A United Church ?
The report on the reunion of the Churches produced by a joint conference of Anglicans and Free Churchmen will serve as focus for a good deal of useful discussion in the immediate future. Whether the plan as it stands can form a basis for action is more doubtful. The desirability of religious union, so far as it entails compromise on non- essentials only and not the sacrifice of what some of the bodies concerned hold to be essentials, will be questioned by no one, though effective co-operation can be carried a long way without actual corporate union. The fact that the Free Churches have not yet achieved union among them- selves raises doubts as to whether the time is ripe for the larger reunion which the report contemplates. The central problem is episcopal ordination. For most Anglicans it is a sine qua non, admitting of no discussion and no com- promise. By a large number of Free Churchmen its indis- pensability will never be admitted, and the principle of inter-communion which the report advocates cannot be applied in any fullness if the Free Churches claim that non-episcopal ordination is valid and Anglicans hold that the Sacraments are invalid unless administered by one episcopally ordained. The fact that difficulties exist does not mean that the great ideal of a United Church must be abandoned. It does mean that the approach to it must be long and patient. * * * *
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