The church enchained

THE CHURCH
ENCHAINED

WM.A.R.C00DW1N

tihraxy of Che theological ^emmarjp

PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

FROM THE LIBRARY OF
ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER

BV 600 .G67

Goodwin, William Archer
Ruthorford, 1869-1939.
The church enchained

BV 600 .G67

THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

THE CHURCH
ENCHAINED

BY THE

REV. WM. A. R. boODWIN, D.D.

Rector of St. Paul's Church, Rochester, N. Y.

Author of the History of Bruton Parish Church, and
the History of Bruton Parish Church Restored

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE
RT. REV. DAVID H. GREER, D.D., LL.D.

Bishop of the Diocese of New York

NEW YORK

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY

681 FIFTH AVENUE

1916

CoPTmiGHT, 1918,

BT

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

Printed in the Utiited States of America

DEDICATION

To all those who pray for a perfect willingness to
suffer the loss of all things "that they may win
Christ, and be found in Him" ; who, as Prophets, pro-
claim the truth that makes men free, "come whence
it may, and cost what it may"; who, as Priests, con-
sent to offer costly sacrifice, that all may come "into
the glorious liberty of the children of God" ; and who,
as servants of Christ, desire to express a comprehen-
sive faith in co-operative service to the Glory of God
in the extension of His Kingdom among men; these
pages, devoted to the search for truth and freedom,
and an ultimate divine order, are humbly dedicated.

PREFACE

The thoughts relative to Christ and His
Church and the world's great need expressed
in this book are communicated because of the
hope that, through the blessing of the Spirit of
truth, they may minister to the building up of
the Body of Christ in love.

"We seek the truth under human limitations.
Often, in its pursuit, we follow false trails.
Sometimes right trails are wrongly followed.
The by-path is mistaken for the King's high-
way. The point we reach is heralded as the
ultimate viewpoint. The further and more far-
reaching viewpoints not yet attained are not
postulated as possible. A stake is driven down ;
a barrier is built, and seekers after truth are
warned and prohibited from venturing beyond
the limit fixed.

vii

mii PREFACE

The truth incarnate has ever been enchained.
We hear the clank of the chains by which the
Church has been bound as we trace her history
through the centuries. Sometimes these bonds
have been imposed upon the Church, and upon
seekers after truth, from without. As men
*Hook Jesus and bound Him,*' as they chained
St. Paul, and John Huss, and Jerome, and Lat-
timer, and John Bunyan, so the world powers,
and the powers of darkness, have bound the
Body of Christ. These chains, externally im-
posed, have ever served to test and manifest
the power of the life divine, and have been the
means of giving witness to the conquering
strength of the spirit of liberty and truth.

The chains that have really bound the Christ,
and which have delimited the freedom of the
Church, and hindered her in the fulfillment of
her divinely given mission to be His witness,
have been forged in the mind and heart and will
of the members of His Body.

The chains forged by the logical processes of
thought which seek to confine the boundless love

PREFACE ix

of God, and the free grace revealed in the Great
Gospel of redemption ; the chains forged by the
narrow definitions and exalted pride and big-
otry of ecclesiasticism, which bind the creative
and redemptive forces of Christianity; the
chains wrought out of the Church's trust in
material power; the iron chains of bigotry,
and the golden chains of luxury, and self-indul-
gence and the love of pleasure ; and the chains
which are unconsciously forged by the habits
of neglect and indifference and procrastination ;
these are the bonds which have ever bound the
Body of Christ.

These chains bind His Church to-day. Called
and challenged by the world crisis to help and
heal sorrowing and suffering millions, and to
restrain the ambition and wrath of man, the
Church finds herself enchained. She stands un-
prepared in the presence of her greatest op-
portunity and responsibility. Sent to minister
in His name to the poor, the broken-hearted, the
captives, and to give men liberty, she hears the
call, **Come over and help us," but she is not

X PREFACE

prepared to go. Having long prayed for an
open door, she stands to-day before doors wide
open, enchained and hindered from entering
them.

Sent by the Church of our Motherland, or
coming with the Pilgrim fathers, she helped to
lay the foundation stones of this republic at
Jamestown and at Plymouth in the fear and love
of the God of justice, mercy and truth. To-day,
in the supreme hour of America's need, she is
unprepared because of her chains to lead
America to see the vision of the preparedness
she most largely needs to enable her to fulfill
her mission to the nations of the earth.

The links of these chains which have been
bound about His Body should be examined with
a candid mind, and with a spirit illumined and
guided by earnest prayer. The will must be
consecrated to a readiness to make costly sac-
rifice if we are to come to know the truth that
will make us free indeed.

There are ancient anchor chains by which the
Church must ever be bound. There are narrow

PREFACE ^

harbour chains from which she must be loosed
if she would rescue the perishing, and come at
last, bearing the redeemed of every nation, into
the haven where Christ would have them be.
*****
If anything unkind or unfair is said in the
pages following, forgiveness is asked, and the
assurance is given that such word or statement
has been unintentionally written. The limita-
tions of human thought ever make us liable to
mistakes of judgment, and to errors in rightly
dividing the word of truth. Lack of Christian
courtesy is unpardonable, and the failure to
be tolerant of, and sympathetic with, other ear-
nest and devoted seekers after truth surely
closes the mind to the clear vision of the truth

itself.

If this book in any way helps to make the
hearts and minds of its readers more compre-
hensive, more sympathetic, and more truly
catholic, the hope and prayer of the author will
be fulfilled.

$ii PREFACE

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Cordial appreciation is expressed, and grate-
ful acknowledgment is here made of the kind-
ness of the Right Reverend Doctor David H.
Greer, Bishop of New York, for reading the
manuscript, and for writing the introduction
to this book; to the Rev. Dr. Cosby Bell, Profes-
sor of Theology of the Theological Seminary in
Virginia ; the Reverend Editor of the Southern
Churchman; and Mr. George Wharton Pepper
of Philadelphia, who were kind enough to read
the manuscript, and who offered valuable and
helpful suggestions. This acknowledgment does
not carry with it any intention of making these
honoured churchmen in any way responsible for

the views set forth.

William A. R. Goodwin.

Bt. Paul's Church,

Rochester, N. Y.
Easter, 1916.

CONTENTS

PA6B

Introduction by Bishop Greer .... xvii
PART I— THE CRISIS AND THE CALL

CHAPTER

I The Crisis and the Church . 3
II The Mission of the Church to

Imperilled America .... 18

III Materialism 31

IV Civilisation 40

V The Spiritual Mission of the

Christian Church .... 51
VI The Tragedy of Unprepared-

NESS 63

PART II— ECCLESIASTICISM AND CHRISTIAN-
ITY. FORM AND SPIRIT.

VII The Purpose Previewed . . 83
VIII Logic and Catholicity ... 90
IX The Intention and Extension

OF the Church 93

X The Atmosphere of the Syllo-
gism 98

XI The Reformation a Distinctly

Catholic Movement .... 102
XII Can the Church be Defined? 105

XIII The Church Under a Descrip-
tive Title 113

XIV The Message of the Transition 126
XV The Terms "Catholic" and

"Catholic Sanction" . . . 134
ziii

XIV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV
XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI
XXXII

PART III-

XXXIII

XXXIV

XXXV

XXXVI
XXXVII

PAGE

155
159
163
167
174
177

The Appeal to the Past
The Ancient Paths .
Individualism ....
The Horns of a Dilemma
The Paradoxes of Truth
The Central Ground Position
The Language of Courtesy
and of Controversy . . . 182
The Fence Through the Middle

Ground 186

The Priest and the Monk . 188
The Prophet and the Denom-
inational Minister .... 197
Necessary Restrictions Upon

Liberty 202

The Perils of Protestantism 217
The Peril of Orders . . . 227
What Would Become of the

Prayer Book 234

The Defence and the Exempli-
fication OF the Power of Or-
ders 238

What We May and What We

Cannot Hold 243

Ancient Land Marks . . . 247

-CONFERENCE— CO-OPERATION-
UNITY

Are We Prepared? .... 251

The Challenge 257

"The Church" and "This

Church" 260

Conference and Co-operation 263

Movements Toward Unity . 277

CONTENTS

XV

CHAPTER

XXXVIII

XXXIX

XL

XLI

XLII

XLIII

XLIV
XLV

XLVI

XLVII

XLVIII

XLIX

L

Our Position with Reference
TO THE Orthodox Eastern

Church 285

Our Position with Reference
TO the Roman Catholic Church 289
Conference and Co-operation
WITH Protestant Communions . 305
The Recognition of the Lay-
man BY this Church. . . . 311
The Way Prepared for this

Church 320

The World, the Work, the
Waste, Co- Workers .... 324
The Restraint of Power . . 333
A Conference and Co-operative

Commission 338

The Temporary Nature and the
Mission of Federated Move-
ments 342

Federation and Religious Ed-
ucation 353

The Price of Consistency . . 363
The Question of Unity . . 366
The Vision of the Son of Man 371

INTRODUCTION

BY

The Rt. Rev. David Hummell Greek,

D. D., LL. D.,
Bishop of the Diocese of New York.

DR. GOODWIN has given us in the follow-
ing pages a strong and timely word. It
is positive and forceful but not polemical and
contentious. He speaks with conviction but not
with intolerance, and whether or not we agree
with him we cannot fail to recognize and admire
his courtesy and fairness towards those who
differ with him. In this respect, he not only
sets an example which, in these days of much
heat and little light both in Church and State,
it would be well for the rest of us to follow, but
also strikes the true catholic note and expresses

zvii

xviii INTRODUCTION

or reflects the true catholic mind. For what is
catholicity? — that very much mooted and much
disputed word and about which there seems to
be, as Dr. Goodwin shows, no catholic agree-
ment. In what does it consist? Not in a fixed
and rigorous definition or dogmatic declaration
established once for all. That is the definition
of the sectary with the seeds of schism in it.
It is not so much a declaration as a disposition :
not a disposition to surrender its convictions or
to hold them lightly, but one which, while adher-
ing to them, is not delimited by them, but has
learned the secret, the catholic secret, of how
to keep and hold without any break or excision
in it a fellowship beyond them. A recent re-
viewer has said of Charles Lamb that he was
certainly never surpassed and probably not
equalled by any contemporary for understand-
ing those with whom he did not agree. That
is the catholic mind, which, if rarely found in
literature, is still more rarely found in theol-
ogy and religion or the Councils of the Church.
It is, however, a type of mind in which the hope

INTRODUCTION xix

of the ultimate unity of Christendom resides
and which should be sedulously cultivated by all
schools of thought in the Christian Church.
That is the type of mind reflected in Dr. Good-
win's treatise, which, while expressing definitely
and clearly and with no uncertain sound, his
deep and strong convictions, is written in a
truly catholic tone and temper. It is a notable
book, both in what it says and the spirit in which
it says it, and will well repay a close and careful
reading.

David H. Greer.

PART I

THE CRISIS AND THE CALL

*'ls it nothing to you, all ye that pass hyf"

CHAPTER I
THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH

IN the presence of the great world crisis,
Christianity and the Christian Church
stand for judgment. It is asked by many,
''Has Christianity failed?" When asked this
question by a young student, the president of
one of our universities answered: ''It has
never been tried." This question cannot be
answered and dismissed with a "yes" or
"no." Christianity has succeeded in doing
many things ; in many things she has deplorably
failed. That she failed to stem the forces which
culminated in the present world catastrophe is
apparent. Yet it is evident that the desires, the
ambitions, the materialism, the inordinate
greed, and the will to power, which have com-

3

4 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

bined to cause the greatest war of the world,
are all motives and impulses directly contrary
to her fundamental principles, and to the Spirit
and teachings of Jesus Christ. The great war
is, indeed, the most striking vindication in hu-
man history of the truth of the Christian con-
tention. As nothing has ever done before, it
manifests the necessity for obeying the spiritual
laws proclaimed by Christ, and of living life
in the power of His Spirit, if a just and abiding
peace is to be established among the nations
of the earth.

It is well that thinking men should pause and
carefully consider in what ways, and for what
reasons, the Christian Church has failed to im-
press the consciousness of the races at war, and
the world consciousness at large, with a force
and intensity sufficient to guide into the paths
of integrity and peace the desire of the nations,
and the wills of those who are now working
their will in devastation, wholesale slaughter
and mutual destruction.

The causes for this failure in the Church, in

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 5

so far as tliey still inhere in the Church, exist
there as a tragedy. If, in view of the call which
now comes to the Christian Church, these causes
of weakness are allowed to continue to retard
her influence and paralyse her power, the world
will, when it pauses to take inventory, condemn
and despise the Church for her lack of vision ;
for her impotence, born of pride, prejudice and
arrogance; for her lack of power because of
her lack of unity; for having proven recreant
to her trust; and for having utterly failed to
speak and exemplify the mind and heart of the
Christ to the world in the darkest hour of her
life, and in the day of her deepest distress, and
of her profoundest need.

It is the solemn duty of the Christian Church,
and of all Christian men, to ask the causes of
the tragic failure of the one force which might
have prevented this tragedy had it been vital,
united, and consecrated fully to its Christ-given
mission to the world. This duty is imperative,
and must be faced with great sacrificial re-
nunciation unless we are willing that the causes

6 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of the Church's failure shall be written in the
book of doom which will tell future generations
why suddenly the whole world fabric seemed to
collapse. It is imperative for the reason, also,
that we face a future pregnant with the most
vital and stupendous problems and responsi-
bilities which have ever challenged the thought,
and will, and faith of man.

''where is now thy godT*

Infidelity, skepticism, materialism, heathen-
dom turn to-day to the Christian Church and
ask, ''Where is now thy God?" Browning has
answered,

*' God's in His heaven —
All's right with the world."

But Zeppelin bombs were not then dropping
around him out of the blue Italian sky upon the
ancient glories of Venice. At present all's
wrong with the world, and God, where is He
now? The doors of many parts of His heaven
are closed to Him. By neglect. He is to-day

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 7

being excluded, here in America, from the minds
of millions of His children by the ignorance that
is in them by reason of the entire lack of all
religious education, both on Sundays and on
week days. Sectarian strife and ecclesiastical
bigotry have shut Him out of our public schools.
Materialism, agnosticism and infidelity have
banished Him from the laboratories and class
rooms of many of our most renowned universi-
ties.

Greed and covetousness have forced Him out
of conference and co-partnership relation with
many of our banking, commercial, and indus-
trial corporations. It is said they have no
soul. If the directors of big business fail to feel
their responsibility to incorporate their souls
into their business, then corporations have no
point of contact with God. The exiled God is
not s-atisfied. Through His broken laws, and in
the brutal passions of men, He is uttering His
protest. Through the cannon's mouth. He is
appealing for His divine right to be enthroned
in the hearts of His children, and to govern

8 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the unruly wills and affections of sinful men.
With the roar of artillery He would wake the
slumbering souls of His children, and deafen
the voice of prejudice and bigotry that keeps
His Church from being one in its witness-bear-
ing power, and in its readiness to serve, even
though, as yet, she cannot become one in formal
and organic unity. Through the appalling need
of the world, through the carnage and blood of
far-scattered battle fields, through the cry of
fatherless children, through the lamentation of
widows left desolate, through the pallor of
death on the faces of the splendid youth who
lie fresh slain beneath the silent stars,
through the songs which float from bivouacked
hosts encamped ready for to-morrow's ordeal
of slaughter; from hunger and famine, from
pestilence and death, from souls in their flight
to Paradise, and from the open gates of Hell
(for **war is hell"), the voice of God is calling
to His Church to consider what her neglect, and
what man's neglect of her and of Him, have
brought to pass in the earth.

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 9

THE CALL OF THE NEAR FUTURE

We cannot tell when over the battle fields
there will be unfurled flags which will tell that
the fight is done. The guns will be rolled away.
Swords, encrimsoned with blood, will be
sheathed. The mind and the heart of man will
still pulse and throb. What voice shall speak
to them? Shall it be the voice of ancient ani-
mosities ? Shall it be still the voice of the will
to power? Shall material ambition still call
most loudly to the nations? Shall memories of
ravished women and of ruthless devastation
appeal to the spirit of revenge f Shall the blood
of brothers and fathers slain cry aloud for
vengeance to the childhood of to-day, and to
the youth of to-morrow? Shall the nations hear
no other voices than these?

Shall they hear America's voice? What will
it say to them? Will it be guttural with the
fat of the gain it has gotten out of the tragedy
of its brothers over the seas? Shall it be the
covetous voice of commercialism that shall first

10 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sweep over the ocean and break upon the deso-
late and deathly calm of prostrate and impov-
erished peoples'? Shall it be the voice of Shy-
lock or of Portia that shall pass from our shores
to ring through the encreped halls of judg-
ment when the nations shall come at last to face
their creditors'? What will America have to
say, and what will she have to give in that day?

Will she stretch out clean hands, and speak
with a great purity of heart to the nations when
the day of opportunity comes?

America must be very clearly told that this
day of her opportunity will be, also, the day of
her greatest judgment. The nations will, on
that day, be prepared, in part at least, to for-
give her wavering neutrality. They will under-
stand the perplexities with which her mind
was surrounded. They will pardon mistakes
of judgment. But they will be in no humour to
pardon cupidity. If America goes as a vulture,
seeking what she may devour; if she goes as
to a bargain counter of a house which has fallen
under disaster; if she goes as a merchant with

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 11

outstretched hands to get more gold out of the
bargains which she may force by reason of
human needs and human misfortune, she will
have then doomed herself to the scorn and last-
ing contempt of prostrate nations. America will
then have been weighed in the balances and
found wanting. She will then have given evi-
dence of a prostitution of spirit so base that
perhaps nothing short of the purification of
the fires of war could purge her own life from
the dross of selfishness and materialism.

And what voice shall speak to the heart and
conscience of America? Is there a power in
the Christian Church at this crisis moment for
adequate leadership? Is there a priestly voice
to call America to the altar of self-sacrifice, that
she may there make a great renunciation? Is
there the possibility of a solidarity of life, and
a practical unity of forces, out of which the
prophet's voice may call America to a great
consecration to a Christlike service. If many
voices are to speak, they must speak as one
voice. Back of the many voices there must

12 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

be a consciousness of solidarity of mind, and
heart, and purpose. If the nations are to be
built into a deep and abiding consciousness of
their interdependence; if they are to be bound
by ties of brotherhood into a lasting peace, the
spirit of the Prince of Peace must lead them.
Shall America voice that spirit? That she is
armed for defence will make her voice more
potent. Her own preparedness will give to her
appeals for brotherhood a clearer note of sin-
cerity. If she is herself adequately strong, she
can strongly appeal for the weak. But will
her preparedness be in her armament alone,
or in her prepared spirit also! Surely out of
the open heavens alone can come this spirit of
leadership. Who shall call it down? Who shall
point the nation to the vision of those things
essential to her true greatness, and to her per-
manent and honourable peace 1 Who shall lead
America that America may lead the world?
What has the Christian Church in this land
said that has counted for anything in bringing
to bear upon our National Government a com-

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 13

pelling sense of its duty and responsibility to
protest in the name of Christ and humanity
against the fiendish and brutal Armenian mas-
sacres, which have stained the earth with per-
haps more Christian blood than was shed during
all the persecutions of the Early Church? If
it does not act, it is because it assumes that its
constituents do not care. Have we cared?
What voice, potent to compel protest, has
spoken? If ever the challenge to speak and to
help, or else forfeit the claim to be called a
Christian nation, was made to a people, it was
made, and is now being made, through the
martyred, massacred Armenian Christians, by
allies of civilised and Christianised nations of
Europe, in the presence of silent and compla-
cent America, neutral even to the cause of the
Christ, whose Body we have witnessed tortured,
without a word of protest in their defenceless
helplessness.

The curse and the crime of such silent sanc-
tion rests upon the Church, made impotent by
division, more, perhaps, than it does upon the

14 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

government of the nation, left without Chris-
tian guidance and a compelling Christian influ-
ence.

In spite of the dire failures of the Church,
the Christ Spirit is still regnant in the Heav-
ens, and waiting, with infinite patience, to be-
come embodied and expressed in the life of the
Church. He waits to lead the way. He needs
a consecrated Body in which, and through
which, to speak and to work His will to peace.
This Body must be one. Some day it may be
one in its organic and formal unity. This must
bide the time till more humility of mind pre-
vails, and when pride and prejudice are less
rampant in the heart and mind ecclesiastic.
For this the world in its present crisis cannot
wait.

Has the world in its need the right to ask
and to expect that the Christian Church in
America, and all over the world, shall respond
to its call out of the darkness and come to its
aid? The S. O. S. call sounds over the seas
through the storm and the darkness. Shall we

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 15

stand apart? Shall we be hindered by discus-
sions as to the regularity of Orders, and the
validity of Sacraments, by the kind of Bap-
tism, and questions of Church government,
from going with one clear voice, and with one
united purpose, to speak, and to lead and to
help? United in purpose; in desire; in the
great consciousness of world mission ; in a con-
secrated willingness to serve, the Christian
Church could, in this day of her greatest op-
portunity, do much to lead America, and
through America, help to lead the other nations
of the earth.

Never before was the tragedy of disunion in
the Church more appalling than to-day as she
stands almost impotent in the presence of the
great catastrophe of the nations. To remain
out of co-operative unity in the face of this call,
imperious and appealing, which comes to her
for moral and spiritual leadership; to remain
impotent to speak with one consent, when the
day comes for international reconstruction, and
the creation of new world ideals, will be crim-

16 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

inal, and desperately faithless to her divinely
given mission.

WHY THE CHURCH IS NOT READY

It is worth while that we should pause, in the
face of this vital call, which comes in the pres-
ence of the world's tragedy, and, in the dawn of
the world 's crisis of reconstruction, to consider
how it has come to pass that the Church has
failed so largely, and why, in the face of her
greatest opportunity, she stands to-day divided,
and seemingly impotent for the world task and
responsibility, which she should, for every rea-
son, assume. She cannot lead because she is
divided. And why is she divided ? What proc-
esses of mind have led her into the tragedies
of her failures, and into her present impotence
to lead the thought of the world, and to deter-
mine the international idealism of the future?

As we review these processes of thought and
attitudes of mind, it would be well to keep two
questions constantly before our judgment.

THE CRISIS AND THE CHURCH 17

First: Cannot the reasons for our organic
disunion be surmounted for the sake of a spir-
itual unity of service and co-operation, and a
solidarity of spiritual leadership in the pres-
ence of the crisis that faces us?

Second: Can we not, as we serve together,
cultivate a spirit of sympathy and understand-
ing that will create an atmosphere in which
we may candidly confer and co-labour in an
effort to create a comprehensive Church, in-
clusive and truly catholic in its divine life and
spirit, and in its outlook towards ultimate or-
ganic unity?

CHAPTER II

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH TO
IMPERILLED AMERICA

A NATION is often unconscious of its real
inuninent perils until it is too late to
avert them. They are generally inherent in
the life of the nation itself. In ways that are
insidious, and by the working of forces which
blur the vision, and dull the national conscious-
ness, these perils make their approach, and
win their grip upon national life and character.
The chief peril is that which comes of forget-
fubiess. It has ever been the fore-runner of
disaster.

'* Beware," wrote the inspired writer to
ancient Israel, ''Beware that ye forget not the
Lord thy God. ' ' The temptation will come with

18

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 19

tlie increase of silver and gold. It will creep
upon you in your hours of ease. It will assail
you in the days of your luxury and pleasure. It
will steal upon you in your consciousness of
your prosperity. In that day, "Beware lest
thou forget."

The peril lies in the temptation to material-
ism. Things take the place of God. In the proc-
ess of treasure gathering, the needs and the
values of the soul are lost sight of. Gradually
the sight of the soul is lost. The senses become
dominant in their appeal, and fasten conscious-
ness, and hope and desire and the will upon the
things that are seen, and faith, unused, be-
comes atrophied. In the process of gaining the
world the soul is lost. It is a gradual process.
Few men sell their birthright at the first sight
of the mess of pottage. They do not sell out
until hunger has grown very strong and im-
perious. The hunger for gold, for fame, for
success, fed by the call and the cost and the
intoxication of high living, make the sensual
appeal that materialises the standards of char-

20 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

acter building. Honour, and truth, and the
square deal are imperilled in the presence of
this ravenous sense of hunger. Virtue is
blinded, and standards are relaxed in the pres-
ence of the dominating lure of pleasure; and
souls fall in the inevitable rebound from
overstimulated senses, and overtaxed nerves.
America is imperilled by the immorality which
grows out of fatigue, and from the weariness
of pursuit after false gods.

One is not unmindful of the splendid intellec-
tual, moral, and spiritual achievements which
have characterised our nation and people.
There are many signs that by very many God
is not forgotten.

When, however, the contributions made to
the Glory of God and the public good are an-
alysed, it is found that generosity of spirit is
the characteristic of a very small minority of
the people; and that those also are in the mi-
nority who consider life a stewardship, and
time an opportunity for lending to others the
helping hand.

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 21

To-day, as of old, to the great masses that
go by absorbed in selfish unconcern of their
brothers' need, the question is asked, "Is it
nothing to you all ye that pass by?" Is it
nothing to you that class distinctions are grow-
ing more intense, and that gulfs, unbridged by
understanding and sympathy, are widening be-
tween man and man? Is it nothing to you that
materialism is gripping the souls of men and
throttling the spirit of brotherhood? Is it noth-
ing to you that great, ill-gotten wealth engen-
ders great hatred, and that men are combining
in industrial war against each other and are
too blind to see that their interests are common
interests, and that, in the end, capital and labour
must stand together, or fall together in a fight
where neither one can win a lasting triumph
over the other? Is it nothing to you that preju-
dice and bitterness are engendered between man
and man, and between class and class, because
material interests are hardening the hearts of
men, and blinding their minds so that they can-
not see afar off?

22 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

If they could see, they would look backwards.
They would there perceive ambition and selfish-
ness and greed and covetousness, prejudice, pas-
sion, hatred, and revenge, armed with clubs,
then with iron, then with powder, and then with
dynamite' and poison gases, and aircraft and
all the implements of hell. If they could see,
they would look backward and behold the
corpse-strewn battle fields of the world. Bones
bleached white and blood and carnage would tell
of man's inhumanity to man when love and
brotherhood had become dominated by the will
to power inflamed by the greed for material
possession.

If we could see, we would look forwards
There on the fields of the future, we would see
the forces, born from the forgetfulness of God,
armed, as they always, in the end, do arm them-
selves for a deathly grip, and a ghastly strug-
gle. There is no permanent coherence in the
forces which battle for dominance in the strug-
gle for material supremacy. They are forces
at enmity with each other. They set man

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 2^

against man. They have always ended in war.
By what reason, and for what cause, shall
America be exempt?

Every war which has been fought on this
continent has had its origin in some question
growing out of property rights. As one to-day
feels the pulse of public life, are there signs
that this malignant fever has been entirely
cured? As one to-day endeavours to diagnose
the health of the body politic, are there no signs
that give warning of a great heat of blood and
passion, and of the presence of forces disord-
ered and poisonous, which may, if unchecked
and unhealed, produce a great eruption? By
what token may America hope to be exempt
from the consequences that have always fol-
lowed from forgetting God?

The catastrophe may not immediately come.
It may never come. If it does not, it will be
because we have learned a lesson from looking
over the seas, and from listening to the voices
which come to us from the battles born out of
the will bent on material power. The battle

g4 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

does not of necessity have to be between nation
and nation, or between section and section. The
most dire struggles are sometimes the ones
which arise among those who had given them
the chance to be brothers and became en-
emies.

Is there no mediator? Surely this is the
mission of the Christian Church. This is the
day of her opportunity. To-day she can point
to the power and the brutality of the forces en-
gendered out of materialism. To-day she can
show the inevitable end of selfish ambition by
pointing to the carnage and torture and dev-
astation of the battle fields covered with men
fresh slain. To-day she can call men to pause,
and ask them to consider the price being paid
by their customers for those things from which
we are hoarding gain. The dollars which come
to us blood-stained and tear-stained, — shall we
take them? It seems inevitable. It seems nec-
essary that we should. We have what they
must have, and what, in the light of all pre-
vious standards, they have the right to pur-

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 25

chase and to transport, if they can. American
business men cannot be justly charged by any
nation now at war as doing injustice in supply-
ing the demand of those who, not having pre-
pared for war, must prepare themselves now
or be conquered by those who prepared before
the war began by purchasing what they had
need of in the markets of the world.

The Church has a mission, however, in view
of these millions of dollars that are being paid
for the means with which to kill millions of

men.

Europe to-day is stretching to us appealing
hands. Her sick and wounded are calling to us.
We hear them in the stillness of the night.
Above the music of the festive dance, we hear
them calling. Over the noise of laughter from
around the costly banquet board, we hear them
calling. Above the applause of the opera house
and theatre, we hear voices calling from afar.
They sound above the din of industry, and
above the roar of traffic. They cry ' ' Come over
and help us."

26 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

The papers tell of millions made from muni-
tion orders and of thousands given to hospital
appeals. The mission of the Church is to
arouse the American conscience to correct the
proportion.

To-morrow the appeals will become more fre-
quent, more numerous and more pathetic.
There will come the cry of the widows and
orphans of ten or more war-stricken nations.
They will be asking for bread. They will be
begging for clothing to protect them from the
next winter's cold. They will point us to homes
in ashes, and to brothers and fathers slain.
They will tell us of children born of brutality.
They will ask, ''Is it nothing to you?"

The mission of the Church is to prepare the
heart of America to generous and sacrificial
response. If ever, since the merciful Christ set
His Church to be His witness in the world, there
was need for prayers for a divine benediction
of power, this is surely the time for such inter-
cession. If the Church should fail, if America
should fail, it will be because the forces of

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 27

materialism have so gripped her mind and
atrophied her heart that they will be prophetic
of her own certain doom. If it should prove,
in that coming day of opportunity and of judg-
ment, that greed and selfishness so dominate
our national life as to make us stingy and un-
generous in our response to these cries that are
now coming, and are sure to come with a more
pitiable and appealing voice, then as surely as
the forgotten God still lives, He will, through
the very forces which have usurped His place
in our national life, call us to the bitter judg-
ment of blood. It will not be, it never has been,
an arbitrary judgment, for God is Love. It
will be the judgment of natural cause and effect.
It will be the judgment of the sure and inviolate
working of the laws of that natural and material
realm in which those deliberately choose to live
and die who forget God, and remove themselves
from the government and control of His merci-
ful and creative spiritual laws.

It requires no special and unique prophetic
gift to enable the Church to fulfill her mission,

28 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

which is to tell men this : It requires only a
knowledge of history, and a plain understand-
ing of the clear revelation which He has given
of the ways in which natural and material forces
always work in that darkness which comes when
man forgets God and turns to worship and seek
and serve things visible, material and soul-
enslaving.

The Church cannot fulfill this mission to
which she is called in this crisis of the world if
she herself is fettered by formalism, manacled
by materialism, and made impotent to speak
and serve by reason of disunion.

She must make a supreme sacrifice before she
can ask it of others with appealing power. She
must come to the altar of consecration and
sacrifice her ''pride and prejudice and whatso-
ever else may hinder her from godly union and
concord." She must not bide the time till aca-
demic interpretations, and theory differences,
and uncertain and non-essential dogma barriers
have been settled by schoolmen, and cleared
away by lengthy investigation and discus-

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 29

sion. This great business of the King re-
quires haste.

Sometimes the best way to make haste is to
pause in the silence and take inventory. If we
must go on a swift, far mission, we may well
store away our impedimenta. We may also
wisely, for the time being, label and put aside in
safety vaults many of our long-cherished treas-
ures. Among these may be some of the ques-
tions concerning our orders and Church govern-
ment. We can return to them afterward. Or-
ders, sacraments, a great consciousness of mis-
sion, a supreme confidence in Christ, and a
larger trust in our brother Christian missioner,
we need to take with us. The theories, interpre-
tations, the exclusive claims, which divide us,
and tend to keep us from service mobilisation
in the emergency call, must be deposited for
safe keeping until some of the vital world prob-
lems have been solved, as they cannot be solved
without the united purpose and concerted voice,
and without the will to serve made one in Christ.

That some may be aided in making sacrificial

30 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

response to this clear call of Christ to His whole
Church, what is written in the pages following
is presented with the earnest hope that the pur-
pose in the heart of the writer will be taken as
an excuse and apology for what may, through
mental limitation, be said amiss, in the effort
made to examine some of the causes of dis-
union, and in the further effort to point to the
impelling and appealing need for a closer and
more vital Christian co-operation, that with
a common purpose we may enable the Church
of God in America to guide and help America
to guide and help the other nations of the
earth.

CHAPTER III
MATERIALISM

THE dominating power of materialism is
evident in every realm of thought and
experience. Materialism may be defined as
the affirmation of matter, and the forces
which proceed from matter, and the energies
directed toward material aggrandisement, as
being the sole substance and source of power,
causation, and of creative and constructive en-
ergy in the universe. It is the denial of a vital
and conscious force or personality, creative and
constructive in its operation, in the world and
in the life of man. It is the denial of any im-
material part in man or in the universe. It is
the doctrine of causation and of desire and will,
which is opposed to spiritism.

31

32 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

The materialist is one whose desires, ambi-
tions, energies and will are directed toward the
attainment of material things alone, or who
asserts and teaches that physical domination
by physical force is the destined end of man
and of nations.

This concept of the universe and of man is
the basis of widely diffused and accepted sys-
tems of philosophy, religion, ethics and politics.
It has become the dominating practical philoso-
phy of the major part of current commercial-
ism, and of international, political and diplo-
matic procedure. It is this concept which has
expressed itself in the creation and upbuild-
ing of that product which the pride and blind-
ness of the workmen have named civilisation.

This is the dominating philosophical and ethi-
cal concept which lies back of the great world
war, and which is the cause of it. In one na-
tion, at least, there is found the candour which
confesses it. There, in the most dominating
class in the great social and governmental fab-
ric, *'the will to power" has been openly as-

MATERIALISM 33

serted as being the end of national ambition,
and the means to this end. That has been as-
serted as being moral which aids in the attain-
ment of this end. Whatever is prejudicial to
the material growth and power and force of
empire is immoral. Nietzsche taught that the
Christian religion was the most immoral of
all religions because it inculcated sympathy and
a love for one's enemies, which tended to re-
strain *Hhe will to power," and to thwart the
ambition to make the empire with its culture
idea dominant over the rest of mankind. There
were many who were disposed to think that
this philosophy was but the expression of a
distorted mind which gave vent to its final ma-
terialistic ravings in the insane asylum of Jena,
until evidence was given in Belgium, and else-
where, that the philosophy that the end justi-
fied the means seemed dominant in the war
councils of the German Empire. Of course,
the end not yet having been attained and real-
ised, it may be impossible, from the viewpoint
of the materialist, to judge as to the moral value

34 THE CHURCH UNCHAINED

of the means. Those, however, whose theories
of morals and of humanity have another basis,
and whose philosophy includes the Master's
law of love and brotherhood, do not have to
wait until this system finds its ''place in the
sun*' before they pronounce judgment. They
feel convinced that the fundamental error and
inherent falseness of this philosophy is made
clearly manifest in its methods of procedure,
entirely regardless of what the distant end at-
tained may be ultimately shown to be.

This philosophical concept finds its expres-
sion in ''The Struggle for Law," by Jhering,
who seeks to substantiate the contention that
in force alone is to be found the basis and rea-
son for law, and that law has won its place in
society through the process of self-defence and
self-assertion.

