This tragic mutual intolerance between Arian and Athanasian, Iconodule and Iconoclast, goes on down the ages; was it not, in part at least, one wonders, due to the fact that each party considered that they alone had the monopoly of truth; that their own doctrine contained the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Free trade in thought, if it be right to use the metaphor of commerce for the life-giving intercourse of mind with mind, is late in coming in the world's history, but it has surely come to stay. As we look back over the great divisions of the past, we feel now that there was some right at least on both sides: in some [p.148] cases we find it hard to understand how men could have fought so bitterly over what seems now so small. The shape of the tonsure of the clergy, the date of the celebration of Easter, and such grounds of difference, caused almost as much bitterness in their day as did profound dissensions on the nature of the Godhead or the meaning of the Incarnation. Even when no theological difference separated men, within the Church itself and within a single religious order, there has been the bitterest disagreement and separation of spirit over things we now hold trifling; such a matter, for instance, as the shape of the hood to be worn by Observant Franciscans, at the time of the rise of the Capuchin Friars.
We have come at length to understand that the human spirit expresses itself in various ways in its upward striving, that the language of worship may vary for different races, for different men within the same race, for the individual himself with his changing needs, and that in differing we need not always condemn each other. So, too, it seems that men are ceasing to feel that uniformity in Church government is possible or even desirable. The work of the Free Church Council with all its limitations has enabled the members of the larger Nonconformist bodies to co-operate together and understand each other better, to feel a common unity of membership while retaining their loyalty to their own denomination. This drawing together has been realised, not by discussion of [p.149] denominational differences, but by common work and common worship, by sharing in the same efforts, listening to the same messages of guidance, following as co-disciples along the same road.
Still more remarkable as an expression of the vital forces at work in English society is the growth of inter-denominational fellowship shown in the Student Christian movement, and the conferences which it has promoted, characterised by joint study of social and missionary problems, and by union in worship, in which denominational barriers have not indeed disappeared, but have sunk on to a lower level, for many at least of those who have been thus drawn together to behold the vision of the vast work still unaccomplished at home and abroad, with the knowledge that all alike are coming for strength to one source, striving to serve one Master.
While a friendlier understanding has been helping men to cross by sympathy the ancient chasms which have separated church from church for so long, there has been visible too in recent years a marked tendency towards greater organic unity between religious communities closely allied to each other. Locally this has occasionally found expression in the springing up of "union churches," whose members originally belonged to different Nonconformist denominations, but such union sometimes has come about for convenience rather than from conviction, and has not always been permanent in character. It is different with the [p.150] union of the three Methodist Societies now combined in the United Methodist Church, or with the great movement which brought about the United Free Church of Scotland. We may look forward in the near future to still further developments of this spirit, and already a leader of Free Church thought, Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, the Secretary of the Baptist Union, has outlined proposals for the incorporation of the great Nonconformist denominations in one national communion, a Free Church of England, which would retain within its compass the different rites and systems of Church government of its various constituent churches. This would still leave unsolved the greater problem of the separation between the Free Churches and the Church of England, but it would be in itself an immense step forward as a practical recognition of common discipleship, and as such would be welcomed warmly by many of us who, almost certainly, would be left outside the ecclesiastical membership of this great Free Church. The Free Church Council has already done something to make such a union possible; and even if no formal connection between various churches whose members are associated with its work should be achieved, yet, in point of fact, a common member ship is being realised by them. The great leaders of Free Church thought and action are recognised not merely as belonging to one denomination, but as prophets and teachers for all. The worth of their ministry is felt even by those who cannot [p.151] recognise the validity of their orders, because of its non-episcopal origin.[32]
And yet all such plans for the promotion of visible ecclesiastical reunion do not touch the heart of things. In earlier ages men have sought reunion through ecclesiastical organisation and through fuller realisation of doctrinal unity, and [p.152] have failed repeatedly in the attempt. Can we hope to achieve union now by some ingenious scheme of comprehensive Church Government or by the formulation of a new creed where all the old creeds have failed to unite men?
Would not even the widest Church leave outside its membership multitudes now drawing together in Adult Schools and Brotherhoods and kindred Societies, under the inspiration of Christian influence, but without any formal connection with the Church, and beyond them an unknown number of men and women whose lives turn for their inspiration to the Master whose name they reverence, but do not venture to take?
Yet such men, whose life-creed is better than their thought-creed, are a proof that discipleship is a vital relationship, involving more than a mere emotional surrender or intellectual submission. It will surely be in the more faithful working out of this conception of discipleship, that Christian folk will be able to achieve that spirit of unity which is of more value than external Reunion.
Wherever wrong ideals of life exist, we are coming to feel there is a loss, not merely to the individuals immediately concerned, but to an ever widening circle about them. We cannot acquiesce in moral failure or divest ourselves of responsibility for it, because we ourselves adopt a different standpoint. Much less can we consent to make a truce with what we see is wrong in the Church to which we belong. [p.153]
A sixteenth century Cardinal who was engaged in controversy with his Protestant colleague, Odet de Coligny, found a curious consolation for the practical failure of the Church of his day by his exposition of a text in the Song of Solomon: "I am black but comely," was, he held, a prophetic saying applied to the Church, black in point of morals, comely in point of doctrine.
To-day, however much we may differ in doctrine, we are coming to feel that in every failure to realise the Christian ideal of character, the loss of each religious community is the loss of all; wherever a Church rises to higher levels of sacrifice, or raises the standard of its members' lives, the benefit is felt far beyond its own borders.