Article September 30, 1911 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from W. H. P. Faunce, Charles F. Dole, Charles Stelzle, Joseph King, W. Arter Wright

[Congregationalist and Christian World.]

Christians are giving more serious thought than ever to the task of making their essential unity more manifest to the world; but the denomination which expects to give up nothing will have little influential part in shaping the final outcome. To deplore divisions and at the same time take the ground that all the principles of faith and methods of administration which divide Christians are forever sacred and never to be changed in a single iota, is to play with the great and pressing question of Christian unity. In view of the fact that tenets particularly associated with certain bodies are looked upon as matters of indifference by the great majority of Christians throughout the world, it cannot be right for those bodies at the outset of the discussion to assume them to be inflexible. Beware of ultimatums not based on ultimate and unchanging truths.

All this is not said in the interests of flabbiness of faith. The world respects men, and bodies of men, churches, and nations with positive convictions; but it pays a man now and then to take fresh stock of his essential beliefs; to ask himself not only what they are, but in what spirit he holds them; to remember that men who differ from him may have consciences, too. Those who really want to bring about righteous reforms in church and state must sometimes, for the sake of great ends to be gained, yield the one point more. This is the method employed by those who govern their households wisely. This is what Jesus meant when he bade his disciples go the second mile. This is what Christianity, when thoroughly seated in the heart, asks men to do and helps men to do.

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