That this materialistic philosophy has not
been thus publicly and officially accepted by
other so-called civilised nations does not hide
from view the fact that other nations engaged
in that hideous war have sought their power

MATERIALISM 35

and attained their material greatness by fol-
lowing ambitions, and using means no less ma-
terialistic than those disseminated in German
philosophical and ethical writings, and openly-
avowed and contended for by the German army.
Nor are signs lacking to show that the grip
of this philosophical and ethical materialism
is fixed with fierce tenacity upon the heart and
mind of American civilisation.

It is, of course, possible to assent to the
fact that, in the consciousness of the nations
engaged in war, there may exist, and doubtless
does exist, a certain culture or altruistic ideal-
ism which it is sought to establish ultimately
in the nation and on the earth. This intention
may indeed exist in the national consciousness
just as in the individual there may exist the in-
tention of devoting large contributions of ill-
gotten wealth to the cause of culture and toward
the alleviation of human misery. There is,
however, a growing sense of conviction in the
social, civic and national consciousness that
this intention proclaimed by an individual does

36 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

not constitute any moral justification for con-
ducting sweat shops, and prostituting childhood
to industrial accomplishment, or for oppressing
the hireling in his wages. Nor does it justify
the socialist in seeking to confiscate private
property, or the anarchist in seeking to destroy
it, because of some dream of a far-off social
betterment, which may be by these methods
secured. There is good reason to fear and to
expect that the character formed during the
process of seeking, by brutal means, the will
to power will not be the kind and quality of
individual or national character whose dom-
inance would ever tend to conduce to true cul-
ture of soul, or to the permanent enrichment
and elevation of human life. The sincerity
of the ultimate intention may be fairly judged
by the nature and kind of means used and jus-
tified to secure its final expression.

Before the coming of the Christ, there had
grown up in Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Rome
and Greece great material empires where
wealth, power, pleasure and sensuality were

MATERIALISM 37

dominant, and where materialism was regnant.
One by one these empires declined and fell into
disintegration and destruction.

Then there came the One long promised and
long expected. He stood in the midst of His
people with a body clothed in the garb of a
workman, and proclaimed the great spiritual
background of human life. He spake as never
man spake. He lived as never man had lived.
He gave to life new terms of value and new
standards of measurement. Blinded by ma-
terialism, poisoned by ambitions for worldly
power. His people knew Him not. With a ma-
terially blinded mind they judged Him. With
a materialistic prejudice they rejected Him.
With a hatred engendered by the bigotry born
and nurtured under a materialised ecclesiasti-
cism they crucified Him.

Then there dawned upon those who had heard
Him, and followed Him, and who heard Him
again speaking the great Gospel of a great,
conquering love, which the powers of hate and
death had failed to suppress, a clearer vision

38 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of Him, and of life and its meaning and purpose
revealed in Him who had been called through
death to live as King of life and truth and
love.

"With the vision of His cross, and in the power
of His resurrection life. His Church went forth
to sacrifice and to win dominion over the hearts
and wills of men. Persecuted by the forces of
materialism, relying upon the promise and pres-
ence of Him Who, unseen, dwelt among them,
and whose Spirit dwelt within, the Church gave
her witness to the world of her unconquerable
faith.

Then, in the presence of the forces and sym-
bols of imperial materialism, the Church began
to lose her clear vision power. She drew near
to the outstretched arm of empire, and began
to lean upon the arm of flesh. Then she ap-
propriated this arm, and the sword that was in
the hand of it. Then, to the forces of material-
ism, there was added the materialised Church.

Golden, gilded, and dominantly imperious,
she asserted her will to power, and with the

MATERIALISM 39

sword she had seized, she sought to enforce her
decrees.

Still, however, there lingered a light which
never deserted the lamp, though at times it flick-
ered and seemed almost to die away. Always
there were faithful souls who ministered at the
altar and fanned the waning flame through
prayer and sacrificial devotion. Thus it hap-
pened, as Guizot asserts in his ** History of
European Civilisation,*' that, amid the dark-
ness and corruption of mediaBval Europe, the
one ray of light was that which ever proceeded
from the flame of truth and virtue which per-
sisted in lingering in, and shining through, the
Christian Church in spite of her own material-
ism and formality.

The student of ecclesiastical history is, how-
ever, fully aware of the fact that the Church
soon became the very imperfect and grossly
materialised representative of the simple spir-
itual character and teaching of Jesus of Naz-
areth.

CHAPTER IV
CIVILISATION

THAT whicli men call civilisation has been,
and is still, often confused with Chris-
tianity. The two terms are in no sense
synonymous. They are most largely and dis-
tinctly contrary, the one to the other. Indeed,
civilisation, so called, has ever been, and is now,
composed of far more barbaric than Christian
elements. The struggle of God to manifest
Himself through the Church has been marvel-
lously patient and divinely persistent. Without
the restraining and constructive power of the
Spirit's witness and influence through the
Church, it is impossible to tell to what depths
of degradation humanity would have fallen.
It is quite impossible to determine what this

40

CIVILISATION 41

level would have been by pointing to the status
of barbarian people. Among them we find the
unorganised and undeveloped primitive human
instincts, both of brutality and morality. In
that state of society which we have denominated
civilisation, we find these instincts and impulses
developed and most highly organised.

Where this development has taken place un-
der the guidance and direction of materialistic
education ; where that which is called education,
without religious and spiritual inspiration and
enrichment, has moulded the mind; where the
end of education has been to train the mind to
dominate matter and make a living, and win
a fortune ; where the cultivation of mental alert-
ness and ingenuity has been pursued for the
sake of amassing wealth and enjoying pleasure,
and where knowledge, apart from the considera-
tion of love and brotherhood, has been taught
as being and giving power, it has come to pass
that, as an inevitable result, a so-called civilisa-
tion has been built up which is indeed most
largely a refined, organised and tremendously

42 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

potent development of barbarism. Civilisa-
tion without the restraints and compelling in-
fluences of spiritual life is more barbaric than
primitive barbarism. Brutal forces, selfish in-
stincts, and material ambitions, organised and
directed by a keen mind, correlated and in-
corporated by shrewd mentality, used in the
pursuit of personal or national selfishness, by
thought and desire and will, which have been
educated to be efficient, but which have not been
trained to recognise and respect the rights of
others, may be named civilisation, but the name
does not make the product other than it is in
fact, namely, a gigantic, organised system of
brutal barbarism. The civilisation which is
inherently materialised, rationalised, and made
mentally potent and dominant, has no claim
whatsoever to be called or considered Chris-
tian civilisation. It would be as justifiable to
speak of a sunlit night.

It was because his own materialism had so
blinded his vision that Herbert Spencer failed
to see this, and, therefore, argued against Chris-

CIVILISATION 4^

tiaiiity, seeking to prove his contention by point-
ing to the elemental virtues of barbarian peo-
ple, and comparing what he saw there with the
debauchery, sensuality, murder, lust and cruelty
of ''Christian civilisation." He failed to see
that a vast proportion of that which he called
Christian civilisation is refined and organised
materialistic barbarism. He failed to see that
the very system which he compares with bar-
barism is, because of its materialism, the dead-
liest foe to the progress and incarnation in hu-
manity of the spirit of Christ. He failed to see
that the only fair comparison would be between
the best barbarian and Jesus Christ, or between
the highest ideals of barbarian tribes and the
spiritual idealism of the Gospel of Christ. He
failed, as we often fail, to see that Christ and
the Christ spirit are not synonymous with the
ecclesiastical organisation, which, at times, is
so materialistic that it hides from view the
simple truth proclaimed as essential to salvation
in the great Gospel of redemption. While, in
many ways, Christianity has put a saving heart

44 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and hope into civilisation, yet in deed and in
truth, civilisation, so called, is, and has gen-
erally been, the material god who blinds men's
eyes and deadens their ears, so that they neither
see nor hear the great nearby God, and they
fail to know the Christ who, unseen and
rejected, stands among us crowned with
thorns.

Time and time again, the priests of His re-
ligion have been so absorbed in building the
material temple, and manipulating and defend-
ing the organisation, and have been so engaged
in intrenching themselves behind their inherited
and vested rights, and defending themselves
against encroachments upon their exclusive
claims, that the Church, which was sent to be
the witness of the Spirit, and to protest against
the dominance of materialism, became herself
a part of a great materialistic system, in which
the very priests of Christianity aided, by their
false emphasis, in putting Christ to open shame
before the minds of men who, like Herbert
Spencer, judge Christ's religion by the gross

CIVILISATION 45

and petty materialistic and formalistic expres-
sions of distorted ecclesiasticism.

It is, however, to be remembered that the
failure is not wholly, if indeed it is chiefly,
chargeable to the Church. She has much
through which to make her message penetrate.
The indifference engendered by wealth and lux-
ury and comfort, the neglect of soul culture
resulting from the ceaseless pursuit of material
things, the willingness, the supreme determina-
tion to gain the world regardless of the loss
of the soul, makes it extremely hard for the
Church, with a spiritual intent and purpose, to
find a point of contact between human interest
and spiritual truth. It is to be borne in mind
that, when the Christ Himself stood among men,
they heard Him not, saw Him not, and knew
Him not. The Church should be very much in
earnest, and deeply conscious of the necessity
of being vitally spiritual, but if she would not
lose courage, slie must pray for a divine quality
of patience and perseverance.

Is it to be wondered at that, when her pearls

4e THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

are rejected and trampled under foot by civil-
ised barbarians, she should turn with some en-
thusiasm of hope to the more elemental and
less materialised barbarian people and seek to
show the power of her divine mission in her con-
tact with the primitive child-like honesty and
trust and obedience of the uncivilised heathen?

It is not hard to understand the enthusiasm
of Bishop Tucker of Uganda, who returned to
London aglow with the joy of the wonderful
witness given by his people to the sincerity of
their simple faith in Christ. One could but
feel as one listened to the recital of the tokens
of this people's sacrificial devotion, that to them
the revelation of Christ had meant everything,
and had led them to enthrone Him as King su-
preme over their lives.

Except for the danger of being devoured by
cannibals, the missionary to the dwellers in the
palatial homes of our so-called civilised lands
has a far harder task than the missionary to
more primitive barbarian people. He has a less
hard and less thick outer surface through which

CIVILISATION 47

to penetrate than does he who has to speak to
the gold-encrusted souls atrophied by luxury,
living amid the volatile, sublimated and insid-
ious influences of refined barbarism, and sen-
sualised materialism. The inspiration which
comes to him who has the courage to persist
in seeking to penetrate this hardened crust of
modem materialism, comes largely from the
fact that those who come out of this environment
come with souls made strong from having
broken heavy and gross chains. The cost of
emancipation, and the terrible struggle to be
free, is that which gives to the real Christian
in the midst of modem materialistic civilisation
his splendid and far-reaching power of influ-
ence. Those who know the downward pull of
so-called civilisation know and appreciate what
it has cost to climb. The soul made free comes
to-day into the glory of the life redeemed
through great tribulation.

The superficial nature of materialistic
thought is observed also in the judgment pro-
nounced against the wisdom of the Church in

48 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

** sending missionaries to disturb the primitive
simplicity of life found among many barbarian
people." Here again it is not noted that what
disturbs and distorts and spoils their life is not
the simple truth revealed by the missionary
that goes to tell them of God's great love re-
vealed in Jesus Christ, but the vices and dis-
tortions of materialised civilisation, which
pushes in through the door opened by the mis-
sionary, and which would be opened and en-
tered by commercialism even though the mis-
sionary were not the pioneer.

Before a fair tribunal, Christianity will never
be judged by the collapse of the civilisation
which has collapsed because of the presence
and growth of materialism which repudiated
the Christian contention, and refused to hear
and heed the Gospel of sacrificial renunciation,
or to follow Christ in His call and leadership
into a life of simple faith, of simple love and
of trustful obedience and self-forgetful serv-
ice.

Prefixing the word Christian to civilisation

CIVILISATION 49

may produce confusion of thought, but doing so
does not produce Christian character. This
comes to men and nations through a process of
cross bearing and crucifixion, which the Chris-
tian Church has not yet succeeded in leading
civilisation to consent to accept, and which the
Church, at times, has failed to teach by the
power of her own example.

That men may be turned from sacrificing
others to the sacrifice of themselves for others;
that civilisation, so refined and skilled m its
barbarism, may be made indeed Christian is
the gigantic task of the Christian Church. The
god of this world, the barbarian's god, must
be dethroned, and Christ must be crowned Kmg
of kings and Lord of lords.

The Church, in order to fulfill her mission to
materialised civilisation, must renounce the
world and the flesh before she can denounce the
vain pomps and glories and sensual entice-
ments of materialism. The chains which bind
the world cannot be broken by human might
or human power, but by the ' ^ All Power" prom-

50 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ised by Christ to His Church, but which she has
never adequately appropriated.

Materialism awaits its Master Who will come
with conquering power in the day dawn of a
great and simple faith which worketh by love.

CHAPTER V

THE SPIRITUAL MISSION OP THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH

KNOWING what was in man, and knowing
what was in the world that would appeal
to man, and enslave him, unless he was pre-
pared to resist, the Christ constituted His
Church to be the witness of the Spirit, and
promised, through His Church, to give His
Spirit that men might know the truth that
would enable them to overcome the world with
its material and sensual appeal.

He gave to the Church the inspiration of His
own life in its relation to materialism. Know-
ing that men would question as to the origin
and destiny of the soul. He said, ''I came forth
from God." '^ go to the Father." He said

51

52 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of His mission, "The Father hath sent me."
The purpose for which He was sent He said
was ''to give eternal life" to men that they too,
who had come from God, might return to Him
with lives enriched through contact with God
in their pilgrimage through things material.

In coming into the world, He chose to come
simply. The manger was His cradle. His
home was a workman's cottage. His boyhood
was spent at the carpenter's bench, in the open
fields, and in the streets of an humble village.
His public ministry began in the light which
came from the open heavens as He prayed.
He passed into the solitude of the wilderness.
There He was tempted by the god of this world
who sought to attach Him to the material sys-
tem. Before Him passed in review the kingdoms
of the world, and the glory of them. And He
asked, shall I accept and seek to use these pow-
ers of materialism as means for building up
the Kingdom of God f He considered the terms
upon which they were offered, and determined
that He would rather suffer and be free. From

SPIRITUAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH 53

the wilderness He came to serve men. He went
about doing good. He had not where to lay
His head. One day the multitude came and
would have crowned Him King. He refused
the crown, and went apart into a solitary place
to commune with God. Out of the silence He
came and spake with authority, "as never man
spake."

He selected chosen witnesses to be with Him,
and, drawing them aside by the quiet lake, or
into the mountain solitude. He taught them.
He told them not to depend on things material.
They were to seek first the Kingdom of God.
They were not to lay up for themselves treas-
ures upon earth. For their means of power
they were to go often into the solitary place.
They were unlearned and ignorant men, and
poor. He gave them a simple and beautiful
Gospel. It passed into their hearts. It lingered
there. Afterward, when some of them came
to write, they remembered how very simply He
had talked to those whom He met by the way-
side. They recalled how He turned their minds

54 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

away from rational speculation and left them
questioning in the presence of mystery. They
recalled how He ever penetrated through ritual
observance, and dwelt upon the spiritual truth
which lay as the background of phenomena.
They told how He made the lilies, and fields,
and the vineyards and the fishermen's nets,
and the seed sown by the husbandmen and other
incidents of the commonplace, sacramental of
the great truths of the Kingdom of God. They
told how He took them into an upper room and
gave them there the greater sacrament of His
own life and death, and recalled His interces-
sory prayer, and His parting promise of a
Spirit who should come to guide them into all
truth. They recalled the agony of prayer in
Gethsemane, and filled priceless pages with the
simple record of His passing on to Calvary.
They tell us that they did not understand. They
paint the gloom which enveloped them without
His presence. Then the pages glow with celes-
tial light, and from them ring the glad notes of
triumph.

SPIRITUAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH 55

Again He walks with them, but they know
Him not, for they are reasoning with Him, and
with each other, by the way. The silence comes.
The stars appear. He takes bread and breaks
it, and as He speaks, they know Him. Then,
as their minds begin to wonder and to try to
understand, He vanishes, to come again into
their midst in the silence of the morning as they
sit by the lake. They tell how He led them up
into a mountain and commissioned them to go
teach and incorporate men into His Body
through Baptism. He had already told them to
break the bread in remembrance of His broken
Body, and to drink of the cup in remembrance
of His blood outpoured. He does not, in His
parting commission, re-emphasise this. He
lifts His hands in blessing and becomes in-
visible among them.

All these things and many others they re-
membered, and, that His Church might know
its Lord and follow Him, they wrote these
things down to be the heritage of the Christian
Church, its character and foundation. They

56 THE CHURCH lENCHAINED

preached to others what they had seen and
heard and known, and then passed into the
world invisible, leaving others to be His wit-
nesses.

There is no complex system, and no tinge of
materialism in the story given. The great love
of God for man stands clearly revealed in His
incarnation, and the heart of the Christ is, in
the Gospels, thrown open to the world, and all
are asked to come and be of His Body who will
come in simple faith, and follow in the path
of simple obedience bearing their cross, and
giving their witness.

Surely it has not been because of Him or His
teaching that civilisation has grown materialis-
tic, and greedy, and full of lust and ambition,
and has become dominated by the will to power.
Surely He did not give the inspiration which led
to the battles of the schoolmen, or to the doc-
trine of temporal power, for *'my Kingdom,*'
He said, ''is not of this world.'' Surely He
cannot be held responsible for the spirit of ma-
terialism, and of formalism, and of exclusive

SPIRITUAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH 57

logical interpretation which crept in and domi-
nated the Church. Surely the Church is gravely
responsible if, in the light of His life, she puts
the emphasis upon the wrong things, or puts
upon rightful things a wrong and disproportion-
ate emphasis.

The great crisis has come. Shall not the
Church pause and take inventory? The meth-
ods, the emphasis, the organisation, the theories,
which have dominated her life have failed to
stem the tide of materialism. It has deluged
civilisation. It has throttled the human heart.
It has atrophied human sensibilities. The cries
of widows and orphans turn neither kaiser nor
king from the determination to kill as long as
men and money remain.

Is it not very probable that something is
really desperately wrong in the past and pres-
ent programme of the Church? It is easy and
costless to lay the blame upon others. It is quite
possible to charge the impotence of the Church
to the schism of others, and forget the arro-
gance and bigotry that caused them to seek

58 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

spiritual freedom. It is easy to lay the impu-
tation of disloyalty to others who failed to see
the truth as we formulated it, unmindful of the
fact that we may have formulated theories in the
past to which we ourselves would not to-day
subscribe. It is easy to blame those who de-
parted from confessions of faith and articles
of religion in days long gone, forgetful that
to-day these articles and confessions are by
ourselves side-tracked or repudiated. Shall we
repudiate those who rejected in other days what
to-day we reject? That it is we who reject the
articles and confessions to-day does not prove
that they were any more infallibly true when
they were by others rejected because their con-
sciences could not, in days gone by, give to these
iron-clad tests of faith the assent of candid and
honest minds which to-day we cannot give.

Is it not quite possible that, by magnifying
at one time the indispensable value of interpre-
tations and theories afterward by us repudi-
ated, and by insisting upon contentions and
dogmas that to many thousands of spiritual

SPIRITUAL MISSION OP THE CHURCH 59

men are not regarded as essential to salvation,
that the Chiircli has made and is making the
impression upon the world that she has lost the
consciousness of her mission to witness to
Christ, and to the simple faith and glorious
redeeming love proclaimed in the simple mes-
sage of His Gospel? At times the Church seems
panic-stricken. She impresses the world with
the idea that she has lost confidence in her-
self. Around some ancient bulwark of logical
interpretation, behind some fort of catholic
sanction, she intrenches herself. To the world
she says. If this falls, I fall. The world wonders
just why this logical deduction is after all essen-
tial to its salvation. It comes to question the
truth of the claim that this defended bulwark
is the critical salient which must be held in order
to enable the Church to solve the problems aris-
ing out of the world crisis.

Men, in larger numbers than ever before, are
gathering in their clubs and discussing the re-
lation of the Church to the world crisis. They
are asking why is she fighting over shibboleths?

60 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

They are asking why is the lack of fellowship
and co-operation with such stupendous, vital
problems to be solved? They are taking down
books which they have not been accustomed
to read, and, as they turn the pages which tell
of Bloody Articles, and test interpretations, and
scientific and religious controversies, and bap-
tismal regeneration, and predestination, and
eternal punishment, and heathen damnation con-
tentions, which made heaven and earth lurid
with the fires of heated debates, the men who
think are asking ' ' How long, 0 Lord, how long'*
will the ecclesiastical mind persist in contending
for theories and interpretations which are not
essential to salvation, and which keep men from
co-operating in this day of the world's crisis
and of the Church's greatest opportunity?

These questions are being asked. They are
reasonable questions and fair. The men who
ask them are coming to see that it is rationalism
and materialism which has collapsed in this
crisis of human history. They are coming to
see, and are b(?ginning already to say that the

SPIEITUAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH 61

Church, having failed to make her witness to
the spiritual heard and heeded by men and na-
tions, stands to-day before the judgment bar
of God and of man. What will she plead ? What
will she confess? What will she determine?

One can but wonder what the Master is try-
ing to say to His Church to-day. Unseen He
walks in our midst. He needs a vital, conse-
crated Body through which to express and re-
veal Himself to the world. He needs a human
tongue through which to speak, and human
hands with which to heal and help. Through
materialism He cannot speak. Through His
Church materialised, He cannot speak to ma-
terialism. By our failure to perceive and know
and understand, we leave Him voiceless. By
our divisions we leave Him almost impotent
to help. By our pride and conceit and stub-
bornness, we leave Him filled with a sorrow
wliich is unutterable.

In this time of crisis we hear Him say, ^'Lo I
come.'* But can we hear Him say, ''A Body
hast thou prepared for me?" He needs a Body

62 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

presented as a living sacrifice and, through sac-
rifice, made one in spirit and in truth. He
needs the human mind transformed by the re-
newing of the spirit. He needs a great human
heart consecrated to love. He needs a Body
which shall be the living temple of His living
spirit. He will make it one, if it is ever thus
presented to Him.

It may be that the great world crisis will com-
pel His Church to bear its cross and follow
Him over Calvary to unity. When she can say,
*'I am crucified with Christ," then, but not till
then, will the world hear the voice of Him
who is waiting and longing to speak His mes-
sage of peace and love and power, that the
Father's children may all be made brothers.

CHAPTER VI
THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS*

WE cannot to-day do the things that we
would. The impulses, the desires, even
the will to serve stand almost impotent in
the presence of a world catastrophe. We
have organised and systematised the will to
material gain and worldly power. The instru-
ments of production, the means for transporta-
tion, the methods for transacting the work of
the world, are unified and correlated and are
almost perfect in their efficiency. Secular edu-
cation has been graded and made adaptable to
every need of man save the needs of the soul.
We have systematised our theology. Doctrine

* This chapter was used as a part of an address made to
the Laymen's Missionary Convention, in New York City, April
10th, 1916.

63

64 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

follows doctrine in ordered and logical sequence
in our scholarly books on dogmatics. Our
liturgy is as harmonious and beautiful as a
poem, and our churches are, in many instances,
poems in stone.

For a year and a half the cry of the world's
need has swept over the ocean to America, and
we have found no way to make anything which
approaches or suggests an adequate response.
Individuals, here and there, have given gen-
erously. Individuals, in many instances, have
trained souls. As a people we have done noth-
ing and attempted nothing. We stand idle and
impotent.

The impulses and desires of selfishness are
organised. The heart of our humanity is in a
state of moral and spiritual chaos. There is no
voice which speaks with a spiritual authority
to the national conscience, and no means have
been provided for gathering together the latent
forces of unselfishness, of generosity, of kind-
ness and benevolence which exist unorganised
and unexpressed in the heart of the American

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 65

people. The masses are exploited by organised
selfishness. The masses are, to a great extent,
organised for selfish exploitation. The masses
of our American people are, however, to-day
missing the greatest opportunity which ever
came to a people of any nation to be made
conscious of the duties and responsibilities of
human brotherhood. The opportunity for
creating a sense of moral and spiritual soli-
darity is offered, as it was never before offered
to a people, and so far absolutely nothing com-
mensurate with the opportunity has been at-
tempted.

The nation cannot pass through this crisis
and, in the end, be left upon the moral plane
where she stood at the beginning of the world
war. She must of necessity either ascend or
descend morally and spiritually. The law to
which Bishop Butler called attention, that the
human mind and heart are atrophied and de-
based by feeling emotions which are unex-
pressed, is immutable. America is beginning
to get accustomed to the cry of need and to the

66 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sight of appealing tragedy to which she makes
no adequate effort to respond. We are in dan-
ger of measuring our generosity by the num-
ber of appeals we hear, and the strength of the
emotions we have felt, rather than by the sacri-
fices we have actually made to help the world's
great need. Unless the national conscience is
aroused to a point that will lead the national
will to make a sacrificial response, America will,
in the end, have been hardened and debased by
having viewed with irresponsive selfishness the
sorrow and need of her suffering brothers be-
yond the seas.

The spectacle is pathetic and appalling. It
is pathetic because it gives evidence of the im-
potence of the institutions and forces which
should naturally voice and express and work
in this crisis the will of God. An unprepared
Church stands in the presence of a world crisis.
Among all her age-long systems, there is not
found to-day one that is adequate for leader-
ship, and for a constructive and statesmanlike
programme of correlating and making operative

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 67

the divine impulses in the heart of the people.
It is appalling because of the fact that among
all the nations upon earth to-day America most
largely needs to seize and make use of the op-
portunity to consolidate the moral and spiritual
impulses of her people. She, of all others, pre-
eminently needs to create and develop the forces
of a higher national unity. This need is pre-
eminently hers because of the heterogeneous
and hyphenated nature of her population. From
every nation under the sun, people have flocked
to her shores bringing with them various im-
pelling ideals and impulses. Should the time
ever come when the nation will be called to act
as a unit, there will then be made apparent the
appalling tragedy of not having used the op-
portunity which these hours afford for bind-
ing the people into a common purpose in a
united effort to serve the needs of others. From
America's view-point, the success of this effort
would not be measured by the sums of money
contributed but by the number of those who, in
response to a clear call, would unite to serve

68 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

others. This union of a noble intent, this soli-
darity of moral and spiritual purpose, would
give to America her most efficient and potent
preparedness in the event of either peace or
war.

What doth it profit a nation if it gains treas-
ures from the whole world's need, and in re-
sponse to the cry of the world's deepest need,
turns an irresponsive ear, and listens with a
deadened soul? What will it profit this nation
if it organises its mind and its will to gain, and
through a great national indifference, selfish-
ness and impotence, dies at last of a degen-
erated and poisoned heart?

To-day the mind of the nation is fixed upon
force. It is counting its ships, its guns, its
forts, and its soldiers. It is counting its dollars.
The nation is weighing itself. The nation needs
to do this. But in this alone the nation will
not find its preparedness. In these things, when
taken alone, are found the seeds of a nation's
doom. Unless a nation be possessed of spir-
itual treasures worth saving, and worthy to

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 69

be given, she cumbers the earth, and impedes
the onward march of God. Of such nations it
is written in the book of destiny that their days
are numbered because, when weighed in the
balance of God's unrelenting judgment, they
are found to be lacking in the elements essential
to personal and national permanence.

The Christian Church stands to-day in the
presence of organised greed, covetousness and
materialism in national life made incoherent
because of its unorganised soul, and disorgan-
ised moral and spiritual impulses. The Chris-
tian Church stands in the presence of this
crisis herself disorganised, and, in some in-
stances, contentious over interpretations, and
fighting over shibboleths.

She claims to be the Body of Christ. She is
His Body. But her chains are not His. They
bind Him. They throttle Him. They make it
possible for the world to crucify Him afresh.
As of old. His cross was set up by Caesar, but
his chains were forged by orthodoxy made blind
by pride and prejudice. Sometimes it would

70 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

seem that the Church loved the chains forged
by its own logic better than she loved the Body
of His humiliation and sacrifice. Sometimes
it would seem that the Church had become ob-
sessed with the idea that she was called to
manufacture unity by building up a logical
system and creating a form and mould in which,
because of its antiquity and symmetry, the
Spirit of unity must of necessity dwell, forget-
ting that God has ever built for Himself in the
world, and in man, a Body as it has pleased
Him, when His Spirit was allowed to have free
course, that He might glorify and unify the
Body by working from within the consecrated
shrine of His own chosen dwelling place.

The crisis calls us to set Christ free. In this
hour we should pray for vision to discriminate
very clearly between ecclesiastical shackles and
the flesh and blood of His living Body. The
chains which delimit the freedom of His Spirit,
and make it possible for the world to crucify
afresh its Lord of life, must be stricken from
His body. The world greatly needs Him.

THE TRAGEDY OP UNPREPAREDNESS 71

America is slowly but consciously becoming en-
slaved because to-day there is no visible me-
diator, no one to speak to her conscience, no one
to gather her children together, no one to en-
fold them in a great saving pui*pose to help the
world's need, no one to save. And yet invisible
He stands in His visible Church. Here to-day,
as there in the long ago, He can do no mighty
works because He is bound by our unbelief,
shackled, as was the Word of God of old, by
our traditions, and chained by the delimiting
logical formalism and narrow dogmatism of
schools of thought in Churches which seek to
atone for their narrowTiess by prefixing to their
Christian name terms which imply an exclusive
orthodoxy.

The crisis calls us to re-examine the grounds
upon which this Church bases its claim to ex-
clusiveness. It calls every Church to look back
over the path of its past life and note the proc-
esses of its departure from the ideal of spirit-
ual and corporate unity. Above all things, the
crisis calls for sacrifice. It pleads for unity in

72 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

spiritual purpose and in spiritual essentials.
It points to millions scattered as sheep with-
out a shepherd. It bids us listen to the clank-
ing chains of materialism by which they are
being fast bound and enslaved. It asks if we
cannot voice the nation's need, the nation's
hope, the world's pathetic cry, and call the im-
pulses to help, which lie latent in the hearts of
millions, into a united purpose, and into a ra-
tional expression of brotherliness. It asks for
Christian co-operation. America's peril pleads
for the inspiration which Christian unity of
will and purpose would to-day give to the life
of the nation.

The Church has not trained itself for such a
service of giving as the world is trained for the
purpose of getting. The means through which
material ambition works its will have been cre-
ated as a result of a continuity of consciousness
and application with regard to selfish gain, and
with reference to the relation of ambition to
things material. The means for expressing
the soul have not been created because of the

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 73

lack of continuity in our consciousness of our
divine and human relationships. The spirit-
ual emotions and aspirations have been either
too exclusively personal, or else too evanescent
to register themselves in a deep and abiding
and constructive social and national spiritual
conscience. The crisis, therefore, finds us un-
prepared. A sense of vague bewilderment
dazes the mind as it endeavours to think out a
way to unify and express the benevolent dispo-
sition and latent emotions which lie unexpressed
in the heart of the masses of the American peo-
ple. A feeling of hesitancy shackles the will to
serve. The mind is dominated by the conscious-
ness of our moral and spiritual unprepared-
ness. As a nation we are in grave danger of
failing to do anything which will represent the
national conscience because we fear that a great
nation-wide endeavour could not be adequately
voiced and expressed. It were, however, bet-
ter for the nation to fail in a great spiritual
undertaking, than to succeed in doing the small
service which will result from the contribu-

74 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

tions made by a limited number of individuals
who happen to be touched by special and spas-
modic appeals. Though these gifts may be gen-
erous, and in some instances munificent, they
do not represent the masses of the people, nor
do they express the national consciousness, nor
do they register the response of the national
conscience.

The crisis imperatively demands that we en-
deavour, through a great sacrifice and conse-
cration, to give to the Christ a voice through
His Church that shall call the masses of our
people into a unity of service to help supply
the need of to-day and the greater needs which
will voice themselves on the morrow.

If objection is made that gifts could not be
made by America during the war to nations
in need without releasing money in these na-
tions for the uses of war; if it be objected
that the distribution now, or during the war, of
a national fund would arouse contention and
animosity; then the crisis of to-day could be
used as the inspiration of a national endeavour

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 75

to raise now and during the progress of the
war a fund for helping to reconstruct and re-
habilitate the people who will need many mil-
lions when the war is done to enable them to
tie together again the broken cords of personal
and national life.

A political platform is, in a few weeks, im-
pelled into the consciousness of the American
people. An appeal for armament preparedness
is voiced through various and divergent institu-
tions to the heart and mind of the nation. The
appeal of God, which is the appeal of human
need to the human heart, finds everything or-
ganised save the means to make that appeal
heard, and to gather into one the willingness
to help. The opportunity to unify the heart of
the nation's life through a great endeavour to
serve the world's need, the opportunity to unify
the higher, the deeper consciousness of civic
and national responsibility is the crisis oppor-
tunity of the Christian Church.

In every city, in every hamlet in America,
those who know and love the merciful and

76 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

compassionate Christ should unite in some way
to give voice to the heart of love and pity which
to-day weeps over the tragedy of the world.

This endeavour might be launched by the
Laymen's Missionary Movement and com-
mended by them to the Federated Churches of
Christ in America and extended to other organi-
sations outside the Christian Church, or it
might be started by the action of the General
Convention or Assembly or Conference of some
branch of the Christian Church, and co-opera-
tion asked from other branches of the Church.

The promise of Christ that the gates of hell
should not prevail against His Church, implied
a promise that His Church should some day pre-
vail against the gates of hell. The Church,
however, which in her pride boasts ' * I am rich
and have need of nothing" may hear the Mas-
ter say, ' ' Thou hast a name that thou livest and
art dead; strengthen the things which remain,
that are ready to die." ** Remember whence
thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first
works; or else I will come unto thee quickly,

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 77

and will remove thy candlestick out of its place,
except thou repent.'*

The god of this world, and the God of Love,
both are saying to America to-day, ''Behold I
have set before thee an open door." Through
the door opened by the god of this world, the
trains of commerce are rushing laden with mu-
nitions of war, and returning laden with gold.
Through it, the organised forces of material-
ism are passing in serried ranks with their eyes
fixed on the golden gain which lures them on.

Through the door opened by the God of Love
comes the cry of millions in need. By this open
door stands the divided, shackled Church, dis-
cussing ancient claims, contending for the right
of precedence in the procession to minister to
fast dying men, disputing as to the vestments
to be worn in the funeral obsequies of nations,
and as to the terms upon which souls, passing
into the invisible beyond, are to be given the
Bread of Life and the assurance of forgive-
ness.

It is time for the procession to pass through

78 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the open door bearing the garnered gifts of mil-
lions in the slavery to selfishness to millions in
need of medicine and daily bread. It will be
time to stop longer and discuss the claims of
the succession when the procession shall have
returned from its mission through the open
door to help bind up the bruised and bleeding
heart of the nations.

Millions of our Father's children, naked and
cold, sick and hungry, and dying faster than
men have ever died before, stretch out to Amer-
ica appealing hands. Shall America make a
national response? The nations, when the war
is done, and a calmer judgment prevails, will
recognise that comparatively few institutions
and individuals in this country have made large
profits from the war. They will perceive, what
will doubtless be apparent, that as a nation our
economic loss has been far greater than our
economic gain. If in that day of judgment,
when great hatreds and bitter resentments shall
tend to pervert the judgment of the nations, it
shall be recognised that, while individuals in

THE TRAGEDY OF UNPREPAREDNESS 79

America have in many instances grown rich
by reason of this world tragedy, that, neverthe-
less, the American people, in response to a na-
tion-wide appeal, have shown a disposition to
be brotherly and compassionate, then the judg-
ment against the nation will be one of which
we will not be ashamed. It will be a judgment
like that held of America to-day in China as
a result of the return of the Boxer indemnity
fund.

This is the open door of opportunity set be-
fore the Church and the nation. What response
will the Christian Church make? What capac-
ity of leadership will she show? What sacri-
fices will she be willing to endure ?

