tihvaxy of ^he theological Seminar;? 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
 
 !»• 
 
 BV 2063 .L86 1918 
 Love, J. F. 1859-1928 
 The union movement 
 
nrc^/^U^ 
 
 
►1*=^ 
 
 
 The Union Movement 
 
 v/ 
 
 By J. R LOVE,D.D. 
 
 Corresponding Secretary Foreign Mission Board 
 
 Southern Baptist Convention 
 
 Author of 
 
 "The Unique Message and Universal 
 
 Mission of Christianity," 
 
 "The Mission of Our Nation," 
 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Sunday School Board Southern Baptist Convention 
 Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
Copyright, 191 8 
 
 Sunday School Board Southern Baptist Convention 
 
 Nashville, Tennessee 
 
TABLE OF CX)NTENTS. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 Why This Discussion? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Strenth of the Movement. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Attitude Defined. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Specific Issues Raised. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Some Planks in the Platform Examined. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A Basis of Union. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 A Feasible Co-operation. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A Baptist Foreign Mission Program. 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 (3) 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 In the following pages will be found a discussion of the 
 moot question of the union and cooperation of Christian 
 forces in Missions. 
 
 The writer here confesses the desire that what he has 
 written shall be read before judgment is passed upon it. If 
 this is done, he is, of course, ready to receive judgment. All 
 questions which are enswathed in sentiment are inflammable. 
 Christian union and inter-denominationalism belong to this 
 class of subjects. Every page has been written under the 
 restraint of a full consciousness that, so much having been 
 written in the advocacy of federation in mission work, the 
 Movement having gained such headway, and the names of 
 so many good and honored men being identified with it, much 
 sentiment exists and prejudices can be easily aroused by a 
 statement of tJie case for denomination alism. And yet 
 the hope is indulged that most Christian men are fair-minded 
 and will suspend judgment until they have given a dispas- 
 sionate reading to the neglected side of a great question. 
 
 The discussion is conducted mainly from the viewpoint 
 of one denomination, that of Baptists and of Southern Bap- 
 tists in particular; but in many respects the arguments used 
 will hold as a defense of denominationalism in general, which 
 is definitely threatened by the Movement which is under 
 review. 
 
 Let the reader keep firmly and constantly in mind the 
 point that Christian fellowship and brotherly sentiment are 
 not the matters now under discussion ; nor even the ordinary 
 and normal denominational relationships. Perhaps the 
 severest indictment of the Movement is that it has disturbed 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Preface 
 
 peace within the denominations and is interrupting the usual 
 relations between denominations by assuming to deal with 
 policies and matters of administration which have been en- 
 trusted to denominational mission boards alone, and which 
 they have no authority to delegate. The agitation to which 
 the Union Movement is giving rise makes it important that 
 thoughtful men shall draw distinctions between inter-Chris- 
 tian relationships and inter-denominationalism, and between 
 the latter and extra-denominationalism and anti-denomina- 
 tionalism. There has been much indiscrimination just here. 
 The writer of these pages is a champion of the most cordial 
 and becoming Christian amenities; his views concerning 
 these denominational relationships are expounded in the fol- 
 lowing chapters. If those who have confounded the Chris- 
 tian relationships with this particular Movement can sepa- 
 rate the two, they will more fairly judge the merit of the 
 discussion which follows. 
 
 J. F. L. 
 Richmond, Virginia. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHY THIS DISCUSSION? 
 
 Within a very recent period there has been produced a 
 remarkably large literature in the interest of co-operative 
 endeavor in mission work and the union of Christian forces 
 under certain auspices. Among the many volumes which, 
 in whole or in part, are devoted to the advancement 
 of this federation movement, some have had wide circula- 
 tion as mission study books. Singularly enough, not one of 
 these books, is, we believe, issued under the auspices of any 
 denominational mission board, and not one has been written 
 to state the case for denominationalism, or to challenge this 
 Movement which is fostering mission policies on a great 
 scale for the denominations and their regularly constituted 
 agencies. With the exception of short, sporadic articles and 
 editorials which have occasionally appeared in denomina- 
 tional weeklies, the case for the denominations has not been 
 stated. General conventions, synods and conferences have 
 not, to our knowledge, been consulted, although their prin- 
 ciples, missionary policies and administrative functions are 
 involved. Almost without exception, these books have been 
 written by those who are connected with the Continuation 
 work of the Edinburgh Conference or allied organizations, 
 and have been published under affliated auspices. This litera- 
 ture expounds the Union Movement which is headed by the 
 Continuation Committee and the Foreign Mission Conference 
 of North America and presses the issues to the door of every 
 missionary church and organization in America. 
 
 Union and cooperation on the basis set forth in this lit- 
 erature is not to be confounded with unorganized friendly 
 
 (7) 
 
8 The Union Movement 
 
 relations which commonly exist among Christians of all 
 creeds. The question raised is that of co-operation with a 
 Movement the policies of which have been fixed by a compara- 
 tively small company of men and offered to others as a basis 
 of cooperation, and with the view to effecting the most com- 
 prehensive union. 
 
 This Movement has given us a new missionary leadership, 
 and it has assumed extraordinary prerogatives. We predict 
 that other denominations besides Southern Baptists will 
 shortly check the freedom with which an extra-denomina- 
 tional organization proceeds to modify their missionary 
 policies and prescribe the shade and gauge of their denomi- 
 nationalism on the home and foreign fields. Indeed, leading 
 men in some of the denominations are already sounding an 
 alarm at the extraordinary assumption of authority and in- 
 terference with denominational policies. Dr. Arthur J. 
 Brown, a staunch defender of the Movement, acknowledges 
 that "the question to be dealt with goes straight to the heart 
 of the whole denominational propaganda." ( Unity and Mis- 
 sions, hy Arthur J. Brown, D.D., page 258.) 
 
 Such facts would seem to be sufficient justification for the 
 present discussion. Matters have reached the point where 
 silence is practical acquiescence in the policies of a Move- 
 ment which, if unchecked for ten years, will not leave any 
 evangelical denomination true to its present type. That 
 statement is made with deliberation, and we offer for its 
 support such facts only as the friends of the Movement have 
 furnished us. 
 
 The following pages were written after a somewhat care- 
 ful survey of the literature on the subject, opportunity for 
 pretty wide observation, some knowledge of conditions which 
 the Movement has produced, quite general familiarity with 
 the views, sentiments and convictions of at least one of the 
 denominations — that whose faith and work claim the writer's 
 
The Union Movement 9 
 
 loyalty^ — and after that denomination has repeatedly and 
 explicitly defined its attitude to the matter at issne. Believ- 
 ing that the time has come when, for the good of our common 
 Christianity and all concerned, and in the interest of sound 
 and effective missionary policies, there ought to be more 
 than a one-sided discussion of this question which is agitat- 
 ing many minds and that there should be offered more than 
 definition of the attitude of Southern Baptists to the Move- 
 ment, I have written what is here submitted to the public. 
 
 The writer's controlling desire and purpose have been 
 to serve the cause of Missions. He has seen his opportunity 
 to do this in the present case: 
 
 1. By helping Southern Baptists to understand more 
 fully and generally than they do the issues w^hich have been 
 raised ; by influencing, as far as possible, the temper of their 
 sentiment and speech in dealing with a subject upon which 
 most of them have already very strong convictions; by pro- 
 moting unity within the denomination itself, and by calling 
 upon pastors and other leaders of our Baptist people every- 
 where to help turn the united powders of our great numbers 
 upon a constructive denominational missionary program. 
 
 There is no line of union endeavor in which a Baptist 
 may engage which presents such possibilities of fruitful serv- 
 ice as that of striving to unify his own people for positive 
 Christian effort. United and active, the nearly three mil- 
 lion Southern Baptists would be a powerful missionary 
 force; and, if all the Baptists white and colored of all sec- 
 tions could see eye to eye and strive together for the further- 
 ance of the faith of the gospel, the combined influence and 
 strength of the more than seven million American Baptists 
 would be incalculable. What shall it profit any Baptist, or 
 Baptist enterprise, at home or abroad, if vre gain fraternal 
 and cooperative relations with other people and disturb these 
 relations in our own denomination ? Provision for the needs 
 
10 The Union Movement 
 
 and the guarantee of success for our missionary work, our 
 various boards, newspapers, colleges, seminaries, and all 
 other institutions at home, as well as all the work abroad, 
 depend upon the unification and enlistment of our great num- 
 bers. All our enterprises are bound up with the loyalty of 
 our people and their sense of responsibility for our denomina- 
 tional program. Whoever raises a voice which divides Bap- 
 tists in favor of union institutions abroad will find that his 
 voice has lost power to rally their combined support for any 
 institution at home or abroad. There is not an agency 
 through which Baptists try to serve Christ and promote his 
 kingdom on earth, that must not find its greatest usefulness 
 in the confidence and support of a united denomination. 
 The right sort of Baptist does not make it his business to 
 create either inter-denominational alliances or denomina- 
 tional coteries. The man who through sentiment seeks to 
 lead his brethren away from the policies of the denomination 
 and he also who for a personal following seeks to lead them 
 away from the organized work of the denomination is dis- 
 loyal. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Convention has given us the key 
 to a unifying program for Baptists. By respecting the voice 
 of a democratic majority on the one hand and by proper 
 regard for the feelings of individuals on the other, we can 
 work on such a platform as that which has been adopted by 
 the Convention. There should be no bolting and no hector- 
 ing. There should be unity and good feeling within the 
 denomination. Any course which sets conservative against 
 progressive, one class, camp, or section of our people against 
 another, will prove disastrous to the cause of Christ. If we 
 should develop leadership on the home and foreign fields 
 which ignores these simple facts, it would be at the cost of 
 denominational harmony and would entail irreparable loss 
 to the missionary enterprise in general. My plea is first 
 
The Union Movement 11 
 
 of all, that we shall by wisdom, consideration, tactfulness, 
 patience and consistent regard for the voice of our demo- 
 cratic people expressed through the Convention, seek to har- 
 monize sentiment, unify the forces, enlist and direct the 
 activities of Southern Baptists, and thereby make our largest 
 possible contribution to the common Christian task of evan- 
 gelizing a lost world. I would that no voice which is raised 
 in defense of our time-honored principles and their applica- 
 tion to our mission work should disregard the sensitive ears 
 of those who are in the minority, and that no voice which 
 calls us to other alliances at the expense of a service within 
 and through the denomination should be heeded. 
 
