Et. Rev. G. P. Anderson, D-D.
Ihe Work of the Church on be
half of Unity.
1917.

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"I give Ht/t Bnki
far ttefau^ng nf a. ColUgt, m ihaj&>,l'»'y"

Gift of
Ui <^«.^Q>u.,iQ«-\.^.t.>o>cul.^^-«yt-.>-

19lS^

'ALt UNIVERSITY
JUL 16 1918
UBRARV
THE HALE MEMOMAL^ftMON. 1917

0tt b?l|alf of
Inttg

BY
THE RT. REV. C. P. ANDERSON, D.D.
BISHOP OF CHICAGO

Published for the
Western Theological Seminary
CHICAGO

By THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO.
\|' JHLWAVKEB, WISCONSIN, U. S. A.

The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 10

The Work of the Church
on behalf of
Unity

BY
The Rt. Rev. C. P. Anderson, D.D.
Bishop of Chicago

Preached at S. Paul's Church, Chicago,
on the Sunday next before
Advent, 1917.

Published for the
W^ESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
CHICAGO

By THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U. S. A.

Ana3

TO THE
GLORY OF GOD
AND IN MEMOEY OF
ANNA McK. T. HALE
A LOVEE OF EVEEY GOOD WOED AND WOKK
THE PREACHING AND FEINTING OF
THIS SEEMON
WERE PROVIDED FOE BY
HER HUSBAND
0. R. H.

EXTRACTS
From the Will of thb Rt. Rev. Charles Reuben Hale,
D. D., LI/. D., Bishop Coadjutor of Springfield, born
1857 ; consecrated July 26, 1892 ; died December 25, 1900.

+

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. Amen.

1, Charles Reuben Hale, Bishop of Cairo, Bishop Coadjutor of
Springfield, of the City of Cairo, Illinois, do make, publish, and declare
this, as and for my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all former
wills by me made.
First. First ot all, I commit myself, soul and body, into the hands
of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour, in Whose Merits alone I trust, look
ing for the Resurrection of the Body and the Ijife of the World to come.
Fourteenth. All the rest and residue of my Estate, personal and real,
not in this my Will otherwise specifically devised, wheresoever situate, and
whether legal or equitable, I give, devise, and bequeath to "The Western
Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois," above mentioned, but neverthe
less In Trust, provided it shall accept the trust by an instrument in writ
ing so stating, filed with this Will in the Court t\ here probated, within six
months after the probate of this Will — for the general purpose of promot
ing the Catholic Faith, in its purity and integnty, as taught in Holy Scrip
ture, held by the Primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds and
affirmed by the undisputed General Councils, and, in particular, to be
used only and exclusively for the purposes following, to wit : —
(1) The establishment, endowment, printing, and due circulation
of a yearly Sermon, to be delivered annually forever, ia memory of my
dear wife, .\nna McK. T. Hale, to be known as "The Hale Memorial Ser
mon," and
(2) The establishment, endowment, publication and due circula
tion of Courses of I,ectures, to be delivered annually forever, to be called
"The Hale Lectures."
The subject of this Sermon shall be some branch of Church Work,
in any part of the world, which, in the judgment of the Trustees of "The
Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois," deserves to be better

EXTRACTS FROM THE WILL

known, in order that it may be more adequately appreciated. These ser
mons shall be preached at such time and place as the said Trustees of The
Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, may appoint, and shall
be printed in a style similar to the Sermons of this kind already published
under my direction, viz: "Confucianism in its relation to Christianity,"
and "The Religion of the Dakotas." One hundred copies of each of these
Sermons are to be given, so soon as they come from the press, to the
preacher thereof, and one copy of such Sermon is, so soon thereafter as
may be, to be sent to each Bishop in the Anglican Communion, and to
such other Bishops as may be in full communion with these Bishops, to
the Patriarchs and other chief Hierarchs of the Orthodox Eastern
Churches, and to the chief Public Libraries throughout the world. Should
it be, at any time, deemed expedient to offer any of these Sermons for
sale, the entire receipts, over and above the expenses incurred in such
sale, shall be given to "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America,"
a Corporation existing under the laws of the State of New York, for the
uses of said Society.
The preacher of the flale Memorial Sermon shall always be a clergy
man of the American Church, commonly called "The Protestant Episco
pal Church," or of some Church in communion with the same, or of one
of the Orthodox Eastern Churches.

The Western Theological Seminary has accepted the Trusteeship as
outlined in the above extracts from the will of the late Bishop H^le.
It will be the aim of the Seminary, through the Hale Sermons, to
make from time to time some valuable contributions to certain pf the
Church problems of the day, without thereby committing itself to the
utterances of its own selected Preachers.

NOTE
The portions of this sermon which come most precisely under
the Hale foundation will be found on page 13 with the references
in the footnotes. 0. P. A.

The Work of the Church
on Behalf of Unity

CHURCH UNITY
A VENTURE OP FAITH
"Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will
lose his life for My sake shall find it." — S. Matt. xvi. 25.
''Salvation through self-abnegation" is one of
the daring paradoxes of Christianity which has
been abundantly verified in the lives of the makers
of progress. The principle is as true of the Church and
Nation as it is of the individual. It is a principle
which should govern the American Church and the
American Nation in these days. Both should ven
ture their very life, their structure, their resources,
and their possessions for the ideals which they
respectively represent. Both should find their
highest welfare, not in a close calculation of
material advantage, but in a reckless devotion to
spiritual principles. If they love their lives they
will lose their souls ; if they venture their lives for
God's sake they will save their souls.
It is a critical time in the world's history. It
is a testing time in the life of the Church. These
are days which measure the capacity of the Chris
tian Church for faith, for service, for sacrifice, and
for prophetic vision. The world will never again
be what it was prior to August 1914.

10 THE WORK OE THE CHURCH ON
It will never be the same politically. The irre
sistible power of democracy which has been slowly
arriving through the centuries will either be tem
porarily set back in its progress or it will acquire
a wider application and a richer meaning. The
science of diplomacy will either see a triumph of
deceit and intrigue or else it will be transformed
into an honest and open-minded skill in interna
tional conciliation.
The world will never be the same again industri
ally or socially. The relationship between Capital
and Labour, between master and man (to use an
expression that has already become taboo) will
be permanently altered. The coming day will wit
ness either the firmer establishment of a "benevo
lent feudalism" ' which hands dowii benefits to the
people, or else it will witness the supremacy of the
people and the assertion of their capacity for
partnership in the . management of the world's
industrial affairs.' A world made "safe for
democracy"— to quote President Wilson— will be
impatient with paternalism.
The world will never be the same again relig
iously. The nations are being drawn together into
an international fellowship of democracies ; and the
future of the Christian Church, humanly speaking.

