Home Reunion. By Earl Nelson. (John Murray. 6s. net.)—' Earl
Nelson has much that is worth hearing to say on this subject, and he quotes words of wisdom from others. The one of these utterances which seems to us best to suit the case is the Bishop of Ripon's: "There is a more excellent way than the pathway of surrender, or the pathway of concession. There is the pathway of common duty." If we could all be content ta follow this counsel and let other things wait, some good must surely follow. We are met, of course, on the threshold by the difficulty that of the four essentials demanded by the Lambeth Conference, one is the "Historic Episcopate." This is perfectly reasonable; only we cannot expect the Presbyterians or Congre- gationalists to accept it. But we may have them as allies, just as nations may be excellent friends who would not consent to be naturalised en masse. There is one thing to which we strongly object. Earl Nelson heads one of his chapters "The Narrowness of the Protestant Mind." We may remind him that all the great Anglican divines before 1830 called themselves by this name, and that the majority of Anglicans are still proud of it. And we have no doubt that if by any means there could be brought about a reunion which should unite the Anglican Church and the Church of Rome and leave out the Nonconformists it would be, to us at least, a disaster. We cannot help thinking that the second half of this book would be better away. "It may be an olive branch," as J. H. Newman said of a certain Eirenicon, "but it is dis- charged out of a catapult !"
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