Unity, even the Empire itself ultimately, depends, as we believe, on a broad-based statesmanship, carrying up the main principles of our Government to their highest power in action, and, constantly throughout the Empire, mediating those doctrines to the peoples concerned as they are able to bear them, with ever-extending inspiration and encouragement to growth and development.
Our Imperial aims are neither antagonistic to nor inconsistent with our Christian programme. That should constitute a challenge to the Christian Churches, and is in itself a matter for high and solemn pride. The war has cleared the air. As stated during this period, the ideal of a federation of nations, free, independent, and at the same time interdependent, each working out its national destiny, each contributing, in terms of opportunity, to the well-being of the whole, bringing to bear on Imperial matters the heart, brain, will of the whole, gives us a picture of a Commonwealth in advance of any contemporary political programme, with the one conspicuous exception of that of the United States of America, between whom and ourselves is being established a Unity which may well be more valuable to the world at large and to ourselves than any formal Union.
Here, as we see it, is our opportunity. The Christian forces of the Empire have the onus of maintaining the national outlook at this high level. Our faith, our audacity, our leadership will be needed if lesser counsels are to have no chance of prevailing. There must be no swing of the pendulum back to smaller views.
With the coming of Peace, the temptation to the Nation to take off its armour, to come down from the pedestal, to revert to pre-war conditions, to re-act in self-indulgence from the strain of war, or to let materialism defeat idealism, will be well-nigh overwhelming. To give way to that temptation will be to rob victory of any permanent values. It will be a poor thing to have taught Germany her lesson, if we fail to learn our own.
We see no hope of successful resistance of that temptation apart from the mobilisation of the Christian forces within the Empire into an army committed to the sacred task of making the conscience of the Nation effectively Christian, leading the way in bringing about a closer approximation between the politics of the State and the programme of the Kingdom of God, and proclaiming that Kingdom at hand.
If we are agreed so far it behoves us to look for the practical implications of the position. These islands are still the heart and home of the Empire. This was the rock whence its younger peoples were hewn. Our nation has produced the men and the machinery that govern our commonwealth. The lonely places, farthest removed from us, will be peopled largely by and through the work of children of the Old Country. There, wherever her children go, is England.
England is a treasure house, where the very stones are eloquent. Her history, her buildings, her national and civic life, her denominations and movements are all of them of vital interest to her children. It is a place of pilgrimage and remembrance. It is more. They find here the mature growths from which their institutions have sprung. They love our historic places, they love our crowded cities, they love our seashores and our quiet country-side, for everywhere they go they find not only the story of our past, but that of their own. This is their spiritual home. Our art, our literature, our movements are parts of a common inheritance, and it is the pride of the Motherland that her children have never outgrown their love of the old home, their veneration for its sanctions and restraints, and that on their own homesteads they have reproduced in new settings and often in fresh forms so much that is native here.
One would like to see a larger share in this priceless inheritance offered to our peoples oversea. Think for one moment of our great Cathedrals, unique and wonderful. They can never be reproduced. They might be copied; but Canterbury and Westminster, Lincoln and Durham, York and the rest would still remain all that they are to us and to them. You cannot transplant history. In the homeland we are but trustees of these treasures, and we ought to make them the home and centre of our Imperial Christianity. In every one of them the priests of the Church in the Overseas lands should not only be seen but heard. Is there no room in Cathedral Chapters for Overseas representatives, so that in our daily services in a new and living way we may be linked together in sacrament, praise and prayer, and in the proclamation of Christian truth? One Canonry for each historic building would mean more to Unity than many resolutions at Congress. Perhaps that is as far as one ought to go in suggestion, but there are other splendid possibilities that one would love to discuss. No one thinking of Unity in the Empire can fail to rejoice in the growing desire manifest among Christian Denominations for Unity. I will not trench on another's subject beyond saying that the way to Union is Unity, and that it would be tragic if in these momentous days any stone was left unturned that would lead to better knowledge, deeper understanding and sympathy between those who name the Name that is above every name. And our people overseas have much to teach us in this matter. Over great areas of social opportunity and service the Catholic Church may act unitedly and must do so, if she is to enter on offensive warfare and not stand for another generation on the defensive. The war has made a difference here. Men, who in the conventional days of peace rarely met, have joined hands in service. Catholic and Protestant, Churchman and Free Churchman, have found joy in fellowship. That does not mean that differences have disappeared, it means that, recognising and estimating their differences, it has been possible to establish a basis of co-operation, in knowledge, understanding, and sympathy, and to recognise in one another the hall-mark of Christian faith and character. Is this to be a war measure only? or is it to be one of the great gains to be carried over into the days ahead?
One other question clamours for treatment: the problem of the evangelisation of the Empire. Christianity must be given its chance in every corner of the Empire. There may be divergent opinions as to the methods to be used, but if Christianity contains in its gospel the pearl of great price, there can be no two opinions as to the obligation that rests on us to bring to the nations federated with us this supreme gift. Nothing can release us from that responsibility. To postpone the presentation of the Christian gospel for any of the time-honoured excuses:
(1) our pre-occupation in matters of more urgent importance elsewhere,