RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 265, 1 August 1908, Page 12

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

THE PAN-ANCLICAN CONCRESS AND AFTER. IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS. Bishop Montgomery sends tho following important statement to tho " Guardian" (May 10) Tho problem confronting tho Anglican Communion in its own sphere is of course almost identical with t(iat which absorbs the attention of every statesman to-day from' his special standpoint. First, it is tno era of massed forces, and in tho clash of the.M armies the smaller bodies faro badly, 'lliis is a cause for anxiety, i'or we owe too much to tho genius of littio States and churches to afford to part with thorn. Wo can only hopo that within the larger unit there will be room hereafter for the life of the smaller without, curtailment of its full work. It seems to me that no race is quite so fair to the two main factors in life—tho. conservation of personal liborty'and the development of corporate _ responsibility—as the AngloObviously, however, the attempt to reconcile theso two tendencies lays us open to furious gales, first from one quarter, tlien from the other. Such unrest means to the superficial observer instability; 1 believe it is tho price we must'pay for stability. After years of pronouncod individualism within the Church in spiritual life, we arc swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction, fully aware that thero is danger in extremes in both directions. The movement ' towards fuller corporate life is tho meaning .of tho Pan-Anglican Congress. To take this in detail it means—first, greatly increased friendliness throughout tho whole Communion, born of fullor knowledge of each other's needs, temperaments, and dangers.' I believe tho authorities of the Church are bent on having meetings of the Bishops of each Continent in turn, in order to get the fullest possible conspectus of tho greatest' needs of oach Continent in the first place. • If this is carried out I believe it will be one of the most fruitful results of the Congress;and of the. subsequent Conference at Lambotli. The next step will be to note the interrelation of all such Continental' problems. Asia, Africa, Australasia, the Americas, Europe—they all hang together; you cannot ignore any Continent; tho unit of action has" for ever become the world. More than for any form of Christianity is this true of tho Catholic Church in tho frill' sense in which wo use it, for if we attach tho greatest importance to the organic development of the Church in , Order and Creed we must •bo deeply concienied in the first foundations of tlib' Church amorig every race, since the future depends upon the beginning. The tondenoy towards a deeper and fullor corporate life and practical activity is so. obviously with us to-day that one may bo permitted to deprecate too rapid a movement in that direction, at least by any kind of enactment. The nobler attitude should bo fostered by ovory means in pur powert The results of it should come imperceptibly. We have a tree to wator; the. fruit will ripen and fall, and bo good food, by a natural and an irresistible process. The advocates for the fuller corporate life in action, among whom I range myself, must, see to it t]iat they do nothing to imperil the assembling of the next PanAnglican Congress, in 1918, by imprudently forcing tho pace. The wisdom of tho fiishops, which has led to tho gradual growth of respect for the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, must enter into tho rank and file of tho Church, into clergy, laymen, and women, to keep tho individualist from/ any sense of alarm or unrest'. Wo must not. legislate far in advance of the large majority of the Church. One fresh step it seems to me to be wise for us to advocate—that it be resolved, at once that a .meeting should be arranged at Lambeth for some day five years hence—that is, in 1913—0f the Primates, Metropolitans, and Presiding Bishops of the Church, accompanied, if it is thought fit, by a few delegates from the Iftwer ranks of.the' Church, in order to plan out deliberately what is to be effected in 1918. And God give His Church a right judgment in all things.