What will be the attitude of the Episcopal
Church in this co-operative endeavour? The
value of * * the succession, ' ' which many empha-
sise as essential and restrictive, will be meas-
ured by many, if not by the Master, by the
place it takes in the procession through the door
opened by this crisis in the history of the
world and in the life of the Church of God.

PART II

ECCLESIASTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
FORM AND SPIRIT

*'TJie Body without the Spirit is dead.*'

"And they took Jesus and hound Him."

"Though we he tied and hound with the chain
of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of thy great
mercy loose us; for the honour of Jesus Christ."

CHAPTER VII
THE PURPOSE PREVIEWED

THROUGH the pages following, some of the
processes of mind which have contributed
to make the Christian Church unprepared to
meet the crisis, and make use of her greatest
opportunity, will be considered. The Church
once for all time founded by the Christ, has
become divided and encrusted and made incom-
petent for her world mission. She must of ne-
cessity face the task of readjustment and of
reconstruction. She must be led to a new and
higher point of view. She must follow her
Master up to the mount of transfiguration, and
talk with Him of the decease which she must
accomplish on Calvary, if she would rise to the
glory of communicating His resurrection life

83

84 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and power to the world, which, through Him
alone, can be saved.

She must examine the measure of her empha-
sis, and ask if it has always been placed upon
things vital and essential. She must consider,
in view of the call which comes to her through
the open door, the grounds and claims which
prevent co-operative endeavour, and withhold
Christian communions from applying the po-
tency of a vital common faith to the moral dis-
orders of the world with a corporate solidarity
of high moral and spiritual purpose. She
would do well to remeasure and resurvey the
bounds of her comprehensiveness, and ques-
tion as to the extent of her inclusiveness of
the purpose of God within the bounds of her
exclusive claims. After all it is a question of
balance, and of emphasis, and of a right judg-
ment in all things. Before all is the necessity
for prayer and penitence.

We have made mistakes. We have trusted
the logic of our delimited minds, and have
leaned too often upon the knowledge that puf-

THE PURPOSE PREVIEWED 85

feth up and produces pride and arrogance,
rather than upon the love that buildeth up the
Body of Christ. We have relied upon the arm
of flesh, and trusted in things material. "We
have gendered controversies by the vain en-
deavour to dictate exactly how intellectual be-
lief should accept the mystical union between
the invisible Spirit and the form of its mani-
festation in Holy Baptism, in the Holy Com-
munion, in Biblical inspiration, and Orders, and
in the mystery of the Divine Incarnation and
Resurrection. In every instance it has been the
material, the human, the visible side, of the mys-
tery that has mastered and perverted the mind.
In every instance through theological and ec-
clesiastical controversy, intellectual belief in
theories of interpretation has sought to sup-
plant and usurp the place of simple faith which
unites the personal soul of man with the per-
sonal Christ.

During the centuries through which she has
passed, the Church has built barriers which have
separated Christians from godly union and con-

86 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

cord. We live behind them. We cannot see
each other. We do not understand each other.
We distrust each other.

The world crisis calls us. We refuse to
march together because of questions of prece-
dence. We decline to co-operate because of a
certain distrust in our position, because of a
fear that a thing we claim as divine will be com-
promised by association with those who, in
ways other than those we cherish, are follow-
ing Christ, and serving the world in the power
and witness of His Spirit. Ecclesiasticism
must not be allowed to enchain the Christ.

In what shall be said, the purpose will always
be to do respect to every honest conviction, and
to recognise the sincerity of mind and heart of
every seeker after truth. The saintliness of
character seen in men of many and varied
schools of thought, and in the various com-
munions of the Church, gives evidence of a pres-
ence and power which is divine, which tran-
scends the limits of logical barriers and ec-
clesiastical exclusiveness, and justifies the plea

THE PURPOSE PREVIEWED 87

whicli is made in the chapters which follow for
a review of positions arrived at by the logical
process, and for an inclusive and comprehensive
Church, and for a co-operation of Christian
people for upbuilding the spiritual order of the
world.

The conviction is cherished that the divine or-
der of the Church will not suffer from a co-
operative endeavour to correct and cure the
moral disorder of the world. Wliere Christ
calls through the thousand-voiced needs of a
world prostrate, impotent, dying in darkness,
and crushed beneath the weight of collapsed
materialism, we cannot suffer loss of anything
essential to faith and order if we follow Him,
in the company of others who also hear and
make answer to His call and command to go
teach the nations and baptise them with power
that the kingdoms of this world may become
the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ.

As we note the confusion and discord, and
consider the unhappy divisions which have re-

88 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

suited from the effort to bound the compre-
hensiveness of faith, and the inclusiveness of
the Church by the use of reason and the proc-
esses of logic; as we note the results of seek-
ing to fix the limits of God's covenanted mer-
cies by the conclusions of the finite mind ; it be-
comes apparent that serious errors have been
made which need to be corrected. The necessity
for considering the relation between ecclesiasti-
cism and Christianity becomes also apparent.
And in view of our failure to find a way to vis-
ible organic unity by the use of the methods
which have been pursued, the question arises:
may it not be wise for the Church to begin to
place the major emphasis upon the spirit, rather
than upon the form, of unity, and seek to find
and make use of the approaches to unity which
start from the open door to closer fellowship,
a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy?
May it not be that the spirit of unity will come
to live in us more largely, and build up the Body
into visible organic unity in a way that shall
please Him, if we begin to walk more closely

THE PURPOSE PREVIEWED 89

with others who follow Him in the effort to es-
tablish and extend the Kingdom of God, and to
prepare the way for the rule and guidance of
the Spirit of Life and Love and Unity?

CHAPTER VIII
LOGIC AND CATHOLICITY

HUMAN logic has proven a poor prop to
the catholicity of the Church of God. It
has been the chief instrument in promoting sec-
tarianism and schism. By its aid, every propo-
sition and dogma that has been set forth has
been established to the satisfaction of those
who stood sponsors for it. By it, definitions,
inadequate to comprehend the truth, have been
put forth, and the scope of truth and of divine
life, in its expression and revelation, have been
delimited. By it, God has been reasoned into
tribal limits, and then, by the tribe, has been
reasoned into the confines of the sect, then,
by the sect. He has been reasoned out of the
covenant relationship with the rest of mankind.

90

LOGIC AND CATHOLICITY 91

Logical bulwarks have ever been the defence of
bigotry, exclusiveness and narrow sectarianism.
Men have ever been prone to forget that, as
temples made with hands cannot contain Him,
even so can He not be contained in, and cir-
cumscribed by, definitions and dogmas, or by
the terms of ecclesiastical polity. He ever
overflows the channels which men survey, map
out, charter and proclaim as exclusive means
through which the divine life is to be communi-
cated. Beyond our fullest and most compre-
hensive thought, there is ever an unexpressed
fulness of God. The Eternal One has persist-
ently refused to be confined within the dogmas,
terms and systems which, through the logical
process, men have decreed in order to circum-
scribe His Grace, and through which they have
sought to appropriate to themselves an exclu-
sive claim to His special and covenanted mer-
cies. Into the open heart of humanity, through
the open door of personal faith, His life has
ever come, according to His own will and cove-
nanted promise, and in coming has made those

92 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

who received His Spirit partakers of His di-
vine nature.

The Church may some day break away from
the narrow confines of its logical and delimited
catholicity, and become sufficiently inclusive to
embrace all those who are embraced in the Body
of Christ through the baptism of incorporation
into His life, and who, through His spirit, re-
veal His living and abiding presence.

CHAPTER IX

THE INTENTION AND EXTENSION OF
THE CHURCH

WHILE, with a zeal that has not always
been attended with reverence and hu-
mility, but which has often been attended by
arrogance and the self-sufficiency of a vast ig-
norance, the Church has often in its past history
applied false logic to forge binding fetters and
restraints upon the liberties of the souls of
men, she has all too frequently failed to ob-
serve the very fundamental principles of logic
itself.

While the logical process may, and frequently
does, lead to false conclusions by reason of the
finite and incomplete, and therefore inadequate
conceptions of God, and of spiritual truth,

93

94 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

which are stated in the premises, yet, the great
fundamental principles of logic are essentially
true, and when violated in the thought-processes
of men, the expression of truth becomes of ne-
cessity inadequate and incomplete. The claims
made of catholicity are frequently seen to have
been vitiated and overthrown by reason of the
fact that, even while endeavouring to establish
certain contentions, by what seemed to be a sure
logical process, the fundamental principles and
abiding maxims of logic were overlooked ; which
has resulted in the fact that the logical conclu-
sions reached stand contradicted, in the claim
they make, by the logical principles and funda-
mental maxims of truth which have been vio-
lated or unobserved during the reasoning and
constructive process. Thus the constructive
process proves destructive to the very cath-
olic claims which they sought to estab-
lish.

The law of thought that **the minimum of
intension is the maximum of extension, while
on the other hand, the minimum of extension

INTENTION AND EXTENSION 95

is the maximum of intension/'* furnishes an
example and illustration of what happens when
the logical process is used to prove the fact
that a certain superadded ecclesiastical dogma,
or theory, is of divine authority, or of ancient
and universal sanction, and must, therefore, be
received as an essential note of the Catholic
Church, or be accepted as a necessary article
of the Catholic faith, or be assented to as a
condition precedent to loyal membership in the
Catholic Church.

These superimposed dogmas, ceremonies and
decrees add to the intensive notes of the
Church ; they, however, limit the extensive hold
of the Church upon the thought and faith of
men. It was just this that the Christ charged the
Jews with having done. '*Ye have made the
Commandments of God of none effect by your
traditions, teaching as the doctrines of God the
commandments of men." (St. Mat. xv, 6, 9.)
Having identified these intensive notes, which
had been added and made binding by tradition,

• ' ' Theory of Thought, ' ' Noah K. Davis, p. 36.

96 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

with the law and revelation of Grod, their church
became so delimited in their own conception of
it that it was not extensive enough to embrace
Christ and His apostles, or to comprehend, or
include, their teaching, and they accused Him
of being a heretic and crucified Him, and per-
secuted and killed, as they could, His followers.
This was the charge made by the continental
and English reformers against the Church of
Rome. It was pointed out that, by her decrees
and superadded doctrines and ceremonies,
Rome had made the Church more and more in-
tensive ; that is, its notes, and distinctive attri-
butes had been increased. It was doubtless
reasoned that these notes would enrich the life
of the Church and increase its power. It was
doubtless reasoned, also, that each new doctrine
added could either be proven from the teaching
of the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers, or
else it was logically reasoned that their author-
ity, as universally binding, rested upon the logi-
cally proven right of infallible popes and in-
fallible councils to decree dogmas to be held

INTENTION AND EXTENSION 97

essential, which to deny would be heresy, and
which to repudiate would be schism.

The Church failed to foresee that the thought
of subsequent generations might not be of a
nature to be included within the reach of the
Church whose extensive catholicity was gradu-
ally being delimited by each superadded dogma,
established as true, or judged expedient, by the
logical working of the ecclesiastic mind. It
failed to perceive that the liberated mind would
be more extensive than the Church, which they
were making by each dogma more intensive, and
thus less and less extensive in its scope and
inclusive capacity. The time, however, came
when others saw it.

CHAPTER X
THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE SYLLOGISM

THE syllogism, as it represents the reason-
ing process, and when it is used for the
purpose of formulating and expressing divine
truth, should be conceived in reverence and born
in humility; for, as Samual Coleridge says:
"there is small chance of truth at the goal
where there is not childlike humility at the
starting post."* About the syllogism there
should ever be the consciousness of the finite-
ness of human thought. It should breathe the
atmosphere of God's transcendent life when
stating the fact of His immanence. It should
beware of conclusions which set limitations
upon God, and should ever doubt both the

*"Aids to Reflection," p, 182.
98

ATMOSPHERE OF THE SYLLOGISM 99

wisdom and truth of a reasoning process which
ends with binding Christ and the Eternal Spirit
to conform to, and be restrained by, the conclu-
sions at which human reason arrives. Before
the conclusion is sent on its journey to meet the
problems of life and to help guide the pilgrim-
seeker after truth; before it is sanctioned by
authority, and incorporated into the system of
vital truth, it should look with far-reaching vi-
sion down the long vistas of time. It should ask
the far future very earnest questions. It should
ask: — Will I be needed then? Will I, who
seem to state the truth to-day, fetter the truth
seeker of to-morrow? Am I too exclusive! In
the fresh exultation of youth, am I too arrogant
of what was reverenced as the venerated faith
of the years long gone, the truth which car-
ried many burdens, and which, though now
worn with age, was the guide and help of saints
departed? These questions the truth seeker, the
truth formulator, should ask himself. With
this atmosphere of reverence, humility, forbear-
ance, and wide horizon, the syllogism would

100 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

more largely aid the pilgrims of the night,
and do better service to the Church of
Christ.

One wonders, one cannot be very sure, if
much that has been done and said with the claim
of infallible authority would be done and said
to-day if it was not for the sanctions and conten-
tions of the past. One wonders if the doctrine
of Transubstantiation, or of Consubstantiation,
or any doctrine which vainly undertook to tell
in human words just how the Eternal Christ is
present in the Eucharist, and just how He
worked His will, and communicated His pres-
ence, would be formulated and sanctioned to-
day by a general council of the Church, if there
were no previous pronouncement on the subject
save the simple words of the Master Himself.
Because, after all, men cannot know. They feel
and know His presence in sacraments, and in
the written and spoken words of truth, and in
the lives of those in whom His Spirit is incar-
nate, but the past has taught us that the mys-
tery of God in His relation to the soul is too

ATMOSPHERE OF THE SYLLOGISM 101

great to be adequately, and, therefore, ulti-
mately expressed in human definitions and
dogmas.

CHAPTER XI

THE REFORMATION A DISTINCTLY
CATHOLIC MOVEMENT

THE term 'Hhe Catholic Church/^ as it oc-
curs in this discussion, is used in the
comprehensive sense which makes it co-exten-
sive with the whole number of those baptised
into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy-
Ghost, and who hold the faith, revealed in the
great Gospel of Redemption, as epitomised in
the Apostles' Creed, as essential to salvation. It
was for this comprehensive interpretation that
the English reformers contended. They sought
to abolish the superimposed intensive notes and
attributes, namely, the superadded doctrines
and practices which had so delimited the ex-
tension of the Church that it could no longer

102

REFORMATION A CATHOLIC MOVEMENT 103

hold within itself the enlightened mind, and
spiritual faith, and liberated thought of many
thousands. To the ages past, the English Fa-
thers said : — Ye have made the catholic claim
and the catholic inclusiveness of the Church of
Christ void by your traditions and dogmas. In
seeking through the process of intension, and
with logical justification of reasoning, to enrich
and empower the organisation, you have so de-
limited its catholicity that we find ourselves
bound to protest against the acts of man that
have proven contrary to the spiritual compre-
hensiveness of His Body, the Church. The re-
formers, in so far as they were protesting
against the errors, or the ill-advised work of
man, were asserting and defending the catholic
conception of the Church of Christ. If, there-
fore, to-day any component part of the Church
has the historic and logical claim to any right
to use, as descriptive of its position, the term
*' catholic," it is surely those who, in sympathy
with the reformers, are still protestant against
the erroneous practices, dogmas and traditions

104 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of the Church of Rome. If these erroneous
positions were still made binding in this Church,
as they are in the Church of Rome, it would
invalidate her catholic claim by making this
Church so largely intensive and so narrowly
extensive that many who profess and call them-
selves Christians, and who give the witness of
the indwelling presence of the Spirit, would be
excluded from the pale of her inclusiveness,
and be left with the assurance and witness of a
vital faith and a spiritual incorporation with
Christ, outside the comprehensiveness of what
would then be a misnamed *'Holy Catholic
Church.''

CHAPTER Xn
CAN THE CHURCH BE DEFINED?

THE purpose of this book is to state
certain principles; to challenge serious
thought, and to ask certain practical and perti-
nent questions which need to be squarely and
fearlessly faced. It is not our purpose to try
to answer all the questions raised. The answers
to many of them may yet be far removed. It
is at least worth something to see that the an-
swers now given and commonly current are
either wholly or partly wrong, and, therefore,
unsatisfactory and untenable.

A definition of the Church that is adequate
and satisfactory and generally approved has
never been formulated. The truth of this as-
sertion is self-evident. A definition is given

105

106 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

in the 19th Article of Religion. It is the only
one in the Book of Common Prayer, and there
is none in the Constitution of the Church, nor
is there one in the Gospel of Christ, or in the
literature of the New Testament. The Church
is in many places described. It is spoken of as
''the Body of Christ," as being ''one, catholic
and apostolic. " It is called in the shorter creed,
"the holy Catholic Church." It is spoken of
in the New Testament under a variety of de-
scriptive terms such as "the household of God,"
an army, a body, etc.

None of these descriptions and designations
constitutes in any sense a definition. Indeed,
each term in the description and designation
has been subject to varied definitions. Into
these definitions are invariably inserted the
theories of the definers, and as long as theories
differ and are insisted upon, the possibility of
an adequate and satisfactory definition of the
Church seems far removed, if not quite impos-
sible. Take, for instance, the definition in the
19th Article of Religion. "The visible Church

CAN THE CHURCH BE DEFINED ? 107

of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in
which the pure Word of God is preached, and
the sacraments be duly ministered according
to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of
necessity are requisite to the same."

Left to each man's private interpretation, this
definition would doubtless be generally accepted
as sufficiently adequate and comprehensive.
Under these conditions, if they could ever ob-
tain, Romanist and Protestant could both accept
it, as could the catholic churchman, be he Roman
or Protestant catholic in his teachings and con-
victions.

But once begin to define the terms in this or
any other definition of the Church, and insist
upon the acceptance of the term definition, and
the whole ecclesiastical controversy of the ages
is opened again. How many sacraments must
be duly ministered? When and by whom are
they duly ministered? Did Christ's ordinance
confine their administration to the ministry of
the apostolic succession, as the expression is
generally defined by many in this Church? How

108 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

can this be proven without question of doubt?
Does the restriction, if allowed, apply to both
sacraments alike? If not, why not? If so, then
why did the General Convention declare that all
who were baptised into the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost were thereby incorporated
into the Holy Catholic Church? What then are
all those things ''that of necessity are requi-
site"? Some will answer : "A ministry in the
line of the apostolic succession." Others will
ask : * * Why then did not the definition say so ? "

To define the Church is evidently impossible.
Yet current, as well as historic ecclesiastical
controversies, practically all spring from a fail-
ure to agree upon a definition, or from the in-
sistence that a party definition shall be accepted
by everybody, which, of course, is quite impos-
sible.

The perfect senselessness of raising and con-
tinuing contentions which are based upon what
should be by this time recognised as the abso-
lute impossibility of a common definition,
should be apparent to all men who think.

CAN THi5 CHURCH BE DEFINED ? 109

As a matter of fact, the Church visible to-
day is in reality neither one, catholic, nor apos-
tolic. Its oneness has been broken by schism.
Its catholicity has been delimited by exclusive
claims, and its apostolic nature has been viti-
ated in large measure by the spirit of each age
through which its course has run, and by the
age in which it now exists. Were the Church
not of divine origin, and did it not live by a
divine life present within, it would long since
have perished from the face of the earth; for
it has ever been treated much as men treated
the despised, rejected, crucified, and yet ever-
living Lord.

If we cannot agree even among ourselves
upon any adequate definition of the Church ac-
tual and visible, then why should we continue to
speak and act as though a definition either suf-
ficiently inclusive or sufficiently exclusive had
been determined upon?

Would it not, in the plain light of facts and
conditions as they exist, be far better if we
agreed not to attempt to define the Church un-

110 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

til it had become in reality what it was planned
and intended to be by the Christ Himself? Is
it not just because the Church actual is not
the Church ideal that we cannot define it? To
define it as it is, would be to deny it as He
purposed it to become.

It is very difficult, if not quite impossible,
accurately and adequately to define a vital or-
ganism in the process of becoming that which
it is destined to be. That the Church is des-
tined to be one, lioly, catholic and apostolic
is a proposition concerning which we are
all in thorough agreement. That it is any of
these now, he invites denial who ventures to
assert.

Therefore, to delimit the Church, in its inclu-
siveness, and exclude from its nurture and ad-
monition those who do not conform to a stand-
ard which does not exist would seem to be as
unwise and untenable a procedure as it would
be to say that we cannot now be found in Christ
because we are not yet found to be perfect even
as our Father which is in heaven is perfect.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHURCH UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE
TITLE

WHILE the Church cannot be adequately
defined, it can be described in terms
sufficiently definite, and adequately comprehen-
sive to furnish the mind with a concept and
ideal inclusive of the faith and spiritual experi-
ence of man in his relation to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

The descriptive statement suggested by Christ
when, breaking the bread. He gave it to His
disciples saying, *^This is my Body," and that
used by St. Paul, who frequently describes the
Church as **the Body of Christ," present the
Church as a living organism. This concept
is practical, definite, vital, inclusive, progres-

Ui

112 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sive, and deeply spiritual. It is individual and
corporate; concrete, and yet mystical in its
conclusiveness. It offers what would seem to
be the promise of a definition of the Church
Catholic that would be adequate, inclusive and
scriptural. This we will not, however, attempt
to formulate.

CHBIST THE HEAD

This concept of the Church definitely recog-
nises Christ as the Head of the Body. His
mind, His heart, His will, through His indwel-
ling and over-ruling Spirit, vitalise, direct, and
empower the living organism.

The Body, the Church, is built up primarily
from within. What Sir Oliver Lodge calls the
divine background of phenomena, what the
Bible calls the creative will of God, what the
Prayer Book calls the prevenient and co-opera-
tive power of the Eternal Spirit, builds the
Body of Christ, His Church. It is the outward
and visible result of God working in us, both to

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 113

will and to do His good pleasure. It is the
self-revelation, the self-expression of the ever-
outflowing and incoming life of God, the Self-
incarnation of the divine Spirit in humanity,
which builds up what St. Paul calls the Body
of Christ.

THE IMMEDIATE APPROACH

The Christ, through His Spirit, speaks di-
rectly to the souls of men. Prior to the exist-
ence of any ministerial order, or written revela-
tion, or sacramental institution, the voice of
God spoke to the souls of men; '*Be still and
know that I am God.** The silence has ever
been a vital medium through which the Divine
has entered into the inner shrine of human life.
There the soul has ever heard the whispering
voice of the nearby God. There at the unseen
altar, human sacrifice of the costliest kind has
ever been offered, as man has made response
to the inner voice which said ; ' ' My son, give me
thine heart." There has been no record in-

114 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

scribed to tell of the deep devotion and reverent
offering of humanity in silent consecration be-
fore these unseen altars of the soul. Like Nico-
demus, thousands come to Him by night. We
cannot count them yet. We cannot discount
them. We may hope and believe that in the
shadowless land of closer communion and
deeper understanding, they will be made mani-
fest in Him who has manifested Himself to
them.

The Christ needs their outward confession
of faith, and it would seem that He had these
mystical souls in mind when He constituted
His Church. The sacraments of incorporation
and of sustenance and unity, ordained by Him,
were very elemental, very simple, and very
mystical. In her after growth the visible
Church may not have been as mindful as she
might of the sensitive, delicate outreaching of
these souls of the inner shrine. She may have
unwittingly scared them back into their secret
reserve as they looked out and listened for a
way to build themselves into His visible Body.

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 115

Her array of confessions, ringing with the clash
of minds; her ordinances made coldly formal,
or too glowingly and fervently ritualistic; her
channels of grace, which are His Channels of
grace, proclaimed with a logical claim of exclu-
siveness which seemed to contradict their own
souls' experience of an immediate relationship
with God, have tended to make them doubtful
and timorous, and so they have continued to
worship at the inner shrine. Yet, every shrine
where God meets and illumines a soul of man
sends forth some light which, gleaming through
the windows of human character, reveals the
presence of Him who lighteth every man that
Cometh into the world.

THE MEDIATE APPROACH

Christ the Head of the Church ordained cer-
tain means through which the life which was
in Him might be infused into His Body, the
Church ; and by which the Body might be built
up into unity with Him and within itself, and

116 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

be enabled thus to reveal and express the ful-
ness of the divine life.

THE MINISTRY AND THE SACRAMENTS

One of the mediate means of the divine com-
munication is the ministry of the Church. ' * The
Christ," writes St. Paul (Ephesians iv), **hath
given some, apostles ; some, prophets ; and some,
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
unto the perfecting of the saints for the doing
of service, for the building up of the body of
Christ; till we all come unto the unity of the
faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a complete man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ."

The unity of which the apostle here speaks
is primarily and distinctly spiritual. He, how-
ever, foresees that this unity may be destroyed
by the independent working of the natural
mind, and, therefore, urges the close union of
the Body with Christ, its living and governing
Head, through faith and spiritual knowledge

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 117

*'that we be not tossed like a wave, and carried
about by every wind of teaching by the artifice
of men in cunning craftiness, according to
wily error." (Marginal reading, ** Methodical
Fraud.")

The chief function of the ministry is the
building up of the Body in love. The unity of
the Church is a result to be obtained through
the inner working of the spirit of Christ in and
through His Body. Prior to all thought of
unity of form, St. Paul urges the necessity for
''endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace" by living in obedience to
the calling of Christ Jesus ''with all lowliness
and meekness, with long suffering, bearing with
one another in love. ' '

There is ample evidence open to the student
of Church history to show that before the
Church had gone many centuries on its pilgrim-
age, it came under the influence of forces which
had their rise not in the mind of Christ, the
Head of the Body, but in the mind which had
been impressed by the force of external author-

118 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ity, and dominated by the conception of the
strength and grandeur of formal unity, resting
upon the authority of external decrees, and
made binding by the power of inflicting penal-
ties for the suppression of the spirit of schism.
The unity of the Roman empire moulded the
conception of the unity of the Church. The
Church and the state together came to see the
mutual advantages which would follow from a
material and spiritual alliance. We find em-
perors calling general councils at a time when
this one voice reached further than could the
voice of any one bishop in its power to com-
mand. Later we find that the balance of power
has shifted, and the highly organised Church
calls emperors and bids them lay their crowns
at the feet of him who has grown, by assent, to
be chief bishop, to receive their crowns again
at his hand, to be worn during the pope 's good
pleasure.

Thus there grew in the Church a monarchical,
an autocratic conception of orders and of
Church government. The bishop became a prel-

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 119

ate; the pope, the lord of lords and king of
kings.

The historic succession of orders, essential
under any system to maintain the continuity of
the outward and visible Church, and to pre-
serve its outward unity, and to give integrity
and force to its witness to the truth, became, un-
der this monarchical system, autocratic and un-
relenting in its claims and in its imperious de-
mands. The idea of the apostolic succession
was insisted upon as constituting the divine
right of bishops to rule, not only over the peo-
ple, but over kings and emperors also. It was
the chief defence of the doctrine of the two
swords. It brooked no opposition. A further
study of Church history gives evidence that
those who most vigorously asserted this claim
to the exclusive succession were more mindful
of preserving and establishing the claim to au-
thority than of perpetuating the succession of
apostolic graces and virtues, and the continued
flow of spiritual life and power through the
unbroken channel. Indeed, instances are in

120 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

evidence, all down the course of Churcli his-
tory, where the appearance of grace and vir-
tue and spiritual liberty in those who ven-
tured to question the decrees and interpreta-
tions of those who ruled with the claim of a di-
vinely given right, through the unbroken suc-
cession, were pronounced heretic, and cut off
from union with the Church, whose formal unity
they threatened to disrupt by the assertion of
any spiritual truth which was contrary to the
autocratic decree sanctioned by the claim of the
unbroken right, through succession, to exclusive
authority. The power to enforce the claim lay
not in the power to prove that truth, as well as
the right to proclaim truth, had been divinely
guaranteed through the succession, but in the
power of the Inquisition, in the force of the
sword, in the power of keys with which heaven
and hell could be unlocked, and open the way to
the eternal enforcement of the results of obe-
dience to the authority perpetuated through the
succession.
Since the Inquisition has vanished, and the

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 121

power of the sword has been removed, since the
fires of persecution have been quenched, and
the power of the pope over purgatory has lost
its terror, it has been found that the claim to
the right of an exclusive authority to bind men
to Christ, or to the devil, by reason of the
right of succession, is no longer held by all men,
at all times and everywhere. Indeed, it is
very questionable if it ever was held to this
extent.

It would be well for those branches of the
Church Catholic who still maintain, not alone
the fact of the historic succession, but also, the
exclusive claims of the apostolic succession, as it
relates to authority, to pause and ask just how
much of this claim rests upon scriptural and
spiritual grounds, and how much is an historic
survival of claims made and maintained in the
struggle of the Church to secure material power
and temporal sway over every other form of au-
thority whatsoever.

It were well to do this for more reasons than
one. The divine right to exclusiveness of power

122 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and authority is being seriously questioned all
over the world at the present time. Men are
asking that those who make the claim show
their credentials. A tree, they say, is known by
its fruits. What are the fruits of this system!
The autocratic, the aristocratic system is be-
ing challenged as never before. Democracy is
asking autocracy to give proof of its exclusive
right to make absolute decrees which restrain
the liberties of the people. The question as it af-
fects the future of empires is closely akin to the
question as it affects the Church. It is authority
versus liberty. The ancient system, bulwarked
by ancient claims, and supported by ancient the-
ories and interpretations, such as hereditary de-
scent, and the divine right, is to-day face to face
with a new theory of government, a new inter-
pretation, and a somewhat more comprehensive
idea of divine rights. Among them is the right
which men are asserting to be free. The power
of the monarch, of the autocracy, is the force
which it commands. The people pay the bills and
canvass the results. They may admit the divine

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 123

right as long as it does not lay upon them bur-
dens too grievous to be borne. They pay the
bills as long as they do not feel the weight of
oppression. They remain subservient as long
as they feel that their liberties are not threat-
ened. When, however, the system grows too
iron clad, and rights become exclusive, and the
guns which the system commands with supreme
authority are in danger of being used to make
the people more subservient, then new concep-
tions of the divine rights spring into being.
The man and the gun come into conflict. In
the state it is called revolution. In the Church
it is called reformation or reconstruction. The
question as to which will triumph in the end is
not hard to answer. The only question that
is hard to answer is, when will the end come?
The gun is dead. The man lives. The man
may live to make other guns, but if used against
the divine rights of the people, they, too, will be
overthrown in due time.

And yet, it is evident that the two concepts
are not necessarily contradictory. Authority

124 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and liberty are not only not exclusive and antag-
onistic terms — they are mutually dependent the
one upon the other. Like the conservative and
radical elements in government, and in society,
they are both essential to the security of the
state, and of the Church. Authority which over-
rides personal liberty results in despotism. Lib-
erty, undirected and unrestrained by authority,
results in license and lawlessness. The individual
and the state, the churchman and the Church,
owe mutual obligations the one to the other.
Their interests are ultimately identical. The
problem in state and Church is to find and es-
tablish the right balance of power, namely, to
secure authority without arrogance, and lib-
erty without license. The objection against
autocratic prelacy cannot be rightly charged
against a system of Church government by
bishops ; nor are the objections against individ-
ualism a valid argument for an autocratic epis-
copate. The exclusive claims of the priesthood,
entrenched behind the logical and ecclesiastical
claims of an apostolic succession of authority,

UNDER A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE 125

are not the only alternative to lawlessness and
absolute individualism in the Church. There is
the central ground position which will be stated
and considered later on.

CHAPTER XIV
THE MESSAGE OF THE TRAXSITION

THE past and the future are both calling to
the present. The call comes as a chal-
lenge. Old things are passing away. But they
are passing before the present. And as they
pass they are asking: — Am I worth while?
It is a motley throng which we are called to re-
view. The ancient priest approaches, vested
with the insignia of authority. He holds the
jewelled chalice in one hand and the scroll bear-
ing the record of his unbroken priestly ances-
try in the other. He pauses to tell us of time-
worn cathedrals where he has served, of an-
cient chants gloriously sung, of processions
gorgeously robed passing with solemn tread
through long-drawn aisles, and pausing before

126

THE MESSAGE OF THE TRANSITION 127

the altar high and lifted up, crowned with the
cross, and aglow with candles. Do we need him?
Shall we strip him of his jewelled stole and
sacerdotal garb? Shall we take from him his
golden chalice, and the roll of his priestly de-
scent? Shall we hush the ancient music which
echoes in his soul! Shall we turn the proces-
sion, in which he is wont to walk, and make it
stop at the pulpit, or at least at the lectern, but
forbid it passing in ritualistic reverence to the
altar? Shall we hurt him by cribbing his cross,
or leave him there in the darkness without any
candles ?

The prophet passes ! His garb is simple. He
walks as one conscious of mission. He holds
in his hand the Book which the priest had in
his pocket. He has a far wistful look in his
piercing eyes. He stops to tell us of his task,
of his heart's desire, and of his hope. He is a
man of visions unfulfilled. He speaks as one
filled with a spirit of a noble discontent. He is
impatient of restraint. He tells of temples
closed to him, and of limitations imposed upon

128 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the message of righteousness which burns with-
in his soul by reason of the decrees set up to
defend the imperilled truth of centuries long
gone. He is a man of prayer. He bears in his
body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Do we need
him? Shall we set him free?

Next comes the monk. He is garbed in black
and girded about the waist. A gleaming cross
is pendant on his breast. In his hand is his
ancient book of devotion. He pauses to tell us
of the vision seen in his cell. It came to him
while he knelt in prayer after having fasted
long. The glow of the vision is upon his face,
made thin by long abstinence. He has come
forth because he has heard the cry of the world's
great need, and he has come to serve. Do we
need him? Shall we demand that he divest him-
self of that with which his order has vested
him? Shall we forbid him the solitude of his
cell? Shall we obliterate his personality, and
send him forth to try to minister as some one
other than the man he is?

Then there passes the non-conformist minis-

THE MESSAGE OF THE TRANSITION 129

ter. He is an aged man. He reminds us of the
parson of Goldsmith's ''Deserted Village." We
ask his name. We turn to our Church Year
Book, but it is not there. His credentials bear
no mitred symbol of authority. We look at
him. askance, for, as the Jews had no dealings
with the Samaritans, we may confer by the way-
side upon terms of courtesy with him, but dare
we co-operate? Is he of the Church! Some
one whispers : "No, his orders are not valid."
Another cries out: ''He is a sectarian!" The
pilgrim wonders why he is the cause of all this
tumult and contention. He has not asked to
be admitted into the Church any further than
he considers himself admitted already. Seeing
that he is about to be unchurched, he bows and

passes on.

He is followed by several men in the garb of
rustics. They are kind and simple folk who
have come, following the parson on his pilgrim-
age. As they speak of him, there is a ring of
conviction in their voices, and a tone of deep
sincerity, and of honest pride. ''What," they

130 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ask, *4s this we heard as we stood near, of our
pastor not having the apostolic succession, and
not being able to administer to us the Supper
of the Lord! He is the apostle of the Lord
through all the mountains and valleys where we
live, and is loved by all for his exceeding good-
ness. He knows the Scriptures, and from them
preaches Christ, and many has he led to receive
Him as their Saviour. He has baptised well-
nigh all the folk in the mountains. Through all
kinds of weather, he goes about visiting the
poor, and pointing the way to brighter worlds to
those who are sick unto death. And, stranger,
when the old man kneels down in homes where
sorrow has come, and prays, you feel the very
presence of God, and heaven comes down, and
we seem to see the open door through which
our loved ones have passed on into the light.
Many a boy in the mountains, that was bringing
naught but sorrow home, has he gone after
and brought to Christ. Men who once spent
their time fighting and drinking moonshine,
and turning their homes into hell, have been

THE MESSAGE OF THE TRANSITION 131

converted under his preaching, and changed
their ways, so that now you would hardly know
the country if you had known it as it was be-
fore he came. To see these men kneeling on
Sunday taking the sacred sacrament would set
your heart aglow with gladness, and many a
woman turns away from the table of the Lord,
and walks down the aisle with her man by her
side, with tears of joy streaming down her face.
Stranger, it is like the parable of the prodigal
son just being acted out up there in the moun-
tains with our pastor going out all the time
bringing the wanderers home. You say your
church does not call him a minister in good and
regular standing? "Where lies the fault with
him? He serves the Master as His minister,
and is honoured by Him. He has the tokens of
his Master's acceptance of his work. He has re-
ceived the Spirit, and speaks and lives with His
power. "Why do you call him your opponent, a
heretic and schismatic? It didn't seem to mat-
ter much with him, but it hurts us, because all
these years he has been our friend, our guide

132 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and comforter, and the only minister in the
mountains. ' '

The time and the audience seem not propi-
tious for a defence of the historic grounds upon
which rest the exclusive claims of the Church.
The men follow their pastor, and will probably
continue to follow him through the gates of
Paradise.

