The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1904. THE UNION OF THE CHURCHES

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 34, 9 February 1904, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1904. THE UNION OF THE CHURCHES

For the cause that tacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future :n the distance, And the yuod that ice can do.

The report of the committee appoint- < od to consider the proposed Pan-Angli- • can Congress produced an interesting discussion yesterday in the Synod. It is important to notice how the great conception of a united Empire is gradually extending itself into every sphere of public life and action. Imperialism is in the air, and the English Church no less than the body politic is affected by it. As Bishop Julius phrased it, Greater Britain has been talked of, and it is time for the Church to realise what this means. Tne suggestion that a PanAnglican Congress should be held by the Church to consider the extension of church work throughout the world was cordially welcomed by the Synod, and a series of resolutions in support of the movement was carried. The most important of these declares that the time has come for the Anglican community within the Empire to speak and act as one body so that the Church may efficiently discharge her heavy responsibilities; and that there is, therefore, need for the election of a Federal Council to represent the diilerent sections of the Church of the Empire. The other recommendations of the committee are more or less subsidiary to this, but they all go Ito indicate the desire of the Church of New Zealand for a closer union with all other branches of the Anglican Church. All members of the Synod who spoke on this question expressed full sympathy with the appeal of Bishop Julius that I the different sections of the Church might act "with one consent, one heart, and one voice"; and it requires no elaborate argument to prove that such a union as is contemplated by these resolutions would vastly increase the efficiency of the Anglican Church as a means of elevating and improving the nation and the world at large. While we welcome this expression of a desire for a closer alliance and more intimate association between the many local divisions of the Anglican Church, it is impossible to avoid the inference that Pan-Anglicanism of this type may !bo ultimately merged in a more comprehensive ecclesiastical union. Wfi have frequently referred with satisfaction to the tendency displayed in these colonies by the various religious denominations to emphasise points of an agreement that unite rather than features of difference that separate them. The amalgamation of the Methodist Churches, the union of the Presbyterian Church, the proposals for union between all the non-conformist sects, and the strongly sympathetic feeling lately manifested by many dignitaries of the Church of England in New Zealand and Australia, towards their non-Anglican brethren certainly encourage the hope that conflicting sects and schisms may some day be forgotte in a wider recognition of the common purpose that inspires all Christian churches alike, by whatsoever name they may be called. We do not rashly assume that the time for such an alliance is yet near at hand. But there are, as we have said, many signs that all Christian ehurohes alike are beginning to realise how many opportunities they waste, and how much their great cause suffers through the formal distinctions and verbal differences and traditional rivalries that now divide} them. The Pan-Anglican Congress is a step in the direction of unifying and consolidating the greatest of the Protestant Churches, and we hope that it may prove to be the precursor of a wider federation which, without sacrificing anything essential to the individual existence of tne churches, may put an end to the division of strength, the sectarian jtalousy. and the alienation from the highest human interests and needs that at present go far to neutralise the ennobling influence of the Christian Church upon the world.