CHRISTIAN UNITY.
[To THE Boma or THE "SPECTATOR.") fins,—For a considerable time some of us—I do not refer to the Council of the Life and Liberty Movement, whose views on the subject I have no means of knowing—have desired to enter into closer relationship with the Free Churches. Some time ago we were asked to do nothing until after the next Bishops' meeting, but lately we have been admonished to hold our hands until after the Lambeth Conference. The Lambeth Conference approaches, and our minds are now being prepared by some who will be present for what -would be for us something approaching a calamity. We are advised that the Conference is not likely to come to any very definite decisions, nor are its findings to be regarded as anything more important than the opinions—weighty, no doubt—of a number of Bishops who have been called to confer in the Library at Lambeth. This would create .a very difficult position for those who are seeking definite and authoritative guidance on what are surely the most urgent problems that now confront the Catholic Church.
During the last few years we have frankly altered our point of view. We desire now, for a variety of reasons, the chief of which is what we think we have learned during the war of the mind of our Master, to receive as communicants at the altar in our Churches all lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ who are willing and able to say, " Lord, I believe, help Thou mine un- belief." Further, we desire that those clergy who are of our mind should not be regarded as disloyal to their own Church er to their belief on the subject of Episcopacy if they accept, from time to time, the invitations of Free Church ministers to receive Communion in their Churches. These questions, we venture to think, are the vital ones, and other things, as, for instance, interchange of pulpits, are in our judgment sub- sidiary and relatively unimportant. It is here that we passionately ask for decisions. Are we loyal priests within the Church of England if we proceed to these lengths? We do not know, and we desire to be told by men who are not only eminently capable of expressing .the mind of the Anglican Com- munion, but are also its accredited leaders-in matters of faith and doctrine. Not for a moment do we suggest that our judg- ments are necessarily right. Desiring, as we do, the good of the Church as a whole and not merely the indulgence of our own particular fancies, I believe we would prefer that the decisions should go against us rather than that the Church should continue in these days to have no voice and make no ruling on subjects of such primary importance.
May I be permitted, as representing a possibly small and rather inarticulate minority within the ministry of the Church of England, to beg that the Bishops who shall meet at the Lambeth Conference will not hesitate, under the guidance of God, to declare their mind—whatever the consequences may be to us—with no uncertain voice? I am venturing to crave the hospitality of your columns during the week when another point of view will no doubt be expressed with great weight and courage in the Albert Hall.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H. R. L. SHEPPARD.
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