GENERAL PRINCIPLES 37 



purely chimerical. Influenced by the 

 glowing vision, a great scholar even im- 

 agined the Pope inviting "a fraternal 

 Pan-Christian Council in Jerusalem, where 

 the Mother Church of Christendom held 

 the first council of reconciliation and 

 peace. But," he adds, " whether in Jeru- 

 salem or Rome, or (as Cardinal Wiseman 

 thought) in Berlin, or (as some Americans 

 think) on the banks of the Mississippi, the 

 war between Rome, Wittenberg, Geneva, 

 and Oxford will be fought out to a peace- 

 ful end, when all the churches shall be 

 throughly Christianized and all the creeds 

 of Christendom unified in the creed of 

 Christ." 1 



THE PROBLEM OF REUNION DIFFICULT 



The problem, however, has other ele- 

 ments which are not so bright and hope- 

 ful, and may for the present turn the scale. 

 It cannot be forgotten that the consensus 

 of Protestant and Catholic opinion is not 

 only greatly outweighed by the dissensus, 

 but as yet is purely theoretical, having 

 been expressed only in courteous corre- 

 spondence without much substantial in- 



1 Dr. Schaff's " Reunion of Christendom," p. 28. 