' Ghent's "Our Benevolent Feudalism," p. 60. Professor Ely calls
it "enlightened absolutism."
^ See Ghent's "Our Benevolent Feudalism,'' pp. 123, 151 for denials
of the rights of labour and compare them with events in industry in
England, America, and elsewhere since the war began,

BEHALF OE UNITY 11
will depend largely on whether the churches will
allow themselves to be drawn together into a
catholic fellowship of the people of God.
These are the issues which the pregnant pains
of this travailing world announce— the new polit
ical democracy, the new social and industrial com
monwealth, the new coalition of the Christian
forces of the world, that a Christian civilization
may expand and endure.
A common danger, a lif e-and-death struggle, is
welding many of the nations into a compact alli
ance. Their sole hope for the triumph of democ
racy rests on their ability to combine their forces
in a single definite programme. What about the
churches? Will they lead the world into the con
sciousness of universal brotherhood; or failing in
that, will they follow the world's lead?
The Christian Church is facing the greatest
crisis in her history. That crisis was on before
the war came. The war revealed the crisis. It
revealed the fact that civilization cannot be built
on the shifting sands of materialism. It also con
victed the Church of incompetence as a world force.
It proclaimed its failure in the social and political
sphere. The crisis is still on. The main question
is this : Shall a Christian civilization founded on
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,
as taught by Jesus Christ, dominate the world?
The forces against us are mighty. The outlook is
dark. The hope of the churches is to be found
precisely where the hope of the nations is to be

12 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
found, in coming together into a single compact
Army of God.
The issues of to-day are not the local contro
versies between religious sects and political parties.
They are world issues. Sectarianism can no more
meet them than a detached group of Belgiums
and Serbias and Armenias could withstand the
organized might of Prussian militarism. Even
within the sphere of a special service in these war
times, all the churches, working separately, could
not make an aggregate contribution to the well-
being of our soldiers, sailors, and aviators, that
would approach the magnitude of the work done
by that international organization, the Young
Men's Christian Association,' To be efficient in a
single large undertaking they must combine. Truly
indeed could Dr. Mott say, with this object lesson
before him, "The greatest need of our generation
is that of apostles of reconciliation." The Y. M.
C. A., though not operated formally by the
churches, is sanctioned and supported by them and
floats the banner of Christ over all its works in all
lands. But what of those other moral forces and
Christian enterprises which a divided Christendom
has completely' divorced from the Christianity

' 1 am not unmindful of the excellent work done by the Knights
of Columbus. Such a work could only be done by such a strong
organization as the Roman Catholic Church. Both in its extent and
in its limitations it illustrates my point,

BEHALF OF UNITY 13
which gave them their impetus and inspiration?*
Sectarianism is necessarily incapable of thinking
nationally or acting internationally or moulding
the world conscience. "A united Christendom
alone can rise to the unique opportunities which
the heathen world now presents and meet the
crying social evils of our Western civilization.
Reunion is indeed the most imperative need of the
time, and any man or any body of men who are
guilty of obstructing that consummation by selfish
considerations alone, incur a serious responsibil
ity." ° In unity there is victory. In disunity there
is defeat. What are the prospects of Unity? They are
not very bright, except within the reahn of a very
prolific literature. Take the Anglican Communion.
It has been conspicuous in its advocacy of Church
Unity. Prom the time that it detached the Pope"
from its domestic councils and protested that in
doing so it did not detach itself from the unity of
Catholic Christendom'— from that time down to the

* See my "Manifestation of Unity," pp. 23-30, published by the
Joint Commission on the World Conference; Robert H. Gardiner,
Secretary, Gardiner, Maine.
""The People of God," Hamilton, Vol. II, p. iv.
" Convocation declared in 1534 that "The Bishop of Rome hath
not by Scripture any greater authority in England than any other
foreign Bishop." Vide Wakeman's "History of the Church of England,"
p. 222. This denial of a divine prerogative left untouched any question
of acquired primacy or authority.
'In 1533, Statute 25 Henry VIII, C. 21, stated "That the King
and Parliament did not intend by it (repudiation of Papal supremacy)

14 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
present it has been to the front in keeping the
matter of unity alive. By Canon" and Statute" it
reiterated its corporate membership in the Catholic
Church. Through informal correspondence" and

to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's Church in any
thing concerning the very articles of the Catholic Faith of Christendom."
See Green's "XXXIX Articles," p. 5.
"The Canon of 1571 concerning Preachers enjoined the clergy never
to preach anything to be religiously held and believed by the people
except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or New Testaments,
or which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from
that doctrine." Vide MacColl's "Reformation Settlement," p. 35.
" The Englisli Canon XXX says : "Nay, so far was it from the
purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches
of Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, or any such like churches in all
things which they held and practised, that, as the apology of the
Church of England confesseth, it doth with reverence retain these
ceremonies which do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend
the minds of sober men ; and only departed from them in those partic
ular points, wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their
ancient integrity and from the Apostolical Churches, which were their
first founders."
"Statute I Elizabeth, Cap. I, XXXVI, A. D. 1558, declared that
"nothing is to be adjudged heresy but that which heretofore has been
adjudged by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, or the first
four General Councils, or some other General Council, wherein the
same hath been declared heresy by the express word of Scripture," etc.
Vide MacColl's "Reformation Settlement," pp. 35, 36.
"Archbishop Wake corresponded with Galilean theologians in 1716
when they were feeling the stress of controversy with ultramontanism.
The Galileans desired that the English should "return into the bosom
of the Catholic Church on the same footing as the Galilean Church."
Archbishop Wake refused. Courayer's "Validity of the Ordinations of
the English" grew out of this correspondence. "Courayer contends for
their validity in the strongest possible terms." See J. H. Overton
and F. Relton — "A History of the English Church from the Accession
of George 1," etc., pp. 21-29.
The English Non-jurors had a correspondence with the Eastern
Orthodox bishops, 1716-1725. See Lathbury, "History of the
Non-jurors," Ch. VIII, London 1845, for a full account of this
correspondence. Lord Halifax, the Rev. T. A. Lacey, and other English Churchmen
had prolonged irenic conferences with the Abb6 Portal, the Abb6

BEHALF OF UNITY 15
formal resolutions" it initiated irenic conferences
with both Catholics and Protestants. In England "
and America,'' in Rome" and Russia," in Africa'"

