h they too often
lived. Further conferences were held in England at Manchester, Bradford,
London and other centres, the ultimate issue of which was the foundation
of the National Federation of the Evangelical Free Churches under the
guidance of the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, Dr Berry of Wolverhampton, Dr
Mackennal of Bowdon, and Dr Munro Gibson of London, along with laymen
like Sir Percy Bunting and Mr George Cadbury. The aim of the Federation
was to bring all the evangelical Nonconformist churches into closer
association in order that they might in various localities take
concerted action on questions affecting their common faith and interests
and the social, moral, and religious welfare of the community. Since
that time the work of the Federation has gradually covered the whole
country through local councils working on a Free Church parish system,
and engaging in various forms of social and evangelistic effort. The
representative central council has become a powerful instrument for
furthering the cause of the Free Churches and for bringing their
influence to bear on social and political matters. It must be freely
admitted that this council has sometimes gone further in political
action than some of the churches have been altogether prepared for. From
the first, so representative a Nonconformist as the late Dr Dale of
Birmingham stood aloof from it, on the ground that it tended to divert
the energy of the churches from the proper channels and to involve them
too deeply in political controversy. In this action he was supported by
many of the more conservative elements in the churches themselves,
particularly as the circumstances of the time compelled the council to
engage in a good deal of political agitation. In spite of this, however,
there is no doubt that the Free Church Council movement as a whole has
had the effect its first promoters intended and desired, and has brought
all the Free Churches into much closer relations with one another, and
has established them in a position of mutual understanding and sympathy.
Its chief weakness has been that it has depended for support on
individual churches rather than on the denominations they represented.
It is the consciousness of this which has led the way to a later
movement in the direction of still closer federation. The lead has been
taken by the Rev. J. H. Shakespeare, who, as President of the Free
Church Council in 1916, propounded an elaborate scheme for the
federation