rd another' lie very much deeper in our nature than
the region in which we keep our creeds. The self-regard and
self-absorption, petulant dislike of fellow-Christians'
peculiarities, the indifference which comes from lack of imaginative
sympathy, and which ministers to the ignorance which causes it, and a
thousand other weaknesses in Christian character bring about the
deplorable alienation which but too plainly marks the relation of
Christian communities and of individual Christians to one another in
this day. When one thinks of the actual facts in every corner of
Christendom, and probes one's own feelings, the contrast between the
apostolic ideal and the Church's realisation of it presents a
contradiction so glaring that one wonders if Christian people at all
believe that it is their duty 'to be of the same mind one toward
another.'

The attainment of this spirit of amity and concord ought to be a
distinct object of effort, and especially in times like ours, when
there is no hostile pressure driving Christian people together, but
when our great social differences are free to produce a certain
inevitable divergence and to check the flow of our sympathy, and when
there are deep clefts of opinion, growing deeper every day, and
seeming to part off Christians into camps which have little
understanding of, and less sympathy with, one another. Even the
strong individualism, which it is the glory of true Christian faith
to foster in character, and which some forms of Christian fellowship
do distinctly promote, works harm in this matter; and those who pride
themselves on belonging to 'Free churches,' and standing apart from
creed-bound and clergy-led communities, are specially called upon to
see to it that they keep this exhortation, and cultivate 'the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

It should not be necessary to insist that the closest mutual concord
amongst all believers is but an imperfect manifestation, as all
manifestations in life of the deepest principles must be, of the true
oneness which binds together in the most sacred unity, and should
bind together in closest friendship, all partakers of the one life.
And assuredly the more that one life flows into our spirits, the less
power will all the enemies of Christian concord have over us. It is
the Christ in us which makes us kindred with all others in whom He
is. It is self, in some form or other, that separates us from the
possessors of like precious fait