TOO GREAT A PRICE FOR PEACE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 128, 28 February 1928, Page 10

TOO GREAT A PRICE FOR PEACE

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In the conflict of opinion over the now Prayer Book there emerges the essential of Protestantism, viz., the right of private judgment. When the Bishop ot AVaiapu returned from the last Lambeth Conference, ho denounced schism as sin, and he called a meeting of non-lspisco-pal ministers and laymen io consider with his own clergy, what means could bo adopted to promote union. The only step proposed was a very occasional exchange of pulpits. And even to attain that small advance divergences were stated which evidently wore beyond the power or will of the Bishop to oveicome. ... . •A Presbyterian minister clearly set forth tho belief of the noii-Episeopalian Churches, that God calls whom He will t 0 minister and that the laying on ot hands is nothing more than the recognition by the Church of that Divine call. Consequently it would be a negation t 0 their belief to submit to a reordination that ascribed the transmission of some further power, which can only come through tho laying on of a Bishop s hands! It was also pointed out that Paul and Barnabas had a difference that sent them on divergent ways, and Christianity gained because of it. . . The truth of God’s revelation is too vast for any human mind to measure it. To some Ilis grace enriches the heart through tho stately dignity nt ritual forms of worship. To others, He speaks clearer, in quiet simplicity. Some valiant souls only attain His peace through intellectual conflict. Others are touched more quickly through their emotions. To such variances in His creatures does the Eternal only speak through a few individuals appointed to their positions by politicians? Yet, within . the last few weeks the Professor of Divinity W the Cambridge University, whose hie work is mainly training men for Holy Orders, publicly stated he knew . little about theology, that was for the Bishops to pronounce upon! The conflict over the reservation of the Sacrament is the natural outcome of lhe trend to elevate tho priesthood, as though if is endowed with supernatural nowers. The Church of England would urobahly he a more efficient servant of righteousness if the examnle of Paul and Barnabas was rememliored. The conflict aj Dnrnlev is for deeper titan an undisetn]t»cd squabble. It is a naked struggle between flic nutboritv of the priesthood to interpret tho revolution of God. which is the claim of the Roman Church, nnd the fundamental of Protestantism the freedom of the pecnle.lo worship God in tho wav their conscience approve'. Where incomnnti’>ililv exists in *'o deenor things of life, the wav of henl 1 and sanifv is the wav of division. D> seek to lessen friction bv dondcnine vital divergencies neither promotes yigoron* »nnnhood nor arlvaneoc ChrisHanilv. T)r Pollard wisely says in Lis new voliiwo"Twentieth Century Chmsti'imtv”•. ' Ihe so-enllod divisions of Christianity need not evoke t’m jerominrls nttored over them. . . • There s quite ns much room for gladness ns for sadness in 11’° nianv vnri.alions of conviction .and nracl >oo which arc koincfinms snocrinclv dismissed under the form ‘dcncminationnl ism ’ ” —I am, etc., 11. R. FRENCH. Hastings. Fahrunrv 91.