 
of  anything  hitherto  attempted  by  us,  would  have  to  be 
made,  if,  in  any  measure,  we  should  rise  to  the  respon- 
sibility which  a  sadly  divided  Church  presented  to  our 
minds  and  consciences.  In  other  words,  the  condition 
of  the  Christian  world,  so  important  to  bear  witness 
for  righteousness  while  its  forces  were  kept  asunder,  had 
created  an  atmosphere  among  us  entirely  congenial  to  a 
prayerful  consideration  of  reunion. 


INTERPRETATION    OF    LAMBETH    APPEAL     171 

What  the  bishops  now  propose  as  a  basis  of  reunion 
does  not  differ  so  much  from  previous  positions  in  sub- 
stance as  in  the  method  and  spirit  in  which  they  approach 
the  question.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  these  propos- 
als neither  involve  any  change  in  our  fundamental  prin- 
ciples nor  do  they  make  any  demand  on  the  conscientious 
convictions  of  our  brethren  of  other  Churches  now  sep- 
arated from  us. 

The  committee  appointed  to  consider  the  subject  of 
reunion  was  the  largest  of  all  the  committees  of  the  Con- 
ference, and  consisted  of  over  seventy  members.  The 
chairman  was  the  Archbishop  of  York,  the  most  Reverend 
Cosmo  Gr.  Lang,  D.D.,  who  made  this  statement  about  him- 
self, "I  was  born,  brought  up,  and  baptized  in  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Scotland.  I  was  received  into  the 
Episcopal  Church,  and  am  now  an  archbishop.  I  should 
esteem  it  a  privilege  and  an  added  consecration,  and  of 
course  no  repudiation  of  my  Orders,  if  our  relations  with 
the  Presbyterian  Church  were  such  that  I  could  now  re- 
ceive such  ordination  or  commission  from  the  Church  of 
my  fathers  as  would  enable  me  to  minister  in  the  Pres- 
byterian Church,  and  to  administer  the  Lord's  Supper  to 
its  people ;  and  I  should  feel  that  no  Presbyterian  minis- 
ter would  repudiate  his  ministry,  if  he  should  receive  or- 
dination at  my  hands,  and  while  still  remaining  a  minster 
of  the  Presbyteran  Church,  be  able  to  administer  the 
Lord's  Supper  in  the  Church  of  England."  I  quote 
these  words  of  our  chairman  chiefly  because  they  throw 
light  on  both  the  spirit  and  method  of  the  Appeal  which  I 
have  been  asked  to  interpret  and  make  it,  if  possible, 
more  fully  understood  by  readers  of  The  Christian 
Union  Quarterly. 

Of  the  seventy  or  more  bishops  on  our  committee 
twelve  of  us  were  American  bishops.  When  our  Appeal 
was  formally  reported  back  to  the  whole  body  of  bishops, 
together  with  the  resolutions,  for  their  consideration,  we 


172  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUAE  T'E  ELY 

hardly  dared  to  hope  that  it  would  meet  with  any  such 
welcome  as  it  actually  received.  When,  therefore,  after 
much  discussion  and  careful  consideration,  it  was 
adopted  with  practical  unanimity,  the  result  was  followed 
by  the  singing  of  the  doxology  and  an  ever  memorable 
manifestation  of  devout  thanksgiving  for  what  clearly 
seemed  to  us  as  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  Who 
maketh  men  to  be  of  one  mind  within  a  house. 

During  our  consideration  of  the  subject,  we  called  to 
our  aid  and  associated  with  us  a  number  of  distinctive 
representatives  of  the  Free  Churches  who  gladly  gave  us 
the  benefit  of  their  experience  and  wisdom  and  whose  in- 
terest in  the  subject  was  well  known.  Among  these  may 
be  mentioned  Dr.  J.  H.  Shakespeare  of  the  Baptist 
Church  and  many  others. 

While  the  above  appeal  has  in  mind  our  relations  to 
other  historical  Churches  possessing  the  episcopal  form 
of  government,  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  it  largely  con- 
cerns itself  with  our  brethren  of  the  non-episcopal 
Churches  in  this  country  and  in  England,  ' '  standing  for 
rich  elements  for  truth,  liberty  and  life.  With  them  we 
are  closely  linked  by  many  affinities  racial,  historical, 
and  spiritual. 

In  the  first  paragraph  the  bishops  express  the  sense  of 
responsibility  which  rests  upon  them  at  this  crisis  of  the 
world's  history  and  of  the  sympathy  and  prayers  of  many 
Christian  people  within  and  without  our  own  communion, 
who,  like  ourselves,  are  deeply  interested  in  the  question 
of  the  reunion  of  the  visible  Body  of  Christ. 

In  the  second  paragraph  we  make  the  declaration  that 

we  acknowledge  that  all  who  believe  in  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  have  been  baptized  in  the  Name  of  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  are  full  members  with  us  in  the 
Holy  Catholic  or  Universal  Church,  of  Christ  which  is  His 
Body. 

This  declaration  while  not  new,  has  been  received  by 


INTERPRETATION    OF    LAMBETH    APPEAL     173 

many  with  evident  surprise  and  expressions  of  great  grat- 
ification. It  means  of  course  that  Baptism  is  the  divinely 
appointed  means  of  admission  to  the  Church,  and  that 
there  is  but  one  Church  upon  earth  consisting  of  all  bap- 
tized believers.  There  is  therefore,  we  thankfully  de- 
clare, already  existing  a  spiritual  unity  of  all  Christian 
people,  and  the  one  great  goal  for  which  we  are  now  striv- 
ing and  praying  is  that  this  spiritual  unity  should  become 
manifested  in  a  visible  body  so  that  its  witness  and  influ- 
ence may  be  felt. 

We  then  express  our  belief  that  God  wills  fellowship ; 
that  it  is  His  purpose  to  manifest  this  fellowship  in  an 
outward,  visible  and  united  society,  holding  one  faith, 
having  its  own  recognized  officers,  using  God-given 
means  of  grace,  and  inspiring  all  its  members  to  the 
world-wide  service  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  the  Catholic  or  Universal  Church.  Men  are 
not  to  rest  content  with  simply  a  spiritual  unity  or  fel- 
lowship. It  must  manifest  itself  in  the  world  by  means 
of  an  outward,  visible  and  united  society.  We  deplore 
the  fact  that  this  fellowship  at  present  is  not  visible,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  now  all  organized  in  different 
groups,  each  one  keeping  to  itself  gifts  that  rightly  be- 
long to  the  whole  fellowship  and  tending  to  live  its  own 
life  apart  from  the  rest.  The  sad  fact  of  our  numerous 
and  our  unhappy  divisions  is  too  obvious  to  require  com- 
ment. We  can  only  deplore  it  and  pray  for  the  removal 
of  its  causes.  While  these  causes  of  division  lie  deep  in 
the  past,  yet  none  will  deny  that  self-will,  ambition,  and 
lack  of  charity  among  Christians  have  been  principal  fac- 
tors in  the  process,  and  that  these  together  with  blind- 
ness to  the  sin  of  division  are  still  mainly  responsible 
for  the  breaches  of  Christendom.  We  declare,  as  all 
good  Christians  unite  with  us  in  declaring,  that  this  con- 
dition of  broken  fellowship  is  contrary  to  God 's  will,  and 
we  desire  frankly  to  confess  our  own  share  in  the  guilt  of 


174  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

thus  crippling  the  Body  of  Christ  and  hindering  the  ac- 
tivity of  His  Spirit. 

We  believe  that  the  times  call  us  to  a  new  outlook  and 
new  measures.  We  feel  that  it  is  wrong  to  rest  content 
with  this  condition  of  division  in  the  Body  of  Christ ;  for 
the  faith  cannot  be  adequately  apprehended,  and  the  bat- 
tle of  the  Kingdom  cannot  be  worthily  fought  while  the 
Body  is  thus  divided  and  unable  to  grow  up  into  the  ful- 
ness of  the  life  of  Christ.  We  believe  that  the  time  has 
come  for  all  the  separated  groups  of  Christians  to  agree 
in  forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching 
out  towards  the  goal  of  a  reunited  Catholic  Church. 

The  vision  which  rises  before  us  is  that  of  a  Church 
genuinely  catholic,  loyal  to  all  truth,  and  gathering  into 
its  fellowship  ' '  all  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians, "  within  whose  visible  unity  all  the  treasures  of 
faith  and  order  bequeathed  as  a  heritage  by -the  past  to 
the  present,  shall  be  possessed  in  common  and  made 
serviceable  to  the  whole  Body  of  Christ.  Within  this 
unity  Christian  Churches  now  separated  from  one  an- 
other would  retain  much  that  has  long  been  distinctive  in 
their  methods  of  worship  and  service.  I  understand  this 
to  mean  that  the  questions  of  liturgical  or  non-liturgical 
prayers,  of  vestments  for  ministers,  and  of  forms  and 
ceremonies  in  general  will  be  left  entirely  to  the  free 
choice  of  the  respective  communions.  These  things  are 
not  fundamental,  but  are  purely  matters  of  taste  and 
custom.  To  those  of  us  accustomed  to  them  they  are 
very  dear,  but  in  a  reunited  Church  there  will  be  no 
thought  of  imposing  them  upon  others.  In  other  words 
a  dead  uniformity  in  such  practices  is  not  only  impossi- 
ble, but  undesirable.  Here  the  widest  liberty  will  be  ex- 
pected. It  is  believed  that  only  through  a  rich  diversity 
of  life  and  devotion  can  the  unity  of  the  whole  f ellowship 
be  fulfilled. 

This  means  of  course  an  adventure  of  good-will,  and 


INTERPRETATION    OF    LAMBETH    APPEAL     175 

still  more  of  faith,  for  nothing  less  is  required  than  a 
new  discovery  of  the  creative  resources  of  God.  To  this 
adventure  we  are  convinced  that  God  is  now  calling  all 
the  members  of  His  Church. 

We  believe  that  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church  will  be 
found  to  involve  the  whole-hearted  acceptance  of  the  fol- 
lowing; (a)  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the  record  of  God's 
revelation  of  Himself  to  man  and  as  being  the  rule  and 
ultimate  standard  of  faith;  (b)  the  creed,  commonly 
called  the  Nicene,  as  the  sufficient  statement  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  and  either  it  or  the  Apostles'  as  the  baptismal 
confession  of  belief;  (c)  the  divinely  instituted  sacra- 
ments of  Baptism  and  the  Holy  Communion  as  express- 
ing for  all  the  corporate  life  of  the  whole  fellowship  in 
and  with  Christ;  (d)  and  a  ministry  acknowledged  by 
every  part  of  the  reunited  Church  as  possessing  not  only 
the  inward  call  of  the  Spirit,  but  also  the  outward  com- 
mission of  Christ  and  the  authority  of  the  whole  body. 

With  regard  to  these  four  essential  things,  we  may  re- 
mark that  (a),  (b)  and  (c)  are  now  received  by  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  Christians.  It  is  true  that  it  may 
be  objected  that  there  are  certain  religious  bodies  which 
may  feel  disposed  to  repudiate  any  form  of  creed.  They 
are  not  prepared  to  accept  any  formal  statement  of  their 
belief  embodied  in  any  of  the  historical  symbols  however 
venerable.  They  would  not  care  to  fetter  themselves 
with  any  man-made  symbol  of  the  faith,  and  feel  that  the 
Holy  Scriptures  alone  are  quite  sufficient.  But  is  it  con- 
ceivable that  Christian  reunion  can  ever  take  place  with- 
out some  such  brief  consensus  of  belief,  especially  when 
the  proposed  form  contains  only  such  facts  as  are 
founded  on  the  word  of  Holy  Scripture?  We  can  only 
hope  that  in  view  of  the  great  cause  of  reunion  all  the 
Churches  will  be  willing  to  make  some  sacrifice  of  form 
so  long  as  they  are  not  asked  to  sacrifice  any  article  of 
the  faith.    No  one  can  reasonably  doubt  that  the  content 


176  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  for  instance,  is  in  complete  har- 
mony with  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  is  expressed  almost 
in  the  very  words  of  revelation. 

As  to  the  ministry,  we  ask  if  we  may  not  reasonably 
claim  that  the  episcopate  is  the  one  means  of  providing 
such  a  common  ministry  as  can  be  recognized  by  all  the 
Churches.  And  here  we  say  that  it  is  not  that  we  call  In 
question  for  a  moment  the  spiritual  reality  of  the  minis- 
ters of  those  communions  which  do  not  possess  the  epis- 
copate. On  the  contrary  we  thankfully  acknowledge  that 
these  ministries  have  been  manifestly  blessed  and  owned 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  as  effective  means  of  grace.  But  at 
the  same  time  we  beg  humbly  to  submit  that  considera- 
tions alike  of  history  and  of  present  experience  justify 
the  claim  which  we  make  on  behalf  of  the  episcopate. 
Moreover,  we  would  urge  that  it  is  now  and  will  prove 
to  be  in  the  future  the  best  instrument  for  maintaining 
the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  Church.  At  the  same 
time,  we  greatly  desire  that  the  office  of  a  bishop  should 
be  everywhere  exercised  in  a  representative  and  consti- 
tutional manner  and  should  more  truly  express  all  that 
ought  to  be  involved  for  the  life  of  the  Christian  family 
in  the  title  of  father  in  God.  Nay,  more,  we  eagerly  look 
forward  to  the  day  when  through  its  acceptance,  in  a 
united  Church,  we  may  all  share  in  that  grace  which  is 
pledged  to  the  members  of  the  whole  body  in  the  Apos- 
tolic right  of  the  laying  on  of  hands  and  in  the  joy  and 
fellowship  of  a  Eucharist  in  which  as  one  family  we  may 
all  kneel  at  one  altar  and,  without  any  doubtfulness  of 
mind,  offer  to  the  one  Lord  our  worship  and  service. 

In  order  to  secure  this  common  ministry,  which  is  now 
the  one  great  need  before  reunion  can  be  realized,  we  be- 
lieve that  for  all  the  truly  equitable  approach  to  union  is 
by  the  way  of  mutual  deference  to  one  another's  con- 
sciences. We  therefore  suggest  that  if  the  authorities  of 
other  communions  should  so  desire,  we  are  persuaded 


INTERPRETATION   OF   LAMBETH   APPEAL    177 

that  terms  of  union  having  been  otherwise  satisfactorily 
adjusted,  bishops  and  clergy  of  our  communion  would 
willingly  accept  from  these  authorities  a  form  of  com- 
mission of  recognition  which  would  commend  our  min- 
istry to  their  congregations  as  having  its  place  in  the  one 
family  life.  Of  course  it  is  not  in  our  power  to  know  how7 
far  this  suggestion  may  be  acceptable  to  those  to  whom 
we  offer  it.  We  can  only  say  that  we  offer  it  in  all  sin- 
cerity as  a  token  of  our  longing  that  all  ministers  of 
grace,  theirs  and  ours,  shall  be  available  for  the  service 
of  our  Lord  in  a  united  Church. 

It  is  our  hope  that  the  same  strong  motive  and  desire 
for  reunion  which  animate  us  would  lead  ministers  who 
have  not  accepted  it  to  accept  a  commission  through  an 
episcopal  ordination  as  obtaining  for  them  a  ministry 
throughout  the  whole  fellowship. 

In  so  acting  no  one  of  us  could  possibly  be  taken  to  re- 
pudiate his  past  ministry.  God  forbid  that  any  man 
should  repudiate  a  past  experience,  rich  in  spiritual 
blessings,  for  himself  and  others.  Nor  would  any  of  us- 
be  dishonoring  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  Whose  call  led  us; 
to  our  several  ministries,  and  Whose  power  enabled  us 
to  perform  them.  On  the  other  hand  we  shall  be  pub- 
licly and  formally  seeking  and  obtaining  additional  rec- 
ognition of  a  new  call  to  a  wider  service  in  a  reunited 
Church,  and  imploring  for  ourselves  God's  strength  and 
grace  to  fulfill  the  same. 

It  is  interesting,  as  someone  has  said,  to  notice  whom 
in  particular  this  will  concern.  It  will  concern  on  the 
one  hand  the  bishops  who  will  presumably  be  placed  in 
a  position  of  jurisdiction  over  what  are  now  separated 
communities.  It  will  concern  on  the  other  hand  those 
ministers  of  Presbyterian,  Congregational,  and  other 
Churches  who  desire,  and  who  are  selected  to  become 
bishops  in  the  united  Church.  It  is  essential  that  noth- 
ing should  be  done  which,  would  cause   searchings  of 


178         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

heart  and  misgivings,  and  there  mnst  be  on  neither  side 
any  feeling  of  inadequacy  or  insufficiency.  Under  such 
circumstances  we  would  hope  that  all  would  do  every- 
thing they  could  to  ensure  good-will  in  the  reunited 
Church.  These  are  the  main  regulations  which  are  pro- 
posed and  provided  there  is,  as  we  hope,  a  real  and  ear- 
nest desire  for  reunion,  we  think  that  they  ought  to  be  ca- 
pable of  being  carried  out.  Unless  there  is  that  desire, 
no  regulations  will  be  possible. 

Finally,  we  believe  that  the  spiritual  leadership  of  the 
catholic  Church  in  days  to  come,  for  which  the  world  is 
manifestly  waiting,  depends  upon  the  readiness  with 
which  each  communion  is  prepared  to  make  sacrifices  for 
the  sake  of  a  common  fellowship,  a  common  ministry, 
and  a  common  service  to  the  world.  We  place  this  ideal 
first  and  foremost  before  ourselves  and  our  own  people. 
We  call  upon  them  to  make  the  effort  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  a  new  age  with  a  new  outlook.  To  all  other 
Christian  people  whom  our  words  may  reach  we  make 
this  same  appeal.  We  do  not  ask  that  any  one  commun- 
ion should  consent  to  be  absorbed  in  another.  We  do 
ask  that  all  should  unite  in  a  new  and  great  endeavor  to 
recover  and  to  manifest  to  the  world  the  unity  of  the 
Body  of  Christ  for  which  He  prayed. 

Ethelbert  Talbot. 

Bishop's  House,  South  Bethlehem,  Pa. 


THE  BASES  OF  UNITY 

We  are  just  beginning  to  see  clearly  that  the  questions  of 
cooperative  human  relationship  are  really  the  outstand- 
ing concern  of  our  time.  Not  that  we  shall  ever  attain 
their  complete  solution,  but  we  must  do  better  than  we  are 
doing  now  if  we  are  not  to  spend  ourselves  in  contending 
with  one  another  instead  of  creating  and  releasing  some 
united  force  adequate  for  the  conduct  of  a  society  at  once 
so  massive  and  complicated  as  is  the  society  of  our  own 
time.  No  need  to  search  for  illustrations  here;  they 
come  out  to  meet  us.  Our  industrial  life  has  problems 
enough  in  all  reason — the  supply  of  raw  material,  the 
conservation  of  natural  resource,  motive  power,  produc- 
tion, distribution,  credit  and  finance,  all  these  are  chal- 
lenging enough,  but  more  challenging  still  is  the  question 
of  relationship  between  the  estranged  elements  in  the 
producing  order,  and  until  we,  shall  obtain  something  bet- 
ter here  than  is  just  now  in  sight,  economic  conditions 
will  continue  to  perplex  and  disappoint  us  and  spread 
contagion  of  their  disorder  into  every  field  of  life. 

We  are  being  taught  in  manifold  perplexing  ways  that 
the  Churches  cannot  do  a  united  or  a  successful  work  in 
the  face  of  an  industrial  order  divided  against  itself.  The 
whole  international  situation  is  another  illustration  so 
outstanding  as  to  need  only  to  be  named.  We  have  just 
been  taught  that  when  international  relationships  break 
down  as  they  have  broken  down  during  the  last  decade, 
nothing  is  secure,  no  interest  nor  aspect  of  life  unaffected. 

We  have  long  seen  that  the  Churches  must  themselves 
subdue  their  own  relationships  to  the  essential  spirit  of 
Christianity.  Our  divisions  reproach  and  weaken  us  and, 
more  profoundly  still,  they  make  it  hard  for  us  to  make 
our  proper  and  saving  and  absolutely  essential  contribu- 
tion to  the  recasting  of  relationships  in  other  fields.  We 
cannot  consistently  preach  unity  to  a  divided  world  until 


180         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

we  have  attained  a  working  measure  of  unity  ourselves, 
nor  proclaim  brotherhood  until  we  exemplify  it.  All 
these  are  commonplaces,  but,  none  the  less,  they  are 
flaming  commonplaces,  and  all  this  is  fundamentally  in- 
terrelated. We  must  advance  along  the  whole  front  or 
we  cannot  really  advance  at  all.  Failure  in  one  region 
involves  every  other.  We  cannot  be  sure  of  our  inter- 
national relationships  as  long  as  the  world  is  shot  through 
and  through  with  economic  antagonism,  nor  can  we  find  a 
way  out  of  our  economic  antagonism  until  we  have  se- 
cured a  more  cooperative  world  order,  nor  can  we  attain 
a  working  measure  of  Church  unity  in  the  face  of  embit- 
tered national  or  industrial  relationships,  nor,  once  more, 
can  we  transform  national  relationships  until  we  are  sure 
of  a  united  Christian  sentiment  as  the  driving  force  be- 
hind it  all. 

The  discussion  of  this  whole  interrelated  situation  is 
taking  precedence  of  everything  else  and  there  is  a  place 
somewhere  in  such  discussion  for  the  consideration  of 
some  rare,  simple  and  even  homely  things  which  are  at 
once  essential  to  the  realization  of  our  hopes,  and  yet  so 
simple  and  homely  that  we  may  forget  them  altogether. 
The  whole  tendency  just  now  is  to  push  policies  too  far 
ahead  of  supporting  sentiments  and  creative  attitudes 
and  tempers.  Professor  Jack  has  just  been  saying  some- 
thing like  this  in  one  or  two  extremely  suggestive  essays 
in  The  Atlantic,  apropos  indeed  of  the  international  situ- 
ation, but  as  truly  applicable  to  the  cooperation  of  the 
Churches  or  the  industrial  order.  We  must,  he  has  been 
telling  us,  have  the  international  mind  before  we  can  re- 
ally correct  and  put  across  international  policies,  and  in- 
deed we  must  have  the  inter-church  mind  and  if  one  may 
coin  an  awkward  word,  the  inter-industrial  mind  before 
we  can  put  across  unified  Church  or  industrial .  pro- 
grammes. 

The  bases  of  unity,  therefore,  really  lie  deeper  than  the 


THE     BASES    OF     UNITY  181 

pact  of  the  League  of  Nations,  or  the  Appeal  to  all  Chris- 
tian People  from  the  bishops  assembled  in  the  Lambeth 
Conference  of  1920,  or  the  Encyclical  on  the  Re-establish- 
ment of  Christian  Peace  by  the  pope,  or  any  of  the  pro- 
grammes or  proposals  for  unity  which  to-day  constitute 
a  literature  of  their  own.  While  we  should  not  all  agree 
as  to  what  these  deeper  bases  of  unity  really  are,  never- 
theless, there  are  a  few  of  them  so  simple  and  so  funda- 
mental that  one  may  venture  to  suggest  them  as  really 
in  one  way  or  another  conditioning  everything  we  seek. 

First  of  all  we  must  really  be  persuaded  of  the  need 
and  worth  of  some  kind  of  unity.  Progress  in  the  larger 
way  is  always  a  matter  of  action  and  reaction.  A  posi- 
tion is  strongly  taken  through  the  force  of  contributing 
circumstances  long  in  action  until  it  shapes  policies,  voices 
itself  in  philosophies  and  writes  itself  in  creeds.  Then, 
for  one  reason  or  another,  but  really  because  it  is  not  big 
enough  it  is  sharply  challenged.  Little  by  little  the  op- 
posing position  mobilizes  its  forces,  dictates  its  policies, 
voices  its  philosophies,  writes  its  creeds.  Then  both  posi- 
tions are  seen  to  be  inadequate  and  the  next  step  is  to  try 
to  reconcile  them  in  something  larger  than  either  of  them 
and  including  the  best  of  both  of  them  upon  which,  as 
upon  one  step  of  those  "  altar  stairs  which  slope  through 
darkness  up  to  God"  we  may  climb  a  little  higher.  The 
larger  emphasis  of  our  own  immediate  past  has  been  up- 
on the  free  play  of  individual  forces,  the  value  of  compe- 
tition and  the  creative  significance  of  competitive  groups. 
We  have  been  taught  to  greatly  exalt  the  particular  group 
to  which  we  belong.  This  is  really  a  projection  into 
larger  fields  of  the  gospel  of  individualism  for  which,  his- 
torically, the  eighteenth  century  supplied  the  book  of 
Genesis,  the  nineteenth  century  the  book  of  Acts  and  the 
first  two  decades  of  the  twentieth  century  the  book  of 
Revelation.  For  it  was  soon  enough  discovered  that  in- 
dividualism breaks  down  unless  it  reinforces  itself  by 


182  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

group  action.  What  we  have  so  far  done,  therefore,  is  to 
create  the  competitive  group,  large  or  small,  secular  or 
ecclesiastic,  and  transfer  to  that  the  passions  and  self 
assertions  of  individualism.  That  in  turn  has  meant  an 
excessive  exaltation  of  the  group.  We  have  made  its  ban- 
ners the  symbol  of  our  loyalties,  made  the  group-interest 
identical  with  self-interest  and  we  have  fought  for  it  as 
we  have  believed  it  to  be  fighting  for  us.  But  always  we 
see  beyond  the  battle  lines  thus  created  some  massed  and 
hostile  force  with  which,  at  our  best,  we  have  really  made 
a  little  truce  and  against  which,  when  the  truce  is  ended, 
we  have  gone  out  to  some  battle  or  other  because  we  really 
believed  that  only  in  such  ways  as  that  could  we  save  our- 
selves and  our  causes.  We  have  not  actually  wanted 
unity,  we  have  been  afraid  we  should  thereby  lose  some- 
thing which  we  have  been  greatly  taught  to  treasure. 
And  even  now,  as  under  the  stress  of  circumstance  a  new 
passion  for  unity  is  coming  back  amongst  us,  it  is  still  too 
largely  confined  either  to  the  lonely  and  far-visioned,  or 
to  those  who  have  of  themselves  little  force  and,  in  spite 
of  Democracy,  no  very  great  voice  in  the  conduct  of 
affairs.  The  more  capable  and  driving  are  still  more  in- 
terested in  individual  self-assertion,  or  class  self-asser- 
tion, or  denominational  self-assertion,  or  national  self- 
assertion  than  they  are  in  such  ways  of  living  and  work- 
ing together  as  shall  really  secure  unity.  We  have  still  a 
great  work  of  education  to  do  before  we  should  really 
have  secured  that  longing  for  unity  in  whose  transmuting 
fires  the  will  for  unity  can  be  cast  and  tempered. 

In  the  second  place  there  must  still  be  room  in  our  en- 
deavors after  unity  for  the  recognition  of  the  importance 
of  difference.  What  we  are  likely  afraid  of  is  a  numbing 
and  colorless  uniformity.  We  are  in  love,  and  rightly  so, 
with  the  rich  variety  of  life.  We  naturally  think  our  own 
variety  of  life  is  really  better  than  our  neighbor's,  but, 
even  so,  a  world  all  alike  does  not  greatly  appeal  to  us, 


THE     BASES     OF     UNITY  183 

save,  paradoxically  enough,  as  we  rather  welcome  and 
seek  our  kind  of  alikeness.  Even  among  those  who  pro- 
fess to  believe  in  equality,  there  is  a  practical  distrust  and 
a  pretty  natural  avoidance  of  it.  We  shall  have  to  find 
room  in  our  unities  for  our  differences  and  the  first  step 
toward  this  is  the  recognition  of  the  value  of  not  our  dif- 
ferences from  our  neighbor  but  our  neighbor's  differ- 
ences from  us.  Of  course,  there  are  differences  which 
ought  not  to  exist.  No  just  man  would  continue  a  moment 
longer  than  is  absolutely  necessary  in  grinding  poverty 
or  humiliating  deficiency  and  dependence,  or  any  kind  of 
weakness  which  may  be  used  for  another  man's  advan- 
tage. The  room  in  which  this  is  being  written  is,  through 
its  fire  and  warmth,  a  most  agreeable  contrast  to  the  raw 
somberness  of  an  overcast  November  day  and  the  cold 
of  streets  and  sidewalks  covered  with  the  melting  snow 
of  our  first  November  storm.  But,  after  all,  it  is  better 
to  have  your  own  firelight  eclipsed  by  a  flood  of  sunshine, 
than  to  ask  that  a  city  shiver  to  exalt  your  own  comfort. 
No,  the  backgrounds  of  differences  which  we  want  to 
keep  are  the  higher  and  more  radiant  differences  in 
whose  wealth  and  emphasis  of  other  aspects  of  truth 
and  life  there  are  contributions,  without  which  we  should 
be  poor  indeed.  We  shall  never  have  a  real  unity  until 
we  are  as  solicitous  for  the  safeguarding  of  what  is 
really  great  and  true  in  our  neighbor's  conscience  and 
achievement  and  outlook  upon  life  as  we  are  solicitous 
for  what  is  precious  to  ourselves.  All  this  probably 
means  integration  rather  than  absolute  unification, 
or  at  least  a  unity  which  conserves  what  is  best  in 
best  in  those  with  whom  we  unite.  The  more  strongly  cen- 
tralized Church  will  need  to  be  greatly  jealous  for  the  lib- 
erty of  those  Churches  whose  liberty  is  their  distinct  con- 
tribution, as  these  in  turn  will  need  to  recognize  and  seek 
somehow  to  continue  the  discipline  of  the  more  compact 


184         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

communions.  It  is  easier  to  say  that  this  must  be  done 
than  to  say  how  it  can  be  done,  but  we  can  at  least,  in  our 
approach  to  the  whole  matter,  recognize  that  values  dear 
to  others  are  all  our  common  concern. 

The  third  basis  for  unity  is  the  willingness  to  use  every 
instrument  to  the  uttermost,  which  is  capable  at  all  of  be- 
ing touched  and  transformed  by  the  spirit  of  unity  and  to 
go  as  far  as  we  can  down  roads  already  open  to  us  before 
we  ask  for  roads  and  bridges  into  an  entirely  unoccupied 
territory.  There  is  an  immense  need  of  what  one  may 
call  marginal  approaches,  the  getting  a  little  nearer  to- 
gether and  then  nearer  still,  in  ways  which  are  open  to  us 
all.  We  may  need  a  new  machinery,  doubtless  we  do,  but 
we  may  begin  at  least  by  bringing  a  new  spirit  to  the 
machinery  which  we  already  have  and  we  shall  doubtless 
find  then  that  there  are  unexpected  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  that  spirit  everywhere  about  us.  We  do  not 
need  to  reorganize  industry  to  make  it  more  truly  frater- 
nal, or  to  reorganize  the  whole  existing  ecclesiastical  or- 
der to  get  a  more  fruitful  cooperation  of  the  Churches, 
nor  to  wipe  out  the  boundary  lines  of  nations  to  secure  a 
larger  internationalism. 

The  fourth  basis  of  unity  is  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
way  in  which  institutions  have  really  shaped  themselves 
in  answer  to  encompassing  facts  and  forces,  though  this 
is  perhaps  to  beg  a  bitterly  disputed  question.  But  as 
long  as  we  think  of  any  institution  as  possessing  some 
sanction  apart  from  the  sanctity  of  the  forces  which  have 
created  it  and  the  sanctity  of  the  service  which  it  renders, 
we  shall  be  giving  to  institutions  an  unyielding  rigidity 
and  making  them  the  barriers  to  progress  rather  than  the 
facile  instruments  of  the  human  soul. 

Perhaps  the  most  hopeful  thing  in  the  pronouncement 
of  the  late  Lambeth  Conference  was  the  changed  ground 
upon  which  the  bishops  commended  the  episcopal  order 
to  Christendom.    Directly  they  begin  to  argue  for  it  on 


THE     BASES    OF    UNITY  185 

the  basis  of  its  utility  and  offer  it  not  as  the  indispensable 
condition  of  a  true  Church  but  as  the  hallowed  symbol  of 
the  Church's  fellowship,  they  improve  their  whole  posi- 
tion. Hereafter,  as  far  as  the  episcopate  is  concerned,  it 
is  an  ideal  which  we  may  or  may  not  accept,  but  it  is  no 
longer  an  order  which  we  must  accept  upon  pain  of  being- 
excommunicated  from  the  true  Christian  fellowship.  So 
if  we  recognize  our  present  economic  machinery  as  itself 
a  growth,  subject  to  further  change  and  not  the  unchang- 
ing form  into  which  all  economic  life  must  be  cast,  we  are 
opening  a  reasonable  door  for  such  changes  as  may  in  the 
future  be  necessary  to  finally  overcome  the  antagonism 
of  the  different  industrial  orders.  In  a  word  a  fourth 
basis  of  unity  is  the  recognition  that  institutions  are  elas- 
tic and  not  inelastic  things.  They  have  been  created  by 
the  human  spirit  and  they  are  still  its  instrument  and  not 
its  masters. 

A  fifth  basis  of  unity  is  friendship  pressed  to  the  limit. 
Human  contacts  are  after  all  the  mightiest  solvents  of  hu- 
man alienations.  Our  neighbors,  once  we  come  really  to 
know  them,  are  strangely  like  ourselves,  wanting  what  we 
want,  bearing  what  we  bear,  struggling  against  what  we 
struggle  against,  one  with  us  in  their  deeper  experiences. 
Differences  in  tradition,  habit,  language  and  the  like 
blind  us  to  these  simple,  homely  truths,  but  once  we  di- 
rectly begin  to  know  other  people  in  friendly  ways  we 
discover  them  anew. 

We  are  in  very  great  need  of  the  extension  of  neigh- 
borliness.  It  is  the  lack  of  this,  due  to  the  mass  organiza- 
tion of  modern  industry,  which  has  more  than  anything 
else  created  the  alienation  of  industrial  classes.  Those 
perhaps  are  nearest  together  in  sympathy  and  outlook 
amongst  whom  there  is  the  largest  opportunity  for  neigh- 
borliness ;  those  perhaps  are  the  farthest  apart  in  sympa- 
thy and  outlook  amongst  whom,  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other, neighborliness  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  Lloyd 
George  recently  said,  in  discussing  with  a  group  of  men 


186  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  misunderstandings  between  England  and  America, 
that  what  England  and  America  really  needed  was  a 
"smoking  room"  acquaintance.  Some  of  us  understand 
that  phrase  better  than  others,  but  it  means  the  friendly 
interchange  of  view  which  comes  from  a  relaxed  infor- 
mality of  kindly  human  contact.  There  is  everywhere 
amongst  us  a  wistful  reaching  out  for  neighborliness. 
There  is  no  group,  nor  class,  nor  institution  which  is  not 
extending,  as  it  were,  filaments  of  desire  going  out  to 
meet  and  intertwine  with  other  filaments  of  like  desire. 
The  world  has  need  as  never  before  of  neighborly  visita- 
tion. Travel,  interchange  of  points  of  view  in  representa- 
tive groups,  the  creation  of  groups  whose  object  shall  be 
better  mutual  understanding,  a  literature  of  friendship  to 
which  this  magazine  belongs,  and  although  such  things 
are  so  easily  within  our  power  and  so  absolutely  neces- 
sary that  we  ought  for  the  time  to  be  more  greatly  con- 
cerned about  creating  them  than  about  securing  the  re- 
sults which  they  should  be  created  to  secure.  Once  we  get 
the  contacts  and  the  results  will  follow. 

Another  basis  of  unity  akin  to  this  is  the  recognition  of 
our  identities.  Indeed  this  has  already  been  so  touched 
upon  as  not  to  need  enlargement  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  the  want  of  this,  perhaps  more  than  anything  else, 
is  holding  us  apart.  We  need  to  think  of  people  not  in 
terms  of  their  classification  but  in  terms  of  their  human- 
ity. English  folk  are  folk  first  and  English  afterwards, 
and  so  are  Americans,  and  Italians  and  Eussians  and 
Germans.  Eoman  Catholics  and  Anglicans,  Presbyte- 
rians and  Methodists  are  Christians  first  and  members  of 
their  communions  afterwards.  We  are  not  in  any  position, 
through  our  strength,  to  despise  our  neighbor  for  his 
weakness,  nor  are  we  in  any  position,  through  our  weak- 
ness, to  do  without  our  neighbor's  help.  For  all  this 
brings  us  face  to  face  with  still  another  basis  of  unity  and 
that  is  the  recognition  of  our  interdependence.  Labor 
cannot  do  without  leadership,  nor  leadership    without 


THE     BASES     OF    UNITY  187 

help.  Every  Church  is  strongest  when  other  Churches 
are  strongest.  No  member  can  die  without  its  corruption 
affecting  the  entire  body,  nor  can  any  member  suffer 
without  the  pain  of  it  shooting  through  every  nerve.  We 
have  been  strangely  slow  in  recognizing  this  even  in  our 
Church  relationships,  and  stupidly  slow  in  recognizing  it 
in  our  industrial  relationships,  and  tragically  slow  in 
recognizing  it  in  our  international  relationships.  If  Amer- 
ica thinks  herself  able  to  go  on  unimpoverished  in  the 
poverty  of  the  world  and  unwounded  in  the  wounds  of  the 
world,  America  will  be  taught  presently  how  mistaken 
she  really  is.  Our  problems  after  all  are  common  prob- 
lems. No  one  of  us  unaided  is  equal  to  the  weight  of  so 
massive  and  complicated  a  world  as  ours.  Once  we  come 
to  see  this  and,  more  really  still,  come  to  feel  it  deeply 
then  we  shall  be  more  than  willing  to  sit  at  common  coun- 
cil tables.  We  shall  be  more  anxious  for  the  organiza- 
tions and  forces  through  which,  in  the  surrender  of  our 
independence  for  the  sake  of  our  interdependence,  we 
shall  win  back  a  nobler  independence  still.  For  what  we 
really  need  is  not  to  be  independent  of  one  another  but  to 
be  more  truly  independent  of  what  stifles  the  soul  and  be- 
littles life  and  we  cannot  win  such  a  dependence  as  this 
alone. 

The  bases  of  unity  then  are  in  juster  tempers  and 
keener  insights,  better  understandings,  more  fraternal  at- 
titudes and  more  sincere  longings  for  all  such  things  as 
these.  And  all  this  calls  for  education  and  thought,  and 
above  all,  a  more  generous  hospitality  to  what  is  essen- 
tial and  transforming  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  Tem- 
pers and  attitudes  must  underlie  politics  and  policies  and 
a  transformed  soul  must  underlie  tempers  and  attitudes 
and  there  is  no  force  great  enough  to  achieve  all  this  save 
essential  Christianity  given  an  open  right  of  way  and  be- 
ginning with  ourselves.  Gaius  Glenn  Atkins. 

First  Congregational  Church, 
Detroit,  Mich. 


DECLARATION  OF  PRINCIPLES  CONCERNING 
THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH  AND  ITS  EX- 
TERNAL RELATIONSHIPS 

Adopted  by  the  Second  Convention  of  the  United  Lutheran  Church 
in  America  at  Washington,  October  26,  1920. 

Whereas,  during  the  past  two  years  the  Executive  Board 
has  been  asked  repeatedly  to  define  the  attitude  of  the 
United  Lutheran  Church  in  America  toward  cooperative 
movements,  both  within  and  without  the  Lutheran 
Church,  toward  movements  of  various  kinds  looking  in 
the  direction  of  Church  union,  and  toward  organizations, 
tendencies  and  movements,  some  of  them  within  and 
some  of  them  without  the  organized  Church :  and 

Whereas,  the  constitution  of  the  United  Lutheran 
Church  in  America  (Art.  VIII,  Sec.  1)  and  its  by-laws 
(Sec.  5,  Div.  C,  Items  1  and  2)  require  that  the  forming 
and  dissolving  of  "relations  with  other  bodies,  organiza- 
tions and  movements"  lies  within  the  power  of  the 
United  Lutheran  Church  alone  and  that  "all  questions 
affecting  the  principles,  practice  and  policy  of  the 
Church  as  a  whole"  shall  be  referred  to  the  Church  for 
decision :  therefore, 

The  Executive  Board  submits  to  the  United  Lutheran 
Church  the  following  Declaration  of  Principles  Con- 
cerning the  Church  and  Its  External  Belationships, 
and  recommends  it  for  adoption. 

In  order  that  all  misunderstandings  and  misconstruc- 
tions of  this  Declaration,  or  of  any  of  its  parts,  may  be 
avoided,  the  United  Lutheran  Church  in  America  de- 
clares in  advance  that  it  does  not  regard  the  statements 
therein  contained  as  altering  or  amending  the  Confes- 
sions of  the  Church  in  any  particular,  or  as  changing 
the  doctrinal  basis  of  the  United  Lutheran  Church,  set 
forth  in  Article  II  of  the  constitution.  On  the  contrary, 
it  considers  this  Declaration  nothing  more  than  the  ap- 


DECLARATION     OF    PRINCIPLES  189 

plication  to  present  conditions  of  doctrines  already  con- 
tained in  the  Confessions. 

A.  Concerning  the  Catholic  Spirit  in  the  Church 

I.  In  its  Confessions  the  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church 
declares  its  belief  that  there  is  "one  holy  Church,' ' 
which  "will  continue  forever."  It  defines  this  Church  as 
the  "congregation  of  saints  and  true  believers."  (Augs. 
Conf.,  VII  and  VIII.) 

II.  This  one  holy  Church  performs  its  earthly  func- 
tions and  makes  its  presence  known  among  men  through 
groups  of  men,  who  profess  to  be  believers  in  Jesus 
Christ.  In  these  groups  the  Word  of  God  is  preached 
and  the  Sacraments  are  administered.  To  such  groups 
also  the  name  " Church' '  is  given  in  the  New  Testament 
and  in  the  Confessions  of  our  Church. 

III.  The  existence  of  the  one,  holy  Church  is  not  cap- 
able of  demonstration.  It  is  a  "mystery' '  that  can  be 
apprehended  only  by  faith.  To  the  eyes  of  men  it  ap- 
pears that  there  is  not  one  Church,  but  only  many 
Churches ;  nevertheless,  we  believe  that  there  is  but  one 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  This  conviction  rests  upon  our 
belief  in  the  continued  life  of  Christ  in  all  His  Chris- 
tians, binding  them  together  into  one  spiritual  body,  of 
which  He  is  the  Head,  and  building  them  up  into  one 
spiritual  Temple,  of  which  He  is  the  Corner-stone;  and 
upon  our  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  the  Word  of  God  and 
the  Sacraments  as  means  of  grace  (A.  C,  V).  We  be- 
lieve that  wherever  the  Word  of  God  is  preached  and 
the  Sacraments  are  administered,  the  Holy  Spirit  works 
faith  in  Christ.  In  every  such  place,  therefore,  there  are 
believers  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  wherever  there  are  be- 
lievers, there  the  one  holy  Church  is  present.  For  this 
reason  we  call  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments  "marks" 
or  "signs"  of  the  one  holy  Church.  Therefore  the  Augs- 
burg Confession  adds  to  its  definition  of  the  Church  the 


190  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

words,  "in  which  the  Gospel  is  rightly  taught  and  the 
Sacraments  are  rightly  administered. ' ' 

IV.  In  the  Nicene  Creed  we  confess  our  belief  that 
this  Church  is  "one,  holy,  catholic  and  apostolic." 

1.  We  believe  that  this  Church  is  one,  because  we  be- 
lieve that  there  cannot  be  more  than  one  "congregation 
of  saints  and  true  believers,"  or  more  than  one  spiritual 
Body  of  which  Christ  is  the  Head,  or  more  than  one  spir- 
itual Temple  of  which  He  is  the  Corner-stone. 

2.  We  believe  that  this  Church  is  holy,  because  we  be- 
lieve that  to  all  believers  the  righteousness  of  Christ  is 
given,  with  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  for  which  rea- 
son true  believers  are  called  "saints"  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  in  the  Confessions  of  our  Church.  Moreover, 
the  Holy  Spirit,  through  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments 
preached  and  administered  in  the  Churches,  does  pro- 
gressively create  holiness  of  life  and  will  and  purpose 
in  all  those  who  believe,  and  progressively  unites  their 
lives  with  the  continued  life  of  Christ. 

3.  We  believe  that  this  one  holy  Church  is  catholic, 
because  we  believe  that,  since  there  is  but  one  "congre- 
gation of  saints  and  true  believers,"  it  must  include  all 
the  saints  and  true  believers,  of  every  time  and  place 
(Apol.,  Chap.  IV).  By  the  term  "catholic,"  therefore, 
we  describe  that  quality  of  universality  which  belongs  to 
the  Church  as  a  spiritual  reality,  or  object  of  faith  (Cf. 
Ill,  above),  and  raises  it  above  all  local  and  temporal 
forms  of  expression  in  organization,  rite  and  ceremony. 

4.  We  believe  that  this  one,  holy,  catholic  Church  is 
also  apostolic,  not  because  of  the  union  of  its  members 
in  any  one  organization  which  claims  to  possess  external, 
historical  connection  with  the  apostles,  but  because  we 
believe  that  the  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  which  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  one,  holy  catholic  Church  have  in  common, 
is  the  same  faith  that  was  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the 
apostles  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  because  we  believe  that 


DEOLAEATION     OF     PRINCIPLES  191 

this  faith  has  been  and  still  is  perpetuated  by  the  un- 
broken testimony  of  believers,  through  all  the  centuries 
of  Christian  history,  from  the  days  of  the  apostles  to  the 
present  day;  and  because  we  believe  that  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  we  have  a  permanent  and  authoritative  record 
of  that  apostolic  truth  which  is  the  ground  of  Christian 
faith. 

V.  Every  group  of  professing  Christians  calling  itself 
a  Church  will  seek  to  express  in  its  own  life  the  attributes 
of  the  one,  holy,  catholic  and  apostolic  Church.  This  it 
does: 

1.  By  professing  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  Faith  in  Christ, 
as  the  Saviour  of  the  world  and  the  Kevealer  of  the  will 
and  love  of  God  the  Father,  is  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  the  Church.  Therefore,  no  group  of  men,  however, 
organized,  which  does  not  exist  as  a  congregation  of 
professed  believers  in  Jesus  Christ,  may  claim  the  name 
of  Church;  for  it  is  Christ  Himself,  living,  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  in  believing  Christians,  Who  makes  the  Church 
one  and  holy. 

2.  By  preaching  the  Word  and  administering  the  Sac- 
raments. Every  group  calling  itself  a  Church  must 
preach  the  Word  and  administer  the  Sacraments,  for 
these  are  the  means  through  which  the  Holy  Spirit  works 
faith,  and  thus  creates  and  perpetuates  the  one  holy 
Church.  Therefore,  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments  are 
properly  called  "marks"  of  the  Church  (Cf.  Ill,  above), 
for  where  they  are  present  the  Church  is;  where  they 
are  absent  the  Church  is  not  and  cannot  be. 

In  the  preaching  of  the  Word  and  the  administration 
of  the  Sacraments  every  group  of  Christians  seeks  to 
express  the  apostolic  character  of  the  one  holy  Church. 
Every  such  group  bases  its  preaching  and  teaching  upon 
the  Scriptures,  and  endeavors  to  proclaim  what  it  has 
learned  from  them.  Believing  that  it  has  correctly  ascer- 
tained this  truth,  it  becomes  its  duty  to  teach,  preach  and 


192         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

confess  it  fully,  freely  and  courageously.  Christians 
must  not  only  profess  their  faith  in  Christ,  but  must  also 
confess  and  publicly  declare  what  they  believe  about 
Christ  and  His  Gospel;  this  duty  of  every  Christian  is 
the  imperative  duty  of  every  group  of  Christians  calling 
itself  a  Church. 

3.  By  works  of  serving  love.  The  ideals  of  love  and 
service  which  Christ  has  taught  as  the  true  ideals  of  the 
individual  Christian  life,  must  also  be  the  ideals  of  any 
group  calling  itself  a  Church.  The  love  of  Christians 
for  God  and  His  Christ,  for  one  another  and  their  fel- 
low-men, is  a  motive  strong  enough  to  drive  them  to 
works  of  service,  and  this  love,  itself  a  creation  of  God 
the  Holy  Spirit  within  the  hearts  of  men,  sets  tasks  for 
every  group  that  calls  itself  a  Church.  They  are  tasks 
of  service,  not  of  government;  of  love,  not  of  law  (Cf. 
D,  IV,  3,  below).  These  works  of  love  and  service  are 
a  witness  to  the  faith  that  lives  in  the  whole  group  and 
an  evidence  of  the  presence  of  the  living  Christ,  and  are 
in  themselves  a  proclamation  of  the  Gospel.  In  out- 
ward form  they  may  appear  to  be  merely  humanitarian 
and  altruistic;  in  motive  they  are  Christian,  born  of  the 
love  of  Christ,  and  performed  in  His  name  and  in  obedi- 
ence to  His  command. 

4.  By  the  attempt  to  secure  universal  acceptance  of 
the  truth  which  it  holds  and  confesses.  Such  an  attempt 
need  not  be  accompanied  by  the  effort  to  enlarge  its  own 
external  organization  by  drawing  into  its  membership 
Christians  of  other  organizations,  for  the  aim  of  a 
Church  should  be  not  to  make  proselytes,  but  to  spread 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel.  To  this  end  it  will  constantly 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  which  it  believes,  and  by  this 
testimony,  and  by  the  cultivation  of  sympathy  with  all 
those  who  hold  the  same  truth,  every  group  will  seek  to 
attain  universality,  and  thus  express  completely  the  holy 
Church's  attribute  of  catholicity. 