Duchesne, and other Roman Catholics, which resulted in the bull
Apostolicae Cv/rae against Anglican Orders, to which the English
bishops replied in February, 1897. See "A Roman Diary," etc., T. A.
Lacey, p. 354; also "Leo XIII and Anglican Orders," by Lord Halifax;
also "Reunion Essays," by Carson, p. 251. For the reply of the English
bishops see "Answers of the Archbishops of England to the Apostolic
Letter of Pope Leo XIII on English ordinations," Longmans, Green
and Co.
In December 1899 a Conference on the Eucharist took place at
O.xford between Anglican and Non-conformist divines. See "Priesthood
and Sacrifice," edited by A. W. Sanday.
" See "The Lambeth Conference of 1897," compiled by Archbishop
Davidson, for the resolutions of the Conference in regard to the Eastern
Church, the Old Catholics, the Unitas Fratrum, the Church of Sweden,
the Latin Communion, and the Protestant Churches. See also "Con
ference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion," 1908, pp. 61-66 and
169-186, for further resolutions.
" The Savoy Conference of 1661 was attended by twelve bishops and
twelve Puritan ministers. The Hampton Court Conferen-e of 1604
was a meeting of Churchmen to which four prominent Puritan clergy
were invited. Both of these conferences, however, were far from irenic.
See Wakeman's "History of the Church of England," pp. 351-354,
382-384. In recent years gatherings of "Anglican and Free Church Clergy"
for conference on Unity have been quite frequent. See "Introduction
to the Study of Christian Reunion," A. C. Bouquet, pp. 169-177.
In 1857 the Association for promoting the Unity of Christendom
was formed. The Annual Report of 1900 stated that this Society had
"many thousands" of members, Anglicans, Greeks, Latins, Lutherans,
and others.
The Home Reunion Society conducted a conference between Anglican
and Congregationalist divines. See "England and the Holy See," Spencer
Jones, pp. 427-430.
'^ Dr. Muhlenburg made a notable effort towards Unity in the
General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1853. See
"Memorial Papers, with Introduction by Alonzo Potter," Philadel
phia, 1857.
In 1880 the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church put forth
the following declaration:
"The bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States of America in council assembled, as bishops in the Church of

16 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
God, do hereby solemnly declare to all whom it may concern, and
especially to our fellow-Christians of the different communions in
this land, who, in their several spheres, have contended for the
religion of Christ:
"(1) Our earnest desire that the Saviour's prayer 'that we all
may be one' may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily fulfilled.
"(2) That we believe that all who have been duly baptized with
water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost are members of the Holy Catholic Church.
"(3) That in all things of human ordering or human choice,
relating to. modes of worship and discipline or to traditional customs,
this Church is ready, in the spirit of love and humility, to forego all
preferences of her own.
"(4) That this Church does not seek to absorb other communions,
but rather, cooperating with them on a basis of a common faith and
order, to discountenance schism, to heal the wounds of the body of
Christ, and to promote the charity which is the chief of Christian
graces and the visible manifestation of Christ to the world.
"But Furthermore, we do afiirm that the Christian unity now so
earnestly desired by the memorialists can be restored only by the
return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exempli
fied by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its
existence ; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of
Christian faith and order committed by Christ and His apostles to
the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of
compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its
stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.
"As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as essen
tial to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Chris
tendom, we account the following, to-wit:
" ( 1 ) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the
revealed Word of God;
"(2) The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian
faith ;
"(3) The two sacraments. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord,
ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of
the elements ordained by Him;
"(4) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of
its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples
called of God into the unity of His Church.
"Furthermore, deeply grieved by the sad divisions which afflict
the Christian Church in our own land, we hereby declare our desire
and readiness, so soon as there shall be any authorized response to
this declaration, to enter into brotherly conference with all or any
Christian bodies seeking the restoration of the organic unity of the
Church, with a view to the earnest study of the conditions under which
so priceless a blessing might happily be brought to pass."

BEHALF OF UNITY 17
and Australia," in Sweden" and Germany," it has

For a reply on the part of the Disciples of Christ, see "A History of
the Disciples of Christ," by B. B. Tyler, pp. 82-94.
For an account of the negotiations between the Presbyterians and
the American Bishops, see "Church Unity : the Progress and Suspension
of the Negotiations between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the
Presbyterian Churches," Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1899.
" See Note 10 on page 14.
" For correspondence between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Metropolitans of the Russian Church see "Russia and Reunion", by
Biggs, pp. 237-259.
In 1908 the Lambeth Conference requested the Archbishop of Canter
bury to send a deputation to the National Council of the Russian Church,
and also requested the Aichbishop to appoint a permanent committee
to take cognizance of all that concerns relations with the Churches of
the Orthodox East. See "Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Com
munion," p. 61.
In 1914 the Rev. W. H. Frere delivered a course of lectures in
Russia under the auspices of the Russian Society for promoting Rap
prochement between the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
See "English Church Ways," by Frere, The Young Churchman Co.,
Milwaukee. A series of lectures under similar circumstances was
delivered by Fr. Puller in St. Petersburg in 1912, and published under
the title, "The Continuity of the English Church." Arrangements are
being made for some lectures in England on the Russian Chiirch by
distinguished Russian Churchmen, under the auspices of "The Anglican
and Eastern-Orthodox Churches Union." In 1909, under the auspices of
this last-named Society, a conference was held between the Nippon Sei
Ko Kwai and the Haristos Sei Kyo Kwai (the Anglican and Russian
Churches in Japan ) . Archbishop Nicolai attended the Conference. "An
Attempt at Unity in Japan," by Rev. Charles F. Sweet.
"At a Missionary Conference in Kikuyu the Bishops of Uganda
and Mombasa drew up a scheme of federation with the Protestant mis
sionary communities, and at the conclusion of the conference the Bishop
of Mombasa administered the Communion to the delegates from those
bodies. The Bishop of Zanzibar formally protested against the action
taken by his brethren.
" Conferences between Committees appointed by the Synod of the
Church of England in Australia and the General Assembly of the Pres-
bjrterian Church of Australia were held in Melbourne in 1906 and 1907.
Tentative resolutions were adopted looking towards a formal union of
the two churches.
"A conference between a Commission appointed by the Archbishop
of Canterbury and representatives of the Church of Sweden was held

