with favour--and thus far nothing of the kind has appeared--the
result, so far as essential unity is concerned, would be _nil._ There is
a perfectly definite line of division between the Catholic and the
Protestant, and until this line is erased there is no possible unity,
even if this were only official and administrative. The Catholic (and in
respect to this one particular point I include under this title members
of the Roman, Anglican and Eastern Communions) maintains and practices
the sacramental system; the Protestant does not. There is no reason,
there is indeed grave danger of sacrilege, in a joint reception of the
Holy Communion by those who look on it as a mere symbol and those who
accept it as the very Body and Blood of Christ. Protestant clergy are
urged to accept ordination at the hands of Anglican bishops, but the
plea is made on the ground of order, expediency, and the preservation of
tradition; whereas the Apostolical succession was established and
enforced not for these reasons but in order that the grace of God,
originally imparted by Christ Himself, may be continued through the
lines He ordained, for the making and commissioning of priests who have
power to serve as the channels for the accomplishing of the divine
miracle of the Holy Eucharist, to offer the eternal Sacrifice of the
Body and Blood of Christ for the quick and the dead, and to remit the
penalty of sins through confession and absolution. If the laying on of
hands by the bishop were solely a matter of tradition and discipline,
neither Rome nor the Anglican Communion would be justified in holding to
it as a condition of unity; if it is for the transmission of the Holy
Ghost for the making of a Catholic priest, with all that implies and has
always implied, then it is wrong, even in the interests of a formal
unity, to offer it to those who believe neither in the priesthood nor in
the sacraments in the Catholic and historic sense.

The conversion of the individual must take precedence of corporate
action of any sort. When the secularist comes to believe in the Godhead
of Christ he will unite himself with the rest of the faithful in a
Church polity, but he will not do this, he has too much self-respect,
simply because he is told by some ardent but minimizing parson that he
does not have to believe in the Divinity of Christ in order to "join the
church." When a Protestant comes to accept the sacramental system, to
desire to participate in the Hol