WANTED—A SIMPLIFIED RELIGION.
[To sae EDITOR or D. "Prue...n."] Stu,—At a time when the country is engaged in a life-and- death struggle the Times publishes the miserable squabblings of ecclesiastics, and in the county town of Kent one of the nfilitant Church Societies has just held a meeting at which the views of their fellow-Churchmen who hold different opinions were venomously assailed. I express no opinion on the points in dispute—my question is, Has not the time come when the thousands who are weary of these unending squabbles should unite in securing a simplified religion in which the unessentials should be ignored and a return be made to the fundamentals of the Sermon on the Mount and the beautiful system of Brotherhood in Christ P That there is ground for such a simplified religion has been proved by the Y.M.C.A. tents and rooms, where thousands of oar soldiers of all denominations have joined in simple services and have discovered their Brotherhood in Christ. When the war is over these men will have learnt lessons of toleration which they will never forget, and what are the Churches going to offer them P Squabbles over details of weeds will be a poor substitute for the catholic—in the right sense of the word—simple services they have enjoyed in the Y.M.C.A. tents and rooms. I am a Churchman, but I believe the extreme parties have ruined the Church's life, and I look for a movement that will make men forget their differences and join in a simple form of service that would bring us again into direct touch with God. My name would carry no weight —I write merely as one of the thousands waiting for realities
in place of formulae—so I sign myself BXPECTANS.
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