Welsh Journals

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THE WELSH OUTLOOK "Where there is no vision the people perish." NOTES OF THE MONTH 115 SCHOOLMASTERS I HAVE SOUTH WALES ANTHRACITE A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY KNOWN 124 COAL INDUSTRY 132 FOR WALES 118 A BRETON FESTIVAL 128 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 136 THE NEW BARBARISM 122 THE HEADS OF COED j REVIEWS 138 A NOBLE TRIO 123 UCHAF 129 POETRY 121. 127, 131 MAY, 1927. Annual Subscription, 7/6. Half Year, 3/9 (post free). NOTES OF THE MONTH WE FEEL BOUND here to revert to a question discussed by us already in a recent issue, viz., the question of ecclesiastical re-union in Wales. There are some people in every age who desire uniformity; but we freely confess that we are not of their number. Surely the most important thing about a church is that it should be alive; and experience proves abundantly that it is when Christians are divided into small societies, each hold- ing tenaciously to some vital aspect of the truth, that religion flourishes. Indeed we greatly doubt whether uniformity can ever mean more than convictions on the part of a small energetic minority and acquiescence on the part of the majority. At the same time it is a wanton waste of our resources- material, intellectual, and spiritual-to perpetuate differences which have really ceased to divide. This surely applies to the Free Churches of Wales to-day. What- ever may have been the value of the things which kept them apart in former days there can be no doubt that these things would be grossly over-estimated if they were still to be allowed to keep the denom- inations at a distance from one another. We were present recently at a Sunday evening service at a Welsh Baptist chapel The sermon was by a Calvinistic Methodist; the lesson was by an ancient Jewish prophet; while the hymns were respect- CONTENTS: PAGE PAGE PACE ively the compositions of a Unitarian, a Roman Catholic, a Wesleyan, and a mediae- val monk; and yet no one present imagined that there was anything incongru- ous in the assemblage. We believe that but for certain vested interests, and certain technicalities, union of all the Free Churches in Wales could take place at once. WHAT, HOWEVER, of the Welsh Church? Must it be left out of any scheme of re-union? The answer surely depends upon the answer to another question, i.e. Will the Welsh Church elect to stand by the Protes ant Churches, or will it allow itself to be swept with the stream which to-day is carrying the strongest elements in the Church of England into the Roman fold? Re-union between Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox, we do not believe to be either possible or desirable in the present condition of things. As to its impossibility we have the candid testi- mony of Mr. Sidney Dark, the editor of the Church Times, who recently said that re-union with Nonconformist bodies has never been anything more than senti- mental talk." We quite agree with him. Father Waggett's now notorious vulgar and mendacious attack upon Nonconformist preachers ought to be sufficient to convince the doubtful, if there be any such. The