18 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
pressed the matter on the churches. In the Chi
cago-Lambeth "Quadrilateral" it proposed a basis
of inter-church negotiations,'" and in the proposed
World Conference on Paith and Order ' it inaugu
rated a movement that has unity as its ultimate
object. Having said this it seems necessary to go
on and say that the Anglican Communion has been

under the presidency of the Archbishop of Upsala in September 1909.
See "The Church of England and the Church of Sweden," The Young
Churchman Co., Milwaukee.
For the relation between the Church of Sweden and the Episcopal
Church in America, see "The National Church of Sweden," Hale Lec
tures by Bishop Wordsworth (under the auspices of the Western
Theological Seminary, Chicago), pp. 399-414.
" Representatives of the Anglican Church participated in a Con
ference held at Bonn, with Old Catholics, Orientals, and others, under
the invitation of Dr. Dollinger. "Report of Proceedings at the Reunion
Conference held at Bonn, 1874," Rivingtons.
Several Anglicans were in attendance at the international Confer
ence of Old Catholics in Cologne in 1913.
^°The Lambeth Conference of 1897 reafiirmed its resolution of 1888,
which was substantially, though not exactly, the declaration of the
American Bishops in 1886. The "Quadrilateral" was put forth, not
so much as a basis of unity, but as "a basis on which approach may
be, by God's blessing, made towards Home Reunion." See "The Lam
beth Conference of 1897," p. 80.
^' At the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the United States of America in 1910, the following resolution
was adopted: "Whereas, There is to-day among all Christian people a growing
desire for the fulfilment of our Lord's prayer that all His disciples
may be one; that the world may .believe that God has sent Him:
"Resolved, That a, Joint Commission be appointed to bring about a
Conference for the consideration of questions touching Faith and
Order, and that all Christian Communions throughout the world
which confess our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour be
asked to unite with us in arranging for and conducting such a
Conference. "
Robert H. Gardiner, Gardiner, Maine, is the Secretary of that
Commission and will be glad to furnish literature covering the work
of the Commission.

BEHALF OF UNITY 19
as conspicuously timid in its practice as it has been
conspicuously bold in its theory. It is afraid of
its own ideals. It shrinks from the logical conse
quences of its own corporate actions. It is aca
demic. Must it not plead guilty to this charge?
What about others? They are probably no
better and no worse. Take the Roman Catholic
Church. Under the spiritual leadership of the
great Leo XIII there were grounds for hope that a
bridge might be built over the chasm that separates
the Roman Catholic Church from the rest of Chris
tendom.'' Mutual approach loomed up as a pos
sibility. Unhappily, however, a reactionary policy
subsequently prevailed, under which it was impos
sible for the non-Roman world to pursue the sub
ject except on a basis of intellectual suicide."
Passing from the venerable Church of Rome
to one of the youngest churches, take the case of the
Disciples of Christ in America." That organiza-

^'^ See Encyclical Letters, 1894, on the Reunion of Christendom;
1895, to the English people; 1896, on the Unity of the Church, in
"The Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII," Benzinger Brothers. For
a reply to the encyclical, Apostolicae Curae, see "Answer of the Arch
bishops of England to the Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII on English
Ordinations," 1897, Longmans, Green & Co.
23 "The Pope's good intentions," wrote Gladstone, "have broken
down and the true spirit of the Curia has triumphed over them."
Dr. Briggs, in his "Theological Symbolics," p. 234, states that the
encyclical of Pius X against Modernism led up to "a system of sus
picion, inquisition, and delation which has brought the administration
of justice in the Church into contempt and has forced a large propoxtion
of Catholic scholars to silence and retraction, or suspension, excom
munication, and withdrawal from the Church."
^' Organized May 4, 1810, "in order to carry out for themselves
the duties and obligations enjoined on them in the Scriptures." "A

20 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
tion started out with a single lofty purpose. It
would show the way to unity both in theory and
practice. How far has it succeeded ? It has made
some excellent contributions to the literature on
Unity." It has held up high ideals before the
Christian public. But has it not also succeeded in
adding to the confusion by creating first one and
then two'" additional organizations with their dis
tinct lines of differentiation and demarcation ? So
with all from first to last. All are academic and
none seems ready to make the self -forgetful ven
ture of faith.
But things cannot go on as they are. All is not
well in Zion. All is not well with the world. One
trembles to think how much of the guilt of this
world convulsion may rightly be charged up
against a divided and inefficient Church. Let that
pass, however. The immediate fact is that nothing
less than a world revolution is taking place. Move
ments as significant as the Mediaeval Renaissance,
the Protestant Reformation, and the French Revo
lution are going on before our eyes. Just as serf
dom gave way to feudalism, and feudalism- yielded
somewhat to altruism, so the present order is giving

History of the Disciples of Christ," B. B. Tyler. The Christian
Literature Co.
'^ The Christian Union Quarterly, edited by Peter Ainslie, Sem
inary House, Baltimore, Md., is an excellent publication devoted to
Unity. ^=The "Churches of Christ" appears to be an offshoot from the
"Disciples." Census of Religious Bodies, 1906, Part I, p. 15: Govern
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C.

BEHALF OF UNITY 21
way to some form of collectivism. Greek civiliza
tion had its day of glory and gave way to Rome.
Rome fell and gave way to the Christian civiliza
tion of mediaeval Europe. This civilization,
through reformation and revolution and reaction,
and through an over emphasis on the doctrine of
individual rights, gave way to what is proudly
called Modern Civilization. Its gods are individ
ualism, intellectualism, and materialism. It cannot
survive. It is breaking down as " a world in arms
hammers out its unknown future on bloody
anvils."" Can the churches remain' unmoved, like S.
Simeon Stylites on his pillar, as a staggering civi
lization passes on ? Can the churches remain static
while the whole fabric of society is undergoing
structural changes? Can a fossilized tradition
alism supply the spiritual dynamic to the new age ?
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day and
forever. ' '" That means that He is eternally young,
the Redeemer of the twentieth century. Dare the
churches go on preaching a disintegrated Christ to
this newborn era which is hailing internationalism
and the progressive solidarity of brotherhood as its
new Saviours? Must not the churches expect to
undergo something as revolutionary as what is
going on around them?
There will be a difference, of course, for the

^' Cram's "The Substance of Gothic," p. 2.
^^'Heb. XIII, 8.

22 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
Kingdom of Christ "is not of this world."'" The
revolution in the Churches will be a recovery and
not a discovery. They will discover no new faith,
but the recovery of the lost charter of the Church's
unity is surely the revolutionary challenge of the
hour. Only through a resurgent faith in the power
of Christianity to reassert its corporate strength
can we look beyond the social revolution of to-day
to the spiritual regeneration of to-morrow. Revo
lutions are frequently a compound of two ingredi
ents, evolution and recovery. They return to the
past to take a fresh grip on eternal verities, from
which base alone can. the human soul confidently
leap forward into the future. The Renaissance and
the Reformation were recoveries as well as evolu
tions. They returned to the past to find hope for
the future. The Renaissance revolted against
scholasticism and returned to the intellectual
atmosphere of Greece for the development of the
intellect. The Reformation revolted against eccle
siasticism and returned to the conscience of primi
tive Christianity for the development of the soul.""
So the new revolution in the churches may be con
fidently welcomed as an evolution and a recovery.
It will be a recovery of a lost conscience on the
unity of the Body of Christ. It will be an evolution
from chaos to cosmos.
There was a time when the Church was visibly

=»S. John XVIII, 36.
'" Gunsaulus' "Martin Luther and the Morning Hour in Europe,"
pp. 3-6. University of Chicago Press.