 It is unseemly that we should allow an extra-denomina- 
 tional Movement to sow the seeds of discord in the denom- 
 ination. When the whole situation is understood, I have 
 little fear that such will be the case; for it is my opinion, 
 confirmed by residence in several centers of Baptist influence 
 and a dozen years of general intercourse with Baptists of all 
 sections, that there does not exist any radical difference 
 among them. There is a rare homogeneity of faith among 
 American Baptists. They believe and speak the same things 
 with only slight variation of accent and intonation, the 
 strained voices of a very few to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing. They have been taught with gratifying success the 
 poetry of a true and common gospel, and one great duty of 
 our leaders is to train all our people to sing it to a winning 
 tune until their matchless message shall charm the world 
 with the unison of its spiritual melody, as well as with its 
 scriptural soundness. I esteem it to be a missionary service 
 of high order to have some part, if I may, in securing such a 
 result. 
 
 2. I see an opportunity to help the missionary cause if I 
 succeed in interpreting to others the action of the Southern 
 Baptist Convention and the latent sentiments of our Baptist 
 
12 The Union Movement 
 
 hosts. In definition tlie Convention's statement of its posi- 
 tion is unmistakably plain, but there has been misinterpreta- 
 tion of the denominational spirit in taking so firm a stand 
 on a matter so full of sentiment and in opposition to views 
 which are held by good men in other denominations. I think 
 that this misunderstanding is due to a hasty reading of the 
 Statement put forth, and to the further fact that a situa- 
 tion which is dominated by sentiment is naturally sensitive. 
 Christian union is aflame with sentiment, within reason and 
 Scripture a very beautiful and worthy sentiment, but senti- 
 ment nevertheless; and great caution is needed in crossing 
 a sentiment or its very opposite will be aroused. 
 
 An indifi'erent policy cannot win nor even a definite 
 policy which is not understood. It is not enough that the 
 Convention should define its attitude, and in doing so 
 present a missionary program consistent with the principles 
 of the denomination at home, and that all agencies and 
 agents of the Convention should seek to execute this policy. 
 It is equally important that the whole brotherhood, and those 
 who represent the Movement for Christian union, concern- 
 ing which the Convention has defined its attitude, should 
 understand this. It is almost as desirable that this action 
 be fully understood by good men without the denomination 
 who are interested in the missionary enterprise as it is that 
 it be respected by those who represent the Convention; for, 
 otherwise, this action will fail to accomplish its purpose, and 
 serious trouble will follow. Any inference that the Con- 
 vention has not decided upon the questions at issue and upon 
 a definite policy will make for confusion, and any misinter- 
 pretation of that action or disregard for it by the friends 
 of the Movement will defeat the wishes of all good men that 
 the usual peace and fraternal relations may be maintained. 
 
 Southern Baptists cannot be classed with mere dissenters, 
 nor should their position be represented as hostile to Chris- 
 
The Union Movement 13 
 
 tian fellowship. The Statement which gives the Con- 
 vention's attitude is explicit of the conscience and policy of 
 the Convention, but, because of its brevity and concise defini- 
 tion, it is liable to be misunderstood, has been misunderstood, 
 as to its spirit. It is unfortunate that anyone within or with- 
 out the denomination should conclude that Southern Baptists 
 are without either convictions or courtesy. Misunderstand- 
 ing has come of not understanding. 
 
 It would certainly seem appropriate that a representative 
 Christian body, such as is constituted by the more than two 
 and a half-million white Baptists of the South, should frankly 
 inform their Christian brethren concerning a decision reached 
 upon a matter with which others are concerned, and by prior 
 action upon which others have made such decision necessary. 
 It is also desirable that so large a body of evangelical Chris- 
 tians as Southern Baptists should, if they have a mind of 
 their own, make at least a small contribution to a subject 
 on which has been created so large a body of literature. 
 The necessary brevity of the Statement passed to record by 
 the Convention, the emphasis which it thus necessarily placed 
 upon dissent, and the fact that this is, to the general public, 
 lost in the Minutes of the Convention, affords strong reasons 
 for a somewhat more ample statement of the views which 
 are held by the denomination upon the matters at issue. 
 The definitions of that paper need to be properly set in the 
 atmosphere of Christian sentiment and given suitable per- 
 spective. The very brief Christian salutation with which 
 that paper begins and ends should have amplification if the 
 position of the Convention is to have a fair appraisement. 
 The paper is definitive as to certain issues raised in the pro- 
 gram of the Federation Movement, but it is not fully ex- 
 pository of the spirit and attitude of Southern Baptists 
 toward Christian men and women as such, and, in its brief 
 form, it will not, to many readers, appear to be a thoroughly 
 
14 The Union Movement 
 
 positive and constructive missionary document. It is frankly 
 protestant. It announces dissent as to a certain missionary 
 program, and is, by reasonable implication, a missionary pro- 
 gram in itself, but amplification is needed both as to its 
 spirit and its positive missionary character. Southern Bap- 
 tists decline to be committed to unsound, unsafe and seri- 
 ously objectionable missionary policies, but they do, even 
 by dissent, commit themselves to a thoroughgoing and highly 
 responsible denominational program. When the statement 
 is understood, and the merits of the issues which it faces are 
 realized, it will, I venture to predict, be esteemed as the pro- 
 nouncement of men with missionary purpose, vision, passion 
 and conscience. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Convention is girt and vital with 
 religious conviction, but it is also wafted by Christian senti- 
 ment. When dissent is necessary, it has the courage to say 
 so, but it does this in consideration for other Christians. A 
 close study of the Statement of the Convention's attitude to 
 union efi'ort in mission work will discover this. We may say 
 with confidence that there is not among us a man big enough 
 and influential enough to carry through any session of the 
 Convention a pronouncement on Christian union which com- 
 promises the denomination at the points defined in that state- 
 ment, or one that is framed in disrespect and discourtesy 
 for other Christian people. Southern Baptists believe in 
 holding the truth in love. The Statement has in it defini- 
 tion for those who are uncertain of the Convention's policy 
 in the conduct of its mission work, and, even as it stands, 
 reassurance for those who may think that conviction and 
 Christian courtesy are incompatible. 
 
 There is in the statement neither concession to the inter- 
 denominational liberalist nor the denominational feudist. 
 It fixes a limitation upon the actions of representatives of 
 the Convention's boards, but it does not fix bounds for their 
 
The Union Movement 15 
 
 Christian spirit and love. Kightly understood, it should 
 promote soundness, bigness and brotherliness among South- 
 ern Baptists. It takes care of our denominational identity 
 without repressing worthy Christian sentiment. It removes 
 disputes concerning denominational boundary lines so that 
 we can live in neighborly relations with other Christians. 
 It should serve as a guard against compromising alliances 
 and as a guide to effective and supplementary missionary 
 effort. Baptists can render the greatest help to those who 
 carry missionary burdens by faithfully carrying their own. 
 While doing this, we need not restrain a smile for a brother 
 who is also under the burden. We need neither to throw 
 away our convictions in order to be courteous, nor our 
 courtesy in the effort to be frank. 
 
 The position taken by Southern Baptists is grounded in 
 reason, deep concern for this greatest Christian enterprise, 
 and in loyalty to Him whose Commission the Convention 
 seeks to execute. Sectarian bigotry and sectional narrow- 
 ness have no rating among my people. We are raising no 
 issue with our brethren of other denominations, nor with 
 the men who have made a missionary program which we 
 cannot adopt; we are meeting issues which they have 
 raised. If the pressure of circumstances forces our 
 principles into clearer distinctness, we shall, in such 
 case, abide the decision of the enlightened Christian 
 conscience upon the merits of the issue. We are simply 
 continuing in our accustomed way with usual good will for 
 all who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity. Southern Baptists 
 have not been seized by any sudden spasm of obstinacy or 
 intolerance; it is only their normal life in contrast with a 
 novel display of sentimentality that makes them appear to 
 have been so affected. Southern Baptists are tremendously 
 of one mind on the matter of conducting their mission work 
 in their own way, and on lines long established and con- 
 
16 The Union Movement 
 
 sistent with their ancient and present policies at home, but 
 I dare say that they were never in a more fraternal mood 
 toward other Christian people and denominations than they 
 are at the present time^ nor more steadfast in their allegiance 
 to the principle of religious liberty of which Baptists were 
 the first and have been the most constant champions. 
 
 It would be a Christian act and a missionary service if 
 the friends of the new order of missionary advance could be 
 awakened not only to understand the Southern Baptist view 
 and spirit, but also to realize that the program which has 
 been made for the Union Movement is fraught with evils for 
 foreign missions and evangelical Christianity quite as great 
 as any which it seeks to cure. Discussing certain phases of 
 this matter in an illuminating article in the Watchman-Ex- 
 aminer, Dr. Frank M. Goodchild says : "A breakdown of our 
 Baptist work will be the ultimate result of such cooperation 
 is the conviction of many of our own people and of friends in 
 the other denominations as well." 
 