They leave us thinking, and again we ask : —
**Do we need him? Who are we, anyway?"
"Guardians," it is said, *'and custodians of a
sacred trust." And what is this trust? ''The
Church," we reply. "Whose Church?" it is
asked, and we answer, "The Church of Christ,
the divinely constituted repository of sacred or-
ders and of sacred sacraments and of the Holy
Bible and the ancient creeds." Well, whose
fault is it then that the man dismissed with
courteous firmness, or with the brand of schis-
matic and heretic, is on the outside, and not of
"the Church"? Is it the result of an inade-
quate definition? Are we sure that we have
defined "the Church" in terms sufiiciently com-

THE MESSAGE OF THE TRANSITION 133

prehensive when we liave, by our definition,
excluded him? Are we sure that the definition
which excludes us from co-operation with the
minister of irregular orders is of divine sanc-
tion? Or is it upon historic grounds that we
leave him without the pale of the strictly bound-
ed One, Catholic and Apostolic Church? We
should be very sure. The procession is fast
passing on. We must choose those who may be
counted worthy to be numbered with us in what
we call ''the Catholic Church." Later we will
return to the priest, the prophet, the monk and
the minister.

CHAPTER XV

THE TERMS ''CATHOLIC* AND ''CATHO-
LIC SANCTION"

MUCH confusion of thought results from
the use of the term "catholic" in didac-
tic discourses and controversial writings, by
reason of the fact that the term is not defined
by those who use it. This results in misun-
derstanding, and in confusion of thought.
There seems to be no generally accepted stand-
ard as to what constitutes the authority by
which catholic sanction may be said to exist for
teachings and practices which are current
among us, and which are defended by their
adherents on the ground that they are teach-
ings and practices of unquestioned catholic
sanction and authority.

134

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 135

We are mindful of the answer made by a
teacher to a dull scholar that he could give
to the scholar a reason for a thing, but that he
could not give him an understanding. We are
also mindful that it was for an understanding
heart and mind that Solomon prayed.

It would be for the good of the Church if
some understanding could be reached as to the
meaning and significance of the terms used
among us. It would minister to clearness of
thought, and would tend to remove a good deal
of mutual misunderstanding which now results
from the use of undefined terms.

The laymen of the Church must, at times, be
very much confused, and find it very hard to
know just what to think and just what to be-
lieve. It is not to be wondered at when the
priests of the Church use language which fails
entirely to convey to one clergyman of the
Church the concept that is in the mind of an-
other. It is surely a waste of time and energy
and thought to engage in endless controver-
sies, and then come to find that we were talk-

136 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ing about entirely different things, or about
two separate and distinct aspects of the same
thing. Perhaps there is no word current among
us which gives rise to more misunderstanding
and confusion of thought than this word ' ' Cath-
olic.'»

Certain practices and teachings are set forth
and defended by individuals and parties in the
Church as being of catholic sanction. When
asked by what sanction they have been made
catholic, answers become confused, or many
become confused to whom the answers are
given. We are told that they are sanctioned by
the Catholic Councils, but there is no one to tell
us with final authority which are * ' the Catholic
Councils." The Orthodox Eastern Church, the
Roman Church, and the Anglican Communion
are not in agreement upon this point. We
look among the decrees of the Councils, extend-
ing from 325 to the seventh council held in 787,
and fail to find the catholic sanction claimed for
certain theories, interpretations and practices.
Then we are told the name of the council giving

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 137

sanction to the doctrine or teaching, and find it
was a national or provincial council, or else the
authority of one of the several Roman Catholic
Councils, which claim to be general. It natu-
rally becomes somewhat hard to determine what
kinds of councils were capable of giving catholic
sanction to doctrines and practices.

Or, if perchance we are cited to the ancient
Fathers and turn to them, we either find the
point in question not mentioned among them, or
else find conflicting testimonies. And when
asked which are the catholic fathers, there
seems to be, at times, a disposition to answer
that the catholic fathers are the fathers who
held the truth which we hold.

When the National Councils of the English
Church met in order that the English Church
Fathers might express their desire to make the
Church more truly catholic as they interpreted
catholicity, by repudiating the superadded
notes, dogmas and teachings which they held
to have been imposed upon the Church without
catholic sanction, according to the old rule of

138 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

what constituted catholic sanction, they cast
aside and repudiated many of these superadded
intensive notes so as to make the Church more
truly extensive, and thus, in their judgment,
more truly catholic.

Against these superadded practices and
teachings, the English Church protested on the
ground that they had, without sufficient author-
ity, been fostered upon the faith once delivered
to the saints. ''The Church," they said, ''as
the witness and keeper of Holy Writ, ought not
to decree anything against the same, so, besides
the same, ought it not to enforce anything to
be believed for necessity of salvation."

Many teachings and practices current among
us would seem not to have what the national
Church Councils of England regarded as cath-
olic sanction, and they lack the consent and
authorisation of the National Branch of the
Church in America where they are introduced
and advocated.

It is not questioned at this point as to whether
or not these things, claimed to be of catholic au-

*• CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 139

thority, are edifying to the Church. The teach-
ings and practices in question may be defensible
on this ground, and on this ground they might
be defended by those who so believe. It might,
perhaps, be shown that they minister to rever-
ence, and that they enhance the spirit of devo-
tion, and that they should, therefore, receive
the sanction of the National Council of this
Church in America. This would be a perfectly
justifiable method of procedure, and if it was
not insisted that these doctrines and practices
should be made binding upon the faith and prac-
tice of the whole Church, the advocates seek-
ing permission to hold and follow them might
win many adherents. But, when a vague claim
is made that they are of catholic authority,
and of unquestionable catholic sanction, and
when it is advocated with the expressed or im-
plied insinuation or implication that those who
do not believe and conform to them are untrue
to the catholic heritage of the Church, then,
those against whom such aspersions are made
surely have the right to ask that the terms

140 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

"catholic," and "catholic sanction," and "cath-
olic authority, ' ' be more clearly and adequately
defined.

The student of psychology can quite well un-
derstand, and fully appreciate, how and why
many of these teachings and ceremonial rites
should commend themselves to certain types of
mind, and find a devotional response in certain
types of human nature. From this point of
view, it can be quite well understood why the
advocates of these views and practices should
firmly believe that they are advocating what
they believe to be principles which are catholic
in their nature and intent. This, however, is
another question from the claim of a catholic
sanction by any expressed catholic authority.

In view, therefore, of the confusion resulting
from the constant use of undefined terminology,
would it not be conducive to clearness of
thought and to a better understanding, if those
who used the terms "catholic," "catholic sanc-
tion," "catholic authority," and "Catholic
Church" took the pains, and did others the

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 141

service, to define the terms in order that lan-
guage might be the means of communicating
intelligible ideas and definite concepts, and not
produce confusion of thought, out of which
constantly arise endless and useless contro-
versies ?

To illustrate the point in question as to the
accepted meaning of the term 'Hhe Catholic
Church," it would be well to define and explain
just what is meant.

Is the term used to describe the Body of
Christ, inclusive of all those who have been bap-
tised into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost ? There are those who thus use the word
to describe the organisation as to its mem-
bership.

As to the Faith: It may, however, be said
that this membership must of necessity accept
Holy Writ as being the inspired revelation of
the word of God, as a prerequisite to the right
of membership. This contention would be ad-
mitted without controversy.

It may be further said that this membership

142 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

must also accept the faith expressed in the
Apostles' Creed. As this faith is summed up in
the baptismal service, and in the catechism of
this Church, it is accepted now by practically
the whole membership of those who profess and
call themselves Christians.

The Sacraments: It may be further insisted
that this membership must of necessity be con-
stituted through incorporation in the Body of
Christ through baptism. This is universally
accepted by all who are of the Christian Church.

Beyond this point, what shall be said and
held, and what is held by those who use the
term? The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is
surely a catholic institution. It is almost uni-
versally held among Christians. By some its
validity is made to depend absolutely upon the
regularity of the ministry celebrating in the
service. Vast numbers in the Holy Catholic
Church have this sacrament from the hands of
such a ministry. These, upon any theory, are
considered within the membership of the Body
described as **Holy Catholic." But what of

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 143

others? They consider that they hold and re-
ceive this sacrament. There are those who hold
that their irregular ministry invalidates this
claim. Is it held by those who use the term
"The Catholic Church," in an exclusive sense,
that those who have been incorporated into its
membership, by Holy Baptism, are excluded
from its membership, that is, are made schis-
matic from the Body of Christ, by reason of
this irregularity? Or, upon this theory, are
they still of the membership of the Catholic
Church, but irregular in practice and in con-
formity?

Is the threefold ministry, unbroken in con-
tinuity, essential to the existence of the Holy
Catholic Church? Or, is the threefold minis-
try as an historic inheritance of the Catholic
Church, essential, as Hooker claims, to its
"well being," but not, of necessity, essential to
the extension of its membership, nor of neces-
sity, therefore, essential to the existence in the
Holy Catholic Church, of communions composed
of a part of the catholic membership, holding

144 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

imperfectly and incompletely the catholic herit-
age?

If this be true, would it not be better to dis-
tinguish between the terms ''the Catholic
Church," and "the Catholic heritage?"

It is evident that we are dealing here with
just the same kinds of distinctions and of quali-
fying and descriptive terms as are of neces-
sity used in defining and describing the nature
and place of the sons of God in His Kingdom.
There are those who are His children by na-
ture, others by adoption, and those who are still
His sons though they have wandered into far
countries. It is exceedingly hard to define a
vital and eternal relationship, and harder still
to make our human terminology adequately de-
scriptive, and sufficiently definite and inclusive,
of an institution which is the living Body of the
Living Christ.

Then, too, it would be well to make it very
clear as to what is meant by the term "cath-
olic sanction," and the term "catholic practice,"
if the terms are to be used freely among us.

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 145

Are the terms so used intended to be descrip-
tive of intensive notes of the catholic heritage,
or the notes which test and delimit the catholic
extension of the Church? Are they terms of
enrichment, or qualities essential to the exist-
ence of what is called the ''catholic Church*'?

This is just the question that arose between
St. Paul, St. Peter and the other apostles rela-
tive to the Christian Church in apostolic times.
It was asked that it be determined what prac-
tices and customs and observances should be
held as essential. Observances had been in-
sisted upon by some which St. Paul held would
delimit the comprehensiveness of the Church,
if made a test of loyalty, or essential to mem-
bership in the catholic Church. The question
was taken before an apostolic council, and the
decree given was that ''it seemed good to the
Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no
greater burden than these necessary things."
(Acts XV, Gal. ii.)

It would seem reasonable to hope and to ask
that the term "catholic," as descriptive of,

146 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and as limiting the comprehensiveness of, the
Church should be used, with the spirit of apos-
tolic sanction, in this wide and comprehensive
sense. It would also seem that it would con-
duce to a larger readiness to accept the term if
it could be used in defence of the claim to ob-
serve the '^necessary things." If these neces-
sary things are held to be the things declared
essential to salvation in the Gospel of redemp-
tion, then the term becomes sufficiently inclu-
sive to conform to the sense in which it is doubt-
less used in the creeds of the Church.

Beyond this, the terms "catholic sanction,"
** catholic practice," etc., might well be confined
to descriptions, definitions, interpretations, and
practices pertaining to the ancient heritage of
the Church Catholic. In any event, the sense
and scope of the terms, when used, should be,
for the sake of clearness, explained and defined.

"When the term " catholic sanction," or "cath-
olic authority," is used, it would minister to a
better understanding if what constituted the
sanction or authority were definitely stated. Is

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 147

the sanction or authority claimed that of an
(Ecumenical Council or papal decree 1 Or does
it mean the sanction of the undivided Roman
and Eastern Church. Or, does it mean the
sanction of some council, or the general prac-
tice of the Western Church, under Roman dom-
ination, prior to the Reformation? Or, again,
is it meant that the teaching or practice
is inherently catholic in its nature, and so
fully in harmony with the teaching of Scrip-
ture, and the revealed will of Christ, that
it deserves to be received and held as an inte-
gral and indispensable part of the catholic faith
and practice? Oh, is it meant that the doc-
trine and practice was sanctioned by authority,
or by use in the Roman Catholic Church prior
to the English Reformation, and continued to
be held and taught by many individuals in the
English Church subsequent to the Reformation,
but which, since the Reformation, has had the
ecclesiastical authority and sanction of the
Roman Church alone, or perhaps of the Greek
and Ol'd Catholic Church also? Then, too, it

148 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

would be interesting and helpful to know
whether the term "catholic sanction" applies
to theories of interpretation as well as to the
facts of the faith and the historic continuity of
certain rites and practices in the Church.

If it be said that it would be difficult to clearly
define in just what sense the terms are, in each
instance, used, it may be said, also, that it is
still more difficult to understand just what the
claim for the authority and sanction is worth
unless we are told very definitely just what the
person making the claim has in mind as the
basis on which it is founded.

When it happens that, as a result of holding
claims of "catholic authority," and "catholic
sanction," the rights and liberties of others in
the Church are delimited ; and when it is sought,
as a result of these exclusive views, to restrain
others in this Church from acting within the
bounds of what they feel is the liberty of their
inheritance as sons of God, and as loyal mem-
bers of this Church, then the reason becomes
still more cogent and imperative for insist-

' • CATHOLIC ' ' AND ' ' CATHOLIC SANCTION ' ' 149

ing that the claims of catholic authority
and sanction be more clearly stated and
defined.

If the right and duty of the Church in this
hour of supreme crisis to hold conference with
Protestant Communions and to co-operate with
them is denied upon the basis of interpretations
of the ordinal, and theories of the succession,
claimed to be of catholic authority, it is but
fair to ask the source of this authority, and
proof for the idea, which seems to be assumed,
that this claim has ever been officially admitted
by either the independent Anglican Church, or
by this Church in America.

If, when opportunities for conference and
co-operative relationship with our Protestant
friends (or opponents, as they are sometimes
called by the exclusive school), present them-
selves, this Church by legislative decree refuses
to permit those who favour such action to en-
gage in it with her official sanction, then this
Church will indirectly, through her legislative
action, give sanction to these theories and

150 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

claims as being binding upon the whole Episco-
pal Church.

We have arrived at the point where this vital
and far-reaching question has been forced to the
issue. The issue is forced by those who assert
that their theories and interpretations are of
catholic authority, and who deny the right of
the Board of Missions and of the Church to
participate in conferences and co-operative en-
deavours with communions whose orders are
not of the apostolic succession. It is a ques-
tion which arises out of the world crisis which
we face, and out of the world challenge to a
materially bound and ecclesiastically dominated
and divided Christianity.

Those in the Church who are not disposed to
question the catholic claim to exclusive inter-
pretation so long as it is confined to the purpose
of satisfying those who make it as to the nature
and kind of their own priesthood, and their
own position of exclusiveness ; do claim that
they are not unreasonable in asking that the
terms which restrict the liberty of others be

**CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 151

clearly defined. Nor are they unreasonable nor
contentious in insisting that the ground and
authority for interpretations and opinions
claimed as of catholic sanction be definitely
stated, before the whole Church, through legis-
lative enactment, or pronouncement, is asked to
give sanction to these exclusive claims by deny-
ing those who hold a different view the liberty
to express their convictions in conference and
co-operative relationship.

By such restrictions, the General Convention
would give practical sanction to views and con-
tentions, to theories and opinions, which, when
they have been considered on their merits, have
never received the official sanction of either the
Anglican or the American Church. This is not
the way to change Church polity.

That the English Church Fathers conferred
and co-operated with ministers not of her or-
der, is a fact written clearly in the pages of
history, and that among the first bishops con-
secrated in this Church in America, there were
those who did so, is likewise known to all who

152 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

know the early history of this branch of the
Church of Christ.

To depart from this historic position; to al-
low any claims of catholic authority or inter-
pretation to deprive churchmen of liberal or in-
clusive conviction of the right, with the full au-
thoritative sanction of this Church, to express
their conviction individually and collectively
would be to reduce the comprehensiveness of
this Church down to the limits of a school of
thought, and would brand her, in the face of
the world crisis, as a separated sect, cut off by
her insistence upon liberty and true catholicity
from the Church of Eome, and by her exclusive
claims from conference and oo-operation with
Protestant Christianity.

While it is not asked that any legislation
should be enacted forbidding those who hold
these exclusive views from retaining them, and
acting in accordance with them, so far as con-
ference and co-operative relationship with
Protestant communions is concerned; it is
asked, and insisted, that this Church shall not

"CATHOLIC" AND "CATHOLIC SANCTION" 153

consent to legislate, or give official pronounce-
ment that shall restrain the inherent liberty
and cherished conviction of others, whose loy-
alty and devotion to the Church is unquestioned,
in the light of her historic position, and in the
presence of her authoritative standards as they
honestly and unequivocally understand and
interpret them.

The point to be clearly borne in mind is, that
to legislate, requiring all to confer and co-op-
erate with those not of this communion, would
be to give the authoritative interpretation and
sanction of this Church to the liberal and in-
clusive view of the Church, and would be unfair
to those who hold other views; while, on the
other hand, to refuse permission and deny the
right of those who desired to enter into con-
ference and co-operative relationship with prot-
estant communions to do so with her sanction,
would be to give official endorsement to the po-
sition and views and contentions of the extreme,
often called catholic, party in the Church.

If this Church remains fully possessed of a

154 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sound mind and a well-balanced judgment, she
will persistently refuse to legislate to require
or compel to co-operate or confer with other
communions those who cannot consistently do
so. She will also persistently refuse to with-
hold her official consent from those who desire
such conference and co-operative liberty.

CHAPTER XVI
THE APPEAL TO THE PAST

IT can be conclusively shown that every dis-
puted dogma, taught and held by the
Church, and authorised as a note of catholicity,
can be established by quotations from the an-
cient fathers, or the ancient councils. From
similar sources the contrary propositions can
also be conclusively established. This state-
ment is true, for instance, of the doctrine of
transubstantiation, or of any interpretation of
the real presence of Christ in the Holy Com-
munion. It is true of the doctrine of priestly
absolution, and of various interpretations of
the apostolic succession, and of the growing
claims of the papacy. The ancient fathers were
far from being of one mind. Nothing is gained

155

156 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

in controversy by quoting from them upon a
point in question, if it is intended by this method
to establish the contention that a certain inter-
pretation has been always, and by all men, held
upon any subject where the effort has been made
to explain how the Christ is present in anything
human and material. The fact of His presence
may be established historically as constant in
the faith of the Church. The method of His
presence, and the how of His communication of
Himself evidently perplexed the minds of the
fathers as it has the minds of the children of
the third and fourth and all succeeding gen-
erations.

If propositions exactly contrary may be (as
they surely can be) proven by quotations from
the Fathers, then what conclusive service may
they render to the Church perplexed with the
problem of knowing what to authorise and
decree as being binding upon the con-
science, and essential in the practice of the
Church?

They may render valuable service. Their

THE APPEAL TO THE PAST 157

voices would seem, all unconscious to the an-
cient fathers themselves, to blend in an appeal
for liberty of interpretation, for liberty of prac-
tice, and for an inclusive Church. After the
contenders for a certain interpretation or prac-
tice have filled pages with certain sure quo-
tations from the ancient writings in proof of
their view, and have established it upon this
ground beyond question, then let the contrary
interpretation be stated, and call the fathers.
The same ones may not come. (Sometimes they
will.) But others with hair as white, and with
forms as venerable, and with names as highly
honoured, will appear out of the dim past and
give testimony that will fill just as many pages
proving the contrary theory or practice as the
case may be. What then? Shall we slay the
fathers of the contrary view as the Church
slew the ancient prophets and the Christ? Or
shall we learn from them the necessity of mak-
ing the Church comprehensive of varied inter-
pretations and practices, so long as Christ is
honoured, worshipped, revealed and served as

158 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the divine Saviour of men and the ever-living
Head of His Body, the Church.

Shall we not learn from them the futility of
seizing the ray of light reflected from the men-
tal angle of the party mind and formulating it
into a dogma, and labelling it the sun? Shall
we not learn that the light of eternal truth
reflects itself from many angles 1

If it should be answered that truth does not
shine both dark and light; the reply is that
while this is true, yet many truth-seekers, or
truth-holders, are unfortunately colour blind.
To God they may be both alike. We had better
wait and see. In the darkness of the night He
hath set many stars, and some of them are to
us still invisible. Truth is vaster than the
heavens, and extends beyond the stars. Let us,
at least, leave loopholes in our battlements of
thought. It were better to build watch towers
and place in them far-seeing men to tell us of
the night, what its signs of promise are.

CHAPTER XVII
THE ANCIENT PATHS

SURELY no man, no matter how progres-
sive his mind may be in its tendencies, will
despise the ancient paths. In them have walked
the saints of all ages. The truth we have in-
herited has come to us from those who walked
in them. Along the way are the footprints of
priests and prophets, and the blood-stains of
martyrs. Along the way are the ancient cathe-
drals where the spirit of praise and devotion has
wrought itself into poems of rhythmic stone.
Down these corridors come the harmonies of
music chanted in glorious song. If we listen
we may hear blended in these symphonies the
voices of God's angels. Over these paths have
passed the great confessors. The ancient

159

160 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

creeds have come this way. Along them have
passed the truth-seekers of the ages, and as
they passed they have set up stones which mark
the progress of the clearer revelation of God
to the heart and mind of humanity. The an-
cient paths are the source of our heritage.
They mark the continuity of truth and of hu-
man experience through the ages. They reveal
the links "that bind the generations each to
each." The ancient paths are the paths of the
ever-coming Christ.

But He has not finished His advent. The
Christmas message was not a history alone but
a revelation of a way opened from heaven to
all men, at all times, everywhere. Pentecost
illumined not alone the beginning of the ancient
path, but gave the revelation of His perpetual
presence who should be with His Church unto
the end of the world to "guide us into all
truth."

The ancient path will grow longer and more
ancient as time goes on. In it we are not called
to walk backward, though as we walk forward

THR ANCIENT PATHS 161

we should pause often to look backward, and
learn from those who have climbed the steep
ascent through peril, toil and woe. Though of
the past, their spirits go before the pilgrims
of to-day. We follow in their train. We rev-
erently and humbly learn of them what they
learned of Christ, and are enriched by the testi-
mony of their experience and their realisation
of the presence of God.

It is for us of the present to determine how
the path of an ancient life and truth, and yet
of an ever-living Lord, ''the Way, the Truth,
and the Life," shall run through the present,
and be directed to the future. The Church marks
the way. Christ leads the way. Shall not all
those who own Him as their Lord, and follow
Him, be comprehended in our conception of it?
Shall our theories and our demands be made
so exclusive and narrow as to force into by-
paths many whom He leads 1 Some of these by-
paths are, as the years lengthen into centuries,
becoming ancient paths also. And along them
are to be found memorials which are cherished

162 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

in the memories not alone of the children of
those who passed this way to the open gates of
Paradise, but of all who have souls sufficiently
great to honour heroism and to appreciate the
glow which hallowed the lives of these saints
of God, departed by what some would still call
sectarian by-pathways. Do we not need a new
survey and a more comprehensive conception of
the Church which we assert is the accredited
way to heaven! Should not the Church be as
comprehensive as is the Christ who is the ever-
living way 1

It would doubtless come to pass that, as a
result of the sympathy and understanding
which would inevitably grow out of closer fel-
lowship, the non-conformist Churches would
come to a deeper appreciation of the value of
giving to the faith they hold and the truth they
teach the added authority which comes from
the witness of its unbroken historic survival
and continuity through the centuries back to
the life and teaching of Christ and His holy
apostles.

CHAPTER XVIII
INDIVIDUALISM

TERMS which contain an idea expressive
of power and vitality often come, in the
use of them, to be terms of reproach and of
obloquy. It is usually the "ism" at the end
that has in it the sting. The "ism'* is gener-
ally the result of the distortion and perversion
of the thought or possibility of power which
the term originally expressed. The individual
has ever been the chief concern of Christ. The
parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal son,
the discourses which He held with individual
men and women, His methods of personal ap-
proach, and the expressions in His teaching
which tell of God's love and care for a human
soul, show how priceless, in His estimation, was

163

164 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the life of the individual man. It is in the
individual that we find the distinctive elements
of personality which reveal the kinship of man
with God. Yet distinctness and force of per-
sonality, and a full measure of personal liberty,
are not incompatible with unity. In the Blessed
Trinity three Persons have ever existed in the
unity of the Godhead.

Individualism is personality run riot. In the
life of the Church we sometimes hear it said
that it is unwise and inexpedient for an indi-
vidual or a party to advance ahead of the
corporate body. To insist upon this restriction
would result in suppressing the thought and
energy of the scout who has ever been the
pathfinder of truth. It is doubtless well to
caution the pioneer of the danger of going too
far ahead of the corporate body, but the liberty
of scouting ahead in thought and action should
be encouraged rather than censured by the
Church.

The individual, however, should be taught
that the success and permanent worth of his

INDIVIDUALISM 165

endeavour as a seeker after truth and an ex-
perimenter in the great laboratory of experi-
ence, will be determined by his ability to con-
tribute his ideas to the permanent inclusive-
ness and solidarity of the corporate Body. The
pioneer tries the ground ahead. He tests truth
in new fields of action. It is true that he is
exposed to peril. He is between two fires. He
is a mark for the enemy of the truth, and is apt
to draw upon himself the fires of its defenders.
He is often the martyr of history. He is almost
sure to be branded as a heretic, and sometimes
has to wait until centuries after he is dead
before the thought of the world reaches the
point where he fell. Then it may happen that
the Church will mark the triumph of her own
intelligence by canonising the dead heretic as
a saint. This has been the path along which
many of the saints have achieved their place in
the canon. The Church is slow to learn and
often too quick to speak. She has to take many
things back. This is hard to do. It is a con-
fession of error and of mistake. The institu-

166 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

tion that has made much of its infallibility is
apt to be reluctant to acknowledge the mistakes
of its past. If larger liberty had been given
to individuals and parties to try out new ideas,
to test the prophet's vision, and to make experi-
ment with the enthusiasm of initiative^ this
Church might have kept within her fold many
who have done vast good outside of it.

In doing this the Church should not be con-
sidered as endorsing the idea or experiment be-
cause she allows it. Again, the principle of her
thought, and the attitude of her mind, should
be: ''Let these men alone. If this counsel or
this work be of men, it will come to naught;
but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it;
lest haply ye be found even to fight against
God" (Acts V, 38 and 39).

CHAPTER XIX

THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

ETTERS to the Editor" are very illu-
minating documents. Most of us have
written them on some subject of controversy
which was engaging the attention of the Church.
Sometimes in sober thoughtfulness we have re-
pented having done it. We have wondered if
the attention of the Church might not perhaps
have been better directed in more vital and
helpful channels. Especially have we thought
this after attending some great missionary
meeting, or after having received clearer and
more far-reaching vision through the appeal
and inspiration of the Holy Communion. Then
there has come to us the consolation that per-
haps they had not absorbed the attention of
the Church very much after all.

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168 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

Nevertheless, ''Letters to the Editor'* are,
at times, very illuminating. Among other
things they frequently illumine the bounds of
mental vision and the scope of human sympa-
thy. Sometimes they show these bounds to be
very narrow. Sometimes they reveal ranges of
truth beyond the bounds of partisan interpre-
tation. These letters encourage us to read oth-
ers in the hope of finding more like them. Per-
haps that is why the "Letters to the Editor"
are read to a degree to justify the space they
occupy in our Church papers.

''Letters to the Editor" have an accustomed
way of seeking, without due ceremony or apol-
ogy, to throw us unconditionally upon either
one or the other of the two sharp-pointed horns
of a dilemma. The truth, it is said, must be
either this or that. In the last number of one
of our Church papers we are informed that
"the Church either does or does not believe
that the priest has power to give absolution."
The writer insists that the Church should say
whether he has or has not.

THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA 169

We are informed that the Church either does
or does not believe in the ''real presence" of
Christ in the Lord's Supper, and that the
Church should say whether she does or does
not.

We are told that the doctrine of the apos-
tolic succession is either true, or that it is not;
and that the Church should declare her inter-
pretation.

The necessity for all this is stated in the
claim set forth that in the Church there should
be but one voice, one view and an unbroken
uniformity of teaching on each and every one of
these points, and on every other question upon
which, at present, divergent views prevail.

The Church very wisely allows divergent
views to prevail. If she sought to fasten any
vital truth to either one or the other of the
two horns of the dilemma, she would, in many
instances, crucify again the truth itself. She
would certainly drive from her fold many
seekers after truth.

If she insisted upon giving to any or all of

170 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

these questions the answer of an unconditional
**Yes," and demanded that her ministry should
sign certain articles of interpretation, in which
the high priestly sacerdotal view upon these
questions was asserted as being the only view
which might be held and taught, she would, for
instance, exclude from her ministry the large
majority of the graduates of the Virginia Semi-
nary, and many of the graduates of Philadel-
phia, Cambridge, and of other Church divinity
schools. Had this been done, the service ren-
dered at home and in foreign lands by these men
would, of necessity, have had to be rendered
outside of her fold.

If, on the other hand, she gave in answer an
unconditional ''No," and required subscription
to articles in which the high priestly and sacer-
dotal claims were denied and repudiated, most
of the graduates of the General, of Faribault,
Nashotah, and many of the graduates of other
seminaries would have been, and would now
be, excluded from the ministry of this Church.

Would writers of ''Letters to the Editor'*

THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA 171

really wish to force men to either the one alter-
native or the other with the necessary resulting
consequences ?

Upon such horns may be hung men*s hats,
and men's scalps, but not the brains and hearts
of vital, loving, conscientious Churchmen, who
see the tnith from different viewpoints, who
teach it with varied emphasis, and who some-
times see gleams of it in both the ''Yes" and
the *'No" of the paradoxes stated in the ''Let-
ters to the Editor."

Unless we are really determined to make the
Church less catholic than she now is, we should
resolutely refuse to delimit her comprehensive-
ness by seeking to give the exclusive sanction
of authority, or of official interpretation, to
those notes of conviction voiced in the letters
of exclusive and partisan contention. The
writers of these letters would make the colour
of loyalty so vivid, and so clearly defined, and
so lurid that there could be no shadings of
colour away from it or into it. In this event,
the Church would become a doctrinal paintshop.

172 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

or, at most, a formal gallery of ecclesiastical
art of one school of painters.

Truth has ever refused to be so portrayed.
Vital and eternal, she gleams and glows and
shines in and through the souls of men, and
reflects her light from many angles of many
minds. As the sun glows in myriad colours
from the snow-capped Alps, made refulgent
with sunset glory; shimmers in varied hues
upon the forest leaves, and on the limpid lake,
and colour-changing sea ; as its light is reflected
in the tinted bloom of every flower, in the pale
radiance of the moonlight, and in the golden
gleam of the stars ; even so is the light of truth
refulgent in and reflected from the thought and
spiritual experience of man. As one star dif-
f ereth from another star in glory, even so differ
the gleams of truth, which come from the minds
of men.

But surely truth is too vital, and too pre-
cious, and too divine to be stereotyped and de-
limited to the narrow bounds of an interpre-
tative *' Yes" or *'No," as is often insisted upon

TH£ HORNS OF A DILEMMA 17:^

in the '^Letters to the Editor." If the Church
is to edit truth, let the Church, for the truth's
sake, and for man's sake, edit it largely, and
not copyright the edition for all time. If she
is to set up sign posts along the way of truth
to point men heavenward, let "the way" be in-
dicated by the straight arm of a cross pointing
to the path marked by the footprints of the
Son of Man. But let there not be set in the
way of truth the theories of men to be the
authoritative guide-posts along the way that
leadeth to truth and to life. ''The way" is the
way of life. It is a narrow way, but it is wider
than many of the more narrow and exclusive
interpretations of human thought.

CHAPTER XX
THE PARADOXES OF TRUTH

BECAUSE of the fact that truth is eternal
and cannot be fully comprehended in posi-
tive or negative statements made by, or com-
prehended by, the human mind, the great teach-
ers of truth have often spoken in paradoxes.
The negative and the affirmative of a proposi-
tion have been stated with perfect fearless-
ness of seeming contradiction, and with entire
disregard of seeming inconsistency. This
method of stating or of suggesting the scope
of truth shows that the teacher recognises the
inadequacy of human reason to comprehend its
limits, and to define its bounds. This method
was often used by the Great Teacher, who was
Himself the eternal Truth. * * No man, ' ' He said,

174

THE PARADOXES OF TRUTH 175

''hath seen the Father:" "He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father." "I can of my own
self do nothing:" "All power is given unto
me." "I go my way to Him that sent me:"
"Lo I am with you always." "This is my
Body" and "My flesh is meat indeed:" "The
flesh profiteth nothing." "I seek not mine
own glory:" "Father, glorify thou me with
the glory which I had with Thee before the
world was. " " Not my will but thine be done : ' '
"I and my Father are one." These are but a
few illustrations of His frequent use of the
paradoxical method of teaching.

The natural mind, the material and there-
fore skeptical and superficial thought, has ever
seen in such paradoxical statements irreconcil-
able contradictions. The soul that feels God,
and knows Him in experience, knows that He
cannot be fully known. The spirit-illumined
mind realises that truth is found in paradoxes,
but sees that in the impossibility of finding it
fully expressed in either one paradox or the
other, lies the proof that the finite mind cannot

176 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

by either a negative or positive assertion con-
tain and express what is infinite.

From the vast conception and reverence for
truth, seen in the Master's use of the paradox
as a teaching method, the Church might well
learn in larger measure to refrain from forc-
ing truth upon either one or the other of the
horns of a dilemma, and from insisting, through
the voice of any party within her fold, that
what is eternal in its nature and relationship
should be delimited into narrow and exclusive
doctrinal or interpretational expressions, set
forth with the sanction of a binding authority.

CHAPTER XXI
THE CENTRAL GROUND POSITION

IT cannot be expected that all will occupy
this position. It is, however, necessary that
it should be strongly occupied, not alone for
the defence of the truth held by those who
maintain the position, but also for the defence
of those who occupy either one or the other of
the extreme positions. Without the holders of
the central ground, the positions of both ex-
tremes would, from time to time, become un-
tenable. The occupants of the extreme posi-
tions are exclusive, and are apt to be partisan.
Jealous of their own rights, logically convinced
that they are the chosen champions of the
Church, without whom she would cease to exist,
they are ever prone to aggressive warfare.

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178 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

They are disposed to be intolerant of the rights
and privileges of those from whom they differ.
They see no reason or justice in the demand for
the central ground. They say it is an unworthy,
compromise position. The Church, they say,
must be either catholic or protestant. Choose
ye which.

