it is perhaps permissible to point
out that the genesis of the Adult School movement is the natural
development of the Quaker respect for that of God in every man. It
represents the longing for a religious fellowship which does not force
opinion but offers the most favourable conditions for the formation of
independent judgement and the growth of individual faith. How far the
movement realizes its ideal, I forbear to inquire, but its very
existence affords some evidence of the belief in the positive virtue of
toleration as an essential element of the Christian character. Another
powerful factor making for co-operation and better understanding among
Christians may be found in the Student Christian movement. For this
country its value has been enhanced if not created by the opening of the
older Universities to Nonconformists. The future leaders of all our
Churches are now being educated together, and through the Student
Christian movement, they are educating each other and facing together
old controversies and inherited problems at a time when their judgements
are least hampered either by tradition or responsibility. What this may
mean for the religious life of this country, we cannot yet tell, but it
is certain that a new temper will be brought to bear on our divisions.
The men who learn to appreciate one another through this association,
tend to hold together when they pass out of the Universities into their
life-work. There are springing up through the Student movement new
associations or fellowships which conserve and continue the unifying
impetus of the movement itself. Nor is that unifying power confined to
this country. It forms a world-wide federation whose lines of
communication have not been cut even by the present war. In every land,
the Student movement intends to resume international intercourse at the
earliest possible moment. I think it is not simply the bias of a student
in favour of his own class, which makes me regard the Student Christian
movement as one of the most hopeful developments in the religious life
of our age.

Perhaps the influence of this movement itself may be traced in the
growing demand for co-operation in the missionary task of the Church.
This demand has no doubt arisen in part through the changes in the means
of transport and communication which have made the world a smaller
place. Missionary effort is less sporadic than it was. The Churches are
developing a _Weltpolitik_. The exact p