While a friendlier understanding has been helping men to cross by sympathy the ancient chasms which have separated church from church for so long, there has been visible too in recent years a marked tendency towards greater organic unity between religious communities closely allied to each other. Locally this has occasionally found expression in the springing up of "union churches," whose members originally belonged to different Nonconformist denominations, but such union sometimes has come about for convenience rather than from conviction, and has not always been permanent in character. It is different with the [p.150] union of the three Methodist Societies now combined in the United Methodist Church, or with the great movement which brought about the United Free Church of Scotland. We may look forward in the near future to still further developments of this spirit, and already a leader of Free Church thought, Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, the Secretary of the Baptist Union, has outlined proposals for the incorporation of the great Nonconformist denominations in one national communion, a Free Church of England, which would retain within its compass the different rites and systems of Church government of its various constituent churches. This would still leave unsolved the greater problem of the separation between the Free Churches and the Church of England, but it would be in itself an immense step forward as a practical recognition of common discipleship, and as such would be welcomed warmly by many of us who, almost certainly, would be left outside the ecclesiastical membership of this great Free Church. The Free Church Council has already done something to make such a union possible; and even if no formal connection between various churches whose members are associated with its work should be achieved, yet, in point of fact, a common member ship is being realised by them. The great leaders of Free Church thought and action are recognised not merely as belonging to one denomination, but as prophets and teachers for all. The worth of their ministry is felt even by those who cannot [p.151] recognise the validity of their orders, because of its non-episcopal origin.[32] <#_edn32> And yet all such plans for the promotion of visible ecclesiastical reunion do not touch the heart of things. In earlier ages men have sought reunion through ecclesiastical organisation and through fuller realisation of doctrinal unity, and [p.152] have failed repeatedly in the attempt. Can we hope to achieve union now by some ingenious scheme of comprehensive Church Government or by the formulation of a new creed where all the old creeds have failed to unite men?