The Church faces no such necessity. She has
never, even during the time of Christ, or during
the life of the apostles, or at any time during
her history, been exclusively the one or the
other. She has ever been, and must ever be,
protestant against all error, in order that she
may be catholic and inclusive of all truth.

Those occupying the central ground are not
appealing in any sense for a via media compro-
mise settlement. The sacrifice of conviction to
a compromise level is not asked, because such
a sacrifice would be unworthy and weak.

The contention of those of the central ground
is that the Church should be made and kept
comprehensive. When the extreme high party
would seek to impose upon the whole Church

THE CENTRAL GROUND POSITION 179

their theories of orders based upon an exclu-
sive interpretation of the apostolic succession,
those of the central position become earnestly
protestant, and intensely catholic. They pro-
test against contentions which brand those who
do not accept these interpretations as ** dis-
loyal," ''traitors" and ''the friends of schis-
matics." They become ardently catholic in
their appeal for the love that thinketh no evil,
and for the claim of a Church comprehensive
enough for both a Bishop Brooks and the Bishop
of Fond Du Lac.

When, on the other hand, the extreme low
party will hear nothing of priests and apostolic
succession claims, and ancient catholic prac-
tices repudiated in the Reformation settlement,
and would fain force these brethren into Rome,
calling them "apists" and covenant breakers,
then the party of the central ground again
becomes both protestant and catholic and
pleads for a stay of execution. These men,
they say, are sincere and devoted. They stand
by the stake which they consider essential to

180 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the survival of the tabernacle, and keep ham-
mering it firmly in the ground. Let them alone.
You, who are interested in lengthening the
cords, and stretching the wing of the tent, will
find some day that the strong pole at the centre,
which these men have guarded and hanunered
in by tradition, and syllogism, and devotion, has
given you something rooted and grounded in
the past to tie to. You are essential to each
other. Conservatism and enthusiasm; the ec-
clesiastic and the progressive, are not of ne-
cessity enemies. They are essentially depend-
ent. It is a question, after all, of emphasis,
of conviction, of liberty.

We have often recalled the assertion made
by the scholarly and devoted Lord Bishop of
Kingston, who remarked that *'the low and
evangelical churchman seemed more successful
in winning men for Christ and His Church, and
the high churchman seemed more success-
ful in holding on to them; and the Church
needed them both. ' ' He then quietly observed,
that "he wished they would stop fighting each

THE CENTRAL GROUND POSITION 181

other, because in this they did the Church much
harm in every way."

That which gives to the holders of the cen-
tral position their strength and influence is
the fact that this class is composed of men
representing all schools of thought in the
Church. The extreme high, low, ritualistic, and
broad churchman, are all found represented
among those who, while tenacious of their views
and convictions, are yet men of sufficient breadth
of sympathy and of comprehensiveness of
thought to stand together in their contention
for a Church that shall be inclusive of widely
divergent views, so long as there is a loyal
devotion to Christ, and to the spiritual concep-
tion of the Church as the Body of Christ.

They recognise that the triumph of either
extreme wing of the Church would spell dis-
aster, and would inevitably result in turning
the Church into a school of thought, or in de-
grading her to the level of a sect.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LANGUAGE OF COURTESY AND OF
CONTROVERSY

THE term ''the Church" is used with va-
ried significance by the same men under
different circumstances. In conferences where
men of different communions are gathered, it is
applied, by courtesy, to all who, having been
baptised, profess and call themselves Chris-
tians, even by men who, in Church paper contro-
versy, and in their own pulpit utterances, apply
it to the organisation of the apostolic succes-
sion alone, using the words "denominations,'*
** sectarians," ''our enemies," and "our op-
ponents" as descriptive of those who "are not
of the Church." It is a question as to when
these men are at their best. We do not pre-

182

COURTESY AND CONTROVERSY 183

sume to lay the invidious charge of inconsist-
ency against them. It is better that men should
be inconsistent and liberal sometimes, than con-
sistently narrow all the time. It is, however,
significant that the mind, when brought into
the atmosphere of a common spiritual expe-
rience, should use the term "the Church" in a
comprehensive sense, even though it confines
the term to the limits of a logical exclusive-
ness when in the controversial mood.

A MATTER OF EMPHASIS

There is no question but that in the Anglican
Church, and in this Church in America, the
question of the interpretation of the ordinal is
the crucial question which lies back of prac-
tically every controversy that claims any
measure of public attention regarding the
Church and her divine and human relation-
ships. Controversies relative to sacraments,
pulpit exchange, conferences, co-operation, and
terminology, all have their root in this ultimate
question of the regularity and validity of or-

184 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ders. At times one would imagine, from what
is written by way of interpretation, that Christ
came into the world to preserve the apostolic
succession of the ministry, so insistent and vio-
lent are the assertions made on the subject.
If there are no sacraments without the Church,
and no Church without the unbroken succession
of order, and no covenant of salvation with-
out sacraments, then well might the Christ have
lived and died for the establishment and preser-
vation of the succession. This is not, however,
where the emphasis is placed in the great
Gospel of Redemption ; nor is it where the em-
phasis is placed in the rest of the New Testa-
ment literature. That a succession was intend-
ed, and is clearly implied, and was begun, and
began to be continued, there is evidence. But
that it was to be made the test of loyalty of
men to their Lord, or to supersede this mark
and token of their membership in His Body, is
not taught in Sacred Scripture. Indeed, the
contrary teaching is clearly indicated, if not
implicitly given.

COURTESY AND CONTROVERSY 185

The exclusive theory of the succession may
be applied as a test to ascertain the regularity
of orders according to this standard. It were
almost sacrilegious to demand it as a condition
of a valid ministry in the Church of Christ.
He gives His clear and visible tokens that this
irregular ministry is valid for the purpose of
building men into His Body. And this is surely
His chief concern. His will that men should
be saved takes precedence over the form in
which the Church that helps save them is con-
stituted. The essential and vital union of the
souls of men with Him, as Saviour, is the ques-
tion of prime importance with reference to the
Church, which is His Body.

CHAPTER XXin

THE FENCE THROUGH THE MIDDLE
GROUND

IF these words, which are but the feeble effort
to express a sincere conviction of what we
earnestly believe is a true and loyal conception
of a comprehensive and catholic Church, should
perchance come to the attention of extreme men
of either the high or low school of thought
in the Church, we apprehend that the charge
will be made that, in contending for compre-
hensiveness, we have straddled the fence upon
every proposition considered. The charge is
doubtless true. But who had the right to build
a fence right across the middle ground of our
inheritance as the children of God? Who has
the right to run a hard and fast line through

m

PENCE THROUGH THE MIDDLE GROUND 187

the middle of the Kingdom of God and say that
the true conception of the Church lies exclu-
sively on one side of that thought line, or on the
other? What is a man to do but straddle the
line when he finds it there, when he believes in
his heart that the truth is on both sides of it I
After all, if charges must needs be made, do
they not lie more against the fence builders
than against those who are forced to climb and
sit on the fence in order that they may see
the far reaches of the fields of truth? But let
those who straddle the line straddle it widely
and not stand fast upon it as a via media of
their own making or choice. The place on the
top of the fence should never be chosen as a
compromise position, but as a vantage point of
wider vision.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRIEST AND THE MONK

AS we considered these two pilgrims who,
among others, were passing in review
through the present, we asked, does the Church
need them? Is there room for them in this
Church? The extreme partisan of the low
Church party would doubtless answer, *'No.
They antedate the Reformation. They savour
strongly of sacerdotalism. They hold views for
which we find no warrant in the Book of Com-
mon Prayer. Let them go to Rome. " There are
still among Protestants those who would con-
sider that, in saying this, they were consigning
the monk and the priest to perdition. There
are wide ranges of conviction concerning things
ecclesiastical among those who profess and call

188

THE PRIEST AND THE MONK 189

themselves Christian, but who call their breth-
ren by names which must sound wonderfully
pleasing to the ears of the Devil.

The question which faces us relative to the
need and the place for the priest and the monk
is not as to whether the sacerdotal views of the
one, or the mediaeval customs of the other,
square with the standards of this branch of the
Catholic Church as they now stand printed in
the Prayer Book, and in the constitution of the
Church. They themselves being the judges, it
is admitted that they do not. Their protest
against the reformation, their appeal to an-
cient catholic custom, their use of ritual cere-
monial and vestments which are not sanctioned
by any authority which this Church, since the
Reformation, has decreed and set forth, is proof
of the fact that present standards and inter-
pretations are not, to their minds and to their
tastes, sufficiently comprehensive. In saying
this, we are sure we do these men no injustice.
It is our understanding of their position from
what they themselves assert and do. Their

190 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

right to do these things in the light of existing
standards is a question of conscience upon
which the writer is not called to sit in judg-
ment.

The question of vital importance is: — What
shall be the policy and attitude of this Church
to the sacerdotal priest and the monk in the
days and years which lie ahead of us? It is
neither right nor wise to leave them stand-
ing in suspense before the bar of conscience.
It is well neither for them, nor for bishops,
charged with the responsibility of discipline,
that views so widespread and practices so gen-
erally observed should seem to be in violation
of the expressed law, or if not so, in opposition
to the practices and principles authoritatively
sanctioned.

It is always dangerous, and frequently mani-
festly unfair, to present alternatives of choice
as though they presented the only possible solu-
tion of a problem.

It would seem, however, in answer to this
question of the duty and responsibility of the

THE PRIEST AND THE MONK 191

Church, that one of three alternatives faces us.

In the first place, if the radical contentions
of the low Church partisan should prevail, this
other extreme party would be turned .over to
Rome. But they do not desire to be turned over
to Rome. They may hope that the time may
come when the term catholic will not be hyphen-
ated either with Roman or with Protestant.
They may desire and help hasten the time when
Roman and Eastern Catholicism may prove ac-
ceptable and congenial to them, or when they
may absorb the Roman or the Eastern Church,
or both.

But, as they stand to-day, and as Rome
stands to-day, they are not in agreement.
They, therefore, cannot be, nor should they be,
forced to accept Roman Catholicism as a choice
between two evils. They would doubtless pre-
fer to bear what they consider the evils of the
Church to which they belong, as it now is,
rather than be forced to fly to other evils that
they know of full well.

In the second place, if denied what they be-

192 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

lieve to be their catholic liberty, they may feel
constrained to ultimately form a new old
Catholic Church. The expression a **new
Catholic Church" is, of course, contradictory,
and the expression ''old Catholic Church" is
tautological. But everything ecclesiastical
seems in these days to be involved in contradic-
tions. The erection of *'the Catholics" in the
Church into a Church apart, called by what-
ever name might be chosen, would be a possi-
bility, but it would not seem to be a step away
from schism, or a step toward a closer unity
in the already fragmentated Body of Christ.
But if the choice has to be made, as we are told
it must be made, between protestant and cath-
olic, then it must be made by those who insist
upon its being made, and who fail to see that
the Church, or a large section of it, will insist
upon remaining protestant in order that they
may remain catholic in keeping with the historic
position, which many will continue to believe is
the catholic position of the Church.

The third alternative lies in the hope and

THE PRIEST AND THE MONK 193

possibility of making this Church comprehen-
sive, and much more than tolerantly compre-
hensive, of all schools of spiritually minded
thought within the Church.

If this is to be brought to pass, there must of
necessity be some very large-minded and far-
reaching thinking done by all who are con-
cerned. Concessions that are costly will have
to be made. Clear distinctions will have to be
drawn between things spiritual and formal, and
between facts and theories. Positions which
may seem contradictory, because they are oppo-
sites, must be admitted possible of tenure in the
effort to test out their truth in the realm of
human experience. When what is cherished as
precious truth by some, seems darksome error
to others, then again the attitude of the oppo-
sition must be, ''Let these men alone. If this
doctrine is of man, it will be brought to naught ;
if it be of God, beware lest ye be found to fight
against God. ' ' The judgments of the mind must
be made in the consciousness of the presence of
God, Who is Eternal Truth, and Who, in the

194 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

course of time, will vindicate Himself. The
deductions of the limited and finite minds of
controversialists will not be taken as though
they were the oracles of God. They will be
examined candidly and given the consideration
which the thought of one sincere man deserves
at the bar of another man's judgment. Terms
of an unbrotherly kind will not be hurled
through the press and from the battlements of
Church papers, and from pistols pointed over
the editor's desk. ^'Mr. Editor" will not be
asked to call the man who does not agree with
the writer a ''traitor," or a ''schismatic."
Such terms will not be used of priests of the
Church, not yet deposed, by those who would
themselves wish to be considered possessed of
the virtues of a Christian man, or the common
decency which becomes the character of a
gentleman.

The priest and the monk should be given
ample room in the comprehensiveness of the
Church of the future. The terms of their ten-
ure of office and position and conviction should

THE PRIEST AND THE MONK 195

be made certain, and the settlement should be
liberal and widely inclusive.

The priest and the monk should, however, be
brought to clearly understand that the liberty
that is to them allowed is not assented to in a
way that makes their liberty a law of conform-
ity for the whole Church. They must be
brought to see very clearly that no matter how
firm their convictions may be, they are in-
cluded in the comprehensiveness of the Church
which also comprehends other views. The leg-
islation which gives the larger liberty should
be expressed by the word ''May/' and not by
the word ''Must."

If, to this end, those who occupy the middle
ground shall agree to endeavour to make the
Church comprehensive of the sacerdotal priest
and the monk, and to sanction the existence and
work of inner shrine sacred orders, then the
priest and the monk must also agree that those
of the middle ground shall also be left free to
seek to make the Church inclusive of the prophet
and placed on conference terms with the protes-

196 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

tant ministry not of this Church, and brought
at times, and under pre-accepted conditions,
into co-operative relationship with any who are
of the Body of Christ through the sacrament of
baptism.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PROPHET AND THE NONCON-
FORMIST MINISTER

IF there be those in the comprehensive
Church of the future who shall desire to
hear the message of some prophet of God, not
of the ministry of this Church, liberty must be
given that this message may be proclaimed and
judged, as every message is, upon its merit, and
in view of its harmony with eternal truth.

If there be those then, as there are those now,
who desire freely to invite other Christians to
the Holy Communion of this Church, their lib-
erty to do so must be granted. Their conten-
tion that no theory or interpretation should be
set as a barrier to prevent any child of the
Father who has openly confessed his faith in

197

198 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

Christ as his personal Saviour from receiving
the strengthening and refreshing of his soul
by coming to the Communion when he feels
himself called there by the Spirit of Christ,
must be freely granted and allowed.

If there shall be those who desire to partici-
pate in the future in such communions as the
one which gave rise to the Kikuyu controversy,
their liberty to do so must be allowed.

If there should, be those who, in response to
a spiritual conviction, feel disposed to attend
the conununion of a non-conformist Church, the
sacerdotal priest and the monk must agree to
assent that, while they could never do such a
thing (and, of course, they would never be
asked to), yet the liberty of the priest or lay-
man who can, with conscience, do so must be
by the whole Church allowed. This would by
no means imply that the whole Church sanc-
tioned and assented to a parity of orders. It
would mean this no more than it would mean
that the whole Church assented to the doc-
trine of masses for the dead because it per-

I'HE PROPHET AND THE NONCONFORMIST 199

mitted those who did believe in them to have
communions memorial of the souls of the
faithful departed.

The principle here contended for is that the
whole Church may unanimously agree to per-
mit the expression of conviction on the part of
those who constitute a minority, and whose
views and convictions in no way represent the
convictions of the majority.

THE OBJECTION

The sacerdotal priest and the monk may be
strongly disposed to object that it would be
asking too much for them to agree to such a
procedure as this. Would not our assent to
such comprehensiveness as that suggested in-
validate the very fundamental principle of
succession upon which the Church is founded!
By no means. This Church in America has
never expressed its mind on this subject. It
has never formulated a theoiy of the succes-
sion. It says very clearly what is required of

200 '^THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

those who are to be accounted ministers in and
of ''this Church.*' It says nothing as to who
are to be accounted ministers hy this Church.

For the Church as a whole to make herself
inclusive of those who would hold fellowship,
conference, and even communion, with those not
of this Church, would be neither to sanction nor
to repudiate any doctrine of the apostolic suc-
cession. It would simply be to accord to those
who place upon this doctrine a major empha-
sis and hold it absolutely essential, the liberty
to hold their respective convictions, and the
right to express them. If the General Con-
vention should, by a majority vote, order that
all its members should attend a joint commu-
nion with the Presbyterian General Assembly,
or of necessity go as delegates to Panama or
Rome, then convictions would be sacrificed upon
the altar of tyranny by the power of a majority.

But for the Church as a whole to legislate
for the full liberty of any part of it, even though
that part be but a minority, does in no way,
and to no degree whatsoever, commit the

THE PROPHET AND THE NONCONFORMIST 201

Church as a whole to the view of that minority
or majority, as the case may be, as being the
exclusive position held on the question by the
whole Church.

CHAPTER XXVI

NECESSARY RESTRICTIONS UPON
LIBERTY

LIBERTY is unbounded in the realms of
eternal truth, because eternal truth is un-
bounded. It is, however, contradicted by error.
In human thought the possibilities of error are
inherent by reason of the finite nature of the
human mind. Neither one of two propositions
is necessarily wholly wrong because they ap-
pear logically contradictory and exclusive of
each other. Some truth may inhere in each
proposition. It often happens that the con-
tradiction arises out of the inadequacy of a
statement to include all the elements of truth,
and all the facts of experience which it assumes
to comprehend and explain. Within the wide

202

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 203

realms of truth, the seeker after it should be
allowed the widest possible liberty. It should
also be allowed that ample room and full scope
should be given in the Church to test various
aspects of truth in the realm of experience.

The Church, however, must set certain
bounds to the thinking process, and to the prac-
tice which is to prevail with her sanction, in
order that the integrity of truth may not be
confused with the disintegrating power of the
error which is distinctly contrary to the es-
sence of the truth which she holds, and to
which she bears witness.

The necessity for such restriction is seen in
connection with the liberty which is to be al-
lowed by the Church to every school of thought
within her fold.

RATIONALISM VERSUS THEISM

The Church may well be not only tol-
erant but vitally sympathetic with the efforts
of human reason to comprehend and corre-

204 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

late the truth; she may insist that views
that seem logically contradictory may still be
inclusive of truth, and comprehended within
the sphere of truth, which may embrace both
conceptions, and much more than both concep-
tions suggest or contain. When, however, rea-
son presumes to deny that which the Church
exists to affirm ; when reason asserts that there
is nothing beyond what reason sees, and pro-
claims that all possible phenomena which are
worthy of credence must be shown to conform
to the laws which the mind has already appre-
hended; when reason denies the supernatural,
and insists upon reducing the content of reve-
lation to the test of the physical laboratory, or
to the measure of natural law, as it has been
generalised and formulated by material science ;
and then proceeds upon this basis to deny the
miraculous, and to repudiate supernatural reve-
lation : then it becomes the duty of the Church,
in her defence of the truth, to protest against
these unwarranted assumptions of the natural
mind, which have no warrant for their validity,

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 205

either in the realm of science, or in the realms
of spiritual experience. For her to embrace
and tolerate teaching which positively denies or
insidiously undermines the essence and nature
of the spiritual truth which she holds as being
supernatural and as transcending material laws
and rational speculation, would be to assert
that she had no distinctive mission. To be com-
prehensive of the error which denies the es-
sence of the truth of which she is set to be
the witness, would be to forfeit her claim to
having been sent from God to witness to a
revelation in human experience which tran-
scends the bounds of human reason. She may
be tolerant of reverent agnosticism; she may
be tolerant of reverent skepticism in its search
for truth, as Christ was tolerant of the doubt
of Thomas; and she may be tolerant of many
theories which seek to grasp and explain the
supernatural, even though these theories may
appear contradictory. She cannot, however,
tolerate, and be comprehensive of, the error
which cuts the very roots of the tree of life

206 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

which she has been set to water and tend, that
it and its fruits may be for the healing of the
nations.

MATERIALISM VEESUS SPIRITISM

In the midst of a material world the Church
of God has been set to be the sacramental sign
and witness of the spirit world that lies back
of, and at the foundation of, things visible and
temporary. It is now, and doubtless always
will be, quite impossible for the finite mind to
harmonise completely and to state adequately
the exact relation and perfect balance of
the interrelation between form and spirit. The
material is the sacrament of the spiritual. It is
the outward and visible manifestation of an
inward and spiritual reality. Life in and under
and through the material form presents itself
in us, and to us, in all our divine and human
relationship, as it does in our personal expe-
rience. This fact constitutes the basis of the
sacramental system and ritual practice of the
Church. That minds should differ as to the

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 207

value and need and extent to which the sacra-
mental and ritual element in the life of the
Church should be emphasised, is natural, and
evidential of the fact that the Church compre-
hends within herself many temperaments of
soul, and many types of mind. The Church, if
she is wise in her day and generation, will so or-
der the bounds of her comprehensive sympathy
as to embrace the personalities which are ap-
pealed to, and would make their appeal through
symbol and sacrament, and who would use both
largely as means for communicating divine life
and imparting the truth as to the divine nature.
She will also provide for making at home within
her fold those to whom emphasised form and
ceremony is an obstacle and hindrance to spir-
itual vision, and who instinctively desire a more
immediate approach to God than is provided in
a ritualistic service.

She must, however, set bounds upon them
both in the liberty which she allows. These
limitations should rest not so much in things
prohibited as in safeguarding the fundamental

208 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

principles which it is her duty to guard and
maintain.

The Church may be ritualistic and yet in-
tensely spiritual. There are many personali-
ties so constituted that they could not have
grown so distinctly spiritual if they had not
been aided by ritual observances in their ap-
proach to God. The Church, however, is the
one institution in this world set to bear witness
to the Spirit in the midst of things material.
If she becomes materialistic, she forfeits her
right to bear witness. If she stoops to be
flesh in order to win the spirit, she loses
her chance, and becomes of the world, which
she can no longer save. When the Church
substitutes the material for the spiritual, she
transcends by such transubstantiation her
power, her right, her liberty and the law
of her life. The Eternal Son came down,
and for us men and our salvation, was made
flesh, and in the form of our humanity,
dwelt among us, but this He did that He might
exalt our nature and make us sons of God, and

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 209

partakers with Him of the divine nature. He
did not materialise Himself. He spiritualised
the humanity in which He became incarnate.
He took our nature upon Him, then through
sacrifice, and the resurrection and His glorious
ascension He took it into the eternal Trinity,
and into eternal atonement with God. The
Church must restrict the liberty of mind which
ventures to controvert or deny the truth in-
herent in, and revealed through the incarnation.
She cannot suffer those within her fold to sub-
stitute something material for the living and
ascended and ever-present Christ. She may
and does allow men to exalt the sacrament, and
she permits them to hold many and varied theo-
ries as to how, in the sacrament, He is, or may
be present. She denies men the liberty of sub-
stituting a material thing for the sacrament.
For, she says, in doing this, you overthrow the
very nature of the sacrament itself. The
Church not only has the right, but the duty, to
guard the integrity of truth. It may not be wise
for her to insist upon the acceptance of any

210 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

theory as to how Christ is present in the sacra-
ment. When men take the consecrated ele-
ments and say that these are no longer in any
sense material elements, as your senses would
lead you to think, but these are Christ; this
material substance is your very Lord, out-
wardly present, and here to be gazed upon and
exalted on the altar, here to be reserved that
the altar may be sanctified by His presence
when you are gone, to be carried about as a
Christ corporal, a Christ that can be put into a
silver box, and preserved there to be communi-
cated afterward ; this the Church says she can-
not understand, and this theory of His pres-
ence she has repudiated. The Church may, per-
haps, allow those whose minds admit such a
materialised conception individually to hold it.
The Church has the right and the duty to re-
strict her authorised ministers from teaching
this to her children. This she has done. Once
in her articles of religion, she repudiated this
teaching, and forbade it. Immediately subse-
quent to the Eeformation, in Jewel's ''Apol-

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 211

ogy," which was set forth by Archbishop Par-
ker, and published with the consent of Convoca-
tion, she repudiated this teaching, and since
then, she has never, by any official sanction,
pei-mitted this, which she regards as error, to be
included within the scope of what she regards as
the liberty of teaching permitted to the priest-
hood of this Church. She insists that the ma-
terial shall not be substituted for the spiritual.
She allows wide liberty of interpretation as to
how the material symbol and spiritual and real
Presence may both be taken and received by
the faithful in the sacrament of His Body and
Blood.

It sometimes becomes necessary to restrain
the lower in order to develop the higher liberty.
When the liberty given to the mind is used to
build barriers which confine the spirit; when
the liberty given to reason is used to forge
chains which shackle faith; when the lib-
erty given to thought results in teaching which
undermines the truth of revelation and the
facts of divine and human relationship, which

212 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

are witnessed to in human experience, and
which are cherished as the truths distinctive of
the life of faith and devotion ; when the liberty
of interpretation denies the spiritual concep-
tion of truth, and insists upon substituting a
material thing for a spiritual heritage, — then
the Church, for the sake of souls, for the sake
of the faith, and in the name of the truth
for which she is the witness, must deny men
the liberty to assert that which she cannot
include within her comprehensiveness without
becoming not only less comprehensive of truth
but inclusive of distinctly conflicting error.

This must, therefore, of necessity be her atti-
tude to liberty which results in rationalism and
materialism.

CONFORMITY VERSUS LIBERTY

How liberty of conscience and conformity to
standards can both be preserved has ever been
the hard problem in the life of the Church. The
spirit is alive and vital. The form is created

RESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 213

to be its body, its means of expression. The
one grows ; the other is officially static until, by
authority, it is recast. To what extent the
spirit of God, to what extent the spirit of wor-
ship has been trammelled and delimited by fixed-
ness of form is a question which affords ground
for interesting speculation, but which defies
positive answer. The value of corporate wor-
ship under prescribed forms, the advantage of
creating and maintaining through a cherished
liturgy the continuity of the spirit of devotion,
and the enriching power of association with
services long and devotedly used, doubtless
overbalance the objection to the limitation of
the spirit of worship under the prescribed
forms of worship. That the spirit of devotion
often transcends and outgrows the forms pro-
vided for corporate worship has been the rea-
son which has ever led the way to liturgical
enrichment in the Church of God. It is always
permissible for men in the Church to feel the
need for a larger liberty in liturgical expres-
sion. It is also permissible for men to ask

214 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the liberty of expressing their devotion in the
corporate life of the Church in a freer expres-
sion than prescribed forms will allow. It would
be well for the Church to give heed to every
reasonable demand which is made upon her by
the spirits of men in their desire to worship
God in the beauty of holiness, and in the en-
richment of form, and in the freedom of spirit.
She may well consider the fact that tempera-
ments radically differ, and that wide liberty
should be allowed in her devotional formularies
and rubrics for the outgoing heart of man in
praise, adoration and petition.

The Church which gives to her children the
right and the opportunity through due proc-
esses of legislation to voice and register their
desires and convictions, may reasonably demand
and expect that her formulas of devotion will
be used, and her rubrics adhered to, pending
the time when changes may be asked for and, if
reasonable, secured. It should always be hoped
that a majority would not deny to a minority of
seekers for a closer communion with God the

llESTRICTIONS UPON LIBERTY 215

liberty of any reasonable form and expression
of devotion so long as the integrity of her
liturgical use is preserved according to her
direction.

A spiritually disposed Church, and bishops
who are not slaves to the letter, will ever see
that any reasonable and spiritually profitable
usage is allowed, if by it men's hearts are,
without offence to others, more surely and
closely brought into communion with God. Uni-
formity of worship is not nearly so essential
to the glory and good of the Church as is a
comprehensive system of worship, in and un-
der which men will be obedient to law and sub-
missive to authority. Non-conformity allowed
is surely better than ecclesiastical anarchy.
Priests who are themselves persistently dis-
obedient to the law of the Church, can hardly,
with consistency, insist upon the obedience to
parents and others in authority, which is taught
in the catechism of the Church. One would
think that our Bishops would gladly welcome
more comprehensiveness in liturgical usage with

216 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the hope that, as Fathers in God, they would
not be troubled with the spirit of persistent
disobedience which now characterises so many
of their priestly children.

The rule for churchmen with reference to the
liturgy might well be: — Contend for liberty if
your spirit of devotion feels confined, but obey
the law while it lasts. Sometimes the best way
to get a law changed is by a mutual agreement
to observe it scrupulously. If everybody breaks
it, the result is unlicensed non-conformity.

Law and form have always been and always
will be essentially related to the survival and
expression of the spirit of liberty both in the
state and in the Church. License of thought
and expression, while they have ever sought
to cloak themselves with the garb of liberty,
have ever been enemies to the development of
the true spirit of freedom.

CHAPTER XXVn

THE PERILS OF PROTESTANTISM

rriHE student of contemporaneous religious
-■- life and thought perceives that the path
of progress is beset with perils. The dangers
which beset Protestantism are largely of a kind
distinctly opposite from those which beset and
pervert the mind of the so-called *' Catholic
party'* in the Church. Protestant weaknesses
come largely from the over rebound from the
exclusive claims and demands of ecclesiasti-
cism. In many instances they arise from wrong,
or disproportionate, emphasis upon certain
aspects of truth. The Church of the reconstruc-
tion should be careful to observe them, and to
note the causes which have led men to turn into
by-paths, and, at times, to get stuck in snow
drifts, or to lose themselves in the wilderness.

217

218 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

INDIVIDUALISTIC SALVATION

The emphasis placed by Protestantism upon
the value of the human soul has not been too
great. It has, at times, been too exclusive.
This has resulted in a certain type of ex-
aggerated individualism. The duty of the mem-
ber to be in himself sound and spiritually alive
has not been correlated with the duty of the
member of the Body corporate.

The recognition of this weakness has in some
instances led Protestant communions to over-
emphasise social service as the cure for an in-
dividualistic conception of salvation. Social
service sends the soul out to find its corporate
life in serving social needs. While this fulfills
in part the requirement for the expression of
the life that has been saved through Christ, it
does not make provision for the sure and con-
tinued salvation of the life in Christ, which
comes from the close incorporation of the in-
dividual into His Body through the constant
use of the spiritual sacramental system of

THE PERILS OF PROTESTANTISM 239

the Church. While it is true that the Church
exists to save and to help the individual, it is
also the duty of the individual to build his
personality into the corporate life of the
Church, that the Body may, through him, be
made more strong for fulfilling its mission,
and in order that, through the Body, his own
life may daily increase in that spiritual life
which, through the Body, is supplied.

LETTING DOWN THE BAES

In the rebound from the Church, cumbered
by superadded intensive notes of dogma and
ritual, there is the danger of seeking to make
the Church so extensive in its comprehension
that it will include, by invitation and accept-
ance, those who do not comply with, because
they do not have explained to them, the ele-
mental and essential terms of salvation in and
through Jesus Christ. It is possible so com-
pletely to rationalise and despiritualise its
teaching as to exclude from it the distinctive

220 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and essential notes of its Christian character
and divine mission to men. The bars may be let
down so low that those who are let in scarcely
know whether they are on the inside or on the
outside. This is done when men are told that
it makes no difference what they believe if they
live rightly, as though men could live rightly if
they did not first believe aright. This is done
when a credal basis for character building is re-
pudiated because, perchance, there have been
those who have mistaken, and substituted the in-
tellectual acceptance of credal statements for a
vital credal faith. This is done when Christ
is debased to the level of the power of the hu-
man reason to accept Him, and when, because
there is no response of spiritual faith, He is
offered as a mere man (God's best man), to the
natural mind. The Unitarian may do this and
be consistent, the Christian minister cannot do
this and be consistent with, or loyal to, the
fundamental charter of the Christian Church
whose mission is to preach Christ as the divine
and incarnate Son of God.

THE PERILS OP PROTESTANTISM 221

If the Bible has no voice back of it save the
voice of man, and no spirit of inspiration save
that of human genius ; if Christ be naught save
an example, if He be relegated to history as
the world's greatest hero, and be not pro-
claimed, as He proclaimed Himself, the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever, the Son, to
whom the weary and heavy laden may come and
find salvation and power and peace ; if His sac-
raments are accounted as meaningless ordi-
nances which may be used or dispensed with
according to the individual whims of men ; and
if the Christian ministry be intrusted indiscrim-
inately to any who may desire to take this name
and office upon themselves, without having been
called, carefully examined, and, by recognised
authority, ordained ; then the Christian Church
will have lost every note of authority, and every
distinctive reason for claiming the confidence,
the support, and the following of men.

222 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

THE MATERIALISED CHURCH

If there be reason to charge that the Episco-
pal Church lays undue stress and dispropor-
tionate emphasis upon her orders, her forms
and ceremonies, and her sacramental system,
there is, on the other hand, reason to believe
that Protestant Churches, not of the Episcopal
Order and Communion, frequently obscure the
spiritual character and claim of the Church by
other exaggerated forms of material ministra-
tion. That the Church has a social function
to perform, is unquestionably true, and that
the element of fellowship in the Episcopal
Church is frequently not sufficiently developed
and emphasised is true also, but it is equally
true that, in the practical administration of
many Protestant organisations, the appeal made
through the social and material functions of the
Church is so over-emphasised as to be in dan-
ger of excluding the emphasis upon the dis-
tinctive spiritual claims of the Church. The
six-day-in-the-week gymnasium, the social clubs,

THE PERILS OF PROTESTANTISM 223

the incessant supping and dining, the debating
societies, the before-service supper and the
after-service tea, the special music programme,
the advertised Sunday evening concert, the ap-
peal to curiosity through the sensational topic
display and the worshipless character of many
preaching services, all tend to impress the pub-
lic mind with the idea that the Church is panic-
stricken, that it has lost its faith, its courage
and its supreme conviction as to its distinctive
mission to witness to the spiritual truth and
power of the Kingdom of God. The danger is
that many will join the Church because it offers
cheaper club and gymnasium and recreation fa-
cilities than they could get elsewhere. The ex-
cessive material emphasis is not calculated to
create spiritual-mindedness. Wliile there are
circumstances which unquestionably justify the
existence of the institutional Church, it is never-
theless true that the nature of its appeal tends
to obscure the spiritual appeal, and constitutes
a danger which, at times, rises to a point of
peril in Protestant Christianity.

224 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

SOCIAL SERVICE AS A THING APART

One of the distinctly vital and encouraging
phases of current Church life is the emphasis
which is being placed on social service. It is
indicative of the recognition by the Church of
a large responsibility to serve. It is the man-
ward expression of the Christian conscious-
ness. It is the fulfillment of the second com-
mandment given by our Blessed Lord, enjoin-
ing love to our neighbour, who is the other needy
child of God.

The danger in this realm of Christian activity
lies in the possibility, and in the disposition
sometimes seen, to substitute social service for
the corporate worship of God. The two duties
are not antagonistic. They are complementary
to each other. Worship without service becomes
formal and impotent. Social service, without
the vital background of spiritual experience
kept alive through the services and sacraments
of the Church, is sure to become mechanical, per-
functory and void of constructive and vitalising

THE PERILS OP PROTESTANTISM 225

spiritual inspiration. It tends to eliminate the
spiritual elements of personal sympathy, and
the creative power of faith and love. As an ex-
pression of a divinely kindled desire to serve,
as the outgoing of the ever-incoming spirit of
God, as the translation of the great Gospel of
redemption into terms which are understood of
men, social service furnishes a great liberating
and constructive programme for the manifesta-
tion of the spirit of Christ, and is a distinctive
and indispensable part of the one great mission
of the Church. As a substitute for the worship
of God in the services and ordinances of His
Church, it is a delusion of a most dangerous
kind. Reconstructed life must be built upon
eternal foundations, it must be incorporated
into the life divine, if it is to be permanent and
progressive in the evolution of the social order.
There is always grave peril of perverting or
distorting an idea, which, when held in its
proper relation to God and man, is fraught with
vast potency for good.