 Sometime ago Prof. Frederick L. Anderson, of the New- 
 ton Theological Institution, Massachusetts, made an address 
 on what Massachusetts Baptists must do to be saved. A 
 part of that address is so pertinent to the present discussion 
 we dare to quote it. He says : "The first peril is denomina- 
 tional disintegration. I cannot go into details. All I have to 
 say is that those who carelessly weaken our organization in 
 the face of our foreign and Roman Catholic peril, those who 
 seek to disintegrate the second largest regiment in our army 
 just as the battle grows intense are committing nothing less 
 than a religious crime. A . . . leader in another state, whom 
 you all delight to honor, wrote me recently that in the pres- 
 ent situation he could think of no disaster to the religious 
 life of our country so serious as the disintegration of one 
 of the free churches. Action of this sort is not a mere 
 matter of personal whim to be decided by sentimental con- 
 
The Union Movement 17 
 
 siderations and temporary advantage; but it involves great 
 intei-ests, the religious relations of the individuals of our 
 whole denomination, the disposal of millions of contribu- 
 tions and trust funds, of millions of church property and 
 educational endowments, the future of this state and, in 
 the foreign field, the fate of races and generations. You 
 cannot transfer a great denomination and distribute it in 
 other camps without a loss of at least 33 per cent of its 
 eflSciency; and such a waste of efi'ectiveness at the present 
 moment would be almost a calamity. What we all desire 
 is that, in the united Protestant Church of the future, we 
 may see our principles safeguarded and triumphant; but 
 the time for that is still a generation or two ahead. In the 
 meantime, true religious statesmanship demands a firm, con- 
 servative denominational policy, for you will never get your 
 principles recognized by the future united Protestantism un- 
 less there is organization behind them. Principles without 
 organized support are negligible. One word more. Let us 
 emphasize our great principles of religious liberty, democracy 
 and the voluntariness and spirituality of Christianity which 
 are so exactly fitted to meet the present situation." 
 
 3. If, in addition to an interpretation of the action of 
 the Convention to other Christians and to the friends of the 
 Movement against the policies of which it is a protest, we 
 could, by a review of the policies themselves, show these 
 friends that they are not serving and will not secure the 
 laudable ends which they seek, this in itself would be a 
 foreign mission achievement. In pursuit of this end I have 
 examined certain planks in the platform of the Movement 
 and pointed out with candor, and I hope with courtesy, their 
 insecurity. 
 
 Whatever be the effect of what I have written, these 
 pages have been produced under the compulsion of such 
 motives as have been cited above. They will, at least, be 
 2 
 
18 The Union Movement 
 
 looked upon as one man's effort to set forth the case for 
 denominationalism against the great odds of a voluminous 
 literature for inter- and anti-denominationalism as the rally- 
 ing principle in mission work. No one will, I judge, deny 
 that denominationalism has a right to be heard after so much 
 has been said for the other side. Some will, I am persuaded, 
 think that the whole situation and the Southern Baptist pro- 
 test in particular, make it desirable that a contribution to 
 the subject should be made from the viewpoint opposite to 
 that from which all the books on the Union Movement have 
 been written and that of all the missionary magazines which 
 seek the patronage of all denominations. 
 
The Union Movement 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STRENGTH OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 The organized Movement to secure the unity and co- 
 operation of evangelical and Protestant forces of the world 
 and to operate the alliance under certain policies with cer- 
 tain very definite aims, has already gained great headway 
 and assumed large significance. Few, perhaps, of those who 
 either favor or oppose the Movement realize how thorough 
 and comprehensive is the organization, the large number of 
 organizations which are cooperating in the support of its pro- 
 gram, and how radical and definite are the ends which are 
 sought. Indeed, it is certain that many men of high intelli- 
 gence concerning missions in general and of admirable devo- 
 tion to missions, are not familiar with the things proposed. 
 Some who have strong opinions and much feeling in favor of 
 the Movement have not distinguished between it and the ordi- 
 nary Christian fellowship which all should recognize, nor 
 realized to what extremes the Movement has gone in clearly 
 defined policies. There is no more prominent aspect of mis- 
 sions than this Movement, and nothing so revolutionary as 
 regards type and status of individual denominations has 
 occurred in a hundred years. No evangelical denomination 
 can hope to perpetuate its identity if the Movement succeeds 
 in its aim to draw all denominations into itself. It is ex- 
 tremely doubtful that the essential character of evangelical 
 Christianity can be preserved if the ideals openly avowed for 
 the Movement are realized. It is certainly plain that those 
 who are directing the Movement expect to see a Christianity 
 in China, Japan and other countries which will present a very 
 difiFerent aspect from that which we have in America today; 
 
20 The Union Movement 
 
 one which in content of creed and in ecclesiastical order has 
 at present no counterpart. Indeed, one of the pleas by which 
 it is sought to strengthen the Movement is that, in the reali- 
 zation of its ideals, Christianity on the mission fields will be 
 different from that with which we are familiar. All of this 
 means that the Movement has raised issues of vital interest 
 to every denomination. The reader of these pages will judge 
 whether they furnish him facts which justify these state- 
 ments. 
 
 The matter is an actual, practical, present one. Federa- 
 tion is a strong rival of evangelization as a leading topic in 
 many missionary circles and conferences. Sentiment for 
 union and cooperation is both pervasive and powerful. 
 There is no evading the issues which have been raised, and 
 resistance calls for both courage and strength. As anoma- 
 lous as it may seem, the aggressive movement for union has 
 made conflict inevitable. Each denomination and every man 
 in the denominations who is alert to the live issues of the 
 hour, must take sides. Neutrality is impossible in any Chris- 
 tian body which has mission policies of its own and its forces 
 on any mission field, and indifference is unreasonable in 
 any man who is supporting the work of his denomination. 
 Dr. Bruce Kinney, one of the Northern Baptist secretaries, 
 considering the matter from the viewpoint of the home field, 
 
 "This question is in the air. We cannot avoid it. We 
 must be willing to face all the facts. We cannot smother it 
 if we would. We must soon take a stand for or against it." 
 
 The Standard of Chicago says, editorially : 
 "With the doctrine of peace at any price we have little pa- 
 tience. There are some things which are worse than war. 
 We have still less patience with the doctrine of church union 
 at any price. Denominationalism has its evils, but there are 
 infinitely worse situations than that which is produced by 
 
The Union Movement 21 
 
 denominational rivalry. . . . We are convinced that 
 the whole future of our Northern Bajjtist Convention is 
 vitally related to the way in which this question is answered, 
 and we believe that the time has come to define our attitude 
 toward it." 
 
 The Movement is advocated in the missionary literature 
 which pours from many presses. Sentiment for it breaks 
 out in missionary mass meetings. Catch phrases in its pat- 
 ronage are used by the secular and nondescript newspapers. 
 It receives the encomium of the impassioned missionary 
 orator, and is given prominence in missionary programs and 
 conferences. It has supporters in every evangelical and 
 Protestant body, and constitutes a leading plank in the plat- 
 form of several influential inter-, or more exactly, extra- 
 denominational organizations. I say ea^^ra-denominational 
 because the Movement has its administrative head apart from 
 the administrative agencies of the denominations and is 
 operated outside of and independent of the denominational 
 policies and programs. All the missionary magazines which 
 seek the patronage of preachers and inter-denominational cir- 
 culation are strong friends of the Movement, and give it lib- 
 eral space and editorial support. 
 
 The Movement has long heads behind it who have well- 
 laid plans for it. It has gained tremendous momentum and 
 claims the attention of all who think or plan for missions. 
 Says Dr. Eobert A. Ashworth, who finds his ideals in the 
 Movement : 
 
 "We are in the midst today of a mighty movement as sig- 
 nificant as the Keformation, that is sweeping with irresisti- 
 ble power over the entire earth, and that is shortly to change 
 the face of Christendom." (Union of Christian Forces in 
 America, by Robert A. Ashicorth, D.I)., page 231.) 
 
 Again he says : 
 
22 The Union Movement 
 
 ''The most pressing problem of the church in our day is 
 that of Christian unity; beside it all others fade into insig- 
 nificance." (The Union of Christian Forces in America^ hy 
 Robert A. Ashworth, D.D., page IS.) 
 
 The Movement has not only the support of strong and 
 influential men, but is being financed with great generosity. 
 Portions of large bequests like that of Mr. John R. Lingren 
 are available for its promotion, and under the solicitations 
 of certain men of influence considerable sums are secured 
 annually with which to strengthen this program. There 
 seems to be no limit to the amount of money which can be 
 secured for undenominational and inter-denominational en- 
 terprises. Besides, the various denominational boards fur- 
 nish much in the time and expense of those who voluntarily 
 compose the management of the Movement. The Rocke- 
 feller Foundation, in its Treasurer's Report for 1915, has 
 this item : 
 
 ''R. F. 228 Committee of Reference and Council of Annual 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America for carrying 
 out its program of cooperation and coordination in foreign 
 missionary work of the principal Mission Boards, total 
 pledge of 1425,000.00 extending over ten years (instalments 
 due in 1915, |75,000.00)." 
 
 The Foreign Missions Conference was given an additional 
 124,000.00 by the Rockefeller Foundation with which "to fit 
 up adequate rooms and facilities for the various agencies 
 working from this Conference." The annual rental on the 
 headquarters thus splendidly equipped is a little more than 
 twelve thousand dollars. 
 
