action simply
heads for disaster and vexation. And it is so foolish, so great and
difficult an end being in view. Why should any _sections_ of the Church
meet or deal at all on this matter, except to put their views humbly at
the disposal of their brethren in the Church? This matter concerns the
_whole_ Church; any action is futile which does not carry the whole
Church with it, and the whole Church is keen and anxious enough over the
problem to be able to agree upon methods and policies which combine
depth, wisdom, patience, and order. We have seen how titanic the labour
is; impatience will help nothing; here if anywhere is needed the love
that is patient, and ready for the travail of waiting and praying.

The cry of generous souls of course is "Something must be _done_." Of
course it must; but let anybody consider what sheer miracles of changed
convictions on Unity have been "done" within ten, and even five years.
Better than any such immediate action which would certainly cause
division, is the enlarging of the scope and sphere of this miracle, so
that the friendly conditions of France are naturally reproduced in
England.

With these precautions, then, let us see what can be done with universal
consent.

(_a_) The first thing is to turn the intellectual opinion that Christian
division is wrong, and unity necessary, into a general passion. That is
to say, we want to develop among us the _motive of love_. We all talk
about love glibly, and about brotherhood and a new world, with very
little sense of what these terms involve in the individual life. I am
sure that we hardly know yet what love means nor what it exacts, nor
guess into how many provinces of ordinary life it can and ought to
operate; how many heritages of past history it must be allowed to wipe
out, how many preconceived notions it must dissipate; into how many
social, commercial, municipal, political relations it must begin to
permeate. It was for this reason that an article which I wrote when in
billets near Arras for the _Church Quarterly Review_ suggested a new
National Mission of Love in the Church of England. For the space of a
month or more the one subject dealt with by preachers and teachers
throughout the Communion would be Love, in all its bearings, and with
special reference to religious differences and their healing. I believe
that this would be a splendid way of making the passion for new love and
wider brotherhood general, an act of pure rel