The greatest Servant of men found, and ever

226 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

maintained, the due proportion and proper bal-
ance between silence with God and service to
men. Worship and work were inseparably
bound together in His consciousness of His
divine relationship and His human mission.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE PERIL OF ORDERS

THE human mind is ever prone to misuse
the great gifts of God. Out of this dis-
position has grown the idol-worship of the
world. The revelation, the instrument, the
means, becomes an end itself. The Jews came
to worship their temple and their law, and then
their idols, and lost the vision of God. Until
rebuked and forbidden by them, the supersti-
tious barbarians of Lycaonia would fain have
worshipped the apostles. The Roman Church
has deified the Virgin, and exalted the pope to a
place almost co-equal with Christ. Protestants
at times have made the letter of Scripture the
pope of Protestantism.

And what have we done? We have empha-

227

228 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sised the necessity for valid and regular or-
ders. We have exalted the sacramental sys-
tem of the Church. We have capitalised "The
Church.*' We have glorified the ritual of our
worship. We have created what Billy Sunday
asserts is the best governed and ordered Church
in Christendom. In all this we cannot be fairly
charged with having done amiss. But our
course has been, and still is, beset with perils.
We have not always been mindful of them.
We are in constant danger of becoming unmind-
ful of them. The danger lies in making an end
of what God ordained to be a means to an end.
We constantly face the peril of becoming slaves
to the system that was ordained to make men
free.

The peril does not present itself especially
to the priestly mind. The danger is not so
much that he will become a materialist, though
he sometimes does, but that the laity will not
see through the form and system to the spirit-
ual verities of which it is intended to be, and
really is, the sign and symbol. The form and

THE PERIL OF ORDERS 229

ritual, wliicli is intended to project the soul into
the spiritual realm, is in danger of arresting
the attention and of enchaining the soul to the
over-emphasised symbol. The priest has used
the organisation in a way to make him recog-
nise it as an organism into which he is incorpo-
rated. He has found every form, and institu-
tion, and interpretation of his order, and sacra-
mental theory, a means of blessing vital and
deeply spiritual for himself. He magnifies the
importance of form, he preaches the Church
persistently, he proclaims as indispensable his
interpretation of the ordinal, and holds up the
sacrament to the gaze of the people. All this
the priest may do with personal, conscious rev-
erence, and yet be unmindful of the perils which
beset his people by reason of his emphasis upon
sign and symbol, and visible sacrament, and
the ordered succession, and the Holy Church.

The peril lies in the danger that the people
will not see through and beyond. Their faith is
in peril of being arrested by their senses. It is
liable to stop short. It is prone to substitute the

230 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sign for the thing signified. Worship then be-
comes formal. Materialism dominates spiritu-
ality. The organisation, magnified and glori-
fied, then assumes a disproportionate place in
the lay consciousness. He swears by the
Church, but he swears. He bows low before the
altar, but he bows lower in the house of Rimmon,
and in the temples of Mammon. He feels the
glow of dim religious lights, and a certain sense
of sBsthetic devotion, and a dim consciousness of
a pleasing spiritual warmth. He has touched
the garment of Christ. That Christ also by
many thousands is touched we know full well.
But that -there are perils here we know full well
also, and they need to be recognised and con-
stantly guarded against.

Then, too, we are liable to put our trust in the
power, and in what we regard as the potent per-
fection, of the organisation. Conscious of our
sure and certain incorporation into the Church ;
conscious of its dignity, its order, its inherent
worth, we are prone to delude ourselves with
the idea that this in itself is sufficient. Men

THE PERIL OF ORDERS 231

sometimes fail, in their sense of conscious se-
curity, to realise that they may be in and of
the Body of Christ and yet not of His mind
and Spirit. Thus they become paralysed mem-
bers of His Body.

Membership in a Church so largely magnified
by its priesthood, so potent in its organisation,
so strongly and conspicuously formal and so
rich in its symbolic significance, is ever in dan-
ger of being assumed and maintained as a sub-
stitute, rather than as a vital means of incor-
porating the soul into union with the life of
God, and into close fellowship and conscious
communion with Christ Himself. The term
Churchman is not always the synonym of the
term Christian. The Church may be writ large,
and the Christ be but faintly inscribed in the
consciousness of man.

These reflections do not constitute in any
sense a charge against the Church as a well-
ordered organism, with outward and visible
signs and means of grace. They simply point
to the perils to which the priest and the people,

232 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and especially the people, are exposed in view
of the very perfect nature of the organisation.
The more perfect the human side of a divine in-
stitution becomes, the more liable men are to
substitute it for the divine. The glory of the
temple obscured from materialistic-minded men
the glory of God. The perfection of the man-
hood of our Master has obscured from many
minds the divinity of which His manhood was
but the incarnation. The foreground beauty
may hide the background life and glory of
which it is the manifestation. The frame may
be made so golden, and so bejewelled that the
9ye will rest there and not see the beauty of
the face upon the canvas.

It is possible for the Church to become so
enamoured of her orders that she may fail to
hear the orders of her Lord and Master. It is
possible for her to rest so surely in the confi-
dence of her rich possessions, and glorious
heritage, that she may fail to hear the voice
of her Lord in the cry of the world's need, call-
ing her to Christlike humility of mind, and bid-

THE PERIL OF ORDERS 233

ding her come down, as He did, to self-forgetful
service, to be misjudged and crucified, that in
the end He might be highly exalted, and given
a Name above every name, and worshipped and
adored as the Son of God who came down from
heaven to be the Saviour and Lord of men.

We need to beware lest our position of exclu-
sive aloofness is not born of pride, and the over-
consciousness of power. The age is saying far-
reaching and deep-searching words about a new
conception of divine rights. It is insisting that
such claims be interpreted in terms of democ-
racy, or else give way to a new order which
shall be responsive to the elemental and im-
perious needs of the children of God of love,
and to the leadership of His Spirit.

CHAPTER XXIX

WHAT WOULD BECOME OF THE
PRAYER BOOK?

THE good sense of the Church can be
trusted to take care that the Book of Com-
mon Prayer shall continue to represent the
normal position arrived at by successive genera-
tions. This has always been the case in the
past. If extreme or radical views prevail at
any time and become embodied in the authorised
devotions of the Church, their permanent place
in the liturgy will depend upon the test of their
permanent worth in the experience of a living
Church. There is no reason for one generation
to become panic-stricken because of innovations
or restrictions or alterations in the devotional
expressions of the liturgy. The ship has passed

234

THE PRAYER BOOK 235

through seas as rough and storms as violent
as any which are apt to lie ahead. If there be
tempests that are worse, which must yet be met,
we may be very sure that, if Christ remains at
the helm, we will come to the haven where He
would have us be. If He be forced to leave
the helm by our insisting upon steering the
ship, then the sooner she founders the better.

We should by all means make His task as
easy as we can. There are surely none in the
Church who would deliberately plan to do other-
wise. We should more largely trust each other,
and more earnestly endeavour to prove our-
selves worthy of trust. By fairness and con-
sideration; by forbearance and self-restraint;
by honest candour of speech and humility
of mind and heart; by seeking to keep every
avenue of approach to God widely open, and
thus refusing to lend our voice and influence
to close any channel of grace through which
divine love flows into human life; by thinking
more humbly and loving more comprehensively ;
we will come into the possession of the spirit

236 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of power and of a sound mind, that will en-
able us to perceive and know what we ought
to do in providing for the expression of the
faith and devotion of the people of God.

In this Church the people have a large voice.
Their influence for restraint is final and all pow-
erful. The laity have the power of veto over all
legislation in this Church, so that nothing can
be consummated in the way of change or addi-
tion which does not commend itself to their
judgment. As a class they deplore religious
controversy. It is usually the priests, rather
than the people, who agitate for radical changes
in doctrinal statements and devotional expres-
sion. The average layman is content, if he comes
to Church at all, to say the creed which the
Church has formulated, and to use the liturgy
which the Church has sanctioned, if it is said
with a spirit of devotion, and in a voice that can
be clearly understood by the people. The tem-
pests of controversy which sweep through
Church papers and stir priestly minds to foam-
ing and seething agitation, either do not stir

THE PRAYER BOOK 237

the laity very deeply, or stir them to the ex-
pression of deep regret that, with so many
vital and pressing problems to face, the Church
should waste so much energy in internecine war-
fare, and in the bitterness of partisan strife.

The laity is led to wonder if perhaps too much
time is not being spent in seminaries in teaching
men to split hairs rather than in training them
to be strong to level mountains, and prepare
the way for the larger and fuller coming of the
spirit of the Lord.

CHAPTER XXX

THE DEFENCE AND THE EXEMPLIFI-
CATION OF THE POWER OF ORDERS

IN aU that has been said, we have not been
unmindful of the necessity of preserving
unimpaired the historic heritage of this branch
of the Holy Catholic Church. The preserva-
tion through centuries of trial of the unbroken
continuity of the threefold orders of ministry
has had, and must continue to have, a witness-
bearing power in the Body of Christ.
When we consider that the ministry of the
Church was instituted and ordered to be per-
petuated prior to the time when the New Tes-
tament was written in any of its parts; when
we recall that the ministry was appointed to be
the custodian, the guardian, and the witness of

238

THE POWER OF ORDERS 239

tlie truth ; when we consider the credence given
by continuity to the genuineness and authentic-
ity of the written revelation, and the practical
experience of man in his relationship with God
under the terms of the New Covenant promise,
we are deeply conscious of the supreme obliga-
tion to be faithful to this transmitted trust.

While we have no right to give away what is
not ours to dispense with save upon the terms
and conditions which will secure the continued
and lawful transmission of the trust, we have
not only the right but the duty also, to use the
trust in the service for righteousness in such
a way as will add to its value in the largest pos-
sible measure. To hold the trust and add to it
ten talents besides, is the kind of stewardship
which this Church should seek to exercise.

There is need in the Church for those who will
stand by this central stake and defend it, and
drive it in deep, and make it permanently se-
cure. There is the same kind of need that this
should be done as there is that the centripetal
force in the universe should be preserved. In

240 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

the light of this illustration, it is instinctively
seen that the living Christ is of course the great
centripetal force of the Church, but we are
speaking now of the organic life of the Church,
and here, also, the principle is true.

The defenders of the central stake in the or-
ganisation must in all candour recognise that
the need for its security lies in the fact that the
cords must be pulled far and lengthened. They
must not insist that the tent cords be tightly
wrapped around the central pole. The fact
that they are allowed to be carried far by those
who would make the tent covering very wide
spread and comprehensive, shows the confidence
imposed by them in the pole at the centre to
stand the strain. If the men who would fain
carry the cords very far afield seem to those
at the centre pole to be running riot, or depart-
ing too far afield, let it be remembered that
they do so because of their supreme trust in
the strength of the central stake to stand the
strain. If those at the stake will not go forth
with those who run with the cords to lengthen

THE POWER OF ORDERS 241

them far, let it be recognised that they remain
at their task of defending the stake, that it may
not be pulled up and carried away by the cord
lengtheners. The centrifugal force is safe and
constant only so long as the power which holds
things to the centre is preserved and exercised.
We need each other. We need the stake. We
need the lengthened cord. The world's need
calls for a wide-stretched tabernacle. Keep the
central stake strong and fast. Trust the cord
lengtheners to exercise the faith that they feel
in knowing that things at the centre are guarded
and kept so secure that they are not afraid of
uprooting the stake by largely lengthening the
cords. We should not call by ill-sounding names
those who feel called of God to keep guard at
the centre, and who labour to keep the stake
well grounded in the ancient truth. They surely
should not call those disloyal who show such
supreme faith in the stake at the centre, that
they are willing to tie their cords around the
hearts of men far removed, and entwine the out-
stretched cords about the forces of righteous-

242 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ness everywhere, and even venture to cast a
life line into the teeth of the tempest, and out
upon the darkness of the sea to the ship disabled
because they believe that the stake divinely set
and guarded by faithful men will hold fast at
the centre. What is needed in the Church is
the larger confidence which should be felt among
men who are brothers and builders together
of the tabernacle of God among men.

CHAPTER XXXI

WHAT WE MAY AND WHAT WE CAN-
NOT HOLD

WE may hold our theories. We may tena-
ciously hold to exclusive interpretations
of our orders and sacraments. We may hold
to the determination to magnify the outward,
the formal, the material side of the Church.
We may hold to our insistence upon the su-
preme importance of a perfected organisation
to be maintained and consummated at any cost.
We may hold to our exclusive titles, and to
our exclusive claims, and to our exclusive po-
sition. But we cannot hold the people if we
emphasise these things to the exclusion of the
spiritual appeal and the spiritual gifts.

The deep heart of humanity feels, and, at
times, clearly sees, the nature and quality and

243

244 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

richness of its birthright. The thirst for God
is imperious. The longing for the conscious-
ness of communion with Him, and for the pos-
session of His love and His power and His
healing, cleansing life is ever present, though,
at times, obscured in the soul.

The appealing power of Moody and of Billy
Sunday over multitudes of men, and the grow-
ing strength of the distinctly spiritual appeal
and spiritual emphasis of Christian Science, are
both distinct evidences of the power of the peril
which inheres in the tendency to materialise
and secularise the Church, and bear witness to
the peril of substituting in the minds of our
people the form, the order, and the organisa-
tion in place of the living, vital witness to the
personal saving and healing Christ.

If there should be placed a more insistent and
definite emphasis upon the spirit of Christ, and
less upon the form of the Church; if in place
of magnifying the organisation, we should con-
secrate ourselves to spiritualise more deeply the
individual and the Church as a vital organism;

WHAT WE MAY AND CANNOT HOLD 245

if we should become less exclusive in our con-
sciousness and more responsive to the oppor-
tunities for service, more deeply imbued with
the spirit of love and fellowship, and more will-
ing to vindicate our orders and organisation by
using them in co-operation with other forces of
God's constituted Kingdom, is there not every
reason found in the revelation of the mind and
purpose of Christ to believe that He will be
true to His promise that against His Church the
gates of hell shall not prevail?

Having for so long pursued the course of an
exclusive claim and of an isolated position, it
might be well for this Church to try the experi-
ment of following the Master, with those others
whom He is leading, into a more vital and spirit-
ual co-operative effort to inspire the minds of
men and the ideals of nations, that they be no
longer conformed to the standards of the world,
but transformed by the renewing of the spirit
of the living God.

In doing this the Church would doubtless win
and hold a larger following of spiritually

246 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

minded men, and the larger fruitage wihioh
would be gathered from the harvest fields of the
world would more largely com mend our orders
to the consideration and esteem of those who
will increasingly turn to those things which
have manifested their worth and power in the
practical and vital experience of the Church.

CHAPTER XXXII
ANCIENT LANDMARKS

BY some it will be charged that in what is
being contended for we are removing an-
cient landmarks. There are Biblical injunc-
tions against doing this. This is unquestion-
ably true. These injunctions, however, were
pronounced against those who sought, by re-
moving ancient landmarks, to delimit the pos-
sessions, and infringe upon the inheritance
rights of other tribes in the Covenant Kingdom
We would disclaim any intention of doing this
with the landmarks of either truth or Church
polity.

The Church may well pause to ask if the
landmarks hitherto set by her do mark aright
the scope of the spiritual inheritance of the chil-

247

248 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

dren of the Christian covenant promise. Christ
found them set to bounds that had been made
too narrow, and removed them to mark the
bounds of a Church more comprehensive. And
in the hole from which He had removed the
landmark of tradition, they set up a cross, ' * and
there they crucified Him." It is well, also, to
bear in mind that the men who doomed Him to
death were led by the High Priest of ecclesiasti-
cal "orthodoxy.'*

PAET m
CONFERENCE— CO-OPERATION— UNITY

*'0h, like to the greatness of God is the great-
ness within

The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes
of Glynn/'

*****

**Te marshes, how candid and simple and noth-
ing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer your-
selves to the sea!''

*****

"And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out

of his plenty the sea
Pours fast:"

*****

*'Till his tvaters have flooded the uttermost

creeks and the low-lying lanes,
And the marsh is meshed with a million veins.
The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run
'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the
marsh-grass stir;"

*****

**And the sea and the marsh are one.'*

Sidney Lanier.

CHAPTER XXXIII
ARE WE PREPARED?

FOR many years the Christian Church
prayed for an open door into heathen
lands. At last the door was opened. From be-
yond it came the voices of millions lying in dark-
ness, saying, ''Come over and help us." Ma-
terialism, parochialism and selfishness gripped
and enchained the heart of the Church, and the
doors opened by prayer have not been entered
yet by a Church passing through them with gar-
ments dyed in the blood of her own priestly
sacrifice. Through open doors still come the
cries of the Father's children in the deep dark-
ness. They are crying for light. From the
silence of the sanctuary into which He passed
through sacrifice, there comes a voice which asks

251

252 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

why, having so long prayed, stand ye here so
long idle before the door which I have opened
to you?

For many years the Church has prayed, as
her Master prayed, that they all might be one.
Intercessions have been offered for an open
door to unity. Wider to-day than ever before
the door stands open. Are we prepared to enter
in? It does not open into a unity perfected and
immediate in its organic completeness. It is
open, however, to avenues of approach. Ways
that lead to fellowship and understanding, and
to a sympathetic appreciation of each other's
view points, are ways that lead to ultimate
unity. There are many who feel convinced
that they are the only ways lit by the light of
a reasonable hope.

The Church that refuses to give official sanc-
tion to those of her communion who feel that
they see this open door, and are assured that
they hear the Spirit's voice calling them, as-
sumes a grave responsibility. If to invitations
and opportunities for official and corporate co-

ARE WE PREPARED? 253

operation, to be engaged in by those who are
willing and desirous of doing so, the Church
turns a deaf ear, she will most surely prejudice
the great Protestant Communions against the
sincerity and spirit of sacrifice which prompts
her to suggest discussions and conferences on
' ' faith and order. ' ' Why should not the Protes-
tant Communions make reasonable reply that
they would not care to consider or accept orders
so exclusive and binding as to preclude confer-
ence and co-operation with other members of
the Body of Christ living in non-conformity,
but living still in vital union with Jesus Christ?

The world crisis demands spiritual leader-
ship. We know not what to-morrow has in
store. Orders have proven no barrier to blood-
shed. Greek and Romanist are fighting each
other. Romanists are fighting Romanists, and
Protestants are fighting Protestants and fight-
ing with Romanists and fighting against them.
There is chaos in the world.

In America, official corruption, and indus-
trial enmity, and greed and materialism are

254 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

rampant. Has the Church failed! She has
surely failed to put her emphasis on the right
things, or in the right proportion. She has
failed in vision, and in statesmanship and in
power. She has failed to measure up to her
high calling in Christ Jesus. She has come to
judgment. She has not come to her doom.
She can point to many achievements. Because
of her ministry there is a keener conscience and
a closer brotherhood among men. The world
to-day is more easily shocked because stand-
ards are higher. In private and public life
ideals of a nobler kind are leading men into a
richer and more abundant life. In spite of
her materialism and blindness, the Christ,
through His Church, has still been able to say
and do many things.

In the presence of stupendous problems, and
face to face with the day of her greatest op-
portunity, the Church, divided, stands to-day
impotent for her task.

Barriers of separation built by incompetent
and inadequate thought-processes, created by

ARE WE PREPARED? 255

ancient prejudices, and erected by mental and
finite interpretations of the great uninterpret-
able, eternal truth of God, divide the Church,
and weaken her power to witness, and her ca-
pacity to lead men and nations into liberty.

In the presence of our self-created weakness ;
with the memory of our failures and shortcom-
ings; conscious as we must be of having done
many things amiss, and left undone many things
which might have helped to heal His broken
and divided Body; shall not we who profess and
call ourselves Christians turn in these days
from endless and formal academic discussions
to penitential litanies, and ask God to have
mercy upon us and to forgive?

Is it not a time for humility of mind and
contriteness of heart! Is it a time for men of
a common faith and a common purpose to stand
apart? Shall cold stone barriers of logical
conviction stem and hinder the flow of the spirit
of Christian fellowship and the largest possible
measure of Christian conference and co-opera-
tion I

256 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

What would happen if our Bishops should
unite in calling all Christian communions in
America who would heed the call into a great
representative conference; saying: — '* Brethren,
come, let us go up into the mount of the Lord
and pray and reason together. Our sins have
been as scarlet, yet He will have mercy and for-
give. The world is calling us. Christ is calling
us. Let us not in this great crisis moment stand
divided. We are one Body in Christ, and one
in essential faith, and one in charity. Let us
take counsel together. Let us ask Him, who
is our common Lord and Master, what word
He would speak through us to this nation and
to the nations of the world. Let us, with an
apostolic spirit, say, * Lord, what wilt thou have
us do?' and rising from a national council of
penitence and prayer, let us follow Him who
has promised to be with us to the end of the
world, and to lead us into all truth. Come!
that through us, His Body, He may speak His
message, and work His will in this crisis of the
world.'*

CHAPTER XXXrV

THE CHALLENGE

Tpi^OBLEMS face us stupendous in their
A character and extent. Great questions of
education, of social service, of missionary en-
devour, of healing the breach among the na-
tions, of establishing a just and abiding peace,
press for solution. Ignorance, social injustice,
nations waiting to be born, and nations waiting
to be led into a great world federation, cry aloud
to a divided Church for light, and love, and
liberty, and guidance. What shall we do about
it? A great oncoming wave of democracy is
sweeping up and onward in the sea of life. Back
of it are great elemental impulses, longings, de-
sires and hopes. Greatest among them is the
impulse of liberty, the search for truth, the

257

258 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

undefined, vague, and unsatisfied longing for
God.

In this approaching crisis what shall be the
attitude of this Church? Shall we stand apart?
Are our orders so uncertain that we dare not
confer and co-operate, with full official sanction,
with those whose orders are different in every
respect from our own, for fear that our orders
will be compromised, or that we will be mis-
understood ?

Are we sufficiently sure that His promise to
**be with the ministers of apostolic succession"
was a promise also not to be with the ministers
who are not of the apostolic succession as we
define it? Are we sure that He is not with
them? If He is, why should we not be? Are we
more sacred in our orders, and more exclusive
in our fellowship, than is He from whom our
orders are derived, and from whom they have
their authority? Do we doubt His promise?
If He will indeed be with the ministers of
apostolic succession to the end of the world,
will He not also guard and keep the succession

THE CHALLENGE 259

if the orders sanctioned by it confer, co-operate,
and hold Christian fellowship with those with
whom He Himself confers, co-operates and
holds close fellowship and communion?

CHAPTER XXXV
*'THE CHURCH" AND '^THIS CHURCH"

OUR Church standards speak very definite-
ly as to what is required of her children,
and of those who are authorised to officiate as
her ministers. In the preface to the Book of Com-
mon Prayer, and in the preface to the Ordinal,
she is careful to state that her legislative acts
and standard requirements are applicable to
what she distinctly and repeatedly calls ^Hhis
Church." There is no question as to the
kind of ordination she requires of those who
are to ''be accounted and taken to be a lawful
Bishop, Priest and Deacon in this Church."
The words ^'in this Church/' express no opin-
ion whatsoever as to who are accounted lawful
ministers hy this Church, in so far as their

260

"THE CHURCH" AND "THIS CHURCH" 261

ministry is to other communions of the Body
of Christ. In the service for the ordering of
Priests, the Bishop says, ''Take thou authority
to execute the office of a Priest in the Church of
God.^^ Authority is thereby given to the min-
isters ordained by and in and for this Church
to preach and administer the sacraments in any
branch or communion of "the Church of God"
where occasion may offer.

The term "the Church" is of broader sig-
nificance than the term "this Church." "This
Church" is but a part of "the Church" catho-
lic. What then are the other parts? Those
who make the distinguishing testing note and
standard of measurement the apostolic succes-
sion, would answer, the Church of England, of
Rome, the Eastern Clmrch, and other com-
munions which hold to, and have come down
through, the unbroken succession. Beyond this
point questions arise. By some in this Church,
other names are applied to Christians in fellow-
ship with each other, who have not the ministry
of succession as it is by some defined. It is

262 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

claimed that, because this distinctive and es-
sential note is lacking, they are not to be in-
cluded as being of *'the Church.'*

This Church has, through her House of
Bishops, declared to the contrary, and has pro-
nounced it as her conviction that all who have
been baptised into the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Ghost are to be accounted members
of the Holy Catholic Church.*

* See General Convention Journal 1886.

CHAPTER XXXVI

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION

"rriHE individual," says Albert Kocourek,
-i. Professor of Jurisprudence in North-
western University, ''is rapidly on the way to
the loss of his identity," Society is becoming-
more and more highly organised. Thought to-
day is everywhere testing itself out in confer-
ence. It is seeking to combine with other
thought. Action seeks to express itself in co-
operation. Most of the world's work is being
done in and through boards, committees and
commissions, and in various other forms of
corporate endeavour. The condition was not
created by the Church. It is a sociological de-
velopment. There is every reason to believe
that the tendency is not transient but perma-

263

264 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

nent and progressive. In so far as this Church
is possessed of wisdom, and considered to have
right judgment, this wisdom and judgment will
be sought by others who have, with us, a com-
mon purpose and a common ideal in matters
pertaining to the social welfare and to the
extension of the Kingdom of God. Invita-
tions and opportunities will come with in-
creasing frequency to this Church to enter into
conference and co-operative relation with
others.

The issue cannot be met by leaving the re-
sponsibility to the individual. The Church, un-
less she desires to become and to be considered
archaic, must face the conditions under which
life about her everywhere is seeking self-ex-
pression. She must determine upon a policy,
and come to a decision upon certain questions
of principle.

Now it is to be observed that the necessity
for doing so does not arise from the demands
of restless-minded individuals here and there in
the Church, but rather from the conditions un-

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 265

der which life about us everywhere is seeking
to express itself in terms of efficiency.

To say that we have gone all these years with-
out a fixed policy, and have avoided bringing
the question to an issue, is no reason, and offers
no avenue of escape for avoiding a responsi-
bility which rises up out of the evolution of the
social order, and politely, but insistently, asks
us, what we are going to do about it? The Apos-
tles did not have Cathedral cars, but some of
their successors have had the wisdom to adapt
the Church's ministrations to modern condi-
tions, and to use new material forces, as we are
called to use the spiritual forces about us, to
extend the kingdom of Christ. There are those
in this Church who believe with a deep convic-
tion that this Church is called to fulfill her di-
vinely given mission by using these opportuni-
ties, when presented, to help supply the great
need for spiritualising and wisely directing this
growing sense of corporate responsibility, and
this ever-deepening consciousness of civic, na-
tional, and international, as well as spiritual

266 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

responsibility. This conviction is not bom of dis-
loyalty ; nor is it the effervescence of a wild or
unbalanced enthusiasm. It is a conviction born
of a love for the Church, and of a supreme con-
fidence in her ability to hold her own, and jus-
tify, in the realm of conference and co-oper-
ative relationship, the worth of her balanced
tenure of truth, faith and order. It is a con-
viction spiritually related to a certain and sure
sense of responsibility with reference to bap-
tismal, confirmation and ordination vows, and
to the vision and consciousness of power which
come from bringing the soul in touch with
Him in the sacrament of His Body and Blood,
and to the consciousness bom from listening
to the call of Christ in the great Gospel of re-
demption, read and preached in this Church.

Those who do not feel and see and know the
depth of this conviction, and the sense of re-
sponsibility, which many priests and laymen in
this Church are feeling to-day with reference
to this subject, should reverently and seriously
consider the consequences which must follow if,

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 267

by legislation, this conviction, this conscious-
ness of responsibility, this conscience, which has
not grown without earnest prayer, is throttled,
and this liberty denied.

It must be admitted and remembered that
these priests and laymen came into this Church
through baptism and confirmation, and into
her ministry through ordination, convinced, as
they still are, that this liberty would not be
questioned or denied. It should be recognised,
also, that they have the same right to ask the
assent of the Church to the expression of their
views through this Church, as those of contrary
opinion have to ask that they be not required
to engage in such conference and co-operative
relationship as is contrary to their convic-
tion.

It must be remembered that seminaries in this
Church, ever held in honourable esteem, have
never taught any theory of orders which would
preclude such conference and co-operative re-
lationship ; and that among the earliest bishops
of this Church in America the right and duty

268 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of such co-operation was held and expressed.*

The issue is forced by those who deny the
right, not by those who ask to be permitted to
continue to exercise it.

The question having been raised, it must of
necessity be settled. That it was raised is due
to the spirit of the age in which we live. To
have avoided it would have been quite impos-
sible. To evade it is also impossible. We
should pray for a right judgment, asking for
freedom from prejudice, and for the gift of
patience, and of courtesy and humility, and do
what seems to be our duty to Christ and His
Church.

We may make mistakes if we go ahead. • We
will surely make a mistake if we do not. The
age calls us. We must face the call.

First, it would seem that the right of free-
conference, without co-operation, and without
assessment for expense, should be granted to
all organisations and commissions officially con-
stituted in this Church. Their desire to use

• See biographies of Bishop White and Bishop Moore.

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 269

every opportunity to seek and know the truth,
come whence it may, should be by permission
accorded. The Church and the world are both
wiser and better from the knowledge of truth
revealed out of the conference which Christ
held in the wilderness with the Devil, and surely
this Church will never be called to confer with
any whose position is more unchurchly than was
Satan's.

With reference to the question of co-opera-
tion, there are more serious difficulties. They
should be candidly faced, and thoughtfully and
prayerfully considered.

The sanction of the General Church could
doubtless be secured without opposition, to the
appointment of a. commission to confer and co-
operate in matters of civic and moral concern
and upon questions of national and interna-
tional peace and politics. To co-operate with
men and ministers in these matters would in-
volve no peril to any theory of orders.

Permission could also be given, without con-
troversy, to official boards and commissions to

270 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

confer and co-operate with other men and min-
isters relative to a national or international
provision for extending to heathen lands the
ministry of healing. Hospitals at home are
built, supported and administered by Christian
men of all communions without the question of
orders being raised. Why the question should
be injected into hospital extension in the mis-
sion field is not apparent. Presbyterian and
Episcopal castor oil and quinine are surely
chemically the same.

Permission could be further given for co-
operation in erecting, maintaining and admin-
istering colleges and universities in the foreign
field. At home, Harvard, William and Mary,
Yale, Columbia, and Princeton, all originally
ecclesiastically controlled, have gradually be-
come separate from denominational domination.
Why cannot this Church permit co-operation
with other men and ministers in this realm of
practical endeavour without injecting the ques-
tion of orders ? It is not raised here at home ;
why, of necessity, should it be forced into the

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 271

question of co-operation in the far fields of
missionary endeavour, especially when, as we
are informed. Christian men and ministers man-
age to get on better together out there than they
do here at home? *^The Shantung Christian
University in China now stands for union in
educational work. The English Baptists pro-
vide the plants of the Medical, Normal and
Theological Colleges; the Anglicans of Great
Britain and the Congregationalists of the
United States maintain representatives on the
Faculty ; and Presbyterians are responsible for
the plant and equipment of the Arts College."
The steps leading to the co-operation of the
S. P. G. and the Presbyterian Board, together
with the correspondence which passed between
Bishop Montgomery, Secretary of the S. P. G.,
are reviewed by Dr. Arthur J. Brown in his
recent book, *' Unity and Missions."* The
chapter entitled ''High Church Anglicans and
American Presbyterians in Shantung Univer-

* ' ' Unity and M issions , " pp . 2 1 6-235, Arthur J . Brown . Flem-
ming, H. Revell Co., N. Y.

272 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

sity," is well worthy the careful study of all
those who are interested in the question of
Christian co-operation in educational work, and
is of especial interest to those of the Episcopal
Church who may be interested in this subject,
in view of the fact that the terms of co-opera-
tion were finally agreed upon without any sem-
blance of compromise on the part of the English
Church. The Presbyterian Board, in accept-
ing the terms and conditions offered by the
S. P. G., stated in their resolutions accepting
the terms offered by Bishop Montgomery that
"union in educational work and ecclesiastical
uniformity are not synonymous." After six
years of co-operation, the Secretary of the
Presbyterian Board writes:

"The result has abundantly justified our faith both
in the plan and in the missionaries who were to carry
it into effect. The union has been in successful and
happy operation ever since. If we cannot get together
on all points, we are at least getting together on some ;
and perhaps others will develop from them.

"Enough has already been accomplished to prove

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 273

conclusively that American Presbyterians, English
Baptists and High Church Anglicans can harmoni-
ously and effectively co-operate in educational work
without any sacrifice of principle, where the men con-
cerned have the mind of Christ. Each of these com-
munions is carrying into the University 'its full dog-
matic system, ' and the result is not discord but large
and catholic concord."

*'The experience should be helpful elsewhere. The
co-operation which we all desire will never spring full-
orbed into being. A beginning must be made, small
perhaps and very imperfect ; but when an opportunity
opens to make that beginning, let us meet it with deep
solemnity and a willingness to make any adjustment
which does not involve conscious disloyalty to our
Lord Jesus Christ. He who prayed with unutterable
yearning that His disciples might 'be one' will
surely help them in any effort to walk together in lov-
ing service in His Holy Name." *

Those in this Church, who advocate and urge
co-operation with other communions not of our
Church order, see no valid ground or reason
why such co-operation should in any way in-

*" Unity and Missions," p. 235.

274 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

volve the sacrifice of any principle relative to
the faith and order of the Church. They feel
with a deep sense of conviction that such co-
operation would afford opportunity for vindi-
cating the value of the heritage of the Church,
and give practical manifestation of its inherent
worth.

There is current in this Church the conten-
tion that to give formal and official consent to
such conference and co-operative relationship
would be to sacrifice an essential and funda-
mental principle. To withhold such consent
results in the sacrifice of principles which many
regard as being far more vital and fundamen-
tal. If the Church must make a sacrifice, she
should be careful that she sacrifices the right
thing. If she is compelled to set up a cross,
and is called to suffer upon it, as she is com-
pelled and called to do, she should take up her
cross and follow Him who offered His Body
upon Calvary that He might give His life to re-
deem the world. The Body thus offered in
sacrifice finds itself glorified in the great realms

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION 275

of spirit life. We must not shackle or crucify
the spirit of Christ.

The Church must remember that sins of omis-
sion are as grave and serious as the sins of
commission. It was the sin of omission which
the Master condemned in the priest and Levite
who, fearful of committing an offence against
orthodoxy, and the integrity of the Jewish
Church, passed by on the other side. It was
the clanking of the delimiting chains of ecclesi-
asticism which, also, led Him to ask the ortho-
dox Church, standing shackled by tradition by
the untilled vineyard, *'Why stand ye here all
the day idle?"

It would be perfectly possible and entirely
practicable for this Church to disclaim, in a
preamble, the intention of giving any interpre-
tation as to her theory of the priestly orders
of the Church, and then, without any compro-
mise or sacrifice of conviction, resolve to per-
mit and allow official conference and co-opera-
tion within prescribed and definite limits, re-
stricting, by express declaration, such co-opera-

276 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

tion as would involve the delimitation of her
field of endeavour and responsibility.

This would combine the principle of liberty
with the principle of conservation, and would
be fair and considerate to all views and con-
victions held and cherished in this Church.

Others, whose opinions are worthy of con-
sideration, would understand that no compro-
mise of conviction was involved or implied in
such Christian conference and co-operation as
we have ventured to suggest.

