200 ET. EE V. BISHOP J. E. C. WELLDOX, D.D., OX THE INFLUENCE 



social and spiritual welfare of humanity. In the ecclesiastical 

 life of England, as in the political life of Ireland, subordinate 

 interests, however important, and subordinate differences, how- 

 ever acute, must yield place to the common national good. If 

 the Church does not justify herself by her present utility, the 

 great body of citizens will, or may, feel and show that they have 

 no need of her in their daily lives. 



The war will necessarily incline Christians towards reunion. 

 But the policy of reunion will not apply to Western Christen- 

 dom alone. Churchmen are beginning to realize the significance 

 of the Orthodox Churches of the East. These Churches, with 

 the Church of Russia, as the best known among them, at their 

 head are, like the Church of England, national and episcopal 

 Churches ; and like her, they do not acknowledge — in fact they 

 never have acknowledged — the supremacy of the Pope. They are 

 parted from the Church of England by many differences of 

 custom and ritual, and by a positive difference of doctrine. Yet 

 between the Church of England and the Church of Eussia there 

 has been, for some time past, a growing sympathy which asserts 

 itself, not only in the friendly interchange of official letters and 

 visits, but, from time to time, in actual intercommunion. The 

 Churches of the East, in fact, and the Church of England dis- 

 play the Christian spirit, which the Church of Eome unhappily 

 disowns and disdains. It is probably the fear inspired by the 

 prowess of Eussia in arms, promising, as it does, a wide 

 extension of the Orthodox Church, that has lain behind 

 the pretence of impartiality by which the Pope has sought 

 to hide what must, I am afraid, be called his moral cowardice 

 in the war. 



But it the Church of England can enter, and is entering, into 

 sympathetic relation with the Churches of the East, it will be 

 felt that she cannot logically refuse to show some evidence of 

 sympathy with the Reformed Churches of Great Britain itself. 

 The possibility of a good understanding between all the 

 Reformed Churches, including the Church of England, has 

 already been demonstrated by the war. But the men, who have 

 realized the fellowship of Christians at the Front, will no longer 

 accept as inevitable their severance at home. It is my deliberate 

 opinion that, apart from historical and social prejudices, there is 

 nothing which ought to keep the Reformed Churches, I will 

 not say from union at the present time, but from such a federa- 

 tion as would make it possible to utilize much of the power, now 

 wasted upon controversial antagonism, in the Christian regenera- 

 tion of society. Already the Missionary Conference at Edinburgh 



