t of Love be celebrated, and the Church of England
ordains the Free Church ministry, and the Free Churches commission us,
to work each and all in the flocks that have been made one Fold.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] In the paragraphs which follow, I owe much to the Bishop of
Zanzibar's _The Fulness of Christ_, perhaps the deepest and ablest of
all the numerous Anglican books on Reunion.

[15] It is fair to state that after this lecture was delivered, I
received a note from one who had been at Cheltenham, saying that my
references to it gave an inaccurate impression; and that the findings
were only "an expression of opinion." To those, however, who read the
published account of the meeting, whether in the _Record_ or _Guardian_,
much more seemed to be intended.

[16] Quoted from the Second Interim Report of the Archbishops' Committee
and the representatives of the Free Church Commissions.

UNITY BETWEEN CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS

III. THE PROBLEM OF THE ENGLISH FREE CHURCHES

By the Rev. W. B. SELBIE, M.A., D.D.

While I think that what I say may be fairly taken to represent the
general mind of these churches it must be understood that I do not in
any way commit them but speak only for myself. I propose first to recall
the circumstances which gave rise to these churches and the conditions
which still operate in maintaining them as separate Christian bodies,
and then to give some account of the various movements towards reunion
in which they have taken part. The Baptists and Congregationalists you
will remember arose at a time when membership in the Anglican Church was
a formal and perfunctory thing. It was open to every parishioner and
meant very little in the way of Christian life or witness. The first
Nonconformists stood for the principle that membership in Christian
churches should be confined to genuinely Christian people, and in order
to secure this they formed separated churches, on the New Testament
model, of those who were able to give effective witness of their
Christian calling. That such churches should be self-governed followed
almost as a matter of course. Their meeting in the name of Christ
secured His presence among them and the guidance of His spirit in their
doings. But it is always important to remember that their essential
characteristic is not either democracy in church government or dissent
from the Establishment, but the positive witness to purity of membership
and to the sole headship of