THE CHICAGO-LAMBETH ARTICLES 159 



represent the strangest and most eccentrie 

 vagaries of belief and practice. I shall 

 not rehearse them here ; but one in read- 

 ing them could not resist the exclamation, 

 " Is tins, after all, the only fruit of all our 

 strivings after Christian unity? Is dis- 

 integration and not re-integration to be the 

 history of all our efforts to unify the dis- 

 cordant voices that profess the faith of 

 Jesus Christ?" And when one adds to 

 this the fact to which I have just alluded, 

 — that a communion which, by its synodi- 

 cal declarations, has taken a foremost place 

 in the movement for the reunion of Chris- 

 tendom refuses, or seems to refuse, such 

 particular action as in one especial aspect 

 of it, at any rate, would appear to have 

 promised for those declarations some prac- 

 tical force and efficacy, the situation be- 

 comes not alone anxious and perplexing, 

 but also not a little discouraging. 



For one, I am prepared unreservedly to 

 admit the apparent force of such reason- 

 ing ; but it must be qualified, I think, here 

 as always, by the general consideration to 

 which I have just referred. No great move- 

 ment such as that for the reunion of Chris- 

 tendom is at all likely, any more than any 



