What is distinctive about this new periodical is that it is to work for a better understanding among the various communions of Christendom, building on what the churches are actually believing, doing, and thinking. It is not seeking neutral territory where courtesy and diplomacy would tend to avoid issues and round off the sharp edges of truth and conviction, but rather common ground where loyalty to conviction will be secure from the tendency to mere compromise and to superficial and artificial comprehension. In the first number there is a striking array of able articles from Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Protestants, from Europeans and Americans, clergymen and laymen. It will be difficult to maintain so high a standard; but the idea is an inspiring one and deserves to succeed. The tragedy of ecclesiastical history in all ages is the spilling of blood and treasure by the churches in warfare against other forms of faith. It is true that the decay of religious controversy has usually meant a decay of interest in religion. A writer in the _Quarterly_ quotes Tennyson as having said, "You must choose in religion between bigotry and flabbiness." What the present venture is in some measure to test is the possibility of laying aside hostility while yet maintaining _esprit de corps_, to act in the spirit of Von Moltke's dictum, "March apart, strike together!" The success of the effort will depend on the clear perception of the enemies against which the allied forces of religion are to strike, or dropping the figure, on the concentration of effort on the positive results which the forces of organized religion are to seek to secure in the social order. These lie partly at least, avoiding dogmatic exaggeration, in those social relations in which the evil tendencies to which we have referred are so apparent. The religion which is constructive is one which makes men unwilling to exploit the vices or weaknesses of their fellow men, and at the same time makes the other men unexploitable, which destroys privilege through just laws, impartially enforced, and upheld by enlightened public opinion, which dispels ignorance by full and exact knowledge bearing fruit in sound measures of social reform, which protects the sub-normal and emancipates the handicapped from their limitations, which permeates education, business, politics, and eventually the entire social life. There may be other tests of true religion, but these are concrete, easy to understand and to apply. They have ancient and sufficient sanction. They are unsectarian and non-controversial. STRANGE INCENSE CARY F. JACOB _A tiny, tangled head bent down Within a city's gutter-- A laughing face of tan and brown Amid the rubbish of the town._ _Mud-pies and broken glass all day Bring fairyland from far away To thee, sweet innocence, at play._