SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1923. A NOTABLE CONFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 6

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1923. A NOTABLE CONFERENCE.

One of the most remarkable events Tn tho" history of religion in England was the attendance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, together with tho Bishop of Bristol, the Dean of Bristol, and other clergymen of the Church of England, at the Methodist Conference hold recently at Bristol. The President or the Conference said that it was the first time on such an occasion that the occupant of the chair of St. Augustine and the occupant of the chair of John Wesley had stood aide by side. The Archbishop made a notable speech, in which he Baid that tho real necessity for the reunion of the Churches was in order that they should combine their forces in the great enterprise of the healing of the nations, which, he declared, could only be accomplished by spiritual endeavour. He emphasised the need for eeeking points of agreement rather than points of difference, and said that the right way to reunion -was to take the simplest presentation of the truth of the Gospel. Replying to the Archbishop, the President of the Conference said that their common ground of agreement was as vast as a continent, while the things which divided them were as a narrow neck of land. It was never Wesley's intention that hie followers should sever themselves from the Church of England; he merely desired to utter a protest against the apathy and formalism which we're so prevalent in the Church of his day. But the methods of Wesley, and even some of his teachings, were disavowed by the Church during his lifetime. There was little real difference between the Evangelical party in the Church and the Methodists outside it, and it is becoming increasingly clear that in regard to essentials the two were agreed. In the past too much has been made of what might bo called questions of machinery. One man has a taste for machinery; another has not. But if they are both bound for the eanio goal, the means by which they reach it are only important in so far as those means tend to the same end. That was the point on which tho Archbishop laid emphasis. Wesley -was so profoundly preoccupied with bringing the good news, the Gospel, to men, that ho never thought of ecclesiasticism, or of organisations, or of institutions. He only cared for the pearl bf great price. The Archbishop pleaded for the simplest presentation of Gospel truth as the great spiritual force for the healing of the nations.

The "Morning Post," in commenting editorially on the Archbishop's speech, says: "If there be one truth more than another implicit in the Christian religion it is that a man is either saved or not saved, and that the point is more important to him than anything else in the world. Because to-day there are ideas and interpretations of the thing salvation which Wesley did not contemplate, it does not follow that the thing itself is not of the same irresistible and appalling moment." The British Premier, In a recent speech in the House, warned tlie members that there was a danger of -'slipping- down on what constituted our vii'ws of civilisation," and he made j an eloquent plea for that union of which the Archbishop spoke. "We cannot help feclinp," lie said, "that future wars may provide, with further discoveries in science, a more rapid descent for the

hurhan race; and there comes a feeling that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people, in all nations, to do what they can by joining hands rather than run the risks of sliding into the abyss together." Salvation may have a wider meaning to-day than Wesley gave it, but in essence it remains the same, and it muat come from spiritual forces and that grace which the Greeks called "wisdom"—the grace that eeeks to direct life to all noble ends, and which alone in the dire extremity of the world to-day would appear to afford a way of safety to the nations.