DECLARATION     OF     PRINCIPLES  193 

5.  To  accomplish  these  purposes  (Nos.  1-4  above) 
every  such  group  will  maintain  the  office  of  the  minis- 
try, commanded  and  instituted  by  Christ.  For  the  sake 
of  good  order  and  efficiency,  further  organization  is  also 
necessary,  but  the  forms  which  the  organization  takes 
will  vary  with  circumstances  of  time  and  place,  and  are, 
in  themselves,  matters  of  expediency. 

VI.  Every  group  of  professing  Christians  in  which 
the  Word  of  God  is  so  preached  and  the  Sacraments  are 
so  administered  that  men  are  saved  therein  is  truly,  par- 
tial and  imperfect,  as  it  may  be,  an  expression  of  the  one 
holy  Church  (Cf.  II,  above),  inasmuch  as  it  displays  the 
marks  of  the  Church  (Cf.  Ill  and  V,  2,  above).  There- 
fore, no  one  group  can  rightfully  claim  that  it  is  the  one, 
holy,  catholic  and  apostolic  Church  in  the  sense  in  which 
these  terms  have  been  denned  above  (No.  IV). 

We  believe,  however,  that  distinctions  must  be  recog- 
nized between  one  group  and  another.  In  making  these 
distinctions,  we  believe  that  those  groups  in  which  the 
Word  of  God  is  most  purely  preached  and  confessed, 
according  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  in  which  the  Sac- 
raments are  administered  in  the  closest  conformity  to 
the  institution  of  Christ,  will  be  the  most  complete  ex- 
pression of  the  one,  holy  Church.  For  this  reason  it  is 
necessary  that,  when  occasion  arises,  any  such  group  of 
Christians  shall  define  its  relationship  to  other  groups 
which  also  claim  the  name  of  Church,  as  well  as  to  other 
groups  and  organizations  which  do  not  bear  that  name. 

VII.  This  definition  of  relationships  should  be  framed 
in  the  spirit  of  catholicity.  Moved  by  that  spirit,  a 
Church  will  always  be  ready: 

1.  To  declare  unequivocally  what  it  believes  concern- 
ing Christ  and  His  Gospel,  and  to  endeavor  to  show  that 
it  has  placed  the  true  interpretation  upon  that  Gospel 
(Cf.  V,  2  and  4,  above),  and  to  testify  definitely  and 
frankly  against  error. 


194  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

2.  To  approach,  others  without  hostility,  jealousy,  sus- 
picion or  pride,  in  the  sincere  and  humble  desire  to  give 
and  receive  Christian  service. 

3.  To  grant  cordial  recognition  to  all  agreements  which 
are  discovered  between  its  own  interpretation  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  that  which  others  hold. 

4.  To  cooperate  with  other  Christians  in  works  of 
serving  love  (Cf.  V,  3,  above)  in  so  far  as  this  can  be 
done  without  surrender  of  its  interpretation  of  the  Gos- 
pel, without  denial  of  conviction,  and  without  suppres- 
sion of  its  testimony  as  to  what  it  holds  to  be  the  truth. 

B.  Concerning  the  Eelation  of  the  Evangelical 
Lutheran  Church  Bodies  to  One  Another 

In  the  case  of  those  Church  bodies  calling  themselves 
Evangelical  Lutheran,  and  subscribing  the  Confessions 
which  have  always  been  regarded  as  the  standards  of 
Evangelical  Lutheran  doctrine,  the  United  Lutheran 
Church  in  America  recognizes  no  doctrinal  reasons 
against  complete  cooperation  and  organic  union  with 
such  bodies. 

C.  Concerning  the  Organic  Union  of  Protestant 

Churches 

In  view  of  the  widespread  discussion  concerning  the 
organic  union  of  the  Protestant  Churches  in  America, 
we  declare: 

I.  That  we  hold  the  union  of  Christians  in  a  single 
organization  to  be  of  less  importance  than  the  agreement 
of  Christians  in  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel.  We 
believe  that  the  one,  holy,  catholic  and  apostolic  Church 
exists  through  and  under  divergent  forms  of  external 
organization.  Union  of  organization  we  hold,  therefore, 
to  be  a  matter  of  expediency ;  agreement  in  testimony  to 
be  a  matter  of  principle. 

II.  That  holding  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  the 


DECLARATION     OF     PRINCIPLES  195 

administration  of  the  Sacraments  to  be  the  primary  func- 
tion of  every  Church,  we  believe  that  a  clear  definition 
of  what  is  meant  by  "Gospel"  and  "Sacrament"  must 
precede  any  organic  union  of  the  Churches.  We  believe 
that  a  permanent  and  valid  union  of  Churches  must  be 
based  upon  positive  agreements  concerning  the  truth  for 
which  the  united  Church  body  is  to  stand.  The  Churches 
cannot  unite  as  mere  protestants,  but  only  as  confessors. 
(Cf.  A,  V,  2;  VII,  4.) 

III.  That  as  a  necessary  step  toward  a  genuine  or- 
ganic union,  we  believe  that  the  Protestant  Church 
bodies  in  America  should  endeavor  to  set  forth,  defi- 
nitely and  positively,  the  views  of  Christian  truth  for 
which  each  of  them  does  now  actually  stand,  in  order 
that  by  their  clear  and  unequivocal  testimony  to  what 
they  hold  to  be  the  truth,  the  nature  and  extent  of  their 
agreements  and  disagreements  may  become  apparent. 

IV.  That  we  recognize  the  obligation  which  rests  upon 
us  to  make  a  clear  and  full  declaration  concerning  the 
truth  which  we  hold,  and  are  therefore  ready,  as  oppor- 
tunity offers,  to  give  answer  concerning  our  reasons  for 
accepting  and  maintaining  the  doctrines  and  principles 
set  forth  in  the  Confessions  of  the  Evangelical  Lutheran 
Church. 

V.  That  until  a  more  complete  unity  of  confession  is 
attained  than  now  exists,  the  United  Lutheran  Church 
in  America  is  bound  in  duty  and  in  conscience  to  main- 
tain its  separate  identity  as  a  witness  to  the  truth  which 
it  knows ;  and  its  members,  its  ministers,  its  pulpits,  its 
fonts  and  it  altars  must  testify  only  to  that  truth. 

D.  Concerning  Cooperative  Movements  Among  the 
Protestant  Churches 

In  view  of  the  many  proposals  for  cooperation  of  the 
Protestant  Churches  in  various  departments  of  practical 
activity,  and  in  view  of  the  many  organizations  already 


196  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

formed,  and  in  process  of  formation,  for  the  carrying 
on  of  such  cooperative  work,  we  declare: 

I.  That  it  is  our  earnest  desire  to  cooperate  with  other 
Church  bodies  in  all  such  works  as  can  be  regarded  as 
works  of  serving  love,  through  which  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tians finds  expression;  provided,  that  such  cooperation 
does  not  involve  the  surrender  of  our  interpretation  of 
the  Gospel,  the  denial  of  conviction,  or  the  suppression 
of  our  testimony  to  what  we  hold  to  be  the  truth.  (Cf. 
A,  V,  4;  VII,  3,  above.)  In  this  connection,  however, 
we  call  attention  to  the  constitution  of  the  United  Luth- 
eran Church  in  America,  Article  VIII,  Section  1,  "No. 
synod,  conference  or  board,  or  any  official  representa- 
tive thereof,  shall  have  the  power  of  independent  affilia- 
tion with  general  organizations  and  movements,"  and 
also  to  the  by-laws,  Article  V,  Division  C,  Item  2,  "No 
official  relationship  with  any  other  ecclesiastical  bodies 
or  their  agencies  shall  be  entered  into  by  any  board  or 
committee  of  the  United  Lutheran  Church  in  America, 
without  the  approval  of  the  Church. ' ' 

II.  That  we  cannot  give  general  approval  to  all  co- 
operative movements  and  organizations  of  the  Churches, 
since  we  hold  that  cooperation  is  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  merely  a  means  to  an  end.  Our  attitude  toward  any 
such  organization  or  movement  must  be  determined  by  a 
consideration  of 

(a)  The  purposes  which  it  seeks  to  accomplish. 

(b)  The  principles  on  which  it  rests. 

(c)  The  effect  which  our  participation  will  produce 
upon  the  independent  position  of  our  Church  as  a  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  which  we  confess.  (Cf. 
C,  VII,  above.) 

III.  That,  holding  the  following  doctrines  and  prin- 
ciples, derived  from  the  Holy  Scriptures,  to  be  funda- 
mental to  the  Christian  message,  we  propose  them  as  a 
positive  basis  of  practical  cooperation  among  the  Prot- 


DECLAEATION     OF     PRINCIPLES  197 

estant  Churches.  To  avoid  all  possible  misunderstand- 
ings or  misconstructions  of  these  statements,  we  declare 
that  we  do  not  regard  them  as  a  summary  of  Lutheran 
doctrine,  or  as  an  addition  to,  a  substitute  for,  or  a  modi- 
fication of  the  Confessions  of  our  Church ;  nor  do  we 
propose  them  as  an  adequate  basis  for  an  organic  union 
of  the  Churches,  but  merely  as  a  criterion  by  which  it 
may  be  possible  for  us  to  determine  our  attitude  toward 
proposed  movements  of  cooperation. 

1.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  revealed  in  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  sonship  bestowed  by  God,  through  Christ, 
upon  all  who  believe  in  Him. 

2.  The  true  Godhead  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  His  redemp- 
tion of  the  world  by  His  life  and  death  and  resurrection ; 
and  His  living  presence  in  His  Church. 

3.  The  continued  activity  of  God  the  Holy  Spirit 
among  men,  calling  them  into  the  fellowship  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  enlightening  and  sanctifying  them  through 
the  gifts  of  His  grace. 

4.  The  supreme  importance  of  the  Word  of  God  and 
the  Sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  as 
the  means  through  which  the  Holy  Spirit  testifies  of 
Christ  and  thus  creates  and  strengthens  faith.  (In  com- 
mon with  the  whole  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church,  we 
confess  the  mystery  of  the  real  presence  in  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  we  invite  all  Christians 
to  a  renewed  study  of  the  teachings  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures concerning  this  Sacrament,  and  the  Sacrament  of 
holy  Baptism.) 

5.  The  authority  of  the  prophetic  and  apostolic  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as  the  only  rule 
and  standard  by  which  all  doctrines  and  teachers  are  to 
be  judged. 

6.  The  reality  and  universality  of  sin,  and  the  inability 
of  men,  because  of  sin,  to  attain  righteousness  or  earn 
salvation  through  their  own  character  or  works. 


198  THE     CHEISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

7.  The  love,  and  the  righteousness,  of  God,  Who  for 
Christ's  sake  bestows  forgiveness  and  righteousness 
upon  all  who  believe  in  Christ. 

8.  The  present  existence  upon  earth  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  founded  by  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  not  as  an  ex- 
ternal organization,  but  as  a  spiritual  reality  and  an  ob- 
ject of  faith. 

9.  The  hope  of  Christ's  second  coming,  to  be  the  Judge 
of  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  to  complete  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

IV.  That,  in  view  of  the  above  statements,  our  atti- 
tude toward  proposed  cooperative  movements  and  or- 
ganizations, already  denned  in  principle  in  Section  A, 
VII  and  D,  I,  above,  must  be  subject  to  the  following 
limitations : 

1.  We  cannot  enter  into  any  cooperative  movement  or 
organization  which  denies  any  of  the  doctrines  or  prin- 
ciples set  forth  in  III,  above. 

2.  We  cannot  enter  into  any  organization  or  move- 
ment which  limits  the  cooperating  Churches  in  their  con- 
fession of  the  truth  or  their  testimony  against  error.  In 
all  cooperative  movements  we  claim  the  right,  and  re- 
gard it  as  a  duty,  to  testify  freely  to  the  truth  as  it  is  set 
forth  in  the  Confessions  of  our  Church,  and  we  believe 
that  the  same  right  must  be  guaranteed  to  every  partici- 
pating Church.  All  such  testimony  should  receive  a 
courteous  and  respectful  hearing. 

3.  We  cannot  enter  into  cooperative  movements  or 
organizations  whose  purposes  lie  outside  the  proper 
sphere  of  Church  activity.  In  determining  what  that 
sphere  is,  we  must  be  guided  by  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple that  the  functions  of  the  Church  are  the  preaching 
of  the  Word,  the  administration  of  the  Sacraments,  and 
the  performances  of  works  of  love  (Cf.  A,  V,  above). 
We  hold  that  the  use  of  the  Church  organization  as  an 
agency  for  securing  the  enactment  and  enforcement  of 


DECLAEATION     OF     PRINCIPLES  199 

law,  or  for  the  application  of  other  methods  of  external 
force,  is  foreign  to  the  true  purpose  for  which  the 
Church  exists. 

V.  That  there  are  organizations  and  movements  into 
which  we  cannot  enter  as  a  Church,  in  regard  to  which, 
however,  the  Church  may  definitely  declare  itself  and 
which  it  may  heartily  commend  to  the  pastors  and  mem- 
bers of  its  congregations  as  important  spheres  of  activity 
for  Christians,  such  as  movements  and  organizations  for 
social  and  political  reform,  the  enforcement  of  law  and 
order,  the  settlement  of  industrial  conflicts,  the  improve- 
ment of  the  material  environments  of  life,  and  the  like. 

E.  Concerning  Movements  and  Organizations 
Injurious  to  the  Christian  Faith 

In  view  of  the  prevalence  throughout  our  land  of  doc- 
trines which  are  subversive  of  the  Christian  faith;  and 
in  view  of  the  indifference  manifested  by  many  Christian 
people  to  the  doctrines  and  principles  of  the  teachers, 
sects  and  organizations  which  seek  their  adherence  and 
support;  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  through  the  ac- 
ceptance of  religious  and  other  teachings  which  contra- 
dict the  Gospel  of  Christ,  the  faith  of  Christians  is  en- 
dangered ;  we  declare 

I.  That  we  solemnly  warn  all  our  pastors  and  the 
members  of  our  congregations  against  all  teachers,  sects 
and  organizations  of  any  kind,  whose  doctrines  and  prin- 
ciples contradict  the  truths  set  forth  in  Section  D,  III, 
of  this  Declaration,  or  which  limit  their  adherents  or 
members  in  a  free  confession  of  their  Christian  faith. 
(Cf.  A,  V,  3,  above.) 

II.  That  we  warn  them  especially  against  all  teachers, 
sects  and  societies  whose  doctrines  and  principles  deny 
the  reality  of  sin,  the  personality  of  God,  the  full  and 
complete  Godhead  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  His  re- 
demption of  the  world  by  His  sufferings  and  death,  and 


200  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

the  truth  and  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures;  as  well 
as  against  all  teachers,  sects  and  societies  which  teach 
that  men  can  be  saved  from  sin,  or  can  become  righteous 
before  God,  by  their  own  works  or  by  any  other  means 
than  the  grace  and  mercy  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  We 
believe  that  such  doctrines  are  not  only  not  Christian, 
but  are  anti- Christian  and  destructive  of  true  Christian 
faith  and  life. 

III.  That  inasmuch  as  these  and  other  false  and  dan- 
gerous doctrines  are  widely  spread,  not  only  by  the  ac- 
tivity of  individual  teachers,  but  also  by  the  dissemina- 
tion of  literature  and  through  the  agency  of  societies  and 
other  organizations,  calling  themselves  by  various  names 
which  oftentimes  conceal  the  real  nature  of  the  doctrines 
and  principles  for  which  they  stand ;  we  therefore  lay  it 
upon  the  consciences  of  the  pastors  and  of  the  members 
of  all  our  congregations  to  scrutinize  with  the  utmost 
care  the  doctrines  and  principles  of  all  teachers,  sects, 
organizations  and  societies  of  every  sort  which  seek  their 
adherence  and  support,  and  to  refuse  such  adherence  and 
support  in  all  cases  of  conflict  or  possible  contradiction 
between  these  principles  and  doctrines  and  those  set  forth 
in  Holy  Scripture  and  in  the  Confessions  of  the  Church. 
In  the  application  of  this  principle  the  Church  should 
always  appeal  to  a  conscience  which  it  is  her  sacred  duty 
to  enlighten,  patiently  and  persistently,  from  the  Word 
of  God.  (Cf.,  also  constitution  of  the  United  Lutheran 
Church  in  America,  Art.  VIII,  Sec.  6.) 


THE  RE-ESTABLISHMENT  OF  CHRISTIAN 

PEACE 

Benedict  XV,  By  Divine  Providence  Pope. 

To  the  Patriarchs,  Primates,  Archbishops,  Bishops  and 

Ordinaries  in  Peace  and  Communion  with 

the  Holy  See 

Venerable  Brethren, 

Health  and  Apostolic  Benediction 

Peace,  the  beautiful  gift  of  Grod,  the  name  of  which,  as 
St.  Augustine  says,  is  the  sweetest  word  to  our  hearing 
and  the  best  and  most  desirable  possession1;  peace, 
which  was  for  more  than  four  years  implored  by  the  ar- 
dent wishes  of  all  good  peoples,  by  the  prayers  of  pious 
souls  and  the  tears  of  mothers,  begins  at  last  to  shine 
upon  the  nations.  At  this  we  are  indeed  the  happiest  of 
all,  and  heartily  do  we  rejoice.  But  this  joy  of  our  pater- 
nal heart  is  disturbed  by  many  bitter  anxieties,  for  if  in 
most  places  peace  is  in  some  sort  established  and  treaties 
signed,  the  germs  of  former  enmities  remain;  and  you 
well  know,  venerable  brethren,  that  there  can  be  no 
stable  peace  or  lasting  treaties,  though  made  after  long 
and  difficult  negotiations  and  duly  signed,  unless  there  be 
return  of  mutual  charity  to  appease  hate  and  banish 
enmity.  This,  then,  venerable  brethren,  is  the  anxious 
and  dangerous  question  upon  which  we  wish  to  dwell  and 
to  put  forward  recommendations  to  be  brought  home  to 
your  people. 

For  ourselves,  never  since,  by  the  hidden  designs  of 
God,  we  were  raised  to  this  chair  have  we  ceased  to  do 
everything  in  our  power  from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
war  that  all  the  nations  of  the  world  might  resume  cor- 
dial relations  as  soon  as  possible.  To  that  end  we  never 
ceased  to  pray,  to  repeat  exhortations,  to  propose  ways 

(1)   Civitate  Dei.  I  XIX,  C.  II. 


202  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

of  arrangement,  to  try  every  means,  in  fact,  to  open  by 
divine  aid,  a  path  to  a  just,  honourable  and  lasting  peace ; 
and  at  the  same  time  we  exercised  all  our  paternal  care 
to  alleviate  everywhere  the  terrible  load  of  sorrow  and 
disaster  of  every  sort  by  which  the  immense  tragedy 
was  accompanied. 

And  now,  just  as  from  the  beginning  of  our  troubled 
pontificate  the  charity  of  Jesus  Christ  led  us  to  work 
both  for  the  return  of  peace  and  to  alleviate  the  horrors 
of  the  war,  so  now  that  comparative  peace  has  been  con- 
cluded, this  same  charity  urges  us  to  exhort  all  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Church,  and  all  mankind,  to  clear  their  hearts 
of  bitterness,  and  to  give  place  to  mutual  love  and  con- 
cord. 

Forgiveness  and  Reconciliation 

There  is  no  need  from  us  of  long  proof  to  show  that 
society  would  incur  the  risk  of  great  loss  if,  while  peace 
is  signed,  latent  hostility  and  enmity  were  to  continue 
among  the  nations.  There  is  no  need  to  mention  the  loss 
of  all  that  maintains  and  fosters  civil  life,  such  as  com- 
merce and  industry,  art  and  literature,  which  flourish 
only  when  the  nations  are  at  peace.  But  what  is  even 
more  important,  grave  harm  would  accrue  to  the  form 
and  essence  of  the  Christian  life,  which  consists  essen- 
tially in  charity  and  the  preaching  of  which  is  called  the 
Gospel  of  peace2. 

You  know  well,  and  we  have  frequently  reminded  you 
of  it,  nothing  was  so  often  and  so  carefully  inculcated 
on  His  disciples  by  Jesus  Christ  as  this  precept  of  mu- 
tual charity  as  the  one  which  contains  all  others.  Christ 
called  it  the  new  commandment,  His  very  own,  and  de- 
sired that  it  should  be  the  sign  of  Christians  by  which 
they  might  be  distinguished  from  all  others ;  and  on  the 
eve  of  His  death  it  was  His  last  testament  to  His  dis- 
ciples to  love  one  another  and  thus  try  to  imitate  the  in- 

(2)   Eph.  VI.  IS. 


CHEISTIAN     PEACE  203 

effable  "unity  of  the  three  divine  Persons  in  the  Trinity. 
"That  they  may  be  one  as  we  also  are  one  .  .  .  that  they 
may  be  made  perfect  in  one"3. 

The  apostles,  following  in  the  steps  of  the  divine  Mas- 
ter, and  conforming  to  His  word  and  commands,  were 
unceasing  in  their  exhortation  to  the  faithful:  " Before 
all  things  have  a  constant  mutual  charity  among  your- 
selves ' ,4.  "  But  above  all  these  things  have  charity  which 
is  the  bond  of  perfection"5.  "Dearly  beloved,  let  us  love 
one  another  for  charity  is  God"6.  Our  brethren  of  the 
first  Christian  ages  faithfully  observed  these  commands 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  apostles.  They  belonged  to  dif- 
ferent and  rival  nations;  yet  they  willingly  forgot  their 
causes  of  quarrel  and  lived  in  perfect  concord,  and  such  a 
union  of  hearts  was  in  striking  contrast  with  the  deadly 
enmities  by  which  human  society  was  then  consumed. 

What  has  already  been  said  in  favour  of  charity  holds 
good  for  the  inculcation  of  the  pardoning  of  injuries 
which  is  no  less  solemnly  commanded  by  the  Lord:  "But 
I  say  to  you,  love  your  enemies;  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you ;  pray  for  those  that  persecute  you  and  calumni- 
ate you  that  you  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  who 
is  in  Heaven,  Who  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  upon  the  good 
and  the  bad."7.  Hence  that  terribly  severe  warning 
of  the  Apostle  St.  John.  "Whoever  hateth  his  brother  is 
a  murderer.  And  you  know  that  no  murderer  hath  eter- 
nal life  abiding  in  himself"8. 

Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  teaching  us  how  to  pray  to 
God,  makes  us  say  that  we  wish  for  pardon  as  we  forgive 
others:  "Forgive  us  our  trespasses  as  we  forgive  them 
that  trespass  against  us"9.  And  if  the  observance  of 
this  law  is  sometimes  hard  and  difficult,  we  have  not  only 


(3)  Tohn  VII.  21-23. 

(4)  Peter  IV.   8. 

(5)  Col.  III.   14. 

(6)  I  John  IV.  7. 

(7)  Matt,  V.  44,  45. 

(8)  I  John  III.  15. 

(9)  Matt.  VI.  12. 


204         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

the  timely  assistance  of  the  grace  of  our  divine  Redeemer 
but  also  His  example  to  help  us  to  overcome  the  difficulty. 
For  as  He  hung  on  the  Cross  He  thus  excused  before  His 
Father  those  who  so  unjustly  and  wickedly  tortured  him : 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do"10.  We  then,  who  should  be  the  first  to  imitate  the 
pity  and  lovingkindness  of  Jesus  Christ,  whose  Vicar, 
without  any  merit  of  our  own,  we  are ;  with  all  our  heart, 
and  following  His  example,  we  forgive  all  our  enemies 
who  knowingly  or  unknowingly  have  heaped  and  are  still 
heaping  on  our  person  and  our  work  every  sort  of  vitu- 
peration, and  we  embrace  all  in  our  charity  and  benevo- 
lence and  neglect  no  opportunity  to  do  them  all  the  good 
in  our  power.  That  is  indeed  what  Christians  worthy  of 
the  name  ought  to  do  toward  those  who  during  the  war 
have  done  them  wrong. 

Christian  charity  ought  not  to  be  content  with  not  hat- 
ing our  enemies  and  loving  them  as  brothers;  it  also 
demands  that  we  treat  them  with  kindness,  following  the 
rule  of  the  divine  Master  Who  "went  about  doing  good 
and  healing  all  that  were  oppressed  by  the  devil"11, 
and  finished  His  mortal  life,  the  course  of  which  was 
marked  by  good  deeds,  by  shedding  His  blood  for  them. 
So  said  St.  John:  "In  this  we  have  known  the  charity  of 
God,  because  He  hath  laid  down  His  life  for  us,  and  we 
ought  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  the  brethren.  He  that 
hath  substance  of  this  world  and  shall  see  his  brother  in 
need  and  shall  shut  up  his  bowels  from  him:  how  doth 
the  charity  of  Grod  abide  in  him?  My  little  children,  let  us 
love  not  in  word  nor  by  tongue,  but  in  deed  and  in 
truth"12. 

Never  indeed  was  there  a  time  when  we  should  ' l  stretch 
the  bounds  of  charity"  more  than  in  these  days  of  uni- 
versal suffering  and  sorrow;  never  perhaps  as  to-day  has 


(10)  Luke  XXIII.  34. 

(11)  Acts  X.  38. 

(12)  I  John  iii.  16-18. 


CHEISTIAN    PEACE  205 

humanity  so  needed  that  universal  beneficence  which 
springs  from  the  love  of  others,  and  is  full  of  sacrifice 
and  zeal.  For  if  we  look  around  where  the  fury  of  the 
war  has  been  let  loose  we  see  immense  regions  utterly 
desolate,  uncultivated  and  abandoned;  multitudes  re- 
duced to  want  of  food,  clothing  and  shelter ;  innumerable 
widows  and  orphans  reft  of  everything,  and  an  incred- 
ible number  of  enfeebled  beings,  particularly  children 
and  young  people,  who  carry  on  their  bodies  the  ravages 
of  this  atrocious  war. 

When  one  regards  all  these  miseries  by  which  the  hu- 
man race  is  stricken  one  inevitably  thinks  of  the  traveller 
in  the  Gospel13  who,  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho,  fell  among  thieves,  who  robbed  him,  and  covered 
him  with  wounds  and  left  him  half  dead.  The  two  cases 
are  very  similar;  and  as  to  the  traveller  there  came  the 
good  Samaritan,  full  of  compassion,  who  bound  up  his 
wounds,  pouring  in  oil  and  wine,  took  him  to  an  inn,  and 
undertook  all  care  for  him,  so  too  is  it  necessary  that 
Jesus,  of  Whom  the  Samaritan  was  the  figure,  should 
lay  His  hands  upon  the  wounds  of  society. 

This  work,  this  duty  the  Church  claims  as  her  own  as 
heir  and  guardian  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ — the 
Church  whose  entire  existence  is  a  marvellously  varied 
tissue  of  all  kinds  of  good  deeds,  the  Church,  "that  real 
mother  of  Christians  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  who 
has  such  tenderness  of  love  and  charity  for  one's  neigh- 
bours that  she  can  offer  the  best  remedies  for  the  differ- 
ent evils  which  afflict  souls  on  account  of  their  sins." 
That  is  why  she  "treats  and  teaches  children  with  ten- 
derness, young  people  with  firmness,  old  people  with 
great  calm,  taking  account  not  only  of  the  age  but  also 
the  condition  of  soul  of  each"14.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  exaggerate  the  effect  of  this  many-sided  Christian 


(13)  Luke  X.  30  et  seq. 

(14)  Augustin  de  Moribus  Ecc.    Cat.  lib  I.  C.  30. 


206  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

beneficence  in  softening  the  heart  and  thns  facilitating 
the  return  of  tranquillity  to  the  nations. 

Therefore,  venerable  brethren,  we  pray  you  and  ex- 
hort you  in  the  mercy  and  charity  of  Jesus  Christ,  strive 
with  all  zeal  and  dilgence  not  only  to  urge  the  faithful 
entrusted  to  your  care  to  abandon  hatred  and  to  pardon 
offences ;  but,  and  what  is  more  immediately  practical,  to 
promote  all  those  works  of  Christian  benevolence  which 
bring  aid  to  the  needy,  comfort  to  the  afflicted  and  pro- 
tection to  the  weak,  and  to  give  opportune  and  appro- 
priate assistance  of  every  kind  to  all  who  have  suffered 
from  the  war.  It  is  our  special  wish  that  you  should  ex- 
hort your  priests,  as  the  ministers  of  peace,  to  be  assidu- 
ous in  urging  this  love  of  one's  neighbour  and  even  of 
enemies  which  is  the  essence  of  the  Christian  life,  and  by 
" being  all  things  to  all  men"15  and  giving  an  example  to 
others,  wage  war  everywhere  on  enmity  and  hatred,  thus 
doing  a  thing  most  agreeable  to  the  loving  heart  of  Jesus 
and  to  him  who,  however  unworthily,  holds  His  place  on 
earth.  In  this  connection  Catholic  writers  and  journalists 
should  be  invited  to  clothe  themselves  "as  elect  of  God, 
holy  and  beloved,  with  pity  and  kindness"16.  Let  them 
show  this  charity  in  their  writings  by  abstaining  not  only 
from  false  and  groundless  accusations,  but  also  from  all 
intemperance  and  bitterness  of  language,  all  of  which  is 
contrary  to  the  law  of  Christ  and  does  but  reopen  sores 
as  yet  unhealed,  seeing  that  the  slightest  touch  is  a  seri- 
ous irritant  to  a  heart  whose  wounds  are  recent. 

All  that  we  have  said  here  to  individuals  about  the 
duty  of  charity  we  wish  to  say  also  to  the  peoples  who 
have  been  delivered  from  the  burden  of  a  long  war,  in 
order  that,  when  every  cause  of  disagreement  has  been, 
as  far  as  possible,  removed,  and  without  prejudice  to  the 
rights   of  justice,  they  may  resume  friendly  relations 

(15)  I   Cor.  ix..   22. 

(16)  Col.   iii.   12. 


CHRISTIAN     PEACE  207 

among  themselves.  The  Gospel  has  not  one  law  of 
charity  for  individuals  and  another  for  states  and  na- 
tions, which  are  indeed  but  collections  of  individuals. 
The  war  being  now  over,  people  seem  called  to  a  general 
reconciliation  not  only  from  motives  of  charity,  but  from 
necessity;  the  nations  are  naturally  drawn  together  by 
the  need  they  have  of  one  another,  and  by  the  bond  of 
mutual  goodwill,  bonds  which  are  to-day  strengthened  by 
the  development  of  civilization  and  the  marvelous  in- 
crease of  communication. 

Truly,  as  we  have  already  said,  this  apostolic  see  has 
never  wearied  of  teaching  during  the  war  such  pardon 
of  offences  and  the  fraternal  reconciliation  of  the  peo- 
ples, in  conformity  with  the  most  holy  law  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  agreement  with  the  needs  of  civil  life  and 
human  intercourse ;  nor  did  it  allow  that  amid  dissension 
and  hate  these  moral  principles  should  be  forgotten. 
With  all  the  more  reason  then,  now  that  the  treaties  of 
peace  are  signed,  does  it  proclaim  these  principles  as,  for 
example,  it  did  a  short  time  ago  in  the  letter  to  the  bish- 
ops of  Germany17,  and  in  that  addressed  to  the  arch- 
bishop of  Paris18. 

And  this  concord  between  civilized  nations  is  main- 
tained and  fostered  by  the  modern  custom  of  visits  and 
meetings  at  which  the  heads  of  states  and  princes  are  ac- 
customed to  treat  of  matters  of  special  importance.  So 
then,  considering  the  changed  circumstances  of  the  times 
and  the  dangerous  trend  of  events,  and  in  order  to  en- 
courage this  concord,  we  would  not  be  unwilling  to  relax 
in  some  measure  the  severity  of  the  conditions  justly 
laid  down  by  our  predecessors,  when  the  civil  power  of 
the  apostolic  see  was  overthrown,  against  the  official  vis- 
its of  the  heads  of  Catholic  states  to  Rome.  But  at  the 
same  time  we  formally  declare  that  this  concession, 
which  seems  counselled  or  rather  demanded  by  the 
grave  circumstances  in  which  to-day  society  is  placed, 

(17)  Litterae  Apost.  Diuturni,  xv  Jul.,  MCMXIX. 

(18)  Dpist.  Amor  Me  Singularis,  vii  Oct.,   MCMXIX. 


208  THE     CHEISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

must  not  be  interpreted  as  a  tacit  renunciation  of  its 
sacrosanet  rights  by  the  apostolic  see,  as  if  it  acquiesced 
in  the  unlawful  situation  in  which  it  is  placed.  Bather 
do  we  seize  this  opportunity  to  renew  for  the  same  rea- 
sons the  protests  which  our  predecessors  have  several 
times  made,  not  in  the  least  moved  thereto  by  human  in- 
terests, but  in  fulfilment  of  the  sacred  duty  of  their 
charge  to  defend  the  rights  and  dignity  of  this  apostolic 
see;  once  again  demanding,  and  with  even  greater  in- 
sistence now  that  peace  is  made  among  the  nations,  that 
"for  the  head  of  the  Church,  too,  an  end  may  be  put  to 
that  abnormal  condition  which  in  so  many  ways  does  such 
serious  harm  to  tranquillity  among  the  peoples  "19. 

Things  being  thus  restored,  the  order  required  by  jus- 
tice and  charity  re-established  and  the  nations  reconciled, 
it  is  much  to  be  desired,  venerable  brethren,  that  all 
states,  putting  aside  mutual  suspicion,  should  unite  in 
one  league,  or  rather  a  sort  of  family  of  peoples,  calcu- 
lated both  to  maintain  their  own  independence  and  safe- 
guard the  order  of  human  society.  What  specially, 
amongst  other  reasons,  calls  for  such  an  association  of 
nations,  is  the  need  generally  recognized  of  making  every 
effort  to  abolish  or  reduce  the  enormous  burden  of  the 
military  expenditure  which  states  can  no  longer  bear,  in 
order  to  prevent  these  disastrous  wars  or  at  least  to  re- 
move the  danger  of  them  as  far  as  possible.  So  would 
each  nation  be  assured  not  only  of  its  independence  but 
also  of  the  integrity  of  its  territory  within  its  just  fron- 
tiers. 

The  Church  will  certainly  not  refuse  her  zealous  aid  to 
states  united  under  the  Christian  law  in  any  of  their  un- 
dertakings inspired  by  justice  and  charity,  inasmuch 
as  she  is  herself  the  most  perfect  type  of  universal  soci- 
ety. She  possesses  in  her  organization  and  institutions  a 
wonderful  instrument  for  bringing  this  brotherhood 
among  men,  not  only  for  their  eternal  salvation  but  also 

(19)   Utt.   Enc.  Ad  Beatissimi,  i  Nov.  MCMXIV. 


CHEISTIAN    PEACE  209 

for  their  material  well-being  in  this  world ;  she  leads  them 
through  temporal  well-being  to  the  sure  acquisition  of 
eternal  blessings.  It  is  the  teaching  of  history  that  when 
the  Church  pervaded  with  her  spirit  the  ancient  and  bar- 
barous nations  of  Europe,  little  by  little  the  many  and 
varied  differences  that  divided  them  were  diminished  and 
their  quarrels  extinguished ;  in  time  they  formed  a  homo- 
geneous society  from  which  sprang  Christian  Europe 
which,  under  the  guidance  and  auspices  of  the  Church, 
whilst  preserving  a  diversity  of  nations,  tended  to  a  unity 
that  favoured  its  prosperity  and  glory.  On  this  point  St. 
Augustine  well  says:  "This  celestial  city,  in  its  life  here 
on  earth,  calls  to  itself  citizens  of  every  nation,  and  forms 
out  of  all  the  peoples  one  varied  society ;  it  is  not  harassed 
by  differences  in  customs,  laws  and  institutions,  which 
serve  to  the  attainment  or  the  maintenance  of  peace  on 
earth ;  it  neither  rends  nor  destroys  anything  but  rather 
guards  all  and  adapts  itself  to  all ;  however  these  things 
may  vary  among  the  nations,  they  are  all  directed  to  the 
same  end  of  peace  on  earth  as  long  as  they  do  not  hinder 
the  exercise  of  religion,  which  teaches  the  worship  of  the 
true,  supreme  God"20.  And  the  same  holy  doctor  thus 
addresses  the  Church:  "Citizens,  peoples  and  all  men, 
thou,  recalling  their  common  origin,  shalt  not  only  unite 
among  themselves,  but  shalt  make  them  brothers"21. 

To  come  back  to  what  we  said  at  the  beginning,  we 
turn  affectionately  to  all  our  children  and  conjure  them  in 
the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  forget  mutual  dif- 
ferences and  offences  and  draw  together  in  the  bonds  of 
Christian  charity,  from  which  none  are  excluded  and 
within  which  none  are  strangers.  We  fervently  exhort 
all  the  nations,  under  the  inspiration  of  Christian  benev- 
olence, to  establish  a  true  peace  among  themselves  and 
join  together  in  an  alliance  which  shall  be  just  and  there- 
fore lasting.    And  lastly  we  appeal  to  all  men  and  all 

(20)  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib  xix,  cap.  17. 

(21)  De  Moribus  Bcc.  Cat.  i,  cap  30. 


210         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

peoples  to  join  in  mind  and  heart  with  the  Catholic 
Church  and  through  the  Church  with  Christ  the  Ee- 
deemer  of  the  human  race,  so  that  we  may  address  to 
them  in  very  truth  the  words  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Ephe- 
sians:  "But  now  in  Christ  Jesus  you  who  sometimes 
were  afar  off,  are  made  nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ. 
For  He  is  our  peace,  Who  hath  made  both  one,  and 
breaking  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition  .  .  .  kill- 
ing the  enmities  in  himself.  And  coming  He  preached 
peace  to  you  that  were  far  off  and  peace  to  them  that  were 
nigh"22. 

Nor  less  appropriate  are  the  words  which  the  same 
apostle  addressed  to  the  Colossians :  ' '  Lie  not  to  one 
another:  stripping  yourselves  of  the  old  man  with  his 
deeds.  And  putting  on  the  new,  him  who  is  renewed  unto 
knowledge  according  to  the  image  of  Him  that  created  it. 
Where  there  is  neither  Gentile  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor 
uncircumcision,  Barbarian  nor  Scythian,  bond  nor  free. 
But  Christ  is  all  and  in  all"23. 

Meanwhile,  trusting  in  the  protection  of  Mary  the  vir- 
gin immaculate,  who  not  long  ago  we  directed  should  be 
universally  invoked  as  "Queen  of  Peace,"  as  also  in  the 
intercession  of  the  three  blessed  to  whom  we  have  decreed 
the  honour  of  saints,  we  humbly  implore  the  Holy  Ghost 
the  Paraclete  that  He  may  "graciously  grant  to  the 
Church  the  gifts  of  unity  and  peace"24,  and  may  renew 
the  face  of  the  earth  by  a  fresh  outpouring  of  His 
charity  for  the  salvation  of  all.  As  an  earnest  of  these 
heavenly  gifts  and  as  a  pledge  of  our  paternal  benevo- 
lence, we  impart  with  all  our  heart  to  you,  venerable 
brethren,  to  all  your  clergy  and  people,  the  apostolic 
benediction. 

Given  at  St.  Peter's,  Eome,  the  Feast  of  Pentecost, 
1920,  and  in  the  sixth  year  of  our  pontificate. 
Benedict  XV,  Pope, 

(22)  Eph.   ii,    13    et   seq. 

(23)  Col.   iii.   9-11. 

(24)  Secreta  in   Solemn,    Corpus   Christi. 


AN    INQUIRY    CONCERNING    THE    WORLD'S 
WAITING  AND  OUR  TARRYING 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly. 

Dear  Sir: — Without  attempting  to  answer  directly 
some  of  the  critics  of  my  letter  in  the  October  number  of 
The  Quarterly,  I  move  to  say  that  this  is  no  time  to  be 
apologizing  for  divisions  in  the  Church.  There  is  no 
reason  why  Churches  of  the  same  family  group  should 
not  get  together  in  the  next  few  years,  unless  denom- 
inational pride  and  sectarian  selfishness  continue  to  dom- 
inate the  various  denominations.  Neither  is  there  any 
reason  why  some  of  the  larger  communions  of  different 
groups  could  not  enter  into  cooperative  agreements  now. 
Competing  Churches  are  unchristian  irrespective  of  what 
their  orthodoxy  may  be.  I  am  not  interested  in  their 
prayers  nor  their  sermons  nor  their  creedal  statements, 
but  to  their  prayers,  sermons  and  creeds  is  given  con- 
tradiction by  their  competing  in  a  given  territory  for  the 
leading  place.  The  whole  programme  is  opposed  to  the 
religion  of  Jesus  and  recalls  what  Jesus  said  in  the  days 
of  His  flesh:  "Ye  compass  sea  and  land  to  make  one 
proselyte ;  and  when  he  is  become  so,  ye  make  him  two- 
fold more  a  son  of  hell  than  yourselves.' '  It  is  this  kind 
of  policy  that  has  been  the  weakening  factor  of  the 
Church  and  for  pious  people  to  hide  behind  it  simply  be- 
cause it  exists  and  say  it  is  the  will  of  the  Lord  because 
we  are  witnessing  for  some  half  truth  may  be  classed  un- 
der those  hypocritical  pretensions  of  the  Jewish  sects 
which  Jesus  so  severely  indicted. 

Recently  there  was  held  in  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  a  con- 
vention of  dealers  in  paints,  varnishes,  etc.  Those  six 
hundred  men  spent  a  week  in  giving  themselves  to  finding 
the  basis  of  cooperation  and  in  their  years  of  work  they 
have  so  far  exceeded  the  Church  in  cooperation  that  one 
is  simply  amazed  when  he  reads  the  minutes  of  a  group 


212         THE     CHEISTIAN    UNION    QUAETEELY 

of  men  selling  paints  and  varnishes  to  find  how  much 
wiser  they  have  been  in  putting  out  their  products  than 
the  Church  has  been  in  putting  out  its  products.  This 
mercantile  organization  has  successfully  abandoned  com- 
petition and  established  cooperation,  while  the  Churches 
which  are  putting  out  the  only  article  for  the  world's  re- 
demption, are  maintaining  a  policy  of  competition  that 
ultimately  means  death.  One  of  the  conundrums  which 
some  of  us  are  trying  to  solve  is  why  the  Church  should 
be  at  the  tail  end  of  things  in  cooperation  instead  of  set- 
ting the  example  of  the  evils  of  competition  to  dealers  in 
paints  and  varnishes. 

I  read  with  interest  in  your  last  issue  the  Appeal  of 
the  Anglican  bishops  and  I  think  its  spirit  is  beautiful 
and  its  approach  reverential.  They  are  beginning  at  the 
right  place  when  they  insist  upon  a  generally  recognized 
ministry.  Every  preacher  of  the  gospel  or  prophet  or 
priest  of  God  ought  to  have  the  freedom  to  minister  at 
all  altars  and  preach  from  all  pulpits.  That  must  come 
and  I  hail  with  joy  any  move  that  contributes  to  that 
ideal. 

Facing  the  condition  as  we  have  it  now  it  is  most  dis- 
couraging with  several  kinds  of  baptisms  and  several - 
kinds  of  confirmations  and  several  kinds  of  creeds  and 
several  kinds  of  denominational  names,  all  making  a  med- 
ley of  the  sublimest  task  that  has  ever  been  committed  to 
men.  If  the  Episcopal  bishop  is  willing  to  be  ordained 
to  the  privileges  of  your  communion,  why  is  it  that  you 
are  not  willing  to  be  ordained  to  the  privileges  of  his 
communion !  Would  he  receive  you  for  ordination  if  you 
look  upon  his  orders  as  he  now  looks  upon  yours  ?  If  you 
accept  ordination  at  his  hands  would  you  be  bound  to  the 
doctrines  of  his  Church  as  he  would  be  if  he  accepted  or- 
dination at  your  hands?  Does  ordination  carry  with  it 
the  sectarian  implication  of  loyalty  to  the  denomination 
that  ordains  you!    Is  it  not  necessary  to  find  a  universal 


CONCERNING     THE     WORLD'S     WAITING       213 

principle  in  ordination  so  that  one  may  be  ordained  by 
those  of  another  communion,  without  separating  him 
from  his  own  communion,  but  instead  deepen  his  relation- 
ship with  Christ  and  his  brethren? 

There  are  religious  bodies  who  feel  they  must  guard 
one's  confession  of  Christ  and  one's  Baptism  into  Christ 
and  one's  confirmation,  tying  them  up  with  their  denom- 
ination. I  am  raising  the  question  with  you  whether  this 
position  can  be  maintained.  Really  is  it  not  true  that 
confession  and  Baptism  and  confirmation  are  universal 
practices  and  as  such  one  entering  into  these  cannot  be 
rightly  tied  up  to  any  denomination  ? 

The  world  is  interested  in  religion,  not  in  the  things 
about  which  we  differ.  A  man  proves  his  religion  not  be- 
cause he  says  the  Nicene  Creed  or  is  confirmed  by  the 
bishop  or  partakes  of  the  Sacrament  every  Sunday,  but 
he  proves  his  religion  by  his  conduct,  which  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  living  faith.  I  should  like  to  know  why  you 
do  not  call  to  task  some  of  these  deceptions  to  the  truth. 
I  am  not  talking  about  heresies  as  related  to  theology, 
but  heresies  as  related  to  the  common  conduct  of  Chris- 
tianity. Jesus  taught  us  that  the  only  way  that  we  could 
know  that  a  man  is  a  follower  of  His,  is  by  his  conduct. 
Is  it  not  possible  for  us  to  get  back  to  New  Testament 
principles?  I  have  often  wondered  why  there  is  no  re- 
ligious body  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  is  courageous 
enough  to  take  the  New  Testament  and  live  by  it  as  Jesus 
taught  us  to  do,  covering  the  whole  field  of  our  relation 
to  God  and  our  fellows,  making  the  interpretation  of 
love  the  prime  characteristic  of  individual  experience. 
It  would  be  a  difficult  standard  to  set  up  in  the  world 
these  days  and  it  would  doubtless  be  costly  to  those  who 
undertook  to  do  it,  but  the  Church  some  day  has  to  come 
to  that  standard  or  else  deteriorate. 

Your  account  of  the  Switzerland  conferences  is  inter- 
esting and  getting  together  has  great  power,  but  I  am 


214         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

wondering  why  a  thousand  conferences  cannot  be  held  all 
over  the  world  just  such  as  those  held  in  Switzerland.  Is 
it  that  the  ministry  to  whom  we  must  look  for  guidance 
has  not  developed  the  conscience  upon  this  grave  sub- 
ject? If  the  conscience  has  not  been  developed  out  of  the 
catas trophy  of  the  World  War,  what  greater  voice  could 
one  desire  to  call  all  Churches  into  cooperation  and  sac- 
rifice? Each  denomination  appears  now  to  be  putting 
forth  its  best  efforts  to  entrench  itself  against  the  ap- 
proaches of  unity.  They  have  raised  great  sums  of 
money  for  their  respective  denominational  interests.  It 
is  so  belittling  and  unworthy  that  one  wonders  why  it 
should  have  place  in  the  thinking  of  the  great  and  rever- 
ent minds  of  this  day.  Far  more  important  is  the  getting 
together  in  actual  cooperation  and  union.  Many  of  these 
bodies  are  working  in  the  same  community  competing 
with  each  other  and  still  living  and  are  thereby  proving 
that  there  is  power  in  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

If  I  am  pushing  you  too  hard  for  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions I  should  be  glad  for  some  of  the  readers  of  The 
Quarterly  to  venture  to  answer.  We  have  got  to  be 
frank.  We  have  got  to  see  where  we  are.  We  have  got  to 
know  that  grave  responsibilities  are  upon  us,  and  we  have 
got  to  go  to  our  task  in  the  fear  of  God.  The  past  can 
take  care  of  itself,  for  it  is  already  fixed,  but  the  future 
is  to  be  made  and  our  pattern  for  it  ought  not  to  be 
gotten  out  of  the  past,  but  instead  out  of  the  rising  spir- 
itual inspirations  of  these  days.  Is  it  not  possible  to 
bring  groups  together  in  all  the  communities  of  Christen- 
dom and  have  a  programme  of  prayer  in  order  to  bring 
to  God  and  to  our  brothers  hearts  of  penitence  1 

Very  sincerely, 

Anthony  Opeheye. 


EDITORIAL 


FOURTH  QUADRENNIAL  MEETING  OF  THE 
FEDERAL  COUNCIL 

The  most  powerful  movement  for  Christian  unity  in 
the  world  to-day  is  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches 
of  Christ  in  America.  It  arose  at  the  right  time.  It 
arose  in  the  right  way.  It  arose  to  make  permanent  the 
ideals  of  Christianity  in  practical  cooperation  of  Amer- 
ican Protestants  in  service  rather  than  in  an  attempt  to 
unite  upon  definitions  of  theology  and  polity.  It  has 
grown  since  its  organization  in  1908 — not  particularly  in 
numerical  strength  beyond  the  normal  growth  of  the 
American  communions  that  came  in  it  at  its  beginning 
and  that  are  still  in  its  membership — but  it  has  grown  in 
the  thought  of  the  nation,  grown  in  its  statesmanlike 
grasp  in  the  great  problems  that  concern  the  Church, 
grown  in  its  practical  efficiency  in  meeting  the  needs  of 
the  times,  and  grown  in  favor  with  God  and  man. 

