Welsh Journals

piece is scaffolding, and the climax itself, failing of real cogency and pathos, becomes merely sordid and vexatious. The truth is that Pinero is amazingly trivial. One of his latest compositions, Preserving Mr. Panmure, is about a governess who is kissed against her will, and the whole play consists of complications, owing to the fact that she will not CHRISTIAN UNITY IN WALES-" The Welsh Outlook," February, 1914. We, as Baptists, are as keenly interested in the dis- cussion of Christian Unity as any of our Christian brethren, for was it not the Rev. J. H. Shakespeare, MA.,who went farthest in recent years in the direction of treating this as a practical question by his famous paper at Hull, and is he not to return to the theme at the forthcoming meetings of the National Council of Free Churches to be held at Norwich ? Most of us younger Baptists would subscribe to everything that is said by the writer of the article on Christian Unity in your February number. It is hard to see how any of us is to escape from his cogent grip, so long as it is a case of discussing general principles, but it must be said at once that there are certain grave practical difficulties in the way of our taking effective action. Cannot a beginning be made, however, by preventing for the future the needless multiplication of causes ? It may be difficult to bring about the much-needed amalgamation of feeble causes that already exist, but cannot we be wise, and prevent the aggravation of our problem in days to come ? One of the main difficulties is the practical one of knowing who is to make a beginning. Just as in the case of disarmament, no nation has the courage to make a beginning, lest it should appear to act from weakness and be meanly exploited by other nations, so the several churches are held back by an unworthy denominational amour-propre from taking the initia- tive. And yet it is surely a great honour to be the first to find the necessary courage to do the right thing, once we are convinced of its rightness. It has often been said that the obvious point at which to make a beginning is to bring the Baptists and Congregationalists into closer unity, for they have much in common and but little to divide them. They are both Congregationalists, in respect of church order, though both are happi!y moving together in the direc- tion of a modified Presbyterianism, under pressure of certain modern needs. It is only the question of Baptism that divides them, and now that the more superstitious ideas connected with Infant Baptism are reveal the identity of her admirer-her employer and her employer's wife insist on trying to find out which of their guests is guilty. Four mortal acts about this and practically nothing else No Sir Arthur as a dramatist is out of the question, and the rest of of the school, in differing degrees, share his lack of grip and penetration. (To bt continued.) DISCUSSION being openly disavowed on the one side, and the need of taking greater care of the religious nurture of children is being frankly admitted on the other, it does seem as if we have a most favourable opportunity, at this point, of making an impressive beginning. In England there is already a good deal of intercom- munion between the two denominations that is full of promise of a still better understanding, and of a closer practical co-operation in the not very remote future. But the Welsh Baptists are confronted by a greater difficulty in this matter than any other section of the Church. It is notorious that they practise strict communion, and so refuse to recognise any as valid church-members, save those who have been baptised by immersion. The Auld Lichts among us make a very brave show of logic in argument, and shew little or no disposition to relax from their traditional rigidity. But the younger Welsh Baptists-especially young lay-men-realise how illogical the position has become, when ministers of other churches are invited to pray in our meetings and sometimes to preach, but are barred from the Lord's Supper. They feel that love counts for more than logic in genuine Christianity, and that an unbaptised man of noble character is infinitely preferable, in God eyes, to an indifferent Christian-not to speak of flagrant faults- who has been baptised by immersion. Rather than go back to a more logical but less charitable position, as some seem tempted to do through cowardice, younger Baptists would prefer to seek for strength, to go forward in the direction of breadth and catholicity for the love of truth and of Christ is stronger in them than mere denominational pride of tradition, however excellent that may be in its own place. The mere submission to a rite is no guarantee of pure character or worthy churchmanship, and to say, as some of our Welsh Baptist brethren do, that a positive command relating to ritual (gorchymyn pendant) is more abiding than a universal moral precept, is a gross perversion of the Christianity which from the very beginning and