AMERICAN CHURCHES FEDERATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 36, 10 February 1906, Page 10

AMERICAN CHURCHES FEDERATE.

31 DENOMINATIONS TO JOIN. [ UNITARIANS EXCLUDED. The National Free Church Council _ias kindled the American imagination. Seven hundred delegates, representing ■twenty-eight denominations, attended the Inter-Church Conference, held last month in Carnegie Hall, New York. Considering the widespread missionary iwork of the denominations, says our New York correspondent, the conference may be considered as in a sense aecumenicak The question of adjnitting Unitarians had been decided in the negative, not without considerable difference of opinion. Seven sessions were held, and the discussions traversed such questional as religious education, the Church and the family, the Church and misadons, and the Church and social order. There was a theo- . logical session. President Faunce, of Brown University, dealing with the Person of Christ, said: "I should not ' iwant to be a candidate for any Heaven -from which Charming or Martineau was \ excluded." Professor H. L. Willett, on "The Holy Scriptures," defended moderately the critical view of the Bible. He told a story of a student who asked a professor if the Book of Daniel did not present a great many difficulties. "Yes," replied the professor, "what is your chief difficulty?" "My difficulty," said the student, "is to find at." At the eighth session a plan of federation was adopted. A Federal Council, with no authority over the constituent bodies, will meet once in four years, beginning in December, 1908. It will consist of four members of each (denomination, pflus one member for each 50,000 communicants, or major fraction thereof. The objects of the Federal Council are defined as:— 1. To express the fellowship and catholicity of the Christian Churches. 2. To bring the Christian bodies of America into harmonious service for Christ and the world. 3. To encourage devotional fellowship and mutual counsel concerning the spiritual life and religious activities of ithe churches. 4. To secure a larger combined influence for the churches of Christ in all matters affecting the moral and social conditions of the people, so as to promote the appb'cation of the law of Christ in every relation of human life. 5. To assist in the organisation of i Soeal branches. , '• .-Thirty-one denominations were sped- i ■ii "iT partners in tae C olll3^l - which J will be instituted when two-thirds of t the- constituent ; bodies shall have ap- ( jproved the plan, Attha _cbtt__ __s_a__. J

I the phrase in the preamble, "Jesus i | Christ, our Lord and Saviour." was , i amended to "Jesus Christ our Divine, I Lord and Saviour."' after a lively deI bate. It was stated by the chairman, in reply to a question, that Roman Ca- ( tholics were not excluded by the terms of the Federation. The conference is notable as a fresh illustration of the fact that religious organisation follows j the type of political. The federation |of the States in the Republic is now paralleled by the federation of tbe deI nominations.