 The Reports of the Foreign Missions Conference are ex- 
 pository of the Movement, and show something of how the 
 respective organizations are jointed up and combine their 
 influence upon common aims. The money which is made 
 
The Union Movement 23 
 
 available by the Kockefeller Foundation, other donations, 
 and the appropriations of cooperating mission boards, is used 
 to strengthen the program universally. This will appear 
 from such budgets as this which in the Report for 1916 — 
 pages 174 and 308 : 
 
 Foreign Missions Conference of North America $ 5,600.00 
 
 Rent 12,360.00 
 
 Expense of up-keep of all offices, including reception clerk, 
 
 telephone service, etc 3,428.50 
 
 Salary of Assistant Treasurer 800.00 
 
 Stenographic help and office expenses of all committees.. 2,150.00 
 
 Missionary Research Library and Archives 11,345.00 
 
 Board of Missionary Preparation 9,585.00 
 
 Appropriation to Continuation Committees — 
 
 Edinburgh Continuation Committee $5,000.00 
 
 China Continuation Committee 5,000.00 
 
 Japan Continuation Committee 2,500.00 
 
 National Missionary Council of India 3,500.00 — 16,000.00 
 
 Quinquennial Statistical Survey 7,500.00 
 
 Contingencies 2,000.00 
 
 170,768.50 
 
 Grant to Kobe Union Church $1,000.00 
 
 Grant to Yokohama Union Church 1,000.00 
 
 Grant to Mexico City Union Church (approximate) 400.00 
 
 Grant to Peking Union Church 1,000.00 
 
 Grant to Rio de Janeiro Union Church 1,000.00 
 
 Mediterranean Tourist Directory (estimated) 300.00 
 
 Transportation of a married minister 700.00 
 
 Cablegrams and miscellaneous 20.00 
 
 $ 5,420.00 
 
 Similar figures covering the identical items appear in the 
 Eeport for 1917, pages 80-86, 198 and 31-32. 
 
 The denominations are furnishing offices for each of nu- 
 merous inter-denominational organizations which for elabo- 
 rateness and magnificence are unapproached by the accom- 
 modations which they furnish for their own boards. As an 
 
24 The Union Movement 
 
 example we give the following which is furnished by the Gen- 
 eral Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of 
 Christ in America : 
 
 "Equipment of National Offices. 
 
 "The national offices of the Council now consist of a series 
 of thirty office rooms in the United Charities Building, New 
 York, occupying the capacity of an entire floor of that build- 
 ing; commod.ious offices in the Woodward Building, Washing- 
 ton, D. C, a branch office of the Commission on the Church 
 and Country Life in the Commercial Building, Columbus, 
 Ohio, and branch quarters of the Commission on Evangelism 
 in Chicago. 
 
 "The secretarial force is as follows: The general secre- 
 tary, the field secretary, the associate secretary, the secre- 
 tary of the Commission on International Justice and Good- 
 will, the Secretary for Temperance Work, the executive sec- 
 retary and field secretary of the Commission on Inter-Church 
 Federations, three secretaries of the War Commission, and 
 the assistant secretary at the New York office; an assistant 
 secretary at the Washington office, and the secretary on Coun- 
 try Life at Columbus. The other commissions have only vol- 
 untary or part-time secretarial service. 
 
 "At the New York office there are also a general office di- 
 rector, a director of the publication and printing department, 
 an assistant to the treasurer, and a force of secretaries, sten- 
 ographers, clerks, and assistants numbering at the present 
 time about forty. 
 
 "The national offices have not adequate room, and it is 
 earnestly to be hoped that the committee appointed to make 
 inquiry and report regarding an appropriate building may 
 find a speedy opportunity for progress. The offices in New 
 York are thoroughly equipped with mechanical apparatus, 
 and are now enabled to reach the entire constituency with 
 communications upon very short notice. The correspondence 
 of the office is large, averaging over one hundred letters a 
 day. 
 
 "The Library of Social Service and Missions contains 
 about 3,000 volumes, and about 500 current religious, social 
 and labor papers and magazines. 
 
The Union Movement 25 
 
 "During the past quadrennium the Publication Depart- 
 ment issued and distributed fourteen bound volumes and 
 served as the distributing agency for several other volumes 
 incidentally related to the work of the Council. There were 
 also distributed seven volumes of annual reports and nearly 
 one hundred different pieces of pamphlet literature. Some 
 idea of the work of the printing and multigraphing depart- 
 ment may be gained from these figures ; the average has been 
 about 225,000 letters a year for the Federal Council and 
 about 500,000 letters a year for coooperating bodies ; a total 
 of about 775,000 per year. About 2,000,000 pamphlets and 
 leaflets were sent out of the shop during 1916. 
 
 "The Bureau of Eeligious Publicity has been established 
 on a modest scale, but promises development as fast as re- 
 sources may be found for it and the cooperation secured of 
 the various religious agencies required for its success. 
 
 "In addition to the offices in New York the Commission 
 on the Church and Country Life maintains an office at Co- 
 lumbus, Ohio, where the Secretary, Kev. Charles O. Gill, has 
 been conducting a statewide rural survey. The Commission 
 on Evangelism has had a branch office in Chicago and the 
 Committee on the Celebration of the Four Hundreth Anni- 
 versary of the Eeformation has its office in Philadelphia, with 
 Rev, Howard R. Gold as the Secretary. 
 
 "While having no official relationship with the national 
 offices, there are now in about twenty-two cities offices of 
 state and local federations of churches, which also serve in 
 large measure the interest of the national movement." (Th^ 
 Progress of Church Federation^ hy Charles S. MacFarland — 
 pages 69-71.) 
 
 Does anybody believe that the respective denominations 
 are getting benefits from this Federal Council to justify such 
 extravagant accommodations for it? Do the above figures 
 furnish any evidence that these organizations are helping us 
 realize the economy which they appeal to in condemnation 
 of denominationalism and to justify undenominationalism? 
 For what are the vast sums of money which are contributed 
 to these numerous interdenominational organizations spent? 
 
26 Thb Union Movement 
 
 Are they used in actual niission work? No. How many men 
 and women are thus sent forth to toil at home or in heathen 
 lands to discharge the ordinary duties of missionaries? Not 
 one. The immense sums of money which are used by these 
 organizations are drawn out of the denominations and from 
 denominational missionary agencies, and are used to main- 
 tain these organizations which are manned by an army of 
 secretaries and other officials, who themselves are thus di- 
 verted from the denominations which trained them and need 
 their services. Thoughtful men will be asking, How can 
 this Movement justify its slogan of missionary economy and 
 its loud lament about the extravagance of denominational 
 mission work? 
 
 To realize how strong is organization behind this pro- 
 gram for cooperation and union, one has only to reflect upon 
 the number of such organizations which are afield and in 
 close cooperation, and the men who are commanding and 
 directing these. The Movement is world-wide, and the re- 
 sources, forces and personalities behind it make it almost 
 irresistible. The most remarkable achievement of the federa- 
 tionists is the multiplication of organizations to reduce the 
 number of organizations. The number and spheres of these 
 already bewilder the average man even more than do the 
 names and creeds of the denominations the excessive num- 
 ber of which is so much deplored. There is no need to at- 
 tempt here a roster of these organizations. They include the 
 "Foreign Missions Conference of North America," the "Con- 
 ference of Societies in Great Britain and Ireland," the 
 "Council of Women for Home Missions," the "Federation of 
 Women's Foreign Boards," the "Federal Council of Churches 
 of Christ in America," the "Home Mission Council,", the 
 "Missionary Education Movement," and the chain of "con- 
 tinuation committees," cooperating with the Continua- 
 tion Committee which was constituted to perpetuate the 
 
The Union Movement 27 
 
 World Missionary Conference. Sub-committees extend their 
 arms to every mission station on every continent. 
 
 "The Continuation Committee, appointed by the (World's 
 Missionary) Conference to carry out the line of work pro- 
 jected by it, is perhaps the mightiest single influence in the 
 world today making for cooperation and unity among the 
 forces of Christendom." {The Union of Christiati Forces in 
 America, pages 208-9, hy Rohert A. Ashworth.) 
 
 "Other conferences ended with their adjournment, but 
 the Edinburgh Conference goes on through its Continuation 
 Committee. It is this fact which gives significance to that 
 Committee. The Conference set in motion powerful forces 
 and accelerated others which were already in operation. It 
 felt that it should not dissolve without creating some body 
 which could deal more deliberately and systematically with 
 those forces. Antecedent fears that the Conference might go 
 too far vanished as sessions progressed until amid scenes 
 of profound solemnity and devotion the delegates by unani- 
 mous vote constituted the Continuation Committee. The 
 Committee represents interests which have never been united. 
 . . . The Committee is prosecuting its work through twelve 
 special committees along many lines which illustrate the 
 need of cooperative study. Not least among these is the pro- 
 motion of cooperation and unity in mission work." {Unity 
 and Missions, Arthur J. Brown, D.D., pages 246-47.) 
 
 "The most tangible evidence that the Congress was not 
 considered an end in itself is that it set about to bring things 
 to pass through the creation of a 'Continuation Committee.' 
 The most practical and effective means were employed. The 
 inter-denominational 'Committee on Cooperation in Latin- 
 America,' which had projected the Panama Congress and the 
 regional conferences, was requested to enlarge its member- 
 ship and activity. The new committee comprises both rep- 
 resentatives of the home base and the church in the field, to 
 insure complete coordination of plans and performance." 
 (Panama Congress, Vol. 1, pages 33-34.) 
 
 It is plain from these quotations, two of which are taken 
 from books written by men of authority connected, one with 
 
28 The Union Movement 
 
 the Executive Committee of the ''Federal Council of Churches 
 of Christ in America," and the other, with the ''Foreign Mis- 
 sions Conference of North America," that, according to their 
 acknowledgments, the organizations referred to by them will, 
 if possible, effect and secure recognition for the respective 
 items in the program which other quotations will presently 
 designate. We do not insist, nor admit, that all who are in 
 any way connected with these organizations, or their commit- 
 tees, are committed to all that these officials advocate; but 
 whether approving or disapproving, the "Findings" of vari- 
 ous conferences which are under the control of these organi- 
 zationSj show plainly that these brethren who do not approve 
 have not, by their connection with the organization and com- 
 mittees, been able to restrain them from these objectionable 
 policies. In spite of their membership, if not by the help of 
 it, the objectionable program has been made and is being 
 operated. This, it seems to me, is matter for such members to 
 consider seriously. For our part, we cannot, in the light of 
 the facts, see any hope that Baptists can by membership in 
 these organizations, or on these committees, influence them 
 materially in matters which constitute the very platform on 
 which the Movement invites membership and cooperation. 
 
