THE CHURCH AFTER THE WAR.
ITo THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—Your review of Mr. Crane's Church Dirisions and Christianity tempts me to lay before you a suggestion of a method -sehich has long been in my mind as providing a practical solution of the great problem with which the Church is now confronted. On all sides the question is being asked, 'What is to be the position of the Church after the war? This great human catastrophe cannot leave her as it found her. Is she to come forth from it with new life and power, or is she to perish? The voice of the " Student in Arms " is but one among a multitude calling for reality, simplicity, and unity. It is on the, attainment of these qualities that her future depends. If the old conventions, the old complications, the old divisions and antagonisms pass on unchecked intsithe new age, nothing can save the Church from a most pitiful failure. And in writing thus I do not refer solely to the Anglican Church. I include organized Christianity in all its forms, as it exists in these islands.
During the lifetime of a whole generation there has been a growing realization of the evils of our present divisions. Conference after Conference has been held, Society after Society has been created, Prayer Unions for systematic intercession have tome into existence, and all with a view to promoting Christian reunion. The Lambeth Conference of Bishops, representing the whole Anglican Communion throughout the world, has in its more recent sessions frankly given this question a place of first, importance. It cannot be said that the Church has neglected to think and pray about it. And yet we seem to get no further. At our Conferences we enter into the most friendly discussions, we seem to 'be pushing on in a hopeful direction, and then suddenly we find ourselves up against a stone wall.
It is very easy to denounce this obstruction as the arrogance of the Church, or priestly assumption. In a degree such denunciations are based on truth. There is ecclesiastical arrogance, and priestly assumption is common enough. But there is something far more potent behind. I may tall it the principle of territorial exclusive- ness. The old proprietor resents the intrusion of the newcomer who secures a share of his privileges. In the case of a Church this resentment is strengthened and apparently justified by the consciousness of a Divine Mission. Just as the doctrine of the Divine Right of _kings seemed to make rebellion impious, so the Divine Mission of the Church seems to make Nonconformity a site Logic takes sides with prejudice and makes prescription sacrosanct.
What wo have to learn is that God's methods of working are always above such logic. If history affords any clue to His ways, we have reason to think that He very often makes the Noncon- formist His messenger. It is not by ens, means His unvarying custom to confine His operations to the organized rule of the priestly caste. In the history of Israel the prophet is a grander figure and a more potent spiritual force than the priest. The call of God came to the prophet as a voice from above speaking to his heart and conscience, and imposing a mission by direct inspiration. It took Amos from the herds, it brought Elijah from the desert, it found Isaiah as he worshipped in the Temple. The prophet broke in upon the settled order of the Church, and sometimes paid for his intrusion with his life. " Oh, Jerusalem," cried our Lord, " thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee."
Has England lacked her prophets? Surely net. And if that be true, Milton, Bunyan, George Fox, and Wesley must be counted among the greatest.
Now in the Jewish Church it was the intermingling of the prophetic strain with the priestly that gave to Hebrew religion its spiritual greatness. Surely it is clear that British Christianity has never been able to realize its higher possibilities because it has failed to combine these two elements. Many of our greatest prophets could find no place in our National Church, and, worse still, the mighty influences which they set going have never been able to penetrate her system sufficiently. The Church has failed through incapacity to assimilate all the elements of good presented to her. it might almost be said that there were times in her history when the Church of England cultivated exclusiveness as if it were a Christian virtue. Impenetrability was regarded as u spiritual excellence.
If Bergson has taught us anything, it is that interpenetration is the mark of life. impenetrability is the mark of the material, the mechanical. Not until British Christianity is able to blend into one life, by a complete interpenetration, all the spiritual elements which are alive and potent in the social system, shall wo see the Anglican Communion fit for the great task which God has entrusted to her. What madness to turn away to the alien Communion of-Rome, or the remote Church of the East, while excluding the great Christian forces which represent so many mighty prophetic ministries and which have shown so much
splendid spiritual vitality! What I plead for is the recognition of the principle of interpenetration.
The fruitlessness of the efforts which have been made hitherto to attain Home Reunion is very largely due to the fact that those who took the matter in hand always worked with a view to framing some plan of accommodation, some organized system which would combine all the conflicting elements. So it was that on one side we ran up against the " historic episcopate," and on the other against a supposedly defective ecclesiastical descent. Each side was asked to deny some principle or institu- tion with which its whole history had been identified. But surely there is another way. It is the way of brotherly intercourse on equal terms, of the admission to Christian fellowship of all who hold the elements of the Christian Creed, of a larger freedom in the use of the pulpit, and; above all, of united counsel in Synod or Convocation of all the Christian Churches of the Empire. It is to the last especially that I would look for a true advance towards that real Union which can only be attained by interpenetration. Those who took part in the Edinburgh Missionary Conference can form some idea of what the spiritual force of such an assembly would be. Never was there a gathering so marked by reality, simplicity of aim, and inner spiritual unity. it was a revelation of what would be the result if a true interpenetration of spiritual forces could be brought about.
Why should not a movement be set on foot to call together such an assembly as I have indicated within a reasonable time after the declaration of peace? And why should it not be established as a permanent Imperial Institution meeting at regular periods, say once in every three or four years? If a true Parliament representative of the Christian forces of the Empire were called together by Royal authority and empowered to advise the State on such questions, affecting moral issues, as might be referred to it; and, independently of such activity, encouraged to consider the co-ordination of spiritual efforts, tho effect could not but bo very great. It would certainly make for reality. It would as certainly tend to n simplification of theological tests. It would most assuredly lead to a greater degree of mutual understanding and to a consequent economizing of force : there would be less overlapping and less competition in the religious world. There would emerge a clearer view of the true end of Christian activity and a surer aim. And, above all, there would be attained a real effective unity in- some departments at all events of our •national
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