Its  fourth  quadrennial  meeting  in  Boston  last  month 
revealed  its  place  in  the  American  Church  life  as  no 
other  of  its  quadrennial  meetings  has  ever  done.  That 
does  not  mean  the  programme  and  addresses  were  better 
than  in  any  previous  meeting.  They  were  of  a  high 
standard  as  they  always  have  been,  but  the  Council  itself 
revealed  its  service  to  American  and  world-wide  Chris- 
tianity, its  undisputed  place  of  priority  in  American 
Christian  cooperation,  and  its  permanency  in  the  Chris- 
tian life  of  the  nation.  It  has  taken  time  to  do  all  this, 
but  that  these  things  have  been  accomplished  is  not  only 
a  satisfaction  but  a  prophecy  of  closer  affiliation  of 
Protestant  forces  and  the  assurance  of  a  deeper  right- 
eousness for  the  nation  and  the  world. 

Its  programme  dealt  with  the  present  day  opportunity 


216         THE     CHEISTIAN    UNION    QUAETEELY 

and  obligation  of  the  Church  as  related  to  the  national 
government,  social  justice,  the  American  ideals,  our  heri- 
tage from  the  Pilgrim  fathers,  facing  the  future,  our 
present  interdenominational  situation,  our  service  in  the 
community,  conditions  in  the  rural  community,  Christian 
internationalism,  a  world-wide  brotherhood,  including  our 
obligations  to  the  Orient,  to  Latin  America  and  to  the 
Churches  in  Europe  and  European  and  Asiatic  relief 
work,  our  missionary  responsibility  in  both  home  fields 
and  foreign  lands,  statements  from  cooperative  move- 
ments, social  problems,  temperance  crusade,  Christian 
education,  prayer  and  preparation  for  the  future.  The 
speakers  gave  utterance  to  messages  of  worth.  Aside 
from  our  American  speakers  were  the  Rev.  R.  C.  Gillie, 
president  elect  of  the  National  Council  of  the  Evangelical 
Free  Churches  of  England,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Ramsey, 
former  moderator  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Eng- 
land, and  General  Robert  Georges  Nivelle,  delegate  from 
the  French  Protestant  Federation.  Besides  these  there 
were  representatives  from  other  lands,  such  as  China, 
Holland,  Belgium,  Hungary,  Italy,  Japan,  Mexico  and 
Switzerland. 

The  published  reports  of  the  commissions  and  commit- 
tees include  valuable  data.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  these 
will  be  published  in  a  single  volume  for  a  careful  study. 
They  present  the  work  of  the  commissions  dealing  with 
international  justice  and  good-will,  relations  with  relig- 
ious bodies  in  Europe,  relations  with  France  and  Bel- 
gium, relations  with  the  Orient,  Christian  education, 
evangelism,  Church  and  social  service,  Church  and  com- 
mon life,  Negro  Churches,  temperance,  foreign  missions, 
interchurch  federations,  army  and  navy  chaplains,  relig- 
ious press,  religious  outlook,  American  Bible  Society,  etc. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Methods  of  Coopera- 
tion included  the  following  recommendations: 

1.  The  Council  believes  that  the  time  has  come  for  fuller  action  on  its 
part  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  purpose  of  its  establishment  "for  the  prose- 


FOURTH  QUADRENNIAL  MEETING     217 

cution  of  work  that  can  be  better  done  in  union  than  in  separation/'  The 
Council  instructs  the  Executive  and  Administrative  Committees  to  plan 
the  work  of  the  Council  in  accordance  with  this  view,  ever  having  in  mind 
its  duly  defined  field  of  constitutional  action  and  taking  such  steps  as  will 
maintain  the  closest  possible  relationships  between  it  and  the  constituent 
denominations. 

2.  The  Council  instructs  the  Executive  Committee  to  strengthen  the 
secretarial  staff  of  the  Council  by  the  appointment  of  such  additional 
secretaries  as  it  may  deem  necessary  to  enable  the  Council  to  carry  forward 
a  larger  work  with  the  confidence  and  support  of  the  Churches. 

3.  The  Council  requests  the  constituent  bodies  to  provide  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Council  and  its  work  on  the  scale  of  $300,000  per  annum  for 
the  next  two  years,  and  it  asks  these  bodies  to  accept  their  per  capita  ap- 
portionment of  this  amount. 

4.  The  Council  agrees  to  call  such  a  conference  of  the  inter-board 
agencies  as  has  been  suggested,  for  the  purposes  specified,  with  the  under- 
standing that  any  general  plan  of  cooperation  involving  the  denominations 
in  any  way  not  already  approved  by  them  in  connection  with  the  Federal 
Council  or  the  inter-board  bodies  must  be  referred  to  the  denominational 
courts  or  other  authorities. 

5.  The  Council  approves  the  statement  of  the  Committee  on  Methods 
of  Cooperation  with  regard  to  the  readiness  of  the  Council  to  adjust  its 
organization,  within  its  constitutional  character  and  responsibility  to  the 
Churches,  in  any  way  that  may  be  necessary  to  enable  it  to  be  of  service 
to  the  Churches  or  to  any  of  their  agencies. 

6.  The  Council  refers  to  the  Administrative  Committee  with  power  the 
article  numbered  eight,  of  the  By-laws,  with  regard  to  the  Commissions  of 
the  Council,  and  authorizes  it  to  make  any  changes  which  it  may  deem  wise 
in  the  commission  and  committee  organization  (including  the  Administra- 
tive Committee  itself)  of  the  Council. 

7.  The  Council  expresses  the  hope  that  out  of  the  experiences  and  dis- 
cussions of  the  present  time  there  may  come  the  achievement  of  a  richer 
form  of  expression  of  that  "spirit  of  fellowship,  service,  and  cooperation" 
in  which  the  Federal  Council  began  and  which  it  is  its  duty  and  its  joy 
to  promote. 

In  the  last  session  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Mes- 
sage to  the  Churches  was  presented.  This  message  is 
timely,  urgent  and  prophetic.    It  says : 

First  of  all,  then,  we  would  set  our  own  hearts  right  with  God.  Unless 
our  motives  be  single,  and  our  surrender  unreserved,  God  Himself  cannot 
do  through  us  what  He  desires.  In  all  humility,  therefore,  we  would  con- 
fess before  Him  our  sins,  praying  Him  to  purge  us  of  our  pride  and  self- 
complacency  and  by  His  Spirit  to  create  in  us  that  mind  of  Christ  which 
shall  fit  us  to  minister  in  His  name  to  a  world  in  need. 

Next  we  would  thank  God  for  the  new  demonstration  which  the  war  has 
brought  of  the  unshakable  foundation  upon  which  our  faith  is  laid:  for  the 
clear  revelation  of  the  central  place  which  religion  holds  in  the  life  of  men; 
for  the  confirmation  of  Christ's  teaching  concerning  the  unity  of  mankind 
and  our  membership  in  one  another;  for  the  sharpening  of  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  way  of  self  and  the  way  of  the  cross;  for  the  extent  to  which 
already  in  our  standards,  both  personal  and  social,  we  judge  success  or 
failure  by  the  ideals  of  Christ.  With  special  gratitude  would  we  recognize 
the  increasing  experience  of  cooperation  among  the  Churches  which  the  war 
has  brought,  our  growing  confidence  in  one  another,  our  resolute  purpose, 


218         THE     CHEISTIAN    UNION    QUARTEBLY 

God  helping  us,  to  carry  to  completion  the  work  which  in  His  name  we 
have  begun. 

What  is  this  work  to  which  our  Master  summons  Us?  It  is  to  help  men 
everywhere  to  realize  the  kind  of  life  that  befits  free  personalities  who  ac- 
cept the  standards  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  must  show  men  not  by  word  only, 
but  by  deed,  what  Christian  discipleship  means  for  men  living  in  such  a 
world  and  facing  such  conditions  as  confront  us  to-day — what  it  means  for 
the  family,  what  it  means  for  industry,  what  it  means  for  the  relation  of 
race  to  race  and  of  nation  to  nation. 

We  must  show  them  what  it  means  for  the  family.  In  the  home  God 
has  given  us  in  miniature  a  picture  of  what  He  means  His  world  to  be — 
a  society  in  which  the  welfare  of  each  is  the!  concern  of  all  and  he  is 
'greatest  who  serves  most.  The  home  in  the  nursery  of  religion  and  where 
family  life  is  neglected,  the  family  altar  forgotten,  the  sancity  of  marriage 
questioned,  the  opportunity  lost  which  the  Lord's  day  affords  for  rest, 
fellowship  and  spiritual  nurture,  and  pleasure  substituted  for  duty  as  the 
law  of  life,  there  can  be  small  hope  of  producing  men  and  women  who  will 
be  Christian  in  their  business  and  their  civic  life. 

We  must  show  men  what  Christian  discipleship  means  for  industry. 
Whether  it  be  manufacturing  or  commerce,  farming  or  finance,  all  forms 
of  business  are  primarily  concerned  with  human  personalities,  in  whom 
Christ's  Church  has  a  rightful  interest,  and  need  for  their  true  success  the 
mutual  confidence  and  helpfulness  His  Spirit  inspires.  We  have  recog- 
nized this  in  principle  in  the  "Social  Creed  of  the  Churches."  The  time 
has  come  to  prove  our  faith  by  our  works.  We  must  make  human  welfare 
our  test  of  business  success  and  judge  the  machinery  of  industry  by  what 
it  does  for  those  who  use  it.  We  must  grant  to  those  who  labor  the  same 
freedom  of  association  and  representation  which  those  who  own  capital 
claim  for  themselves  and  require  of  both  alike  that  they  use  this  right  of 
association,  freely  granted,  for  the  interest  of  all  those  whose  welfare  is 
dependent  upon  the  product  of  their  work. 

We  must  show  what  discipleship  means  for  the  relation  between  men  of 
different  races.  Deeper  than  all  differences  of  color  is  our  kinship  of 
spirit  in  the  family  of  God.  This  kinship  requires  mutual  respect  and  the 
free  expression  of  the  aspirations  of  personality,  and  should  lead  to  the 
persistent  endeavor  on  the  part  of  all  to  secure  justice  and  fair  dealing 
in  all  human  relationships  and  to  safeguard  the  rights  of  all  peoples  to 
their  share  in  our  common  heritage  of  Christian  democracy. 

We  must  show  what  discipleship  means  for  our  international  relations. 
With  all  the  power  we  can  command  we  must  protest  against  the  claim 
that  the  nation  is  exempt  from  the  obligation  of  the  moral  law  which 
controls  the  life  of  the  individual.  We  bear  our  witness  that  God  requires 
of  the  nation  as  of  the  individual  to  do  justly  and  to  love  mercy,  and  that 
the  nation  which  violates  that  law  in  its  dealings  with  other  nations  He 
will  hold  to  account.  Of  the  nation  as  of  the  individual  it  is  true  that 
the  way  of  love  and  trust  is  the  way  of  salvation,  and  that  he  that  would 
be  greatest  must  be  servant  of  all.  We  welcome,  therefore,  the  development 
of  a  League  of  Nations  which  shall  be  in  truth  an  association  of  free 
peoples  for  the  achieving  of  world  peace,  for  mutual  disarmament,  and  for 
constructive  service,  and  we  call  upon  our  own  nation  to  join  with  other 
nations  in  moving  along  this  new  pathway  of  hope. 

Above  all,  we  must  show  what  Christian  discipleship  means  for  the  in- 
dividual human  life.  Home  and  business  and  nation  and  race  will  be  what 
the  men  and  women  who  compose  them  make  them.  Most  important,  there- 
fore, of  all  the  responsibilities  that  rest  upon  the  Church  to-day  is  it  to 
educate  men  and  women  and  children  in  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  and  its 
consequences  for  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of  society.     Through  our 


FOURTH  QUADRENNIAL  MEETING     219 

Churches  and  Sunday  schools,  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  by  the  printed 
and  the  spoken  word,  by  all  the  avenues  through  which  mind  touches  mind, 
we  must  bring  our  Christian  message  home  with  convincing  power. 

But  that  our  witness  may  be  effective,  our  conduct  must  match  our 
profession.  A  self -centered  Church  cannot  rebuke  the  selfishness  of  business. 
A  self-complacent  Church  is  helpless  before  the  arrogance  of  race.  A 
Church  which  is  itself  the  scene  of  competition  and  strife  is  impotent  in 
face  of  the  rivalries  of  the  nations.  When  men  see  Christians  forgetting 
their  differences  in  common  service,  then  and  not  till  then  will  they  believe 
in  Christ's  power  to  break  down  the  barriers  between  classes  and  between 
races. 

We  welcome,  therefore,  the  voice  that  comes  to  us  across  the  sea  from 
our  fellow  Christians  in  Lambeth,  joining  with  us  in  calling  the  Churches 
to  more  complete  unity.  We  reciprocate  the  spirit  of  their  most  Christian 
utterance.  We  believe  with  them  that  we  are  already  one  in  Christ  and  are 
persuaded  that  the  way  to  manifest  the  spiritual  unity  which  we  now  possess, 
and  to  make  possible  its  increase  in  ever  enlarging  measure,  is  for  all  those 
who  love  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ  to  join  in  discharging  the  com- 
mon duties  whose  obligation  all  alike  recognize. 

In  this  hour  fraught  with  the  possibilities  of  healing  or  of  disaster, 
one  thing  only  can  save  the  nations  and  that  is  a  will  to  united  service, 
born  of  faith  in  the  triumph  of  the  good.  To  this  faith  we  summon  all 
men  in  the  name  of  Him  who  died  that  we  might  live  and  who  is  able  by 
His  spirit  to  bring  out  of  the  failure  and  disappointment  of  the  present 
a  far  more  abundant  and  satisfying  life.  In  this  faith  we  would  rededi- 
cate  ourselves  to  the  service  of  the  living  God,  whose  Kingdom  is  righteous- 
ness and  peace  and  joy. 

The  Council  continues  at  its  task  with  renewed  vision 
and  courage.  It  was  a  real  satisfaction  that  Dr.  Robert 
E.  Speer  consented  to  be  president  for  the  next  four 
years.  Dr.  Speer  is  the  prophet  of  missionary  zeal  and 
the  interpreter  of  Christian  idealism.  His  leadership 
commands  confidence  in  all  parts  of  the  Church.  To 
carry  forward  the  work  of  the  Council,  while  the  fine 
statesmanship  of  Dr.  Charles  S.  MacFarland  has  man- 
ifested through  the  years,  there  must  be  larger  coopera- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  constituent  bodies,  and  there  will 
be.  The  permanent  values  of  the  Council  are  becoming 
evident  to  all  and  definite  cooperation  augments  its 
strength  for  the  fulfillment  of  its  purposes  in  the  enrich- 
ment of  spiritual  experience  and  common  betterment. 


WHAT  PEOPLE   AND   PAPERS 
ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY 


While  much  is  being  said  to-day  about  the  union  of 
Christian  communions  it  is  important  to  see  that  each 
communion  maintains  union  within  itself,  for  if  those  of 
the  same  communion  cannot  live  together  in  peace  it  is 
not  much  likelihood  that  they  will  be  able  to  live  together 
with  others.  Speaking  for  the  Church  of  England,  and  it 
applies  to  all  other  Churches,  The  Challenge,  London, 
says : 

The  offering  of  a  perfect  service  cannot  be  presented  to  God  without 
a  movement  of  reconciliation:  It  must  come  to  a  dead  stop:  "If  thou 
bring  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  and  there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath 
ought  against  thee,  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the  altar  and  go  thy  way, 
first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift. "  It 
is  to  this  great  preliminary  we  are  called  upon  to  address  ourselves.  All 
eager  as  we  are  to  set  out  hot  foot  on  reuniting  the  Church,  and  recon- 
structing the  world,  we  have  to  learn  that  we  are  no  better  than  lame  men 
starting  on  a  Marathon  race  till  this  matter  of  internal  unity  has  been  put 
right. 

So  long  as  one  party  looks  upon,  another  as  an  unnecessary  or  even  a 
necessary  evil,  so  long  will  this  internecine  warfare  continue.  So  long  as 
insecurity  prevails,  there  will  always  be  the  threat  of  war — so  long  as 
parties  practise  reprisals  by  seeking  to  ' i  capture ' 7  parishes  from  one  an- 
other, good  feeling  is  impossible.  A  better  way  must  be  found  to  guaran- 
tee, within  the  widest  limits  possible,  freedom  and  continuity  to  all  schools 
of  thought,  and  to  deliver  at  the  same  time  our  helpless  parishes  from 
violent  and  autocratic  changes  of  ritual  and  doctrine.  After  such  a  com- 
mission has  done  its  work  in  the  name  of  the  whole  Church  the  moral  basis 
of  discipline  will  have  been  laid.  At  present  no  such  moral  basis  exists,  and 
the  isolated  and  uncertain  position  of  bishops,  dealing  with  ritual  excesses 
or  Protestant  defects,  is  most  deplorable. 

***** 

The  opportunity  before  the  Church  of  England  is  so  great  that  it  would 
be  a  thousand  pities  if  we  should  throw  it  away  by  our  failure  to  agree. 
"We  are  living  in  the  fierce  light  of  publicity  at  present  in  virtue  of  the 
encyclical  of  the  bishops  of  our  communion  which  challenge  the  attention 
of  the  world.  Our  sincerity  and  our  credentials  to  pose  as  peacemakers  are 
being  subjected  to  the  most  penetrating  gaze.  Can  we  verify  the  hopes 
that  we  have  raised  by  achieving  reunion  amongst  ourselves? 


The  Anglican  Archbishop  of  Brisbrane  in  a  recent  ad- 
dress on  reunion  said : 

It  is  useless  even  to  discuss  reunion  until  we  are  assirred  of  one  fun- 
damental postulate.     We  are  to  "try  the  spirits,"  and  the  spirit  of  re- 


WHAT    PEOPLE    AND    PAPERS    SAY  221 

union  will  be  recognized  as  of  God,  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  marked  by  peni- 
tence. Reunion,  no  doubt,  is  in  the  air.  We  are  all  weary  of  the  practical 
inconvenience  of  our  divisions.  We  all  lament — and  we  in  Australia  per- 
haps more  than  most — the  hindrance  and  scandal  of  half-a-dozen  denom- 
inations struggling  in  one  small  township,  with  all  manner  of  petty  com- 
petition and  jealousy,  while  the  ministers  of  religion  live  in  semi-starvation. 
Moreover  we  are  all  ashamed  of  the  spectacle  of  the  world  crying  out  for  a 
Christianity  which  we  Christians  are  unable  to  give  because  we  speak  with 
a  divided  voice.  But  reunion  is  not  a  mere  policy  which  we  can  adopt  on 
practical  grounds.  Reunion  is  necessary  because  it  is  God's'  will;  because, 
in  spite  of  all  our  sins,  the  Church  remains  one  in  the  mind  of  Christ.  And 
the  process  of  getting  back  to  that  mind  and  will  is  not  a  process  of  ad- 
justment or  programmes:  it  presupposes  an  awakening  in  men's  souls,  and 
a  new  surrender  of  all  men's  wills  to  the  guidance  of  God's  spirit.  God's 
purpose,  we  believe,  is  to  bring  home  the  fruits  of  redemption  to  the  world 
by  means  of  a  united  Church:  but  by  yielding  to  the  spirit  of  schism,  by 
admitting  pride  and  worldliness  into  her  counsels,  the  Church  has  fallen 
away  from  the  divine  purpose  which  called  her  into  being.  Only  through 
penitence  and  humiliation  can  she  set  free  the  healing  and  renewing  Spirit 
of  God. 

And  our  penitence  must  be  personal  penitence.  We  are  not  merely  to 
confess  the  sins  of  our  fathers  in  whose  days  the  historical  steps  of  division 
were  taken.  The  sins  which  divide  are  with  us  still;  and  if  we  acknowl- 
edge that  our  fathers  erred,  we  must  confess  and  repent  of  the  same  sins 
in  ourselves.  But  the  penitence  must  also  be  general.  All  sections  of  the 
divided  Church  have  their  share  of  the  guilt;  and  we  must  school  ourselves 
to  recognize  that  schism  is  not  only  the  act  of  those  who  wilfully  tear  the 
Body  of  Christ;  but  that  all  who  acquiesce  in  the  divisions  which  have 
wounded  our  Lord,  all  who  fail  to  do  their  utmost  to  right  the  great  wrong 
(however  little  they  may  be  responsible  for  it)  are  harboring  the  schismatic 
temper  in  their  hearts.  While,  therefore,  we  of  the  Church  of  England 
seek  to  banish  the  spirit  of  schism  from  ourselves,  we  appeal  to  all  our 
fellow-Christians  to  vie  with  us  in  the  same  endeavour. 

The  first  essential  then  is  to  create  an  universal  atmosphere  of  penitence. 
Without  this,  all  our  discussions  will  only  lead  to  a  hardening  of  our 
divisions.     With  it,  all  things  are  possible. 


In  a  recent  sermon  on  ' '  Reunion :  The  Lambeth  Appeal 
and  the  Concordat,"  the  Rev.  William  T.  Manning,  D.D., 
rector  of  Trinity  Episcopal  Church,  New  York,  said : 

As  to  the  question  of  the  ministry,  this  appeal  speaks  with  a  clearness 
and  in  a  spirit  which  should  commend  it  to  the  careful  consideration  of 
all  Christians.  It  makes  great  gain  by  taking  this  question  in  the  order 
which  belongs  to  it.  We  have  fallen  into  much  difficulty  through  taking 
this  important  matter  out  of  its  right  place  and  relation.  The  first  and 
supreme  fact  is  our  fellowship  in  the  Church.  This  fact  clearly  recognized 
as  it  is  here,  we  can  then  go  on  more  intelligently,  and  far  more  hopefully, 
to  consider  the  question  of  the  ministry. 

The  declaration  acknowledges  whole-heartedly  the  spiritual  reality  and 
efficacy  of  the  non-episcopal  ministries.  It  declares  the  necessity  for  the 
united  Church  of  a  "  ministry  acknowledged  by  every  part  of  the  Church  as 
possessing  not  only  the  inward  call  of  the  Spirit,  but  also  the  commission 
of  Christ  and  the  authority  of  the  whole  body,"  a  statement  with  which  all 
should  agree. 


222         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

It  then  offers  the  episcopate  as  "the  one  means  of  providing  such  a 
ministry. "  This  statement  that  the  episcopate  is  "the  one  means  of  pro- 
viding such  a  ministry' '  for  the  whole  united  Church  is  one  to  which  many 
leading  Nonconformists  to-day  fully  assent. 

And  then  follows  what  so  pronounced  a  Catholic  and  so  able  a  theolo- 
gian as  Father  Herbert  Kelly  describes  as  "the  unique  grandeur"  of 
this  declaration,  the  statement  that  although  we  cannot  repudiate  our  min- 
istry any  more  than  we  ask  others  to  repudiate  theirs,  terms  of  union  hav- 
ing been  otherwise  satisfactorily  adjusted,  bishops  and  clergy  of  our  com- 
munion would  willingly  accept  from  the  authorities  of  other  communions 
"a  form  of  commission  or  recognition  which  would  commend  our  ministry 
to  their  congregations  as  having  its  place  in  the  one  family  life. "  This 
offer  by  the  bishops  has  been  interpreted  by  some  as  made  only  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  and  Eastern  Churches.  Such  an  interpretation,  however, 
is  quite  incorrect.  The  offer  is  made  especially  to  the  non-episcopal  com- 
munions and  the  language  of  the  declaration  makes  this  clear.  It  is  in  fact 
based  upon  an  offer  made  in  almost  identical  words  by  the  Bishop  of  Zan- 
zibar to  the  representatives  of  the  Protestant  communions  in  East  Africa. 
The  chairman  of  the  committee  which  drew  up  this  declaration,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  has  himself  made  the  following  comment  on  this  offer: 

"I  was  born,  brought  up  and  baptized  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland.  I  was  received  into  the  Episcopal  Church  and  am  now  an 
archbishop.  I  should  esteem  it  a  privilege  and  an  added  consecration,  and 
of  course  no  repudiation  of  my  orders,  if  our  relations  with  the  Presby- 
terian Church  were  such  that  I  could  now  receive  such  ordination  or  com- 
mission from  the  Church  of  my  fathers  as  would  enable  me  to  minister  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church  and  to  administer  the  Lord 's  Supper  to  its  people ; 
and  I  should  feel  that  no  Presbyterian  minister  would  repudiate  his  minis- 
try if  he  should  receive  ordination  at  my  hands,  and  while  still  remaining  a 
minister  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  be  able  to  administer  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per in  the  Church  of  England. " 

One  more  matter.  How  does  this  great  declaration  by  the  bishops  of 
the  Anglican  Communion  bear  upon  that  practical  proposal  for  approach 
towards  unity  now  under  consideration  by  our  communion  and  known  as 
the  concordat?  I  have  seen  some  published  statements  which  seemed  to 
imply  that  the  concordat  failed  to  receive  support  because  the  Lambeth 
declaration  does  not  mention  it  by  name.  Nothing,  however,  could  be  more 
unwarranted  than  such  an  inference. 

Quite  naturally  and  necessarily  the  declaration  does  not  mention  the 
concordat  by  name  any  more  than  it  mentions  the  various  other  proposals 
of  like  character  which  are  under  consideration  in  different  parts  of  the 
world.  But  the  Lambeth  Conference  had  before  it  in  a  small,  carefully 
prepared  volume  all  the  recently  proposed  approaches  towards  reunion, 
among  them  a  proposal  by  the  Bishop  of  London  for  union  with  the  Wes- 
leyan  Methodists,  a  proposal  by  the  Bishop  of  Zanzibar  for  union  with  the 
Protestant  communions  in  East  Africa,  and  our  own  proposed  concordat 
with  the  Congregationalists.  These  three  proposals  are  the  same  in  prin- 
ciple and  are  strikingly  similar  in  their  main  provisions.  Each  of  them 
provides  that  ministers,  after  receiving  episcopal  ordination,  shall  continue 
to  minister  in  their  own  communions.  Each  is  based  on  the  very  principles 
embodied  in  the  Lambeth  declaration.  And  I  think  those  of  you  who  are 
familiar  with  both  documents  will  feel  that  I  do  not  overstate  the  case 
when  I  say  that  the  Lambeth  declaration  countenances  and  supports  every 
principle  of  the  concordat,  and  in  some  important  points  goes  further  in 
the  direction  of  concession  than  the  concordat  does.  Compared  with  the 
declaration  on  unity  made  by  the  bishops  at  Lambeth,  the  concordat  is  a 
rather  conservative  proposal.     On  the  very  lines  laid  down  by  this  declara- 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS    SAY  223 

tion  it  is  an  experiment  in  the  direction  of  reunion,  but  a  very  carefully 
guarded  one.  And  how  shall  we  ever  make  any  progress  unless  we  are 
willing  to  make  some  experiments?  If  the  Bishop  of  London  and  the 
Bishop  of  Zanzibar  are  willing  to  recommend  such  an  experiment,  why 
should  it  throw  any  of  us  into  panic? 

The  Living  Churchy  Milwaukee,  dissents  from  Dr,  Man- 
ning's interpretation  and  says: 

We  feel  impelled  rather  to  question  Dr.  Manning's  belief  that  the  con- 
cordat has  been  practically  endorsed  by  the  Lambeth  Conference.  That 
that  instrument  was  a  considerable  factor  in  moulding  the  thought  of  the 
bishops  we  do  not  question;  but  the  chief  issues  in  connection  with  the 
concordat  are  generally  not  such  as  are  treated  in  the  Appeal. 

Moreover  the  concordat  is  so  immeasurably  superior  to  most  of  the 
proposals  printed  in  the  pamphlet  mentioned  and  especially  to  the  results  of 
the  Mansfield  Conferences  in  England,  that  it  would  not  be  strange  if  many 
Anglican  Churchmen  should  take  it  as  a  basis  for  further  study.  On  the 
other  hand  we  can  think  of  nothing  more  deplorable  than  the  assumption 
by  the  proponents  of  the  concordat  of  a  "  Take-it-or-leave-it ' '  attitude. 
If  they  cling  to  the  concordat  as  drawn,  with  its  defects  uncorrected,  there 
is  nothing  left  for  the  Church  but  absolute  rejection;  which  would  be  a 
disappointing  outcome,  indeed,  to  the  very  serious  attempt  made  by  men  a 
generation  ahead  of  their  time,  on  both  sides,  to  find  an  approach  toward 
unity.  They  may  safely  ignore  such  criticisms  as  are  simply  unintelligent, 
but  they  cannot  ignore  such,  for  instance,  as  those  that  were  contained 
in  the  series  of  papers  by  Professor  Francis  J.  Hall  which  were  published 
in  The  Living  Church  a  year  ago.  Those  papers  raised  issues  that  the 
proponents  of  the  concordat  have  not  met.  It  was,  in  our  judgment,  a 
mistake  for  them  to  carry  into  General  Convention  a  document  containing 
defects  for  which  no  attempt  at  correction  had  been  made.  And  particu- 
larly the  resolutions  in  which  General  Convention  declared  most  sympa- 
thetically what  general  form  of  alterations  in  the  proposals  must  be  made 
before  favorable  consideration  could  be  hoped  for  cannot  be  ignored.  If 
the  Joint  Commission  should  fail  to  secure  the  cooperation  of  the  Congre- 
gational conferees  in  those  suggestions  it  would  be  better  that  no  propos- 
als whatever  should  be  reported  into  the  next  General  Convention.  Few, 
indeed,  are  those  who  would  desire,  by  their  vote,  to  commit  the  Church 
to  an  unqualifiedly  non  possumus  attitude  in  response  to  the  serious  over- 
tures of  Dr.  Smyth  and  his  associates,  but  the  alternative  is  to  draw  up  a 
new  agreement  on  the  general  lines  of  those  resolutions,  after  the  most 
careful  study  of  the  constructive  criticism  that  has  been  given  to  the  sub- 
ject. It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  relations  such  as  were  proposed  could 
become  a  really  workable  system,  even  if  the  defects  in  the  concordat  were 
cured.  That  is  a  subject  for  careful  consideration  by  the  conferees.  If  it 
be  possible  for  the  Congregationalist  commission,  in  conference  with  our 
own,  to  work  out  details  on  those  lines,  a  very  long  step  toward  unity 
will  be  taken.     But  everything  depends  upon  the  details. 

In  the  Lambeth  Conference  four  bishops  voted  against 
the  Appeal.  Among  them  was  the  Et.  Eev.  A.  C.  A.  Hall, 
Bishop  of  Vermont.  In  an  address  to  his  diocese  he  gives 
the  following  explanation  why  he  voted  as  he  did : 


224  i'HE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

While,  with  the  use  of  a  good  deal  of  skill,  the  Appeal  and  its  conse- 
quent resolutions  may  be  defended  and  interpreted  by  us  in  an  orthodox  or 
catholic  sense,  it  will  not  be  so  understood  by  many  of  those  to  whom  it 
is  addressed.     In  particuler: 

(1)  I  feel  sure  that  many — American  Congregationalists,  for  exam- 
ple— will  make  no  distinction,  as  to  the  conferring  of  divine  authority 
(which  is  the  real  matter  of  importance),  between  the  episcopal  ordination 
which  we  offer  their  ministers,  and  the  "commission  or  recognition"  which 
we  profess  to  be  ready  in  turn  to  receive  from  their  ecclesiastical  author- 
ities, other  terms  of  reunion  being  satisfactorily  adjusted.  Our  own  words 
seem  to  express  the  object  of  this  mutual  reordination  (if  it  may  be  so 
called)  to  be  only  the  giving  or  gaining  of  a  wider  sphere  of  ministry,  not 
any  added  guarantee  of  a  divine  commission. 

In  their  desire  (admirable  in  itself)  to  make  terms  of  reunion  as  easy 
as  possible  for  others,  and  to  avoid  on  their  own  part  an  attitude  of  supe- 
riority, the  bishops  seem  really  to  have  abandoned  all  of  strength  and 
authority  that  goes  with  the  inheritance  of  a  ministerial  commission 
handed  down  from  the  Apostles  to  whom  it  was  originally  given  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  There  is  no  mention  throughout  the  Appeal  of  this 
transmission.  The  episcopate  they — I  cannot  but  think  inconsistently — 
insist  on  for  the  future,  but  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  for  utilitarian  advan- 
tages as  an  instrument  of  unity — which  it  has  not  always  shown  itself!  By 
these  terms  we  should  sanction  a  low  view  of  ordination,  both  among  those 
admitted  on  these  easy  conditions,  and  among  the  next  generation  of  min- 
isters whom  they  might  encourage  to  be  ordained  on  a  similar  under- 
standing. I! 

(2)  According  to  the  Appeal  the  Catholic  Church  is  an  object  of  hope 
rather  than  of  faith.  It  is  the  Church  for  which  we  look,  rather  than  the 
body  with  its  divinely  appointed  organization  to  which,  however  outwardly 
maimed,  we  recall  men.  Accordingly  there  is  no  word  of  condemnation  for 
a  schismatical  position,  however  largely  to  be  excused  in  the  present  mem- 
bers of  separated  bodies. 

(3)  During  the  time  of  transition,  which  must  extend  over  a  number 
of  years,  there  would  be  the  accepted  anomaly  of  a  number  of  ministers 
who,  not  having  received  episcopal  ordination,  would  be  allowed  to  preach 
and  conduct  services  in  our  Churches,  but  not  to  celebrate  the  Holy  Com- 
munion, and  who  would  be  full  members  of  diocesan  and  other  synods. 

(4)  Apparently — though  this  is  not  explicitly  stated  in  the  Appeal,  but 
is  defended  by  some  of  its  warm  supporters — "groups"  would  still  be  rec- 
ognized in  the  reunited  Church.  There  might  be  Presbyterian  and  Meth- 
odist and  Congregational  and  Anglican  and  Roman  Catholic  groups  exist- 
ing side  by  side,  but  retaining  differences  of  administration  and  worship, 
within  a  given  area  (say  the  state  of  Vermont),  if  only  each  had  its 
bishop ;  and  held  in  communion  one  with  another  by  their  several  bishops 
being  all  members  of  one  synod.  Now  I  am  bold  to  say  that  this  sort  of 
reunion  seems  hardly  worth  striving  for.  To  my  mind  there  must  be  unity 
of  chief  pastorship  in  each  area,  whatever  arrangement  of  suffragan  or 
assistant  bishops  might  be  devised  for  different  sets  of  people,  as  for  dif- 
ferent races.  The  appeal  to  the  Uniate  Churches  among  Roman  Catholics 
does  little  to  strengthen  the  case.  They  are  comparatively  insignificant 
in  numbers,  and  their  history  is  by  no  means  satisfactory.  I  long  ago  ex- 
pressed my  willingness  to  retire  from  office  myself  if  a  new  bishop  might 
be  chosen  who  would  be  acceptable  to  a  united  Church,  as  free  from  former 
antagonisms.  But  overlapping  jurisdictions  promise  no  real  union,  but 
seem  fruitful  in  rivalries  and  trouble. 

(5)  The  testing  of  an  agreement  arrived  at  by  a  good  deal  of  mutual 
concession,  if  not  of  compromise,  comes  when  it  is  put  into  practical  execu- 


WHAT    PEOPLE    AND     PAPERS    SAY  225 

tion.  Then  the  different  understandings  with  which  various  persons  have 
agreed  to  the  common  statement  are  likely  to  appear.  Here,  I  fear,  exists 
a  risk  of  further  controversy  and  division.  The  bishops  who  by  an  over- 
whelming majority  adopted  the  Appeal  and  its  consequent  resolutions  will, 
I  feel  sure,  feel  bound  to  do  their  utmost  to  preserve  the  balance  of  the 
agreement  and  to  guard  against  the  possible  dangers  and  risks  which  many 
of  them  recognize  and  of  which  all  have  been  fairly  warned. 

(6)  I  must  not  omit  what  I  placed  first  among  my  objections  stated 
to  the  Conference,  my  inability  to  accept  the  dogmatic  assumption — clean 
contrary  to  the  teaching  of  many  Fathers,  e.  g.,  St.  Augustine,  and  of 
other  authorities — at  the  beginning  of  the  Appeal,  that  Baptism  alone — 
by  whomsoever  ministered,  in  whatsoever  body  {e.g.,  Mormons),  and  with 
whatsoever  intention — constitutes  membership  in  the  Body  of  Christ,  with- 
out any  sanction  or  reconciliation  by  the  laying  on  of  hands.  Confirmation 
is  regarded  not  as  the  appointed  completion  of  the  initiatory  rites  of  the 
Christian  Church,  but  as  a  desirable  but  not  really  necessary  addition.  Ap- 
parently a  minister  of  another  religious  body  might  be  ordained  without 
first  receiving  the  laying  on  of  hands  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Southern  Churchman,  Richmond,  dissents  from 
Bishop  Hall's  position  and  says: 

One  can  but  marvel  that  such  objections  as  these  should  outweigh  in  any 
mind  the  broad  Christian  spirit  and  truly  catholic  principles  set  forth  in 
the  noble  and  generous  Appeal  for  the  Reunion  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
made  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  the  assembled  bishops  at  Lambeth. 
They  indicate  the  honest  convictions  of  a  certain  number  of  the  members 
of  this  Church  which  they  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  hold  in  high 
value  and  to  teach,  a  liberty  which  no  advocate  of  unity  desires  to  deprive 
them  of.  But  they  are  not  required  of  any  man  to  be  believed  by  this 
Church,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  are  not  held,  or  are  held  with  modifications 
and  interpretations  of  wide  variance,  by  a  vast  multitude  of  perfectly  good 
and  orthodox  Churchmen  who  are  in  full  ecclesiastical  fellowship  with 
the  excellent  Bishop  of  Vermont.  Yet  for  the  sake  of  insistence  upon 
these  views  he  would  condemn  all  Christians  outside  of  this  Church  who 
cannot  accede  to  them  to  remain  perpetually  in  what  he  considers  a 
' '  schismatical  position, ' '  and  deny  to  them  the  fellowship  within  the  Church 
which  he  is  obliged  to  accord  to  his  brother  Churchmen  who  hold  the  same 
Protestant  opinions.  From  the  Bishop's  own  point  of  view,  could  incon- 
sistency further  go? 


Dr.F.D.  Kershner  writing  in  The  Christian-Evangelist, 
St.  Louis,  regarding  the  certain  and  inevitable  break- 
down in  denominationalism,  says : 

1.  The  first  reason  is  the  contradiction  of  the  ideal  of  Christian  love 
and  brotherhood,  fostered  by  the  denominational  order.  The  ethics  of  Jesus 
center  around  the  ideal  of  love  and  the  practical  expression  of  that  ideal 
in  deeds  of  good-will  and  of  human  brotherhood.  Anything  which  makes 
it  hard  for  Christians  to  love  each  other  is  foreign  to  the  genius  of  Chris- 
tianity. Love  is  fundamental,  and  basic  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  What- 
ever contravenes  the  gospel  of  love  is  necessarily  the  deadliest  of  all  here- 
sies. Now,  no  one  can  deny  that  denominationalism  has  made  it  difficult 
for  the  spirit  of  love  to  exist  in  the  hearts  of  Christians.     The  rivalry  of 


226  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

parties  and  sects  has  inevitably  tended  toward  the  development  of  bitter- 
ness and  hatred.  Thomas  Campbell  in  the  Declaration  and  Address  pub- 
lished in  1809  calls  especial  attention  to  the  crying  sin  of  denomination- 
alism  in  this  particular. 

2.  On  the  practical  side,  even  the  most  earnest  advocates  of  the  denom- 
inational order  must  concede  its  inefficiency.  Overlapping  and  waste  have 
everywhere  characterized  the  religious  activities  of  modern  Protestantism. 
The  burden  of  expense  entailed  by  the  Great  War  has  made  this  unneces- 
sary cost  in  the  religious  field  intolerable.  "While  this  viewpoint  is  by  no 
means  the  most  essential,  or  the  most  significant,  it  nevertheless  carries 
great  weight  with  the  average  present-day  Christian.  Denominationalism 
is  inefficient,  therefore  denominationalism  must  go. 

3.  From  the  standpoint  of  philosophical  unity  it  is  inconceivable  that 
the  pluralistic  conception  of  the  Church  should  be  ultimate.  Doubtless  the 
ideal  of  unity  carries  with  it  a  full  recognition  of  the  necessity  for  indi- 
vidual freedom,  but  the  fact  remains  that  an  ultimate  pluralism  is  as 
unthinkable  in  the  field  of  practical  religion  as  it  is  in  the  field  of  meta- 
physics or  theology. 

4.  In  the  fourth  place,  the  denominational  order  cannot  be  reconciled 
with  many  of  the  most  significant  passages  of  the  New  Testament.  Es- 
pecially is  this  true  of  our  Lord's  intercessory  prayer  in  the  seventeenth 
chapter  of  the  gospel  of  John.  Certainly  the  ideal  of  unity  expressed  in 
this  chapter  precludes  the  denominational  order  as  an  ultimate  expression 
of  the  life  of  the  Church.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  language  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  as  contained  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  first  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians.  Denominational  apologists  seek  in  vain  to  destroy  the  force 
of  these  and  other  similar  passages  of  Scripture. 

5.  Finally,  denominationalism,  whatever  may  have  been  its  original 
merits,  has  fully  served  its  day.  It  is  as  out-worn  and  out-grown  in  the 
new  world  of  the  twentieth  century  as  the  Holy  Roman  Church  was  at  the 
dawn  of  the  Reformation.  It  was  doubtless  well  that  freedom  should  be 
secured  even  at  the  cost  of  unity,  but  now  that  freedom  has  been  secured 
it  is  impossible  that  the  separatist  ideal  should  rule  forever.  Daniel  Web- 
ster 's  noble  words  with  regard  to  the  political  situation  apply  just  as  fully 
and  conclusively  to  the  field  of  religion — "Liberty  and  union,  now  and 
forever,  one  and  inseparable. ' '  We  have  had  union  without  liberty,  and 
liberty  without  union;  it  is  time  that  we  should  make  liberty  and  union  one 
and  inseparable. 


Writing  in  The  Australian  Christian  Commonwealth, 
Eev.  George  Hall  says : 

It  has  been  said  that  to  vote  for  the  surrender  of  our  distinctive  name 
and  polity  would  be  an  act  of  disloyalty  to  the  Church  to  which  we  owe 
so  much.  Is  the  bride  guilty  of  an  act  of  disloyalty  to  the  old  home  when 
on  the  wedding  day  she  accepts  a  new  name  and  begins  a  larger  life? 

We  shall  surely  gain  by  the  inclusion  of  some  of  the  things  which  the 
other  negotiating  Churches  have  proved  to  be  of  value.  The  teachings  and 
polity  and  spirit  which  are  peculiarly  ours  so  far  as  they  are  essential  to 
a  New  Testament  Church  we  shall  carry  with  us,  and  by  so  doing  enrich  all. 

The  question  that  is  worthy  of  Christian  leaders  and  all  Christian  peo- 
ple is  not,  shall  I  part  with  any  denominational  appellation?  shall  I  sur- 
render the  modes  of  thought  and  form  of  service  which  by  long  use  have 
become  as  a  part  of  my  very  nature?  but,  will  the  union  of  the  Churches 
make  for  the  growth  of  the  Kingdom  of  God? 


WHAT     PEOPLE    AND     PAPERS.    SAY  227 

The  Methodism  to  which  many  of  us  owe  more  than  to  any  other  in- 
stitution is  very  precious  to  us,  but  far  above  that  to  us  is  the  accelerated 
movement  of  Christ's  Church. 

If  one  strong  Church  in  a  small  community  can  more  effectively  do  the 
work  of  God  than  can  two  or  three  weak  ones,  who  shall  stand  for  the  per- 
petuating of  the  less  effective  method?  Why  expend  large  stores  of  energy 
and  vast  sums  of  money  on  an  over-churched  community  when  there  are 
upwards  of  1,000,000,000  for  whom  our  Lord  died  who  do  not  know  His 
name? 

The  question  of  economy  must  and  ought  to  come  into  the  considera- 
tion of  Church  union. 

Our  Mission  Boards  are  pleading  for  men  and  money.  In  some  districts 
not  far  from  our  shores  the  heathen  are  crying  out,  ' '  Come  over  .  .  .  and 
help  us. ' '  Shall  we  not  consolidate  our  home  forces  and  liberate  the  men 
who  can  be  spared  that  they  may  serve  our  common  cause  in  those  places 
where  the  enemy  is  unopposed? 

Another  writer  in  the  same  journal  says : 

We  take  it  for  granted  that  advocates  and  opponents  of  union  alike 
are  moved  by  the  desire  to  do  the  right  thing  and  to  serve  the  Church  uni- 
versal. But  more  is  needed  than  right  motives.  Error  may  be  honest. 
Sincerity  is  not  the  same  thing  as  truth.  Rightness  of  vision,  correctness 
of  thought,  soundness  of  judgment,  all  are  necessary.  If  the  view  is  nar- 
rowed to  one's  own  denomination,  one's  own  town,  or  state,  or  country, 
a  correct  judgment  is  not  likely  to  be  arrived  at.  If  the  level  from  which 
the  matter  is  looked  at  is  that  of  finance,  polity,  denominational  impor- 
tance, the  true  objective  will  be  missed.  The  outlook  must  be  world-wide 
in  its  comprehensiveness  and  heavenly  in  its  attitude.  The  divisions  of  the 
Christian  Church  have  been  caused  largely  by  the  blunders  of  men  who 
have  been  narrow  and  earth  bound.  They  can  only  be  healed  by  those  yet 
on  the  mount  of  God.  The  world  to-day  is  vastly  different  from  the  world 
of  the  centuries  when  the  great  sections  of  the  Church  were  created.  It  is 
just  as  impossible  to  perpetuate  denominational  exclusiveness  as  it  is  to 
keep  up  national  barriers.  Walled  cities  are  an  anachronism.  Education, 
commerce,  invention,  have  made  it  impossible  for  a  nation  to  live  to  itself. 
The  new  method  of  Bible  study  is  just  as  surely  making  it  impossible  for 
differences  to  continue  which  were  due  very  largely  to  a  wrong  use  of  the 
Scriptures.  Christianity  must  be  spread  by  dealing  with  the  essentials,  or 
become   stagnant  and  retrogressive. 

Clear  thinking  must  be  accompanied  by  right  emotions.  This  duty  can- 
not be  discharged  coldly.  It  is  not  a  surface  thing.  It  has  not  been 
created  by  assemblies  of  ecclesiastics.  It  has  been  produced  by  years  of 
cooperation  on  the  part  of  young  people  in  Christian  Endeavor  Societies, 
young  men  and  women  in  Christian  associations,  ministers  and  laymen  meet- 
ing in  fraternals  and  conventions,  interchange  of  pulpits.  We  were  wont  to 
live  in  our  own  little  circles  and  think  ourselves  the  people  of  the  Lord  and 
all  others  heathen  or  misguided  half-enlightened  people  who  were  to  be 
pitied.  To  make  proselytes  was  regarded  as  equal  to  making  converts  from 
the  world.  Possibly  that  spirit  still  lingers,  but  it  is  as  much  out  of  date 
as  tallow  candles  and  horse  trams.  It  cannot  live  where  men  know  and  love 
each  other. 


From  the  recent  meeting  of  the  business  committee  of 
the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  Rt.  Rev. 


228  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

Charles  H.  Brent,  chairman,  and  Eobert  H.  Gardiner, 
secretary,  the  following  action  is  reported : 

That  the  minutes  of  all  meetings  of  the  business  committee  be  sent  to 
all  members  of  the  continuation  committee  and  to  all  members  of  all  the 
commissions ; 

That  the  secretary  be  authorized  to  print  and  distribute  the  Geneva 
report,  and  that  the  treasurer  be  authorized  to  pay  the  cost; 

That  a  compilation  of  proposals  for  reunion,  including  the  Lambeth 
Appeal  and  Proposals,  the  English  ad  interim  reports  and  other  documents, 
be  printed  and  sent  to  the  entire  mailing-list,  and  that  the  treasurer  be 
instructed  to  meet  the  expense; 

That  latitude  be  extended  to  the  secretary  to  take  advantage  of  oppor- 
tunities for  distributing  material  from  foreign  periodicals  about  the  move- 
ment, and  that  the  treasurer  be  instructed  to  meet  the  expense. 

The  secretary  reported  that  ten  thousand  dollars  appropriated  by  the 
Episcopal  Commission  was  available  in  the  hands  of  the  treasurer;  that 
he  had  received  at  Geneva  twenty-eight  pounds  sterling  from  a  delegate 
from  the  Church  of  Ireland;  that  he  had  paid  five  hundred  dollars  to  the 
Bishop  of  Bombay  for  the  subjects  committee;  that  Bishop  Brent  had  re- 
ceived and  paid  over  to  the  secretary  for  the  treasurer  a  gift  of  five  hun- 
dred dollars  for  the  work,  and  that  the  secretary  had  received  the  five  hun- 
dred dollars  promised  at  Geneva  by  the  Disciples  of  Christ  in  North  Am- 
erica and  several  small  sums  from  other  sources. 

It  was  voted  that  the  following  amounts  be  appropriated  for  the  ex- 
penses of  six  months  beginning  September  1,  1920:  clerical  assistance, 
$3,250;  office  rent,  $400;  translations,  $750;  office  expense,  including 
postage,  $5,000;  printing,  $5,000;  subjects  committee,  including  $500  al- 
ready paid  over  to  its  convener,  $750;  travelling  expenses,  $500;  contin- 
gencies, $350— $16,000. 