 All right purposing men ought to be informed, guard their 
 prejudices, mature their judgments and form sincere convic- 
 tions concerning such a religious Movement. Certainly a 
 missionary management which, under the circumstances, has 
 no fixed policies and definite course, may not expect hon 
 voyage. A definite policy, fully understood and consistently 
 adhered to, is imperatively necessary for any mission board 
 which seeks to secure the united support of a denominational 
 constituency, preserve harmonious relations on the field and 
 the application of combined strength upon its missionary 
 tasks. Certainty and definition of plan and program have 
 the advantage of removing misunderstanding, clearing up 
 
The Union Movement 29 
 
 doubts, preventing harmful discussion, and saving time and 
 energy for the main things. It will not do to commit even 
 a religious enterprise to the tides of sentiment. Sentiment 
 is fickle. There are too many contrary winds, and they are 
 too subject to fitful gusts to promise smooth sailing for a 
 rudderless and compassless administration. 
 
 This is not the time for ugly words; neither is it a time 
 for silence. It is a time for sound judgment, for brave and 
 candid speech. If a righteous settlement of the issues is to 
 be had, religion and Scripture must be applied to them. Sen- 
 timent itself must yield to sane interpretation of the Bible 
 which is our manual of missions. We need something more 
 than sentiment to help us settle issues which sentiment has 
 raised, if we would avoid exasperating those whose feelings 
 have become Involved. 
 
 Southern Baptists cannot be indifferent to sentiment 
 which is favorable to Christian union, nor is their attitude 
 inimical to it. The ideal of Christian union is held up to every 
 reader of the New Testament, and the desire for it is the nat- 
 ural impulse of every pious soul. It springs spontaneously 
 out of the Christian experience. Southern Baptists crave it, 
 and would like to help their fellow Christians realize it. 
 They raise no protest against Christian union but against 
 such use of the sentiment for it as puts Christian truth in 
 jeopardy, obscures the real issues upon which Christian peo- 
 ple are divided, and interferes with articles of faith which, 
 according to their understanding and conviction, are firmly 
 set in the Scriptures, and are, therefore, unalterable terms 
 of union. They want Christian union, but they do not want 
 any artificial substitute for it. However, as much as they 
 crave it, and as certain as they are of the ground upon which 
 it is to be secured, they will not fume about it nor crowd 
 others unduly with their program for it, and individual Bap- 
 tists should not show unbecoming feeling when others crowd 
 
30 The Union Movement 
 
 them. The men who are anchored to deep convictions con- 
 cerning the truth can afford to be calm even when storms are 
 abroad. 
 
 That which seems most desirable is that discussion of 
 Christian union and cooperation shall be conducted in Chris- 
 tian spirit, and that it shall be held to the Scriptures as the 
 only key to the solution of the questions and the perplexing 
 problems which agitation has raised. Sentiment is no sub- 
 stitute for scriptural commands and does not excuse any one 
 from obedience to them. 
 
The Union Movement 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST ATTITUDE DEFINED. 
 
 The program announced, the issues raised, and the ag- 
 gressive methods put forth have disturbed American Baptist 
 constituencies, both at home and on the foreign mission fields. 
 The effect has been especially manifest among Southern Bap- 
 tists. Recent sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention 
 have given evidence of this. Throughout several of these 
 sessions there has been an uneasy consciousness of the issues 
 which this Movement has raised. At times this has broken 
 forth in speech, and sometimes, too, in feeling, and once or 
 twice in vehemence which startled some gentle and peace- 
 loving souls. The disturbance has been serious enough to 
 provoke anxiety in all who love the cause of Christ and for- 
 eign mission work in particular. 
 
 It is good that serious and sensible men in the denomina- 
 tion have, under the circumstances, been thinking and seeking 
 to take care of the denominational spirit and principles, and 
 of Baptist organization and missionary operations. These 
 men have, perhaps, thought more calmly than would have 
 been possible, even to them, under the excitement of public 
 debate, and have from time to time offered their conclusions 
 to the public and to the Convention. Dr. E. C. Dargan, with 
 a thoughtful committee, appointed by the Southern Baptist 
 Convention in 1911 to represent the Convention in the 
 "World Conference on Faith and Order," has faced the issues 
 with candor, and has presented Southern Baptist views to 
 the Conference and back to the Convention with credit to 
 his denomination and to Christendom. Dr. E. Y. Mullins, 
 President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has, 
 
32 The Union Movement 
 
 besides writing several newspaper articles on the subject of 
 Christian union, devoted one chapter of his book, "Axioms 
 of Eeligion/' to this question in certain of its relations. 
 He has, as usual, spoken with great force and dignity. Sev- 
 eral years ago the Texas General Convention foresaw that 
 a storm was breaking and put forth a statement of the Bap- 
 tist position under the general title of "Christian Union," 
 which is unsurpassed in soundness, candor and courtesy. 
 The Efficiency Commission of the Southern Baptist Con- 
 vention, appointed in 1913, and composed of nine representa- 
 tive men, prepared an elaborate statement on this matter 
 for their report, this part of which was adopted by the Con- 
 vention in 1914 as follows : 
 
 "We believe that the highest efficiency of the Southern 
 Baptist Convention in the propagation and confirmation of 
 the Gospel can be attained. 
 
 "1. By the observance of strict loyalty to Christ as the 
 head of the church, in a spirit of candor and Christian cour- 
 tesy toward all who profess to be His disciples. 
 
 "2. By preserving a complete autonomy at home and 
 abroad, unembarrassed by entangling alliances with other 
 bodies holding to different standards of doctrine and differ- 
 ent views of church life and church order. 
 
 "3. By devoting our energies and resources with single- 
 ness of heart to fostering and multiplying denominational 
 schools and other agencies at home and abroad in full denom- 
 inational control and in full harmony with the spirit and doc- 
 trine of the churches contributing funds to our Boards. 
 
 "4. By a complete alignment of all our denominational 
 forces, churches, schools, hospitals, papers, Sunday schools, 
 women's and young people's societies, in purpose, spirit and 
 practice with the program of Christ as set out in the Great 
 Commission, avoiding the weakness of vagueness and the 
 diffusion of denominational strength into channels leading 
 away from the churches. 
 
 "5. By placing renewed and greatly increased emphasis 
 on the education, training and enlisting of all our people, to 
 
The Union Movement 33 
 
 the end that they may intelligently and joyfully participate 
 in all the work of the denomination. 
 
 "6. By sending out a loud, insistent and persistent call 
 to the Baptists of the South to enter whole-heartedly into 
 greatly enlarged plans for progress, with higher standards 
 of consecration and giving. 
 
 "7. By seeking earnestly to maintain and promote the in- 
 ternal peace and harmony of the denomination, to the end 
 that waste by friction may be avoided, and that the time 
 may be hastened when we shall be of one spirit and one mind, 
 striving together for the faith of the Gospel. While we fully 
 recognize the necessity and great value of the free discussion 
 of all intra-denominational questions, we would earnestly 
 insist that all such discussions should be brotherly and Il- 
 luminating, never personal and irritating, and in such man- 
 ner as will conserve and not injure approved denominational 
 agencies. We should constantly seek peace and pursue it 
 by the application of scriptural principles to the solution of 
 all intra-denominational differences, doing this in the spirit 
 of love, ever keeping the main emphasis on the main things. 
 
 "Your Commission is persuaded that in this way the Bap- 
 tists of the South can best conserve their strength and utilize 
 it for the extension of the Kingdom in the establishment of 
 the Truth in every part of the earth. 
 
 "We believe also that in this way we can render the 
 greatest service to other Christians and most surely and 
 speedily promote their union on the Holy Scriptures, the 
 only possible base of real and abiding Christian union." 
 
 All of the above pronouncements on the question of Chris- 
 tian union and cooperation put Southern Baptists squarely 
 on the record as being favorable to Christian union, the sort 
 of union which is possible to them, and unfavorable to that 
 which is impossible. Dr. J. M. Frost assembled these and 
 other notable papers of similar im]x>rt and the Sunday 
 School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention published 
 them in a little volume entitled, "Christian Union Relative 
 to Baptist Churches." 
 3 
 
34 The Union Movement 
 
 The Foreign Mission Board, finding itself face to face 
 with issues which the Movement had raised, and from time 
 to time being questioned as to its policy by its home con- 
 stituency, and asked by some of its best missionaries to inter- 
 pret the deliverance of the Convention in the light of condi- 
 tions on the field and to give explicit definition of its own 
 attitude, presented to the Convention of 1916 the following 
 statement which was adopted with great heartiness by the 
 Convention : 
 
 "A Statement of the Attitude op the Foreign Mission 
 
 Board op the Southern Baptist Convention 
 
 Toward Union Epport in Mission Work. 
 
