rou.oWING ON THE 'Bishops' Report' which caused a stir in
Scotland, an interim statement has just been issued on the conversations which have been' going on between the Church of England and the Methodist Church about intercommunion. Both these are the outcome of Dr. Fisher's 1946 Cam- bridge sermon ,when he suggested that it would be a step forward in Church relations if the Free Churches took episcopacy into their systems. This interim statement avoids passing judgment on the Archbishop's suggestion, but does report that in its original form the proposal would be unaccept- able to the Methodist Church. It seeks a way out of this impasse. A new suggestion is that, in addition to a simple grafting of episcopacy on to Method- ism, there should be a unification of both churches' ministries, so that the Church of England and the Methodist Church would exist side by side with parallel ministries, joint• consultations and a large Measure of intercommunion. The signatories rightly say that their proposal would avoid 'con- stitutional' difficulties, yet they insist' that inter- communion on these terms should mark no more than a stage towards organic unity.
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