In this part I am, of course, taking the standpoint of the great Catholic Church. That Church was built by Christ himself, and is an original part of the Christian system, not a product of voluntary organisation; and from the outset the Lord willed to add to it such as were being saved. To those united in one, the Eucharist was the God-given Sacrament of unity.

In view of Father Frere's important paper, I need not spend time in describing the nature of this Church, except to remind you that it is united with its divine founder so closely and vitally as to be called his Body and the fulness of him. Moreover, its future continuance, its indefectibility, and its final victory over evil both without and within, are assured by the in-dwelling of the Spirit of light and life and by the Lord's promise that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. None the less, its earthly members are not yet perfected, and many evils are exploited in its midst, including that of schism.

I.-The Need of Reunion.

This evil has become very acute, and the Spirit is impelling many to labour earnestly for its removal. The tremendous need of this is clear, for schism is a fearful hindrance to his work and to the manifestation of Christ to the world. Christian divisions confuse the Church's message and reduce its persuasiveness; they cause much overlapping, and waste of Christian resources; and, most sadly of all, they break up the Christian brotherhood into an ever increasing number of sects, necessarily fatal to the richness of faith and practice, and to the fulness of spiritual life and love, which Christ provided for in his Church.

That the Lord will Christian unity is too plain to be denied. But such unity means far more than the interdenominational comity and co-operation in which many earnest souls would acquiesce. It means one mind and one body. division is itself treated in the New Testament as contrary to the will of God.

The life of Grace, of which the Church is God's appointed sphere and medium, is social; and mutual union in one sacramental life, one Eucharistic worship, and one spiritual discipline, is its appointed form as well as the condition of its fulness. therefore, if we would truly promote Christian unity, we must promote the corporate re-union of all Christians.

II.-Our Idea of Re-union.

The re-union in which we are interested is the ending of denominations by the united allegiance of all Christians to the ancient Catholic Church; a common acceptance of its primitive faith, ministry, Eucharistic worship, and sacramental discipline; and a renewal between Catholic bodies of full intercommunion and co-ordination in ecumenical concerns. To us the re-union problem has world-wide scope; and the value of each lesser re-union or scheme of co-operation depends upon its being somehow helpful to the cause of full Catholic re-union, and upon its not being pushed at the cost of either betraying or obscuring any integral element of the Catholic Faith and Order.

Catholic re-union does not mean the building of a new Catholic Church, endowed with the treasures of the several existing denominations. It means a return of all to loyal obedience to the ancient but living Catholic Church, and a healing of the wounds which schism has inflicted on that Church. All denominational good things were originally committed by Christ to the universal Church, and only in its Catholic atmosphere can each of them be cherished without onesided caricature, and without driving other vital things out of sight.

III.-Applications

(a) In applying these principles to reunion with Nonconformists, we have to remember that the Anglicans are not free from blame for their separation; and that, because of the earnest efforts of Nonconformists to serve the Lord Christ, God has visibly blessed them; though we cannot, indeed, regard their enjoyment of God's blessing as evidence that nonconformity as such fulfils the purpose of Christ.

As to "home re-union," as Englishmen call it, we are probably agreed that friendliness and mutual conferences, with perfectly frank but very patient discussion of differences, are for the present our proper methods of progress. We are at the educational stage and, although some progress has been made, a long task is still before us. The main body of Nonconformists have not become vitally interested. The pace, therefore, should not be forced, and such schemes as occasional open Communion, the interchange of pulpits and the like, are, "flickering expedients" that upset rather than unify. Re-union, if it is to abide and be in accord with the will of Christ, must be preceded by clear mutual understanding and real agreement in accepting the Faith and Order of Christ's Catholic Church.

We may hope that gradually Protestants will cease to think that our attitude is inconsistent with sincere desire for re-union with them. We desire the real thing, and are convinced that old wounds cannot safely be sewn up until all foreign matter has been removed. We also hope that they will come to see that our position is not partisan, nor peculiar, nor out of date. We stand for the Anglican inheritance, and for the Reformation appeal to antiquity. More than this, the essentials of our position are still retained by somewhat more than two-thirds of living Christians. Finally, we have with us multitudes that no man can number of those who have gone before, but who are still within the great Church of Christ.

