the movement drags and many have grown hopeless of reunion, or turn away from the hope and are seeking to find comfort in an intensified denominationalism. Neither of these reactionary attitudes is Christian, or statesmanlike.

It behooves us all to frankly face, and answer to the best of our ability, the question "Why the Movement for Church Unity Lags."

Though it may seem a puerile form with which to hold the attention of thinking men, I venture to present my personal analysis of the limping pace in five alliterations of the letter P; i.e., Precedent, Preoccupation, Prejudgment, Pride, Possession.

Precedent: We are all the disciples of class tradition. We are all the subservient members of a group consciousness. We accept what has been, as the justification of what is. Now there is truth in the position of the traditionalist. His truth is not necessarily a theological but a social truth; i.e., the value of a certain religious atmosphere for our own personal religious life and career. A man's religious life usually flourishes best in the church of his forbears. But a certain inertia of thought and action is also a concomitant of precedent and tradition. The average churchman takes his theological and ecclesiastical shibboleths from his bishop, theological professor and board secretary. He is not prepared to investigate, or judge, for himself of the relative merits of his separate communion, or the relation of his part of the Church to the whole Church. Three or four hundred years of denominational history seems to him a long and venerable life for a church. What went on before, or besides, his own historic group may interest the Church historian, but for him-"the practical

layman"-he rests content in the way of his fathers and moves on in the narrow groove of denominational tradition. He is pointed out as a "loyal" Episcopalian or Lutheran, Baptist or Methodist, Disciple or Congregationalist. To investigate or revalue one's own denominational history, theology and life in the light of other theologies and cults, looks like making an ignominious surrender to "modern thought" or "unionistic disintegration." So men wrap the drapery of a somnolent particularism about them and lie down to pleasant dreams of world conquest. Precedent in industry, government, social life and church often stands as a barrier to a broad, progressive view of truth and the betterment of life generally. Precedent must justify itself in the light of reason and experience in order to be respectable. "The church of my fathers is good enough for me" sounds quite loyal and sufficient, but in nine cases out of ten it reveals intellectual stagnation and a disinclination to move out into the larger Christian thinking and fellowships.

Preoccupation is the second obstacle in the pathway of realizing the unity of the Church. The average bishop and minister is so absorbed in his diocese and parish work that the call to consider such a problem as the unification of Christendom seems a thing apart from real life. I sympathize with the modern parson who is overburdened with parish duties and serves on boards of all sorts. One can't be thinking of endless parish problems and the individual needs of one's flock and find time for the weightier matters of modern literature, missionary enterprise and conferences on faith and order. Yet when one stops to consider that there is no problem more important than the question of the co

ördinating of what Christian forces there are for the redemption of individual men, society, and a warstricken world, absorption in parish work is petty ecclesiasticism. This movement for the visible and actual unification of the Church is so vital to the dignity and impress of our faith upon the world that to hand its solution over to a few leaders of the Church robs the movement of that broad, simple, democratic quality which is the very hope and heart of the movement. Preoccupation has spelled disaster in many a man's career. No personal preferences in study, no personal absorption in hobbies, no devotion to a club or guild, no consuming zeal even in denominational missionary enterprise releases the modern minister from participation in the solution of this great problem of the reunion of Christendom.

Prejudgment comes as near being a moral sin as it does an intellectual barrier to the movement for Church unity. This is the chief intellectual obstacle to reunion. Not one man in ten is willing to open the whole case and consider the origin and history of dogma, forms of church organization and the pedigree of cults. These fundamental notes of Church life are considered settled in his particular way, and any movement for the coördination or unification of other faiths with his own savors of heterodoxy and surrender of the faith once delivered to the saints. In the light of recent studies of the early Church with its variety of dogma, its various types of organization and its varying rites, no judgment based on the studies of twenty-five years ago is sufficient basis for a true estimate of the Church life. Without a knowledge of what Harnack, Sohm, McGiffert, Grutzmacher and others have written upon the first century

Christianity and the Church, one's opinion on theology, polity and cultus is practically obsolete, and certainly futile. Even in the study of our denominational differences we have learned in these later days of the influence of political and social factors which gave color to the confessions, the administration, and the life of the various churches. Historical criticism has made impossible the narrow and exclusive claims made by the various denominations. We have learned that it is the Spirit that giveth life, the letter killeth. No longer can exclusive claims be made for any one form of Church organization, or some single rite be made the basis for the erection of a Christian denomination. The partial and divisive views are surely to be merged into a catholic faith and life. It is foolish to prejudge just what the reunited Church will be. It cannot be less than the whole Christian thought and the whole Christian experience.

Pride: Sectarian satisfaction so easily passes over into exclusiveness of feeling that such loyalty becomes pride, and pride blinds our eyes to the value of other communions. There is first the pride of intellect. It is well for a man to trust his own judgment, but his judgment must be brought into court where in the minds of a wide scholarship his own personal judgment is submitted for estimate. There is nothing which so mars the clear vision and the warm fellowship of life as pride. It is often based on a false and always on a narrow point of view. The claim to be "the Church" and the "only Church" by any Christian group is obsolete among all informed men to-day. Surely this spirit has blinded our eyes to the worth in other Christian communions. It has made us hard and indifferent to the

faith and beauties of character of other folds, which possessions, after all, are the true and final test of Christianity. Only as we humbly approach the intellectual and moral tasks presented by Church, theology, and the Christian life can we hope to overcome those natural differences of taste and predilection which all of us entertain. Where there is pride there must be division and strife and separations. Humility and love are essential notes in the realization of the Christian ideal of the Church.

Possession: Possession we are told is nine-tenths of the law. The holding of power and position naturally puts individuals and classes on the defensive when it is proposed to relinquish, or to share the property and power with others. This love of place and power is one of the most subtle and constant obstacles to a union of the Church. It is like an attack upon the privileged classes in social and political life. The ecclesiastical organization as well as the missionary and educational organizations within the Church are treasured not only for their ecclesiastical distinctions but also for their financial worth and social prestige. If there is to be a merging of the great Christian forces into one great Church then there must be a realignment of possessions, of men and of positions. The natural ambition of various bishops and presidents and secretaries of boards to hold their offices and the resultant emoluments will be one of the greatest obstacles in securing the unity of the Church. The note of self-effacement and of absolute devotion to the ideal Church will be required on the part of those who now profit by the present dissevered Church. This will probably be the final ground to be surrendered to the larger ideal of unity. Not until we