h holds to the four universal
things--the authority of Holy Scripture; the Creeds; the two Sacraments,
and the historic episcopate. We believe that the retention of the
historic Episcopate is essential to the maintenance of the Catholic
ideal of the Church. For the bishop is the link between the local and
the universal Church; the representative and guardian of the Catholic
ideal in the life of the local community; and the representative of the
local community in the counsels of the Catholic Church. I have often
wished that at least one bishop from some other Church than our own
could be associated with the consecration of all bishops of the Anglican
Church. For by such association we should bring into clearer prominence
the fact that the historic episcopate is more than a national
institution.

So we reach the final question: What can the Churches do to promote the
unity of the nations?

An invitation was recently issued by the Archbishop of Upsala for a
conference of representatives of the Christian Churches, to reassert,
even in this day of disunion, the essential unity of the Body of Christ.
For various reasons, such a conference at the present juncture seems
impracticable, but the time may come when, side by side with a Congress
of the nations, a gathering of representatives of the Churches may be
called together to reinforce, by its witness, the idea of international
fellowship.

For a League of Churches might well prepare the way for a League of
Nations. Such a League of Churches would naturally find expression in a
permanent Advisory Council--a kind of ecclesiastical Hague tribunal.
Historical antagonisms seem to preclude the selection of Rome or
Constantinople as the place of meeting of this Council. Surely there is
no other place so suited for the purpose as Jerusalem. Here the
appointed representatives of all the Churches, living in constant
intercourse with one another, might draw together the severed parts of
the One Body, till the glory and honour of the nations find, even in the
earthly Jerusalem, their natural centre and home. Thus, and thus only,
can the spiritual foundation for a League of Nations be well and truly
laid.

Two things are involved in any such scheme for a League of Churches. No
one Church must claim a paramount position or demand submission as the
price of fellowship; and all excommunications of one Church by another
must be swept away.

Christ did not come to destroy the local lo