ep in all
work for reunion will be the isolating of these causes from lesser
things, and their careful and prayerful reconsideration.

A grand example of such process, of course, has been the Conference of
the leaders of our English denominations, at the inspiration of the
American Committee of Faith and Order, which during 1917 faced the
question of Episcopacy. The findings of its "second interim report" are
nothing less than a landmark in Church History. You remember that
roughly it was this: that any corporate reunion can only come in the
acceptance of the historical Episcopate; but that the conception and use
of Episcopacy in the Church has been a limited one: there are many ways
of regarding and using bishops besides the monarchical or "prelatical"
way exemplified by the Church of England. This is a first proof that
when truths, keenly felt and seemingly rival, are discussed in
Conference spirit, the angularities that offend disappear; and wider,
bigger truth comes into the possession of all. It will be so more and
more. By faith we can already see that the labour of understanding unto
reunion is bound to be an immense _creative_ period in the Church of
God.

2. Our second axiom sounds discouraging. Just this--that unity is,
humanly speaking, impossible. Reunion means great changes of heart in
great communions of men, and we all know how hard it is to effect change
of heart even in the individual. We must not think that no price will
have to be paid for so good a result, both by whole communions, and by
the members composing them; and that the whole force of inherited
prejudice, past history, and present wilfulness, ignorance, and sincere
conviction will not arise in opposition. The difficulty even of
approaching Rome illustrates vividly our task. The Unity of Christendom
is a meaningless expression without that vast international Church,
without her rich stores of devotion and experience, without her
unbending witness to the first things of faith, worship and
self-sacrifice. Here the "impossibility" is open and honest, but I do
not know that the difficulties will be greater than those, less obvious
as yet, between other denominations. Yet with God all things are
possible. This is only the MIRACLE which He has set the faith of modern
Christians to perform.

3. Thirdly then, our rule must be, to hasten slowly. We are not dealing
with matters susceptible of mere arrangement, but with _convictions_,
which have dee