BEHALF OF UNITY 23
one; when the churches of Jerusalem and Rome
and Corinth and Ephesus and Phillipi and Colosse
were one ; when the churches of Europe and Asia,
with their varied and multitudinous membership,
were one. That was the most productive period of
the Church's life. That early Church was con
structive, dynamic, evolutionary, and revolu
tionary .°' It did not try to save its own life. It
made daring ventures for God. It was not self-
conscious. It was self -forgetful. It had a sublime
consciousness of a mission from God. It had an
overwhelming conviction that God so loved the
world that He sent His only-begotten Son that the
world through Him might be saved ; that God was
in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself ; that
the Church was the Body of Christ, the executive
agency for bringing in the Kingdom of righteous
ness and peace and joy; that Christ crucified was
to be preached as the power and wisdom of God,
even though it were a stumbling block to some and
foolishness to others. This was the Church's mes
sage. She could proclaim no other. She pro
claimed it, not for her own sake, but for Christ's
sake and the world 's sake. What matter what hap
pened, if she fulfilled her Mission ? What mattered
it if there were political persecution and social
ostracism, and perils by land and sea, and impris
onments and martyrdoms — what mattered all

'' "Early Christianity is not static and miraculous, but dynamic
and evolutional." — Professor Percy Gardner in October Hibbert Journal,
p. 122.

24 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
these things if the Kingdom of God were being
set up?
The Church was concerned with only one thing.
That one thing was not her own life. She risked
it every day in preaching her Gospel. As the Gos
pel was proclaimed the world began to be changed
and turned "upside down."" The corner stones
of our highest civilizations began to be laid. Lib
erty, fraternity, and equality began to be born.
Beneficent ideals began to find their way into the
statute-books of the nations. Guilds and crafts
and brotherhoods and sisterhoods for mutual help
and protection began to spring into being. A new
kind of art and architecture was born. Woman
began to occupy her proper place in the world.
Slavery began to be abolished. War itself started
out on its long, long journey towards extinction.
Men acquired a new conscience in regard to the
sinfulness of sin and the dignity of service. They
arrived at new ideals about home and wife and
child and mother, and the most hopeless of men
found a new power to lift them from the mire and
stand them up among the princes of God's people.
These things did not happen in a day. They have
not all fully happened yet. The Kingdom of God
is in process of becoming. But all that we mean
by a Christian civilization made continental strides
forward, as a self -forgetful Church staked its very
life on God in a hostile world.

'¦ Acts XVII, 6.

BEHALF OF UNITY 25
Come down several centuries. The Church had
then acquired great power, political and social, but
with it she became self-conscious ; conscious of the
greatness of the institution itself, conscious of her
power and pomp and glory. With the dawn of
self-consciousness she lost that self-forgetfulness
which had been the secret of her earlier strength.
Then followed spiritual decay. Then followed
revolt and schism as a righteous protest against
the loss of spiritual vision. Then followed in turn
the substitution of many churches for the one
Church of the New Testament and folios of theology
for the simple symbols of primitive Christianity.
Then followed later the same self-consciousness
on the part of the separate churches as they,
themselves, had protested against on the day of
their birth. Is not that the situation to-day?
The churches are self-conscious. They have a
meticulous dread that something may happen to
the outward fabric, to the traditions, to the sect
structure of the organization. What does it matter
what becomes of the churches, if the Church re
mains as God's vice-gerent, the witness for Christ
and the conscience of the nations ? They were the
spiritually dull ages of the Church that invented
such a title as "defender of the Paith," and con
ferred it on such a licentious Christian as King
Henry VIII. The Faith has never needed such
defenders. It needs propagators. It carries the
evidence of its truth along with it. The Church
needs no protectors to-day. It needs liberators.

26 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
The churches need to be liberated from sectarian
ism, from conventionalism, from the tyranny of
inherited pride, prejudice, and ignorance, and
from bondage to mere idiosyncracies. They need
to lose their sect-consciousness and to recover the
Kingdom-of-God-eonsciousness of an earlier day.
They need to go back to the rock from whence they
were hewn, in order that they may go forward to
new conquests of the waste places.""
What is Church unity ? In many minds it ap
pears to be synonymous with undenominationalism.
That would be an unspeakable calamity. The
elimination of differences would leave nothing
behind but an irreducible minimum which is
infinitely less than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor
is Church unity the same thing as interdenomina-
tionalism or federationism, although these may
squint in the right direction. Church unity cannot
be manufactured. A new Body of Christ cannot
be constructed by any human ingenuity. As Father
Kelly says in his "Church and Religious Unity,"
"a living unity cannot be constructed, but it al
ready exists in the Christianity we are trying to
apprehend." Even the coming together of the
churches would not constitute a brand-new Church
of Christ. On the other hand the churches cannot
realize or apprehend or show forth the power or
the unity of the Body while they are in a state of
organized schism. Unity is that condition of life

'Isaiah 51: 1-3.

BEHALF OF UNITY 27
under which the Body functions normally as a
single living organism. It is that condition under
which the churches lose themselves in the Church.
It is that condition under which all the parts work
in harmony with and under the direction of the
whole. It is that condition under which Christians
of every race can make their communion at the one
altar of Christ, under circumstances, however
variable, which have the sanction of the whole
Church. There are two ways of approaching the realiza
tion of unity— the way of mutual concession and
the way of mutual contribution. Those bodies
which are nearest akin might consolidate through
mutual surrender of their differences. A similar
process might then be repeated with the resultant
bodies. And so on. Such initial steps would appear
to be entirely practicable and would be a consum
mation devoutly to be wished. Ultimately they
might lead to the final goal. This method of ap
proach, however, is open to criticism. It is the way
of compromise rather than comprehension. It
demands concessions in an enterprise that calls for
contributions. Each concession may mean the for
feiture of some spiritual value. Concessions in one
direction would probably have to be followed by
concessions in another. Honest convictions touch
ing fundamental orthodoxy might soon become
involved. And at the end of a series of cautious
concessions a union might be reached at the expense
of life and truth. In this case the resultant church

28 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
would not be worth dying for nor be able to produce
saints and martyrs.
The other way of approaching the subject is
the way of faith. Faith in God, loyalty to Christ,
obedience to His will, a readiness to lose our
churches for His sake— is not this Christ's way?
It is along no highway of man's building that the
answer to Christ's prayer will come. It is through
no mechanical process. It is by no ecclesiastical
bargaining. It will come through a venture of
faith in Christ and through trust in the brethren.
When Christ instituted the great sacrament of
unity He required no preliminary agreement reach
ing out into the sphere of philosophy and meta
physics. ' ' Take, eat, ' ' He said, ' ' This is My Body.
Do this. ' ' It was an act of faith that was required,
not a full understanding; an act in which the
learned and the unlearned could participate with
equal affection and adoration. So with the unity
of the Body. It cannot be materialized through an
intellectual agreement covering a wide range of
thought, but it can be realized through an act of
faith in a Person and through the oblation of the
will. It was religious decay whereby Christ was
wounded in the house of His friends ; and only the
restoration of a sacrificial devotion to the Person of
Christ can heal the wounds. Christlikeness, within
the household of faith, if raised to a sufficiently high
level, will, in itself and by itself, restore the whole
ness of the Church. Christlikeness, and that alone,
will envelop within the unity those principles of

