86 CHURCH UNITY 



ity; in a word, all claim to the power of 

 the keys, recognizing the rest, more than 

 we do, as allies, that we might toil in a 

 more united way than now for the estab- 

 lishment of God's kingdom amonsr men. 



To see how possible it would be to pre- 

 serve denominations in all their useful 

 meaning, yet all of them renouncing the 

 power of the keys, we have only to gen- 

 eralize in thought what goes on in every 

 religious organization, however diminu- 

 tive, to-day. Each of them has its high 

 church, low church, and broad church 

 party, its progressive and its conservative 

 tendency. In one congregation nearly all 

 are advanced thinkers; in another almost 

 all fear and deprecate innovation. One 

 runs to ritual; another subordinates or 

 abhors ritual. In a community of size, 

 containing several congregations of the 

 same faith and order, these likes and dis- 

 likes get themselves humored by a natural 

 process of grouping. Harmony is easy 

 then. But even in smaller places, where 

 people of divergent tastes form one con- 

 gregation, though they may debate and 

 strive, each stripe trying to impart its 

 color to the whole, such rivalry hardly 