Suggestions  sent  out  by  Eobert  H.  Gardiner,  secretary 
of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  for  open- 
ing devotions  at  group  conferences  on  Christian  unity : 

Let  the  words  of  our  mouths  and  the  meditations  of  our  hearts  be 
always  acceptable  in  Thy  sight,  O  Lord  our  strength  and  our  redeemer. 
Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven. 

O  God,  forasmuch  as  without  Thee  we  are  not  able  to  please  Thee ;  Mer- 
cifully grant  that  Thy  Holy  Spirit  may  in  all  things  direct  and  rule  our 
hearts;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Grant  to  us,  Lord,  we  beseech  Thee,  the  spirit  to  think  and  do  always 
such  things  as  are  right;  that  we,  who  cannot  do  any  thing  that  is  good 
without  Thee,  may  by  Thee  be  enabled  to  live  according  to  Thy  will; 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

O  God,  who  on  the  mount  didst  reveal  to  chosen  witnesses  Thine  only- 
begotten  Son  wonderfully  transfigured,  in  raiment  white  and  glistering; 
mercifully  grant  that  we,  being  delivered  from  the  disquietude  of  this 
world,  may  be  permitted  to  behold  the  King  in  His  beauty,  Who  with  Thee, 
O  Father,  and  Thee,  O  Holy  Ghost,  liveth  and  reigneth,  one  God,  world 
without  end.     Amen. 

O  God,  the  Holy  Ghost,  Spirit  of  wisdom  and  love  and  power,  illuminate 
and  strengthen  those  who  have  been  appointed  to  bring  about  a  World 
Conference  on  the  Faith  and  Order  of  Thy  Church.  Give  them  patience 
and  courage,  humility,  love  and  steadfastness,  and  utter  obedience  to  Thy 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS    SAY  229 

guidance.  Fill  the  hearts  of  all  Christian  people  with  the  desire  to  mani- 
fest to  the  world  by  their  unity  its  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  so  that 
His  Kingdom  of  peace  and  righteousness  and  love  may  be  established  and 
all  men  may  be  drawn  to  Him,  Who  with  Thee  and  the  Father  liveth  and 
reigneth  one  God  forever.     Amen. 

Here  should  be  read  St.  John  17  or  Ephesians  IV,  1-16. 

Let  us  pray,  silently: — 

that  our  eyes  may  be  opened  to  see  how  our  divisions  blur  the  vision 
of  the  one  Lord  and  hide  Him  from  His  world. 

that  each  may  see  how  he  is  individually  responsible  for  the  continu- 
ance of  those  divisions. 

that  each  may  give  up  any  pride  of  opinion,  all  self-assertion,  any  sec- 
tarian partisanship,  any  denominational  pride. 

that  each  may  see  the  fundamental  value  of  the  things  for  which  other 
Churches  stand; 

the  fundamental  value  of  the  things  for  which  his  own  Church  stands 
and  may  be  enabled  in  the  deepest  humility  to  make  them  a  little  clearer 
to  his  brethren; 

that  unity  is  of  God  and  in  God  through  Christ  and  not  something  we 

are  free  to  accept  or  reject; 

that  we  are  powerless  of  ourselves  to  create  unity; 

that  we  can  learn  about  unity, — not  by  thinking  about  it  and  planning 

for  it, — but  by  beginning  to  practice  it;    that  he  that  doeth  the  will 

of  the  Father  shall  learn  of  the  doctrine. 

that  we  may  have  grace  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit. 

that  God  will  take  our  wills  and  make  them  wholly  His. 

that  so  dwelling  at  one  in  Christ  and  He  in  us,  we  may  manifest  Him 
Who  is  Love  Incarnate  and  bring  His  world  to  Him. 

O  God,  Lover,  Beloved  and  Love  proceeding,  Eternal  Three  in  One,  give 
us  grace  to  fulfill  the  new  commandment  that  we  should  love  one  another 
as  Thou  hast  loved  us,  so  that,  in  the  unity  which  is  true  love  and  life 
eternal,  we  may  be  visibly  one  that  the  world  may  come  to  know  its  Re- 
deemer and  King.     Amen. 

And  may  the  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding,  keep  our 
hearts  and  minds  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God,  and  of  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord. 


LETTERS  TO  THE  EDITOR 


SOME  POSSIBLE  OPPORTUNITIES  OF  THE  NON-LITURGICAL 

CHURCHES 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly. 

Dear  Sir: — The  rapidity  with  which  we  are  moving  in  the  matter  of 
Christian  unity  suggests  the  desirability  of  pointing  out  the  opportunity 
which  the  situation  will  seemingly  present  to  some  at  least  of  the  non-litur- 
gical Churches  to  recover  practices  long  lost  to  Christian  worship  and  cus- 
toms long  disused  in  Christian  administration. 

Let  us  take  the  opportunities  which  will  apparently  in  the  near  future 
be  open  to  the  two  communions  which  have  made  the  most  pronounced  ad- 
vance in  the  direction  of  reunion  with  historic  Christianity — the  Presbyter- 
ian and  the  Congregationalist. 

In  the  case  of  the  former  great  stress  has  always  been  laid  on  the  powers 
and  the  responsibilities  of  the  presbyterate  the  divinely  appointed  agency 
for  the  transmission  of  the  teaching  of  the  Church  and  the  administration 
of  its  Sacraments  to  the  members  of  the  congregations.  In  this  regard 
they  join  hands  with  the  great  theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  re- 
pudiated the  theory  that  the  bishops  comprised  a  separate  order  in  the 
Christian  ministry,  and  maintained  that,  while  there  could  be  a  special  office 
of  administration  for  the  furthering  of  certain  features  of  the  Church's 
work,  there  could  be  no  order  superior  to  that  to  which  was  entrusted  the 
conservation  of  the  Eucharist  and  the  charge  of  the  cure  of  souls:  a  situa- 
tion which  has  left  its  mark  on  the  Anglican  Book  of  Common  Prayer,* 
as  well  as  on  the  practice  of  the  parish  priest  in  the  Roman  Church  of  to- 
day, who  prepares  his  candidates  for  and  administers  to  them  their  first 
communion  before  and  not  after  their  confirmation  by  the  bishop. 

Now  it  is  in  connection  with  this  situation  that  the  opportunity  arises 
for  the  recovery  of  a  significant  lost  practice  in  the  matter  of  ecclesiastical 
administration.  The  Presbyterian  Church  has  in  its  power  to  enrich  the 
patrimony  of  the  Church  at  large  by  the  reestablishment  of  what  is  known 
as  the  collegiate  or  consistorial  episcopate.  Met  with  almost  everywhere 
among  Greek  speaking  Christians  of  the  post-apostolic  time ;  prevailing  in 
Alexandria  till  at  least  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  and  in  some  parts 
of  Egypt  for  a  century  longer;  persevering  in  the  Church  of  Armenia  ap- 
parently until  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  when  contact  with  the 
customs  of  the  west  through  intercourse  with  the  crusaders  led  gradually 
to  its  abandonment — the  collegiate  episcopate  emphasized  what  I  may  per- 
haps be  allowed  to  call  the  democracy  of  the  learned,  or  the  specially 
trained,  of  which  we  find  so  many  expressions  in  the  life  of  the  medieval 
universities  and  guilds,  and  of  which  a  striking  example  exists  to-day  in 
the  action  of  the  papal  consistory  and  in  the  rules  and  practices  of  the 
French  Academy. 

The  Presbyterian  Church,  then,  would  perhaps  do  well — if  an  outsider 
may  hazard  an  opinion — to  consider  the  desirability  of  reviving  this  form 
of  the  episcopate,  which  is  free  from  some  of  the  disadvantages  of  the 
monarchical  form  as  this  has  been  exemplified  in  the  Church  of  England, 
and  is  peculiarly  in  keeping  with  the  impulses  which  are  moving  man  to- 
day, and  with  the  spirit  and  the  practice  of  those  communities  in  which 
the  Church  secured  her  earliest  and  most  compelling  triumphs. 

*See  Preface  to  the   Ordinal,  Book  of  Common   Prayer,   p.   509. 


LETTERS  TO  THE  EDITOB  231 

In  the  case  of  the  Congregational  Church,  whose  work  in  the  matter 
of  reunion  is  one  of  the  most  encouraging  signs  of  the  times  in  the  field 
of  our  American  Christianity,  the  opportunity  to  enrich  the  common  patri- 
mony along  the  line  which  it  has  long  since  made  its  own,  in  stressing  the 
corporate  note  in  the  local  congregation,  is  equally  apparent.  Strange  as 
it  may  appear,  for  something  like  fifteen  centuries  no  group  of  Christians 
anywhere  has  confessed  its  faith  in  the  words  of  the  Nicene  Creed.  By 
what  would  seem  to  be  the  purest  accident  the  private  confession  of  a 
single  diocese  (that  of  Salamis  in  Cyprus)  found  its  way  into  the  baptismal 
offices  and  presently  into  the  liturgies  of  the  whole  of  Christendom ;  copious 
additions  to  the  original  instrument  were  recited  in  the  belief  that  they 
were  of  ecumenical  authority;  and  the  world  of  to-day  is  confronted  by  the 
fact  that  the  Church  is  everywhere  using  in  its  Eucharistic  service  a  creed 
which  has  lost  its  corporate  character  and  has  been  added  to  by  private 
hands  partly  in  the  attempt  to  adapt  it  to  the  requirements  of  Baptism  and 
partly  in  the  desire  to  define  explicitly  certain  things  upon  which  the  as- 
sembly at  Nicaea  did  not  see  fit  to  make  a  pronouncement.  It  is  the  fact 
that  no  Christian  on  the  face  of  the  globe  recited  the  Church's  corporate 
creed  in  the  Church's  central  act  of  corporate  worship  either  in  the  plural 
form  or  in  the  shape  in  which  it  left  the  hands  of  the  assembly  which  set  it 
forth. 

If  therefore  those  Congregationalists  who  will  presently  be  confronted 
with  the  opportunity  to  compile  what  will  doubtless  be  a  simpler  Eucharistic 
office  than  has  lately  been  used  in  Christendom  should  see  their  way  to  re- 
store to  the  world  the  recital  of  the  Nicene  Creed  in  the  plural  form  and  in 
the  shape  in  which  it  left  the  hands  of  its  promulgators,  they  will  confer  a 
benefit  on  the  Church  at  large  of  inestimable  significance  and  add  impres- 
sively to  the  content  of  modern  liturgies. 

If,  further,  the  Presbyterian  and  Congregational  Churches  will,  when 
the  time  comes  for  them  to  make  provision  for  an  office  for  the  admission 
of  the  adolescent  to  the  full  fellowship  of  the  mature  in  Christ,  open  the 
way  for  at  least  the  permissive  use  of  the  mandatory  form  of  the  laying  on 
of  hands,  and  perhaps  inject  some  touch  of  the  heroic  into  the  promise  of 
the  candidates  such  as  distinguished  the  imitation  of  the  pagan  Greek  into 
the  fellowship  of  the  politically  adult  in  ancient  Athens,  they  will  deserve 
well  at  the  hands  of  history  and  enrich  the  liturgical  usages  of  mankind. 

In  the  case  of  either  body  the  power  to  do  what  is  here  suggested  lies 
wholly  in  their  own  hands.  The  boldest  and  the  most  sanguine  of  us  may 
only  point  out  what  seems  to  us  to  be  congruous  with  their  established 
positions,  and  so  likely  to  approve  itself  to  their  favorable  regard,  in  the 
hope  that  the  Church  as  a  whole  may  be  strengthened  and  its  practices 
catholicized  rather  than  restricted  in  the  developments  that  seem  to  be  at 
hand. 

As  the  reports  which  have  come  to  us  from  Geneva  have  emphasized 
the  fact  that  representatives  of  one  of  the  Churches  of  Christendom  were 
lacking  to  the  deliberations  of  the  conference,  it  will  perhaps  be  permissible 
and  gracious  to  remind  the  reader  that  it  is  to  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of 
the  Vatican  and  to  the  Director  of  the  Ecole  Franchise  in  Rome* — the  one 
the  ablest  of  living  canonists,  the  other  the  most  illustrious  authority  on  the 
history  and  the  liturgies  of  the  Western  Church — that  we  owe  the  explicit 
enunciation,  in  the  recent  period,  of  the  principle  which  should  guide  us  as 
we  move  towards  the  reconstruction  of  our  broken  front:  that  nothing  can 
be  made  essential  to  catholicity  by  any  existing  Christian  body  which  was 
unknown  to  the  Church  in  the  days  of  its  greatest  triumphs  while  its  fellow- 
ship was  still  at  one. 


*Formerly  Professor  Gasparri  and  Professor  Duchesue  of  the  College  of  the  Sor- 
honne. 


232  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

Will  you  let  me  add  the  personal  confession  that — in  arriving  at  the 
conviction  that  nothing  which  the  Church  in  her  great  constructive  period 
found  congenial  to  her  spirit  and  agreeable  to  her  purpose  can  be  relegated 
to  the  sphere  of  the  forbidden  if  we  desire  to  retain  the  right  to  call  our- 
selves Christians  and  to  stand  unchallenged  at  the  bar  of  history — I  have 
been  helped  by  a  great  teacherf  in  a  university,  the  destruction  of  whose 
tangible  possessions  at  the  hands  of  the  Germans  was  one  of  the  tragedies 
of  the  European  War. 

(Rev.)  William  Higgs. 
Oakland,  California. 


DR.  HODGE  ANSWERS  DR.  THOMAS  REGARDING  THE  LATTER  'S 

INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  TERMS  PRIEST  AND  PROPHET 

IN  THE  OCTOBER  NUMBER  OF  THE  QUARTERLY 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly. 

Dear  Sir: — An  article  appeared  in  the  October  number  of  The  Quar- 
terly entitled  "Priest  or  Prophet,"  its  object  being  to  show  that  the 
Christian  ministry  is  solely  prophetic,  in  no  sense  a  priesthood. 

The  object  of  this  article  is  to  claim  that  it  possesses  the  characteristics 
both  of  priest  and  prophet. 

The  author  of  the  article  in  question  defines  "the  essence  of  the  priest- 
hood was  the  representation  of  man  to  God;  the  essence  of  the  prophetic 
office  was  the  representation  of  God  to  man. ' '  Would  not  a  more  exact 
definition  be,  that  a  prophet  is  one  who  speaks  to  man  on  behalf  of  God, 
and  a  priest  is  one  who  acts  as  the  agent  both  of  men  in  their  approach  to 
God,  and  of  God  in  His  dealings  with  men? 

The  priest  under  the  old  dispensation  not  only  offered  sacrifice,  and 
made  intercession,  etc.,  for  the  people,  but  he  acted  as  God's  representative 
when  he  accepted  the  sacrifices  of  the  people,  when  he  sprinkled  the  blood 
of  the  atonement,  when  he  laid  his  hands  on  the  scapegoat,  when  he  blessed 
the  people,  or  performed  any  act  of  consecration.  The  article  denies  that 
there  is  anything  corresponding  to  these  acts  in  the  Christian  ministry. 
It  says  that  "the  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New  Testament  a  single  ref- 
erence cannot  be  found  to  a  special  human  priesthood. ' '  But  he  overlooks 
Christ's  solemn  statement  to  His  Apostles,  "as  my  Father  hath  sent  me, 
even  so  send  I  you."  If  Christ  then  was  a  Priest,  His  Apostles  must  have 
shared  in  His  Priesthood.  This  is  made  evident  by  the  act  which  followed, 
"He  breathed  on  them  and  said  receive  you  the  Holy  Ghost.  Whosesoever 
sins  ye  remit  they  are  remitted  unto  them,  and  whosoever  sins  ye  retain 
they  are  retained."  This  was  more  than  merely  commission  to  preach  the 
gospel,  it  was  to  speak  and  act  as  the  accredited  agent  of  God.  So  was  His 
command  to  baptize,  and  to  celebrate  the  Lord's  Supper  which  was  man- 
ifestly meant  to  take  the  place  of  the  ancient  sacrifices,  to  be  the  memorial 
of  the  salvation  He  wrought  by  His  offering  of  Himself  upon  the  Cross  for 
all  mankind,  instead  of  a  memorial  for  the  deliverance  of  the  children  of 
Israel  from  their  Egyptian  bondage,  or  the  making  of  an  atonement  for 
individual  sins.  And  in  doing  this  he  uses  the  same  words  which  were  used 
in  offering  the  Jewish  sacrifices.  So  certainly  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
and  in  their  Epistles,  references  are  made  to  the  administration,  and  the 
effects,  of  Baptism,  to  the  laying  on  of  hands  as  a  means  of  the  bestowal  of 


fProfessor  A.   Van   Hove,   D.C.L,.,   of  the  University   of  L,ouvain. 


LETTERS     TO     THE     EDITOR  233 

the  Holy  Spirit,  of  confirming  and  sealing  of  disciples,  of  conferring  the 
commission  of  the  Christian  ministry,  of  the  breaking  of  bread  in  accord- 
ance with  Christ's  appointment,  of  the  anointing  of  the  sick. 

In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  it  is  distinctly  claimed  that  "we  have 
an  altar"  of  which  they  who  belonged  to  the  old  dispensation  had  no  right 
to  partake.  And  St.  Peter  teaches  that  all  believers  constitute  "an  holy 
priesthood,  to  offer  up  spiritual  sacrifices." 

This  spiritual  priesthood  of  all  believers  the  article  admits,  but  denies 
that  there  is  ' '  any  special  order  or  class  of  men  called  priests. ' '  But  the 
whole  body  of  believers  cannot  act  as  one  in  performing  priestly  functions. 
It  must  have  representatives  to  act  for  the  whole  body  in  its  corporate 
approaches  to  God  and  there  must  be  some  one  to  celebrate  and  administer 
the  acts  which  Christ  commanded,  and  His  Apostles  preached,  by  means  of 
which  spiritual  blessings  are  received  from  God. 

This  was  recognized  from  the  very  first,  and  universally  throughout  the 
Christian  Church  this  conception  of  the  Christian  ministry  prevailed.  Where 
can  any  body  of  Christians  be  pointed  to,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, that  did  not  have  this  ministry  and  use  these  terms  of  altar,  priest 
and  sacrifice?  And  ever  since  the  Reformation,  those  bodies  which  have 
discarded  those  terms,  still  have  orders  of  ministers  which  do  practically 
the  same  things.  With  the  exception  of  the  Friends,  all  Christian  bodies 
have  a  ministry  set  apart  as  a  special  order  to  discharge  these  functions, 
as  well  as  to  be  preachers  of  the  Gospel.  Every  time  a  Protestant  minister 
baptizes,  or  presides  at  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  lays  on  hands  in  confirma- 
tion or  ordination,  or  leads  in  prayer,  or  pronounces  a  benediction,  he  is 
performing  a  priestly  act,  whether  he  calls  it  by  that  name  or  not. 

Are  not  therefore  these  widely  diverging  views  in  regard  to  the  character 
of  the  Christian  ministry  which  is  supposed  to  exist,  really  a  matter  of 
nomenclature,  not  of  fact?  It  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  "decency  and 
order,"  but  a  necessity  that  there  should  be,  as  there  always  and  every- 
where there  has  been,  in  the  Christian  Church,  orders  of  specially  trained 
and  authoritatively  commissioned  men,  first,  to  act  as  the  agents  and  rep- 
resentatives of  Christ,  not  only  to  preach,  but  to  perform  those  acts  which 
Christ  ordained  to  be  used  in  His  Church,  and  secondly,  to  represent  men 
in  these  corporate  acts  of  worship,  of  prayer  and  praise  and  offering. 

There  is  nothing  derogatory  to  Christ's  High  Priesthood  in  such  orders, 
as  there  was  not  anything  derogatory  to  the  office  of  the  high  priest,  under 
the  Jewish  systems  in  the  orders  of  priests  and  Levites,  Christ  offered 
Himself  as  the  perfect  and  sufficient  sacrifice  for  all  human  sins;  the  hu- 
man priest  only  offers  a  representation  of  that  sacrifice,  recalls  it  to  the 
mind  of  God,  pleads  its  merits  with  Him,  and  sets  it  forth  to  men,  with 
the  benefits  obtained  by  it.  A  priest  is  a  mediator  in  the  same  sense  that 
one  who  offers  prayers  for  another,  or  tries  to  reconcile  those  at  variance, 
is  a  mediator.  Truly  it  is  unwise  to  magnify  the  differences  among  Chris- 
tians, and  insist  that  varying  views  involve  unreconcilable  divergencies. 
Should  we  not  rather  seek  to  discover  how  far  we  do,  or  can,  agree,  though 
we  may  use  different  terms  to  express  our  meaning?  If  those  who  are 
accustomed  to  attach  a  certain  meaning  to  certain  words,  would  question 
with  those  who  use  them  in  another  sense,  they  might  find  that  there  is  not 
as  much  divergence  between  them  as  they  had  supposed.  Thus  those  who 
maintain  that  the  Christian  minister  is  only  a  prophet  or  preacher,  might 
come  to  acknowledge  that  in  that  ministry  there  are  the  elements  both  of 
the  priesthood  and  the  prophet. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

G.  Woolsey  Hodge. 
Rector  Emeritus  of  the  Diocesan  Church  of  St.  Mary,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


234         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

REPLIES  TO  DR.  BROWN'S  ARTICLE  IN  THE  LAST  QUARTERLY 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly: 

Dear  Sir: — In  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly  for  October,  appears 
an  article  with  the  title,  * '  The  Disciples '  Programme  for  Union, ' '  by 
Prof.  George  W.  Brown,  Ph.D.,  Transylvania  College,  Lexington,  Ken- 
tucky.    Attention  is  called  to  the  errors  in  that  article. 

First  of  all,  it  is  inexact  to  say  that  the  Disciples  have  gotten  up  a 
programme  for  union.  They  do  not  plead  for  a  programme  for  union  of 
their  own  making.  They  plead  for  union  in  accordance  with  the  programme 
for  union  set  forth  in  the  divinely  inspired  Scriptures.  They  stand  op- 
posed to  man-made  programmes  for  union  and  plead  for  union  upon  the 
basis  which  Christ  has  Himself  established,  and  which  is,  therefore,  vastly 
better  than  any  and  all  human  plans  for  the  union  of  Christians. 

Again,  the  writer  is  inexact  in  his  statement  of  the  plea  for  union 
which  is  made  by  Disciples  of  Christ,  or  Christians  only.  He  quotes  two 
sentences  from  Thomas  Campbell 's  ' '  Declaration  and  Address, ' '  and 
makes  some  comments.     Then  he  says, — 

"It  is  unnecessary  to  go  further  into  the  early  history  of  the  Disciple 
movement.  Enough  has  been  said  to  make  it  clear  that  union  was  the 
primary  thing  in  the  movement.  The  programme  for  union  was  the  whole 
programme.  The  platform  might  be  stated  as  loyalty  to  Christ. "  He 
then  in  the  next  paragraph,  represents  that  the  idea  of  restoration  was  an 
after  consideration,  for  he  says, 

' '  Perhaps  half  a  century  after  its  successful  launching  as  a  union  move- 
ment, some  began  to  feel  that  the  primary  purpose  of  the  movement  was 
the  restoration  of  the  conditions  of  the  early  Church,  and  they  began  to 
speak  of  the  movement  as  the  '  restoration  movement. '  In  time  this  view 
began  to  be  held  by  a  large  number  of  Disciples.  They  placed  an  ever 
increasing  emphasis  on  restoration,  with  a  constantly  decreasing  emphasis 
on  Christian  union. ' '  Five  pages  further  on  in  Thomas  Campbell 's  ' '  Dec- 
laration and  Address"  there  are  thirteen  propositions,  to  which  this  writer 
refers,  and  Mr.  Campbell  prefaces  these  propositions  with  this  statement: 

' '  They  are  merely  designed  for  opening  up  the  way  that  we  may 
come  fairly  and  firmly  to  original  ground  upon  clear  and  certain  premises; 
and  take  up  things  just  as  the  Apostles  left  them. — That  thus  disentangled 
from  the  accruing  embarrassments  of  intervening  ages,  we  may  stand  with 
evidence  upon  the  same  ground  on  which  the  Church  stood  at  the  begin- 
ning. ' ' 

Dr.  Robert  Richardson,  in  his  Memoirs  of  Alexander  Campbell,  after 
quoting  this  statement,  remarks:  "Here,  indeed,  was  the  startling  propo- 
sition to  begin  anew — to  begin  at  the  beginning;  to  ascend  at  once  to  the 
pure  fountain  of  truth,  and  to  neglect  and  disregard,  as  though  they  had 
never  been,  the  decrees  of  popes,  councils,  synods  and  assemblies,  and  all 
the  traditions  and  corruptions  of  an  apostate  Church.  Here  was  an  effort 
not  so  much  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church,  as  was  that  of  Luther  and 
of  Calvin,  and  to  a  certain  extent  even  that  of  the  Haldanes,  but  for  its 
complete  restoration  at  once  to  its  pristine  purity  and  perfection.  (Mem- 
oirs of  Alex.  Campbell,  Vol.  1,  p.  257). 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  from  the  foregoing  statement,  of  Thomas  Camp- 
bell and  Dr.  Richardson's  comment  upon  it,  that  the  restoration  idea  was 
a  part  of  this  movement  from  the  first,  being  embodied  in  Mr.  Campbell's 
"Declaration  and  Address,"  and  that  the  plea  for  Christian  union  which 
was  made  included  also  the  divine  basis  of  union  to  the  exclusion  of  human 
creeds,  traditions  and  authority.  In  other  words,  the  plea  for  union  as 
made  over  a  century  ago  included  both  the  programme  for  union  and  the 
method   of  attaining  it.      This   is  the   ' '  original  union   programme, ' '   and 


LETTERS     TO     THE     EDITOR  235 

only  those  who  hold  to  the  original  method  as  well  as  its  programme  are 
true  to  the  Restoration  Movement.  Those  who  ''have  not  joined  in  the 
restoration  programme"  in  order  to  Christian  union  have  forsaken  an  es- 
sential part  of  the  plea  which  the  Disciples  have  made  for  more  than  a 
century  for  the  union  of  Christians. 

This  writer  further  states,  "But  not  all  disciples  have  joined  in  the 
restoration  programme,  The  majority  of  them  still  keep  before  them  the 
original  union  programme.  Necessarily,  that  programme  has  to  be  modified 
from  time  to  time  in  some  of  its  details  along  with  the  changing  thought 
and  life  of  the  world." 

This  statement  calls  for  two  remarks. 

1st.  It  is  a  frank  avowal  that  some  among  the  Disciples  do  not  accept 
the  restoration  feature  of  this  movement  which  was  an  essential  part  of  it 
from  the  beginning.  These  are  the  ones  who  constitute  an  element  of  dis- 
cord among  the  Disciples,  and  who  have  departed  from  the  original  pro- 
gramme. The  writer,  however,  is  very  inexact  as  to  the  number,  for  instead 
of  being  the  majority,  they  are  only  a  small  minority. 

'.  2nd.  It  is  not  true  that  this  "programme  has  to  be  modified"  in  order 
to  accommodate  it  to  the  ' '  changing  thought  and  life  of  the  world. ' '  There 
is  nothing  in  the  original  union  programme  that  requires  accommodation, 
for  it  is  set  forth  in  the  inspired  Scriptures  and  is  established  by  no  other 
authority  than  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  who  has  all  authority  in  heaven  and 
on  earth.  It  is  a  dangerous  presumption  for  any  man,  or  body  of  men, 
however  pious  or  educated  they  may  be,  to  modify  or  change  the  original 
programme  established  by  Jesus  Christ  and  proclaimed  by  His  commissioned 
and  inspired  apostles.  Half  a  century  ago  Isaac  Errett  wrote  "We  have 
no  faith  in  the  practicability  of  uniting  sects  on  any  merely  sectarian 
basis,  however  liberal.  It  can  not  be  Christian  union  unless  it  is  union 
in  Christ — in  that  which  Christ  enjoins,  neither  less  nor  more."  In  this 
statement  Errett  expressed  the  position  of  the  Disciples  and  recent  events 
confirm  its  correctness. 

In  the  days  of  my  youth,  I  heard  preachers  declare,  "You  should  cor- 
rect your  views  by  the  Bible,  not  the  Bible  by  your  views."  That  is  a 
sound  principle,  and  is  just  as  correct  to-day  as  it  was  sixty  years  ago. 
There  should  be  no  more  talk  about  modifying  the  original  Bible  pro- 
gramme for  union  to  the  changing  thought  and  life  of  the  world.  What  is 
needed  is  for  the  religious  world  to  return  to  the  original  and  unchangeable 
programme  of  Jesus  Christ  for  the  union  of  Christians. 

Respectfully  and  fraternally  yours, 

M.  P.  Hayden. 

International  Bible  College,  Minneapolis,  Minn. 


AMONG  NEW  BOOKS 


One  of  the  most  practical  and  valuable  volumes  dealing  with  Chris- 
tian unity  is  "Next  Steps  Toward  Church  Union7'  (Associated  Press, 
New  York),  being  the  work  of  a  special  committee  created  by  the  Com- 
mittee on  the  War  and  Eeligious  Outlook  of  the  American  Federal  Coun- 
cil of  Churches  under  the  chairmanship  of  Dr.  Eobert  E.  Speer.  It  is 
one  of  a  series  of  studies  being  brought  out  by  the  Committee  on  the 
War  and  the  Eeligious  Outlook,  the  first  volume  being  "Eeligion  Among 
American  Men:  As  Eevealed  by  a  Study  of  Conditions  in  the  Army/' 
the  second  being  ' '  The  Missionary  Outlook  in  the  Light  of  the  War, ' ' 
and  the  third  being  ' '  The  Church  and  Industrial  Eeconstruction. ' ' 

This  volume  dealing  with  Christian  unity  is  the  fourth.  The  intro- 
duction is  written  by  Professor  William  Adams  Brown,  the  bearing  of 
war  experience  on  the  movement  toward  Church  union  is  written  by 
Dr.  Speer,  the  development  of  the  denominations  in  American  Christian- 
ity by  Professor  George  W.  Eichards,  movements  for  cooperation  regard- 
less of  denominational  lines  by  Professor  Herbert  L.  Willett,  cooperative 
movements  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  Professor 
Williston  Walker,  foreign  missions  and  Christian  unity  by  Eev.  Arthur 
J.  Brown  and  Eev.  Samuel  McCrea  Cavert,  the  Sunday-school  and  Chris- 
tian unity  by  Eev.  Henry  M.  Meyer,  relations  with  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church  by  Professor  Williston  Walker,  the  present  situation  regarding 
unity  in  the  various  denominations  such  as  Congregationalists,  Disciples, 
Lutherans,  Northern  Baptists,  Presbyterians  and  Protestant  Episco- 
palians, present  situation  in  local  interdenominational  cooperation  by 
Eev.  Alfred  W.  Anthony  and  Eev.  Eoy  B.  Guild,  present  interdenomina- 
tional situation  by  Dr.  Speer,  present  problems  in  the  movement  by  Dr. 
William  Adams  Brown,  closing  with  the  statement  of  principles  that 
underlie  further  progress,  and  an  appendix. 

It  is  a  satisfactory  attempt  to  analyze  the  rise  of  movements  for 
unity,  the  forms  which  they  have  taken,  the  obstacles  which  impeded 
and  the  influences  which  helped,  and  to  give  reasonable  guidance  in 
laying  plans  for  the  future.  It  is  a  volume  of  estimable  value.  The 
eighteen  points  named  under  principles  that  underlie  further  progress 
may  be  briefly  summed  up  as  follows:  (1)  The  desire  for  union  is  as 
old  as  Christianity,  (2)  nothing  can  stand  or  satisfy  that  is  not  built 
on  the  truth,  (3)  the  movement  toward  a  complete  union  must  be  a 
movement  toward  freedom,  (4)  union  must  rest  upon  inclusive,  not  ex- 
clusive, principles,  (5)  new  forms  of  union  must  arise  from  the  spirit 
of  Christian  unity  already  existing,  (6)  nothing  is  gained  by  ignoring 
the  fact  of  the  unwillingness  of  some  bodies  of  Christians  unwilling  to 
unite  with  other  Christians,   (7)   unity  is  not  uniformity,    (8)  whatever 


AMONG    NEW    BOOKS  237 

losses  may  have  been  involved  in  past  divisions,  compensations  and  en- 
richments have  been  gained,  (9)  the  Body  of  Christ  is  one,  (10)  action 
is  educative,  (11)  present  consideration  of  union  by  cognate  or  affiliated 
Churches,  (12)  strengthening  of  present  interdenominational  cooperation, 
(13)  agencies  of  cooperative  action  must  be  frankly  and  fairly  repre- 
sentative and  responsible,  (14)  all  should  sedulously  cultivate  the  heal- 
ing and  uniting  habits  of  mind  and  temper,  (15)  increase  of  interde- 
nominational acquaintance  and  friendship,  (16)  strongest  principle  of 
unity  within  our  permanent  social  experience  is  the  principle  that  pre- 
vails in  the  family,  (17)  every  good  is  costly,  and  (18)  all  Christians 
should  form  the  habit  of  systematic  study  of  all  the  problems  involved 
in  this  whole  complicated  matter  of  the  union  of  the  life  and  power, 
the  experience  and  obedience  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  closes  with 
this  strong  paragraph:  i( Throughout  the  study  we  are  ourselves  con- 
scious of  having  been  in  touch  with  a  great  and  living  movement  which 
nothing  can  stop.  If  anything  could  end  it,  the  weakness  and  errors 
and  failings  of  men  would  have  ended  it  long  ago.  They  would  end  it 
to-day.  But  it  is  a  movement  whose  origin  guarantees  its  ultimate  suc- 
cess. Our  Lord  prayed  that  all  Christians  might  be  one,  in  the  deepest 
and  most  organic  unity  of  which  we  can  conceive.  That  for  which  our 
Lord  prayed  cannot  fail." 


"A  Plea  for  Greater  Unity,"  by  Seth  W.  Gilkey,  D.D.  (Kichard  G. 
Badger,  Publisher,  Boston),  is  the  outcome  of  an  experience  through 
which  the  author  passed  in  the  uniting  of  two  rival  congregations  in  an 
over-churched  community.  It  is  divided  into  four  parts:  (1)  The  move- 
ments toward  unity,  (2)  barriers,  (3)  impelling  forces,  and  (4)  duties. 
It  is  a  book  of  marked  worth,  well  argued,  clear  and  convincing.  He 
sees  the  unity  of  Christians  in  the  being  and  character  of  God,  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  Son  of  God,  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  common  acceptance 
of  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God,  in  the  conception  of  sin  and  realization 
of  its  ruin,  in  Christian  duties,  Christian  virtues,  in  the  nature  and  value 
of  worship  and  in  the  value  and  importance  of  the  Church.  Then  Dr. 
Gilkey  discusses  the  increasing  manifestations  of  unity  and  the  outward 
goal  as  expressed  in  the  intercessory  prayer  of  Jesus,  the  greater  unity 
and  the  Church's  mission,  the  search  for  essentials,  and  a  possible  real- 
ization which  many  considered  impossible. 

Under  barriers  he  discusses  tenacity  of  opinion,  unreasonable  attach- 
ments, ultra  conservatism,  selfishness,  sectarianism,  ambition  and  mili- 
tancy. Under  impelling  forces  he  discusses  the  power  of  truth,  love  and 
a  great  ideal,  the  sigh  of  the  city,  the  call  of  the  country,  the  appeal  of 
missions,  the  cause  of  religious  education,  demands  of  economy,  demands 
of  democracy,  and  the  spur  of  a  great  task.  Under  duties  he  discusses 
the  confession  of  sin,  prayer,  perfecting  love,  community  welfare,  the 
larger  loyalty  and  patience.  He  rightly  regards  schism  as  a  flagrant 
sin,  widespread,  affecting  the  whole  body  of  Christian  believers,  every 
denomination,  every  congregation  and  every  individual  member.     "It  is 


238  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

a  malaria  which  poisons  the  whole  atmosphere  of  Church  life.  It  is  a 
deleterious  earthly  element  that  has  found  its  way  into  all  sectarian 
wells  of  salvation  and  has  contaminated  for  us  the  very  water  of  life. 
It  finds  its  way  into  the  supply  of  mental  and  spiritual  food  by  which 
we  are  nourished  and  taints  this  supply  with  a  subtile  and  injurious 
poison." 


President  William  Allen  Harper  of  Elon  College,  N.  C,  -has  given 
to  the  public  his  third  volume — "  Reconstructing  the  Church, "  an  ex- 
amination of  the  problems  of  the  times  from  the  standpoint  of  a  layman 
of  the  Church  (Revell,  New  York),  with  introduction  by  F.  Marion 
Lawrence.  President  Harper's  former  books  are  "The  New  Church  for 
the  New  Time ' '  and  ' '  The  New  Layman  for  the  New  Time. ' '  This  third 
volume  is  up  to  the  standard  of  his  former  volumes.  It  discusses  in  fine 
spirit  and  able  grasp  many  of  the  problems  having  to  do  with  these  days 
of  recontruction  in  the  Church.  He  approaches  all  these  subjects  from 
the  point  of  view  of  one  who  sees  the  necessity  in  all  Christian  work 
of  a  united  force  for  the  accomplishment  of  permanent  results.  In  the 
tenth  chapter  he  deals  directly  with  "Christian  Union — the  Manner  of 
Approaching  It."  First  of  all  he  says  that  "the  denominations  must 
avoid  all  discussion  of  their  pedigree ; ' '  that  is  to  say,  the  avoidance  of 
historical  discussions  will  help  in  getting  together;  likewise  avoidance  of 
insistence  on  the  distinctive  things  for  which  each  body  stands  and  avoid- 
ance of  reference  to  Christian  union  failures,  and  still  another — avoid- 
ance of  thoughts  regarding  property  rights  and  official  positions.  "The 
hour  for  Christian  union  has  come, ' '  Dr.  Harper  says,  and  * '  the  profess- 
ing Christian  who  wilfully  and  knowingly  opposes  its  realization  is  a 
traitor  to  the  cause  of  Christ." 


The  change  of  Dr.  James  Kent  Stone  from  the  Anglican  priesthood 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  is  an  interesting  story  told  in  a  vol- 
ume entitled  "An  Awakening  and  What  Followed"  (The  Ava  Maria, 
Publisher,  Notre  Dame,  Ind.).  It  is  not  an  unkindly  written  book  and 
reminds  one  of  Dr.  Kinsman's  "Salve  Mater."  The  one  time  president 
of  Kenyon  and  Hobart  Colleges,  and  afterwards  Father  Fidelis  of  the 
Cross,  Passionist,  has  shown  us  how  Protestant  divisions  looked  in  his 
eyes  when  he  was  somewhat  on  the  Protestant  side  in  theological  con- 
troversy, but  his  book  belongs  in  that  classification  of  books  which  de- 
scribes individual  experience  of  persons  passing  from  one  communion  to 
another  as  though  it  were  really  a  conversion  to  Christianity.  We  have 
recently  read  the  story  of  a  Roman  Catholic's  becoming  a  Protestant. 
The  author  drops  into  the  same  error  as  Father  Fidelis  in  putting  his 
emphasis  on  religious  peculiarities  instead  of  on  religion  itself.  One 
can  change  his  views  in  matters  of  theology  as  radical  as  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic's    becoming    a    Protestant    or    a    Protestant's    becoming    a    Roman 


AMONG    NEW    BOOKS  239 

Catholic  without  its  affecting  his  religion  in  any  respect.  In  our  ap- 
proaches to  Christian  union  we  must  come  to  understand  that  the  pecu- 
liarities of  any  Christian  communion  are  secondary  to  those  universal 
principles  common  to  all  Christian  communions. 

Another  interesting  book  of  this  type  is  "Lead  Thou,  the  Eecord  of 
a  Spiritual  Journey/'  by  John  Mahler  (Blackwell,  Publisher,  Oxford, 
England),  giving  the  experiences  in  his  journey  from  a  Quaker  to  an 
Anglican.  It  is  told  in  the  atmosphere  of  devotion.  One  chapter  deals 
with  the  "Church  and  Unity"  and  another  chapter  with  "Unity." 
The  same  author  has  published  a  pamphlet  entitled  "United  Christian 
Fellowships"  in  which  he  affirms  that  there  are  no  opportunities  greater 
than  in  the  field  of  Christian  unity. 


While  Dr.  William  Sanday  's  last  publication  was  in  press  he  passed  away 
in  his  seventy-seventh  year.  He  called  it  his  ' '  Nunc  Dimitis. "  It  is  en- 
titled "The  Position  of  Liberal  Theology,"  being  a  friendly  examina- 
tion of  the  Bishop  of  Zanzibar's  open  letter  entitled  "The  Christ  and 
His  Critics"  (Faith  Press,  London).  It  is  the  argument  of  liberal  theol- 
ogy against  the  Bishop 's  strictures.  He  interprets  liberal  theology  as 
the  unification  of  thought,  which  means  the  unification  of  life.  He  wrote 
in  fine  courtesy  and  knew  so  well  how  to  approach  those  from  whom 
he  differed. 

Principal  A.  E.  Garvie,  D.D.,  delivered  two  strong  addresses  from 
the  chair  of  the  Congregational  Union  of  England  and  Wales  during 
1920.  One  is  entitled  "The  Venture  of  Faith  in  the  Making  of  Na- 
tions" (Congregational  Union,  Memorial  Hall,  Farringdon  St.,  London) 
and  the  other  "The  Christian  Church  and  the  Social  Problem"  (same 
publisher).  In  the  latter,  regarding  the  Lambeth  Appeal,  he  says,  "As 
a  Congregationalist  I  venture  to  say  we  welcome  that  appeal  heartily, 
as  we  too  desire  that  the  Church  of  Christ  should  make  its  unity  of 
spirit  manifest  to  the  world.  We  recognize  with  gratitude  to  God,  Whose 
Spirit  is  leading  His  Church  towards  this  goal,  the  advance  in  thought 
and  feeling  and  aim  of  the  Anglican  Church  towards  the  other  great 
Christian  Churches,  and  shall  meet  that  advance  with  all  brotherly 
affection.  We  pledge  ourselves  to  give  serious,  prayerful,  unprejudiced 
consideration  to  the  definite  proposals  made,  on  which  it  would  be  pre- 
mature to  pronounce  final  judgment.  We  shall  use  every  opportunity 
for  fellowship  and  cooperation  with  our  Anglican  brethren.  We  pray 
that  God  by  His  Spirit  may  so  guide  all  our  counsels,  as  we  believe 
He  has  been  guiding  them,  that  at  least  we  and  they  shall  be  guided 
in  the  unity  of  the  same  Spirit  to  realize  without  any  hindrance  or 
limitation  our  common  membership  in  the  one  Body  of  Christ,  the  ful- 
filment of  Him  that  fulfilleth  all  in  all  to  the  glory  of  God,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all." 

In  these  days  of  so  many  conflicting  voices  on  religion  it  is  healthy 


240  THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

to  find  a  book  bearing  the  title  "What  is  Religion? "  (Macmillan).  It 
is  by  Dr.  Bernard  Bosanquet.  It  is  to  help  the  believers  "to  get  the 
full  good,  the  point  and  spirit,  of  the  religion  which  they  profess."  Its 
emphasis  is  on  religious  experience.  "To  be  one  with  the  supreme  good 
in  the  faith  that  is  also  will — that  is  religion. "  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
mystic  and  abounds  in  interest. 

By  the  side  of  this  is  "Prayers  for  My  Son:  Intercessions  for  the 
use  of  Parents  on  Behalf  of  their  Sons  at  School,"  by  a  Public  School- 
master (Wells  Gardner,  Darton  &  Co.,  London).  This  book  is  a  help  in 
the  home  both  for  the  parents  and  the  absent  boys.  Too  much  cannot  be 
said  for  its  regular  use.  There  is  virtue  in  the  practice  of  its  princi- 
ples. "Purpose  of  Prayer,"  by  Edward  M.  Bounds  (Revell,  New  York) 
is  another  book  on  prayer  that  is  refreshing.  It  is  in  the  practice  of 
prayer  that  the  author  sees  the  great  preventative.  It  is  the  channel 
through  which  God  is  put  in  full  force  in  the  world. 

Going  into  the  depths  of  things  as  Jonathan  Brierley  used  to  do, 
William  Ralph  Inge,  dean  of  St.  Paul's,  London,  has  said  some  brave 
things  in  his  "Outspoken  Essays"  (Longmans,  New  York).  The  eleven 
essays  of  this  volume  will  be  read  and  reread  for  some  time  to  come. 
He  analyzes  democracy  with  severe  indictments;  likewise  his  chapter 
entitled  "The  Indictment  Against  Christianity"  is  especially  strong 
and  thought-compelling.  The  Dean  has  a  fine  chapter  among  other  con- 
tributors in  "Ruskin  the  Prophet"  (Allen  and  Unwin,  London).  The 
centenary  of  Ruskin 's  birth  in  1919  has  given  us  a  number  of  books, 
but  this  one  and  "The  Harvest  of  Ruskin,"  by  J.  W.  Graham  (Allen 
and  Unwin,  London)  are  among  the  best,  especially  the  latter  in  present- 
ing the  ethical  and  religious  teachings  of  Ruskin. 

In  the  October  number  of  The  Church  Quarterly,  London,  is  an  in- 
teresting article  by  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  on  "Conditional  Ordina- 
tion, ' '  especially  dealing  with  Bramhall  's  ordinations.  ' '  The  Road  to 
Rome,"  by  Rev.  J.  G.  H.  Barry,  D.D.,  is  the  title  of  an  article  in 
The  American  Clmrch  Monthly,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  taking  issue  with 
Dr.  Kinsman's  argument  in  finding  Rome  his  only  conclusion.  The  Con- 
structive Quarterly,  New  York,  abounds  in  many  fine  articles  in  its  Decem- 
ber issue,  especially  "A  Congregational  View  of  the  Lambeth  Appeal  on 
Christian  Reunion,"  by  Dr.  A.  E.  Garvie,  and  "Reunion,"  by  Dr.  William 
E.  Orchard. 


Organizations  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 


ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNITY,  Inc. 
Having  its  inception  in  the  work  of  Thomas  Campbell,  1809,  present  or- 
ganization 1910,  President,  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie;  Secretary,  Rev.  H.  C.  Arm- 
strong, Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A.  For  intercessory  prayer, 
friendly  conferences  and  distribution  of  irenic  literature,  ' '  till  we  all  attain 
unto  the  unity  of  the  faith. "  Pentecost  Sunday  is  the  day  named  for 
special  prayers  for  and  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches. 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  CHRIS- 
TENDOM, 1857,  President,  Athelstan  Riley,  Esq.,  2  Kensington  Court, 
London;  Secretary  in  the  United  States,  Rev.  Calbraith  Bourn  Perry,  Cam- 
bridge, N.  Y.  For  intercessory  prayer  for  the  reunion  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic, Greek  and  Anglican  Communions. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  ASSOCIATION  OF  SCOTLAND,  1903,  Secretary, 
Rev.  Robert  W.  Weir,  Edinburgh.  For  maintaining,  fostering  and  ex- 
pressing the  consciousness  of  the  underlying  unity  that  is  shared  by  many 
members  of  the  different  Churches  in  Scotland. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  FOUNDATION,  1910,  Secretary,  Rev.  W.  C.  Em- 
hardt,  Newtown,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  For  the  promotion  of  Christian  unity 
throughout  the  world  by  research  and  conference. 

CHURCHMEN'S  UNION,  1896,  President,  Prof.  Percy  Gardner;  Hon. 
Secretary,  Rev.  C.  Moxon,  3  St.  George's  Square,  London  S.  W.,  England. 
For  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  between  the  Church  of  England  and 
all  other  Christian  bodies. 

COMMISSION  ON  THE  WORLD  CONFERENCE  ON  FAITH  AND  OR- 
DER, 1910,  President,  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson;  Secretary,  Robert  H. 
Gardiner,  Esq.,  Gardiner,  Me.,  U.  S.  A.  For  a  world  conference  of  all 
Christians  relative  to  the  unity  of  Christendom. 

COUNCIL  ON  ORGANIC  UNION,  1918,  Ad  Interim  Committee,  Chairman, 
Rev.  W.  H.  Roberts,  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Secretary,  Rev.  Rufus  W.  Miller, 
Wither3poon  Building,  Philadelphia.  For  the  organic  union  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Churches  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

FEDERAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  CHURCHES  OF  CHRIST  IN  AMERICA, 
1908,  President,  Rev.  Frank  Mason  North;  Secretary,  Rev.  Charles  S.  Mac- 
farland,  105  E.  22d  St.,  New  York.  For  the  cooperation  of  the  various 
Protestant  Communions  in  service  rather  than  an  attempt  to  unite  upon 
definitions  of  theology  and  polity. 

FREE  CHURCH  FELLOWSHIP,  1911,  Rev.  Malcolm  Spencer,  Colue 
Bridge  House,  Rickmansworth,  London,  N.  For  the  cultivation  of  cor- 
porate prayer  and  thought  for  a  new  spiritual  fellowship  and  communion 
with  all  branches  of  the  Christian  Church. 

NATIONAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  FREE  CHURCHES 
OF  ENGLAND,  1895,  President,  Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  Mansfield 
College,  Oxford;  Secretary,  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  Memorial  Hall,  E.  C,  Lon- 
don. For  facilitating  fraternal  intercourse  and  cooperation  among  the 
Evangelical  Free  Churches  in  England. 