BEHALF OF UNITY 29
order and liberty that are essential to the solidarity
of the Christian Society. Is not this the meaning
of Christ's, prayer, that the visible oneness of His
people will convert the world, by convincing it that
such inseparability is the evidential embodiment
of a common Christlikeness at its base ? "
These are the two methods of approach— the
way of caution and the way of venture. The one
takes one trembling step at a time, the other stakes
everything on God. The one has been repeatedly
tried and has been uniformly abortive."' The
other has never been tried. And, after all, is not
the larger plan more practicable and more hopeful
than the piecemeal plan ? Many a man would gladly
lose his life for a great cause who would reluc
tantly yield a mere privilege to some hazardous
half-measure. The difficulties of reconciliation
are often in inverse ratio to the proximity of the
disputants. Family quarrels are notoriously hard
to settle. Some such considerations as these seem to lie
at the base of the proposed World Conference on
Faith and Order."" It aims to embrace all forms

'* "We cannot oppose 'organic unity' and 'spiritual unity' when
applied to the Church, as though they were mutually exclusive; for
just in so far as ithe Church is permeated through and through with
the presence of the Holy Spirit, will it be in a position to perfect
its organization for the accomplishment of the work God has set it
to perform and to realize its organic unity." Hamilton's "People of
God," Vol. II, p. 184.
'^ I do not mean that they have not been productive of good results,
but that they have not reached any definite form and shape.
30 "We believe that the time has now arrived when representatives
of the whole family of Ch/rist, led by the Holy Spirit, may be willing

30 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
of organized Christianity whose central principle
is allegiance to the incarnate Son of God. Rising
above everything partial and sectional, it would
assemble Catholics and Protestants into a confer
ence, so truly representative that it would be ecu
menical in its reach though without the embarrass
ment of power to bind its participating bodies.
Relying on the guiding Spirit of God rather than
on any skill in diplomacy, it would endeavor to
"make straight in the desert a highway for our
God." "On first thought the bigness of the plan
seems to make it impractical, if not impossible.
On second thought, however, it is its very bigness
which seems to make it possible and practicable.
Its wide scope lifts it above local difficulties. It
lifts it above the spirit of the age into the spirit
of the ages. There is scarcely a nation in the
world to-day wherein a national conference for
the same purpose could take place. Political
complications, educational controversies, social
inequalities between established and unestablished
churches— these and conditions such as these make
national conferences on Faith and Order quite
impracticable. But a World Conference lifts the
whole subject above those national and artificial
barriers that men erect between themselves; it
lifts it above the realm of racial types and local
phases ; it lifts it above the incidents and accidents

to come together for the consideration of questions of Faith and Order."
From the preamble to the resolution calling for the appointment of
the Commission.

BEHALF OF UNITY " 31
and tragedies of history into the clearer vision
of the universality of Christ and the unity of His
Body, the Church. Multitudinous difficulties auto
matically disappear as saints and scholars of many
lands and churches meet to contemplate a world
Saviour, saving a whole world, through a world
Church. ' ' "
Unity through a venture of faith: are the
churches ready for it? It certainly will not come
through argument. Are the churches prepared
to accept the positive principles (not the negative,
for people are generally right in their affirmations
and wrong in their negations) —are they prepared
to accept the positive principles of Catholicism
and Protestantism, in faith that when housed
under the same roof, contact and fellowship will
remove the difficulties and disarm the hostilities
that the separated parts have towards each other ?
That is the question. Have Romanism and Angli
canism and Protestantism and the Orthodox con
servatism of the East, such faith in God and such
confidence in the Christian brotherhood as to
believe that the demonstrated spiritual values
which each regards as its own special stewardship,
are compatible and reconcilable in the one house
hold of God ? "" Looking broadly over Christendom

^' From my address before the North American Preparatory Con
ference, Garden City, January 1916.
^* For an illuminating account of the agreements between Catholics
and Protestants, see the chapters on Comparative Symbolics in Briggs'
"Theological Symbolics," pp. 251-273. "The fundamental principles of
the Reformation were common to the Protestant Reform and the Roman

32 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
there are outstanding elements of interior religion
and of exterior structure which appear to have
demonstrated their right to be regarded as per
manent features of the Christian Church.
I. The positive principles of Protestantism
(to reverse the historic order) are permanent.
They are not ephemeral. They were not discov
ered by Protestantism. They were recovered.
Protestantism has no monopoly of them. The
Pope himself would probably put his imprimatur
upon them."" Is it conversion? Is it a conscious
diseipleship to Christ? Is it a free accessibility

Catholic Reform. The consensus of the Symbols of the Reformation,
even as regards the new doctrines, is much greater than the dissensus;
and it is just in this consensus that the real symbolic advance of the
Christian Church has been made."
"" The anathemas of the Roman Catholic Church are directed against
the rejection of truth on the part of Protestants, rather than against
their positive teachings. "If any one denieth," "if any one saith that
there is not," is the general form of the decrees of the Council of Trent
on Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, the Eucharist, etc. Even here
explanation, interpretation, and mutual humility may remove hostility.
Cardinal Wiseman approvingly quoted "the profound and pious
Mohler" as follows: "After observing," he says, "that no Catholic
can refuse to acknowledge with humiliation the corruptions of past
ages, that this proof lies in the very existence of Protestantism which
could not have existed without them; he thus concludes: 'Apprenez
done une fois, 6 Protestants, la grandeur des . abus que vous nous
reprochez sur la grandeur de vos propres ggarements. VoiUl le terrain,
sur lequel les deux gglises se recontreront un jour, et se donneront
la main. Dans le sentiment de nStre faute commune, nous devons nous
fierier, et les uns et les autres, 'Nous avons tons manquSs, I'Eglise seule
ne pent faillir; nous avons tons p6ch6s, I'Eglise seule est pure de
toute souillure'."
The failures of such attempts at reconciliation as were made by
DuPin and Wake, by Bossuet and Leibnitz, by Hugo Grotius and others,
have been due, as the Roman Catholic Bishop Doyle said, '.'more to
princes than priests; more to state policy than a difference of belief."
See Pusey's "Eirenicon," 1866, pp. 25, 26, 245; also Ainslie's "The
Message of the Disciples for the Union of the Church," pp. 66, 67.

