CHRISTIAN REUNION.
[To raft Marron or THE " SesersTtS."l Sia,—While the cause of Christian reunion, with which you have often expressed a generous sympathy, seems to make but little visible progress at home, there are some encouraging signs that it is gaining ground in the far-off regions of the Empire and beyond them. May I cite three notable events in the recent history of the Reformed Churches?
For some time past, since and even before the Lambeth Conference of 1920, some of the Indian dioceses, especially, I
think, the dioceses of Madras and Bombay, have been the scenes of movements tending in a remarkable degree towards the creation of a single national Church of India. To speak of these movements in detail would be to make an undue demand upon your space. But, apart from all that has happened in those dioceses, I have lately received an interesting account of a service which is described as having been held at Agra " in response to the appeal for unity made by the Lambeth Conference." It was a service in which representative clergymen and ministers of tho Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Baptist and Weeleyan Churches all took part; " large contingents" came to it " from the various Indian Churehes"; and the sermon, which was preached by a Baptist minister, was delivered both in English and in Hindustani. If I may quote the language of a local newspaper which is lying before me, " Such services might easily form part of the Church life of every big station in India, and their effect on the various congregations cannot be over-estimated."
At the time, if not on the very day, of the service in Agra a conference of the Alliance of Missionary Societies of British East Africa assembled at a place already famous in the history of. Christian inter-communion, viz., Kikuyu. The conference passed a series of resolutions, of which the first runs as follows: "They feel with all the strength of conviotion that it is their insistent duty to endeavour to the utmost to remove the disabilities which are to a large extent preventing the formation of a united Church in Kenya Colony and Protec- torate, especially among the native Christians. They believe that it is not even yet too late to achieve in this, still to a large extent virgin, field a triumph for Christ in avoiding the disgrace of imposing perplexing and weakening sectarianism upon those to whom 'the various Churches are endeavouring to communicate the one Gospel of their one Lord." It was, if I am rightly informed, in connexion with this conference that the Rev. Dr. Arthur, the head of the Mission of the Church of Scotland in Kikuyu, preached a sermon at All Saints' Church, one of the Anglican ohurehes in Nairobi.
Within the last few days has come the report of a conference representing all the Christian Churches in China except the Church of Rome. No fewer than a thousand delegates from the Churches, half of them being Chinese, have held a series of meetings in the Town Hall at Shanghai. It is'reported by a correspondent of the Times that "the main theme before the conference is 'the Chinese Church,' and the supreme concern of the delegates is that this Church shall be not an imitation of a Western society, but true to the genius and traditions of China." As the number of native Christians in China has been more than quadrupled, and the number of communicants has increased from 85,000 to 266,000 in the last twenty years, it is clear that the organization of a national Church of China has already become an urgent problem.
The three events to which I have drawn attention cannot fail to suggest the hope that Christian reunion, if it proves for the moment to be impracticable in Great Britain, may soon or late be commended with an almost irresistible force to the Archbishops and Bishops and to the clergy and laity of the Church, as well as to the ministers and members of the non- Episoopalian Churches, by the deliberate refusal of the Churches abroad to follow in their organization the dividing lines which have so gravely impaired the moral and spiritual authority of all the Christian Churches at home.—I am, Sir, • The Deanery, Durham. J. E. C. WELLDON.
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