162 CHURCH UNITY 



laration has not yet done its whole work 

 for the cause of Christian unity ; and that 

 those who have welcomed it as a true 

 irenicon amid the divisions of our modern 

 Christianity have not been misled by an 

 iridescent dream nor the ignis fatuus of 

 an impossible theory. Let me name the 

 reasons that lead me to this conviction. 



I. And first among them I would put 

 the deepening conviction among all Chris- 

 tian people of the evils of division. If 

 what is known as the Chicago-Lambeth 

 Declaration has had no other value, it will 

 always be, I think, a cause for profound 

 thankfulness on the part of those who were 

 first of all concerned in it that it stands 

 distinctly for that. Some of us can very 

 well remember a mode of argument which 

 was common enough among our fathers, 

 and which went to show that the so-called 

 divisions of Christendom were on the whole 

 a distinct advantage to the cause of Christ 

 and the growth of his kingdom among 

 men. I do not hear that argument any 

 more. Dismissing, if one chooses, what 

 has been called the vulgar and sordid criti- 

 cism of our ecclesiastical divisions which 

 shows how they involve an enormous waste 