 "Thinking it timely to issue a statement setting forth its 
 attitude toward cooperation and union in mission work, the 
 Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
 at its Annual Meeting, June, 1915, appointed a committee 
 charged with the duty of preparing such a statement. That 
 committee herewith submits its report as follows : 
 
 "We would, as the Southern Baptist Convention has al- 
 ready done, put ourselves on record as cherishing a very 
 tender Christian regard for all who love the Lord Jesus Christ 
 in sincerity, and as desiring the most cordial Christian rela- 
 tionship with those who, like ourselves, are trying to make 
 him known to a lost world. The dissent which this report 
 affirms is made necessary by a general program of union and 
 cooperation which conflicts at certain points with the policies 
 of this Board, and with well-known principles of the denomi- 
 nation which it represents. We regret the necessity for this 
 dissent. The program which provokes it, thr-eatens to hinder 
 rather than help Christian unity. But the issues having 
 been raised, it becomes us to deal with them candidly. 
 
 "Before enumerating certain points of dissent, we would 
 recite the action taken by the Southern Baptist Convention 
 for the guidance of its mission boards and its missionaries, 
 and to insure the unity of our people in their great mission- 
 ary tasks: 
 
The Union Movement 35 
 
 " 'We believe that the highest efficiency of the Southern 
 Baptist Convention in the propagation and confirmation of 
 the Gospel can be attained : 
 
 " '1. By the observance of strict loyalty to Christ as the 
 head of the church, in a spirit of candor and Christian 
 courtesy toward all who profess to be his disciples. 
 
 " '2, By preserving a complete autonomy at home and 
 abroad, unembarrassed by entangling alliances with other 
 bodies holding to different standards of doctrines and differ- 
 ent views of church life and church order. 
 
 " '3. By devoting our energies and resources with single- 
 ness of heart to fostering and multiplying denominational 
 schools and other agencies at home and abroad in full de- 
 nominational control and in full harmony with the spirit and 
 doctrine of the churches contributing funds to our Boards. 
 
 ^' '4. By a complete alignment of all our denominational 
 forces, churches, schools, hospitals, papers, Sunday schools, 
 women's and young people's societies, in purpose, spirit and 
 practice with the program of Christ as set out in the Great 
 Commission, avoiding the weakness of vagueness and the dif- 
 fusion of denominational strength into channels leading away 
 from tbe churches. 
 
 '' 'We believe also that in this way we can render the 
 greatest service to other Christians and most surely and 
 speedily promote their union on the Holy Scriptures, the only 
 possible base of real and abiding Christian union.' 
 
 "The churches ought to be assured that their gifts to the 
 Convention boards shall not be diverted to unauthorized en- 
 terprises, and misunderstanding, embarrassment and friction 
 ought, if possible, to be avoided. 
 
 ''Therefore, as interpretative of the above, and in the 
 interest of mutual understanding and good-will among all 
 concerned, we offer the following, together with what has 
 gone before, as the attitude of this Board to the proposed 
 union and cooperation in mission work : 
 
 "1. This Board has not and will not enter into nor be 
 committed to any compact by which arbitrary territorial 
 boundaries or divisions are fixed for its missionary opera- 
 tions. Such division of territory being a part of a general 
 
36 The Union Movement 
 
 program of federation, and it being impossible for this Board 
 to recognize divisions tluis arbitrarily made, we must decline 
 participation in such program. The Board and its mission- 
 aries will in the future, as in the past, endeavor to exercise 
 wisdom and Christian courtesy as well as conscience in such 
 matters ; will seek to conserve economy of labor and money 
 in locating its forces, and with due regard to need, oppor- 
 tunity, and probable results, but cannot consent to have any 
 limitations fixed upon the Commission under which it 
 operates, nor be put in a position which would forbid its 
 loyalty and faithfulness to any company of Christian con- 
 verts who may now or hereafter profess a 'like precious faith 
 with us/ 
 
 "2. We cannot subscribe to any agreement providing for 
 an interchange of church letters contrary to the recognized 
 custom among the Baptist churches of the South. Tlie 
 churches which are supporting the work of this Board have 
 a well-known standard of qualification for church member- 
 ship, and we shall seek to foster this standard in every land 
 where this Board sends its missionaries. 
 
 "3. This Board will not engage in any form of coopera- 
 tion, hospital, publication, educational or other missionary 
 activity, which is not fully reported to the Convention, and 
 which does not meet the approval of the Convention, under 
 the auspices of which it operates, and to the instructions of 
 which it is subject. We esteem it to be a matter of primary 
 importance that this Board be in a position to control, or 
 control jointly with other Baptist bodies, the religious in- 
 struction which is given boys and girls entrusted to its care. 
 This is necessary in order to safeguard what we believe to 
 be our message to the world. 
 
 "4. To avoid an exhaustive enumeration, and yet to make 
 the statement comprehensive, we add, that we shall seek to 
 foster a policy abroad which is consistent with the denomi- 
 national policy at home, and no pressure will be allowed to 
 swerve the Board from this course. We make these declara- 
 tions for the information of our people at home, and with 
 the view of saving the scattered missionaries of this Board 
 all possible embarrassment or confusion from such pressure. 
 
 "Again, we would remind all that Southern Baptists are 
 on record by repeated action of the Convention in recogni- 
 
Denominational Program 37 
 
 tion of that spiritual union which exists among all believers 
 in Christ, and in favor of their organic union as soon as it 
 can be perfected on New Testament lines. We reaffirm these 
 sentiments. We would have all our people recognize the 
 bonds of brotherhood which unite Christians of every name, 
 cultivate a large spirit of fraternity and strive together with 
 others to secure the closest possible impact of our common 
 Christianity upon the social order for the establishment of 
 righteousness in the earth. We would, however, admonish 
 our people at home and abroad to remain true to New Testa- 
 ment principles of faith and church polity, and by so doing, 
 seek to preserve the unity of the denomination, enlist all of 
 our forces for the holy cause of missions, and thus insure 
 the integrity, support and success of this work." 
 
 The above statement is very plain and the unanimity with 
 w^hich it was passed by both the Board and the Convention 
 ought to give it weight. Whether the position taken con- 
 forms entirely to the views of every one or not, it must be 
 gratifying to all who sincerely love the w^ork of the Conven- 
 tion to see the matter settled by so conclusive a vote, and 
 thus to have the way opened for hearty i/i^ra-denominational 
 cooperation along the main lines of our foreign mission enter- 
 prise. Decision and definition, even when they are not exactly 
 to one's liking, are better than misunderstanding and uncer- 
 tainty and a nervous suspense. All can now commit themselves 
 to a constructive missionary policy which has in it a greater 
 measure of good for the missionary enterprise in general, 
 as well as Baptist mission work in particular, than any pro- 
 posed scheme of federation which divides our people. The 
 agreement of a great representative Convention upon a deliv- 
 erance like this is gratifying evidence of unison of faith and 
 singleness of denominational loyalty among Southern Bap- 
 tists. Of course, the value of the decision to Southern 
 Baptist missions will be determined by Ihe extent to which 
 it is known and respected by our people at home and abroad, 
 and the consideration given it by the leaders of the Move- 
 ment which provoked it. 
 
38 The Union Movement 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SPECIFIC ISSUES RAISED. 
 
 The friendliness of some very excellent men and loyal 
 Baptists for this organized effort for union and cooperation 
 is evidently based upon partial understanding of the Move- 
 ment. Their attitude could not be explained if they were in 
 possession of all the facts, fully aware of all the issues raised, 
 and had duly considered the inevitable consequences which 
 must follow the adoption of certain policies which are promi- 
 nent in the Movement's program. The definitely avowed 
 goals which have been set for the Movement and the well- 
 jointed machinery which is in operation for the realization 
 of these ends have been overlooked by these friends. They 
 have no thought of being disloyal to their denomination, but 
 they have evidently been Influenced largely by sentimental 
 considerations which make strong appeal to men of large 
 sympathy and generous impulses. Many of them are men of 
 commendably broad charity and large capacity for brother- 
 liness, and it is not easy for such men to separate the issues 
 from sentiment. 
 
 The writer does not, even for a moment, impugn the 
 motives of those who have prepared the program and who 
 direct the Movement. He believes in their uncontaminated 
 integrity, honors them for the service which they have ren- 
 dered the cause of Christ and Christian missions, respects 
 their convictions, and loves them as brothers in Christ. He 
 would fall very far below the heights to which he daily 
 aspires, if he should say anything which indicates or arouses 
 uncharitableness for men who practice such devotion to the 
 cause in which he labors. 
 
The Union Movement 39 
 
 But great aud vital issues have been raised to which seri- 
 ous men cannot be indifferent. If Baptists are to have a 
 missionary policy of their own, they must face these issues, 
 and they ought to face them intelligently, frankly and fairly. 
 Neither timidity, sullenness nor sentiment ought to deter men 
 in the face of such grave matters. Courage without harsh- 
 ness ought to be practiced in handling them. Southern Bap- 
 tists simply should not allow themselves to be misunderstood 
 or misinterpreted. They are not opposed to Christian union 
 itself; they are its advocates. It would, however, be strange 
 for a great denomination to make no response to a Movement 
 so large as this, and amazing indifference not to have or 
 express an opinion about a Movement which has utterly dis- 
 regarded well-known practices and policies of the denomi- 
 nation, and disturbed the brotherhood as nothing else has in 
 many years, and which, if not met with decision, is certain to 
 become a sadly divisive factor. 
 
 It is true that just for the reason that the issues are so 
 sharp and the feelings of some are intense, expression of 
 opinion ought to savor of self-restraint and be tempered with 
 reasonableness and Christian courtesy; but opinion must be 
 expressed with conviction to be worth the ink which sets it 
 forth and meet issues w^hich are so positively aggressive. 
 Sentiment, as desirable as it is, must not be allowed to make 
 opinion insipid, and personal opinion should not disregard 
 the Christian amenities. That which mars the spirit of 
 brotherhood within the denomination should not be ignored 
 for the sake of other alliances. Plans which are in opposi- 
 tion to the policies of the denomination may reasonably be 
 expected to provoke the opposition of the denomination. 
 Those who are the advocates of fraternal relationships ought 
 to be the first to recognize this simple fact and to give it 
 due consideration. The promoters of the Movement must 
 have expected this and made their program in the face of it. 
 
