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, 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. 
 
 167 
 
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. 
 
 177 
 
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, 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.