CHAPTER XXXVII
MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNITY

IT often happens that, while man is engaged
in planning his own way for the entrance
of God into human life, and standing expec-
tant at the door through which he has decreed
that Christ must enter, that suddenly, through
unobserved methods of approach, the Lord ap-
pears in His temple, and comes and stands in
the midst of His people. His Spirit worketh
where He listeth. In and through forces which
man may despise and reject. He works to fulfill
the divine purpose. In and along ways which
human hands have not built, comes the Spirit
of the eternal purpose. We decree that God
must, almost of necessity, come according to
the way of our planning, and lo! He comes

277

278 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

through means and forces which we have ac-
counted futile and foolish. We build majestic
highways for His approach, and lo! ''He comes
in clouds descending." Because He came not
as His ancient Church had expected and de-
creed, they knew Him not when He came. Be-
cause He used not their plan for revealing His
messiahship, they despised and rejected Him.
He stood in the midst of them, and they knew
Him not.

The Church of to-day would do well to remem-
ber that it was pride of order and system, and
the slavery to interpretation, that blinded the
minds and hearts of a Church more ancient than
our own, so that it did not see Him who came
to fulfill their law and their prophets.

With conscious humility of mind and with
reverent purpose we may study the spiritual
forces which are working in human life to-day
and ask what their signs of promise are.

MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNITY 279

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF A NOBLE DISCONTENT

There is an increasing evidence of a feeling
of noble discontent with conditions which now
exist. The economic waste which arises out of
our unhappy divisions is making itself more
widely and deeply felt. Men are asking if it
is worth while to maintain and support rival
organisations which compete for support in
small communities, when the ancient reasons for
their separate existence have been almost for-
gotten, and wlien now they stand for practi-
cally the same things. Men are to-day count-
ing the spires which rise from hamlets all over
the country-side ; they are counting the number
of people who, on Sunday, pass through the
rival church doors. They are taking account
of the starvation wages that are paid to five
parsons in towns of 1500 or 2000 people all over
the land. They are asking, why should we con-
tinue to do it? They are listening with one ear
to the appeal for the support of these five hamlet
parsons, and their five half-empty churches,

280 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

and with the other, they are listening to the
Macedonian cry, ''Come over and help us."
They notice that it comes from lands where
there are millions who are without the means
of healing, and of education, and of the knowl-
edge of Him who came to be the light of the
world. They are listening with an ever-increas-
ing consciousness of the burden and the privi-
lege of responding to the numerous appeals
which come out of the awakened social con-
science, for war relief, for the support of edu-
cation, united charity, settlement work, for the
Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., for emanci-
pating the negro, and the child labourer, and the
slaves to intemperance, and the slaves to ig-
norance, and the slaves to social vice, and the
slaves to many other forms of human bondage.
Many men of benevolent disposition are to-day
giving twenty-five and fifty per cent of their
incomes in response to these and other vital
appeals. They have the right to ask the com-
parative worth of the appeal which comes to
build or support another rival church, which

MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNITY 281

stands for nothing vitally distinctive as com-
pared with the appeal from China, or the neigh-
bourhood settlement house, or the great recon-
structive work of social service and liberal, and
at the same time religious, education.

There are sure signs that the appeals of this
kind are going to become more imperative and
call for even more generous liberality. The
oncoming demand for week-day instruction in
religion, the plans which are now being thought
out for giving graded instruction in the ele-
ments of religion in connection with the system
of public-school instruction, are destined to
make stupendous demands upon the liberality
of those who believe that this must be done to
stem the growing tide of unbelief and the self-
ishness, vice, and materialism which result
from it.

That men are discontented with social and
religious conditions as they now exist is in-
creasingly evident. Those responsible in the
various Christian communities for planning
their church policies for the future are in the

282 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

presence of grave responsibilities. It is a crisis
when much time needs to be spent in seeking
through prayer to know what is God's will and
purpose. If He calls us to Calvary, we must
be willing, with a supreme faith, to go there
and crucify our pride, and prejudice, ''and
whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union
and concord." We need, also, to beware what
we label in these days as ' ' ungodly union. ' ' We
need to ask, may it not be ungodly separation
and disunion?

THE FINDING OF THE AMERICAN LAYMAN

The most significant discovery in the recent
development of the Church has been the finding
of the layman. He has found himself, and he
has been discovered by the Church. In this dis-
covery lies the hope and promise of a great
spiritual democracy. The age of priestcraft has
forever gone. The layman has come, and he
has come to stay. With a new-born conscious-
ness of personal responsibility, with a new-bom

MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNITY 283

vision of his duty with reference to the mission
of the Church, with a new-born realization of
his own inherent priestly, prophetic, and kingly
qualities as a son of God, and as a joint heir
with Christ of the gifts of God, he stands to-day
asking as never before, ''Lord, what wilt thou
have me do?" He thinks he is hearing the
answer of his Lord in the cry of the world's
need. He is convinced that the call to service
and to co-operation is the call of the Father.
He is offering himself for this service. He is
saying, "Here am L Send me."

In connection with the student association
work, and the missionary volunteer work, and
the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and the
federation of Churches, and social settlement
work, and co-operative endeavour for religious
education, and on charity organisation boards,
and Y. M. C. A. directorates, and in countless
other forms of united Christian service, the lay-
men of our various and divided communions are
coming to know and to respect each other. They
are finding in one common faith, in one com-

284 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

mon Lord and Master, a practical basis and in-
spiration for corporate service. They are ask-
ing why they cannot engage in corporate com-
munion in search for closer bonds of unity with
Christ and with each other.

There are other and far more significant
movements looking to practical Christian co-
operation which are welling up in the minds
of thinking laymen, and they are talking to their
ministers.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

OUR POSITION WITH REFERENCE TO
THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH

IS it the opinion of the Church of Rome, or
the great Eastern Church which restrains
us! Surely their opinion is worthy of respect.
As far as the Eastern Church is concerned, is
it not fair to ask if we might not teach that
Church some very valuable lessons by acting
ourselves in the light of a broader vision, and
by placing our orders in more vital touch with
the ignorance and social injustice and the great,
human needs of the world in a way that would
bring larger light and liberty and power to
men ? Would not the Eastern Church ultimately
respect us more if we used our orders and our
influence in a way to make them more largely

285

286 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

felt and more widely recognised and respected?
Would not the fearless and forceful leadership
which our Bishops might take in great con-
ferences called to consider world problems tend
to make the Bishops of the Eastern Church real-
ise more fully the need for closer union with
us in view of the great reconstructive work
which the Church is called to do in helping the
nations find their interdependence, and in lead-
ing them to fulfill their destiny? Would not the
manifestation of the power of ''order," in the
midst of disorder, which might be shown in
great, officially sanctioned efforts of co-opera-
tion, tend to win the larger measure of respect,
and help to create a compelling sense of need
for closer fellowship between our leaders and
the leaders of the Orthodox Eastern Church, if,
instead of holding on to restraining fears and
convictions as to the succession, they would ac-
tually succeed in leading with their power of
order the disordered forces of righteousness
and the disunited but spiritually impowered
communions in the army of Christ?

THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH 287

There can be no question but that the Ortho-
dox Eastern Church is to-day enchained by
formalism and despotism, and is in need of a
great emancipation. Tied as she is to the state,
she shares, if she does not contribute to create,
the ignorance, the superstition, and the bigotry
which so largely characterise the great nation
where her dominance is supreme. Raising no
potent voice against the persecution of the
Jews; largely complacent in the presence of
superstitions which she fosters and encourages,
and allowing so many of her children all over
the empire to remain in illiteracy, without vigor-
ous protests to the government of which she is a
part, she stands to-day in need of a great awak-
ening, in the presence of an oncoming national
crisis, and in the midst of a mighty people of
latent genius, and of vast slumbering but now
fast awakening potentialities. She would be
stirred by the spectacle of great coherent and
co-ordinated spiritual forces voicing to the pub-
lic conscience, and through this conscience to the
government, the great appeal for truth, and

288 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

justice, and mercy, and national righteousness,
and human brotherhood.

Is the appeal of the cloister, of the study, of
antiquity, as strong to-day for guarding a trust,
as is the appeal which comes from the cry and
the blood of the world to use that trust? Shall
we battle for it, or battle with it? Shall we
lose our life in seeking to save it, or save it in
giving it even unto what men call death, in los-
ing it in service? Can we not, in this crisis,
trust the heart and mind of the Eastern Church
to understand?

CHAPTER XXXIX

OUR POSITION WITH REFERENCE TO
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

ARE we being too largely restrained by our
desire to win the confidence and respect of
the Church of Rome? We are in full accord
with those who desire this ultimate union. We
believe, however, that there is good reason to
question the wisdom of that method which asks
that we withhold from conference, co-operation
and fellowship with Protestant Communions
for fear that we will be misunderstood by
Rome. Will we not appear, it is asked, to place
our orders on a parity with Protestant orders,
and disorder generally, and thus seem to forfeit
our own claim to a ministry preserved in un-
broken historical continuity, and guarded and

289

290 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

validated by an unbroken succession! Perhaps
so. But there are other considerations which
are worthy of serious thought, which, if they
be as potent as we believe them to be, would
suggest an entirely different method of pro-
cedure, with the view of attaining the same end
which is aimed at by adopting the present
method and policy of exclusiveness.

The open and candid mind will ever recognise
the many and great spiritual virtues displayed
throughout the centuries in the character of
many devout and earnest members of the great
Roman Communion. Her saints and heroes are
a part of the heritage of our common Christian-
ity, and are an inspiration to the cultivation of
virtue and courage, and true saintliness of
spirit. The organisation and administration
of the Church of Rome has ever been charac-
terised by a certain governmental genius, which,
while it has not always been prosecuted with
true and far-reaching statesmanship, has mani-
fested, as no other organisation on earth has
done, the masterful ability to control and dis-

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 291

cipline great and diverse masses of people un-
der a monarchical system.

While it is clearly recognised that many in-
dividual Romanists do not hold the views, and
maintain the attitude of open defiance and an-
tagonism to Protestant Christianity, to which
we shall refer, yet it is evident from history,
and is of current knowledge, that, as an or-
ganisation speaking with official authority, and
maintaining an official attitude, her position is
one of radical antagonism and exclusiveness.
In this discussion it is the official attitude of the
Roman Church which we have in mind, and
which is under consideration.

The Church of Rome has ever been most
deeply impressed, and as her history shows, has
ever been most largely influenced by the con-
sciousness, the dream, the hope, and the spec-
tacle of power. She feels that she can, with
calm complacency and satisfaction, view the
spectacle of disordered and disjointed Protes-
tantism. She glories in it. She points to it
with self-conscious pride. She ridicules it. She

292 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

classes this Church as a part of it. In matters
where her interests are concerned, she speaks
with one voice the demands of millions. Having
spoken, she pauses to listen. She hears many
contending voices of protest. They lack unity ;
they lack force ; they lack convincing, sentiment-
making, vote-making influence. She calmly sur-
veys this Babel confusion of protest. She is
self-satisfied. She speaks with louder tone, and,
where she can do so, she speaks in more com-
pelling accents. Where her authority is or has
been supreme, she speaks, or spake, with im-
perious demand. It is to her interest that the
voice of protest should be a divided voice. It
is to her interest that this disunion should be
maintained and increased, or absorbed by her
organisation. She doubtless listens with su-
preme satisfaction to the terms which we apply
in moments of controversial heat of mind and
coldness of heart to our non-confonnist breth-
ren. She is doubtless well pleased, also, that
we call each other by names which portray
party spirit and inherent disunity in our letters

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 293

to ''Mr. Editor.'* It is to the interest of
worldly wise Rome that worldly unwise Protes-
tantism should be kept as sectarian as possible.
Some of her writers record the birth of a new
sect with almost as much satisfaction as is felt in
canonising a saint. The divisions of the forces of
Protestantism strengthen the power of the Pope.
A recent communication from the Vatican
declares in terms which can but be commended
for their perfect clearness of statement, Rome's
uncompromising position as to her basis of
unity. "Unity resides in me," writes his holi-
ness, the Pope, to the members of the Confer-
ence on Faith and Order. Unquestionably a
great power of unity does reside in him. So
great is this unity, as it stands in contrast with
the disunity of Christendom outside of him,
that he, at present, feels that, while he may la-
ment its existence outside of his organisation,
he can afford to disregard it as a working force
with which he must reckon. Disunion in Prot-
estantism is so great that he neither fears nor
respects it.

294 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

Shall we seek our union with him upon his
terms, or would it be better for us to seek, by
making ourselves felt in the united influence of
ourselves with other communions outside his
control, to make it expedient for him to change
his terms from those of unconditional submis-
sion to his authority, to some form of union
without such unconditional submission?

Rome has ever held to the doctrine of tem-
poral power. To-day she holds this doctrine
in abeyance. She holds it, however, in reserve
for future use, and she holds the system and
theory of her exclusive, divine right inviolate,
in order that she may have the means of power
when occasion offers for its exercise. As long
as this seems, in the light of her past history,
the most promising method for exercising her
temporal power, she will, without compromise,
and without yielding, remain unbending to any
approach from others which does not recognise
these claims and submit to them. This is made
evident as being her present attitude in the
letter recently received from the Vatican ad-

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 295

dressed to the Conference on Faith and Order.
There are, however, other and more vital
ways of exercising spiritual powers over tem-
poral affairs. Through united prayer, and by
religious education wisely planned and directed ;
by changing current customs and existing po-
litical and industrial standards ; by enlightening
the public conscience, and emancipating the will
from the controlling desires and impulses which
arise out of greed, covetousness and inordinate
selfishness ; by proclaiming the truth that makes
men free; and by the exercise of a spiritual
influence that shall bring men and nations to
see the vision, and to seek communion with Him
in Whom is the abundance of life, and who is
Himself the source and power of all human
liberty; the Church may exert, through cor-
porate spiritual endeavour, an influence over the
powers which rule in high places and low that
would be transforming, and far more perma-
nent and vital than could ever come from domi-
nating the will by the voice of an external au-
thority. The authority of Christ is supreme,

296 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

but it is distinctive from every other form of
authority in that it is inherent in His Body
through His Spirit, and speaks from within to
the conscience of man, and through the whole
Body, as well as through a constituted ministry,
to the conscience of rulers and to the life of
nations.

When Christ shall have become supremely
regnant in the consciousness of His Body and
in the conscience of the race, the will of God
will be done upon earth as it is in heaven. This
end cannot be attained, and it is doubtful if it
can be largely furthered, by the voice of ex-
ternal authority decreeing dogmas, and impos-
ing laws with the claim of an infallible divine
right ; or, on the other hand, by the passage of
sumptuary laws which endeavour to reconstruct
society by an authority imposed from without.
Neither the external voice of an exalted dig-
nitary in the Church, nor the voice of external
law, neither the Pope, nor Protestantism, mili-
tant and aggressive in and through legislative
enactments, can bring into human consciousness,

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 297

and place over the conscience of men or of na-
tions, the reign of the Kingdom of God. Such
voices and influences may help change the out-
ward environment of life, but life itself must be
built up by response to the inner voice of God,
and the submission of the will to the direction
and control of the Spirit of Christ incarnate
and remnant in his Body, the Church.

If the Conference on Faith and Order should
feel convinced that its largest hope lies in main-
taining a distinctly, and somewhat exclusive con-
ciliatory attitude toward the Orthodox Eastern
Church, and the Church of Rome, it might then
be well, during the centuries which seem des-
tined to intervene while the Conference is pro-
ceeding on this basis, and with this most desir-
able end in view, to organise a Conference and
Co-operation of Faith and Disorder, in order
to help solve the grave and pressing problems
which face us now, and which cannot, without
disaster, abide long academic considerations of
questions of order and administration.

With full and cordial recognition of the need

298 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

for ultimate organic unity, under a generally
accepted order, which will unify the expressions
of faith, and preserve and bear witness to the
truth committed to the Church, it may still be
maintained and urged that conference and co-
operation among those who hold the funda-
mental and vital elements of faith essential to
salvation, could be undertaken with a view of
bringing to bear upon the stupendous problems
which face us in this world crisis the practical
unity of the forces and convictions which inhere
in the various communions of Protestant Chris-
tianity, to the end that, with one mind and one
heart, we might make the mind and will of
Christ regnant in the thought of the nations
and in the councils of the world.

There are many in the Church who feel pro-
foundly convinced that such corporate union
of spiritual forces, now weakened through dis-
union, would be capable of facing the social, in-
dustrial and international problems which arise
out of past neglect, and out of the present world
crisis, with a power and influence which cannot

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 299

be exerted by any one communion, or by tbem
all speaking independently of each other. The
ideals of Jesus Christ are capable of realisation
in and through the united Church alone. While
the ultimate aim should be organic unity, the
present necessity calls for every possible meas-
ure of unity of spirit that can be expressed
through practical co-operation as a result of
fraternal conference and federated purpose.
Can we not, therefore, co-ordinate and unify
the will to serve?

The result of such well-considered and wisely
directed corporate Christian influence would be
sure to make an impression upon the conscious-
ness of the Church of Rome. Rome has ever
sought to have her name regarded as the sjti-
onym of power. There was a time when this
desire was fulfilled in larger measure than it is
to-day. She still fondly clierishes her ancient
ambitions. Her position to-day is one of wait-
ing watchfulness. She waits the return to her
dominion of those who, in their desire for unity,
will submit to her claims and domination. The

300 THB CHURCH ENCHAINED

practical question to be considered is: as to
what influences and conditions will lead Rome
to reconsider her position and recast her claims,
and so alter her terms of unity as to make them
at least possible for intelligent and hopeful con-
sideration.

The Church of Eome is seen at its best in
those countries where she is in competition with,
and restrained by the presence and influence of
Protestant Christianity. The strengthening
of Protestant influence by co-operative en-
deavour would undoubtedly tend to help the
Roman Church to break the bonds by which her
life is enchained, and make her a more vital and
tolerant, as well as a more distinctly spiritual
force than she is to-day. It would perhaps lead
her to compare more closely the decrees of the
Council of Trent with the decrees of the first
Apostolic Council of Jerusalem.

When Rome shall come to hear a voice as
loud and as far-reaching as her own ; when she
sees that the forces of non-conformity to her
rule and order, which now, by reason of their

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 30l

disunion and incoherence, she regards with in-
difference, have come to a practical unity of
agreement and are co-operating in their influ-
ence upon temporal powers with an influence
as great as, or greater than her own, Rome will
then begin to respect and desire the forces
which, in their disunion, fail to hinder her su-
preme influence. The respect which Rome has
ever had for power ; the agelong consciousness
of a dream, largely at one time, but never com-
pletely fulfilled, but still fondly cherished, would
lead her to ask herself some very searching
questions if she saw in America the actual com-
ing together into practical and potent confer-
ence and federation of the forces of non-con-
formity. The Protestant Episcopal Church is,
from her viewpoint, included among these
forces. She is regarded as being, with the rest
of the Anglican Communion, largely responsible
for Christian schism and dissent. To be re-
garded by Rome as schismatic, and by non-con-
formity as exclusive and self-centred, would
seem to preclude the possibility of our assuming

S02 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

corporate leadership anywhere until we can
manage to get into a working agreement with
some part of the unhappily divided Christian
world. Protestants, at least, will work with us if
we will let them. At times, with a humility which
certainly is not born of any recognition of our
numerical strength, they have shown a dispo-
sition to welcome us to leadership. The ca-
pacity of the Episcopal Church for organisa^
tion and for coherent endeavour has made its
impress upon other communions, and the im-
pression would unquestionably be deepened, and
the disposition to consider episcopacy as essen-
tial to the most efficient administration would
be increased if we should, with our ordered sys-
tem, enter into fellowship and co-operation with
them in the effort to help solve the problems
which arise out of economic, political, ecclesi-
astical and international disorder.

Rome would then take more thoughtful notice
of us. She has ever been quick to measure
forces. She knows when to be defiant, and when
to be conciliatory. Under present conditions,

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 303

Rome knows that she is more dominant than any-
one other ecclesiastical power.

The plea and appeal here made for a federa-
tion, a co-operation, among the forces in Chris-
tianity to which Rome is antagonistic, is in no
sense made out of any feeling of enmity to
Rome. It is not with the idea of oppressing her
but of impressing her that we feel the value of
the suggestion that, for a practical constructive
programme, we should get into closer relation-
ship with the non-conforming Christian Com-
munions.

We can well understand that it would be to
the interest of the Church of Rome that the
Episcopal Church in America, and the Anglican
Church all over the world, should be kept as
a buffer between her and radical Protestantism.

Having so long failed to lead Rome to make
any concession to our position, or to recognise
in any way either our orders or our sacraments,
might it not be well, at least, to get on speaking
terms, and, if possible, into closer fellowship,
and, as far as is practicable, into co-operative

304 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

agreement with those communions in the Church
of God who do not dispute the perfect regu-
larity of our orders, who recognise the validity
of our sacraments, and who are, even now, fully
united with us in the confession of a common
faith as it is expressed in the Apostles' creed?

CHAPTER XL

CONFERENCE AND CO-OPERATION
WITH PROTESTANT COMMUNIONS

THE plan and hope for organic Church unity-
must include Eastern, Roman and Protes-
tant Christianity, and all other comm.unions in
the Church of God. At present, and doubtless
for a long time to come, the organic unity of
this church with all the Protestant Communions
existing to-day in non-conformity to her order
and worship, is neither possible, nor is it imme-
diately desirable. This Church would be com-
pletely swamped, and her distinctive ideals
would be almost, if not entirely, effaced in the
event that the most radical non-conformists,
for example, should accept the quadrilateral
proposal, and come into organic unity with this

305

306 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

Church. Their view-point, their methods, their
attitude, would by overwhelming majorities
control in the councils of this Church. Their
Bishops, in council, would far outnumber our
own. That radical and progressive views are
needed and perform a valuable function in
Christian enterprise, is unquestionably true ; but
that these views should be made overwhelm-
ingly dominant in the councils and legislation of
a united Church is a question of more doubtful
expediency. Some branches of non-conformity
would tend to contribute a balancing element
of consei^atism. At present, however, it would
seem that, with views, methods, and policies so
radically divergent, it would be better that de-
nominational independence and responsibility
should, during a process of education and de-
velopment, continue to exist. Gradually, those
whose views and methods accord, will doubtless
affiliate and unite, which will lessen the problem
of ultimate unity by delimiting the scope of
radical differences.
In the meanwhile, conference and co-opera-

PROTESTANT COMMUNIONS 307

tion upon matters of common concern, and with-
in limits agreed upon, would tend to create
mutual understanding, and mutual sympathy.
It would also give practical coherence and soli-
darity to the forces of righteousness having
their roots in a common spiritual faith. And it
would enable the separate communions to main-
tain their conservative or radical viewpoints
without the compromise of organic dignity,
principle, or conviction, which each would con-
tinue to reserve the right to maintain and as-
sert.

At the present time, by reason of its exclusive
position, the Episcopal Church neither knows
nor understands those to whom she has made
her quadrilateral offer. If they should accept
it, she would be suddenly brought into organic
relationship with great communions without
having previously created any basis of mutual
understanding and sympathy.

If assent were given for conference and co-
operation, it would afford the opportunity for
creating an atmosphere of sympathy and form-

308 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ing a basis of understanding. It would also
make it possible for the Christian conscience to
voice itself, and for spiritual conviction to ex-
press itself in matters of public concern, and
upon questions of national and international
moral and spiritual reconstruction, without the
sacrifice of any distinctive principles whatso-
ever.

But, it is asked, shall we sacrifice our orders ?
In what way should we sacrifice them? If
offered upon the altar of world service, they
would be glorified. If thrown into the midst of
disorder and chaos with the hope of recon-
structing the shattered ideals and institutions
which are tumbling down all over the world, the
sacrifice would not be a loss but a gain. If, by
sacrificing our orders, is meant abandoning
them, then it may be answered that no imme-
diate or impending crisis suggests any reason
why this should be for a moment considered.

We are convinced, both from observation and
experience, that our orders and our ordered
Church are never more largely appreciated than

PROTESTANT COMMUNIONS 309

when this Church and her ministry enter into
cordial and sympathetic conference and co-op-
erative relationship with other Christian com-
munions. It often happens that the best way to
fight for the triumph of our convictions is to
fight fearlessly and triumphantly with them.
The supreme excellence of a well-tempered an-
cient blade may be shown by taking it into the
thick of a hard-fought fight; or it may be de-
scribed and held up as worthy of high regard
in the description given of it in the cata-
logue of an ancient armoury. When the
great fight for liberty and truth is on in the
world, men would rather choose to test the value
of the ancient sword by putting it into action.
Rome has two swords. Protestantism has one.
But this one is badly broken. Shall we fight
each other with the fragments, or weld them
together, and, united in hope and purpose and
high resolve, follow our acknowledged Leader
into the thick of the fight where ''He goes forth
to war"? How the army shall ultimately be
officered may best be determined when it is fully

310 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

mobilised. The chances are that the common
sense which will be born out of experience will
show the need for a generally accepted order.
This will be the opportunity of this Church to
make her contribution. The need for what she
has to contribute to create and preserve cor-
porate unity will then be seen and felt. In times
of war, the nation instinctively looks to West
Point. It is for us to show our capacity for
leadership. This capacity is shown most con-
vincingly in a self -forgetful willingness to serve
anywhere, and to serve with any who, with us,
are willing to follow in His train Who came not
to be ministered into but to minister, and Who
was among us as one Who was the greatest
Master because He was the humblest and most
self-sacrificing servant.

CHAPTER XLI

THE RECOGNITION OF THE LAYMAN
BY THIS CHURCH

IN the baptismal office, the Episcopal Church
signs and seals those who come to this holy
sacrament with the tokens of their inheritance
as the children of God, and the heirs of the
Kingdom of Christ, into whose Body they are
then, as living members, incorporated. The
Church declares that, in view of this vital and
spiritual union with the great Head of the
Church, each member of His Body is expected
to continually receive and express the life and
power of the risen Christ. It becomes the duty
and privilege of each member of His Body to
aid in extending the Kingdom of God. This is
the mission of the Church. The baptismal

311

312 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

service is thus the foundation charter of the
great spiritual democracy which the Church is
called of God to establish in the earth.

From this basis proceeds the conception of
the Church with regard to the duties and birth-
right obligation and privileges of the laity in
the government and work of the Church. Bishop
Vail, in his chapter on the government of the
Church, has very clearly stated this fundamen-
tal fact with reference to position of the laity.
*'The government of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States," he writes, **is
strictly and purely democratical ; that is to say,
every member of the Church, without any ex-
ception in any class, has an equal right in the
making of every one of its laws, and in appoint-
ing the method and means of their administra-
tion. Or, to express the same idea in another
form, there is not a single exercise of authority
in this Church which may not be directly in-
fluenced by every member of it. The supreme
power of governing this Church is the will of
the majority of the whole Church, which is com-

RECOGNITION OF THE LAYMAN 313

posed of Bishops, Clergy and laity; so that
Bishops cannot govern alone, nor the Clergy
alone, nor the laity alone. But all these three,
as equally belonging to the Church, and inter-
ested in it, act together, and thus, in the highest
and justest style of popular and universal suf-
frage, the certainly ascertained will of the actual
majority of the whole Church is the supreme
law of the Church.

''The government of this Church is also
representative ; that is to say, its laws are all
made by bodies composed of representatives
elected by the whole Church."

The place and power of the laity in this
Church is scarcely realised by the laity them-
selves. They, perhaps, do not pause to con-
sider the far-reaching extent of their inherent
responsibilities. It is to be feared that, while
many of the priests of the Church seem at times
to take themselves too seriously, the laymen of
the Church do not take themselves seriously
enough. The nature and scope of lay obliga-
tion and influence are evident when the follow-

314 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ing constitutional provisions of this Church are
seen and realised.

The congregation elects the parish vestry.
The vestry calls the rector, and administers
the temporal affairs of the parish. It, however,
does much more than this. The vestry deter-
mines and certifies as to the fitness of every
candidate for Holy Orders seeking to go from
the parish into the priesthood. No man can
enter the ministry of this Church until his fit-
ness has been duly considered by the vestry
assembled, and until a majority of their whole
number shall have signed their assent and tes-
timonial to the fact that they consider him
morally, mentally and otherwise fitted to enter
upon preparation for the sacred office.

Then, too, the vestry elects delegates to the
council which is the governing legislative body
of the diocese. No measure can be passed in
the council which is disapproved by the laity.
A vote by orders may at any point be demanded.
All executive officers, including the Bishop and
the Standing Committee, are elected by a con-

RECOGNITION OP THE LAYMAN 315

current vote of the clergy and laity, and the
consent of a majority of both orders is required
to secure an election.

The Diocesan Council thus constituted elects
the Standing Committee, which is composed of
an equal number of clergymen and laymen. The
Standing Committee thus constituted is called
to give final consent to the ordination of can-
didates for Holy Orders, so that twice the ap-
plicant for ordination has to pass the scrutiny
of the laity, and secure their assent. The
Standing Committee also has to give, or refuse,
consent to the consecration of Bishops, so that
no man can be elevated to this office unless
approved either by the vote of the General
Convention assembled, or by the majority
vote of all the Standing Committees of the
Church.

The Diocesan Convention, through a vote by
orders, elects four clerical and four lay deputies
to the triennial General Convention of the
Church. In that body three separate, and yet
concurrent votes, may be demanded, and a ma-

316 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

jority in each order required to secure the adop-
tion of any propositions, or the passage of any
vital measure. The House of Bishops sits apart
and votes in its own order. The House of Depu-
ties, composed of four clerical and four lay
delegates from each diocese and missionary
jurisdiction, sits as one body. But upon de-
mand, any vote upon a vital proposition may
be required to be taken by orders, giving power
to the laity to prevent the passage of any meas-
ure which, by them, is disapproved, even though
it has received the assent of a majority vote
in the House of Bishops, and the assent of a
majority vote of the clerical order in the House
of Deputies. Any constitutional change or
Prayer Book alteration has to be voted on by
orders, and then referred back for consideration
to the Diocesan Councils, and thus comes back
directly to the congregations, who, through their
vestries, elect the delegates to the Council.
Thus the laity are impowered with fundamental
and grave responsibilities in this Church, which,
by reason of these constitutional provisions, is

RECOGNITION OP THE LAYMAN 317

essentially democratic in the form and spirit of
her government and administration.

It is, however, significant that the call which
has aroused the laity of this Church to the large
measure of their sense of responsibility for
helping to fulfill the mission of the Church, as
recently manifested, is a call which has come to
them, in large measure, from outside this
Church.

The clear, definite call to world evangeliza-
tion; the practical and potent appeal of the Lay-
men's Missionary Organisation, voiced through
conventions held all over America, and ex-
pressed through the every member canvass
idea, which originated in this organisation,
has aroused and enlisted the co-operation of the
laity of this Church to an extent which we
should gladly recognise and accord to the spirit
and desire of these co-operative endeavours to
extend the Kingdom of Christ. The Church
trained the spirit in the laity which makes the
response, and by her spiritual ministration,
trained the will to respond. The call, however,

318 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

which is to-day inspiring thousands of laymen
in this Church to make response is the call of
Christ through agencies originating outside her
fold.

That there are agencies, such as the Sunday
School Movement, the Y. M. C. A. and the
Brotherhood of St. Andrew, which were bom
in the consecrated thought of her own sons, and
which have been heard and answered by men of
every Christian communion, shows how inter-
related and interdependent we are in the great
Household of God, "which is the blessed com-
pany of all faithful people."

The time has surely come when it behooves
the bishops and pastors of the Church to face
the facts as they exist, with an open and candid
mind, and to take inventory of the forces and in-
spirational impulses which are to-day appealing
to the laymen of this Church, and which will
appeal with more impelling power in the years
which lie immediately ahead, and to ask what
is the wisest policy to pursue in order to con-
serve and keep in touch with these forces which

RECOGNITION OF THE LAYMAN 319

are now so potently at work in the heart and
conscience and will of so many of her members.
In determining what this policy shall be, the
laity have, in this Church, a voice and influence
which, if it should make itself felt in legislation,
as it does in co-operative endeavour, would tend
very largely to decide what should be the policy
and attitude of this Church with reference to
these great world movements, and spiritual
awakenings which are going on about us, and
which will go on without us, but which are
calling to us to help, with a pathos and power
of appeal which sounds to very many of us as
though it were the voice of the Son of God and
Saviour of mankind speaking to us through the
baptised membership of His Body.

CHAPTER XLII

THE WAY PREPARED FOR THIS
CHURCH

THIS Church stands to-day before a wide-
open door of opportunity. She has much
to give. Her inheritance from the past is a
possession needed to enrich and impower the
Church of the future. The creed she says is
being increasingly said by other communions.
The prayers of her liturgy are being more fre-
quently learned and woven into the public
prayers of non-conformist ministers. Recently
her prayer for missions has been printed and
used in unison by the thousand and more men
and women convened in two great Laymen's
Missionary Conventions. The Christian Year
is winning constantly increasing favour. The

320

THE WAY PREPARED FOR THIS CHURCH 321

great festivals which we keep are being widely
observed in other communions. Advent and
Lenten services are publicly announced, and
appropriate penitential devotions are made in
many Churches not of our communion. Vested
choirs and vested ministers are no longer dis-
tinctly characteristic of any one body in the
Church of Christ. Ancient prejudices against
our form and ceremonial worship are passing
away. The prejudice against prelacy is deep
rooted, and is perhaps more vital than ever in
view of the growing consciousness of democ-
racy, and in view of the conviction, which the
world crisis has accentuated, that the claim of ■
a divine right to rule must seek and vindicate
its exclusive claim on some other ground than
hereditary descent. The value of continuity
of order, and the conserving and pragmatic
value of the executive and administrative epis-
copal form of government, are, by many, com-
ing to be frankly acknowledged, and sincerely
desired.

What is now needed is the creation of an

322 THE CHtJRGH ENCHAINED

atmosphere of sympathetic understanding. The
scribes and Pharisees who, in this hour so preg-
nant with the hope and desire for unity, use
the language of bitterness, and of animosity,
and cast terms of caustic speech into the faces
of other members of the Body of Christ to burn
them like vitriol, are the enemies of the spirit
and the hope of unity in this day of the open
door of opportunity. Such language proceeds
from the prejudice-blinded mind of the ecclesi-
astic and not from the hearts of men inspired
by the Spirit of Christ.

On the other hand, every approach which
tends to conciliate the spirit of misunderstand-
ing, and to break down the barriers of preju-
dice, should be, by this Church, welcomed and
encouraged. If she comes bearing in one hand
her ancient treasures, and in the other a drawn
sword, her approach will scarcely meet with a
glad response and a cordial welcome. If she
comes with princely pomp and arrogant spirit
and stands armed for defence at the open door,
it is apt to be closed in her face. If she comes

THE WAY PREPARED FOR THIS CHURCH 323

as one ^rt about the waist with a towel, anxious
and ready to serve, she will be welcomed at
the open door by other servants of the Son of
God, Who humbled Himself and made Himself
of no reputation that through humility and love
He might conquer and win the hearts of men.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE WORLD, THE WORK, THE WASTE,
CO-WORKERS

THE laymen are beginning to think of the
mission of the Church in terms commen-
surate with its dignity. They are coming to
realise that the mission is too great for any one
communion, and that useless waste results from
a lack of unity of plan and purpose. Why, it
is asked, does not the great Christian Church
get together and plan a programme ? The time
is near at hand when this will be done. The
Episcopal Church must decide as to what shall
be her official relation to the world programme.
Many of her wealthiest and most influential
laymen will have no hesitancy in deciding what
their attitude will be. That many of them will

324

WORLD, WORK, WASTE, CO-WORKERS 325

co-operate with munificent gifts, commensurate
with the magnitude of the endeavour, may be
reasonably expected and confidently assumed.

