retreated from the position there taken? The fact has been that Protestant bodies have time and time again balked at the condition of the historic episcopate, and unless this might be explained away for them, refused to enter on further negotiations to which this was one of the preliminary conditions. The Bishops affirmed in their invitation "that the Christian unity now so earnestly desired can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian faith and order committed by Christ and His apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men." They go on, "As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom, we account" the familiar four points of the Scriptures, the Nicene Creed, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the Historic Episcopate. Then they declare "our desire and readiness, so soon as there shall be any authorized response to this Declaration, to enter into brotherly conference with all or any Christian Bodies seeking the restoration of the organic unity of the Church, with a view to the earnest study of the conditions under which so priceless a blessing might happily be brought to pass.'

Can any response on these terms be said to have been turned down? If not, whatever may have been the failure of individual Bishops or others to press such an invitation, whatever our stiffness and rigidity in our own administration, is it quite fair to reproach the Anglican Communion, or our branch thereof, with conspicuous timidity in practice, or being "afraid of its own ideals," or "shrinking from the logical consequences of its own corporate actions"?

The Bishop of Chicago certainly would not ask for a repetition of the Kikuyu experiment, nor for exchange of pulpits or

*Journal of General Convention 1886, Pp. 79-80.

union services. What is the boldness of action which-in this direction-he asks for?

It is possible that some may point to the failure of proposals made by the Polish Old Catholic Bishop Kozloski some years ago. He asked the House of Bishops for recognition and assistance and intercommunion. It was thought by some that we did not in that case act up to the professions of the Quadrilateral proposal on which Bishop Kozloski relied. But the facts were that (independently of the profound distrust of the movement felt by the then Bishop of Chicago, in whose diocese the Polish Bishop lived and worked) the terms of the Quadrilateral were not complied with, for the Communion was still administered (save in special cases) in one kind only.

In his anxiety to escape from timid inaction the Bishop of Chicago suggests the possibility of our acceptance of the Papacy, with the expectation that the influx of Anglicans into the Roman Church would seriously modify the Roman system. The suggestion, while certainly conspicuously bold, hardly seems to agree with the Apostle's principle "Speaking the truth in love." The Papacy, Dr. Anderson says, may be regarded as a "permanent feature" in Christendom, apparently on a level with the Creed, the Sacraments and Episcopacy. A constitutional presidency or executive chairmanship of the whole Church (on earth) might, it is urged, have practical advantages. This will hardly commend itself to those who have viewed with suspicion any enlargement of the modest prerogatives of our Presiding Bishop, and more seriously the development (such as Abp. Benson and Bishop John Wordsworth were supposed to favor) of a Canterbury Patriarchate in the Anglican communion. Recent experience has not shown the practical advantages of such a central headship, for among the certainties of the war has been the proved valuelessness of the Papacy, either for the preservation of union among those who acknowledge its sway, or for moral spokesmanship.

The present seems no time for rash experiments. "A venture of faith" must have the warrant of a divine word, not of a human speculation. It may be the course of faith to resist

pressure for hasty action in one direction or another. Longstanding tangles are not quickly straightened out, nor is the resort to a knife always the best remedy.

May some modest suggestions be offered?

1. By all means let us be careful to put the first things first, and observe a true proportion.

2. Let us insist on making the most of points of agreement, working outward from the great central truths, rather than fastening on points which belong rather to the circumference.

3. Let us seek increasingly to realize the spiritual aspect of the whole question. This involves both (1) the distinction between the objective unity which exists between all true members of the Body of Christ, by reason of their share in His life, as between members of a family, and the subjective union, or fellowship, which ought to follow on this, but which may be suspended between individuals or churches; and also (2) dependence on the Holy Spirit of love and truth, to lead us into truth and oneness, and not merely on human schemes and plans.

