CERTAIN leading spirits in the world to-day are earnestly seeking to combine and federate every organization and society that exists, and this all for the purpose of meeting what are recognized to be evils, or supposed evils, of this age. This spirit of federation is spreading rapidly and reaching everywhere.
The Prominent Organizations.
In the Protestant churches, perhaps the oldest organization of the day is the Evangelical Alliance. It made a big stir for a time, and spread a spirit of federating and combining among the religious forces of the land. Then have followed the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which seeks to unite all the Christian women of the world for the great and laudable object of advancing the cause of temperance; the Young Men's Christian Association, that seeks to gather the young men, regardless of denominational lines, for the purposes of mutual improvement and helpfulness;
Officers of the Executive Committee of the Inter-Church Federation.
the Christian Endeavor Society, that has organized Christian young men and young women into one of the greatest organizations of this time; and, perhaps, the latest and most significant of these federating organizations is the Inter-Church Federation that convened its first conference in Carnegie Hall, New York, Nov. 15, 1905. This latter federation was the outgrowth of, or rather was suggested and called out by, the National Federation of Churches and Christian Workers that was organized four years earlier.
The Protestants Are Federated.
From the foregoing list of Protestant organizations, all of which are inter-denominational, it will be seen that the Protestant element of the country is quite well embraced in the federating movement. And this will be all the more apparent when it is considered that the Inter-Church Federation that was organized in 1905 claims to represent eighteen million of the Christian professors of the United States.
It is strikingly significant that this organizing of the Christian forces of the land should be called a "federation." There seems to be a deep-seated conviction that there never can be "unity" except on certain points that they "hold in common," and these will form the basis for "federation." It is suggested as a basis for common ground of action that there be "concentration of effort for the removal of social evils, the cleansing of the centers of vice and corruption, and the promotion of temperance, Sabbath observance, and general morality."
Federation Is General.
The foregoing outline is only of the work that is going on in Protestant circles, looking toward federation. Elsewhere in this issue will be found articles telling of the federating spirit that is moving in Catholic circles and also in the business enterprises of the world at large. What do these mighty movements signify? Are they the beginnings of a great world movement that will sweep everything before it like the crusades of the middle centuries? We have not the space to consider this phase of the subject this week, but an article next week will take up the outcome of this movement quite fully.
A Federation Is Not a Union.
No one can deny the fact that federation is a great movement of this time. But all should see that "federation" is not "unity." Christ made a most wonderful prayer for the unity of His believers. A part of that prayer is:
"I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them thru Thy truth; Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified thru the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me thru their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou has loved Me." John 17: 15-23.
That earnest prayer of Christ to His Father is not that His followers may be federated, but that they may be one. Unity in Christ Jesus has been a great blessing to the world; but federations and religious combinations, especially when they seek to influence affairs in political circles, have been rather a curse than a blessing, as the history of the past will abundantly attest.