In the light of abiding ecumenical perspectives, Protestants will some day cease to imagine that Christ's will for Christian re-union can be fulfilled on any other basis than that of historical Christianity-the ancient Catholic system. Sincere love of truth is working among them, and we may count on their reconsidering in their purity those elements of this system the corruptions of which were in the main the provoking cause of the sixteenth century revolt. For example, patient students cannot forever hold that a sacerdotal ministry necessarily hinders the free access of souls to God-surely not if it really comes from Christ,-or that the episcopate and what was called "prelacy" are really the same. Finally, Protestants will in due time see that we are not interested in condemning their past, but in wholesome re-union. Saving denominational faces will no longer worry us when we once unite to save the face of the universal Church of Christ and to release its spiritual power. And when all unite in doing this, past abuses will fade away before a Pentecost of light and Grace. True re-union can hardly fail incidentally to enlist all Christian for an effectual completion of the Reformation.

(b) In reckoning with the Orthodox Eastern Churches, we find solid grounds of encouragement. We sympathise deeply with Eastern Christians in their present distress, while thanking God for the attainment by thousands among them of the glorious martyr's crown. Much correspondence and conference has been carried on between us during the past sixty years, and American Churchmen have had a larger share in this than is generally known among you.

Results are emerging. Several Eastern Churches have acknowledged the validity of Anglican Orders, and we seem to be gradually entering into relations which fall little short of intercommunion. The work or removing misapprehensions is not finished, however, and we ought not to be too sanguine. But the fundamental accord between us is sufficient to justify formal re-union whenever the time is ripe. God speed the day of that happy consummation.

IV.-Obstacles to Re-union with the Papal See.

I now come to the problem of re-union with the Papal See, a subject demanding special attention. Right here I must pay respectful tribute to a truly great English layman, the saintly and royal-hearted Viscount Halifax. May God richly bless his closing days on earth, and reward him for his untiring and self-effacing devotion to the great Catholic Church and to its Anglican province. I would share his vision of re-union, and would re-echo his noble plea for re-union with the Papal See and with the vast number of believers in communion with it.

We may rightly ignore the obstacles to such re-union, and perhaps much time will be required for their removal. But it shows lack of faith in the Holy Spirit to think that effort in this direction is useless. the situation continually changes, and there is evidence for those who have eyes to see that the conditions both Roman and Anglican which now prevent re-union are slowly but surely being outgrown. Human accretions cannot forever abide; and, being human, the present obstacles to re-union in this direction will surely pass away. Needless to say, if the present Roman terms of re-union represent the divine will, the sooner we find it out the better. In any case, re-union with Rome left out is plainly not a truly Catholic re-union.

We must view the obstacles in proper perspectives. Some of them-for example, Rome's repudiation of Anglican Orders, and the opinions and practices which, according to Anglicans, are wrongly imposed on Christian consciences by the Papal See,-are grave, no doubt. And, unless we are wrong, we may not repudiate our Orders, and may not bind ourselves to accept as necessary the opinions and practices referred to. But these matters are all involved in the more central difficulty of Papal claims; and when this difficulty is rightly met, all other things can be settled.

(a) But an obstacle on our own side should be mentioned. I refer to the considerable lack of Catholic convictions among us and of Sacramental discipline. That the Prayer Book, in spite of its limitations, commits us to the Catholic system, rather than the Protestant, is shown by the fact that renewed conformity to it has invariably worked for a revival of Catholic belief and practice; and the Prayer Book declares the official mind and law of the Anglican communion. But our discipline is lax, and anti-Catholic views and practices are freely exploited among us. We can explain this evil by reasons which leave the Catholic claim of this Church untouched; but until the general state of opinion and practice among us is more visibly Catholic, we shall have difficulty in persuading Papal or Eastern authorities to take our position seriously. Clearly the Anglo-Catholic propaganda is a vital part of our labour for Catholic re-union.