BEHALF OF UNITY 33
to God in prayer? Is it a conscious spiritual
experience? Is it the priesthood of believers?"
Is it justification by faith? " Is it a belief in Holy
Scripture ? " They are the property of Christians
everywhere. It is isolation that makes heresy.
A truth may cease to be true when divorced from
other truths and put forth as exclusive truth.
Churches may be right in their attachment to their
principles and at the same time wrong in their
detachment from the fulness of truth as contained
within the life of the whole body. The problem
of unity, so far as it concerns Protestants, is not
to prove that their fundamental doctrines are
true. They are not seriously in dispute. The
problem is that of organically relating the parts
to the whole.
II. The Faith is permanent. "Earnestly

" The whole body of baptized Christians being "A spiritual house,
a,- holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (I S. Pet. II, 5) the
official ministers cannot be less than priests. The "priesthood of the
laity" does not mean the "laicising" of the priesthood.
"The controversy is over the word "only"; but "the difference is
not so great as it appears to be." "If Faith is the root of justification,
as the Roman Catholics teach, and all Christian graces spring from that
root, how does that differ from the Protestant teaching, that good
works are the fruits of faith f" See Briggs' "Theological Symbolics,"
pp. 310-316, for a comparison between Roman Catholic and Protestant
Confessions. " There was strange irony in Pope Leo's appeal to Protestants :
"Whereas, formerly they used to assert that the books of the Old
and New Testament were written under the inspiration of God, they
now deny them that authority; this indeed was an inevitable conse
quence when they granted to all the right of private interpreta
tion. . hence those confiicting opinions and numerous sects
that fall away so often into the doctrines of Naturalism and Rational
ism." — Encyclical Praeclara Oratulationis Puhlioae, June 20, 1894.

34 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
contend for the faith that was once delivered to
the saints," exhorts S. Jude. The Faith, what is
it? It is that light of truth and spiritual
experience which radiates from the Sun of
Righteousness and illuminates the pages of Holy
Scripture and the lives of holy men. It is that
body of truth which grows out from the central
fact that "the Word was made fiesh and dwelt
among us." It is that body of truth, formulated
from the Scriptures, which had the outward
sanction of an undivided Church and the inward
sanction of universal experience. Quod semper,
quod uMque, quod ab omnibus creditum est. The
Faith ! It is the watchword of Russia and of mil
lions of Christians in the East. By it they live.
For it they die. It is not theirs alone. Occident
and Orient can unite in singing—
"Faith of our fathers, Holy Faith,
We will be true to thee till death."
Again, the problem of unity is not that of discov
ering or rediscovering the Christian Faith. It is
the problem of fighting together under the banner
of the orthodox faith with all the orderliness of
an army of God.
III. The sacramental system is permanent.
A religion which revolves around the Incarnation
cannot be other than a sacramental religion. The
number of sacraments will depend upon one's
definitions. If a sacrament is defined simply as

BEHALF OF UNITY 35
' ' a visible sign of an invisible grace ' ' " the number
will be large. If the definition is drawn more
tightly, the number will be reduced." But the truth
or value of the thing itself is not dependent upon
any definition. Sacraments have always been
integral features of the Christian Church. There
has been a consensus concerning the two great
sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. The
dissensus concerning other means of grace cannot
rightly be erected into a barrier against a united
Church.'' IV. Episcopacy is a permanent feature of the
Church. Its importance lies not in the institution
itself but in the underlying principle of continuity
and order which it embodies. No attempt is here
made .to argue the question or to contrast it with
the papacy or the "historic presbyterate " or to
discuss its origin. This is only a bird's-eye view

" S. Augustine, The City of God, X, 5 : "Sacrifices signified the
things which we do for the purpose of drawing near to God. . A
Sacrifice therefore is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invis
ible sacrifice."
*' Only two Sacraments comply with the contents of the Anglican
definition — "generally necessary to salvation." This does not imply
that there are no other sacramental means of grace. Luther recognized
three Sacraments, Richard Baxter, five.
''' "The dispute as to the number of the sacraments is indeed 'a
question of a name.' . S. Thomas Aquinas seems to doubt, at least,
whether there are not more than seven Sacraments, divides the seven
into groups with very important notes of difference, and decides that
the Eucharist is 'Sacramentorum omnium potissimum.' The Council
of Trent has an anathema for any one who says that the seven Sacra
ments are so equal that none is more worthy than another; Richard
Baxter distinguishes between 'three sorts of Sacraments.' . . For
special vocations there are special means of grace." — Dr. Paget, Bishop
of Oxford, in "Lux Mundi," p. 355, 356, Fifth Edition.

36 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
of the things which for centuries have stood out
with a prominence that predicates their per
manence. As Dr. Briggs said in 1909, "History
speaks very strongly for the Historical Episcopate.
My historic sense . . . leads me to the opinion
that the Church, guided by the Divine Spirit, did
not err in its Episcopal government through all
these centuries."*" An institution which is
practically coterminous with the history of the
Christian Church, which obtains in probably two-
thirds of Christendom to-day, which is associated
with that part of Christendom which is least sus
ceptible to sect-disintegration— is it likely that
such an institution is to be entirely eliminated from
the united Church of the future?. Is there to be
no corporate continuity between the Church of
the future and the Church of the past, between
the Church of the age and the Church of the ages ?
V. The Papacy is permanent. One can respect
fully distinguish between the Papacy and papal-
ism. Papalism in the ecclesiastical sphere may

¦" "If a ministry came into existence, it was because some work
vital to the life of the Church had to be performed. If that ministry
became permanent, it was because the needs which called it into exist
ence proved to be permanent. If the same type of ministry and the
same titles prevailed in all the local Churches, it was because the same
needs were felt by all local groups of Christians." — ^Hamilton's "People
of God," Vol. II, p. 170.
"The president, sometimes called the pastor, but usually the bishop,
became gradually the centre of all the ecclesiastical life of the local
Christian Church and the one potent office bearer. . . . The change
came gradually. It provoked no great opposition. It was everywhere,
or almost everywhere, accepted." — "The Church and the Ministry,"
Lindsay, p. 205.

