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Let the leaders come forward, and we ourselves shall be astonished at the latent powers of Faith in the Church of Canada. The Church-Union Movement: its Causes and Various Manifestations. The Protestant and Catholic View-Point. Church-union is to-day the outstanding feature of the Protestant world.
But we must not fall from it." The principles of evolution principles which we find underlying modern thought are freely called upon to explain this movement and justify its consequences. Our millennial-minded doctors and preachers are celebrating already the apotheosis of the Universal Church of the future. And what does the Catholic Church think of Church-Union?
As you may possibly know, my husband is prominent in Congregational circles all through the state for his advocacy of church-union. He hopes to see all the evangelical denominations joined in one strong body, opposing Catholicism and Christian Science, and properly guiding all movements that make for morality and prohibition.
For is She not that Church which Gladstone himself calls, "the most famous of Christian communions, and the one within which the largest numbers of Christian souls find their spiritual food!" The Catholic Church sees in this movement of Church-Union the complete disintegration of Protestantism and the open condemnation of its fundamental principles.
This brings us to speak of the tremendous activities of our separated brethren. Never have their efforts in view of organizing their social service departments been so persistent and so manifest, particularly in the mission field. Doctrinal lines are being lowered and various denominations absorbed gradually into a "Church-union" scheme from coast to coast.
The very fundamental mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption are fast growing dim in the minds and hearts of men. The Protestant Churches will never come back to their former position. In this Church-union movement they are burning their bridges behind them.
And indeed, the reading of addresses made at their different Conferences and General Assemblies, the resolutions passed, and the very atmosphere of these meetings tend to uphold the Church-Union Movement as the realization of unity in Christendom. It outlines the goal and bravely takes the first step towards its realization."
The strong denominational feeling is becoming more and more a thing of the past. The identity of churches is being absorbed in "social service" work, and sectarian peculiarities considered "obsolete impertinences." These are the various manifestations of the "Church-Union Movement."
A similar contrast existed once before in the History of Western mankind, to wit, in the latter days of the Roman Empire. The Catholic understood the Pagan; the Pagan did not understand the Catholic." Church-union was always more or less an ideal in the various non-Catholic denominations.
Periodically efforts were made to realize this ideal; but they always failed in the presence of the bitter antagonism that existed between the leading factions. The Church-union movement manifested itself, timidly at first, in the interchange of pulpits, the united services and inter-communion of several denominations.
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