IN DEFENCE OF THE FAITH [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Distance is my excuse for the lateness of this letter. I have read with great interest your series of articles "In Defence of the Faith" which have been conducted on the principle that "any full and enduring creed needs for its conservation some institutional form." The articles on Reunion which you propose to publish in the autumn will be concerned with the essentials of that form.
As this is a matter of vital importance to the laity, will you give me space to say that what the laity are hoping and praying for is a Church which will be constituted as an avenue of approach to God, and not as a barrier to exclude from God all those who do not belong to some particular section of the Church. Canon Trotter, in your issue of June 15th, expresses the feelings of the laity when he says :—
‘. If we study the mind of Christ, is it conceivable that He would approve the denial, or, what is to my mind just as bad, the grudging and reluctant admission, on the part of a section of His professed followers, or any other section of His followers, to belong, in their organization, to His flock ; and while back to the Apostolic age' is very important, back to Christ' is infinitely more so."
In the mind of the lay Churchman, the greatest danger with which our national religion is faced is that the Church may be exalted above the Christ, and the fear of the priest above the love of God. Our earnest hope is that the Lambeth Conference will realize this danger, and that the keynote of plans for Reunion will be comprehension and not exclusion.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN ANGLICAN LAYMAN.
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