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Obstacles to Reunion

THE

HE following extract from the annual address of the Bishop of Vermont brings out in concrete form some of the practical obstacles which at present bar the way to reunion. Our prayers and our efforts will grow in definiteness and power when we gain a clear vision of the real difficulties to be over

come.

"My own hopes of Reunion, or of definite steps toward it, met with two crushing blows in Burlington. One was the deliberate admission, in spite of protest, to full membership in a Congregational Church of a person debarred from the Holy Communion in our parish on account of a marriage which could not by any stretching be reconciled with New Testament standards. The other was the exchange of Sunday services between Congregational and Unitarian ministers, and the general joining of the Protestant ministers of the city in a Communion service in the Unitarian Church with the Unitarian minister presiding-without (so far as is known) protest or remonstrance from Methodist, Baptist or Congregational authorities or people; certainly there was no repudiation of the act. I mention these two incidents, not for their local reference, for I fear they might have happened anywhere, but because they show that the differences between those who may call themselves Christians are not only about trivial matters of taste and preference, but are often concerned with great principles of Christian faith and Christian morals. There is no narrowness or bigotry in declaring that the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be treated as an open question or a matter of indifference. Either Unitarians are withholding from Him the worship which is His due; or we, with the great body of Christian believers through the world and throughout the ages, are guilty of the idolatrous worship of a merely created being, however highly exalted."

It is time it was clearly recognized by all that "our common Christianity" does not include the essential doctrines of the Creed. We were told the other day by one of our missionaries, that on his way to the Far East he found himself in company with a large number sent out by various "Evangelical"

bodies, and was startled and horrified to discover that only a few among them ever prayed to our Lord Jesus Christ or believed in His Deity. One gentleman, going out to become the head of a Divinity School, declared his intention not to teach the doctrine of the Trinity, as he regarded it as too difficult of comprehension for the Oriental mind! One wonders just what "the Gospel" which such men preach may be. They can hardly base their mission on the solemn charge of Christ recorded in the twenty-eighth chapter of S. Matthew. But this is not the worst. Last summer a liberal Congregationalist, in casual conversation, complained gently that the invitation of the Commission on Faith and Order was addressed only to those who believe in the Deity of our Lord. On the reply being made that we held this faith as all-important, he answered, "Why, I know some of your own clergy who do not believe it." We could only say that they all declared this belief every Sunday in the Creed. But was he right?

Mental Tests for Holy Orders

AMONG the various reforms that have been suggested re

cently in the canonical requirements for those who are to be admitted to Holy Orders, we have not seen any suggestion made that the candidates should be required to undergo any psychological or mental test. Yet we do not see why this test should not be applied to candidates for Holy Orders, as well as to men who are being accepted for the Army or Navy, or for positions in some of our leading business corporations. Columbia University has recently announced that in the future the entering students will be required to pass a psychological test.

Anyone who has had an extended acquaintance with young men who are preparing or who are eager to prepare for Holy Orders knows full well that the ministry as a profession exerts a strange attractive power over many boys and young men who might be called feeble-minded. There are those, for example, who covet the social distinction which they think goes

with the profession; there are others who like to wear vestments and who could imagine nothing more inspiring than to be dressed up in a cope or a chasuble or a long surplice and black scarf; there are others who aspire to be in a position of authority at the head of an important parish, so that multitudes might be running hither and thither at their bidding. It is surprising to note how few young men have an ambition to be priests merely because it will bring them nearer to our Lord and give them an opportunity to co-operate with Him in His work of saving human souls. It must be confessed that the ablest young men frequently need to be sought out and dragged into the ministry almost by main force, whereas those who display a keen desire to study for Holy Orders are very often impelled to do so by some unworthy motive.

