RELIGIOUS AGENCIES 341 



trations of unselfishness among these denominational leaders, who 

 have been able to prefer the welfare of the Kingdom of God to their 

 own personal interests, and who have shown a generous willingness 

 to lead in the movement toward the union of similar denominations. 

 Substantial gains in this direction have already been made, for the 

 largest part of which the Presbyterians are to be credited. The 

 union of the Old School and New School bodies in 1869, the absorp- 

 tion by this larger body of the Cumberland Presbyterians this year, 

 and hopeful negotiations now pending for the union of the Southern 

 Church with the Northern, are signs of the times. In Canada, the 

 Methodists of all names have come together, and the force of their 

 centripetal movement has now extended to the Presbyterians and 

 the Congregationalists of the Dominion, who are negotiating with 

 the Methodists to form one body. 



In the United States the most hopeful union movement now in 

 progress is drawing together the Methodist Protestants, the United 

 Brethren, and the Congregationalists. The first step proposed is the 

 formation of a General Council in which the three bodies shall be 

 represented, by which their missionary work may be coordinated, 

 and through which methods may be devised for bringing them into 

 organic unity. 



In the process of differentiation by which these sects have been 

 formed, the main force at work has been theological opinion. Doc- 

 trinal differences have led to most of these divisions. But the en- 

 largement of knowledge and the broadening of men's view of God 

 and his universe have robbed most of these distinctions of their 

 significance. The old dispute over foreordination and free will has 

 ceased to agitate the thoughts of men; there are not many to whom 

 the mode of baptism now seems to be a vital matter, and many other 

 points of belief, once emphasized, are not now dwelt upon. In 

 truth, the obstacles in the way of the union of Christian denomina- 

 tions are not now largely theological. The difficulty in most cases is 

 purely a matter of polity. What these separated sects find it hardest 

 to surrender or modify is their ecclesiastical machinery, their methods 

 of organization and work. The fact that the machinery is purely 

 their own fabrication, that it possesses no sacred or inspired char- 

 acter, but is a purely human product, is perhaps the reason why 

 they stick to it so tenaciously. We are often more anxious that the 

 work of our hands should be established than that God's Kingdom 

 may come. There are, however, signs of sanity in this distracted 

 realm, and we have reason to hope that in the ecclesiastical as in the 

 industrial realm the principle of cooperation is destined, ere long, 

 to prevail over the principle of competition. 



The consideration which is brought home to us most forcibly as 

 we take this hasty survey of existing religious agencies in this country 