WORLD  ALLIANCE  FOR  PROMOTING  INTERNATIONAL  FRIEND- 
SHIP THROUGH  THE  CHURCHES,  1914,  Chairman,  Most  Rev.  Randall 
Thomas  Davidson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Hon.  Secretary,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir 
Willoughby  H.  Dickinson,  41  Parliament  St.,  London,  S.  W.  1.  For  joint 
endeavour  to  achieve  the  promotion  of  international  friendship  through  the 
churehes  and  the  avoidance  of  war. 


VOL.  X  NO.  4 

"God  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation. " 

IJtiJii 

CHRISTIAN  UNION 

rvr  t  \  PTTTPT  V 

y  U  Alt  1  EjIxL  I 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 


rHIS  journal  is  the  organ  of  no  party  other 
than  of  those,  growing  up  in  all  parties,  who 
are  interested  in  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Its  pages  are  friendly  to  all  indications  of  Christian 
unity  and  ventures  of  faith.  It  maintains  that, 
whether  so  accepted  or  not,  all  Christians — Eastern 
Orthodox,  Roman  Catholic,  Anglican,  Protestant, 
and  all  who  accept  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour — 
are  parts  of  the  Church  of  Christ  and  that  the 
unity  of  His  disciples  is  the  paramount  issue 
of  modern  times. 


APRIL,  1921 


THE    CHRISTIAN    UNION    QUARTERLY 

2710  PINE  STREET  504  N.  FULTON  AVENUE 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.  BALTIMORE,  MD. 

AGENTS: 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company,  New  York 

Maruzen  Company,  Ltd.,  Tokyo,  Osaka,  Kyoto,  Fukuoka  and  Sendai 

Oliphants,  Ltd.,  21  Paternoster  Square,  London,  E.  C.  4;  100,  Princes  Street,  Edinburgh 

TWO  DOLLARS  A  YEAR  FIFTY  GENTS  A  COPY 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

The  favorite  figure  in  which  the  church  of  the  first  century  set  forth  its 
conception  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity  is  that  of  "the  Good  Shepherd." 
The  emblem  which  appears  on  this  page  is  a  reproduction  of  one  of 
the  early  Christian  gems. 

"ONE  FLOCK 


ONE  SHEPHERD." 

"No  one  has  written  more  appreciatively  respecting  this  symbol 
than  Dean  Stanley  in  his  Christian  Institutions.  It  appealed  to  all  his 
warmest  sympathies.  'What,'  he  asks,  'is  the  test  or  sign  of  Christian 
popular  belief,  which  in  these  earliest  representations  of  Christianity 
is  handed  down  to  us  as  the  most  cherished,  the  all-sufficing,  token  of 
their  creed?  It  is  very  simple,  but  it  contains  a  great  deal.  It  is 
a  shepherd  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  with  the  crook,  or  a  shepherd's  pipe, 
in  one  hand,  and  on  his  shoulder  a  lamb,  which  he  carefully  carries,  and 
holds  with  the  othei*  hand.  We  see  at  once  who  it  is;  we  all  know  with- 
out being  told.  This,  in  that  earliest  chamber,  or  church  of  a  Chris- 
tian family,  is  the  only  sign  of  Christian  life  and  Christian  belief.  But, 
as  it  is  almost  the  only  sign  of  Christian  belief  in  this  earliest  catacomb, 
so  it  continues  always  the  chief,  always  the  prevailing  sign,  as  long  as 
those  burial-places  were  used.' 

"After  alluding  to  the  almost  total  neglect  of  this  lovely  symbol 
by  the  Fathers  and  Theologians,  he  says  that  it  answers  the  question, 
what  was  the  popular  religion  of  the  first  Christians?  'It  was,  in  one 
word,  the  religion  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  The  kindness,  the  courage, 
the  love,  the  beauty,  the  grace,  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  was  to  them,  if 
we  may  so  say,  Prayer  Book  and  Articles,  Creed  and  Canons,  all  in  one. 
They  looked  on  that  figure,  and  it  conveyed  to  them  all  they  wanted. 
As  ages  passed  on,  the  Good  Shepherd  faded  from  the  mind  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  other  emblems  of  the  Christian  faith  have  taken 
His  place.  Instead  of  the  gracious  and  gentle  Pastor,  there  came  the 
Omnipotent  Judge,  or  the  crucified  Sufferer  or  the  Infant  in  His  mother's 
arms,  or  the  Master  in  His  parting  Supper,  or  the  figures  of  innumerable 
saints  and  angels,  or  the  elaborate  expositions  of  the  various  forms  of 
theological  controversy.'  But  'the  Good  Shepherd  represents  to  us  the 
joyful,  cheerful  side  of  Christianity  of  which  we  spoke  before.  .  .  . 
But  that  is  the  primitive  conception  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  in 
those  earlier  centuries  when  the  first  object  of  the  Christian  community 
was  not  to  repel,  but  to  include;  not  to  condemn,  but  to  save.  The  popular 
conception  of  Christ  in  the  early  church  was  of  the  strong,  the  joyous 
youth,  of  eternal  growth,  of  immortal  grace.'  " — Frederic  W.  Farrar  in 
The  Life  of  Christ  as  Represented  in  Art. 


THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

A  Journal  in  the  Interest  of  Reconciliation  in  the  Divided  Church 
of  Christ.  Interdenominational  and  International.  Each  Com- 
munion may  svealc  with  Freedom  for  itself  in  these  Pages  as  to 
what   Offering   it   has   to    oring   to   the  Altar   of  Reconciliation. 


Vol.  X. APRIL,  1921 No.  4 

CONTENTS 

PRACTICAL   STEPS   TOWARDS  CHRISTIAN  REUNION     ...     249 
By  Rev.  Arthur  C.  Headlam,  D.D.,  Canon  of  Christ  Church,  and 
Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

THE    OUTLOOK   FOR    CHRISTIAN   UNITY 258 

By  Rev.  Joseph  A.  Vance,  D.D.,  Minister  First  Presbyterian 
Church,  Detroit,  Mich. 

TOWARDS   CHRISTIAN   UNITY       269 

By  Rev.  Alexander  Ramsay,  D.D.,  Minister  Presbyterian  Church 
of  England,  Highgate,  London. 

THE  DOGMATIC  VERSUS  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  APPROACH 

TO  UNION 276 

By  Professor  Alva  W.  Taylor,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Social  Service 
and  Christian  Missions  in  the  Bible  College  of  Missouri,  Colum- 
bia, Mo. 

HAS   THE   DENOMINATIONAL   SCHOOL  A   PLACE   IN   PRES- 
ENT   DAY    EDUCATION? 289 

By  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie,  D.D.,  Minister  Christian  Temple,  Balti- 
more, Md. 

EDITORIAL : 

The  St.  Louis  Conference    ......... 305 

WHAT  PEOPLE  AND  PAPERS  ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY     .     309 

LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR 317 

AMONG  NEW  BOOKS 319 

THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY  is  issued  in  January,  April, 
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name  or  creed.  It  offers  its  pages  as  a  forum  to  the  entire  Church  of 
Christ  for  a  frank  and  courteous  discussion  of  those  problems  that  have 
to  do  with  the  healing  of  our  unchristian  divisions.  Its  contributors  and 
readers  are  in  all  communions. 

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CHRISTIAN  UNITY  CALENDAR 

Pentecost  Sunday  has  been  named  both  by  the  World  Conference  on 
Faith  and  Order  and  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 
as  the  day  for  special  sermons  on  Christian  unity,  along  with  prayers  to 
that  end. 


Annual  meeting  of  the  World  Alliance  for  International  Friendship 
through  the  Churches,  Chicago,  May  17-19,  1921.  Eev.  Henry  A.  Atkinson, 
secretary,  70  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York. 


Meeting  of  the  Continuation  Committee  of  the  World  Conference  on 
Faith  and  Order  at  St.  Stephen's  College,  Annadale-on-Hudson,  New  York, 
95  miles  up  the  Hudson,  August  17-24,  1921.  Robert  H.  Gardiner,  secre- 
tary, Gardiner,  Me. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY   PRAYER  LEAGUE 

(Membership  in  this  League  is  open  to  all  Christians — Eastern,  Roman, 
Anglican  and  Protestant,  the  only  requirement  being  a  notice  by  post  card 
or  letter  of  one's  desire  to  be  so  enrolled,  stating  the  Church  of  which  he 
is  a  member.  Address,  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity, 
Seminary  House,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A.) 


PENITENCE : 

Penitence  for  failure  to  pray  for  those  in  other  communions. 
Penitence  for  thinking  unkindly  of  another  who  occupies  a  different  theo- 
logical position  from  ourselves. 

Penitence  for  aloofness  in  our  relation  with  other  Christians. 
Penitence  for  our  pride  of  theological  interpretations. 
Penitence  for  our  selfishness. 

I  have  acknowledged  my  sin  to  Thee,  and  my  injustice  I  have  not  concealed. 
I  said  I  will  confess  against  myself  my  injustice  to  the  Lord:  and  Thou 
hast  forgiven  the  wickedness  of  my  sin. — Psa.  32:5  (Douay  Version  Psa. 
31:5). 

Have  mercy  on  me,  O  God,  according  to  Thy  great  mercy  and  according  to 
the  multitude  of  Thy  tender  mercies  blot  out  my  iniquities.  Wash  me  yet 
more  from  my  iniquity,  and  cleanse  me  from  my  sin.  For  I  know  my  in- 
iquity, and  my  sin  is  always  before  me.  To  Thee  only  have  I  sinned,  and 
have  done  evil  before  Thee:  that  Thou  mayest  be  justified  in  Thy  words, 
and  mayest  overcome  when  Thou  art  judged. — Psa.  51:1-4  (Douay  .Version 
Psa.  50:3-6). 

PEAYEE: 

Almighty  and  merciful  God,  the  Fountain  of  all  goodness,  who  knowest 
the  thoughts  of  our  hearts,  we  confess  unto  Thee  that  we  have  sinned 
against  Thee,  and  done  evil  in  Thy  sight.  Wash  us,  we  beseech  Thee, 
from  the  stains  of  our  past  sins,  and  give  us  grace  and  power  to  put 
away  all  hurtful  things;  so  that,  being  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  sin, 
we  may  bring  forth  worthy  fruits  of  repentance. 

O  eternal  Light,  shine  into  our  hearts.  O  eternal  Goodness,  deliver  us  from 
evil.  O  eternal  Power,  be  Thou  our  support.  Eternal  Wisdom,  scatter  the 
darkness  of  our  ignorance.  Eternal  Pity,  have  mercy  upon  us.  Grant  unto 
us  that  with  all  our  hearts,  and  minds,  and  strength,  we  may  evermore  seek 
Thy  face;  and  finally  bring  us,  in  Thine  infinite  mercy,  to  Thy  holy  pres- 
ence. So  strengthen  our  weakness  that,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Thy 
blessed  Son,  we  may  obtain  Thy  mercy,  and  enter  into  Thy  promised  joy. 
Amen. — Alcuvn,  A.D.  780. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

EDITED  BY  PETER  AINSUE, 
Minister  Christian  Temple,   Baltimore,   Md. 

Editorial  Council 

RAYMOND   CATKINS, 

Pastor  First  Congregational  Church,   Cambridge,  Mass. 

J.  A.   CRAMER, 
Minister  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  The  Hague,  Holland 

ADOLF  DEISSMAN 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Berlin,  Germany 

ALFRED  E.  GARVIE, 
Principal    of   New    College,    University    of    London,    London,    England 

HUGHELL  FOSBROKE 
Dean   General  Episcopal   Theological   Seminary,   New  York   City 

WILLIAM  P.  MERRILL 
Minister  Brick  Presbyterian  Church,   New  York  City 

GEORGE  W.  RICHARDS 
Professor    of    Church    History,    Theological    Seminary    of   the    Reformed    Church, 

Lancaster,   Pa. 

WILLIAM  TEMPLE 

Canon   of  Westminster,   L,ondon,   England 

NATHAN   SODERBLOM, 

Archbishop   of   Uppsala,    Sweden 


ALL  editorial  communications  should  be  addressed  to  Peter  Ainslie,  Editor  THE 
CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY,  504  N.  Fulton  Ave.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A. 

SUBSCRIPTIONS  may  be  sent  direct  or  placed  through  Fleming  H.  Revell  Com- 
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Street,   Edinburgh. 

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CONTENTS  OF 

THE  CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 

FOR  JANUARY,  1921 

AN  INTERPEETATION  OF  THE  LAMBETH  APPEAL     169 
By  Rt.  Rev.  Ethelbert  Talbot,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Bethlehem. 

THE  BASES  OF  UNITY 179 

By   Rev.    Gaius    Glenn    Atkins,    D.D.,   Minister 
First  Congregational  Church,  Detroit,  Mich. 

DECLARATION  OF  PRINCIPLES  CONCERNING 
THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH  AND  ITS  EXTER- 
NAL    RELATIONSHIPS  188 

Being  the  Action  of  the  Recent  Convention  of 
the  United  Lutheran  Church  in  America. 

THE  RE-ESTABLISHMENT  OF  CHRISTIAN  PEACE     201 
Being  the  Encycle  of  Pope  Benedict  XV. 

AN  INQUIRY  CONCERNING  THE  WORLD'S  WAIT- 
ING AND  OUR  TARRYING 211 

Being   Addressed    to    the    Editor    by    Anthony 
Openeye. 

EDITORIAL:     Fourth  Quadrennial  Meeting  of  the 

Federal    Council 215 

Y/HAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     ARE     SAYING 

ABOUT    UNITY 220 

LETTERS    TO    THE    EDITOR 230 

AMONG  NEW  BOOKS 236 


A  PRAYER 


/j&  LORD,  forgive  us  for  our  unlovely 
^^  attitudes  toward  each  other,  for  we 
have  all  sinned  whether  we  be  called 
Protestant  or  Anglican,  Eastern  Orthodox 
or  Roman  Catholic.  We  have  stood  aloof 
from  each  other  as  though  the  other  were 
our  enemy,  and  have  pursued  our  courses 
as  though  these  were  not  in  Thy  House, 
when  our  ownership  is  in  Jesus  Christ, 
the  common  Lord  and  Saviour  of  us  all. 
Teach  us  how  to  be  Christian  to  all  other 
Christians  through  Jesus  Christ  to  Whom 
be  gjory  for  ever.     Amen. 


OVERGROWN  WEEDS  IN  GOD'S 
GARDEN 

AS  being  baptized  we  are  all  on  either  side  brothers 
and  sisters  in  Christ,  we  are  all  at  bottom  members 
of  the  universal  Church.  In  this  great  garden  of 
God  let  us  shake  hands  with  one  another  over  the 
confessional  hedges,  and  let  us  break  them  down  so 
as  to  be  able  to  embrace  one  another  altogether. 
.  .  .  Let  us  examine,  compare  and  investigate 
the  matter  together,  and  we  shall  discover  the 
precious  pearl  of  religious  peace  and  Church  unity, 
and  then  join  our  hands  and  forces  in  cleansing  and 
cultivating  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  which  is  over- 
grown with  weeds. — John  J.  I.  Von  Bollinger. 


ijlli— ail- — HH— un— hb— -uu— iiii^— n it— — uu— -uu— nu— °na«— -uu— uu— us—  uu— uu— — »h— uu—  n«= —  en— im— uu— n  «|» 

I  i 

I  I 

II                              .  I 

F  a  general  in  an   army  would  I 

divide  up  his  forces  in   attack-  j 

ing  an  enemy  like  the  Church  is  | 

j         divided   to-day   in   its    attack   on  j 

J         worldliness,  he  would  be  sent  to  I 

j         the  insane  asylum ;  yet  the  divided  | 

Church    pursues   with   satisfaction  I 

j         and  pride  this  insane  policy  against  | 

a  greater  enemy  than  any  general 

j         ever  led  an  army.    Is  it  any  wonder  | 

I         that  the  world  war  revealed   the  I 

j         Church  without  a  voice  to  check  f 

the  tragedy  of  war!  I 


PRACTICAL  STEPS   TOWARDS  CHRISTIAN 

REUNION 

What  is  the  motive  which  at  the  present  time  is  making 
people  desire,  or  at  any  rate  say  that  they  desire,  unity? 
Is  it  merely  a  feeling  that  if  Christianity  is  to  be  effective 
it  must  be  united  and  strong?  Is  it  merely  the  same  sort 
of  worldly  motive  which  makes  men  desire  to  amalga- 
mate railways  and  create  large  business  combines?  Be- 
cause if  it  is  so  the  movement  has  little  reality  or  power. 
The  only  effective  desire  of  Christian  unity  which  will 
be  able  to  break  down  the  old  established  barriers  that 
separate  creeds  and  Churches  must  be  religious,  as  in- 
tensely religious  as  the  motives  which  led  to  separation. 
Why  should  we  desire  Christian  union?  It  is  because 
it  is  only  in  a  united  Church  that  Christianity  can  be 
fully  and  completely  displayed.  For  what  does  Chris- 
tianity mean?  It  means  essentially  brotherhood.  It 
means,  and  it  has  always  meant,  when  it  has  been  put 
forth  in  its  true  ideal,  the  breaking  down  of  all  the  bar- 
riers which  separate  people  from  one  another.  "In 
Christ  Jesus  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Gentile,  neither 
male  nor  female,  neither  bond  nor  free,  we  are  all  one  in 
Christ  Jesus."  It  is  only  by  uniting  people  of  different 
races,  colours,  classes,  status,  in  one  Church  that  this 
ideal  can  be  carried  out.  The  Christian  Church  from 
the  beginning  made  no  difference  within  the  Chris- 
tian society  between  the  freeman  and  the  slave  and  so 
eventually  destroyed  the  slavery  of  the  ancient  world. 
The  Christian  Church  from  the  beginning  put  the  Jew 
and  Gentile,  Greek  and  Eoman,  Hellene  and  Barbarian 
on  one  footing  and  so  helped  in  the  unification  of  the 
empire.  If  this  is  the  Christian  ideal  it  is  obvious  how 
a  disunited  Christianity  completely  fails  to  attain  it.  Go 
to  any  city  in  England  or  America  and  you  find  that  in- 
stead of  Christianity's  being  the  uniting  principle  be- 


250         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

tween  parties  and  classes  it  is  largely  the  dividing  princi- 
ple. Go  to  any  city  in  the  East  and  you  find  that  each 
race  has  its  own  particular  Church  and  that  there  are  no 
animosities  greater  than  those  between  different  sections 
of  Christianity.  Or  pass  from  country  to  country  and 
you  find  that  instead  of  your  common  Christianity's  be- 
ing a  bond  of  union,  it  is  the  rivalry  of  different  Churches 
which  helps  to  create  international  complications.  A 
divided  Christianity  is  inconsistent  with  the  most  fun- 
damental principles  and  ideals  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  therefore  we  must  seek  the  union  of  the  Churches. 

And  then  secondly,  we  must  recognize  that  if  we  build 
up  our  Christianity  on  a  Biblical  basis  the  unity  of  Chris- 
tianity is  profoundly  sacramental.  It  is  based  upon 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  "By  one  Spirit  are  we 
all  baptized  into  one  Body."  "The  cup  of  blessing 
which  we  bless,  is  it  not  the  communion  of  the  blood  of 
Christ  1  The  bread  which  we  break,  is  it  not  the  commun- 
ion of  the  body  of  Christ?  For  we  being  many  are  one 
bread,  and  one  body:  for  we  are  all  partakers  of  that 
one  bread.' '  The  meaning  of  Baptism  is  the  simple  in- 
itiatory rite  into  one  society  which  should  be  as  wide  as 
humanity;  the  meaning  of  the  Communion  is  that  all 
good  Christians,  whatever  their  race  and  whatever  their 
wealth  and  whatever  their  position,  should  meet  together 
on  terms  of  complete  equality  in  that  Feast.  And  no 
scheme  of  Christian  reunion  which  does  not  recognize 
the  necessity  that  our  union  must  be  sacramental  can  be 
successful. 

What  practical  step  can  we  suggest  to  be  followed  by 
those  who  desire  Christian  union?  I  think  that  the  first 
thing  is  in  every  place  to  create  that  amount  of  fellow- 
ship which  we  know  is  possible.  There  is  little  or  noth- 
ing to  prevent  all  the  Christian  bodies  in  any  one  place 
from  uniting  in  Christian  conference.  This  has  been 
done  in  many  places;  it  should  surely  be  done  every- 


STEPS     TOWARD     CHRISTIAN     REUNION        251 

where.  The  conference  should  be  one  of  ministers  and 
all  representative  laymen,  for  it  is  as  important  that  the 
laity  should  be  brought  together  as  the  clergy.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  to  a  large  extent  it  is  in  the  laity 
that  the  narrowness  of  partizan  tradition  is  often  en- 
shrined. In  every  village,  therefore,  in  every  town,  in 
every  country  district,  let  a  conference  be  formed  repre- 
sentative of  all  the  Christian  religious  societies.  Then 
let  that  conference  devote  itself  as  far  as  possible  in  the 
first  place  to  practical  aims.  There  are  many  things 
upon  which  all  good  Christians  can  cooperate  together. 
They  can  cooperate  together  on  the  support  of  hospitals 
and  the  help  of  the  sick;  they  can  cooperate  together  on 
arranging  that  full  opportunities  shall  be  given  in  what- 
ever way  suits  the  district  best  for  religious  education, 
even  if  that  religious  education  is  still  to  be  given  on 
different  lines.  They  can  cooperate  together  on  many 
of  those  questions  which  touch  the  moral  tone  of  the 
people.  They  can  probably,  to  a  large  extent,  cooperate 
together  at  times  of  great  national,  or  even  international, 
suffering,  or  in  solemn  services  roused  by  a  common 
need.  The  only  way  to  do  anything  is  to  begin  by  doing 
what  you  can,  and  such  a  conference  with  common  work 
would  be  possible  in  most  parts  of  the  world. 

But  that  conference  need  not  stop  at  this.  It  must 
be  a  conference  also  for  studying  on  the  one  side  the 
principles  of  the  different  religious  bodies  which  keep 
them  apart,  on  the  other  hand  the  ideal  of  the  Christian 
Church  on  which  they  should  unite.  It  is  probable  that 
it  will  be  discovered  that  when  people  know  one  another 
and  are  able  to  work  with  one  another  effectively  they 
really  do  not  differ  in  the  way  that  they  think.  On 
theological  questions  the  old  distinctions  which  sepa- 
rated one  Church  from  another  have  almost  vanished. 
On  the  atonement,  on  the  incarnation,  on  grace  and  pre- 
destination, the  differences  are  rather  between  different 


252         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

members  of  the  same  body  than  between  different  bodies. 
I  will  not  say  that  this  is  a  universal  truth;  it  is  very 
largely  so.  There  are  few  of  the  Calvinist  Churches 
which  are  any  longer  really  Calvinist.  I  do  not  think 
that  left  to  themselves  the  great  body  of  Christians 
would  feel  much  difficulty  in  uniting  so  far  as  doctrinal 
questions  are  concerned. 

But  then  there  are  the  questions  of  Church  order. 
How  are  they  to  be  dealt  with?  There  is  a  common 
body  of  opinion  at  the  present  time  which  suggests  that 
all  such  questions  can  be  ignored ;  that  anyone  who  takes 
an  interest  in  them  or  thinks  them  important  or  lays 
stress  on  any  particular  point  in  order  may  be  treated 
with  contempt  and  that  all  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  ignore 
such  differences.  Such  an  attitude  is  exactly  the  sort 
which  will  do  more  than  anything  else  to  keep  people 
apart.  It  may  well  be  that  after  careful  enquiry  dif- 
ferences are  found  not  to  be  so  great  as  was  thought,  that 
some  things  have  been  looked  upon  as  essential  which 
were  not  essential,  and  that  we  might  combine  together 
without  solving  all  these  questions,  but  such  an  attitude 
will  be  attained  not  by  contempt  but  by  sympathy.  If  all 
the  Christian  Churches  from  the  beginning  have  laid  so 
much  stress  upon  the  principles  of  order,  it  is  a  simple 
fact  that  the  two  earliest  documents  outside  the  Old  Tes- 
tament— the  Epistle  of  Clement  and  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Ignatius — should  both  dwell  largely  on  questions  of  or- 
der— if  all  the  Christian  Churches  from  the  beginning 
have  felt  questions  of  order  so  important,  that  must  wit- 
ness to  something  which  is  real  in  human  nature.  If 
again  they  have  felt  that  the  right  and  due  administra- 
tion of  the  Sacraments  is  a  matter  which  demands 
thought  and  reverence  and  has  always  done  so,  we  can- 
not meet  it  by  any  attitude  of  contempt.  If  again  a  so- 
ber historian  is  able  to  point  out  that  errors  in  form, 
order,  administration,  organization  have  often  had  a  dis- 


STEPS     TOWARD     CHRISTIAN    REUNION       253 

astrous  result,  surely  again  it  bears  evidence  to  the  im- 
portance of  such  things. 

The  first  thing  necessary  then  for  coming  to  terms  on 
these  questions  of  order  is  to  approach  their  study  with 
interest  and  sympathy.  After  all  Congregationalism, 
Presbyterianism,  Episcopacy,  the  Papacy  have  all  been 
associated  at  different  times  in  history  with  real  crises. 
The  Medieval  Papacy  did  great  things.  The  English 
Church  and  its  Episcopacy  have  been  one  of  the  great 
factors  which  have  moulded  the  English  nation.  An 
ideal  of  civil  liberty  was  associated  with  Congregational- 
ism; the  Presbyterianism  of  Calvin  has  reared  a  strong 
type  of  human  nature.  Do  not  let  us  treat  any  of  these 
things  with  contempt,  but  let  us  approach  together  the 
study  of  them  and  find  out  elements  of  permanence  and 
truth  in  each.  I  think  if  that  was  the  attitude  with 
which  we  approached  the  study  of  Church  order  it  would 
make  the  solution  of  many  problems  much  easier. 

We  have  said  that  Christian  unity  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  put  before  us  as  something  sacramental,  that  it 
lies  in  union  in  Baptism  and  union  in  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. May  I  suggest  a  way  in  which  I  think  we  may 
advance  towards  union,  recognizing  its  sacramental 
basis  1  If  the  Sacraments  are  to  be  a  basis  of  union  they 
must  be  celebrated  with  the  authority  of  the  whole  Chris- 
tian body.  That,  it  will  be  found,  underlies  the  prin- 
ciples of  ordination  which  have  always  prevailed.  Take, 
for  example,  Congregationalism :  its  unit  is  the  congrega- 
tion, and  therefore  in  all  it  does  authority  of  the  congre- 
gation is  paramount.  Its  ministers  are  appointed  and 
ordained  by  the  congregation,  its  Sacrament  is  adminis- 
tered in  and  with  the  authority  of  the  congregation. 
Now  that  principle  in  an  extended  form  should  apply  to 
a  united  Church  and  that  is  the  meaning  which  ordina- 
tion has  had  in  an  Episcopal  Church.  The  unit  of  an 
Episcopal  Church  is  the  diocese,  but  that  diocese  is 


254         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

looked  upon  simply  as  the  representative  in  a  particular 
place  of  the  whole  society.  Wherever,  therefore,  a 
bishop  is  appointed  over  a  diocese  he  has  to  be  conse- 
crated by  representatives  of  at  least  three  other  dioceses. 
That  is  the  rule  which  has  been  evolved  from  the  custom 
of  the  bishops  of  all  neighbouring  sees  coming  together 
at  consecration.  So  in  the  same  way  in  order  to  keep  up 
the  unity  of  the  diocese,  whenever  a  presbyter  is  or- 
dained representatives  of  the  other  presbyters  join  with 
the  bishop  in  the  laying  on  of  hands.  Out  of  these  two 
customs  has  been  developed  the  theory  of  the  Apostolic 
Succession.  That  expresses  the  truth  in  a  somewhat 
symbolical  fashion.  The  real  meaning  of  consecration 
and  ordination  is  that  the  bishop  and  the  priest  should  go 
forth  with  the  authority  of  the  whole  Christian  society 
and  that  its  Sacraments  which  they  administer  and 
which  are  a  sign  of  Christian  unity  should  be  adminis- 
tered with  the  authority  of  the  whole  Christian  body. 
Now  if  that  is  the  principle  which  really  embodies  the 
idea  of  consecration  and  ordination  in  historical 
Churches  of  Christendom,  surely  it  is  just  the  principle 
we  are  to  apply  if  we  attempt  in  any  way  Christian  re- 
union. To  say  simply  our  Sacraments  are  the  Sacra- 
ments of  the  Christian  Church  is  not  enough;  it  may  be 
the  first  step,  but  it  is  not  enough.  What  we  have  to  do 
is  to  show  that  we  are  united  in  them.  That  means  that 
every  minister  should  have  the  authority  of  the  whole 
body.  Now  surely  the  way  to  bring  that  about  is  wher- 
ever possible  to  summon  those  who  are  representatives 
of  other  Christian  bodies  to  take  part  in  each  ordination. 
Let  that  be  done  in  a  simple  and  straightforward  way 
without  attempting  to  lay  down  terms  of  reunion  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort.  Why  when  a  minister  is  to  be  ap- 
pointed to  any  congregation  in  a  Christian  town  should 
not  representatives  of  all  the  other  religious  bodies  be 
asked  to  attend  and  assist  in  the  laying  on  of  hands  f    If 


STEPS     TOWARD     CHRISTIAN    REUNION       255 

that  were  done  union  in  the  Communion  in  the  future 
would  not  be  any  violation  of  principles ;  it  would  mean 
that  the  newly  appointed  minister  of  whatever  body  he 
was  had  received  a  commission  from  all  the  other  bodies ; 
it  would  mean  that  people  were  united  together  and  the 
adjustments  of  organization  in  the  future  would  be  com- 
paratively easy.  It  is,  I  believe,  by  a  union  in  ordina- 
tion that  Christian  reunion  can  be  best  brought  about. 

A  feeling  that  very  naturally  arises  about  Christian 
unity  is  the  hopelessness  of  it.  People  look  at  the  Chris- 
tian world  as  it  is  at  present  and  see  it  divided  into  an 
innumerable  number  of  religious  sects,  and  they  also 
look  at  human  nature  and  see  the  constant  tendency  that 
there  is  to  controversy,  to  disagreement  and  to  more 
serious  forms  of  quarrelling,  and  they  wonder  whether 
any  change  in  this  can  take  place.  How  can  we  get  a 
state  of  mind  which  will  not  only  prevent  new  divisions 
but  which  will  do  away  with  the  old  1  I  venture  to  think 
that  the  fundamental  necessity  is  to  get  a  real  determina- 
tion for  unity,  and  that  that  should  continuously  work 
on  people 's  minds. 

Let  us  consider  what  has  been  happening  for  the  last 
three  hundred  years  ever  since  the  Eeformation.  The 
desire  for  unity  was  for  long  much  in  abeyance.  There 
have  been  even  theories  of  the  Church  which  have  re- 
jected any  form  of  visible  Christian  unity.  A  large  part 
of  the  Christian  world  has  found  its  unity  in  a  doctrine  of 
the  invisible  Church.  People  have  not  desired  to  be  one. 
Their  attention  has  been  turned  to  particular  aspects  of 
the  Christian  message.  All  their  force  and  interest  have 
been  concentrated  on  those.  The  consequence  has  been 
naturally  that  there  has  been  no  desire  for  unity  and  so 
unity  has  not  been  attained.  But  supposing  the  contrary 
spirit  was  to  prevail;  supposing  that  the  new  feeling  of 
brotherhood,  of  fellowship — the  new  conceptions  which 


256         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

are  very  widespread,  which  would  like  to  break  down  the 
barrier  of  race  and  nation  and  language — supposing  that 
these  really  got  a  hold  of  people's  minds  simply  as  theo- 
retical doctrines,  that  they  are  taught  in  Church,  that 
they  are  taught  in  schools,  that  they  are  taught  in  the 
public  press  and  become  part  of  what  I  may  call  the  com- 
monplace, not  only  of  Christian  teaching  but  of  secular 
teaching.  For  a  time  it  may  seem  difficult  to  carry  them 
into  effect,  but  the  continuous  influence  of  teaching  like 
this  on  people's  minds  will  ultimately  be  very  powerful. 
There  are  many  things  which,  say,  two  hundred  years 
ago  were  never  thought  of  which  are  now  almost  com- 
monplace. Take  the  idea  of  the  full  representation  of 
each  man  as  a  citizen  that  is  now  almost  looked  upon  as  a 
commonplace.  There  is  hardly  a  country  in  the  world 
which  has  not  representation  in  some  form  or  other.  The 
political  system  created  has  now  many  defects,  but  it  does 
mean  fundamentally  that  every  man  is  recognized  as 
having  his  rights.  Now  the  whole  of  the  doctrine  on 
which  this  is  based  is  something  very  novel.  Think  of 
the  constitution  of  France  in  1780  and  think  of  the  con- 
stitution of  France  in  1880 — what  a  tremendous  trans- 
formation of  ideas  has  taken  place.  Now  if  that  sort  of 
change  can  work  so  rapidly  why  should  not  it  work 
equally  rapidly  in  regard  to  Christianity  and  the  union 
of  the  Christian  Church?  The  first  steps  will  necessar- 
ily be  slow  and  tentative.  For  a  considerable  time  little 
definite  progress  will  probably  be  made,  but  ultimately 
it  will  be  found  that  people's  aspect  has  changed  and 
unity  will  come  with  great  rapidity. 

'  Our  primary  duties  then  are  twofold:  the  first  is  to 
teach  Christian  unity  not  as  a  mere  matter  of  arrange- 
ment or  convenience  or  for  administrative  purposes,  but 
as  a  fundamental  Christian  idea,  the  idea  of  brotherhood, 
of  fellowship,  and  the  union  of  all  men  in  Christ ;  and  the 


STEPS     TOWAED     CHRISTIAN     REUNION        257 

second  duty  of  the  Christian  Church  is  to  pray  for  this 
union.  What  becomes  part  of  the  sincere  and  genuine 
prayers  of  the  Christian  world  will  very  soon  become 
part  of  the  practical  policy  and  will  obtain  its  consumma- 
tion in  life. 

Arthur  C.  Headlam. 

Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  England. 


HUMANITY 

What  care  I  for  cast  or  creed? 
It  is  the  deed,  it  is  the  deed. 
What  for  class,  or  what  for   elan? 
It  is  the  man,  it  is  the  man! 
It  is  of  love  and  joy  and  woe, 
For  who  is  high  and  who  is  low, 
Mountain,  valley,  sky  and  sea 
Are  for  all  humanity. 

What  care  I  for  robe  or  stole? 

It  is  the  soul,  it  is  the  soul. 

What  for  the  crown  or  what  for  chest? 

It  is  the  soul  within  the  breast, 

It  is  the  faith,  it  is  the  hope, 

It  is  the  struggle  up  the  slope, 

It  is  the  brain  and  the  eye  to  see 

One  God  and  one  humanity. 

— Robert  Loveman. 


THE  TASK 

It  takes  great  strength  to  live  where  you  belong 
When  other  people  think  that  you  are  wrong; 
People  you  love,  and  who  love  you,  and  whose 
Approval  is  a  pleasure  you  would  choose. 
To  bear  this  pressure  and  succeed  at  length 
In  living  your  belief — well,  it  takes  strength. 

— Charlotte  Perkins  Gilman. 


THE  OUTLOOK  FOR  CHRISTIAN  UNITY 

Are  the  Churches  of  America  making  any  real  progress 
toward  Christian  unity?  This  question  meets  one  to-day 
on  every  hand.  Even  men  of  the  world,  and  not  merely 
God's  children  who  have  been  praying  and  working  and 
sacrificing  for  it  for  a  generation,  are  asking  it,  some- 
times anxiously,  sometimes  skeptically. 

Let  us  take  a  good  searching  look  at  the  present  situa- 
tion. 

Widest,  and  greatest  of  all  in  many  ways,  is  the  pro- 
posed World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  the  pre- 
liminary conference  for  which  recently  met  at  Geneva. 
Invitations  to  the  conference  itself  have  been  accepted  by 
practically  every  Christian  body  of  national  proportions 
in  the  world,  with  the  exception  of  the  Koman  Catholic. 

Nobody  expects  this  conference  to  agree  on  a  statement 
of  Christian  faith,  and  it  would  be  an  unexpected  marvel 
if  the  different  bodies  should  agree  to  recognize  each 
others'  orders,  but  here  is  an  indication  of  the  world- 
wide moving  of  God's  Spirit  that  has  limitless  possibil- 
ities, the  like  of  which  has  not  been  seen  since  the  jeal- 
ousies of  the  Eastern  and  Western  episcopates  first  split 
the  Christian  Church. 

Next  in  importance  to  us  in  the  United  States  is 
the  "Plan  of  Union"  for  the  Protestant  Evangelical 
Churches  of  our  country,  sent  down  to  the  different  de- 
nominations by  the  conference  at  Philadelphia,  December, 
1919.  This  was  called  by  the  invitation  of  the  Presbyte- 
rian General  Assembly  at  Columbus,  Ohio.  The  "Plan 
of  Union"  proposed  was  unanimously  accepted  by  the  re- 
cent Assembly  at  Philadelphia  and  sent  down  to  the  Pres- 
byteries. It  must  have  the  approval  of  two-thirds  of 
these,  which  it  seems  likely  to  get.  The  Plan  has  already 
been  approved  by  the  Methodist  General  Conference,  and 
can  be  put  into  effect  as  soon  as  it  is  approved  by  six  of 


THE     OUTLOOK     FOR    CHRISTIAN    UNITY      259 

the  nearly  twenty  denominations  whose  representatives 
approved  it  in  Philadelphia. 

There  are  also  encouraging  movements  on  foot  to  unite 
the  Presbyterian  and  Eeformed  bodies  into  one  General 
Assembly,  and  to  bring  into  one  Conference  the  northern 
and  southern  Methodists. 

Other  movements,  like  the  union  of  the  Welsh  Calvin- 
istic  Methodists  and  Northern  Presbyterians  have  been 
effected,  while  yet  others  are  merely  being  urged. 

But  underlying  all  these,  and  giving  impetus  to  them 
are  the  unions,  ever  increasing  in  number,  of  congrega- 
tions that  overlap  each  other  in  the  same  community. 
These  are  effected  in  different  ways,  but  they  are  taking 
place  every  day,  and  denominational  opposition  to  them 
is  either  decreasing  or,  in  a  few  cases,  being  ignored. 

But  what  about  the  break-down  of  the  Interchurch 
Movement?  Isn't  that  clear  proof  that,  while  Christian 
people  may  boost  Church  unity  and  boast  of  denomina- 
tional readiness  to  make  sacrifices  for  it,  when  the 
Church  leaders  attempt  some  practical  expression  of  it, 
we  meet  with  failure? 

It  would  lead  too  far  afield  to  discuss  the  up  and  down 
of  the  Interchurch  Movement,  but  let  this  be  said,  that 
even  the  Church  leaders  who  most  ardently  advocated 
it,  recognize  to-day  that  the  success  of  the  Interchurch 
Movement,  as  it  was  organized  and  carried  forward, 
would  have  been  a  greater  calamity  than  its  break-down. 

As  it  is,  the  aims  and  ideals  of  denominational  coopera- 
tion which  led  us  into  the  Interchurch  Movement  are  not 
to  be  allowed  to  perish.  The  recent  quadrennial  meeting 
of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  Amer- 
ica, held  in  Boston,  the  greatest  gathering  of  its  kind, 
without  doubt,  that  our  nation  has  ever  seen,  sent  down  to 
the  denominations  a  plan  for  enlarging  its  powers,  mak- 
ing the  Council  an  arm  of  these  denominations  to  do 
things,  as  well  as  a  mind  to  investigate  and  advise. 


260         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  hearty  unanimity  with  which  this  plan  of  Dr.  Rob- 
ert E.  Speer's  committee  was  adopted  cheers  us  to  hope 
that  the  thirty  denominations  of  the  Council  will  soon 
find  a  way  to  do  our  great  and  common  tasks  unitedly. 

These  things,  and  more  on  which  we  might  dwell,  in- 
dicate that  as  never  before  the  hearts  of  Christ's  people 
are  being  stirred  to  answer  His  prayer  for  our  unity. 
But  we  must  be  patient  and  prayerful,  and  where  essen- 
tials are  not  involved,  sacrificial.  And  we  must  be  very 
careful  not  to  blunder  into  seeking  unity  in  a  wrong  way 
or  along  the  wrong  lines. 

It  is  a  vast  step  forward  that  we  have  come  to  distin- 
guish between  unity  and  uniformity,  that  denomination- 
alism  is  not  a  blunder,  but  a  providence,  not  the  fruit  of 
schismatics,  but  the  protest  of  conscience,  and  that  we 
may  make  of  our  denominationalism  not  the  paralysis, 
but  the  enrichment  of  the  spiritual  life  of  Christ's 
Church. 

We  must  not  blunder  into  an  attempt  to  condition 
Christian  unity  on  identity  of  creedal  statement,  even 
about  the  essentials  of  evangelical  Christianity.  There 
must  be  common  acceptance  of  these  great  truths — our 
conception  of  God,  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Divine  Lord  and 
Redeemer  and  "His  atoning  sacrifice,"  the  personality 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  necessity  not  only  of  the  new 
birth  but  of  a  life  of  love  and  good  works,  the  bodily 
resurrection  of  our  Lord  and  His  believers,  the  final 
awards  of  eternity — but  this  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  saying  that  agreement  on  a  creedal  statement  con- 
cerning these  great  truths  must  be  the  first  step  in  Chris- 
tian unity.  If  we  do  demand  that,  rest  assured  Christian 
unity  will  not  come  till  we  no  longer  see  ' '  through  a  glass 
darkly,"  but  "see  as  we  are  seen  and  know  as  we  are 
known"  by  our  omniscient  Lord. 

Neither  should  we  condition  our  unity  on  mutual  recog- 
nition of  our  ecclesiastical  orders.    For  a  certain  cour- 


THE     OUTLOOK     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY      261 

tesy's  sake,  this  may  appear  to  some  essential.  But  we 
ministers  of  one  denomination  may  find  a  real  unity  with 
brethren  the  canon  laws  of  whose  denomination  lag 
behind  their  own  Christian  brotherliness.  Christ  did 
that  when  He  told  the  disciples,  "Forbid  them  not;  for 
he  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  part."  The  fact  is, 
there  is  beautiful  and  effective  cooperative  activity  in 
many  of  our  union  movements  without  any  emphasis  on 
this  tender  point. 

Let  us  not  blunder  here  through  either  pride  or  con- 
tention. We  do  not  have  to  wait  for  the  success  of  world 
conferences  on  faith  and  order  to  give  expression  to  our 
Christian  unity.  Experience  must  show  us  that  it  cannot 
come  through  compulsion,  for  men  who  have  learned  to 
think  God's  thoughts  after  Him  for  themselves  will  not 
take  man-made  dictations  from  any  source.  It  was  this 
attempt  which  produced  the  division  of  Protestantism. 
We  may  rest  assured  it  will  not  heal  them. 

Nor  will  it  come  by  argument.  A  man's  philosophy 
usually  determines  his  type  of  theology ;  and  his  theology 
determines  his  exegesis.  Argument  over  these  things 
has  led  us  to  stress  non-essentials,  to  justify  our  divi- 
sions. 

Much  less  ought  we  to  seek  it  through  compromise. 
This  would  impoverish  the  Church  beyond  expression, 
and  make  both  creed  and  ritual  a  thing  of  "minimums," 
as  one  writer  has  well  put  it,  instead  of  " maximums.' ' 

We  must  go  after  unity  along  the  pathway  of  compre- 
hension. ' '  What  have  you, ' '  we  must  say  to  each  denom- 
ination, "that  will  enrich  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
Church?"  Bring  it  in,  and  let  it  be  our  common  posses- 
sion. All  of  us  have  been  interpreting  Christ  and  Chris- 
tian experience  from  some  particular  point  of  view.  No 
one  of  us  has  got  a  complete  vision  from  every  angle. 
Let  us  post  our  products,  and  maybe  we  shall  find,  with- 


262         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

out  our  having  realized  it  that  God  has  given  not  to  any 
one,  hut  to  all  of  us  united  the  full  vision  of  the  circle. 

In  short  Christian  unity  is  going  forward  because  we 
are  learning  more  and  more  to  magnify  Christ  instead  of 
the  creeds  we  frame  concerning  Him  and  the  rituals 
through  which  we  worship  Him.  There  is  only  one  path 
along  which  we  can  advance  and  that  is  cooperative  activ- 
ity, and  a  common  Christian  experience.  Thirty  of  our 
great  denominations  have  been  learning  to  cooperate  in 
investigating  conditions  and  advising  what  should  be 
done  to  meet  them.  It  looks  as  if  we  were  now  ready  to 
cooperate  in  the  activities  which  we  have  counseled.  We 
can  work  together,  if  we  will  be  patient,  and  substitute 
Christian  confidence  and  brotherly  esteem  for  denomina- 
tional rivalry  and  suspicion.  And  after  all,  this  was 
Christ's  great  test:  not  creed,  nor  ritual,  nor  even 
mutual  recognition  of  ecclesiastical  dignities,  but  con- 
duct. "Ye  are  my  disciples  if  ye  do  whatsoever  I  com- 
mand you."  We  proved  to  ourselves  and  the  world  that 
we  could  work  together  by  our  united  welfare  work  dur- 
ing the  late  war.  It  had  its  frictions,  but  so  must  it  be 
with  all  constructive  work  of  wide  activity ;  but  we  got  it 
done,  because  we  all  took  a  hand  in  it,  and  we  were  all 
drawn  to  it  by  a  common  devotion. 

Let  us  consider  then,  some  of  the  constraints  that  im- 
pel us  to  unite  in  carrying  forward  our  Lord's  great  en- 
terprises for  world  conquest. 

First  of  all,  there  is  our  common  agreement  on  the 
great  essentials  of  Christian  faith  and  conduct.  We 
cherish  a  common  belief  on  the  great  essentials  of  evan- 
gelical religion,  though  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  point 
where  we  can  agree  on  the  verbal  statements  which  define 
them.  Of  far  more  importance,  we  cherish  the  same 
ideals  as  to  what  constitutes  a  Christian  life  and  charac- 
ter, and  its  supreme  value  in  our  social  organism  here  as 
well  as  to  heavenly  citizenship  hereafter. 

Then  we  have  the  fact  that  during  recent  years  our 
forms  of  polity  have  been  approaching  each  other.    In- 


THE     OUTLOOK     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY      263 

dividual  congregations  of  the  congregational  type  have 
been  seeking  larger  group  relations  while  prelatical  types 
have  been  giving  larger  place  to  the  laity.  Not  only  has 
the  episcopal  polity,  both  Protestant  and  Methodist, 
been  giving  a  legislative  voice  to  the  laity,  and  congrega- 
tionalists  laying  larger  emphasis  on  the  value  of  their 
councils,  but  even  the  Presbyterians,  mirabile  dictu,  are 
beginning  to  wonder  if  the  bishop  may  not  have  divine 
values  if  not  divine  authority.  With  all  of  us  there  is 
much  less  of  the  bigoted  insistence  on  the  divine  character 
of  our  particular  form  of  government  and  a  growing  con- 
viction that  human  needs  of  different  historical  periods 
have  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  determining  polities  in 
the  Church's  past;  and  that  each  of  these  polities  may 
have  something  of  real  value  to  contribute  to  what  is  to 
be  the  Church's  form  of  government  in  the  future. 

On  every  hand,  also,  we  meet  a  cheering  readiness  on 
the  part  of  the  laity  to  try  out  any  promising  forms  of 
cooperative  activity,  and  a  growing  eagerness  for  Church 
unity.  In  fact,  it  looks  as  if  in  many  places  the  laity  are 
so  eager  for  it,  that  if  ecclesiastical  hostility  persists  in 
blocking  it  or  even  in  long  deferring  it,  they  will  rise  up 
and  break  down  the  barriers  themselves. 

The  present  day  conditions  resulting  from  denom- 
inational rivalry  are  rapidly  becoming  unbearable.  The 
old  cry  of,  "If  we  don't  hurry  up  and  plant  a  Church 
there,  the  Methodists  or  Baptists  will  get  ahead  of  us," 
no  longer  gets  dollars  from  consecrated  Christian  lay- 
men, but  disgusts.  Eagerness  to  get  ahead  of  another 
denomination  is,  let  us  thank  God,  giving  way  to  eager- 
ness to  cooperate  with  another  denomination,  that  by 
united  effort  we  may  get  ahead  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and 
the  devil. 

The  cause  of  Christ  does  not  have  to  stagnate  in  small 
towns  and  rural  sections  because  the  people  of  Christ  are 
called  on  to  maintain  a  half  dozen  anaemic,  little  Churches 


264         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

there,  and  keep  out  of  the  country  almshouse  a  pastor 
for  each,  when  all  of  them  might  unite  and  make  one 
great,  strong  Church,  headed  by  a  man  of  such  force,  as 
well  as  piety,  that  he  stands  out  as  one  of  the  great  men 
of  the  community,  and  gathering  about  it,  with  a  mighty 
vitality,  the  intellectual  and  social  and  literary,  as  well 
as  the  spiritual  life,  of  the  entire  community. 

It  is  not  right  to  lay  upon  a  little  community  of  fifteen 
hundred  to  two  thousand  people  the  financial  burden  of 
supporting  five  or  six  pastors  and  keeping  as  many 
Church  organizations  going,  where  one  or  two  could  more 
effectively  serve  their  spiritual  needs.  Ice  cream  sup- 
pers and  strawberry  festivals  and  working  the  uncon- 
verted merchants  of  the  community  for  contributions  to 
donation  parties,  with  the  added  indignity  put  on  them 
of  missionary  boxes  of  old  clothes  to  their  pastors,  serve 
to  characterize  such  denominational  zeal,  more  than  the 
conversion  of  the  unsaved. 

