Our non-Catholic reader may say that the position we take tends to strengthen that exclusiveness, that narrowness, that aloofness with which he has always charged the Church of Rome. But we would ask our dissenting brethren, can it be otherwise? Truth is indivisible and unchangeable. Were the unity of the Church Universal to exist only in the Church of the future we would have to conclude that there was a time when the Church of Christ did not exist on earth. This would be absurd and would destroy Christianity in its very foundation. The true Church of Christ has a right to claim the monopoly of Christianity. The Church which, through a so-called spirit of broad-mindedness, accepts the conflicting claims of the various dissident bodies, and is ready to merge its entity with other denominations, immediately, _de facto_, invalidates its claim to be "The Church of Christ." For, its position involves a contradiction and is in itself a self-condemnation. Yet, the Catholic Church cannot feel indifferent toward this general and supreme effort of the various fragments of Christendom towards unity. Confidently she waits for the hour when all will return to her as to the only centre and source of permanent unity. Yet, we would say with the Bishop of Northampton, "If we may not compromise the very object of this remarkable movement towards unity by accepting the pressing invitations of our separated brethren to make common cause with them, neither can we rest content to be mere spectators of their perplexities like those who watch from the shore the efforts of distressed seamen to make their port." Let us hope that Divine Providence, always gentle and strong in its dealings with human liberty, will hasten the day when there will be but "One Fold and One Pastor." In the meantime the efforts made to constitute unity of Christianity outside of its true centre will prove as futile as _ploughing the sands of the desert_. [1] The withdrawal of the Northern Presbyterian and Northern Baptists and the failure of the financial drive have imperilled the existence of this ambitious project. Is it not a case of repeating with the Psalmist: "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it?"--Ps. 126. [2] In the last Lambeth Conference--1920--the Church of England has again reduced this minimum by implicitly recognizing the Nonconformist ministry and abandoning its claim to reunion through the absorption of all sects in the Anglican communion. It has so shifted from its former position that it has openly expressed in the Bishops' manifesto the desire to place itself on some "no man's land" where all the dissident Churches may safely meet and unite.