THE APPEAL TO SCHOLARSHIP.

Northern Advocate, 13 August 1919, Page 3

THE APPEAL TO SCHOLARSHIP.

DR. BENSON ON LEARNING AND UNITY.

The Bishop of Hereford spoke on "The Modern Appeal to Sound Learning" at St.* Paul's, Convent-garden, dn connection- with the Christian Unity .Conference. There was a large congregation, representing both Churdh and Fcee Church. Quoting Bishop Creighton's claim that 'the Church of England rests on an appeal to sound learning," Dr. Henson showed how scholarship, originally used as a mere weapon of polemic against Papist and Puritan, had become a great factor of unity in the interpretation of Scripture. Sound, scientific study implied a method and an atmosphere dn which controversy is freed from all that (makes it repugnant and harmful to Christian temper and character. It also the number of gravity of the points of difference. Side by side in the lecture halls students of many denominations learned from the same great teachers of sacred science; their bookshelves contained the same volumes, and no one cared that Spurgeon and Maclaren were Baptists; or Dale a Congregationalist. Whatever external difficulty might hinder an exchange of pulpits, everybody knew there was no real difficulty arising from any difference of belief. While we Qiarl attained essential unity on Bible.interpretation, it was still true that ignorance—ignorance of history, philosophy, comparative religion, science, psychology—lay at the root of our religious divisions. The age of "universal scholars" had passed. The range of knowledge was so extended that specialism was a condition of intellectual progress. But sound learning made its effect felt in identity of method, in a single standard of accuracy and truth, in familiarity with the scientific spirit in any single study. To possess sound learning in that sense is to possess the pass-key to the temple of scaence and to enjoy the franchise of all who worship therein. Dr. Henson closed with a.dignified admission that no appeal to sound learning would affect real schism—the schism that sprang from personal aonbition and ecclesiastical jealousy. After all, love, not knowledge, was tihe condition of harmony in the family of Christ.