Another  great  hindrance  to  the  cause  of  Christ  has  been 
the  inability  of  Protestantism  to  deliver  a  united  blow  on 
the  great  battles  of  our  day.  We  had  to  create  a  special 
organization  to  fight  the  saloon;  and  we  never  dealt  its 
death-blow  till  we  dealt  it  unitedly.  We  had  to  resort  to 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.  to  do  our  welfare 
work  during  the  war.  To-day  we  face  what  is  in  many 
ways  the  most  crucial  year  of  our  generation.  Shall  we 
let  the  world  slip  back  into  its  old  ways  of  stanching  im- 
morality and  self  indulgence?  Shall  we  let  victory  by 
physical  force  spell  moral  defeat  and  spiritual  decline? 
Especially  shall  we  let  a  generation  that  has  fattened 
beyond  dreams  on  the  famine  and  poverty  and  strife  of 
war-smitten  Europe  and  Asia  yield  to  the  base  motives 
of  greed  and  self-indulgence  and  love  of  ease,  and  after 
glutting  themselves  like  a  great  herd  of  fattened  swine 
lie  down  in  the  sun?  Or  shall  we  still  prod  conscience 
with  the  parable  of  the  rich  fool,  and  call  men  and  women 


THE     OUTLOOK     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY      265 

to  the  more  difficult  career  of  peacetime  heroism,  and  the 
Christ-like  ministries  of  sacrificial  service,  our  only  es- 
cape from  the  "Ichabod"  which  Providence  writes  over 
a  once-time  hero  as  he  sinks,  like  a  fatted  fool,  into  the 
easy  chair  of  luxury  1 

Such  a  task  as  this  can  be  done  only  by  a  Church 
united,  as  well  as  a  Church  impassioned. 

Let  us  think  also  of  the  great  number  of  really  heroic 
men  and  women  whose  services  have  been  alienated  from 
the  Church  by  our  denominational  divisions  and  conse- 
quent waste  of  energy  and  sectarian  strife  over  minor 
matters.  They  are  to  be  found  in  every  community. 
They  must  be  appealed  to  with  something  big  and  heroic. 
Many  of  them  were  leaders,  sacrificial  toilers,  in  war  wel- 
fare work.  Can  we  not  put  up  a  programme  in  peace 
time  which  will  make  as  heroic  an  appeal  to  their  passion 
for  righteousness  and  the  moral  welfare  of  humanity,  as 
war-time  work  made  to  their  patriotism! 

That  depends,  too,  in  a  most  vital  way,  on  a  united 
Church.  It  is  a  pitifully  pathetic  appeal  which  the  parish 
work  of  our  overchurched  villages  and  towns  is  able  to 
make  to-day,  either  to  young  men  of  big  heroic  mould  to 
become  pastors,  or  to  laymen  and  women  of  like  type  to 
sacrifice  themselves  in  its  activities.  But  unite  these 
Churches,  merge  them  into  one  great  spiritual  force, 
whose  mighty  momentum  gathers  up  every  phase  of  wel- 
fare and  uplift  for  that  community,  and  where  is  there  a 
man  who  loves  God  and  has  the  good  of  men  at  heart  to 
whom  its  call  will  not  appeal? 

In  view  of  these  things,  and  much  more  that  could  be 
said,  one  great  question  is  crowding  in  on  the  conscious- 
ness of  Christ's  people  to-day.  How  can  I  help  unite  the 
forces  of  Christ  and  lend  a  hand  in  unifying  their  mobili- 
zation into  one  mighty  army?  How  can  we  help  on  this 
greatest  movement  for  world  conquest  since  apostolic 
days? 


266         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

First  of  all  by  a  fine  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  in  thought 
and  deed  and  to  that  particular  branch  of  His  Church 
through  which  we  have  enlisted  as  His  followers,  and  in 
whose  worship  and  work  we  can  express  our  best  en- 
deavor for  God.  Lack  of  loyalty  to  any  particular  de- 
nomination or  even  congregation  means  disloyalty  to 
Christ  and  uselessness  in  His  service.  If  we  are  not 
meeting  a  Christian's  task  by  loyal  devotion  to  the  work 
of  our  own  particular  congregation  and  denomination, 
we  are  an  incubus  on  the  army. 

These  people  who  talk  of  being  such  broad-minded,  lib- 
eral Christians  that  they  feel  kindly  toward  all  Churches, 
and  belong  to  none,  are  giving  an  excuse  for  not  doing 
their  duty,  and  the  excuse  is  their  reproach.  It  is  of  no 
value  in  a  cause  to  feel  kindly  toward  it.  That  lets  a  man 
drown  while  you  sing  a  lullaby  to  him  from  the  land. 
You  must  lend  a  hand;  and,  in  this  task,  till  the  hand 
grows  horny  in  the  service. 

Then  it  will  help  the  cause  on  wonderfully  if  we  learn 
increasingly  to  emphasize,  not  minor  matters,  but  the  es- 
sentials of  faith  and  conduct.  We  like  worship  conducted 
in  a  certain  way,  and  it  gives  us  confidence  in  the  preach- 
er's orthodoxy  when  certain  theological  shibboleths  are 
often  on  his  lips ;  but  forms  and  ceremonies  are  forgotten 
in  the  great  crises  of  life.  Simplicity  of  worship  and 
creed  expressions,  and  a  great  brotherliness  in  our  at- 
titude toward  all  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  in  sincerity, 
will  compose  many  differences  and  help  us  into  the  loving 
unity  of  one  family  in  Christ  in  a  wonderful  way. 

Then  every  one  of  us  can  take  an  active  part  to  help 
along  every  movement  toward  Christian  unity.  These 
are  going  forward  to-day  in  every  community.  Sectarian 
prejudice  will  make  you  hold  aloof,  and  brand  them  as 
foolish  emotionalism  or  disloyal  liberalism.  Let  secta- 
rian prejudice  die.    It  has  done  enough  damage.  Encour- 


THE     OUTLOOK     FOR     CHRISTIAN     UNITY      267 

age  your  pastor  or  rector  to  exchange  pulpits  with  the 
pastors  of  other  denominations.  Go  to  another  Church 
now  and  then  yourself  and  get  acquainted  with  its  pastor 
and  people.  Encourage  Church  federations  and  support 
attempts  of  denominational  leaders  to  do  things  together. 
Scores  of  things  that  long  defied  isolated  effort  will  come 
easily  if  you  attempt  them  unitedly.  For  after  all,  real 
Christian  unity  waits,  not  on  the  deliberations  of  eccle- 
siastics. Their  arguments  are  interminable  and  their 
often  inconsequential  objections  have  no  end.  It  waits 
on  a  great  ground-swell  from  a  long-suffering  laity  who 
know  from  fellowship  in  Christian  activities,  and  by 
sharing  a  common  Christian  experience,  that  they  should 
not  be  divided  by  outgrown  denominational  barriers,  but 
united  as  brothers  by  "the  tie  that  binds  our  hearts  in 
Christian  love,"  and  have  learned  to  pray,  "Grace  be 
with  all  them  that  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sin- 
cerity. ' ' 

Last  spring  in  the  beautiful  little  Presbyterian  Church 
at  Bryn  Mawr,  Pennsylvania,  I  heard  Eobert  Freeman, 
of  Pasadena,  California,  preach  a  wonderful  sermon,  and 
at  the  close  of  it  he  told  this  little  story.  It  was  about  a 
meeting  when  the  strapping,  big-bodied  Ira  Shaw  and 
stocky  young  Roosevelt  were  introduced  to  each  other. 

"You  look  as  if  you  were  an  athlete,"  Eoosevelt  said 
as  his  eye  travelled  up  Shaw's  big  body. 

"Yes,  I've  played  foot-ball  a  little,"  he  answered. 
"Where  were  you!" 
"At  Yale." 

"Why  you  must  be  the  Shaw  on  whose  back  Harold 
Wickes  made  his  wonderful  games." 

"Yes,"  answered  the  big  fellow,  "The  scars  of  Harold 
Wickes '  cleats  are  still  all  over  my  back. ' ' 

The  divisions  of  Christendom  have  made  many  scars  on 
the  body  of  Christ. 


268         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

Let  us  get  forward  by  them  to  our  great  goal,  that  our 
Lord's  prayer,  that  we  all  may  be  one,  may  soon  be  an- 
swered, and  with  it  a  world  convinced  that  He  came  forth 
from  God  and  can  lead  a  lost  world  back  to  God. 

Joseph  A.  Vance. 

First  Presbyterian   Church, 
Detroit,  Mich. 


CHRIST'S  CHURCH 

Creeds  and  confessions?     High  Church  or  the  Low? 

I  cannot  say;  but  you  would  vastly  please  us 
If  with  some  pointed  Scripture  you  could  show 

To  which  of  these  belonged  the   Saviour,  Jesus. 
I  think  to  all,  or  none.     Not  curious  creeds 

Or  ordered  forms  of  churchly  rule  be  taught 
But  soul  of  love  that  blossomed  into  deeds, 

With  human  good  and  human  blessing  fraught. 
On  me  nor  priest  nor  presbyter  nor  pope; 

Bishop  nor  dean,  may  stamp  a  party  name; 
But  Jesus,  with  his  largely  human  scope, 

The  service  of  my  human  life  may  claim. 
Let  prideful  priests  do  battle  about  creeds, 

The  church  is  mine  that  does  most  Christ-like  deeds. 

— John  Stuart  Blackie. 


MY  CREED 

The  finest  thing  beneath  the  sun 

Is  brave,  right  living; 

Duty  done  at  stroke  of  hour, 

Kind  thoughts  bestowed, 

A  life  to  ease  a  brother's  load, 

Temptation  overcome; 

Some  cause  pushed  forward — 

And  then  a  restful  pause 

To  let  the  uprising  good 

In  our  own  hearts  find  its  little  rood 

In  which  to  grow. 

— Amy  Davis  Winship. 


TOWARDS  CHRISTIAN  UNITY 

There  is  no  movement  within  Christendom  so  marked 
and  all-dominating  in  our  day  as  the  movement  towards 
unity.  It  has  captured  the  hearts  of  Christian  men ;  even 
w^here  it  is  deemed  unattainable,  it  is  yet  longed  for. 
The  evidence  of  its  force  and  vitality  is  seen  on  every 
side.  On  the  mission  field  it  has  produced  a  recognition 
of  spheres  of  effort  not  unlike  the  assignment  of  the 
" circumcision' '  and  the  "uncircumcision"  to  the  origi- 
nal apostles  and  to  St.  Paul.  There  is  a  determination 
not  to  transplant  the  divisions  and  sects  of  the  older 
world  among  the  infant  Churches  springing  up  in  hea- 
then lands.  Hence  the  arrangements  in  Africa  for  inter- 
communion and  open  fellowship,  and  the  merging  in 
China  and  Japan  and  India  of  the  converts  of  mission- 
aries from  different  communions  into  one  united  Church, 
that  is  called  by  the  name  of  Christ,  and  knows  nothing 
of  the  Congregationalism  or  Presbyterianism  or  Wesley- 
anism  whence  came  the  Gospel  to  them.  In  South  India 
the  time  is  ripe  for  the  uprising  of  a  Church,  in  the  unity 
of  which  are  to  be  embraced  the  missions  of  all  sections 
of  the  Reformed  Church.  In  view  of  the  future  and  of 
the  growth  of  a  native  Christianity,  and  in  face  of  the 
call  and  need  of  the  heathen  world,  any  other  alternative 
than  that  of  union  stands  self-condemned,  and  it  is  full 
of  hope  that  impulse  towards  it  often  springs  from  the 
native  Christians  themselves. 

But  the  same  phenomenon  is  seen  in  lands  of  ancient 
Christian  traditions,  with  differences  and  distinctions 
and  separations  among  Christians  that  have  their  roots 
deep  in  the  past  of  historic  controversies  and  old  con- 
tendings  for  the  faith.  In  Scotland  the  two  Presbyterian 
Churches  which  include  in  their  membership  probably 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  Church-going  population,  are 
about  to  come  together.  In  England  the  divided  sons 
of  the  Wesleyan  revival  are  considering  the  terms  of  an 


270         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

incorporating  union.  In  Canada  negotiations  for  the 
union  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Wesleyan  Churches  are 
far  advanced.  In  the  new  Kepublic  of  Czecho-Slovakia 
the  scattered  sections  of  the  evangelical  Churches  have 
been  drawn  together  in  one  united  Church.  In  America 
denominational  distinctions  have  worn  thin,  and  lines  of 
demarcation  are  all  but  invisible,  while  the  federation  of 
the  Churches  of  Christ  for  common  service  is  an  accom- 
plished fact  and  "community"  services,  in  which  all 
unite  for  common  worship,  abound.  There  is  no  land  in 
which  the  faith  of  Christ  is  alive,  where  this  tendency  to 
union  may  not  be  seen.  Churches  that  call  Jesus  Lord 
are  discovering  their  kinship,  and  their  relation  and  atti- 
tude to  each  other  is  sweetened  and  Christianized. 
Churches  of  a  common  polity  or  of  common  ecclesiastical 
and  doctrinal  affinities  are  coming  together  into  one  fold. 
The  meeting  at  Geneva  last  August  brought  together  by 
the  initiative  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of 
America,  to  consider  questions  of  faith  and  order  for  the 
healing  of  the  broken  fellowship  of  the  catholic  Church, 
was  in  its  comprehensiveness  the  most  remarkable  assem- 
bly the  world  has  seen  since  the  Eeformation.  The  pres- 
ence of  representatives  of  the  Orthodox  Church  of  the 
East  lent  it  unique  distinction.  Save  for  the  regretted 
and  lamentable  refusal  of  the  Eoman  Church  to  take 
part,  it  had  a  title  to  be  called  ecumenical.  The  official 
attitude  of  that  Church  bars  and  padlocks  the  door 
against  any  approach  to  fellowship  save  on  the  terms  of 
absorption  and  submission  to  the  papal  claims,  and  until 
a  better  mind  is  born  within  her  the  movement  towards 
reunion  can  only  operate  in  the  Christian  Church  outside 
of  her  communion,  and  it  has  its  most  unrestricted  field 
among  those  who  rejoice  in  the  heritage  of  the  Eeformed 
faith.  The  appeal  of  the  bishops  of  the  Anglican  Com- 
munion on  this  urgent  question  of  "the  reunion  of  the 
separated  congregations  of  Christ's  flock,' '  issued  also  in 


TOWARDS     CHRISTIAN     UNITY  271 

August  of  last  year,  has  awakened  a  sympathetic  re- 
sponse in  myriads  of  Christian  hearts.  It  is  indeed  no 
less  than  a  momentous  deliverance.  All  recognize  that  it 
is  animated  and  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  Christ.  It  is  His 
voice  that  speaks  therein ;  and  an  obligation,  from  which 
without  wilful  disobedience  there  is  no  escape,  is  laid  on 
all  who  "profess  and  call  themselves  Christians"  to  con- 
sider afresh  and  seriously  those  things  which  make  for 
the  restoration  and  healing  of  the  broken  fellowship  of 
the  Church  of  Christ,  which  is  His  body. 

It  is  these  signs,  appearing  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe,  and  in  widely  separated  sections  of  the  Church 
that  are  the  outward  and  visible  tokens  of  the  presence 
and  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  a  divinely  in- 
spired tendency  with  which  we  are  face  to  face.  The 
devout  conviction  may  well  be  ours  that  this  thing  is  not 
of  man  but  of  God.  As  in  the  earliest  days  it  was  the 
risen  Lord  who  guided  His  people  in  the  teeth  of  their 
prejudices  and  prepossessions  to  go  forth  to  the  evangel- 
ising of  the  heathen  world,  so  now  it  is  under  the  same  di- 
vine leadership,  over  the  obstacle  of  our  predilections 
and  preferences,  we  seek  the  gathering  into  one  of  the 
scattered  tribes  of  the  one  Israel  of  God.  In  this  sacred 
task  He  leads  and  we  but  follow.  For  His  will  is  that  all 
who  believe  in  Him  be  ' '  one ' '  and  the  urgency  of  this  lay 
in  the  world's  salvation.  The  unity  was  in  order  that 
the  "world  may  believe,' '  and  this  is  proof  that  it  was 
a  unity,  outward  and  manifest,  visible  to  the  dull  eyes 
of  the  natural  man  that  discerns  not  spiritual  things. 
It  is  not  enough  to  possess  an  underlying  unity  and  in- 
ward f ellowhip  such  as  may  be  known  only  to  God  and  of 
which  true  Christians  may  be  conscious.  That  is  in- 
deed the  vital  thing,  the  source  of  what  appears  in  time : 
but  it  is  the  body,  of  which  this  is  the  soul  that  the 
"world"  alone  can  see  and  the  sight  of  which  is  to  give 
to  men  the  conviction  that  they  are  in  presence  of  a  su- 
pernatural fact.    What  a  caricature  and  travesty  of  this 


272         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

heavenly  vision  is  that  broken  and  divided  Church,  in- 
dulging in  rivalry,  forgetful  of  brotherhood,  unwilling 
to  unite  even  at  the  Table  of  our  common  Lord  in  the 
communion  of  His  body  and  blood,  which  is  the  only  as- 
pect of  the  one  redeemed  society,  that  is  presented  to 
men's  eyes!  Our  minds  have  been  opened  to  the  shame 
of  it.  The  sin  of  schism  offends  to-day  the  Christian 
conscience.  The  prayer  that  we  may  lay  to  heart  "the 
evil  of  our  unhappy  divisions ' '  is  being  widely  answered 
in  our  day.  With  our  disunion  and  secessions  and  sepa- 
rations, loyalty  to  conscience  and  suffering  for  the  truth's 
sake  have  been  bound  up :  but  in  spite  of  much  that  was 
noble  and  heroic  and  seemingly  inevitable  in  the  re- 
nouncing of  the  common  fellowship  and  the  organizing 
of  separated  groups,  there  was  at  the  core  of  it,  on  one 
side  or  the  other  and  probably  on  both,  something 
gravely  wrong.  We  fought  for  truth  and  forgot  charity. 
We  allowed  self-will  to  have  its  way  and  heeded  not  the 
bond  of  brotherhood.  Our  "testimony"  became  a  chal- 
lenge and  defiance  and  not  a  speaking  of  the  truth  in 
love.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  apportion  blame.  It  is 
only  well  to  unite  in  mutual  penitence  before  God  for 
the  sins  which  have  brought  to  pass  the  sad  state  of  af- 
fairs that  has  all  too  long  persisted.  For  beyond  contro- 
versy this  is  clean  contrary  to  the  mind  of  Christ.  These 
divisions  mar  and  maim  the  Church's  efficiency.  They 
provoke  rivalry  instead  of  cooperation.  All  Christians 
need  all  other  Christians.  It  is  only  with  "all  saints"  we 
can  comprehend  the  height  and  depth,  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  love  of  Christ.  Great  discoveries  and 
great  attainments  lie  along  the  way  of  a  corporate  ex- 
perience. It  w^as  concern  for  the  world's  salvation  that 
throbbed  in  the  heart  of  the  world's  Saviour  when  He 
prayed  for  His  Church's  unity,  and  it  is  a  like  concern 
that  moves  His  disciples  to-day  to  labour  and  pray  for 
the  same  consummation.     The  supreme  missionary  task 


TOWARDS     CHRISTIAN     UNITY  273 

of  the  Church  demands  not  only  for  its  accomplishment 
but  even  for  its  adequate  undertaking,  the  service  of  an 
undivided  Church.  This  mood  and  mind,  here  sketched, 
is  in  its  widespread  possession  a  new  thing  among  Chris- 
tians. It  implies  a  revolution  in  traditional  modes  of 
thought  and  outlook.  It  is  the  product  of  the  inspiration 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  under  the  spell  thereof  that 
plans  and  actions  must  be  determined  and  all  proposals 
considered.  If  any  do  not  passionately  desire  the  unity 
of  Christ's  Church  and  its  visible  manifestation  and  are 
not  distressed  by  the  lack  thereof,  let  such  stand  aside 
from  all  intermeddling  with  this  sacred  business. 

What  is  the  end  we  have  in  view  1  It  is  here  we  need  to 
make  clear  to  ourselves  the  goal  we  aim  at.  Is  it  to  be  a 
federation  of  Churches  in  which  things  remain  much  as 
they  are,  save  that  the  mutual  relations  have  become 
more  intimate  and  cordial  and  there  is  the  fullest  and 
freest  recognition  of  each  other's  Sacraments  and  minis- 
tries, with  interfellowship  and  intercommunion  and  co- 
operation for  common  ends?  Or  is  it  to  be  a  reunited 
Church — "an  outward,  visible  and  united  society,  hold- 
ing one  faith,  having  its  own  recognized  officers  using 
God-given  means  of  grace  and  inspiring  all  its  members 
to  the  world-wide  service  of  the  Kingdom  of  God?  This 
is  the  consummation  the  Anglican  bishops  wish  to  pro- 
mote by  the  Lambeth  Appeal,  and  these  are  the  terms  in 
which  they  describe  the  catholic  Church.  Now  it  is  to 
be  admitted  that  among  Protestants,  men  of  good-will 
who  care  seriously  for  unity,  this  latter  aim  is  by  no 
means  universally  thought  to  be  desirable,  even  if  practi- 
cable. They  detest  monopolies ;  they  fear  the  stagnation 
of  one  vast  organization,  which  has  not  the  stimulus  of 
dissent  from  it  or  the  friendly  rivalry  in  good  works  of 
various  groups  of  Christians.  They  dread  still  more  the 
development  of  wide  and  persecuting  tendencies  in  one 
great  Church,  none  the  less  evil  and  cruel  because  work- 
ing by  social  ostracism  and  ecclesiastical  disfavour  and 


274         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

censure,  and  not  by  the  old  weapons  of  the  rack  and  the 
thumb-screw  and  the  faggot  and  the  prison.  The  memory 
of  the  age-long  experiment  of  the  Church  of  Rome  is  not 
a  happy  one  and  has  left  an  inveterate  bias  against  its 
repetition.  It  was  not  well  with  religion  in  Europe  when 
there  was  only  one  Church  in  all  Western  Europe.  They 
do  not  want  to  go  behind  the  Reformation  and  reproduce 
the  state  of  things  which  the  Reformation  brought  to  an 
end  to  the  world's  unspeakable  gain,  even  if  loss  and  risk 
accompanied  the  change.  It  is  common  ground  that  unity 
does  not  involve  uniformity,  and  the  catholic  Church  of 
our  vision  and  hopes  is  not  in  any  sense  a  restoration 
of  the  Roman  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  even  of  to- 
day. The  unity  we  seek  ought  to  be  comprehensive 
enough  to  embrace  within  it  the  treasures  of  spiritual  ex- 
perience and  faith  and  order,  possessed  now  only  by  the 
separated  communions,  and  to  leave  room  for  diversified 
and  distinctive  methods  of  worship  and  service  such  as 
have  proved  channels  of  grace  in  the  many  communions 
to  which  Christians  at  present  belong.  For  the  mani- 
fested unity  of  the  Church  what  are  needed  are  a  common 
faith,  common  Sacraments  and  a  common  ministry,  uni- 
versally recognized  and  accepted  in  all  the  branches,  na- 
tional, racial,  temperamental,  of  the  one  fellowship.  Were 
these  possessed,  membership  in  any  one  section  would  be 
seen  beyond  challenge  to  be  membership  in  the  Church 
Universal,  and  the  dividing  barriers  would  inevitably 
disappear.  Differences  would  remain  but  walls  of  par- 
tition would  everywhere  be  levelled  to  the  ground.  It  is 
on  these  essentials  and  not  on  any  detail  of  organization 
that  thought  ought  to  be  concentrated.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  those  who  think  that  federation  beween  di- 
verse communions  is  sufficient  have  not  thought  out  the 
case.  That  indeed  is  a  stage  on  the  way  to  the  ultimate 
goal  but  it  cannot  be  more  than  a  stage.  It  is  in  the  na- 
ture of  things  transitional.  Sectarianism  belongs  to  a 
past  generation.    Denominational  loyalty  can  be  less  and 


TOWARDS     CHRISTIAN     UNITY  275 

less  counted  on  as  a  vital  and  binding  force.  The  con- 
victions that  called  denominations  into  being  and  main- 
tained them  in  efficiency  and  were  their  reasons  for  being 
have  lost  hold.  The  common  faith  of  all  Christians  counts 
for  more,  while  the  sectional  faith  of  any  Christian 
counts  for  little  in  the  modern  believing  world.  Inevita- 
bly federation  of  denominations  will  change  these  power- 
ful tendencies,  operative  on  all  sides,  into  a  mighty  rush- 
ing torrent  that  will  sweep  away  these  distinctions.  Fed- 
eration in  the  nature  of  the  case  cannot  do  other  than  act 
as  a  solvent  to  denominationalism.  It  will  be  insistently 
asked,  Why  not  merge?  Why  maintain  costly  separate 
organizations  at  the  waste  of  money  and  effort  and  ef- 
ficiency! In  Canada  the  negotiations  for  union  between 
Presbyterianism  and  Wesleyanism  have  dragged  on  for 
years,  owing  mainly  to  the  interruption  of  the  war,  and 
the  result  is  that  nearly  one  hundred  congregations  have 
already  sprung  up  that  have  for  themselves  practically 
solved  the  question  of  union  and  owe  no  allegiance  to 
conference  or  synod.  This  is  the  straw  that  shows  the 
drift.  Those  who  reckon  federation  as  the  goal  of  their 
striving  reckon  without  their  host.  As  soon  as  it  is 
reached,  it  is  seen  to  be  a  stage  on  the  way  to  a  goal  far 
beyond  it.  Let  us  then  keep  before  us  the  vision  of  a 
united  Church  whose  union  is  obvious  to  all.  It  is  to  this 
the  great  King  and  Head  of  the  Church  calls  us.  Let  us 
labour  for  this.  Let  us  pray  unceasingly  for  its  attain- 
ment. Let  us  welcome  every  approach  towards  it.  Let 
us  freely  and  fully  recognize  the  place  and  part  in  the 
one  household  of  faith,  of  all  who  call  Jesus  Lord.  This 
great  and  historic  day,  in  which  our  lot  is  cast,  has  made 
the  way  towards  Christian  unity  as  a  broad  and  open 
thoroughfare  in  which  all  who  love  the  Lord  and  discern 
His  will  for  our  day  will  be  found. 

Alexander  Eamsay. 

Presbyterian  Church  of  England, 
Highgate,  London. 


THE  DOGMATIC  VERSUS  THE  EXPERI- 
MENTAL APPROACH  TO  UNION 

Ever  since  the  Church  was  divided  there  have  been  ad- 
vocates of  Christian  nnion.  The  tides  of  movement,  how- 
ever, have  hitherto  been  towards  disunion.  The  disinte- 
gration of  monarchical  and  centralized  authority  and  the 
attainment  of  democracy  made  for  independence  and  a 
strong  individualism.  The  changes  in  both  polity  and 
creed  have  been  toward  a  disintegration  of  centraliza- 
tion. The  unity  of  the  ONE  CHURCH  of  medievalism 
was  based  upon  authority.  In  polity  it  was  the  creed  of 
an  infallible  papal  curia  and  in  creed  it  was  the  logic  of 
scholasticism.  Neither  permitted  freedom  of  intellect  or 
of  organization,  and  both  based  fellowship  upon  the  im- 
plicit acceptance  of  a  stated  set  of  beliefs.  The  move- 
ment for  democracy  in  religion  thus  became  a  protest  for 
personal  freedom  in  both. 

The  break,  or  the  series  of  breaks,  was  not  however  so 
much  with  the  conception  that  a  creedal  agreement  must 
be  the  basis  of  fellowship  as  with  the  established  creeds 
as  that  basis.  Thus  Luther  broke  with  Rome,  but  ful- 
minated against  Zwingli  for  not  agreeing  with  him.  The 
Puritans  fled  England  to  obtain  freedom  to  worship  ac- 
cording to  their  conscience,  but  denied  the  same  funda- 
mental right  to  Baptists  and  Quakers.  The  Baptists  for 
centuries  braved  persecutions  to  obtain  liberty  of  as- 
sembly but  would  not  tolerate  the  Campbells  when  they 
introduced  innovations  in  creed. 

The  days  of  violent  intolerance  are  past  in  all  demo- 
cratic lands  but  the  day  of  creedal  tolerance  has  arrived 
in  few  of  those  segments  of  the  Church  into  which  the 
movement  toward  toleration  split  it.  We  are  not  yet 
willing  to  tolerate  any  large  differences  in  creed  or  pol- 
ity, or  at  least  we  are  not  willing  to  surrender  much  of 
the  historic  or  traditional  of  the  various  denominations 
or  those  peculiar  demarcations  of  fellowship  wrought 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         277 

out  in  the  original  segmentation.  The  basis  of  fellow- 
ship has  not  changed  from  the  fundamentals  of  medieval 
demand  for  conformity  in  creed  and  polity ;  the  form  of 
the  polity  has  been  democratized  and  the  content  of  the 
creed  has  been  modified  in  the  various  protesting  schisms 
but  the  basis  of  fellowship  still  remains  fundamentally 
where  it  was. 

It  has  always  been  maintained  that  there  is  only  one 
Gospel  but  there  have  always  been  varying  interpreta- 
tions. So  long  as  we  confuse  interpretations  of  the  Gos- 
pel with  the  ONE  GOSPEL  and  continue  to  make  the 
basis  of  fellowship  a  creedal  agreement  as  to  what  the 
Gospel  teaches  we  shall  have  divisions  in  the  Church.  No 
large  body  of  men  would  fellowship  on  the  basis  of  the 
ten  commandments  even  if  the  continuance  of  the  fellow- 
ship depended  upon  exact  agreement  in  interpretation 
and  application.  We  shall  never  agree  on  all  matters  of 
interpretation  unless  all  but  one  of  us  agrees  to  quit 
thinking  and  to  humbly  accept  the  reason  of  one  infallible 
interpreter.  The  evolution  of  the  medieval  idea  of  union 
led  logically  to  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility.  The 
Eoman  Catholics  have  one  horn  of  the  dilemma  in  papal 
infallibility  and  the  Plymouth  Brethren  the  other  in 
the  endless  segmentation  of  believers  in  order  that 
none  may  come  into  a  fellowship  unless  there  is  utter 
peace  and  no  differences  of  opinion.  The  one  destroys 
democracy  in  a  monarchical  centralization  and  the  other 
in  a  vapid  decentralization. 

So  long  as  fellowship  is  based  upon  any  authoritative 
creed  embodying  more  than  a  simple  acceptance  of  Jesus 
as  the  Christ  and  Saviour  we  shall  have  division.  The 
confession  of  Peter  (Matthew  16:16)x  and  that  Apostle's 
declaration  in  the  sermon  on  Pentecost  Day  (Acts  2:36)2 
are  the  minimum  upon  which  a  CHKISTIAN  union  could 

^'Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 

2"God  hath  made  Him  both  I^ord  and  Christ,  this  Jesus  Whom  ye  crucified." 


278         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

be  based.  Less  than  that  might  be  religious  -unity  but  as 
we  are  considering  Christian  union  the  minimum  would 
imply  an  acceptance  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ.  On  that  all 
interested  in  Christian  union  agree.  In  demanding  more 
than  that  come  all  divisions.  On  that  basis  all  now  can 
meet  in  common  prayer  and  by  that  line  of  demarcation 
do  both  the  world  and  all  other  religious  cults  know 
who  makes  up  the  universal  Christian  Church.  That 
which  the  Gospel  makes  the  only  basis  of  fellowship  we 
have  made  merely  the  minimum  on  which  we  will  agree, 
as  against  all  the  non-Christian  world,  to  call  one  an- 
other Christians.  On  that  basis  we  would  do  battle  if 
necessary,  against  a  concerted  attack  of  Islam  or  athe- 
ism, but  on  that  basis  we  will  not  agree  to  prosecute  the 
Lord's  conquest  of  either  Islam  or  atheism,  or  cooperate 
and  be  one  that  the  world  might  believe  He  was  sent 
(Jno.  17:21).3 

If  all  loyalties  were  rational  and  if  every  disciple  of 
Jesus  could  think  things  through  for  himself  the  proposal 
to  unite  all  His  followers  on  the  simple  confession  of  Him 
as  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  would  be  feasible.  But  we 
have  to  deal  with  the  simple  fact  that  we  are  creatures  of 
tradition  and  habitual  ideas  and  tend  to  segregate  our- 
selves into  group  fellowships  as  iron  particles  separate 
themselves  about  magnates.  In  apostolic  days  the  fel- 
lowship was  simple.  No  diverting  and  differentiating 
creedal  opinions  had  arisen  to  divide.  The  men  who  had 
been  with  Jesus  accepted  Him  as  Christ  and  Lord  and 
went  about  persuading  others  to  do  so.  The  fellowship 
was  limited,  at  first,  to  local  congregations  and  largely 
of  Jewish  nationality.  No  sooner  did  it  cross  the  racial 
lines  or  develop  great  commanding  advocates,  like  Paul, 
than  differences  arose  that  threatened  divisions  in  the 
fellowship.  Paul  and  Peter  saved  themselves  from  a 
break  by  Peter's  yielding  to  the  interpretation  of  the 

3"That  they  may  all  be  one  *  *  *  *  that  the  world  may  believe  that  thou  didst 
send   me." 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         279 

greater  Apostle,  but  not  all  consented  to  follow  him  and 
Ave  find  the  ' i  Jndaizers ' '  crossing  his  path  constantly. 
The  Council  of  Jerusalem  adopted  sensible  compromise 
to  save  friction  or  a  possible  eruption  and  everywhere 
the  human  nature  that  will  disagree  in  opinions  and  in- 
terpretations obtruded  itself.  What  those  near  Jesus 
and  under  the  powerful  apostleship  of  a  Paul  could  cir- 
cumvent could  not  be  done  after  he  was  gone  and  the 
Church  crossed  Grecian  boundaries  where  thinking  was  a 
fine  art  and  philosophy  tithed  the  mint  and  anise  of  dia- 
lectic and  syllogism.  A  millennium  and  a  half  of  Chris- 
tian history  then  becomes  the  story  of  heresy  followed  by 
scholastic  thinking,  monarchical  authority  and  the  sub- 
mergence of  the  free  mind  in  institutionalism. 

The  problem  before  us  now  is  that  of  whether  or  not  we 
are  enough  emancipated  from  the  need  of  an  external 
authoritarianism  to  hold  us  to  any  kind  of  a  loyalty.  Will 
our  faith  and  loyalty  be  alive  and  vigorous  unless  it  is 
fixed  on  a  more  or  less  hard  and  fast  dogma!  Combat 
troops  have  to  be  narrowed  to  a  single  idea;  it  is  not 
theirs  to  reason  why;  it  is  theirs  to  do  and  die.  The 
average  man  seems  to  require  a  fairly  well  fixed  and  un- 
questioned creed  for  lively  action.  Whether  in  patriot- 
ism or  class  conscious  evolution  or  in  religion  he  seems 
to  require  a  notion  that  others  are  wrong  in  order  to  be 
assured  that  he  and  his  are  unquestionably  right,  and 
without  that  unquestionable  ground  beneath  his  feet  he 
does  not  run  and  do  battle.  He  builds  his  creedal  walls 
quite  as  much  to  keep  out  his  fellow  man  as  he  does  to 
shelter  his  fellow  believers. 

A  survey  of  denominational  growth  points  to  the  con- 
clusion that  there  is  a  median  line  of  authoritarianism 
in  creed  and  polity  along  which  numerical  success  crowns 
denominational  banners.  Presbyterianism  has  age  and 
tradition,  an  historic  creed,  a  polity  that  harmonizes  the 
democratic  concept  with  successful  administration,  and 


280         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

that  sense  of  respectability  which  is  so  powerful  in  ef- 
fecting social  groupings.  It  combines  in  a  very  effective 
way  all  those  concepts  and  controls  to  which  the  average 
democratic  mind  of  the  better  grade  reacts.  The  Bap- 
tists bring  a  simple  dogma,  founded  upon  a  quotable 
Scripture,  and  give  it  dramatic  dress  in  ordinances  that 
demark  the  line  of  correct  and  incorrect  in  an  unmistak- 
able manner.  Their  polity  tends  to  dogmatize  independ- 
ence and  the  dogma  of  it  is  perhaps  more  stimulating 
than  the  independence.  Methodism  submits  a  different 
test,  but  one  that  answers  quite  as  well  the  mental  quest 
of  assurance,  in  a  personal,  inner  experience  that  is  un- 
mistakable and  in  an  authoritarian  polity  that  bends  to 
democratic  prepossessions  without  losing  its  administra- 
tive capacity.  These  three  greatest  of  our  American 
Protestant  bodies,  all  having  a  history  older  than  the  Re- 
public, have  each  been  divided  into  many  segments  as  a 
result  of  the  play  of  democratic  independence  against 
authoritarian  creeds  and  polities.  The  last  Year  Book 
of  the  Churches  lists  twenty-nine  Baptists  and  Brethren 
(all  Baptistic)  bodies,  seventeen  Methodist  and  fourteen 
Presbyterian  and  Reformed  (all  Presbyteria).  But  out- 
side the  sectional  lines  arising  out  of  the  Civil  War 
numerical  preponderance  lies  with  the  historic  main 
bodies.  The  creedal  subdivisions  have  not  been  effective 
in  winning  numbers.  All  the  psychological  requirements 
of  assurance  and  the  sense  of  authority  were  supplied  by 
the  main  historic  bodies ;  the  efforts  to  rationalize  away 
from  them  has  not  gone  far  in  creating  large  new  denom- 
inations. 

It  would  seem  that  the  divisive  trends,  founded  upon 
the  protest  of  the  democratic  right  to  independence  of 
mind  and  conscience,  were  fairly  well  rounded  out  in  the 
driving  of  the  main  cleavages.  Now  that  the  right  of  in- 
dependent thinking  and  association  is  established  we  tend 
to  rest  back  upon  the  more  conservative  assurances  of 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         281 

tradition.  The  overwhelming  mass  of  Christians  in  the 
nearly  two  hundred  Protestant  sects  are  in  the  historic 
old  denominational  families,  and  within  those  families 
the  overwhelming  majorities  are  within  the  original  de- 
nominational body.  The  trend  toward  division  is  dis- 
sipating but  there  is  no  real  ground  as  yet  to  hope  that 
the  rock  foundations  of  the  main  divisions  are  crumbling. 
The  sense  of  social  solidarity  and  the  larger  tolerance  in 
creedal  refinements  is  tending  to  draw  the  denomina- 
tional families  together  and  the  removal  of  the  pressure 
of  persecution  and  denunciation  makes  it  ever  more  dif- 
ficult to  grow  large  dissenting  bodies.  We  are  perhaps 
about  at  the  end  of  the  process  of  segmentation  simply 
because  we  are  making  the  bands  of  fellowship  more 
elastic,  but  we  are  not  yet  out  of  the  grip  of  tradition  and 
of  denominational  loyalties  as  a  social  inheritance  into 
which  we  are  born  and  bred  or  into  which  we  are  adopted 
by  some  adventitious  circumstances. 

A  further  proof  of  the  virility  of  dogma  as  over  against 
a  nondogmatic  type  of  basis  for  fellowship  is  given  in  a 
comparison  of  the  growth  of  various  communions  in  the 
past  century  in  America.  The  Unitarians  offer  almost 
perfect  creedal  freedom,  but  few  seem  to  have  desired  it. 
The  Congregationalists,  aside  from  their  democratic  pol- 
ity, admit  to  membership  practically  upon  the  basis  of 
the  simple  confession  of  Jesus  as  The  Christ,  but  they 
have  grown  only  by  thousands  where  the  more  dogmatic 
denominations  have  grown  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands. 
The  Southern  Baptists,  who  are  perhaps  firmest  in  their 
dogmas  and  most  fervent  over  them,  are  growing  more 
rapidly  than  are  the  Northern  Baptists.  The  Disciples 
have  multiplied  beyond  all  others  in  the  century  of  their 
history.  Their  present  static  condition  is  only  apparent 
— a  book  loss  rather  than  a  real  loss — as  a  result  of  sub- 
stituting a  real  statistical  accounting  in  the  place  of 
guess  work. 


282         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

The  Disciples  furnish  striking  illustration  of  the  thesis 
of  this  paper.  They  had  their  beginnings  in  the  naive  ef- 
fort of  a  Presbyterian  seceder  to  gather  all  the  Chris- 
tians of  a  scattered  pioneer  community  into  a  fellowship 
of  worship  and  of  service  without  regard  to  differing 
creedal  beliefs.  Eefusing  to  meet  except  each  in  its  own 
sect's  fellowship  none  were  numerous  enough  to  be  ef- 
fective; all  who  accepted  Christ,  meeting  together  on 
the  single-minded  basis  of  that  common  faith,  could  suc- 
cessfully hold  communion  and  forward  Christianity  in 
their  frontier  community.  Out  of  this  there  sprang  up  a 
strong  conviction  that  Christian  union  was  demanded  by 
the  Gospel,  and  that  all  sectarianism  was  a  sin.  In  work- 
ing out  the  basis  for  union  the  Campbells  soon  found 
themselves  proceeding  along  the  historic  grounds  of 
authoritarianism  and  made  their  appeal  from  the  written 
creeds  of  Protestantism  to  the  original  Gospel  itself. 
But  sincere  and  faithful  minds  have  always  wrought  out 
different  interpretations  of  the  Gospels  when  the  simple 
confession  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ  was  passed.  It  was 
this  inevitable  fact  that  had  wrought  out  the  varying 
creeds.  The  Campbells  came  to  be  convinced  that  it  was 
the  restoration  of  the  apostolic  Church  in  its  confession 
of  Jesus  as  Christ,  its  ordinances  of  immersion  and  the 
Lord's  Supper  and  in  its  precedent  of  a  democratic  pol- 
ity, that  the  hope  of  union  lay.  This  appeal  seemed 
catholic  in  that  it  offered  to  all  the  disagreeing  sects  a 
common  ground  on  the  one  name  all  bore,  the  Baptism 
that  all  alike  were  able  to  practice  and  the  sense  of  Scrip- 
ture authority  for  Church  government.  Not  only  has  the 
sectarian  world  of  Protestantism  refused  to  be  reunited 
on  this  basis,  but  they  have  turned  to  accuse  the  Disci- 
ples of  being  more  sectarian  than  they  themselves,  charg- 
ing that  they  preach  union  while  persistently  refusing  to 
unite.  The  plea  for  union  has  apparently  been  lost  in 
the  dogma  for  restoring  the  apostolic  Church,  and  the 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         283 

other  communions  either  think  they  are  quite  as  apostolic 
as  are  the  Disciples  or  else  do  not  accept  the  necessity  of 
restoring  the  apostolic  forms  and  ordinances.  The  sim- 
plicity and  dogmatic  quality  of  the  Disciple  plea  have  won 
great  success,  but  more  as  an  evangelistic  body  with  a 
simple,  fervent,  unquestioned  appeal  than  as  an  organic 
means  of  actual  union.  Meanwhile  the  dogmatic  temper 
within  has  brought  one  distinct  schism  and  there  have 
been  many  promises  of  still  another.  It  should  also  be 
noted,  as  another  illustration  of  this  thesis,  that  the  older 
Christian  Church  (Newlight)  with  a  like  union  motif, 
but  with  a  less  dogmatic  basis  of  fellowship  in  that  it 
does  not  demand  immersion  as  a  basis,  has  grown  in  the 
same  period  of  time  to  less  than  one-sixth  as  great  a 
membership. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  it  will  never  be  possible  to  ob- 
tain organic  Church  union  on  the  basis  of  any  definite 
creed,  but  that  the  simple  Scriptural  confession  of  Jesus 
as  the  Christ  is  sufficient  for  the  inclusion  of  all  His  dis- 
ciples and  for  the  exclusion  of  all  who  are  not  essentially 
Christian.  But  this  simple  confession  does  not  embody 
sufficient  definition  to  answer  all  the  psychological  re- 
quirements of  men's  minds  in  an  age  where  theological 
refinements  are  still  thought  to  be  all  important.  If  what 
one  believes  is  the  final  test  and  the  only  positive  assur- 
ance of  his  Christianity  then  he  will  demand  a  more  defin- 
itive creed,  and  so  long  as  a  more  diverse  and  definitive 
creed  is  made  the  basis  of  Church  fellowship  there  will 
be  widely  differing  interpretations  and  thus  deep  secta- 
rian cleavages.  The  minor  schisms  may  be  healed  in  time 
and  the  original  great  denominational  families  restored 
to  unity,  but  even  that  is  doubtful  except  as  creedal  dis- 
tinctiveness gives  way  to  practical  Christian  activity  for 
others.  The  dogmatic  basis  for  union  will  never  succeed. 
It  prejudges  the  case  and  denies  the  laws  of  evolution, 


284         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

and  it  substitutes  belief,  which  is  a  means  to  Christian 
character,  for  character  itself. 

The  supreme  task  of  Jesus  Christ  was  not  merely  to 
convince  men  of  His  incarnation  and  the  theological 
truths  that  are  tributary  to  it,  but  to  offer  Himself  as  the 
incarnate  manifestation  of  God  for  leading  us  to  become 
Christian  and  to  make  the  world  Christian.  He  was 
never  interested  in  theological  correctness  within  itself 
and  for  its  own  ends.  Our  belief  in  Him  is  a  means  to  an 
end,  and  behold  we  find  ourselves  so  busied  in  debating 
over  theological  correctness  that  we  have  not  been  able 
to  so  manifest  Him  to  the  world  as  to  bring  it  to  believe. 
We  have  thrust  our  differences  upon  the  Chinese  and  In- 
dians and  confuse  the  simple  appeal  of  the  Christ  with 
the  obscurities  of  our  traditional  divergences  of  opinion. 
It  is  like  refusing  to  sow  the  good  seed  well  or  to  harvest 
the  rich  crop  advantageously  because  we  cannot  agree  on 
which  type  of  farm  machinery  is  theoretically  the  best. 
Jesus  prayed  we  might  be  one  in  order  that  the  world 
might  be  convinced  that  He  was  sent,  and  our  failure  to 
answer  that  prayer  among  ourselves  is  the  greatest 
single  hindrance  to  its  answer  in  the  world.  We  deny 
Him  the  wide  world  because  we  cannot  deny  ourselves 
our  divisive  dogmas. 

Modern  educational  psychology  teaches  us  that  the 
surest  way  to  perfect  morals  is  to  do  by  act  of  will  what 
we  know  should  be  done  even  though  all  our  habitual  and 
emotional  nature  is  against  it.  In  other  words  we  learn 
by  doing  and  perfect  our  spiritual  nature  by  exercising 
our  convictions.  The  dislikes  and  antipathies  that  spring 
from  instinct  or  ingrained  ideas  or  the  training  of  a  cer- 
tain social  inheritance  are  modified  by  forcing  ourselves 
to  a  contact  with  those  who  have  been  made  repulsive  to 
us.  Personal  dislikes  are  turned  into  warm  friendships 
by  enforced  association  if  the  force  applied  is  a  will  to 
overcome  our  own  irrational,  though  natural,  attitudes. 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         285 

Social  antipathies  are  hard  and  mutually  exclusive  in  the 
lower  phases  of  civilization  and  the  very  index  of  ad- 
vancement lies  in  their  softening  and  breaking  to  the 
point  of  being  overcome.  Democracy  depends  upon  the 
lowering  of  class  antipathies  and  the  amalgamating  of 
interests. 

So  too  does  religious  unity  depend  upon  the  erasing 
of  those  lines  of  demarcation  that  have  their  source  in 
ancient  differences  of  interpretation.  They  were  rooted 
in  a  need  that  no  longer  exists,  nourished  by  loyalty  to  a 
truth  that  no  longer  is  distinctive,  and  grown  strong  by 
an  opposition  that  has  disappeared.  If  by  some  miracle 
every  mark  and  memory  of  the  denominational  divisions 
in  Protestantism  could  be  wiped  out  in  a  night  and  all  of 
us  left  Christians  still,  we  would  never  rebuild  them  as 
they  are.  We  would  inevitably  draw  lines  of  social, 
aesthetic  and  intellectual  groupings,  as  we  do  even  now 
within  the  old  denominations,  but  they  would  all  be  gen- 
erated by  the  norms  and  cultures  of  our  own  time  and 
not  by  those  of  that  past  which  so  largely  fixes  the  his- 
toric cleavages  to  which  we  cling ;  they  would  not  require 
organic  schisms  to  express  themselves;  schools  of 
thought  and  types  of  ritual  would  suffice. 

We  shall  not  gain  organic  union  by  continuing  the  his- 
toric discussions  of  faith  and  order  alone,  nor  ever  by 
making  it  contingent  upon  that  manner  of  procedure. 
So  long  as  men  are  intellectually  immured  within  them 
we  shall  do  well  to  continue  that  discussion  providing  the 
temper  is  one  of  conciliation  rather  than  that  of  the  dog- 
matist. The  recent  Geneva  conference  illustrated  how  ut- 
terly impossible  it  will  be  for  us  to  agree  upon  a  form  of 
faith  and  polity  as  a  basis  of  organic  union,  even  though 
all  accept  the  apostolic  teaching  as  binding,  simply  be- 
cause intelligent  and  consecrated  men,  whether  Presby- 
terian, Baptist,  Anglican  or  Greek  Orthodox,  all  believe, 
and  believing  assert  that  theirs  is  the  original  apostolic 


286         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

creed  and  polity.  Either  we  must  choose  some  line  of 
persuasiveness  other  than  those  involving  appeal  to 
traditional  conviction  and  historic  loyalties  or  we  must 
find  union  on  another  basis  than  the  fundamental  agree- 
ment to  restore  apostolic  faith  (i.e.,  creed),  and  order 
(i.e.,  form  of  Church  government).  Indeed  the  very  in- 
sistence at  Geneva  that  the  Nicene  creed  was  the  mini- 
mum would  make  organic  union  forever  impossible,  sim- 
ply because  great  bodies  of  Christians  will  not  only  re- 
fuse to  accept  it  but  will  refuse  to  accept  any  historic 
formula. 