4. Let us seize all opportunities for working together in all efforts for civic and social betterment.

5. We must go on patiently explaining our position, and trying to remove prejudice and misunderstandings. The great majority of Protestant people and leaders have not yet any idea of the necessity of outward unity to satisfy the divine intention, nor of the distinctions we should make between what is fundamental and de fide, and other subordinate truths which the Church teaches but does not impose as conditions of communion. What need for explanation as to what is meant by the doctrine of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Sacraments, of the future life, or by the authority of the Church! In particular it needs to be continually explained that the assertion that episcopal ordinations, with the Sacraments that depend on these, are alone not only regular but valid (having, that is, the guarantees of the divine promise) does not carry with it a denial of the efficacy of any other ministrations-which is altogether beyond the Church's province. It is by reasonable presentation of Catholic truth in such a way that it can be apprehended by peo

ple of today that we shall best make progress with men of good will, rather than by compromise and concessions.

6. We should profoundly humble ourselves for our faults and inconsistencies, and for our failure to manifest in character and devotion the fruit of privilege which we claim.

But do not let us take a premature leap in the dark, which would risk further misunderstandings and consequent divisions, and endanger things we all hold precious.

What Has Become of the Russian Church?

BY RICHARDSON WRIGHT.

NE of the faults common to critics of Russia is the blithe

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way they mix their denominators. They add vodka and black bread together, and get the sum total of a moujik. They divide the number of troops by the number of schools, and arrive at autocratic cruelty. They compare the squalor of a peasant's hut with the magnificent solid gold frame on the icon of Our Mother of Kazan, and promptly conclude that the presence of gold in the one place accounts for its absence in the other.

Perhaps the last is the most common fault; and because the Orthodox Church accumulated, in its thousand years, a vast store of rich cathedrals and monasteries, lands and monies, the natural inference is vicious corruption. Since the Bolsheviki have limited the wealth of corporations to $5,000, the annual estimated income of $50,000,000 which used to accrue to the Orthodox Church was, of course, a gigantic and dastardly crime.

These two-alleged corruption and wealth-have naturally made the Church a fine target for the Semitic autocracy of the Bolshevik Government. Were material possessions all that Orthodoxy could claim, one might very easily conclude that the Russian Church had ceased to exist. Fortunately, it possesses some things greater, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

"What's become of the Russian Church?" is best answered by explaining what these possessions are.

For two hundred years, from the reign of Peter the Great to the abdication of Nicholas II, the Church was a corporation subsidiary to the Russian State. It was part of the government. The Tsar was its nominal head; its orders were subject to his edicts, and its treasuries received monies from the government to further its works. This automatically obliged the Church to support the bureaucracy, of which it was a part; and the bureaucracy was the ruling force in the Russian Government.

When, in March, 1917, the bureaucracy was overthrown, all its officers were killed, jailed or banished to the innocuous seclusion of their homes. One day a million or more servants of the government were in office; the next day both their offices and themselves ceased to exist so far as the Provisional Government was concerned. It was perhaps the cleanest wiping of the slate the world has ever seen.

But what happened to the Church, which was an integral part of the system?

It still went on-the bells still tolled, people gathered in the churches to worship, babes were baptized, the dead buried, the sacramental system continued. It is one of those things that revolutions do not overthrow. For what made the Russian Church a power was not the gold on its icons nor its $50,000,000 income nor its vast acreage of glebe lands, but the faith upon which it is founded and the quality of devotion to which its people are accustomed. Even the Tsar in his downfall could not drag with him "the faith that will overcome the world.”

What actually happened in those early days of the Provisional Government was a general cleaning up of the Church, on its own volition. Its greatest weakness was this very dependency on and support of the bureaucracy, this subjugation to autocratic control. In those first days it began to live again, to breathe freely, to dream of development. It ceased being the son of a bondwoman and became once more a child of the spirit.

The long, detailed prayers for the royal family were promptly censored out of the services, because Orthodoxy is not the faith of any crowned head but the religion of the people, and it was the people's will that the Tsar should go. Numbers of the