THE MODERN CHURCHMEN'S UNION
[To the Editor of THE SescrArou.] Snt,—The regrettable resignation of the Dean of St. Paul's from the Presidency of the Modern Churchmen's Union occurred over the Rumanian negotiations. The majority of the Council of the M.C.U., although keenly desirous of inter- communion with the Rumanian Church, felt that the Bucharest Formula really misrepresented the doctrinal position of the Church of England and they shrank from securing inter- communion with the Rumanians on such a basis.
The majority of the Council also feared that the Bucharest Formula, if accepted, would make inter-communion- with English Free Churchmen more difficult, and further that it might even be used for that purpose by those Anglicans who are opposed to inter-communion with Free Churchmen, except on Anglo-Catholic terms.
As for our late President's desire to see the M.C.U. a com- prehensive religious society—not a few of our members warmly support him in that policy. They desire to see the M.C.U. a congenial and influential meeting ground for both Liberal Catholics and Liberal Evangelicals as well as for Modernists, sans phrase, but the one qualification needful for useful co-operation between all parties is that they should be liberal, for without liberality there can be no comprehen-
Ripon Hall, Oxford. (A vice-president of the M.C.U.), [A distinction must be drawn between the immediate occasion and the general cause of the resignations. The immediate occasion was, as Dr. Major says, the Rumanian negotiations. The general cause, as was - stated in " A Spectators Notebook " last week, and as the resigning officials themselves state in a letter in Wednesday's Times, was a difference of view about broadening the basis of the Union.— En. The Spectator.]
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