40 The Union Movement 
 
 This program, we repeat, is not put forth by the denomina- 
 tions which are back of the regular mission boards, nor by 
 the boards themselves which are supposed to operate under 
 the instructions of the respective denominations. It is pro- 
 jected and managed by an extra-denominational organiza- 
 tion, composed of good men we admit, but who are cooperat- 
 ing in the projection of a great Movement and in the opera- 
 tion of a program which are inconsistent with the claims and 
 practices of every denomination in America, and which con- 
 travene at several points missionary policies which Baptists 
 and others have adopted and on the merit of which they ask 
 the support of their constituencies. 
 
 Having said this much, it is required that we shall give 
 particular items in this program which fall under these 
 specifications. Some of these are designated in the state- 
 ment adopted by the Convention, but we shall give full proof 
 that the Convention has dissented from things which actually 
 exist, and give the reader an opportunity to examine the 
 merit of the issues raised. It will be observed that we do not 
 offer for evidence anything which even good men have said in 
 criticism of the policies and aims of the Movement. We give 
 quotations from the records of the Movement itself and the 
 utterances of its friends in its defense and in explanation of 
 it. We have diligently sought the facts, and we have gone to 
 the friends of the Movement for them. 
 
 The World Missionary Conference which met in Edin- 
 burgh, 1910, while advancing upon previous conferences in 
 the attention given to the question of union and cooperation, 
 was somewhat timid in projecting a program with these mat- 
 ters set boldly to the front. There was much more restraint 
 in its deliverances than has characterized the Continuation 
 Committee, which was appointed to "carry out" its work, and 
 the sub-committees which have operated under this and uni- 
 versalized the Movement. And yet the ground-work and 
 
The Union Movement 41 
 
 tendency of this Movement are found in the Edinburgh Con- 
 ference. Commission VIII of that Conference, which was 
 designated as ''Commission on Cooperation and the Promo- 
 tion of Unity," divided its report into several sections with 
 such headings as "Comity," "Federation and Union," "Co- 
 operation and tlie Home Base," etc. Quotations which give 
 the weight of tlieir influence to union and cooperation take 
 the place of dir-ect recommendations in so many words. 
 Nevertheless, the moral effect of the Commission's report is 
 in favor of these things, although the committee seems ret- 
 icent to make for itself explicit declaration and recommen- 
 dation. Indeed, the most remarkable thing about the Com- 
 mission's report is the studied way in which it avoids ex- 
 pression of positive opinion on the very things its name and 
 the sub-titles of the Eeport indicate to be the matters under 
 discussion. 
 
 The Report makes large place for quotation and citation 
 of the opinions of others which are favorable to- union and 
 cooperation, including such particulars as the delimination 
 of territory, a national church, etc., and give many refei'ences 
 to cases of active cooperation on the mission fields, but do 
 not come forward in open advocacy of these things as is done 
 by the i>ermanent organization which succeeded the Confer- 
 ence. This surprising reticence may be due to the divided 
 sentiment in the Commission, or to a consideration for the 
 unpreparedness of the several denominations for positive 
 declaration in favor of things so revolutionary. One would 
 not, however, expect such men as Dr. Arthur J. Brown, who 
 was a member of the Edinburgh Commission No. VIII, to 
 withhold opinion concerning these matters to allow anybody 
 to get ready for it, nor that he should even understand the 
 art of opportunism. Certainly he has not since that report 
 was written hesitated to assume personal responsibility for 
 his opinions in favor of the full program of union as here- 
 
42 The Union Movement 
 
 after set forth. The records of the Foreign Mission 
 Conference and other conferences, as well as his book, 
 "Unity and Missions," contain his opinions stated with ad- 
 mirable frankness. Indeed, those who were appointed to 
 act for the World's Missionary Conference as members of the 
 Continuation Committee, have abandoned their reticence and 
 have since, without hesitation, framed a thoroughgoing pro- 
 gram. 
 
 It is to the ''Findings" of the conferences, held under the 
 auspices of the Continuation Committee, that we must go 
 for explicit statement and the full content of this program. 
 It is made very plain in these. Such conferences have been 
 held in India, China, Japan and Panama, in all of which the 
 distinctive policies of the Movement have rung clear and 
 with much repetition. It is in these conferences that the 
 Movement inaugurated in Edinburgh has got its more 
 definite course and has drawn into a straight channel and 
 gained immensely in momentum. Prior to that Conference, 
 there were isolated meetings of one sort and another, in 
 which items in this program came to recognition, but since 
 the Conference at Edinburgh in 1910, we have had an or- 
 ganized Movement. Its course is now clearly charted and its 
 goal is avowed. Doubt and uncertainty as to the policies 
 which control it have been removed, and all who would 
 champion or challenge it may learn from its published pro- 
 gram just what policies they assume to defend or oppose. It 
 must be judged by its program as a whole and by its ultimate 
 aims as well as by its achievements. 
 
 To save space and the reader's time we may quote from 
 the reports of some of these conferences, such as those held 
 in China, which were called under the auspices of the Con- 
 tinuation Committee, and were presided over by Dr. Mott, 
 its Chairman, on a tour which included, in large part, the mis- 
 sion fields of the Orient. In China, for instance, he held 
 
The Union Movement 43 
 
 conferences in Canton, Shanghai, Tsinan-fu, Pekin and Han- 
 kow, closing with a ''National Ck)nference" at Shanghai. 
 These conferences expressed and imt into effect the program 
 of the Movement, and, presumably the missionary ideals of 
 its Chairman. 
 
 "The same vigilant chairman presided over all of the 
 discussions. . . . The Edinburgh Continuation Commit- 
 tee may be heartily congratulated on its 'taking occasion by 
 the hand' and giving its commission to Dr. Mott." {China 
 Mission Year Book, 1913, page 76.) 
 
 The following quotations are taken, as will be seen, from 
 authoritative sources. Many of these quotations could, with 
 slight verbal variation, be duplicated from the records of 
 other conferences which Dr. Mott held on his extended orien- 
 tal tour. We classify numerically the quotations to show 
 the nature of certain planks in the platform of the Movement. 
 The proof is overwhelming that, for Baptists at least, the 
 principles and policies which have been adopted are revolu- 
 tionary and completely subversive of views and practices 
 which they hold and defend. 
 
 1. The Movement is committed to ideas, definitions and 
 functions relative to churches which render it not only un- 
 acceptable to Baptists, but unsound and unsafe. 
 
 Proof: "The formation of a type of Christian churches 
 . . . in which each would recognize the ministry, ordi- 
 nances and discipline of the others and members might be 
 freely transferred from one to the other. . . . Only by 
 this plan is it in any way possible to secure the unity that 
 is desired. . . . Each indigenous church in the mission 
 field will gradually, out of these diverse elements, build up 
 that body of Christian doctrine and that form of polity which 
 is best adapted to its life." {Edinburgh Conference, Corn- 
 mission VIII, pages 13Jf-135.) 
 
44 The Union Movement 
 
 ''The study of already approved and accepted rules of 
 comity under which some boards are working in countries at 
 home and abroad, with reference to such matters as salaries, 
 exchange of members, and discipline, and the adoption of 
 similar policies by the missionary societies operating in 
 Latin- America seems advisable." {Panama Congress, Vol. 
 Ill, page 103.) 
 
 "That in view of the areas to be evangelized, Missions en- 
 tering upon already occupied districts should first consult the 
 mission in occupation and the Federal Council, or similar 
 organization of the province or district, and give due con- 
 sideration to the recommendations made. That in opening 
 work in fields which are at present unoccupied, the mission- 
 ary societies consult with one another." {China Year Book, 
 1913, pages U2-U3.) 
 
 "In order to do all that is possible to manifest the unity 
 which already exists among all faithful Christians in China 
 and to present ourselves. In the face of the great mass of 
 Chinese non-Christian people, as one brotherhood with one 
 common name, this Conference suggests as the most suitable 
 name for this purpose . . . 'The Christian Church In 
 China.' ... This Conference urges upon the churches 
 . . . federation, local and provincial, of all churches will- 
 ing to cooperate in the extension of the Kingdom of God." 
 {China Year Book, 1913, page 188.) 
 
 "This Conference . . . believes that in respect of form 
 and organization, they (the churches) should have freedom 
 to develop In accord with the most natural expression of the 
 spiritual instincts of Chinese Christians. . . . It Is of the 
 utmost importance for the churches to be so developed that 
 the Chinese themselves may recognize them as having become 
 truly native." {China Year Book, 1913, pages 187-188.) 
 
 "The missionary should bring the Christ to a people and 
 let the gospel of Christ develop a national type of Christian- 
 ity." {Panama Congress, Vol. Ill, page 166.) 
 
 2. The Movement calls for cooperation In school work 
 on the mission field, and this not in one class of schools, but 
 in all classes, with, perhaps, chief emphasis upon theological 
 schools. 
 
The Union Movement 45 
 
 Proof: "We recommend, therefore, that at all these cen- 
 tres colleges be promptly developed, and adequately main- 
 tained as university colleges, on a union basis if practicable." 
 {China Year Book] WIS, page 2JiS.) 
 
 "We are convinced that the best results in theological 
 study will be obtained by promoting union or cooperative 
 efforts in theological colleges of university standard." {China 
 Year Book, 1913, page 246.) 
 
 "We recommend the establishment of well-equipped union 
 Bible Training schools, preferably associated with union 
 theological seminaries." {China Year Book, 1913, page 245.) 
 