Our  divisions  were  made  necessary  by  the  intolerance 
of  the  dogmatic  temper  inherited  from  medievalism.    The 
resistance  that  thrust  one  after  another  of  the  innovat- 
ing groups  out  of  the  older  communions  has  disappeared ; 
the  very  bodies  that  thrust  them  out  have  often  now 
adopted  the  creed  they  excised,  and  few  of  them  would 
have  compelled  withdrawal  if  the  innovation  had  come 
to-day  instead  of  in  generations  gone.    We  are  all  made 
the  heirs  of  the  contributions  brought  by  the  courageous 
men  who  dared  excommunication  for  the  sake  of  teach- 
ing them.    The  great  truths  are  the  possession  of  us  all. 
We  are  left  divided  in  shell  while  we  are  at  one  in  the 
kernels  within.    What  we  need  is  to  find  a  way  to  divest 
ourselves  of  these  vestigial  survivals.    It  is  the  forms  of 
loyalty  and  the  prejudgments  formed  for  us  by  social  in- 
heritance and  the  adventitious  associations  made  ours  by 
fortuity  that  require  modification  and  rebasing.     Few 
Church  members  deliberately  and  thoughtfully  choose 
between  creeds  and  denominations  to-day.     They  unite 
with  the  Church  of  their  fathers  or  their  neighborhoods 
or  their  friends,  and  the  vast  majority  of  us  are  indoc- 
trinated as  members  or  as  novitiates  by  the  chance  of 
family  or  association.    We  are  taught  why  this  or  that 
or  the  other  creed  is  correct  after  we  have  subscribed  to 
it,  so  to  speak.     Our  attachments  and  loyalties  are  se- 


DOGMA     VS.     EXPERIMENT     IN     UNION         287 

cured  by  association  and  fixed  by  instruction,  if  indeed 
they  are  ever  fixed  in  any  manner  beyond  that  of  grow- 
ing fast  through  habitual  association.  The  great  Chris- 
tian fundamentals  are  the  same.  There  is  nothing  in  our 
differences  that  would  save  the  souls  of  anyone  of  us  or 
make  us  better  folk,  let  alone  convince  the  world  Jesus 
was  sent  to  save  it ;  but  in  our  common  agreements  there 
are  all  the  great  fundamentals  of  salvation.  Upon  them 
do  we  build  Christian  character  and  in  them  we  all  alike 
induce  others  to  accept  the  Christ.  If  we  would  unite  on 
them  alone  we  could  answer  the  Lord 's  dying  prayer  that 
the  world  might  believe  He  was  "sent  as  God's  Messen- 
ger" (Twentieth  Century  Translation). 

This  we  can  do  through  working  together.  By  act  of 
will  we  can  bring  ourselves  to  do  that  which  the  Lord  re- 
quires. By  association  in  Christian  enterprises  we  al- 
ways find  our  group  lines  breaking  down,  our  sectarian 
antipathies  mellowing,  our  sense  of  fraternity  and  of 
mutual  respect  growing,  and  the  bands  of  brotherhood 
knitting  into  unbreakable  bonds.  We  need  a  refocusing 
of  objectives.  Instead  of  growing  denominations  because 
we  think  them  possessed  of  ways  and  means  in  creed  and 
polity  that  will  most  effectively  promote  the  world's  re- 
demption we  must  stand  ready  to  sacrifice  them  in  genu- 
ine Christian  spirit  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  may  grow ; 
we  must  denominationally  decrease  that  the  Kingdom 
may  increase.  Union  will  come  through  putting  the  pro- 
motion of  all  things  good  as  our  objective  in  place  of  pro- 
moting our  denominations  as  such.  If  in  every  commu- 
nity the  Churches  would  join  hands  in  promoting  commu- 
nity welfare  and  if  in  denominational  councils  we  should 
begin  to  outvie  one  another  in  offering  cooperation  in 
great  Christian  enterprises,  the  spirit  of  unity  and  the 
practice  of  cooperation  would  lead  us  irresistibly,  in 
good  time,  into  actual  union. 

No  union  can  be  considered   that   would   compromise 


288         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

convictions.  But  the  convictions  that  divide  us  are  so 
generally  prejudgments  and  in  regard  to  non-essentials 
that  cooperation  for  the  sake  of  the  great  common  ob- 
jectives would  banish  them  where  they  have  no  right  to 
being  and  retire  them  into  the  category  of  the  non-es- 
sential where  they  have  no  necessary  function.  There  is 
abundant  diversity  among  thinking  men  within  the  folds 
of  every  communion  and  the  liberty  of  opinion  is  not  in 
the  least  imperilled  by  union  on  the  basis  of  function. 
We  are  not  to  be  judged  by  creedal  conformity,  but  by 
the  fruits  we  bear  in  terms  of  righteousness.  Of  all  our 
dogmas  we  need  to  ask  "what  do  ye  more  than  others V9 
Jesus  gave  the  divine  prescription  in  regard  to  the  doc- 
trine of  unity  as  of  all  else  when  he  said  "if  any  man 
willeth  to  do  His  will  he  shall  know  of  the  teaching. " 
(Jno.  7:17.)  The  test  of  effectiveness  can  be  applied  by 
experimentation  in  methods  of  promoting  Christianity 
and  its  righteousness.  Efforts  in  united  ways  for  the 
great  objectives  of  the  Gospel  will  little  by  little  wear 
away  the  dogmas  that  do  not  function,  and  the  spirit 
of  holy  conquest  will  overcome  the  divisive  spirit  of  sec- 
tionalism. No  programme  will  bring  union  in  a  day  * 
*,  *  *  but  as  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly  they  will 
grind  exceeding  fine,  and  in  His  good  time,  if  we  submit 
humbly  to  His  will,  the  spirit  that  divides  will  be  refined 
into  the  spirit  that  makes  all  men  brethren  in  His  Name. 

Alva  W.  Taylor. 

Bible  Chair,  Missouri  University, 
Columbia,  Mo. 


HAS  THE  DENOMINATIONAL  SCHOOL  A 
PLACE  IN  PRESENT  DAY  EDUCATION?* 

I  am  told  that  there  lived  in  a  village  in  Texas  four  boys, 
who  played  together,  attended  school  together  and  lived 
in  each  other's  homes  as  though  the  home  of  each  were 
the  common  property  of  all  four.  Apparently  they  had 
in  themselves  the  seeds  of  lifetime  friendships  until  they 
were  sent  to  their  respective  denominational  schools — 
Roman  Catholic,  Episcopalian,  Baptist  and  Disciple. 
That  somewhat  isolated  each  from  the  other,  so  that  on 
returning  home  during  vacation  their  friendships  were 
not  quite  as  cordial  as  formerly. 

Later  each  entered  the  ministry  of  his  respective  de- 
nomination and  this  removed  them  still  further  from 
each  other. 

The  new  made  Roman  Catholic  priest  claimed  his  de- 
nomination to  be  the  Church  and  his  three  separated 
brethren  of  other  denominations  to  be  living  in  schism 
and  therefore  out  of  the  Church. 

The  new  made  Episcopal  priest  claimed  his  denomi- 
nation to  be  the  Church,  looking  somewhat  anxiously  to- 
ward the  new  made  priest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
who,  however,  did  not  recognize  his  priesthood,  and  look- 
ing rather  indifferently  toward  the  two  ministers  of  the 
two  Protestant  bodies,  which  he  termed  the  sects. 

The  new  made  Baptist  minister  claimed  his  denomina- 
tion to  be  the  apostolic  Church,  refusing  his  three  friends 
of  the  other  three  denominations  and  all  other  Christians 
the  Lord's  Supper,  which,  however,  neither  the  Roman 
Catholic  nor  Episcopal  priest  recognized  as  the  Lord's 
Supper.  He  further  rebaptized  all  who  sought  member- 
ship in  the  Baptist  Church,  whether  they  had  been  bap- 
tized by  sprinkling,  pouring  or  immersion. 

The  new  made  Disciple  minister  claimed  his  denomina- 

*This  paper  was  read  before  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Society  of 
Church  History,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  Dec.  27,  1920. 


290         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

tion  to  be  the  restoration  of  the  primitive  Church,  allow- 
ing all  Christians  at  the  Lord's  Supper,  however,  but  no 
one  of  his  three  friends  would  come.  At  the  same  time 
he  refused  membership  in  his  Church  to  all  who  had  not 
been  baptized  by  immersion  and  maintained  a  critical 
attitude  toward  his  three  friends  of  the  other  Christian 
bodies  which  he  designated  as  the  denominations. 

This  is  the  grim  picture  of  the  educational  system  of 
rigid  denominationalism  with  its  thorns  unconcealed  and 
its  barren  waste  uncovered. 

In  relating  this  instance,  which  can  be  duplicated  many 
times  in  principle  throughout  the  world,  I  would  not  have 
you  to  think  that  I  have  in  mind  the  slightest  idea  of  re- 
flecting on  the  denominations  named  as  though  they  were 
sinners  above  all  others.  Similar  instances  have  singled 
out  other  denominations.  The  whole  Church  is  involved 
in  this  practice,  some  perhaps  not  quite  as  denomina- 
tional as  others,  but  all  are  parties  to  the  practice.  The 
men  standing  apart  from  each  other,  ministering  at  their 
separate  altars,  have  no  doubt  honestly  stood  for  the 
traditions  of  their  respective  denominations.  They  have 
generally  been  men  of  learning  and  piety.  In  spite  of 
their  separate  altars  many  of  them  have  been  voices  for 
God  and  truth  in  the  world.  But  is  it  not  pertinent  to 
raise  the  question  whether  a  system  that  maintains  such 
a  condition  is  not  a  fundamental  error  in  present  day 
education? 

The  beginning  of  the  denominational  school  may  be 
traced  back  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  especially  the  begin- 
ning of  theological  seminaries.  The  intention  of  the 
originators  was  to  safeguard  truth  and  this  was  an  ad- 
mirable idea,  but  the  method  of  separation  has  been 
hurtful  both  to  the  Church  as  the  message  bearer  of  the 
truth  and  to  the  world  as  the  recipient  of  the  truth. 
Prior  to  the  Council  of  Trent  the  clergy  were  educated 
in  the  universities  and  consequently  they  were  in  touch 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  291 

with  the  advance  thinking  of  the  world,  but  with  the  rise 
of  the  denominational  school  they  were  not  only  removed 
from  the  centers  of  thought  at  the  time  when  the  whole 
world  was  seeking  new  paths  for  thinking,  but  they  un- 
consciously partook  of  all  that  goes  with  an  isolated  sys- 
tem of  education,  including  the  setting  up  of  a  division 
between  religion  and  reality.  Protestantism  yielded  it- 
self to  what  it  regarded  as  a  necessity  in  order  that  its 
varied,  correct  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures  might 
become  permanent  in  the  thought  of  the  world.  Every 
new  movement  must  have  a  school  of  its  own  and  the 
school  in  turn  perpetuated  the  movement.  No  denomina- 
tion could  get  fairly  under  way  unless  it  could  point  to 
its  own  school  or  schools,  where  genuine  orthodoxy  was 
maintained  in  the  midst  of  other  denominational  schools, 
representing  all  grades  of  heresy  from  extreme  to  mod- 
erate, depending  upon  the  angle  of  approach.  Erasmus 
says,  "The  doctrine  of  Christ,  a  stranger  formally  to 
battle  over  words,  came  to  be  made  dependent  on  de- 
fences of  philosophy.  This  was  the  first  downward  step 
towards  the  ruin  of  the  Church."*  The  schools  of  each 
denomination  became  the  centers  of  denominational  phi- 
losophies. All  denominations  honestly  felt  that  they 
were  divinely  called  to  plant  schools  wherever  they  could 
get  a  piece  of  land  donated,  or  its  equivalent  in  money 
for  the  purchase  of  land,  and  there  erect  school  buildings 
until  in  America  in  particular  nearly  every  denomination 
is  overburdened  with  its  multiplicity  of  schools. 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  province  of  this  paper  to  dis- 
cuss the  motives  that  led  to  the  establishment  of  these 
schools  nor  the  multiplicity  of  denominational  schools, 
nor  to  inquire  as  to  whether  their  equipments  are  poor 
or  ample,  or  whether  their  teachers  are  living  on  meagre 
or  sufficient  salaries,  although  these  elements  enter  vi- 
tally into  the  education  of  a  nation,  and  the  last  report  of 

*Curtis'  "History  of  Creeds  and  Confessions,"  p.   418. 


292         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  Commission  on  Education  of  the  Federal  Council  of 
the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America  says,  "The  report 
(survey)  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  notwithstand- 
ing a  widespread  and  growing  interest  in  religious  edu- 
cation throughout  the  country,  and  several  promising  ex- 
periments in  various  centers,  yet,  taken  as  a  whole,  the 
teaching  work  of  the  Churches  was  alarmingly  meagre  in 
amount  and  ineffective  in  quality."*  Neither  is  the  ques- 
tion raised  as  to  whether  the  men  coming  out  of  the  de- 
nominational schools  are  as  well  equipped  in  their  knowl- 
edge of  the  languages  and  sciences  as  the  men  from  other 
schools.  They  may  be  equally  as  well  equipped  in  those 
things,  but  education  is  not  expressed  in  terms  of  intelli- 
gence. It  is  rather  in  terms  of  conduct  and  character. 
William  James  says,  "Education  cannot  be  better  de- 
scribed than  by  calling  it  the  organization  of  acquired 
habits  of  conduct  and  tendencies  of  behavior. '  't  But  the 
denominational  school  breaks  the  organization,  separat- 
ing themselves  according  to  denominations  as  though  each 
possessed  something  which  the  other  did  not  have  and 
therefore  could  not  impart.  Laying  aside  the  fact  that 
the  claim  is  purely  fictitious,  the  policy  shatters  the  spir- 
itual universe  into  as  many  parts  as  there  are  parties, 
disturbing  the  fundamental  principles  "of  conduct  and 
tendencies  of  behavior.' ' 

Education  must  deal  with  the  wholeness  of  life.  We 
are  in  a  world  of  the  incomplete.  Schools  are  necessary 
in  order  to  the  development  of  the  incomplete.  Educa- 
tion involves  both  training  away  from  something  and 
training  toward  something.  A  system  of  education  may 
strengthen  those  inherent  elements  of  social  adjustment 
or  it  may  weaken  and  divide  them,  but  a  system  that 
weakens  and  divides  them  is  certainly  not  functioning 
properly,  and  such  a  policy  must  be  a  matter  of  concern 

•Report  of  the  Commission  on  Education  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches 
of  Christ  in  America,  p.  3. 

flames'  "Talks  to  Teachers,"  p.  29. 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  293 

to  all,  because  it  trains  the  individual  away  from  the 
real  destiny  of  human  life,  debarring  him  from  his  right- 
ful place  in  the  social  whole.  Education  must  be  a  uni- 
tary process  or  it  is  defective.  The  denominational 
school  is  not  a  unitary  factor.  It  may  be  for  its  own 
denomination,  but  the  little  less  than  two  hundred  units 
separated  as  in  American  Christianity  may  be  ever  so 
well  united  in  themselves,  but  if  these  units  are  not  unit- 
ing and  adjusting  themselves  to  each  other  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  whole,  the  educational  process  has  not  been  con- 
ducive either  to  right  conduct  or  proper  behavior. 

"Education  is,"  as  Nicholas  Murray  Butler  says,  "a 
gradual  adjustment  to  the  spiritual  possessions  of  the 
race."*  The  trend  of  the  denominational  school  is  not 
in  the  direction  of  adjustment.  It  is  the  guardian  of  de- 
nominational traditions,  which  are  separative  in  char- 
acter. Its  very  presence,  whether  it  teaches  its  denomi- 
national tenets  or  not,  is  an  attempt  to  keep  alive  a 
breach  in  spiritual  thought,  perhaps  centuries  old  or  only 
reaching  back  a  few  decades,  which  then  was  regarded 
among  the  infallible  interpretations  by  its  honest  advo- 
cates, but  perhaps  now  held  only  as  matters  of  opinion 
by  the  honest  Bons  of  those  same  advocates.  Conse- 
quently the  very  fact  that  the  denominational  school  is 
here,  bearing  the  stamp  of  a  divisive  element,  although 
it  may  not  give  denominational  instruction  in  the  class 
room,  contradicts  the  unitary  processes  of  present  day 
education  and  raises  at  once  the  question  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  its  continuance  as  a  denominational  school. 

Times  have  changed.  Severity  has  been  taken  out  of 
most  denominational  teaching,  but  there  is  always  a  rigid 
side  to  denominationalism.  Canon  B.  H.  Streeter  says, 
"A  century  ago  we  were  all  eyes  for  the  errors  of  every 
religious  body  but  our  own;  to-day  we  are  recognizing 
the  truth  in  one  another's  positions;  but  there  is  one 

*Butler*s  "Meaning  of  Education,"  p.   17. 


294         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

more  stage,  and  that  is  for  each  to  awaken  to  the  errors 
in  his  own  views — this  is  the  hardest  stage  of  all."* 
We  can  approach  this  stage  more  satisfactorily  if  we 
attempt  to  approach  the  error  that  is  common  to  us  all 
rather  than  touching  some  distinctive  position  that  may 
have  lost  its  interest  to  other  denominations,  but  is  still 
sacredly  guarded  by  the  denomination  that  originated 
it  or  restated  it.  The  common  error  is  the  denomina- 
tional school.  That  it  has  grown  in  efficiency  and  in  gen- 
eral fellowship  with  the  schools  of  other  denominations 
is  apparent  to  all  students  of  social  problems.  Neverthe- 
less its  system  of  education,  being  conducted  upon  a  di- 
visive principle,  will  train  some  temperaments  to  the 
severity  of  the  original  advocates,  such  as  those  extremes 
that  may  now  be  found  in  all  denominations,  while  other 
temperaments  yield  to  the  broadening  influences  of  gen- 
eral education  and  are  fellows  with  those  of  other  de- 
nominations as  far  as  their  denominational  traditions 
will  let  them  go.  If  we  find  an  educational  system  that 
pushes  an  individual  away  from  his  fellows,  let  us  not 
deceive  ourselves  by  thinking  that  that  system  of  train- 
ing has  in  it  high  merits  of  education.  Such  a  system 
always  stands  for  a  fundamental  error  and  always  will 
so  stand. 

The  function  which  education  has  to  discharge  is,  ac- 
cording to  Herbert  Spencer,  "to  prepare  us  for  complete 
living."!  No  institution  that  represents  a  party  in 
Christendom,  such  as  a  denominational  school,  can  aid 
to  his  fullest  development  a  student  whose  duties  are  in- 
herently to  all  Christendom  in  particular  and  to  society 
in  general.  That  individual  has  in  him  latent  powers 
with  the  possibilities  of  adjustment  to  the  highest  de- 
mands of  God  and  his  fellows.  Consequently  develop- 
ment is  a  necessity  for  the  completion  of  manhood  and 
education  is  the  normal  aid  to  that  development.    It  is 


*Streeter's   "Restatement    and    Reunion,"   p.    58. 
tSpencer's   "Education,"   p.    44. 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  295 

not  enough  that  one  should  be  prepared  for  the  other 
world;  he  must  be  prepared  for  complete  living  here. 
That  is  the  purpose  of  human  life  as  clearly  as  apple 
blossoms  are  the  antecedents  of  apples.  Jesus  says,  "Ye 
therefore  shall  be  perfect  as  your  heavenly  Father  is 
perfect."*  We  are  developed  into  perfect  living  in  our 
sphere  of  human  life  as  God  is  perfect  in  His  sphere  of 
divine  life;  and,  out  of  our  perfect  human  life  we  will 
come  into  the  perfection  of  divine  life,  as  the  perfect 
apple  blossoms  develop  into  perfect  apples,  or  as  the 
perfect  child  develops  into  the  perfect  man. 

Life  at  best  is  difficult.  There  must  be  an  unfettered 
educational  system — unfettered  by  party  attitudes  and 
divisive  approaches — if  we  are  to  find  the  art  of  adjust- 
ment to  the  spiritual  necessities  of  mankind  for  growth 
into  the  ideals  of  complete  living.  Education  is  to  train 
the  individual  away  from  the  incomplete  into  the  com- 
plete, so  that  breaking  with  the  past  is  as  necessary  as 
union  with  the  future.  In  the  process  individuals  grow 
into  helping  others  to  find  how  to  grow  away  from  the 
incomplete  into  the  complete.  Education  is  to  remove 
those  barriers,  which  hinder  cooperation,  and  is  not  to 
maintain  them.  Most  of  our  theological  barriers  are 
fictitious,  certainly  among  Protestants.  There  is  not  a 
Protestant  theological  seminary  now,  either  in  this  coun- 
try or  abroad,  but  would  produce  better  ministers  if  the 
outstanding  Protestant  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures 
were  taught  under  the  same  roof  by  those  who  are  the 
advocates  of  those  interpretations  instead  of  separating 
students  to  one  interpretation  and  giving  the  other  in- 
terpretations at  second  hand,  which  is  as  uncomfortable 
to  the  student's  thought  as  second-hand  clothes  are  to 
his  body.  To  say  the  least  such  a  method  would  tone 
down  many  of  our  Protestant  interpretations  that  need 
toning  down  to  find  a  normal  adjustment.     The  same 

*Matt.   5:48. 


296         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

principle  applies  to  Roman  Catholicism.  Protestants 
will  never  understand  Eoman  Catholicism  nor  will  the 
Eoman  Catholics  ever  understand  Protestantism  until 
the  schools  of  each  are  open  to  both.  However  independ- 
ent and  arrogant  toward  each  other  now,  both  of  these 
interpretations  need  each  other. 

"  Truth  has  nothing  to  fear  in  mingling  with  unbeliev- 
ers, much  less  with  believers.  It  is  the  divine  method  of 
its  transmission  and  it  mingles  better  in  human  flesh 
than  in  books.  Jesus  went  Himself  among  the  people  and 
left  no  commentaries,  but  left  His  life,  and  the  spirit  of 
a  message  is  seen  in  the  conduct  and  behavior  of  its  ad- 
herents far  more  than  in  its  theological  statements.  Uni- 
versal fellowship  with  the  saints  is  the  model  of  God, 
while  exclusiveness  is  the  den  of  provincialism  and  sec- 
tarianism. It  cannot  be  true  that  associating  with  other 
denominations  destroys  the  truth  of  another.  It  may  de- 
stroy its  narrowness  and  shame  its  sectarianism,  but  to 
its  truth  is  given  vision  and  vitality.  He  who  has  con- 
victions can  mingle  with  all  Christians  and  retain  those 
convictions  as  certainly  as,  mingling  with  the  thousands 
on  the  street,  he  keeps  his  individual  name.  The  scourge 
of  a  message  that  has  in  it  the  call  of  Grod  is  giving  to  it 
a  contracted  horizon  and  making  it  provincial  [as  every 
denominational  school  must  do].  It  is  the  violation  of  a 
divine  principle,  for  the  atmosphere  of  provincialism  is 
as  repulsive  as  the  musty  smell  of  an  ill-ventilated 
room."*  It  is  abandoning  the  sunshine  of  the  great  uni- 
versal world  for  indoor  light. 

The  world  abounds  in  cleavages — cleavages  of  race, 
nation,  religion,  creed  and  class.  It  is  the  function  of 
education  to  span  these  cleavages,  making  a  highway  to 
the  brotherhood  of  humanity.  The  denominational  school 
stands  for  the  cleavage  of  creeds,  whether  those  creeds 
are  written  or  unwritten,  and  consequently  it  cannot 


'Ainslie's  "Message  of  the  Disciples  for  the  Union  of  the  Church,"  p.  40. 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  297 

function  in  this  task  beyond  the  cry  of  the  prisoner  for 
freedom.  No  man  can  teach  complete  living  unless  he  is 
approaching  it  himself,  unfettered  by  denominational 
barriers.  Whatever  this  generation  may  be  it  owes  its 
debt  of  unitary  processes  in  education  to  the  next  gener- 
ation, if  the  path  of  mankind  is  to  go  upward  toward 
God. 

Present  day  education  needs  religion.  I  do  not  refer 
so  much  to  a  deepening  sense  of  the  recognition  of  God 
by  both  faculties  and  students,  although  this  is  evident, 
but  education  is  going  wild  over  efficiency  to  the  frequent 
loss  of  personality.  The  tendency  is  to  put  production 
over  humanity.  A  crass  materialism  is  crowding  spirit- 
uality to  the  wall,  but  the  voices  of  the  prophets  of  social 
adjustment  and  common  betterment  are  being  heard  in 
the  great  universities  as  well  as  in  the  smaller  colleges. 
The  chief  question  remains — not,  What  have  men 
learned  1  but,  What  have  men  become  ?  It  is  the  individ- 
ual 's  being  something  himself  that  is  the  great  and  only 
permanent  achievement.  This  cannot  be  carried  to  its 
fullest  development  without  the  freest  training  of  the  in- 
tellect and  the  emotions  and  the  will.  Keligion  has  its  op- 
portunity here,  but  the  denominational  school  is  too 
archaic  an  institution  to  function.  Eeligion  in  it  is  fre- 
quently below  that  of  the  great  universities  and  the  rea- 
son for  this  is  not  difficult  to  find.  Hugh  Black  says,  "I 
found  a  greater  appreciation  of  religious  matters  and 
interest  in  them  in  the  state  universities  than  in  the  de- 
nominational colleges."*  Others  have  borne  similar 
testimony. 

Politically  we  would  not  tolerate  here  in  America  the 
building  up  by  Italians,  Eussians,  Germans,  French,  Jap- 
anese and  other  nations  of  schools  in  their  communities 
in  which  to  teach  their  national  traditions  and  national 
peculiarities  over  all  other  interests.    It  would  disrupt 

*Athearn's  "Religious  Education  and  American  Democracy,"  p.  261. 


298         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  American  republic  in  a  generation.  Yet  this  is  what 
we  are  doing  educationally  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  The 
denominational  school  is  the  denial  of  unity,  which  is  es- 
sential to  life :  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  advertisement 
of  discord  and  competition,  which  are  the  elements  of 
death.  Happily  the  tide  is  turning  away  from  the  denom- 
inational school  as  it  is  from  the  denominational  paper, 
so  that  what  the  denominational  school  refused  to  lead 
the  denomination  to  do,  a  mysterious  hand  appears  to  be 
guiding  in  doing ;  and  that  tide  will  never  flow  back  in  the 
opinion  of  many.  So  the  hopeful  condition  as  regards 
both  education  and  religion  is  that  the  denominational 
school  has  seen  its  best  days  irrespective  of  its  increasing 
endowments.  Thought  is  a  more  powerful  factor  than 
money,  and  present  day  thought  is  certainly  turning 
away  from  the  denominational  school,  and  rightly  too. 
Many  of  these  schools  in  overcrowded  centers  could  be 
sold  to  the  advantage  of  mankind  and  the  glory  of  God ; 
others  could  be  interdenominationalized  so  as  not  to  re- 
flect merely  one  interpretation  of  Christianity,  but  the 
whole,  as  is  being  done  in  many  instances  in  foreign  mis- 
sionary work.  Standing  apart,  however,  as  they  are, 
their  messages  to  the  world  are  neither  healthy  nor  hope- 
ful. 

The  presence  of  the  denominational  school  in  present 
day  education  therefore  is  a  fundamental  error  because : 

1.  It  follows  the  prejudices  of  the  denomination  and 
reflects  its  general  thought,  whereas  the  function  of  a 
school  is  to  lead  the  people  and  to  direct  the  general 
thought  of  the  community. 

2.  It  is  too  much  absorbed  in  its  own  denominational 
programme  at  the  exclusion  of  the  programmes  of  other 
denominations  and  therefore  is  concerned  with  only  a 
part  of  the  Church — and  necessarily  a  small  part  at  that 
— whereas  the  function  of  a  school  is  to  cultivate  an  ideal- 
ism that  is  above  all  divisions,  whether  those  divisions 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  299 

be  Christian  denominations  or  political  parties,  and  to 
give  itself  to  making  practical  its  ideals. 

3.  It  teaches  loyalty  to  the  denomination  and  attempts 
to  establish  a  denominational  conscience,  whereas  the 
function  of  a  school  is  to  teach  loyalty  to  society  and  to 
establish  a  conscience  so  thoroughly  Christian  as  to  in- 
clude the  whole  Church. 

4.  It  seeks  to  conserve  the  power  acquired  by  its  stu- 
dents for  the  use  of  its  denomination  and  to  make  more 
evident  the  importance  of  its  denomination  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  whereas  the  function  of  a  school  is  to  con- 
serve the  power  of  its  students  for  the  good  of  society  and 
to  make  more  evident  the  blessings  of  education. 

5.  It  is  concerned  with  the  rights  of  its  denomination 
and  the  place  of  its  denomination  in  religious  affairs, 
whereas  the  function  of  a  school  is  to  emphasize  duties 
to  others  and  service  to  the  community  in  general. 

6.  It  perpetuates  division  in  the  Church  and  attempts 
to  make  sacred  the  divisions  of  Christendom  as  though 
they  were  from  God,  whereas  the  function  of  a  school  is 
to  unify  the  interests  of  mankind  and  to  establish  the 
principles  of  cooperation. 

Many  of  the  denominational  schools  are  growing  to- 
ward the  schools  in  other  denominations.  They  are  try- 
ing to  escape  the  tragedy  of  uneducational  functioning 
in  which  they  are  involved.  Like  long  ago  abandoned 
pedagogical  methods  in  education,  the  denominational 
school  is  passing  and  must  absolutely  pass  away  in  order 
that  the  coming  generations  may  have  fairer  chances  for 
their  social  adjustments  and  spiritual  possibilities. 
George  A.  Coe  says,  "The  standpoint  of  Christianity, 
moreover,  is  that  of  wholeness  of  life,  from  which  no 
human  good  can  be  excluded."*  The  denominational 
school  cannot  function  in  the  wholeness  of  things  because 
it  essentially  stands  for  only  a  part — whether  it  be  the 


^Coe's  "Education  in  Religion  and  Morals,"  p.   7. 


300         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

four  denominations  referred  to  in  the  opening  of  this 
paper  or  to  the  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  according  to 
the  United  States  census  table.  It  is  an  error  in  educa- 
tion and  is  therefore  unfair  to  religion  and  morals  and 
unfair  to  the  present  generation  which  faces  great  evils 
over  against  which  stands  the  denominational  school, 
through  which  the  highest  expressions  of  religion  and 
morals  cannot  function  because  of  its  divisive  capacity 
and  schismatic  nature. 

An  institution  may  serve  one  generation  acceptably, 
but  that  is  no  reason  that  it  is  to  serve  all  generations. 
Things  that  have  been  proper  at  one  time  have  become 
improper  at  other  times,  and  things  that  have  been  tol- 
erated in  one  period,  perhaps  warmly  defended  by  some, 
have  been  entirely  abolished  in  other  periods.  Because 
an  institution  has  become  established  in  the  thought  and 
affections  of  a  respectable  group  or  groups  is  no  reason 
for  its  perpetuity.  I  am  not  detracting  from  any  good 
that  the  denominational  school  has  done  in  the  past.  Cir- 
cumstances in  many  instances  were  such  that  there  would 
have  been  no  school  at  all  in  some  communities  if  it  had 
not  been  denominational,  but  that  day  has  gone.  An- 
other day  is  here.  Prejudice,  always  unreasonable,  has 
been  in  many  instances  in  the  past  so  unreasonable  that 
only  a  denominational  school  could  get  financial  support, 
for  the  money  in  the  Church  has  usually  been  in  the 
hands  of  its  most  conservative  or  sectarian  elements. 
This  financial  support  in  turn  gave  a  certain  rigidity  to 
the  standards  of  the  school  perhaps  unconsciously. 

But  the  rigidity  of  orthodoxy  is  the  inevitable  cause 
of  heresy  and  schism,  so  that  the  ordinary  method  pur- 
sued to  establish  excessive  verbal  orthodoxy  not  only  de- 
feats its  end  of  making  the  whole  community  orthodox, 
but  produces  heresy  and  schism.  Orthodoxy  and  catho- 
licity rivalled  each  other  for  centuries  until  they  sepa- 
rated— one  into  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  and  the 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  301 

other  into  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church.  This  made  a 
definite  epoch  in  the  rise  of  sectarian  theology,  which 
developed  rapidly  following  the  Council  of  Trent.  Ar- 
thur C.  Headlam  says,  referring  to  this  Council,  "A  wise 
observer  is  reported  to  have  said  that  by  the  institution 
of  ecclesiastical  seminaries  the  Council  exercised  greater 
influence  than  by  any  other  of  its  decrees."*  That  may 
be  true,  but  as  the  Greek  and  Latin  forms  of  Christianity 
became  finally  stereotyped  in  consequence  of  their  divi- 
sion, the  many  divisions  in  Protestantism  likewise  became 
stereotyped,  not  so  rigidly  perhaps  as  those  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  forms,  but  nevertheless  stereotyped,  and  the 
greatest  factor  to  maintain  this  stereotyped  condition  is 
the  denominational  school.  Since  then  the  denomina- 
tional school  is  the  product  of  medieval  thinking  and  at 
the  same  time  is  divisive  in  character,  necessarily  main- 
taining in  most  instances  stereotyped  attitudes,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  as  an  educational  institution  it  can 
and  ought  to  be  abolished.  This  does  not  call  for  the 
closing  at  once  of  all  the  denominational  schools.  Only 
those  need  to  be  closed  that  are  in  close  proximity  to 
other  schools  and  the  other  denominational  schools  need 
to  be  interdenominationalized.  This  could  be  handled 
by  a  commission  on  Christian  education. 

An  interdenominationalized  policy  would  mean  that 
the  whole  Christian  sentiment  of  the  community  would 
be  represented  on  the  board  of  trustees  and  in  the  faculty, 
not  with  any  denomination's  predominating  and  there- 
fore controlling,  but  with  all  sharing  equally  in  the  re- 
sponsibility of  its  conduct  and  in  the  interpretation  of  its 
message.  The  only  barrier  to  this  policy  is  sectarianism 
with  its  distrust  of  those  in  other  denominations,  with  its 
fictitious  attitudes  toward  others  and  with  its  belated 
sense  of  its  own  infallibility.  Consequently  it  will  doubt- 
less be  hard  in  many  instances  for  the  denominations  to 


♦Headlam's  "Doctrine  of  the  Church  and  Christian  Reunion,"  p.  203. 


302         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

let  go,  but  the  conscience  of  the  Church  must  be  so  trained 
that  it  will  be  uncomfortable  for  any  one  denomination 
to  hold  with  pride  the  exclusive  control  of  any  one  school ; 
likewise  to  be  uncomfortable  for  trustees  to  hold  their 
places  on  boards  of  denominational  schools  and  teachers 
to  hold  their  places  in  faculties  of  denominational  schools, 
where  all  are  members  of  one  denomination.  I  wish  my 
own  denomination  would  feel  this  sense  of  shame  of  this 
whole  condition  and  therefore  venture  toward  this  ideal. 
There  must  be  such  an  interdenominationalizing  policy 
as  to  lose  sight  of  the  denomination  in  educational  train- 
ing in  order  that  Christ  may  be  lifted  up  above  all  parties 
and  all  creeds.  Theological  seminaries  would  perhaps 
have  more  difficulty  in  making  adjustments,  but  this  is 
by  no  means  an  impossibility.  If  the  various  systems  of 
interpretation  cannot  be  adjusted  and  some  one  denom- 
ination contends  that  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  be  wrong, 
then  we  face  the  alternative  of  one  or  the  other  being 
false  or  the  still  severer  verdict,  which  the  world  is  slowly 
accumulating,  that  both  are  false,  but  adjustment  is  pos- 
sible where  there  is  freedom  and  truth.  This  adjustment 
could  begin  by  having  representatives  of  other  denom- 
inations to  be  members  of  the  faculty  for  short  periods 
with  the  same  freedom  of  instruction  as  the  denomination 
in  control.  Finding  this  to  be  the  more  scientific  method 
of  procedure  than  the  present  method  permanent  places 
would  be  given  in  the  faculty  and  on  the  board  of  trus- 
tees until  the  theological  seminary  came  to  be  distinc- 
tively Christian,  representing  the  whole  Church  instead 
of  a  denomination  and  therefore  representing  only  a  part. 
The  Church  is  waiting  for  such  a  constructive  policy  in 
order  to  witness  to  the  world  the  oneness  of  the  disciples 
of  our  common  Lord.  The  denominations  are  able  to 
make  this  offering  in  the  home  land  as  they  are  making 
it  to  some  degree  on  the  foreign  field  and  the  altar  is  the 
common  service  to  our  fellows  for  the  glory  of  God. 


DENOMINATIONAL     SCHOOL  303 

Customs,  traditions,  property  holdings,  charter  re- 
strictions, endowments  and  a  score  of  other  apparent 
hindrances  stalk  across  our  approaches,  but  where  there 
is  a  will  there  is  a  way;  besides  these  difficulties  have 
been  adjusted  in  former  union  movements,  such  as  the 
union  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterians  with  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.,  the  union  in  Scotland  and 
in  other  instances.  No  greater  need  ever  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  Church  than  the  necessity  of  these  times  to 
interdenominationalize  the  educational  system  of  the 
Church  and  give  to  education  the  Christian  vision,  the 
Christian  adjustment,  the  Christian  fellowship  and  the 
Christian  wholeness  of  life. 

This  day  is  calling  us  to  repair  the  breaches  of  the 
past,  to  revise  our  convictions  as  to  the  realities  of  life, 
to  set  up  standards  that  have  in  them  the  ethical  instincts 
of  the  Gospel,  to  abandon  fictitious  attitudes  regarding 
race,  nation,  creed  and  class,  to  use  the  spiritual  weapons 
of  divine  grace  in  our  daily  warfare  and  to  interpret  love 
to  sinners  and  saints  in  the  humility  and  gentleness  of 
Christ  in  order  that  we  who  believe  may  be  able  to  pre- 
sent the  mind  of  Christ  to  a  weary  world.  There  is  not 
a  denominational  school  on  the  globe  that  alone  can  do 
this.  The  wholeness  of  the  Church  is  the  heavenly  view- 
point for  the  ministering  of  the  whole  Gospel  to  the  whole 
world. 

Education  must  lead  us  to  the  fulfilment  of  those 
noble  ideals  for  which  we  hunger  and  which  are  beauti- 
fully expressed  by  Wordsworth  when  he  says, 

"We  live  by  admiration,  hope  and  love, 
And  as  these  are  well  and  wisely  placed, 
In  dignity  of  being  we  ascend.' ' 

It  is  admiration  for  the  true  and  the  universal;  it  is 
hope  for  the  ethical  use  of  the  five  senses  and  the  spirit- 
ual development  of  every  possibility  within;  it  is  love  for 


304         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

the  widening  of  the  horizon,  refusing  to  be  provincialized 
by  the  petty  things  of  religious  denominations,  political 
parties  or  national  affairs  and  abolishing  all  hindrances 
to  the  wider  fellowship  with  all  mankind.  The  promise 
of  Jesus  still  lies  upon  the  conscience  of  a  waiting  world : 
i 'Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you 
free."* 

Peter  Ainslie. 

Christian  Temple, 
Baltimore,  Md. 

THE  GOLDEN  AGE 

The  golden  age  will  dawn 
When  man  shall  dare  to  be 
From  false  ambition  free, 
His  goal  the  truth; 
When  every  youth 
Shall  seek,  not  wealth  and  fame, 
But  this — a  spotless  name. 
Eighteousness  shall  be  bold 
In  that  fair  age  of  gold. 

The  golden  age  will  come 
When  men  shall  work  for  joy; 
When  each  shall  find  employ 
Suited  to  each; 
When  toil  shall  teach, 
Not  bring  the  soul  disgust; 
Men  will  not  hear,  ' '  Thou  must ! ' ' 
Labor  will  not  be  sold, 
In  that  bright  age  of  gold. 

The  golden  age  on  earth 

Will  be  a  time  of  peace; 

The  wars  of  greed  shall  eease; 

Envy  shall  fail, 

Mercy  prevail; 

Creeds  shall  not  separate; 

Caste  shall  be  out  of  date; 

Love  shall  all  hearts  enfold 

In  that  fair  age  of  gold. 

— Thomas  Curtis  Clark. 

•John  8:32. 


EDITORIAL 


THE  ST.  LOUIS  CONFERENCE 

The  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  that  all  the 
Christian  unity  movements  were  "brought  together  on 
one  platform  was  at  the  St.  Louis  Conference  on  Chris- 
tian Unity,  held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Association  for 
the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity,  February  2-4,  1921. 
The  mere  fact  of  the  Conference  was  of  itself  significant 
and  the  addresses  abounded  in  courtesy,  good-will  and 
prophetic  vision.  Hasty  preparation,  for  the  middle 
west  only,  covering  six  weeks,  brought  together  repre- 
sentatives from  twenty-two  communions  from  eighteen 
states,  some  traveling  more  than  a  thousand  miles. 

Heretofore  Christian  unity  conferences  have  been 
made  up  of  carefully  selected  groups.  These  would 
spend  days  together  seeking  adjustment.  Much  fine 
work  has  been  done  by  these  selected  groups.  Misunder- 
standings have  been  removed  and  appreciation  of  the 
other  man's  position  has  been  so  satisfactorily  revised 
as  to  make  less  difficult  approaches  toward  closer  fellow- 
ship. But  the  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Chris- 
tian Unity  felt  that  the  time  had  come  to  make  a  venture 
in  taking  this  problem  to  the  people  for  free  and  frank 
discussion,  so  that  in  the  instance  of  the  St.  Louis  Con- 
ference on  Christian  Unity  all  Christians — Eastern  Or- 
thodox, Roman  Catholic,  Episcopal  and  Protestant — 
were  not  only  invited  to  attend,  but  to  share  in  the  dis- 
cussions on  the  floor  of  the  Conference — not  to  debate 
with  one  side  attempting  to  prove  that  the  other  side  is 
wrong,  but  to  confer  relative  to  our  divisions  and  to  be 
free  to  seek  for  the  path  that  leads  to  reconciliation  in  the 
Church  of  Christ.  Courtesy  and  tolerance  and  freedom 
marked  every  session  throughout  the  three  days.     The 


306         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

daily  press  gave  satisfactory  reports  and  the  Associated 
Press  asked  for  more  copy  to  be  sent  throughout  the 
country  after  being  served  with  what  the  secretary 
thought  was  sufficient. 

The  programme  was  very  simple.  The  president  of 
the  Association,  Dr.  Ainslie,  outlined  the  scope  and  sig- 
nificance of  the  Conference.  Then  followed  eight  brief 
addresses  in  answer  to  the  question  "What  Does  My  De- 
nomination Mean  by  'the  Church'  and  'Church  Unity' f" 
The  order  of  these  answers  was  as  follows :  Rev.  Edmund 
Duckworth  for  the  Protestant  Episcopalians,  Eev.  C.  B. 
Spencer  for  the  Methodists,  Rev.  John  Baltzer  for  the 
Evangelicals,  Rev.  W.  E.  Wheeler  for  the  United  Luther- 
ans, Rev.  S.  H.  Woodrow  for  the  Congregationalists, 
Rev.  B.  P.  Fullerton  for  the  Presbyterians,  Rev.  P.  W. 
Burnham  for  the  Disciples  and  Rev.  W.  H.  Geistweit  for 
the  Baptists.  These  statements  were  referred  to  the 
committee  on  findings  and  that  report  will  be  found  in 
the  printed  proceedings  of  the  Conference. 

Then  came  the  outstanding  movements  for  unity.  The 
Lambeth  Appeal  was  presented  by  Rt.  Rev.  Ethelbert 
Talbot,  bishop  of  Bethlehem,  and  responded  to  by  Rev. 
George  A.  Campbell  of  St.  Louis.  The  World  Conference 
on  Faith  and  Order  was  presented  by  Mr.  Robert  H. 
Gardiner,  Gardiner,  Me.,  the  secretary  of  the  World  Con- 
ference. The  American  Council  on  Organic  Union  of 
Evangelical  Protestants  was  presented  by  Mr.  Henry  W. 
Jessup,  New  York,  who  was  largely  responsible  for  the 
framing  of  this  plan.  The  World  Alliance  for  Promoting 
International  Friendship  through  the  Churches  was  pre- 
sented by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Boynton,  New  York,  chairman 
of  the  executive  committee  of  the  Alliance.  The  Fed- 
eral Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America  was 
presented  by  Rev.  Charles  S.  Macfarland,  New  York, 
secretary  of  the  Federal  Council.     The  Universal  Con- 


THE     ST.     LOUIS     CONFEEENCE  307 

ference  of  the  Church  of  Christ  on  Life  and  "Work  was 
presented  by  Rev.  Frederick  Lynch,  New  York,  one  of 
the  secretaries  of  the  Universal  Conference.  The  men 
who  spoke  for  these  organizations  were  not  only  officially 
identified  with  these  organizations,  but  in  most  instances 
were  the  chief  officials.  These  movements  represented 
the  theological,  ethical  and  social  approaches  to  Chris- 
tian unity.  They  supplement  each  other  for  Christian 
unity  needs  all  these  approaches.  Following  each  pres- 
entation two  hours  were  given  for  questions  and  dis- 
cussion. 

In  addition  there  were  five  addresses  dealing  with 
Christian  unity  from  the  general  viewpoint.  Canon 
Samuel  McComb,  Baltimore,  spoke  on  "Causes  of  Dis- 
union and  the  Path  to  Reconciliation/'  Rev.  Arthur  J. 
Brown,  New  York,  on  "Christian  Unity  on  the  Foreign 
Mission  Fields,"  Rt.  Rev.  Nicholai  Velimirovic,  bishop  of 
Serbia,  on  "The  Call  of  a  United  Church  in  Europe," 
Rev.  Frederick  Lynch,  and  Rev.  Nehemiah  Boynton  on 
' '  Christian  Unity  and  the  Present  World  Situation. ' '  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  all  of  the  addresses  of  the  Confer- 
ence were  of  the  highest  order  and  deserve  wide  reading 
by  those  who  could  not  attend.  Bishop  Nicholai 's  contri- 
bution, rich  in  mystical  interpretation  and  bold  in 
heroic  challenge,  came  with  unusual  force  to  an  audience 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

The  spirit  of  the  Conference  included  the  whole  Church 
and  bore  a  concern  for  the  redemption  of  the  whole 
world.  W7hether  men  prayed  or  spoke  the  dominating 
thought  was  for  a  genuine  brotherhood  among  all  Chris- 
tian believers.  Denominational  barriers  never  seemed 
so  superficial  as  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  Conference. 
There  was  a  conscious  hunger  in  the  souls  of  many  for 
something  beyond  this  divisive  condition  with  its  multi- 
plicity of  unbrotherly  attitudes.    Men  spoke  with  a  cer- 


308         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

tainty  of  their  faith  in  the  fulfilment  of  our  Lord's 
prayers  for  the  oneness  of  His  disciples.  There  are  dif- 
ficulties to  brotherhood  but  God's  creative  power  in  us 
will  be  sufficient  to  lead  us  to  overcome  every  difficulty. 
It  is  not  our  choice,  but  instead  is  our  necessity.  There 
can  be  no  spiritual  growth  except  it  be  both  toward  God 
and  toward  all  who  confess  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord  and 
Saviour.  Leaving  out  a  part  is  hurtful  to  all.  There 
must  be  one  flock  as  there  is  one  Shepherd. 

No  resolutions  were  passed  by  the  Conference  except 
a  resolution  of  sympathy  for  our  suffering  brethren  of 
the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church  in  Russia.  The  purpose  of 
the  Conference  was  to  awaken  a  Christian  unity  con- 
science over  the  denominational  conscience,  thereby  in- 
cluding the  whole  Church  in  our  thought,  rather  than  a 
minority  part,  which  is  the  realm  of  the  denominational 
conscience.  The  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Chris- 
tian Unity,  Baltimore,  Md.,  is  dealing  not  so  much  with 
a  plan  for  union  as  a  method  toward  union  and  that 
method  is  intercessory  prayer,  friendly  conferences  and 
the  distribution  of  irenic  literature.  The  St.  Louis  Con- 
ference was  the  first  attempt  in  its  programme  for  an 
open  conference  and  it  was  abundantly  satisfactory. 
The  week  following  a  similar  conference  was  held  in 
Dallas,  Texas,  although  not  so  large,  and  others  will 
follow  as  opportunity  and  means  are  provided.  The 
day  has  come  when  Christian  unity  must  be  the  problem 
of  every  Christian  and  then  the  problem  will  be  solved. 