In many cases the real reason is that these young men are mentally defective. When a priest finds such a young man who longs to study for Orders, it is extremely difficult to tell him the truth about himself. Many of the clergy are too soft-hearted to discourage such a young man, although they know perfectly well that the welfare of the Church demands it. They plead as their excuse that he is so earnest and enthusiastic that it would be a pity to quench his ardor by telling him that he is unfitted by temperament and constitution to be a priest. Much of this difficulty would be avoided if the Church required young men to pass a suitable psychological test before they were admitted as candidates.

Those who have had dealings with the clergy on a large scale,―any of our bishops, for example, or the officials of the Board of Missions or the Church Pension Fund,-could tell us, if they would, many interesting facts about queer and abnormal types of men who are holding positions of honor and authority in the ministry of the Church. The sort of men, for example, who write endless letters complaining of the iniquities of the Church Pension Fund and of the injustices of the Board of Missions, are often men who are not really to be blamed for their attitude. They are mentally deficient and ought never to have been admitted to the ministry. Many of the clergy who

make shipwreck of their parishes through an ungovernable temper, through fantastic idiosyncrasies of manner or conduct, through the questionable handling of funds, or through a total lack of knowing how to deal with their fellow human beings, ought not to be harshly condemned as being morally at fault. In many instances they are simply mentally deficient, and should have been weeded out by the authorities of the Church before they began to study for the ministry.

Let us look at this matter sanely and let us make use of the best modern scientific knowledge in the testing of human fitness. The grace of God is a tremendous reality, but even the grace of God cannot make able ministers and devoted and conscientious priests out of diseased and distorted and often insane human material.

Reservation and Adoration

HERE seems to be a general agreement that some provision should be made in the Prayer Book for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament for the purpose of giving the communion to the sick and dying. That is one of the many gains that have come out of the war. There are, however, many who maintain that while it is perfectly proper to reserve the Blessed Sacrament for the communion of the sick, elaborate measures should be taken to prevent the people of the Church from practicing any kind of adoration before the Reserved Sacrament.

This sort of teaching makes us rub our eyes with amazement. It is very much as if one should teach a congregation of Christian people that they ought to believe that God was present everywhere, and that the Church was the special place that He has appointed for us to meet with Him, but that we must not under any circumstances think of worshipping Him. We may believe that He is present but it would be very dangerous to worship God in any way. This is substantially what these alleged defenders of the faith are telling us with regard to the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. They admit that our Lord Jesus Christ is sacramentally present upon the altar under

the species of bread and wine, present not merely as God but in His glorified humanity. They warn us, however, that we must carefully abstain from worshipping our God and Saviour so wonderfully present there in the sacrament of His love.

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Why is it that people are so afraid of allowing any kind of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament? So far as we can find there are only three reasons advanced. The first reason is that they believe only bread and wine are before us, and that our Lord is not really present in the sacrament at all, and therefore it would be idolatry for us to worship or adore inanimate objects. If this is what they mean let them say so frankly, and then we may know where we stand.

The second reason is that the adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament obscures the corporate idea of sacrifice and communion, which has always been the central idea in the sacrament as instituted by our Lord. If it were true that adoration did obscure this fundamental purpose of Holy Communion, then undoubtedly there would be excellent justification for forbidding such adoration. The truth of the matter is that nowhere do we find so widespread and tenacious a belief in the eucharistic sacrifice, and so democratic a conception of the fellowship of all the faithful at the altar rail, as we do where adoration has been carried to the highest extent, namely in the Roman communion.

A third reason is frequently alleged, namely, that this practice of adoration is not primitive; that in the first thousand years of the Church's history, although reservation for the sick was universally practiced there is no single instance of any person visiting a church in order to pray before the Body of Christ which was kept upon the altar. This undoubtedly is true, but it is not an argument which can be advanced with very good grace by those who do not hesitate to depart in other respects from the primitive usages and customs of the Catholic Church. It would be difficult, for example, to find an instance in the first thousand years of the Church's history, of a congregation of Christians meeting together on Sunday morning for their chief act of worship and feeling that they had fulfilled their obligations by saying through some such monastic office

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