Note Return to text — PART II

To many it may seem that the ideal of a single organically united Christian Church is a wild and impracticable dream. To some it will appear as an altogether undesirable object to set before ourselves. We are indeed perpetually reminded in a variety of ways of the inestimable gain which comes to the Kingdom of God through the wide differences of opinion and view-point represented by the existing sections of the Christian Church. If union spelt uniformity, I confess that I should be found amongst its strongest opponents. If, indeed, it stood for merging all differences and an emphasis upon nothing beyond the minimum upon which we are all agreed, I could not look forward with any satisfaction to such a prospect. To me, however, union stands for something far other. My ideal of it is represented by the following sentence from the report presented to the Edinburgh Conference on this subject: “They desire that ... those who are at present separated should seek to be led by the Spirit of God into a unity in which all that is true and vital in the principles and practices of each may be preserved and reconciled.... Unity when it comes must be something richer, grander, more comprehensive than anything which we can see at present. It is something into which and up to which we must grow, something of which and for which we must become worthy. We need to have sufficient faith in God to believe that He can bring us to something higher and more Christ-like than anything to which at present we see a way.”[Footnote 4]