If representatives of missionary organisa-
tions at home and abroad should come into con-
ference and take up first a plan and programme
for providing hospitals for the mission fields
of the world, the task would challenge the faith
of the world. A survey could be made by ex-
perts to ascertain just where great Christian
hospital centres could be located in China, Ja-
pan, India and other non-Christian countries.
A programme could be planned extending over
from three to five years. It could be based upon
the expectation of securing for this purpose
perhaps two or more million dollars a year.
The sum needed might demand five million a
year. With the Christian world committed to
the plan, the sum would not be impossible. This
appeal, addressed to men of large means, would
come to them in terms in which they have been
accustomed to think. It would impress them as
an economic and businesslike proposition, and

326 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

would make a splendid demand upon their sym-
pathy and their faith. It would assure them
that what they were giving to help heal the
nations would not be spent in rival and re-
duplicated institutions. With ten million dol-
lars there could be built one hundred hospitals,
or fifty with endowment sufficient to provide
for them. Men of all communions would rally
to the support of such a programme as they
have rallied to the appeals of the International
Committee of the Y. M. C. A.

The same kind of programme might be, and
doubtless will be (it surely should be), worked
out with a view to provide a certain number of
national Christian colleges and universities for
non-Christian countries. Again, as a result of
an international survey, and a concerted en-
deavour, a programme extending over from
three to five years could be planned and the ap-
peal made on the basis of a supply for a world
need. It would be in terms of millions. The
task of raising it could be, and doubtless would
be, divided among Christian nations, among

WORLD, WORK, WASTE, CO-WORKERS 327

the states of America, and among the cities of
these states, and among the various co-operat-
ing communions. The appeal, like that for a
hospital programme, would have something
winsome and inspiring about it that would
startle the thought of men and rouse their in-
terest. The element of Christian solidarity, of
broad vision, of economic and practical effi-
ciency would commend it to men whose response
would be in terms of a certain per cent of the
sum needed and asked for.

From these hospitals would go native nurses
and native doctors to extend the ministry of
healing. With such national, or better inter-
national, leadership, the non-Christian national
governments would doubtless in many instances
co-operate.

From these great Christian universities would
go trained teachers, many of whom would be
Christians, to spread the truth that makes men
free, and do their share to create the lasting
bonds of international brotherhood.

In the non-Christian lands, the guarantee

328 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

could at least be given and kept that the insti-
tutions should at least be kept permanently
Christian in tone and teaching, which is more
than can be said of many of the universities of
America.

Around the institutions could be grouped the
theological seminaries designed to train the
native ministry of the native Church, and each
communion could see to it that the integrity of
its position was maintained without compro-
mise.

Perhaps this is as far as a wisely and tv^ell-
directed programme of co-operative endeavour
would think of going at present. To suggest
the delimitation of the field of evangelistic work
and administrative responsibility would doubt-
less meet with serious opposition. For the
sake of engaging the co-operation of all who
might be led to co-operate in the hospital and
educational programme, the question of de-
limiting the field of evangelistic responsibility
should not be urged or insisted upon. This is
a problem in itself, and could best be left to

WORLD, WORK, WASTE, CO-WORKERS 329

another day and to other men. The years that
are coming will have new light and new wisdom
to contribute to its solution.

It is certainly not well to carry our divisions
into the mission field in matters where there is
co-operation already at home, as is the case in
community and state hospitals and great state
and national universities.

In these new movements toward practical
unity, in this great united international mission
programme, the layman aroused, conscious of
mission, trained to think in terms of efficiency,
and along lines of corporate endeavour, will
have a determining influence in shaping the
policy of the Christian Church in the years
which lie ahead of us. The laymen may indeed
demand that the delimiting chains of ecclesi-
asticism be broken that in and through this
Church they may be given freedom to serve for
the larger extension of the Kingdom of Christ.

This Church of ours may, if it will, continue
to withhold its official sanction to such limited
co-operation as has been suggested. She will

330 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

not, however, prevent it. She cannot. Nor can
she prevent her lajnuen from making, as many
of them unquestionably will, generous and mu-
nificent contributions to the appeal which the
programme will make.

The writer feels convinced that the pro-
gramme and the appeal, in some such form, will
confront the Christian Church, in America at
least, in the not far-distant future. There are
those who may .not desire it. This Church can-
not prevent it, even if she would, by either si-
lence or the refusal to give to the endeavour her
official sanction.

That this Church should refuse to consent to
such limited and clearly defined co-operation
[Would seem almost unthinkable. That she should
authorise her official Board of Missions to so
confer and co-operate would be, in the judgment
of many, the part of far-sighted wisdom. If
serious objection should be made to this, then
the Church should be willing to authorise the
Board of Missions to appoint representatives
to engage in such conferences and co-operation,

WORLD, WORK, WASTE, CO-WORKERS 331

appointing those who would welcome the op-
portunity of doing so. In the presence of the
vision of so great an opportunity for this
Church to make her influence and leadership
felt, one feels humiliated by the thought of the
possibility that the Church might dare to refuse.
For her to do so would make it impossible for
her to share in the credit and glory of the enter-
prise to which the contributions which would be
made by her broad-visioned laymen would en-
title her. It would also preclude the possibility
of her exerting her influence in the administra-
tion and control of the institutions founded un-
der this programme. And it would be a con-
cession to the theories of those in the Church
whose opposition would be largely founded upon
interpretations of the ministerial orders which
the Church has never officially sanctioned, and
which she should not be expected to sanction,
in this exclusive sense, in this indirect way.

The time has come when questions of theory
and interpretation, concerning which scholars
and priests stand hopelessly divided, should not

332 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

be allowed to clog the wheels of progress, or
be forced as issues and hindrances into the prac-
tical work of the Church. They are questions
with which the laity are not primarily and
vitally concerned, and this Church should find
some way, and find it as soon as possible, by
which those who are untrammelled by unau-
thorised exclusive interpretations may, with her
sanction and blessing, respond to what they
very earnestly believe to be the clear call of
Christ to their conscience and to His Church.

CHAPTER XLIV
THE RESTRAINT OF POWER

THE token and sign of true greatness of
spirit and power is never so clearly evi-
dent as it is in its restraint. This is the marvel
and the wonder of the life and power of God.
There are forces in nature which, if unbound,
would in a moment annihilate the universe. The
world exists by the marvel of the providence
which restrains created force. The vast pa-
tience of God is manifested in the restraint of
justice by the power of mercy. The masterful
majesty of Christ was shown when, with the
power to summon to His aid ''twelve legions of
angels," He suffered Himself to be betrayed
by a kiss, and to be led to judgment and to
crucifixion by the unrestrained malice and fury

333

334 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

of the mob. That the devil and his angels are
not self-restrained, is proof of the limitation,
and prophetic of the ultimate overthrow of
their power.

Those who hold, by reason of their majority,
the power to impose their will upon the whole
Church, will, if they be imbued with the restrain-
ing presence of the all-powerful Spirit of God,
refrain from seeking to crush the liberties of
those who are at their mercy.

The majority may rightly insist upon their
liberty to act in conformity with their convic-
tions ; they may not, without tyranny, demand
that others of contrary conviction be com-
pelled to act with them.

If, for example, in the case of the Panama
Conference, the Bishop of the missionary juris-
diction of Panama, or a missionary Bishop of
Porto Rico or Mexico had been ordered to at-
tend this convention, either by the Board of
Missions, or by the General Convention, it
would have been a tyranny of the majority. If
the President of the Board, or any member of

THE RESTRAINT OF POWER 335

it, had been ordered to go as a delegate, it would
have been an act of tyranny. If, in view of a
protest, funds contributed by the General
Church, where divergent views obtain, had been
voted to defray the expenses of a conference
opposed by a minority, this too would have
shown the lack of restraint of power.

None of these things was done. That those
should have been delegated to go who would
choose to accept, and make use of their creden-
tials, was not in any way an act of oppression ;
nor did it show a disregard for the views of
others. The right ot the minority to express
their views, and to act in accordance with them,
was freely accorded on the one hand, and fully
exercised on the other.

For the minority to have insisted that a rep-
resentative missionary organisation did not
have the right to send those who were willing to
go to a conference where the facts and condi-
tions of half a continent were to be reviewed
and considered, seems a contention which could
not be assented to without a forfeiture of what

336 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

would seem to be a reasonable responsibility;
and in view of the fact that the Church has ac-
credited bishops and other missionaries work-
ing in this field which was to be placed under re-
view, it would seem that the Board would have
declined to meet a definite missionary obligation
had it refused to send those, who were perfectly
willing to go, to learn more of the facts and con-
ditions upon which, of necessity, an intelligent
missionary policy must be based and prose-
cuted. That the money contributed by the mi-
nority was not voted to defray the expense of
this mission, and that the views of the minor-
ity were respected and safeguarded by reso-
lutions restricting the powers of delegates sent
to the point of listening and talking, shows the
exercise of the power of restraint in a measure
which, to the Board, has not been, by the minor-
ity, very graciously accorded.*

* Until the rights of the Board of Missions are clearly
determined and defined, such controversies are ever liable to
take place. It was for the purpose of defining these rights
that a resolution was introduced in, and passed by, the House
of Deputies in the General Convention of 1913. Had this reso-

THE RESTRAINT OF POWER 337

lution been either passed or defeated by both Houses, the
Panama Conference controversy would doubtless have been ob-
viated, as the rights of the Board would then have been clearly
defined. The discussion as to the wisdom of participation
would not have caused such bitterness of contention had the
question of the Tights of the Board been clearly and judicially
defined. The followiTig is the resolution referred to :

"Wlwreas, this Church, through its General Convention, has
repeatedly urged that the ties which bind Christian people
should be strengthened, and that the Church should seek to co-
operate with Christian people, not in communion with thia
Church, in the effort to extend the. Kingdom of God in so far
as such co-operation can be engaged in in loyalty to the faith
and order of this Church;

"And whereas, the Board of ^'issions of this Church has
been invited to co-operate with other Christian Boards of
Missions in matters pertaining to the ways and means of ex-
tending the Kingdom of God ;

" Eesolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the
Board of Missions is informed that in the judgment of the
General Convention it has full authority to take such steps as
it may deem wise to co-operate with other Christian Boards of
Missions in this country and elsewlicre, in united efforts to
arouse, organise and direct the missionary spirit and activity
of Christian people, to the end that the people of the Church
may be enabled the better to discharge their duty to support
the Mission of the Church at home and abroad through prayer,
work and giving. Provided, That the expense incurred in such
co-operative educational efforts shall not be a charge upon
funds raised through the Apportionment." {General Conven-
tion Journal, 1913, p. 320.)

CHAPTER XLV

A CONFEEENCE AND CO-OPERATIVE
COMMISSION

THERE are many in tHs Church who feel
convinced that, so long as compulsion is
not used to require those to enter into confer-
ence and co-operative relationship, who, as in-
dividuals, do not wish to do so, the official
boards and commissions of this Church already
^^have full authority*^ to engage in such con-
ference relationship as they may determine
upon.

It would seem reasonable and right to insist
that, within certain designated limits, our of-
ficial boards and commissions should be left free
(or, if not now free, given freedom) to confer
and co-operate with other men and ministers

338

A CO-OPERATIVE COMMISSION 339

and boards in promoting matters of common
concern for the general welfare of the Church.
In such matters as now enlist the co-operation
of earnest Christian men, such as publishing
literature, providing for the care of the sick,
and for educating the ignorant and impov-
erished masses at home or abroad, there should
be no question as to the right and duty of con-
ference and practical and common sense co-
operation. There is no reason why theories
or facts concerning imperilled orders should be
injected into the consideration of this aspect of
the question.

If, however, objection be raised against allow-
ing the Board of Missions and Commissions of
the General Church to enter officially into co-
operative relationship with others upon unde-
termined issues, by reason of the distinctly rep-
resentative character of the Board and Com-
missions, then it might be well to consider the
advisability of having the General Convention
appoint a Commission composed of those who
favour and desire such liberty, to be official-

340 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

ly appointed to represent that element in the
Church who are convinced that such confer-
ence and co-operative endeavour would advance
the interests of the Kingdom of God, and be
for the good of this Church. Should such a
Commission be appointed, with power to add
to its numbers, then, in cases where unforeseen
conference or co-operative opportunities arose
concerning missions, social service, religious
education, temperance, or world peace, or in-
ternational reconstruction, then those of our
official Boards and Commissions who were will-
ing to serve on this suggested Commission of
Conference and Co-operation could, from time
to time, be added to its membership, that the
Commission might have the benefit of their
knowledge and experience in the special con-
ference or co-operative undertakings in which,
from time to time, it might be engaged. The
funds for such purpose could be secured by the
special Commission from interested churchmen.
If, with reference to legislation authorising
conference and co-operative relationship with

A CO-OPERATIVE COMMISSION 341

other Christian communions, this liberal spirit
could prevail, the comprehensiveness desired
would be secured without bitterness and without
controversy, and this Church would make her
influence largely felt in the outworking of the
forces which are seeking to establish the King-
dom of God more.widely and more firmly on the
earth.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE TEMPORARY NATURE AND THE
MISSION OF FEDERATED MOVEMENTS

IN the discussions current relative to the value
of such federated movements as are repre-
sented by ''The Federal Council of Churches,"
and the ''Laymen's Missionary Movement/'
the disposition is constantly shown to throw the
question involved upon one or the other of the
two horns of a dilemma, and then to pass judg-
ment upon the subject as thus presented as
though there were no other alternatives of value
possible. On the one hand it is stated that
such federation "is a most unhappy substitute
for unity"; * while, on the other hand, it is as-
serted that "the position on which the federa-

* * * The Living Church. ' '

342

FEDERATED MOVEMENTS 343

tion is based is that the denominations are not
to disappear."*

If these were the only alternative ideas rep-
resented by such federated endeavour, many
who favour it would be unconditionally op-
posed to such endeavours. There are those,
however, who decline to be forced upon either
one or the other of these horns, so sharply de-
fined and clearly presented, who nevertheless
favour such federated endeavour for reasons
which seem to them good and sufficient. They
do not for a moment consider such federation
in any sense whatsoever as being, or as intend-
ing to be, a transient or permanent substitute
for the visible organic unity of the Church of
Christ ; nor do they believe that such federated
endeavour necessarily expresses the idea that
denominational lines are destined to continue,
or that they should continue. There are those
in this Church who feel called to face the un-
fortunate conditions which exist with a candid
mind, illumined by the hope for an ultimate

* Prof. Mathews.

344 THE CHURCH £NCHAIN£D

visible unity. They recognise tlie fact that at
present lines of separation do unhappily divide
the Church of Christ, and ''hinder us from
godly union and concord." They realise that
organic visible unity cannot come into exist-
ence by a forced process, or by the enactment
of resolutions decreeing that it should exist.
To them it seems clearly evident that some
time seems destined to elapse before the lines
of separation are obliterated and visible unity
is attained. It is felt that the greater value of
organic unity may be made to appear more
clearly evident as a result of co-operative en-
deavour during the testing, sifting and waiting
time. It is felt that such federation may min-
ister to the creation of an atmosphere of sym-
pathy and a broader basis of mutual under-
standing. It is believed that latent and unex-
pressed forces now resident in the divided Body
of Christ may be released for the good of man-
kind as a result of an earnest effort to combine
these spiritual energies in concentrated effort.
It is hoped that such federated endeavour will

FEDERATED MOVEMENTS 345

open new approaches leading to ultimate unity ;
and it is believed that, as a result of mutual un-
derstanding, and closer sympathy, and a deeper
realisation of our need of each other, the unhap-
piness of our divisions will become more clearly
apparent.

The harm and waste of denominational ri-
valry is becoming more clearly evident. The
value of the denominations as witnesses to
neglected aspects of truth, and as ministers to
neglected elements in the great family of God,
may now be said to be a fast-diminishing value.
The light reflected from many angles has been
seen in its prismatic variety of colour. It was
needful that it should be so seen to be known
and appreciated. The need now seems to be
that the light should be focussed with a common
aim and purpose, and from a unified, organic
centre. The problem of how to synthesise the
light of truth now faces us. The Church that
is blind to the rays of light which others see,
in which others have walked, and to w^hich oth-
ers have borne witness, is not destined to be the

346 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

Churcli of the reconciliation. It would seem
that the policy of sound wisdom would be to
bring the fragmented crystals close enough
together to see what beauty and power of light
might be revealed as approaches are made to
unity. What each denomination has held and
tested and found to be of permanent value
should be sought for, and thankfully admitted,
and carefully conserved. The separated ray of
light may be of a colour that beats with hurtful
intensity upon the sensitive soul of the artist.
If, however, he is wise, if he be indeed a true
artist, he will not shun and despise that sep-
arated ray. He will think rather of the richer
and more beautiful colour which will become
visible when that ray has been blended with
others. He will recognise it as essential to an
ultimate harmony.

At times we are too much disposed to patent
the make of the prism which refracts the light
rather than to conserve and use the rays of light
refracted. **More light" is the dark world's
need. Denominations have been light refrac-

FEDERATED MOVEMENTS 347

tors. They may still serve this purpose. They
have also been light obscurers. The question
which must be candidly and honestly determined
is: does the amount and distinctive quality of
the light refracted and reflected by a denomina-
tion compensate sufficiently for the amount of
light obscured, or dissipated, to justify its con-
tinued existence? The testing time, the value-
measuring process, will doubtless have to go
on for a while longer. It is distinctly encourag-
ing that a disposition is fast developing to con-
verge the rays, and to test their blending
powers.

Such movements as the '^Federated Council
of Churches" and the ** Laymen's Missionary
Movement" furnish an excellent opportunity
for experimenting to ascertain light values, and
the possibilities for light blending, and light con-
centration. They are not ultimate endeavours.
As ends in themselves they would be ill-advised.
As means to an ultimate end, they can, if wisely
used, be made to serve a valuable purpose.
Unity cannot be forced. It does not come by

348 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

a killing process. It is not merely a survival
of the fittest. It is a creative process. It is
corrective, and assimilative, and constructive.
It teaches men and organisations when and how
to die, that in giving their life they may find
it more abundantly. It sympathetically studies
the unfit, the disproportionate, the dwarfed and
distorted, and seeks to make them fit to survive.
Unity does not come by adding irreconcilables,
but by reconciling those who differ, by inspir-
ing them with a common spirit, a common hope,
a common purpose, a common love, and a com-
mon faith in things eternally essential. In the
light of this inspiration, differences which
seemed irreconcilable vanish from the fore-
ground of consciousness, as the things vital and
of eternal significance grip the heart and mind
and dominate the will to sacrifice and to serve.
We do not know each other. How can we then
love each other? Federations and movements
are transient opportunities in the life of the
Church in its transition toward ultimate unity.
They serve to give introductions to men in-

FEDERATED MOVEMENTS 349

spired by a common divine purpose. They are
neither substitutes for unity, nor seals of ap-
proval upon disunity. They are valuable only
in so far as they are regarded as elements in
the creative processes of the Spirit of Christ,
who is seeking in the chaos which men's minds
have made to build a Body which shall, through
the power of a great divine love and a perfect
faith, be fitly framed together into ultimate
unity.

We have a long way to go. Across the way
which lies ahead falls the shadow of the cross.
Yonder is Golgotha, the place of the skull. Per-
haps it was called so to suggest the crucifixion
of just that part of us, that the life and love that
transcend the reason, and all mental processes,
might be unchained from the limitations of
pride and prejudice and delimited mental ** or-
thodoxy" and find their freedom and work their
way to unity.

If Federated Councils of Churches exist to
say that we have passed up to Calvary, and have
there been crucified, then they are blind guides

350 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

to the blind. If denominationalism stands afar
off, and refuses to climb to its cross, or seeks
to avoid Calvary by accepting a snug place in
the Federated Council, then unity must await
the disillusionment. If, however. Federated
Councils and co-operative movements can serve
to open the approaches to the cross of sacrifice ;
if they can help to create in the Church a more
far-reaching and a clearer power of vision; if
they can deepen, strengthen and broaden our
sympathy and our courage; if they can lead
men of many minds to kneel with the Master
of us all beneath the olive trees of Gethsemane ;
if they can help point the way to the offering
which He calls us to make, which must be made
precedent to an ultimate unity; then these fed-
erated endeavours will help lead the way to the
answer of the Master's prayer that we all may
be one.

THE PKOBLEM PRESSURE

A way to progress is sometimes opened by
the strong pressure of vital problems which

FEDERATED MOVEMENTS 351

surge against the bulwarks of ecclesiasticism,
and the man-made wall of separation. The vast
latent potency of eternal truth unexpressed;
the imperious pressure of the divine will against
humanly created limitations is sure to produce
results. In that day the destiny of the Church
will be determined by its responsiveness, and
by its ability to float, as an ark, on the flood tide
of the eternal purpose. The dam is doomed.

In any co-operative endeavour which may
be undertaken, mistakes are sure to be made.
It were better, however, to learn from our mis-
takes how to reach the far goal of truth and
unity, than to stand idle in the presence of these
problems which press upon us. A more perfect
love, which will grow with a clearer under-
standing of each other, will cast out many fears,
and help break the chains of prejudice and
apprehension, which must of necessity be broken
before organic unity is possible. As Bishop
Coxe observed, we are not to-day privileged to
speak as Cyprian did to an undivided Church.
Our work, of necessity, has to be done under

352 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

different conditions. Holding tenaciously to
our convictions with one hand, we may stretch
forth the other to co-operate with those who
hold with us at least a common saving faith and
a desire to express that faith in Christian
service.

These federated movements may serve as
transient means to help us, as Browning says, to

"Conceive of truth
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake
As midway help till we reach fact indeed."

CHAPTER XLVII

FEDERATION AND RELIGIOUS
EDUCATION

AMONG the important problems pressing
for solution is the great and vital problem
of what is commonly called ''Religious Educa-
tion," namely, the problem of educating the
religious nature. The question of devising
means by which the souls of children may be
educated in conjunction with the development
of their bodies, and the education of their minds,
needs to be settled, and settled wisely, and with-
out delay. It calls for the concerted action of
all those who believe that children have souls,
and that there are forces of illumination and
power, divinely constituted, by which the soul
may be educated if the point of contact can be

353

354 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

established. Co-operation is essential in order
to establish and maintain this point of contact.

In the realms of higher education the prob-
lem is no less serious. It is interesting to note
some of the processes out of which this prob-
lem has arisen. It may help to point the way
to a solution.

Most of our American universities, which
have been in existence for a hundred years, were
founded in the faith and enthusiasm of eccle-
siastical and denominational conviction. This
was true of Harvard, William and Mary,
Princeton, Columbia and Yale and many other
great institutions of learning. Conscious of a
responsibility to be the bulwarks and defenders
of the beliefs of their respective founders and
benefactors, these institutions, and the men
trained in them, consecrated themselves to de-
fend and propagate the distinctive dogmas and
ecclesiastical tenets of their founders and fol-
lowers. Their early presidents were learned
doctors of the most orthodox divinity.

This resulted in the over emphasis of sep-

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 355

arated doctrinal and ecclesiastical contentions.
Shadows, dark and grotesque, were thrown
across the path of faith. Souls, made for the
light, began at last to shudder and to grow chill.
Shibboleths were made the tests of loyalty.
Traditionalism fettered the soul. Theories were
propounded, and declared essential to the ex-
istence of the Church, and as generally neces-
sary to salvation. Then science and philosophy
began to speak in terms of freedom. Their dog-
matism was no less dogmatic, but it was less
ancient. There were fewer facts to the con-
trary. Students had their minds turned from
the chains being forged in laboratory and lec-
ture room, by the flash of the sparks made by
hammer blows which fell, fast and furious, upon
the age-long chains of ecclesiastical tradition
and theological dogmatism.

Wliile the ancient chains were being broken,
the new chains of rationalism and materialism
were being forged. The unconscious rebound
was from one cell in the prison house into an-
other. From the chains of dogmatism, forged

356 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

by the narrow process of deductive reasoning,
men passed into captivity under the chains
forged through the process of hasty general-
isation in the inductive process of reasoning.
The collegiate mind passed from the bondage
of the grotesque dogmas of traditionalism into
the bondage of chains forged, and still being
forged, in crucibles, and retorts, and in the lab-
oratories of materialistic philosophers, from
which God had been excluded because He could
not be found with the microscope, or telescope,
and because the fact of His presence could not
be ascertained by weighing the soul.

Because men have shown ability and genius
in the realm of their academic specialty, they
have been allowed to believe, and to make others
believe, that they could, speak with the au-
thority of their accredited position, concerning
God, the soul, and immortality, and all other
things pertaining to spiritual life and spiritual
relationships. These sceptics, rationalists and
materialists who presume to decree the dogmas
of unbelief, know, if they would admit it, that

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 357

the faculties out of which they speak have been
trained by dealing with material things, and
with visible phenomena, and are, therefore, not
trained or competent to judge concerning God
and the soul, and the things which pertain to
the world which lies beyond the natural order.
On the other hand, the Church, enchained to
the non-essential, is not able to speak with
authority concerning the things which are es-
sential. Her voice is too often drowned by the
clank of her chains. With men all about her
bound "in captivity to sin and death," she has
at times been content to contend as to whether
they were predestined to eternal torment, or
capable of freedom of will. Then, too, the means
of grace by which their freedom might be se-
cured have been delimited to certain theories of
ministerial succession, and to the material form
and substance and method of sacramental min-
istration. It is the chained God who has been
expelled from so many of our colleges and uni-
versities. It is largely because the Church has
bound and fettered the Christ that He has been

358 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

put on probation by the collegiate mind. The
unchained god of this world has been allowed
the dominant place. He has turned the cur-
rents of education into the channels of material-
ism. He has set up false standards of success.
He has unreasoningly exalted reason. He has
blinded men's eyes to the truth that makes men
free. He has made the dogmas of doubt to be-
come dominant. He has decreed that the pur-
pose of education is primarily to enable men to
make a living, or a fortune, and has hidden from
view the real purpose of education which is the
enrichment of life, and the development of its
capacity to correspond with its whole environ-
ment, which includes God, and the eternal years
of the soul's destiny.

In the meanwhile, the youth of our land are
leaving their homes, and their parish churches,
to be plunged, all unprepared, into this vortex
of scepticism and materialistic philosophy, with
no clear voice to call them to a high point of
vision, with no polar star amid the whirling
star dust, and with no authoritative pronounce-

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 359

ment relative to the essential truth and funda-
mental verities of the Christian faith.

It would be a tragedy to be compelled to wait
for some solution to this serious problem until
Conferences on Faith and Order had finally
solved the great and important question of
visible organic Church unity. Souls are daily
passing into this vortex of doubt and unbelief.
It is the business of the Christian Church, and
of Christian Colleges, to help them. They
have the right to expect it. They have a birth-
right, as children of the Christian Church, to
ask that the essential things be made clear to
them, and that a light that surely and con-
stantly shines be set in our colleges and uni-
versities to help save them from the shipwreck
of their faith.

One mission of the Federated Council of
Churches might well be to seek to bring about
some federated action on the part of the various
Boards of Religious Education looking to some
practical solution of this grave and pressing
problem. No one Church can solve the diffi-

360 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

culty. As Mr. George Wharton Pepper has said,
*'We Christians of the several communions
have so long distrusted one another that we in-
dulge a presumption against any plan put for-
ward by a group other than our own."* The
obvious way to avoid this difficulty is to have a
plan formulated and put into operation by the
various "groups" co-operating

* ' in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape."

The bid for patronage and for endowments
has been an influential factor in eliminating the
denominational emphasis from most educational
institutions once under Church control. If this
shall result in the loss of Christian character,
the value of the endowments is very question-
able ; and, unless something is done to give the
assurance that the Christian faith shall not be
compromised and repudiated, there is sure to
be a demand for a return to the denominational
college and university. It would seem, however,

*"A Voice from the Crowd," p. 126.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 361

that by concerted action, a way could be found
by which educational institutions which desire
to maintain the fundamental convictions of
faith, could make those convictions authori-
tatively known. The unauthorised pronounce-
ments of individual professors would then be
known to be the unwarranted sentiments of
individuals officially repudiated. They would
lack what they now have, namely, the seeming
silent sanction of the university. These phos-
phorescent lights would then be taken from the
academic towers, and placed where their glow
and reach would depend upon their intrinsic
merit. The light that shines from the tower
should be the Light of Life, and the university
that seeks Christian patronage, should place it
there, and see that it is kept burning and that
the windows from which it shines are not
darkened.

Most universities and colleges would doubt-
less welcome any suggestion which the Fed-
erated Boards of Religious Education would
make, and would gladly co-operate in any pro-

362 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

gramme which had back of it the consensus of
Christian thought and conviction.

The fear of compromising official order or
dignity by entering into such a federated en-
deavour is a fear which would suggest that the
ecclesiastical soul had so far lost its sense of
proportion and its power of vision as to make it
completely blind to the peril in which thousands
of the Church 's children are daily placed in the
presence of the rationalistic and materialistic
doubt and scepticism which honeycomb many
of the universities and colleges which they at-
tend.

The very serious question arises as to how
much respect these students will have for the
faith and order of the Church which, entrenched
behind the bulwarks of consistency and dignity,
refused to co-operate in an effort to create in
our colleges and universities a Christian en-
vironment for the education of their souls, and
the development of their faith.

CHAPTER XL VIII

THE PRICE OF CONSISTENCY

TT has been said of consistency that it is a
A jewel. We venture to assert that it is often
a shackle forged into some corner of a man's
mind that keeps his personality from liberty
and progress. He who fears being inconsistent
is afraid of truth, or is restrained as a seeker
after truth. What he thought yesterday, what
he thinks to-day, holds him fast. The larger
truth beckons. He stands pat. He knows where
he is now, he knows not where he will land if he
ventures to step forward. He fears to trust
his sympathies, and is sceptical as to the
promptings of his deeper emotions. He is a
trustee. The talent must be kept wrapped in a
napkin, or else put into competition with other

363

'.'M THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

talents. To merge it in any co-operative enter-
prise would be inconsistent with his conscious-
ness of trust. The gold might rust, or become
tarnished if placed in a common treasury with
silver and nickel and copper currency. Some-
how he seems to doubt the power of Him, whose
sure image he knows is stamped deep into His
golden coin, to keep track of it if it is merged
in some corporate enterprise. The Master
whose coin it is might get mixed in His account-
ing, and let this rarest coin of His currency get
lost, or become debased.

In dealing with eternal truth, we cannot al-
ways be consistent. (Jur theories are but the
reflections of the light of truth from the angles
of our mind. Of course, if the angle is a pol-
ished crystal set firm in an immutable socket, it
will continue forever to reflect the one ray of
fight that falls upon it. But it were pure ignor-
ance to claim that this ray was the full revela-
tion of the glory of the sun. And shall he be ac-
counted criminally inconsistent who largely
trusts the spiritual conviction which prompts

THE PRICE OF CONSISTENCY 365

him to co-oporato with thos(» wlio are co-workers
with Christ, because the light has not succeeded
in reaching them along the path which it I'ollows
in reaching us? His heart, his faith, may not
square with his logic. ]^ut wlio cares'? The
question is, which is the bigger, the more vital,
the more Christlike; the love, and sympathy,
and common faith which build men into fellow-
ship, or the logical consistency of thought
which puffs them up, and which builds barriers
which keep tliem from dwelling together in the
unity of spirit and the bond of peace, and in a
deep devotion to the common purpose of sav-
ing men with a great, catholic purpose from
the heresy of sin and the schism of separation
from the Saviour of men?

CHAPTER XLIX
THE QUESTION OF UNITY

IT is insisted that there can be no unity with-
out the apostolic succession. Has it been
proven that, in any age of the Church's history,
there has been unity with it? The essential value
of the historic episcopate as a means to secure
and preserve the organic visible unity of the
Church may and should be urged and main-
tained ; but there are other forces which need to
be considered which must of necessity be con-
sidered precedent to this, without which no out-
ward uniformity of order would be permanent
and spiritually potent. There was a perfectly
regular and valid ministry while the apostles
were on earth, and yet there were divisions
among them, some going to the Jews, and others

366

THE QUESTION OF UNITY 367

to the Gentiles, as a result of this very ques-
tion of an ancient succession. In the Churches
to which they ministered there was a woful lack
of unity. St. Paul writes to Corinth, *'I hear
that there be divisions among you, and verily I
believe it." Some were claiming to be of Paul
the apostle to the Gentiles; some of Cephas
the apostle of the circumcision, and others still
of Apollos. St. Paul calls this fleshly contention.
For, says he, ''Who then is Paul, and who is
Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed?
. . . Therefore let no man glory in men, for ye
are Christ's and Christ is God's." The schism
which, however, he most deplores is that which
was occasioned by sin cutting off members of
the Body of Christ from communion and fellow-
ship with Him.

This is surely the kind of schism which min-
isters of the apostolic succession of spirit will
ever most deeply deplore. Sin is the great
maker of schism in the Body of Christ. It sun-
ders souls from Him. We should surely find
some other name than ''schismatics" for those

368 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

who are spending their lives at home amid pri-
vations, and in far-away lands amid perils,
seeking to build souls into the Body of Christ,
and endeavouring, through prayer and labour,
to heal the schisms which sin is making. If we
are in earnest in our hatred of schism, we will
seek closer fellowship with those who are
spending themselves in seeking to heal and pre-
vent the mortal schism made by vice and sin
in the Body of our common Lord and Mas-
ter.

Somehow there is a very deep feeling, which
transcends the power of words to describe, that
we are after all, perhaps, failing to put the em-
phasis just where it is most needed in consid-
ering those things which make for the unity of
the Body of Christ.

There are many who have been born and
reared in this Church, who cherish her beauti-
ful liturgy, who revere her ancient heritage,
who hold her unbroken continuity through or-
ders and sacraments as a rare and priceless
possession and trust, and who are deeply

THE QUESTION OF UNITY 369

conscious of the depth and richness of her bal-
anced teaching; who feel that her place would
be more glorious if she were made free to gladly
acknowledge the irregular ministry and sacra-
ments of those who, for reasons over which,
in many instances, they had no control, were
separated from the regularity of ordered suc-
cession as this Church has retained it, and yet,
who, with what we regard as a handicap, have
fought a good fight, kept the faith which unites
the souls of men with the saving Christ, and
have, through what Bishop Doane calls a valid,
though irregular ministry, built millions of
immortal souls into deathless union with the
Lord of life.

What credentials, what larger, richer and
more golden harvest have we to show in proof
of the fact that what we regard as a priceless
heritage, is of such closeness with the apostles
that such a measure of special grace and power
flows into us and through us by way of this
special and exclusive channel, as to justify us
in withholding fellowship, conference and co-

370 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

operation from those who, without this special
means of grace, are empowered by the Holy
Ghost for the work of their ministry in building
the Father's children into the Body of His Son?

CHAPTER L
THE VISION OF THE SON OF MAN

THE Master stands in the silence there upon
a mount called Olivet. Below is the City
of Zion, proud of its ancient heritage, and un-
questionably conscious of its orthodoxy. From
its centre rises the ancient temple of Jehovah.
At its altar minister the priests of the ancient,
divinely appointed order and of unbroken suc-
cession in the tribe of Levi. From its altar
rises the smoke of the divinely appointed sacri-
fice. ''Beholding the city. He wept over it, say-
ing, 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem."

''And there they crucify Him." The years
pass. An army encircles the city's walls. Not
one stone is left upon another. "How often
would I have gathered thee together j and ye

371

372 THE CHURCH ENCHAINED

would not. Behold your house is left unto you
desolate."

Invisible He stands to-day among us. Our
eyes are holden and we know Him not. He calls.
Our ears are deaf and we hear Him not. He
weeps over the tragedy of the world, and over
the tragedy of His Church. What is He say-
ing?

May God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Ghost give grace to His Church that
she may hear and obey what the Master says
as He looks down upon us and weeps. May He
grant that we may not be destined through dis-
obedience to His voice to hear about us tlie fall-
ing of the stones of a temple left desolate.