BEHALF OF UNITY 37
be in the same category with Kaiserism in the
political sphere. The onward march of events may
remove both from the world. But this does not
mean the overthrow of government and headship
in Church and State. Democracy does not mean
anarchy or unbridled individualism. S. Paul was
the spokesman of the Christian democracy: "By
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be
bond or free." But this same S. Paul was a
stickler for order and organization: "God hath
set some in the Church, first ajjostles, secondarily
prophets, thirdly teachers. ' ' A constitutional head
of the Church" would not be out of harmony with
the coming democracy, nor with vital Christianity.
"The primacy of Rome was recognized" in the
first place "because she was the champion of
Christianity in holy love." She may become so
again. What would happen if the whole Prot
estant world accepted the Pope's invitation to
' ' come home ' ' ? The atmosphere would be changed,
the fabric would undergo repairs, and some things
that are obnoxious would become obsolete. A
constitutionalized papacy makes no violent break

*' See Briggs' "Church Unity," 421-425. Also Gore's "Orders and
Unity," p. 195, as follows: "The Roman Communion is a great and
wonderful part of the Christian Church, with a wonderful power of
recovery and expansion, and, in moral and administrative matters, a
wonderful power of self-reform. It is astonishing, if you read Calvin's
denunciations of the Roman Church in his Institutes, to reckon how
many of the abuses which he denounces have been completely remedied.
But it is equally evident, at least to the present writer, that the Roman
development of Christianity is a one-sided development."

38 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
with the past, contains no prejudices against the
future, is not inimical to democracy, and it is not
practicable to' eliminate it from a world-wide
Christian fellowship. What Protestant Christian
is there, who does not desire corporate communion
with such stalwart Christians as Cardinal Mer-
cier and Father Velimirovic, who found their
lives by losing them in shepherding their bleeding
flocks? These are some of the outstanding features of
organized Christianity. They stand apart. The
papacy, episcopacy, the presbytery— they stand
apart. The priest and prophet stand apart. Is
this aloofness and antagonism to be permanent ? "
Arguments cannot heal the breach. Faith and
courage can; and these are within reach. The
way of comprehension is the way of faith and
courage. Unity by comprehension gives each body
the unique opportunity for conquest from within.
Heretofore the attacks have been made from with
out. Each has hurled against the other its heaviest
guns and its fiercest missiles. The result is a drawn
battle and a no-man's-land of utter desolation.
The time has come for each to admit this, and,
48 "Xhe Reunion of the Protestant churches would be the completion
of but one column only of the triumphal arch of the one true Church.
The other column stands apart — the Roman Church; its base, as it
claims, the rock on which the Church is founded, built of the memorial
stones of the ages, unshaken in its massive proportions. Shall the two
columns remain forever apart? Rather has it not already come to the
point where on either side may be discerned the beginning of the curve
which, when carried up to completion, shall make the one perfect arch?"
Newman Smyth's "Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism,"
p. 175.

BEHALF OE UNITY 39 •
without surrender, to seek the privilege of dem
onstrating as a partner what he failed to do as
a rival. Has each Church sufficient confidence in
its own position to believe that it would find a place
in the sun, if brought into interior contact with its
undefeated foe? It may be said that the body of
the larger claims would thus absorb the body of
the smaller claims. On the contrary, would not
the process be a kind of mutual assimilation rather
than a one-sided absorption? In the composition
of water, oxygen does not absorb hydrogen. They
blend, and the lesser ingredient is as essential as
the greater. That Church which undertakes to
absorb another Church must expect great inte
rior consequences. Let us suppose, by way of
illustration, that the Anglican Communion went
bodily into the Roman Communion, retaining cer
tain easily granted rights and privileges."" Which
would take the greater risk? The Roman. For
why? The Anglican Communion would not have
to abandon any dogmatic principle, though, for
the time being, it would have to acquiesce in some
novelties towards which it had taken a negative
position. It would gain a strategic position in

" At any rate this was the attitude of Pope Leo XIII towards the
Eastern Churches. "Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that
account that We or any of Our successors will ever diminish your
rights, the privileges of your patriarchs, or the established ritual of
any one of your churches. It has been and always will be the intent
and tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that
is right and good, for the primitive traditions and special customs of
every nation." — Encyclical on the Reunion of Christendom, June 20,
1894.

40 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
being able to operate from the inside. The Roman
Communion, on the other hand, would take great
risk in receiving into the fold a powerful influence
which might compel it to reconsider certain defi
nitions which it presumed to make while in a state
of isolation from the rest of Christendom. Or, let
us suppose again, and again by way of illustration,
that the Presbyterian Church, retaining certain
readily granted rights, were to come bodily into
the Anglican Church. Which would take the
greater risk? The Anglican. For why? The
Presbyterians would not have to give up their
positives, though they might have to acquiesce
temporarily in some things towards which they
have taken a negative position. They would cap
ture a strategic position for converting Anglican
ism from within instead of attacking it from
without. The Anglican Communion would rmi
the risk of being overwhelmed by such a stalwart
spiritual force. Paradoxical as it may seem, the
absorbing body (if unity necessitated absorption)
takes the greater risk. Herein is the strength of
the Protestant position. It added no new dog
mas"" and therefore it would have to surrender
none. It would lose nothing and gain the pearl
of great price— the lost principle of unity.
But why talk of risks, when the great Head
of the Church said that he that would lose his life

™ "No Symbol has been adopted by aiiy Protestant Church which
adds anything whatever to the historic Faith of the Church." Briggs'
"Theological Symbolics," p. 248.

BEHALF OF UNITY 41
shall find it; and that the gates of hell could not
prevail against the Church? Why talk of risks,
when "the unity of the Church is in holy love
which binds Christians to Church and to one
another"? Why talk of risks, when the only risk
is that of making the grand discovery that things
which men thought were contradictory are really
complementary ?
One does not like to quote Nietzsche much in
these days, but he says some things that stir our
sluggish souls. ' ' Live dangerously, ' ' he says. Live
courageously. Courage is the keen desire for life
which takes the form of a challenge to death.
God give the churches the faith and the courage
to stake everything on Him!
The substance of it all is this: The world is
groaning in pain. Vital principles are coming to
the birth. A new age is dawning. That new age
is to be indelibly stamped with internationalism,
with a new social order and a wider ideal of
brotherhood. These things are the outgrowth of
Christianity. They must not be cut off from the
Church. They must be housed within it. Can our
chaotic Christianity preach and practise the gospel
of brotherhood in Jesus Christ to a world that is
beginning to dream of a universal Kingdom of
God? Shall the churches lag behind the times?
Will they learn to think and speak and act in
terms of the whole? Will they abandon their
self-consciousness and enter upon a self-forget
ful adventure for the visible unity of the

42 THE WORK OF THE CHURCH ON
people of God? Will they discern the signs of
the times?
Nation is rising against nation, and Kingdom
against Kingdom. There are famines and pesti
lences and fearful sights and great signs. Upon
the earth there is distress of nations with perplex
ity. The sea and the waves are roaring. Men's
hearts are failing them for fear and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth.
The powers of heaven are being shaken. Let us
read the signs of the times. Let us look through
the war clouds that darken a distraught world and
see the Son of Man coming anew into the lives of
men with power and great glory.

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