1. The importance of unity is so great, and division has been found so calamitous, and the words of Christ are so definite on the subject, that I think all would admit now that _Division is only to be prolonged for causes that are backed by divine command_. The larger Christian bodies are separated by convictions of great importance; but a severe and honest self-examination will probably lessen the number of differences which can justify the responsibility of so disastrous a thing as separation, and then we can set afoot conferences to deal with what remain. Human temperament, upbringing, tradition, human haste and pride have much to do with the birth, stabilising and continuance of division. A rare self-abnegation in our ecclesiastical history was the partial suicide of the Non-juring schism, and it has never been repeated; there were many great saints among the Nonjurors. If they could not take the oath of allegiance to William III, and therefore could not remain in the Church of England, the best of them recognised that their individual difficulty would not excuse them if they perpetuated themselves as a Church. In any junction of existing divisions, differing customs and methods of worship and organisation can be and should be safeguarded. That would only make the more for the health of the one Body. But, division itself is only to be prolonged for causes that are, or seem to be by conscience, backed by divine command, and the first step in all work for reunion will be the isolating of these causes from lesser things, and their careful and prayerful reconsideration. A grand example of such process, of course, has been the Conference of the leaders of our English denominations, at the inspiration of the American Committee of Faith and Order, which during 1917 faced the question of Episcopacy. The findings of its "second interim report" are nothing less than a landmark in Church History. You remember that roughly it was this: that any corporate reunion can only come in the acceptance of the historical Episcopate; but that the conception and use of Episcopacy in the Church has been a limited one: there are many ways of regarding and using bishops besides the monarchical or "prelatical" way exemplified by the Church of England. This is a first proof that when truths, keenly felt and seemingly rival, are discussed in Conference spirit, the angularities that offend disappear; and wider, bigger truth comes into the possession of all. It will be so more and more. By faith we can already see that the labour of understanding unto reunion is bound to be an immense _creative_ period in the Church of God.