WHAT  PEOPLE   AND   PAPERS 
ARE  SAYING  ABOUT  UNITY 


The  St.  Louis  Conference  on  Christian  Unity  was  one  of 
the  most  significant  Christian  gatherings  of  the  year. 
The  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  the  leading  morning  pa- 
per of  that  city,  contained  more  than  half  a  column  edito- 
rial on  the  Conference  a  few  days  before  it  convened  and 
nearly  a  column  editorial  at  the  close  of  the  Conference, 
besides  a  satisfactory  write-up  each  day  during  the  Con- 
ference. The  following  excerpt  is  taken  from  the  first 
editorial : 

Whatever  may  be  the  objections  offered  to  the  movement  for  Chris- 
tian unity,  the  mere  fact  of  movement  is  proof  of  life,  its  energy  is 
proof  of  vigor,  and  its  broad  sweep  is  proof  of  power.  Nor  can  it 
hardly  be  denied  that  a  movement  that  seeks  to  bring  separate,  con- 
flicting and  often  opposing  elements  into  common  accord  for  a  common 
purpose  fundamental  to  all,  is  progressive.  There  is  no  Christian  de- 
nomination that  does  not  exist  for  the  promotion  of  the  cause  of  Christ. 
In  all  the  diversities  of  Christian  belief  that  purpose  is  primary.  It  is 
a  fairly  well-established  rule  in  human  affairs  that  more  can  be  accom- 
plished for  the  general  welfare  by  collective  than  by  individual  action. 
The  Church  in  itself,  every  Church,  is  a  recognition  of  that  rule  and  an 
organization  in  conformity  with  it.  That  assumes  no  lessening  of  indi- 
vidual power  or  of  individual  responsibility,  but  it  does  assume  that  peo- 
ple who  have  the  same  fundamental  desires  and  purposes  can  do  more 
for  their  attainment  by  working  together  than  by  working  each  to  him- 
self. In  every  group  of  people  brought  together  for  the  accomplishment 
of  certain  aims  there  are  personal  differences  of  disposition,  tempera- 
ment, heredity  and  tradition,  from  which  varying  views  arise.  But  if 
they  are  agreed  as  to  the  particular  purpose  for  which  they  unite,  and 
can  work  together  for  the  attainment  of  that  purpose,  they  can  achieve 
without  the  sacrifice  of  any  essential  of  individuality.  And  so  the  in- 
dividual differences  among  the  Churches  ought  not  to  present  an  insu- 
perable obstacle  to  their  getting  together  for  the  general  advancement 
of  the  cause  of  Jesus  Christ.  Yet  therein  is  the  great  difficulty.  It  is 
just  these  individual  differences  that  have  so  far  prevented  the  con- 
summation of  any  sort  of  unity.  But  when  many  preachers  and  eminent 
laymen  of  all  denominations  can  get  together  again  and  again  to  talk 
about  unity,  and  when  they  continue  to  do  so  undiscouraged  after  re- 
peated failures  to  accomplish  it,  the  prospect  of  ultimate  success  upon 
some  basis  of  effective  cooperation  is  hardly  to  be  doubted. 

In  the  second  editorial  it  is  said, 

In  closing  its  fruitful  session  the  Conference  on  Christian  Unity,  held 
the  past  week  in  St.  Louis,  concentrated  its  thought  on  international 
good  will.    Good  will  toward  men  is  both  the  foundation  and  the  essence 


310         THE     CHEISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

of  Christianity,  and  there  is  no  boundary  to  its  application.  It  begins 
in  the  home,  it  extends  to  the  neighbors,  and  it  goes  on,  if  it  is  truly 
Christian,  in  ever-widening  circles  to  embrace  all  humanity.  But  human 
nature  finds  it  hard  to  project  good  will  beyond  the  individual  horizon, 
because  the  other  side  of  the  horizon  is  unknown  or  little  known,  and 
the  unknown  is  always  an  object  of  doubt,  of  suspicion,  and  therefore  of 
opposition  and  enmity.  *  *  *  We  are  mistrusted  by  many  because 
they  do  not  know  us,  and  we  mistrust  them  because,  primarily,  we  do 
not  know  them.  Out  of  this  mistrust  and  misunderstanding  grow  more 
occasions  for  war  than  from  any  other  cause.  What  is  needed  by  the 
world  is  a  better  understanding  among  its  peoples,  through  a  closer 
international  cooperation  for  the  common  advancement.  The  League  of 
Nations  should  contribute  potently  to  such  an  understanding  and  the 
consequent  feeling  of  good  will,  but  there  should  be  behind  it,  or,  rather, 
beneath  it,  as  its  foundation,  a  public  spirit  in  every  country  support- 
ing and  aiding  in  the  enlargement  of  international  understanding.  To 
that  end  all  Christianity  should  work  together,  for  Christianity  is  essen- 
tially international,  and  it  is  unquestionably  the  greatest  power  in  the 
world  for  the  advancement  of  human  welfare.  The  angels  that  sang  over 
Bethlehem  did  not  sing  peace  on  earth,  good  will  toward  the  Jew  or  the 
Gentile,  toward  Eoman  or  Greek,  toward  American,  or  German,  or 
Frenchman  or  Englishman,  but  toward  men,  all  men,  and  it  is  only 
through  the  breaking  down  of  barriers  of  prejudice  that  separate  men 
that  Christianity  has  progressed  as  far  as  it  has.  Good  will  toward  men 
is  a  Christian  principle  and  a  Christian  duty,  and  Christianity  can  and 
should  lead  toward  the  social  and  political  good  will  which  are  essential 
to  the  establishment  of  peace  on  earth. 

The  Christian  Century,  Chicago,  says, 

It  was  planned  for  the  sessions  to  be  held  in  the  chapel  of  Second  Bap- 
tist Church,  but  at  the  first  session  the  room  overflowed  and  the  assem- 
bly was  moved  to  the  capacious  auditorium,  which  it  came  near  filling. 
At  the  night  sessions  the  house  was  well  filled.  Between  eight  hundred 
and  a  thousand  persons  were  in  attendance.  For  three  days  the  various 
movements  for  Christian  unity  were  interpreted  by  authoritative  spokes- 
men and  discussed  with  great  freedom  from  the  floor. 

This  was  the  first  time  in  American  Church  history  that  a  common 
platform  has  been  provided  for  those  who  from  different  angles  of  ap- 
proach are  working  at  the  task  of  Christian  unity,  to  come  together  for 
comparative  testimony  and  discussion.  In  providing  such  a  platform  the 
Disciples'  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity,  headed  by 
Dr.  Peter  Ainslie  and  Rev.  H.  C.  Armstrong,  has  rendered  a  distinct 
service  to  the  cause  of  unity  and  reflected  credit  upon  the  communion 
which  the  Association  represents.  The  temper  of  all  the  discussions 
lifted  the  great  theme  far  above  the  sectarian  levels  of  controversy  and 
denominational  dogma.  Each  man  came  as  if  saying:  "This  is  my  con- 
viction; I  bear  testimony  to  what  seems  to  me  true.  What  have  you  to 
say  to  it?  And  what  testimony  have  you  to  bear  to  the  conviction  which 
you  cherish?"  A  wider  and  more  sympathetic  mind  was  bound  to  be 
created  in  such  an  atmosphere.  Fellowship  was  discovered  where  with- 
out such  candor  in  conference  none  would  have  seemed  possible. 

The  Christian  Work,  New  York,  Dr.  Lynch  editor,  says, 

Much  of  the  success  of  the  St.  Louis  Conference  was  due  to  two 
facts:     first,  Dr.  Ainslie  got  the  local  Churches  thoroughly  interested  in 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  311 

the  meeting.  A  very  strong  local  committee  was  created  with  Bishop 
Johnson  as  chairman  and  Dr.  Bitting  as  vice-chairman,  Dr.  MacLeod  sec- 
retary and  Dr.  Campbell  treasurer.  Practically  every  communion  in 
the  city  had  a  delegate  on  the  committee.  This  committee  became  the 
host  of  the  guests.  The  delegates  came  from  all  directions  and  were 
cordially  entertained  by  this  committee.  The  other  item  in  the  success 
was  the  care  with  which  the  speakers  were  chosen.  Every  speaker,  with- 
out exception,  was  a  man  of  international  reputation  for  his  interest  and 
work  along  the  lines  of  organic  union  of  the  Churches,  world  cooperation 
of  the  Churches  and  international  good-will.  Thus  the  Lambeth  Appeal 
for  Christian  Unity  was  discussed  by  Dr.  Ethelbert  Talbot,  the  Bishop 
of  Bethlehem.  Bishop  Talbot  is  one  of  the  five  or  six  bishops  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  who  devoted  their  lives  to  the  promotion 
of  Christian  unity  and  he  had  much  to  do  with  creating  the  conditions 
in  the  Anglican  communion  that  made  the  action  at  Lambeth  possible. 
The  response  of  the  other  communions  to  this  Lambeth  Appeal  was 
most  happily  voiced  by  Dr.  George  A.  Campbell,  another  outstanding 
member  of  the  school  of  the  prophets.  These  two  remarkable  statements 
were  followed  by  an  address  by  Canon  McComb  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Maryland,  which  dealt  with  the  way  to  reconciliation. 

Thursday  was  given  up  to  a  discussion  of  the  various  plans  and  move- 
ments for  Christian  unity  now  before  the  world.  Mr.  Robert  H.  Gar- 
diner, of  Boston,  the  lay  member  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
whose  name  is  known  throughout  the  world  for  his  interest  in  unity,  a 
lawyer  and  business  man  who  is  giving  practically  all  his  time,  thought 
and  money  to  the  movement,  the  man  who  organized  the  great  World 
Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  at  Geneva  last  summer,  was  brought  on 
from  Boston  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Faith  and  Order  movement.  The 
whole  morning  was  given  up  to  conference  between  Mr.  Gardiner  and 
the  audience  with  the  result  that  a  clarity  of  understanding  became  very 
noticeable — one  that  had  not  previously  existed.  Thursday  afternoon 
was  given  over  in  the  same  way  to  a  conference  on  the  American  Coun- 
cil on  Organic  Union  of  Evangelical  Churches,  led  by  Mr.  Henry  W. 
Jessup,  of  New  York,  who  was  the  framer  of  what  has  now  come  to  be 
called  the  ' ' Philadelphia  Plan  of  Union."  On  Thursday  evening  the 
plans  of  union  already  in  operation  in  foreign  missionary  fields  were 
discussed.  Here  again  Dr.  Ainslie  brought  one  of  the  three  men  in  the 
United  States  who  knew  most  about  these  plans  and  who  has  written  a 
great  book  on  this  particular  subject,  Dr.  Arthur  J.  Brown,  Secretary 
of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions.  The  day's  sessions  were 
brought  to  a  close  by  a  remarkable  address  from  the  Rt.  Eev.  Nicholai 
Velimirovic,  the  bishop  of  Serbia,  who  has  just  arrived  in  America  to 
interest  the  American  Churches  in  his  land.  His  address  on  "The  Call 
of  a  United  Church  for  Europe"  was  a  passionate  and  pathetic  plea  for 
fellowship  between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Churches.  One  of  the 
most  significant  signs  of  the  time  is  the  rapidly  growing  acquaintance- 
ship of  these  two  great  branches  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

The  whole  of  Friday  was  turned  over  to  Dr.  Nehemiah  Boynton, 
chairman  of  the  International  Committee  of  "The  World  Alliance  for 
International  Friendship  through  the  Churches,"  Dr.  Macfarland  and 
the  writer,  for  the  discussion  of  Christian  unity  and  the  present  world 
situation.  The  story  of  the  various  movements  and  conferences  pro- 
moted and  conducted  by  the  Federal  Council  and  the  World  Alliance  in 
Europe,  all  of  which  made  for  the  unity  of  the  Churches  of  the  world, 
was  told  with  some  detail  to  the  audience  and  awakened  much  interest 


312         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

and  elicited  many  questions.     The  addresses  of  the  evening  dealt  with 
the  world  problems  facing  the  united  Church. 

One  very  interesting  session  was  given  up  to  representatives  of  nine 
communions,  each  one  of  whom  took  ten  minutes  to  tell  what  his  denom- 
ination meant  when  it  used  the  words  " Church' '  and  " Unity/ '  Doc- 
tors Duckworth,  Spencer,  Baltzer,  Wheeler,  Fritz,  Woodrow,  Fullerton, 
Burnham  and  Geistweit — all  leaders  of  their  denominations  in  the  Mid- 
dle West — contributed  to  a  symposium  that  would  really  be  worth  circu- 
lating as  a  separate  pamphlet. 

The  Christian-Evangelist,  St.  Louis,  says, 

The  conference  was  not  legislative  nor  yet  deliberative.  It  was 
essentially  informational  and  inspirational,  intended  to  instruct  and  to 
produce  conviction.  It  was  informational  in  two  distinct  respects.  By 
papers,  carefully  prepared  by  representatives  of  nine  different  religious 
bodies,  it  was  advised  of  the  attitude  of  these  respective  bodies  on  the 
topic,  "What  Does  My  Denomination  Mean  by  the  Church  and  Chris- 
tian Unity?"  It  was  informational  also  in  that  there  was  presented, 
somewhat  in  detail,  the  genius  and  the  purpose  as  well  as  present  prog- 
ress, of  the  movements  included  in  the  conference.  It  was  inspirational 
in  that  it  squarely  and  optimistically  faced  the  unrest  and  other  ab- 
normal conditions  prevailing  in  the  world,  across  the  waters  as  well  as 
at  home,  in  the  full  belief  that  the  gospel  is  the  power  of  Cod  unto 
social,  industrial,  economic  and  political  salvation  of  nations  as  well  as 
the  individual  salvation  of  men. 

It  was  creative,  as  it  was  hoped  it  would  be;  but,  instead  of  evolving 
plans  it  quickened  conscience.  It  is  believed  that  its  call  will  go 
throughout  the  world — a  call  to  all  who  accept  the  Saviorhood  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  Lordship,  to  awake  to  the  imminent  peril  of  a  disunited 
Church.  Its  every  note  was  one  of  hope  that  with  the  consciences  of 
Christian  peoples  awakened,  there  would  come  the  unfolding  of  plans 
for  the  consummation  of  unity  among  all  believers. 

The  Living  Church,  Milwaukee,  says, 

The  general  impression  made,  one  of  great  hopefulness,  indicates  a 
general  awakening  to  the  need  and  possibility  of  closer  unity  if  not  com- 
plete union.  A  spirit  of  tolerance  and  courtesy  characterized  the  ses- 
sions, which  does  not  mean,  however,  that  there  were  not  at  times  de- 
cidedly sharp  lines  drawn,  or  that  it  was  always  possible  to  avoid  a  sort 
of  religious   "stepping  on  toes." 

The  Evangelical  Herald,  St.  Louis,  says, 

The  plan  of  having  representatives  of  the  different  denominations 
state  their  beliefs  concerning  the  Church  and  Christian  unity  was  car- 
ried out  in  a  most  interesting  manner.  We  believe  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian unity  would  be  greatly  helped  if  duly  authorized  spokesmen  of  the 
different  Churches  would,  as  a  matter  of  general  interdenominational 
information,  state  briefly  in  writing  the  position  held  by  their  Churches 
concerning  such  fundamentals  as  the  person  and  the  work  of  Christ,  the 
nature  and  work  of  the  Church,  the  meaning  of  the  sacraments,  etc.,  as 
well  as  the  most  important  points  of  denominational  polity.  A  com- 
parison of  such  statements  would  show,  we  believe,  that  the  Churches 
are  much  nearer  to  one  another  than  most  of  their  members  imagine. 

Again   and   again   the   discussions  and   discourses   at   the   conference 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPERS     SAY  313 

centered  around  the  ideas  of  Christ's  plan  for  the  Church,  and  the 
Church 's  conception  of  Christ  and  His  work,  as  the  points  where  the 
greatest  difference  of  opinion  seems  to  prevail.  To  the  writer,  however, 
it  seemed  that  there  was  really  not  so  much  difference  of  opinion  as  a 
difference  in  the  expression  of  opinion  concerning  these  Christian  fun- 
damentals. Ecclesiastical  tradition  and  training  have  had  so  strong  an 
influence  upon  the  terms  in  which  we  are  accustomed  to  express  our 
opinions  of  what  we  believe  to  be  true  concerning  the  nature  and  attri- 
butes of  God,  the  person  and  work  of  Christ,  the  character  of  the  Church 
and  its  work  in  the  world,  and  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  it  is 
difficult  for  one  denomination  to  fully  and  clearly  understand  another's 
way  of  looking  at  and  doing  things.  While  it  certainly  is  important  to 
get  the  historical  viewpoint  and  try  to  understand  the  attitude  of  those 
Churches  which  are  largely  governed  by  it,  the  larger  hope  for  unity 
and  final  union  seems  to  us  to  lie  in  the  measure  in  which  the  Churches 
to-day  succeed  in  meeting  the  urgent  and  insistent  demand  for  a  Bibli- 
cal, popular  message  of  social  righteousness. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Sunday  Visitor,  Huntington,  Ind., 
says  editorially, 

A  few  weeks  ago  there  was  held  in  St.  Louis  a  Christian  Unity  Confer- 
ence, the  object  being  to  discuss  ways  and  means  for  the  different  Chris- 
tian sects  to  unite  as  one  Church. 

Every  speaker  at  this  Conference,  and  there  were  many,  deplored  the 
existence  of,  but  had  no  acceptable  remedy  for,  this  "scandal  to  the  un- 
converted. ' ' 

We  quote  briefly  from  the  utterance  of   several   speakers: 

"The  unity  of  the  Church  is  as  fundamental  as  the  death  of  Christ  on 
the  cross  and  His  resurrection  from  the  tomb. ' ' — Rev.  Dr.  Peter  Ainslie,  of 
Baltimore,  Md. 

This  minister  is  right,  because  Christ  Himself  declared  that  unity  of  be- 
lief and  practice  among  His  professed  followers  would  be  proof  that  He 
was  divine.    Division  is  not  of  God. 

"Never  since  the  division  in  the  Church  of  Christ  took  place  has  the 

need  of  reunion  been  felt  as  it  is  now The  world  war  burned  into  our 

souls  the  weakness  of  a  divided  Christianity.  .  ....  It  is  plain  that  our  divi- 
sions are  a  disaster  to  the  cause  of  Christ.  A  divided  Church  is  gradually 
but  surely  giving  us  a  non-believing  world." — Bishop  Ethelbert  Talbot,  o* 
Bethlehem,  Pa. 

The  bishop  is  also  right.  Before  the  division  of  Christendom  a  war,  such 
as  Europe  is  just  emerging  from,  was  unthinkable.  The  Head  of  the  Church 
was  the  one  moral  force  which  both  kings  and  people  respected.  The  dis- 
cordant voices  of  several  hundred  denominations,  each  claiming  that  it  has 
the  best  form  of  Christianity,  explain  why  the  Protestant  Churches  are 
making  little  progress  and  why  two-thirds  of  the  American  people  are  not 
drawn  to  any  of  the  Churches. 

"Men  feel,  as  they  have  never  felt  before,  the  shame,  the  scandal  and 
the  danger  of  disunion.  They  are  craving  the  opening  up  of  some  path  of 
reconciliation,  whereby  ancient  grudges  shall  be  wiped  out,  whereby,  with- 
out sacrificing  any  truth  which  the  divine  spirit  has  revealed,  men  may 
realize  before  a  hostile  world  their  unity  as  the  one  indivisible  body  of 
Christ." — Rev.  Samuel  McComb,  of  Maryland. 

Strange  that  thoughtful  men  do  not  see  the  unity  of  the  great  body 
from  which  the  parent  sects  separated.     Strange  that  they  do  not  see  the 


314         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

need  of  branches  being  engrafted  on  the  vine  in  order  to  live  and  flourish. 
Strange  that  Americans  especially  do  not  realize  that  seceded  religions,  just 
as  seceded  states,  must  return  to  the  old  fold,  if  we  would  have  real  union — 
one  and  indivisible.  Strange  that  they  do  not  recognize  the  need  of  a 
standard  of  orthodoxy, "  some  living  voice  that  can  speak  with  authority. 


i  i 


The  Baptist  Word  and  Way,  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  says : 

These  brethren,  with  all  their  enthusiasm  and  good  intentions,  are  vi- 
sionaries, rainbow  chasers.  They  are  spending  their  time,  their  breath  and 
their  good  money  for  nothing.  No  desirable  Christian  unity  or  Christian 
union  will  ever  be  brought  about  by  such  process.  Anything  that  plays 
down  principles,  conviction  and  conscience;  anything  that  minimizes  dif- 
ferences and  magnifies  agreements;  anything  that  finds  "non-essentials"  in 
the  Word  of  God  and  depends  upon  compromise  in  order  to  reach  unity, 
in  short,  any  proposition  or  effort  for  Christian  unity  and  union  on  any 
other  basis  than  the  Scriptures,  rightly  interpreted,  is  doomed  to  failure, 
and  ought  to  fail.  We  think  of  this  Unity  Conference  as  a  menagerie  of 
doctrine,  polity  and  practices,  a  "happy  family"  of  non-affinities. 


Following  the  St.  Louis  Conference  a  conference  was 
held  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Dallas,  Texas. 
Of  this  Conference  The  Christian  Courier,  Dallas,  gives 
five  pages  and  this  excerpt  is  taken  from  that  paper : 

The  Dallas  Conference  was  well  attended,  in  consideration  of  the 
fact  that  while  the  Christian  unity  question  has  become  an  intensely 
interesting  one  among  the  leaders  of  most  communions,  there  is  much 
timidity  yet  in  this  section  about  the  matter. 


The  Christian  Work,  New  York,  says  editorially  (Dr. 
Frederick  Lynch) : 

When  the  great  war  came  it  was  noticeable  how  the  interest  in  Chris- 
tian unity  received  a  new  and  great  impulse.  Not  only  did  the  Free 
Churches  of  Great  Britain — Wesleyans,  Baptists,  Congregationalists,  Pres- 
byterians and  the  rest — begin  to  talk  of  union  of  their  forces,  but  Angli- 
cans and  Free  Churchmen  began  meeting  on  such  a  footing  of  intimacy  and 
equality  as  had  never  been  known  before  in  England.  Our  readers  are 
familiar  with  these  various  meetings  and  the  rather  remarkable  results. 
Christian  unity  has  been  one  of  the  most  discussed  questions  in  England 
during  the  last  five  years.  Statements  have  been  given  out  by  the  Churches 
in  conference  that  could  not  have  been  arrived  at  by  any  group  a  few  years 
ago.  Dozens  of  books  have  been  published  and  the  whole  question  is  a  real, 
live  issue.  To  some  extent  this  is  all  true  in  America. 

What  are  the  immediate  causes  of  this  new  interest  in  and  movement 
toward  unity?  First  of  all,  it  is  the  consciousness  that  has  gradually  been 
coming  over  the  Churches  that  our  divided  Churches  cannot  adequately  re- 
veal the  oneness  that  exists  between  Christ  and  God.  Jesus  prayed  in  the 
Upper  Room  that  His  disciples  might  be  one  as  He  and  the  Father  were 
one — that  they  might  manifest  to  the  world  the  oneness  that  was  in  Him 
and  the  Father.  Only  a  united  Church  will  thus  manifest  the  unity  that 
is  in  Christ.     Now  Anglicanism  manifests  one  aspect,  Presbyterianism  an- 


WHAT     PEOPLE     AND     PAPEBS     SAY  315 

other,  Methodism  another,  and  so  on.  When  we  get  a  great  united  Church 
that  is  one,  then  it  will  gloriously  manifest  the  oneness  of  the  Godhead. 

The  second  reason  is  the  consciousness  that  has  come  over  the  Church 
that  only  a  united  Church  can  meet  the  vast,  and  sometimes  organized,  evil 
of  the  world,  solve  the  problems  that  are  before  us,  arrest  the  attention  of 
the  indifferent  and  quench  the  voice  of  the  scoffer.  No  one  communion  is 
big  enough  to  meet  the  need  of  the  world  or  make  much  impression  upon 
the  vast  fortresses  to  be  taken,  and  could  the  world  see  a  great,  strong, 
united  Church  of  Christ  it  would  not  only  respect  it,  but  would  tremble. 
No  doubt  the  wonderful  success  of  the  Allies  when  they  became  one, 
whereas  singly  they  could  not  conquer,  had  much  to  do  with  deepening  this 
impression. 

In  the  third  place,  a  feeling  has  been  coming  over  the  Church  that  no 
one  communion  is  big  enough  to  contain  the  whole  revelation  of  God. 
Bishop  Brent  emphasized  this  fact  very  strikingly  in  his  opening  address 
as  chairman  of  the  World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order  at  Geneva,  The 
Lambeth  Conference  at  London  in  July  put  it  in  most  striking  language. 
The  Appeal  of  the  bishops  says:  "The  faith  cannot  be  adequately  appre- 
hended .  .  .  while  the  body  is  divided,  and  is  thus  unable  to  grow  up 
into  the  fulness  of  the  life  of  Christ. ' ' 


Eegarding  sacramental  grace,  which  is  so  involved  in 
Christian  unity  discussion,  Canon  Adderley,  writing  in 
Hihbert  Journal  says : 

We  must  remember  that  Christianity  is  a  very  young  religion,  and  that 
we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  Church  history,  even  now.  Catholic  mys- 
tics and  the  Society  of  Friends  have  found  silence  and  contemplation  more 
sacramentally  efficacious  than  the  ordinary  sacraments.  The  author  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  does  undoubtedly  describe  the  feet-washing  as  a  kind  of 
sacrament  ordained  by  Christ,  just  at  the  point  where  we  should  have  ex- 
pected him  to  tell  us  about  the  Lord's  Supper,  especially  in  view  of  what 
he  had  already  written  in  his  sixth  chapter.  Many  Christians  who  seldom 
or  never  communicate  do  seem  to  get  grace  from  action  which  is  more  like 
feet-washing  than  like  eating  bread  and  drinking  wine. 

These  facts,  and  many  others  of  the  same  nature,  should  make  us 
very  chary  of  claiming  too  much  in  the  way  of  special  sacramental  grace  to 
be  got  in  no  way  except  by  the  appointed  channels.  Let  us  concentrate  on 
the  end  for  which  we  look  rather  than  on  the  means  we  use,  however  vener- 
able. Anyhow,  that  is  the  way  to  preliminary  agreements.  The  hem  of 
Christ's  garment  became  a  sacrament  of  Christ's  virtue  to  the  woman  who 
wanted  Him,  while  it  was  nothing  to  those  who  pressed  it  without  the  desire 
for  that  end. 

We  need  also  to  reconsider  what  we  mean  by  grace,  of  which  the  sac- 
raments are  said  to  be  the  means.  There  is  a  tendency  to<  talk  of  grace  in 
terms  of  quantity,  as  if  it  were  so  much  measurable  stuff  like  the  grease 
of  a  wheel  or  the  fuel  of  an  engine.  But  we  cannot  really  measure  spir- 
itual force  in  that  sort  of  way.  We  do  not  get  twice  as  much  inspiration 
by  reading  two  plays  of  Shakespeare  as  we  should  if  we  only  read  one. 
Neither  are  two  communions  necessarily  better  than  one.  The  very  phrase 
"my  communion"  suggests  a  mechanical  view  of  grace.  Had  not  Car- 
dinal Manning  some  thought  of  this  kind  in  his  mind  when  he  deplored  the 
fact  that  many  of  his  priests  had  become  mere  ' '  sacrament-mongers ' '  ? 
Grace  is  spiritual  power,  a  force  of  suggestion,  encouragement,  inspira- 
tion, but  needing  the  cooperation  of  the  will  of  the  receiver  to  make  it 
really   efficacious.      The    Church    may   be    right   in    rigidly   adhering   to    a 


316  THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

fixed  number  of  sacraments  and  a  regular  way  of  obtaining  valid  gifts  of 
grace,  but  the  door  should  not  be  closed  so  that  a  faithful  and  enthusiastic 
Christian  should  not  be  encouraged  to  expect  grace  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  in  spite  of  her  severely 
exclusive  and  mapped-out  doctrines,  does  encourage  her  children  to  look 
for  what  is  practically  extra-sacramental  grace.  Chiefly  this  is  done  in  her 
insistence  on  hearing  Mass. 

I  was  taught  as  a  boy  (by  Anglican  clergy)  that  I  must  be  careful 
not  to  think  that  there  was  any  special  grace  in  attending  the  Eucharist 
without  communion;  that  it  could  only  come  from  actual  partaking  of  the 
elements.  I  believe  now  that  this  was  a  mistake.  Hearing  Mass,  or,  as 
our  continental  fellow-Christians  call  it  in  a  most  suggestive  phrase, 
' '  assisting ' '  the  priest,  does  also  confer  grace  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have 
tried  to  define  it  above.  It  appeals  to  the  imagination.  Christ  crucified 
is  ' '  placarded ' '  before  our  eyes.  We  behold  in  a  magnificent  yet  simple 
drama  the  only  perfect  approach  to  God,  through  a  sacrificed  body  and  a 
poured-out  life-blood.  Now,  this  seems  to  me  a  most  important  concession 
that  has  been  made  by  Catholics  in  the  matter  of  grace,  because  we  can- 
not say  that  hearing  Mass  is  strictly  part  of  the  original  institution  of  the 
Eucharist,  or,  at  least,  not  a  grace-conveying  part  of  it.  If  the  Holy 
Spirit  has  taught  the  Church  this  extra-sacramental  source  of  grace,  how 
do  we  know  that  He  may  not  be  teaching  other  ways  to  those  who  do  not 
Use  the  ordinary  sacraments? 

I  hope  I  shall  not  be  misunderstood.  I  absolutely  believe  in  the  sacra- 
ments myself.  The  Holy  Communion  is  to  me  the  great  assurance  that 
Christ  is  a  living  Master  and  King.  I  feel  about  it  what  Maurice  felt 
when  he  said:  "If  I  had  not  been  to  Communion  this  morning  I  should  be 
inclined  to  say  that  the  devil  reigned. ' '  Just  at  this  time,  when  the  Bible 
is  ceasing  to  be  a  complete  historical  bedrock  on  which  to  rest,  it  is  the 
sacraments  which  embody  and  keep  alive  and  moving  the  spiritual  realities 
for  which  the  first  disciples  and  martyrs  lived  and  died.  What  the  spoken 
words  and  visible  deeds  of  Jesus  were  to  the  disciples,  I  believe  the  sacra- 
ments are  meant  to  be  to  us.  The  Church  itself  is  the  arch-sacrament,  the 
visible  embodiment  of  Him  in  whom  dwelt  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily.  The  communicant  without  faith,  without  the  desire  for  unity,  does 
not  discern  the  Lord's  body.  The  sacraments  might  be,  if  lived  out  to  the 
full  in  everyday  life,  just  that  visible  proof  for  which  in  these  days  the 
world  is  asking,  that  Christianity  is  not  played  out.  It  is  by  trying  to 
make  the  sacramental  life  a  reality  that  the  socialist  clergy  have  found  an 
inspiration  for  their  work,  and  it  was  no  mere  form  of  words  which  made 
Stewart  Headlam,  when  founding  the  first  socialist  society  in  England 
nearly  forty  years  ago,  adopt  as  its  first  rule  "to  make  the  Eucharist  the 
chief  act  of  Christian  worship."  Somewhere  underlying  this  feast  of  the 
common  bread  there  must  be  the  principle  which  in  God's  good  time  will 
bring  into  one  active,  cooperative  body  all  who  name  the  Name  of  Christ. 


LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR 


PRIEST  OR  PROPHET— A  REPLY  TO  DR.  HODGE 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Christian  Union  Quarterly: 

Dear  Sir: — I  have  given  Dr.  Hodge's  letter  very  careful  attention,  but 
as  it  does  not  seem  to  be  conclusive,  perhaps  you  will  allow  me  to  state  my 
reasons  for  thinking,  even  yet,  that  my  article  was  nearer  the  truth  than 
Dr.  Hodge's  view. 

He  challenges  my  definition  of  the  distinction  between  a  prophet  and 
a  priest,  and  says  that  a  more  exact  definition  be,  that  a  prophet  is  one 
who  speaks  to  man  on  behalf  of  God,  and  a  priest  is  one  who  acts  as  the 
agent  both  of  men  in  their  approach  to  God,  and  of  God  in  His  dealings 
with  men.  In  support  of  this  he  argues  that  the  priest  acted  as  God's 
representative  when  he  accepted  the  sacrifices  of  the  people  and  performed 
the  necessary  rites.  But  I  maintain  that  all  through  the  processes  connected 
with  sacrifices  the  priest  was  the  people's  representative  and  not  God's. 
This  is  clear  from  Heb.  5:1,  where  the  entire  work  of  offering  from  be- 
ginning to  end  is  spoken  of  as  expressing  man's  relation  to  God  through 
the  priest,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  Scripture  never  divides  the  offer- 
ing in  the  way  Dr.  Hodge  suggests.  In  everything  the  priest  did  he  was 
" appointed  for  man"  and  was  man's  representative,  not  God's. 

Dr.  Hodge  includes  the  act  of  blessing  in  these  priestly  functions,  but 
he  has  forgotten  that  blessing  was  not  limited  to  the  priest,  for  a  king 
could  bless,  and  therefore  blessing  was  not  a  priestly  work,  as  such.  This 
is  all  the  dearer  from  the  story  of  Uzziah  who  was  punished  for  intrud- 
ing into  the  proper  and  sole  sphere  of  the  priest.  " 

My  object  was  to  get  and  state  a  clear  definition  of  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  prophet  and  the  priest,  and  I  fell  sure  the  only  way  of 
doing  this  is  to  say  that  the  prophet  represented  God  to  man  and  the  priest 
represented  man  to  God.  "Whatever  else  either  of  them  did  was  not  of  the 
essence  of  their  specific  functions. 

Dr.  Hodge  considers  Christ's  statement,  "as  my  Father  hath  sent  me," 
etc.,  supports  his  view  and  he  bases  it  on  what  he  regards  as  Christ's  own 
priesthood  at  the  time.  But  he  has  evidently  forgotten  the  plain  denial 
of  Christ's  priesthood  on  earth  in  Heb.  8:4,  than  which  nothing  could  be 
clearer  in  refutation  of  Dr.  Hodge 's  position.  Christ  did  not  begin  to  be 
a  priest  until  His  Ascension,  and'  we  are  told  of  His  priesthood  that  it  is 
' '  intransmissible  "  or  tl  undelegated, ' '  that  is,  it  does  not  pass  from  Him 
to  anyone  else  (Heb.  7:24,  Greek).  Besides,  when  Christ  spoke  the  words 
recorded  in  John  20,  one  of  the  Apostles  was  absent,  and,  as  the  best  com- 
mentaries point  out,  there  were  others  present  as  well  as  the  ten  Apostles. 
Further,  remission  of  sins  was  no  priestly  function,  for  Dr.  Hodge  may 
be  challenged  to  produce  a  single  case  of  this  on  the  part  of  the  Aaronic 
priest.  The  popular  phrase  "priestly  absolution"  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms,  for  the  work  of  absolution  or  remission,  in  the  only  possible  sense 
of  declaring  God's  absolution  as  in  the  Prayer-Book  service,  is  the  work  of 
a  prophet  not  of  a  priest. 

There  is  evidently  some  confusion  in  Dr.  Hodge's  mind  when  he  speaks 
of  Baptism  as  a  priestly  function,  for  the  Church  in  all  ages  has  recognized 
the  validity  of  lay  baptism.  So,  too,  as  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  there  is  no 
proof  that  it  was  to  take  the  place  of  the  Jewish  sacrifices.  On  the  con- 
trary, Christ  Himself,  not  the  Supper,  is  the  anti-type  of  the  Passover  (1 
Cor.  5:7),  and  the  clear  teaching  of  Hebrews  is  that  all  the  old  sacrifices 
found  their  fulfilment  in  Him. 


318         THE     CHRISTIAN     UNION     QUARTERLY 

Dr.  Hodge  speaks  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  a  "memorial,"  but  the  word 
used  by  our  Lord  was  "remembrance"  (avd/jLvrjais)  it  is  well  known  that 
this  is  subjective,  as  distinct  from  the  objective  "memorial"   (fivrifidsvvov) . 

The  laying-on-of -hands  in  the  Acts  was  not  limited  to  the  Apostles  even 
though  they  were  priests  (which  they  were  not),  for  a  layman,  Ananias, 
was  the  instrumentality  of  the  Holy  Spirit  being  given  to  St.  Paul.  Nor 
is  there  the  slightest  proof  that  the  "sealing"  of  Ephesians  was  our  con- 
firmation. 

Dr.  Hodge  uses  ( '  we  have  an  altar ' '  as  though  it  referred  to  the  Lord 's 
Table  (which,  by  the  way,  is  never  called  "altar"  in  the  English  Prayer 
Book),  but  the  context  is  clearly  against  this  view,  and  Westcott  points 
out  in  his  fine  commentary  that  the  term  ' '  altar ' '  was  not  used  of  any 
material  structure  for  over  a  century  after  the  date  of  Hebrews. 

Dr.  Hodge  uses  Moberly's  well  known  argument  when  he  says  that  the 
whole  body  of  believers  cannot  act  as  one  in  performing  priestly  functions. 
It  must  have  representatives  to  act  for  the  whole  body  in  its  corporate 
approaches  to  God  and  there  must  be  some  one  to  celebrate  and  administer 
the  acts  which  Christ  commanded,  and  His  Apostles  preached,  by  means  of 
which  spiritual  blessings  are  received  from  God. 

But  I  maintain  that  there  is  nothing  of  a  strictly  priestly  (that  is  rep- 
resentative) character  that  every  believer  cannot  do  for  himself.  Here, 
again,  there  is  some  confusion,  for  in  public  worship  the  clergyman  is  a 
medium  not  a  mediator,  and  his  work  of  leading  our  devotions  and  pre- 
siding at  our  communions  does  not  set  aside  or  even  suspend  the  priest- 
hood of  all  believers. 

The  rest  of  the  letter  does  not  seem  to  call  for  detailed  comment,  except 
to  say  that  the  functions  of  the  ministry  in  the  Reformed  churches  are 
not  priestly  but  ministerial  in  every  sense,  and  on  this  account  the  di- 
vergences between  these  Churches  and  Dr.  Hodge's  position  are  not  merely 
a  matter  of  "nomenclature"  but  of  "fact." 

The  truth  is  that  Dr.  Hodge  has  been  reading  back  into  the  New  Testa- 
ment his  own  ecclesiastical  views  which  are  of  a  very  much  later  date  as 
to  origin.  In  this  he  is  like  Bishop  Gore,  and  I  would  strongly  suggest  a 
careful  study  of  that  fine  book  recently  published  by  Dr.  Headlam  on  ' '  The 
Church  and  Reunion ' '  where  the  true  method  of  approaching  all  these  con- 
troverted subjects  is  forcibly  and  convincingly  stated. 

Yours  most  faithfully, 

W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas. 

129   Maplewood  Avenue,  Germantown,  Pa. 


AMONG  NEW  BOOKS 


The  four  Bedell  Lectures  of  1919,  under  the  title  The  Call  To  Unity 
by  William  T.  Manning,  S.T.D.,  D.C.L.  (Maemillan),  make  one  of  the  very- 
best  contributions  to  the  cause  of  a  united  Christendom.  The  titles  of  the 
lectures  are  ' '  The  Call  to  Unity, "  "  The  Present  Outlook  for  Unity, ' '  ' '  The 
Approach  to  Unity, "  and  "The  Call  to  the  Anglican  Communion, "  fol- 
lowed by  a  valuable  appendix  of  forty  pages.  Dr.  Manning  is  bold  to  say 
that  our  divisions  are  a  disaster  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  divorcing  religion 
from  our  system  of  public  education,  weakening  and  impairing  the  whole 
body  of  Christians,  and  making  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  command 
of  our  Lord  to  make  disciples  of  all  nations.  Unity  involves  spiritual  real- 
ity and  divine  purpose.  * '  The  Church  is  the  means  which  God  has  appointed 
for  bringing  to  Himself  all  mankind,  in  the  fellowship  of  His  dear  Son. 
It  is  the  Church  which  gives  the  Gospel  actuality  and  meaning."  But  our 
separations  and  divisions  have  led  many  of  us  to  a  poor  and  inadequate 
view  of  the  Church  which  Dr.  Manning  deplores  and  affirms  that  we  are  all 
guilty  of  the  sin  of  schism,  and  the  question  is  not  as  to  the  origin  of 
schism,  but  as  to  the  longer  continuance  of  it. 

His  outlook  is  hopeful,  realizing  that  the  things  which  unite  Christians 
are  greater  than  the  things  which  separate  them.  He  recognizes  the  spiritu- 
al excellencies  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church  and  sees  the  possibility  of  a 
' '  constitutional  Papacy. ' '  He  regards  the  American  Council  on  Organic 
Union  as  putting  forth  the  most  important  and  promising  action  yet  taken 
toward  Protestant  union.  The  vision  of  a  united  Church  is  from  Christ  and 
because  it  is  from  Him  it  will  be  fulfilled.  Many  approaches  are  cited,  in- 
dicating a  growing  conscience,  and  he  emphasizes  the  necessity  for  a  clear 
exposition  of  the  meaning  of  unity.  He  emphasizes  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tian loyalty  and  Christian  liberty  and  speaks  wisely  of  the  possibility  of 
Catholic  and  Protestant  interpretations  supplementing  each  other  for  the 
necessary  wholeness  of  the  Church.  The  last  lecture  deals  with  the  Anglican 
Church,  recognizing  and  finding  place  for  both  the  Catholic  principle  and 
the  Protestant  principle  within  her  own  life.  Its  appeal  is  bold,  inclusive 
and  spiritual,  making  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  common  brotherhood 
of  Christians,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  satisfactory  agreement  with  the 
whole  presentation. 


The  story  of  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  The  World's  Student 
Christian  Federation  is  fascinatingly  told  by  Dr.  John  R.  Mott  in  a  volume 
of  less  than  a  hundred  pages  under  that  title  (World's  Student  Christian 
Federation),  dealing  with  its  origin,  achievements  and  forecast,  illustrated. 
Its  birthplace  was  at  Vadstena  Castle,  Sweden,  in  1895,  and  to  six  men 
was  committed  the  great  task  of  laying  the  foundation  for  a  movement 
which  in  time  has  become  a  vast  superstructure,  uniting  the  student  Chris- 


320         THE     CHRISTIAN    UNION     QUARTERLY 

tian  movements  throughout  the  world,  collecting  information  regarding  re- 
ligious conditions  of  students  in  all  lands,  leading  students  into  Christian 
discipleship,  deepening  their  spiritual  life  and  enlisting  them  in  extending 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  throughout  the  world.  Naturally  out  of  such  a 
movement  one  of  its  outstanding  results  has  been  the  advancing  of  Chris- 
tian unity,  revealing  to  Christian  students  with  compelling  force  their  one- 
ness in  Jesus  Christ.  It  has  illustrated  the  reality  and  advantages  of  the 
unity  of  Christian  believers,  uniting  in  effective  organization  and  endeavor 
nearly  200,000  students  and  professors,  and  in  this  particular  has  made 
one  of  the  greatest  contributions  to  the  unity  of  Christendom.  The  study 
of  the  needs  of  the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  Jesus  Christ  has  shown 
the  necessity  and  practicability  of  sincere  cooperation  and  common  action 
among  Christians,  promoting  corporate  thinking  and  united  intercession. 
No  body  of  men  so  thoroughly  realize  the  new  era  in  which  we  now  live  as 
students,  and  the  forecast  presented  by  Dr.  Mott  opens  into  a  field  of 
boundless  possibilities.    It  is  a  record  of  charm,  vision  and  challenge. 


One  of  the  most  beautifully  written  books  of  personal  recollections  is 
Personal  'Recollections  of  Andrew  Carnegie,  by  Frederick  Lynch,  D.D., 
Educational  Secretary  Church  Peace  Union  (Revell).  Dr.  George  Haven 
Putnam,  in  the  second  volume  of  his  reminiscences,  related  some  things 
that  Mr.  Carnegie  said  on  shipboard,  which,  while  doubtless  true,  misrepre- 
sented rather  than  represented  Mr.  Carnegie's  religious  views,  but  it  went 
around  the  world  as  a  suggestive  theme  for  editorials  in  religious  journals. 
At  the  same  time  those  same  journals  in  the  main  were  upholding  wholesale 
man  killing  in  war  as  being  in  conformity  to  the  mind  of  Christ,  while  Mr. 
Carnegie  was  giving  both  his  thought  and  his  fortune  to  abolish  war  and  to 
establish  an  international  court  of  justice  where  international  disputes 
might  find  their  solution.  He  rightly  believed  that  he  was  interpreting  the 
mind  of  Christ  and  he  just  as  positively  believed  that  sectarianism  did  not 
represent  the  mind  of  Christ  and  therefore  he  stood  aloof  from  the  Churches 
as  Abraham  Lincoln  and  multitudes  of  others  have  done.  Nevertheless  Mr. 
Carnegie  expressed  high  confidence  that  in  spite  of  the  divisions  of  the 
Church  he  looked  to  the  members  of  these  religious  bodies  to  be  the  chief 
instruments  in  banishing  war  from  the  earth.  Dr.  Lynch  knew  Mr.  Carnegie 
intimately,  and  aside  from  his  remarkably  gifted  pen,  perhaps  there  is  no 
one  who  could  better  interpret  Mr.  Carnegie 's  life  than  Dr.  Lynch,  who  has 
given  an  interpretation  that  will  not  only  be  as  a  supplement  to  Mr.  Car- 
negie's (i  Autobiography, ' '  but  will  ever  remain  a  fascinating  volume  to 
those  who  are  interested  in  the  most  human  side  of  the  life  of  a  great  man. 


Organizations  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Unity 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNITY,  Inc. 
Having  its  inception  in  the  work  of  Thomas  Campbell,  180S>,  present  or- 
ganization 1910,  President,  Rev.  Peter  Ainslie;  Secretary,  Rev.  H.  C.  Arm- 
strong, Seminary  House,  Baltimore,  Md.,  U.  S.  A.  For  intercessory  prayer, 
friendly  conferences  and  distribution  of  irenic  literature,  ' '  till  we  all  attain 
unto  the  unity  of  the  faith. "  Pentecost  Sunday  is  the  day  named  for 
special  prayers  for  and  sermons  on  Christian  unity  in  all  Churches. 

ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  THE  UNITY  OF  CHRIS- 
TENDOM, 1857,  President,  Athelstan  Riley,  Esq.,  2  Kensington  Court, 
London;  Secretary  in  the  United  States,  Rev.  Calbraith  Bourn  Perry,  Cam- 
bridge, N.  Y.  For  intercessory  prayer  for  the  reunion  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic, Greek  and  Anglican  Communions. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  ASSOCIATION  OF  SCOTLAND,  1903,  Secretary, 
Rev.  Robert  W.  Weir,  Edinburgh.  For  maintaining,  fostering  and  ex- 
pressing the  consciousness  of  the  underlying  unity  that  is  shared  by  many 
members  of  the  different  Churches  in  Scotland. 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY  FOUNDATION,  1910,  Secretary,  Rev.  W.  C.  Em- 
hardt,  Newtown,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  For  the  promotion  of  Christian  unity 
throughout  the  world  by  research  and  conference. 

CHURCHMEN'S  UNION,  1896,  President,  Prof.  Percy  Gardner;  Hon. 
Secretary,  Rev.  C.  Moxon,  3  St.  George's  Square,  London  S.  W.,  England. 
For  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  between  the  Church  of  England  and 
all  other  Christian  bodies. 

COMMISSION  ON  THE  WORLD  CONFERENCE  ON  FAITH  AND  OR- 
DER, 1910,  President,  Rt.  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson;  Secretary,  Robert  H. 
Gardiner,  Esq.,  Gardiner,  Me.,  U.  S.  A.  For  a  world  conference  of  all 
Christians  relative  to  the  unity  of  Christendom. 

COUNCIL  ON  ORGANIC  UNION,  1918,  Ad  Interim  Committee,  Chairman, 
Rev.  W.  H.  Roberts,  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Secretary,  Rev.  Rufus  W.  Miller, 
Witherspoon  Building,  Philadelphia.  For  the  organic  union  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Churches  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

FEDERAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  CHURCHES  OF  CHRIST  IN  AMERICA, 
1908,  President,  Rev.  Frank  Mason  North;  Secretary,  Rev.  Charles  S.  Mac- 
farland,  105  E.  22d  St.,  New  York.  For  the  cooperation  of  the  various 
Protestant  Communions  in  service  rather  than  an  attempt  to  unite  upon 
definitions  of  theology  and  polity. 

FREE  CHURCH  FELLOWSHIP,  1911,  Rev.  Malcolm  Spencer,  Colue 
Bridge  House,  Rickmansworth,  London,  N.  For  the  cultivation  of  cor- 
porate prayer  and  thought  for  a  new  spiritual  fellowship  and  communion 
with  all  branches  of  the  Christian  Church. 

NATIONAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  FREE  CHURCHES 
OF  ENGLAND,  1895,  President,  Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  Mansfield 
College,  Oxford;  Secretary,  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  Memorial  Hall,  E.  C,  Lon- 
don. For  facilitating  fraternal  intercourse  and  cooperation  among  the 
Evangelical  Free  Churches  in  England. 

WORLD  ALLIANCE  FOR  PROMOTING  INTERNATIONAL  FRIEND- 
SHIP THROUGH  THE  CHURCHES,  1914,  Chairman,  Most  Rev.  Randall 
Thomas  Davidson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Hon.  Secretary,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir 
Willoughby  H.  Dickinson,  41  Parliament  St.,  London,  S.  W.  1.  For  joint 
endeavour  to  achieve  the  promotion  of  international  friendship  through  the 
churehes  and  the  avoidance  of  war. 


CHRISTIAN  UNION  QUARTERLY 
1920-1921 


DATE 


ISSUED  TO 


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