(b) Turning to the Papal claim, we should distinguish between the ancient and modern elements in it. It is the Vatican position, gradually developed through centuries and finally defined in 1870, that constituted the main barrier to re-union on the Roman side. Moreover, the removal of this barrier does not necessarily require a formal repudiation of the Vatican Council, and we ought not to require Rome's humiliation as the price of re-union. It will suffice if Rome outgrows the objectionable elements of Vaticanism and re-interprets its terms by action that will securely establish Catholic liberties.

Whether we accept or reject the claim that Christ formally instituted a permanent Papal primacy committed to the Roman See, we have to face the evidence of Christian history that such primacy has been a providential instrument of divine ordering. Moreover, when the Church is re-united, some visible centre of unity and of ecumenical business, such as the Papal See affords, will be needed for efficiency and for safeguarding Catholic unity.

We can grant this, and the probability that a permanent governmental primacy over the entire Church militant has in effect been divine committed to the Roman See. What then interferes with submission to that See? Simply this, that the providential primacy of Rome has been enlarged by claims which subject the Church to an unprimitive and unrestrained autocracy-one which has no divine warrant, and which displaces instead of safeguarding truly Catholic government. It gives to Italian provincialism a supremacy which has deprived the Church at large of effective part in ecumenical affairs; and it has led to the imposition on Christian consciences of opinions and practices which are neither primitive nor consistent with the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

But these accretions do not inhere in Papal primacy itself, which can survive and function after their removal. their removal is certainly needed, for they have gradually converted Papal government into an autocracy fatal to Catholic liberties. Such a reformation will surely come in time for Christ has not forsaken his Church. And I believe that the process of outgrowing Vaticanism, a necessary antecedent of this reformation, has already begun.

V.-The Papal See in the United Church.

Can we describe in advance the position which the Roman See will occupy in the re-united church? We cannot in detail, and to advocate particular arrangements with regard to the matter is hopelessly premature. None the less, it seems clear that certain requirements ought to be met, and that when their natures has once been generally recognised, they can be met satisfactorily.

(a) On the one hand, what is true in Papal claims will have to be acknowledged, and a primacy will have to be accepted which will be sufficiently effective to preserve the Church's visible unity.

(b) On the other hand, Papal authority will have to be brought within such constitutionally safeguarded limits as will adequately protect Catholic liberties from autocratic interference.

The Catholic liberties referred to should include the unhampered local election of Bishops and Metropolitans, and such national and provincial autonomy everywhere as is consistent with Catholic unity and with the preservation of the ancient Catholic Faith and Order; the freedom and supreme legislative authority of ecumenical Councils, and their right to determine the orthodoxy and binding force of Papal definitions and decretals.

We cannot predict by what specific arrangements the requirements of safe and wholesome re-union will be met. Presumably the measures taken will consist largely of adjustments of existing institutions. It would be possible, if such a method were thought best, to dethrone Italian provincialism by making the Cardinalate an elective body, its members being freely chosen by the several territorial Churches throughout the world and forming a truly representative and cosmopolitan College for curial purposes, and for Papal elections. The freedom of ecumenical Councils could be fortified by the requirement that they should meet at stated intervals. If some such adjustments were agreed to, the Papal See would still possess important executive power, but would not be able to impose decretals and dogmatic definitions independently of the freely expressed consent of the Church. Papal autocracy would be ended.

Of course neither these nor any other provisions for securing and guarding Catholic re-union can become practical questions until existing mutual misunderstandings and discordances have been removed; and they cannot be removed, apparently, except by much patient interchange of views, conducted with freedom from previous recriminations and bitterness. I say "apparently" because I do not forget the possibilities of divine providence-of cataclysmic upsettings of the world, calculated to put our problem in a new context, and to drive all really sincere believers into one fold. The resourcefulness of the Spirit in this matter is greater than we can imagine.

The vision of a re-united Catholic Church is glorious, and not to be forgotten. But it imposes an obligation, not less imperative because requiring patience in a frequent deferring of hope that maketh the heart sick. We must constantly resort to prayer.

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