Echoes From the Inter-Church Federation Conference
BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT, the founder of the Chautauqua movement, made the closing address, in which he declared there was room in the federation for everybody’s individual beliefs. Rev. Dr. Mackay, referring to the scope of the federation, said: “Just because I am sure of the divinity of Christ, I am willing to federate with any one, be he Brahman, Hindu, or Hottentot, if he is willing to agree, however imperfectly, in the kingship of Christ, and to work with him for the betterment of humanity.” The chairman of the Inter-Church Federation Conference said, in part: “This is one of the most notable assemblies of believers in Jesus Christ that has ever been seen. John Calvin wrote to Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, and declared he would cross any sea to make such a union effective. The dream of the great reformer and the great archbishop has met with realization in these latter days.” At a reception given at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York, subsequent to the conference, Lieutenant-Governor Bruce said: “When Christian people are stirred up and get together, they can have whatever they want. They can put down polygamy, do away with lax divorce laws, and curb intemperance. They want good government, and Christian people can get it. If we have it not, it is our own fault.” The Literary Digest of December 2, in a report of the Inter-Church Federation Conference, makes the following reference to an article written on the subject for the New York Sun by the Religious Liberty Secretary of the New York Conference: “A correspondent of the New York Sun expresses fear of the federation of churches as a ‘church trust’ which will eventually tyrannize over the religious conscience.” Dr. William Hayes Ward, editor of the Independent, writing in his own magazine, says: “It is a fact not sufficiently considered, that the spirit of unity has grown out of the zeal for evangelism. These are the two notes of the church of the present day—evangelism and union—which distinguish it from the church of a century ago. The sense of the duty to convert the world, and the sense of the duty to come together that we may convert the world—that they may be one, ‘that the world may know that thou hast sent Me.’” The Catholic Mirror, the organ of Cardinal Gibbons, of December 2 publishes an article on Christian unity by Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, in which he says: “The desire for the reunion of Christendom is a striking characteristic of our times.” He says that desire for unity and peace finds expression “in the co-operation of the Catholics and non-Catholics in temperance, sound politics, and charitable work; in the cordial invitation extended from time to time by the heads of various Protestant educational institutions to representative Catholic clergymen to explain some points of Catholic doctrines; in the success of missions to non-Catholics.” “These are surely evident signs that religious strife and dissensions are rapidly passing away, and that we are nearing Christian unity.” The Literary Digest of December 2 further says: “The Inter-Church Conference on Federation, of which the plans and aim have been already outlined in these columns, is declared by a conservative Philadelphia clergyman to mark ‘the greatest epoch in the life of Christianity within the past five hundred years.’ It is generally admitted that the actual results of this conference can not be immediately estimated, and that meanwhile its chief interest is as a sign of the times.”