 "We recommend that middle schools and colleges be con- 
 ducted on union principles . . . inasmuch as provision 
 for higher theological instruction entails too heavy a burden 
 upon any single Mission, we recommend union in such work. 
 We recommend that, wherever possible, united summer Bible 
 schools be held in suitable centres for the Chinese church 
 workers, both men and women." {China Year Book, 1913, 
 page 213.) 
 
 "But whether in union or in denominational schools no 
 undue emphasis should be laid on those doctrines which dis- 
 tinguish the evangelical denominations from one another." 
 {Panama Congress, Vol. I, page 515.) 
 
 "In no field is there greater need of combination of facul- 
 ties and union of institutions than among theological semin- 
 aries. . . . Notwithstanding, then, the difficulties felt by 
 some in uniting in this class of schools, we feel that the 
 exigencies of the case are imperative enough to require that 
 efforts in this direction be among the very first to be under- 
 taken in the way of cooperation." {Panama Congress, Vol. I, 
 page 528.) 
 
 3. The program of the Movement is a pronouncement 
 against an independent denominational literature which is 
 the peculiar vehicle of free speech and a powerful agency in 
 propagating Christian truth, distinctive principles and ex- 
 posing heresy. 
 
46 The Union Movement 
 
 Proof: "The Societies and individuals engaged in the 
 production of Christian literature should meet and discuss 
 the whole question of cooperative work. There should be a 
 much larger measure of cooperation in this matter than ob- 
 tains at present, and we should work toward the establish- 
 ment of a Central Board which could rectify the mistakes 
 of the past and ensure a united progressive policy in such 
 matters as production, nomenclature, printing and distribut- 
 ing." [China Mission Year Book, 1913, po^ge 371.) 
 
 "We recommend that the various publication societies 
 use union terms in the works they issue, and that the Chris- 
 tian bodies consider the great desirability of the adoption of 
 uniform theological and ecclesiastical terms." {China Mis- 
 sion Year Book, page 213.) 
 
 "We recommend the uniting of our publishing houses and 
 our distributing agencies so far as possible; and at each 
 larger centre we recommend the establishment of a single 
 depot." {China Mission Year Book, 1913, page 214.) 
 
 "Central publishing plants, a general editorial board, cen- 
 tral depositories for literature, and union church papers, in 
 accordance with the recommendations of the Commission on 
 Literature seem advisable." {Panama Congress, Vol. Ill, 
 page 102.) 
 
 The Panama Congress pursued a course similar to that 
 of the Edinburgh Conference in providing for the organiza- 
 tion of the Movement through visitation of the mission fields, 
 except that in the case of the Panama Congress, the Movement 
 being now under way, action was more speedy. 
 
 "The Congress on Christian work in Latin-America was 
 followed by a series of seven Eegional Conferences. The pro- 
 ceedings of these Conferences brought out with such fulness 
 the essential situation and the prospective needs of each dis- 
 trict, and were so rich in definite suggestions for future work, 
 that their publication became an essential complement of the 
 report of the Congress. The Committee on Cooperation in 
 Latin-America has, therefore, authorized this volume as an 
 integral part of the series which records and interprets the 
 Congress." 
 
The Union Movement 47 
 
 The above quotation is taken from the ^'Foreword" of the 
 report of the series of seven conferences which followed the 
 Panama Congress, published under the title, "Regional Con- 
 ferences in Latin-America." There is not a more illuminating 
 document on the uniform plans and fixed policies of the 
 Movement than this volume. 
 
 The series of Regional Conferences were held as follows: 
 That for Peru at Lima, Chile at Santiago, Argentina at 
 Buenos Aires, Brazil at Rio de Janeiro, Columbia at Baran- 
 quilla, Cuba at Havana, Porto Rico at San Juan. Dis- 
 turbances in Mexico prevented holding the conference there 
 at the time, but perhaps as a substitute for this, a conference 
 on work in Mexico was later held in Cincinnati, in which the 
 full program was put on. 
 
 The initial conference, that for Peru, was, we are told, 
 opened in a theater and "there was neither singing nor 
 prayer. The assembly was called to order with a gavel." 
 
 One speaker is quoted as saying that : 
 
 "This fundamental reorganization involves in some very 
 radical way the abandonment of the denominational order 
 of the church. Denominationalism must come to be felt per- 
 sonally by Christ's followers as a positive sin. . . . There 
 are no good reasons why we should have denominations to- 
 day." 
 
 Another speaker reported with much pleasure and show 
 of triumph how that in Korea the arrangement had been 
 made by which "the Methodists were to become responsible 
 for work on one side of the line and Presbyterians for terri- 
 tory on the other side. By this division four thousand Pres- 
 byterians became Methodists," Self-government for the 
 native churches with a vengeance! 
 
 Following the established order of the Movement, these 
 regional conferences reduce their decisions to "Findings." 
 
48 The Union Movement 
 
 These "Findings" so uniformly contain the same conclusions 
 and put on for the respective fields the identical program 
 which was put on in the conferences held in India and China, 
 that the record will scarcely have a reader who is without 
 sufficient discernment to see the common origin of these deci- 
 sions. For instance, among the "Findings" of each regional 
 conference is that for one evangelical church for the country 
 where the conference was held, as, "The Evangelical Peru- 
 vian Church," "The Evangelical Church in Chile," "The 
 Evangelical Church of Porto Rico." 
 
 The following on cooperation and unity, taken from the 
 "Findings" of the Chile Conference, fairly represents the 
 program which the Foreign Missions Conference of North 
 America put on in South America through the Panama Con- 
 gress and these regional conferences : 
 
 *'^C0-0PBRATI0N and UnITY. 
 
 "With the passing of the years and the consequent growth 
 of the churches of Chile, the conviction grows deeper and 
 clearer to the workers present in this conference, that the 
 aim of our Christian work in this country should be the crea- 
 tion of a united Chilean evangelical church undivided by the 
 denominational distinctions which obtain in other parts of 
 Christendom. As intermediate steps in achieving this end 
 we approve all practicable measures of cooperation among 
 the recognized evangelical bodies. The following plan for co- 
 operation is recommended : 
 
 "1. Division of delimitation of territory to be readjusted 
 from time to time. 
 
 "2. The use of a common name for evangelical churches, 
 for example, 'The Evangelical Church in Chile.' 
 
 "3. The use of a common hymn book and, as soon as pos- 
 sible, the use of a common version of the Bible. 
 
 "4. The organization of a committee on cooperation and 
 comity into which all recognized evangelical bodies at pres- 
 ent at work in Chile shall be invited to have representation. 
 
The Union Movement 49 
 
 "5. An agreement for the transfer of members between 
 all recognized bodies. 
 
 "6. An understanding concerning the transfer of workers 
 and the treatment of dismissed agents. 
 
 ^'7. A general agreement for all to respect the discipline 
 Imposed by other evangelical churches. 
 
 "8. A great nation-wide effort in evangelization. 
 
 "9. That the present Bible seminary be enlarged so as 
 to admit students from all recognized evangelical bodies. 
 
 "10. To extend the scope of the present cooperative plan 
 in the production of literature so as to admit all regular 
 bodies that may desire to participate in such work. 
 
 "11. The founding of a union Christian haspital, orphan- 
 age, and an institutional church as soon as it is possible to 
 do so. 
 
 "12. An inter-denominational Christian university for 
 this part of Latin-America to be located in Santiago." 
 
 The above "Findings" constitute a fair, though abbrevi- 
 ated statement, of the Movement's program, endorsement of 
 which is given by participation in it. 
 
 Compared with anything Southern Baptists have known, 
 the policies adopted and announced in the above quotations 
 are, to use a term which is as mild as the case will admit, 
 radical. The whole organized life and all the institutions 
 of the denomination have been built up upon principles, 
 policies and practices w^hich are at distinct variance with 
 those which govern this new order of missionary advance. 
 That anyone who knows the history or holds the faith of the 
 denomination can for one moment be swept off his feet even 
 by the strong sentiment which blows, and champion a Move- 
 ment which has such a platform as that which is thus an- 
 nounced, can be accounted for only on the ground of strong 
 sentiment and lack of opportunity to see the whole Move- 
 ment in perspective. Southern Baptists have never estab- 
 lished one church, constituted one board, built one school, or 
 projected one missionary agency on any such terms as these, 
 4 
 
50 The Union Movement 
 
 and there is not one school or other Baptist enterprise, from 
 Maryland to Texas, which seeks the fostering care of such a 
 program, or whose friends would risk its standing with the 
 denomination which supports it by announcing such a plat- 
 form for it. Then why should it be thought reactionary, un- 
 progressive or exceptionally ungenerous to dissent from such 
 policies for the work which the same denomination is pro- 
 jecting on other fields, and which the same constituency is 
 called upon to support ? Just why should a company of men 
 who show such entire disregard for the views and practices 
 of all denominations as the leaders of this Movement do be 
 considered the peculiar champions of Christian fraternity 
 and courtesy? 
 
 But as radical as is the position taken in the records 
 quoted above, even tJiis position is confessedly not the goal 
 of this Movement. Those who are most worthy to be heard 
 for it and who, from their championship of it and their part 
 in its management, can speak with greatest authority tell 
 us that the Movement must go further to complete itself. 
 Abundant quotations could be given to show that even the 
 present extent to which this Movement has gone is not sat- 
 isfying to its friends, and that they steadfastly aim at still 
 other goals which lie within the fields of respective denomina- 
 tional administration and missionary policy. 
 
 The following are sufficient to show the inferences which 
 the friends of the ^lovement draw from denominational par- 
 ticipation in its program and the goal toward which they 
 are leading such participants. 
 
 In his book, which he put forth in defense of the whole 
 Union Movement, and which in a competitive contest won for 
 him |1,000, paid by the Sunday School Union, which is the 
 champion of these inter-denominational movements, Dr. Rob- 
 ert A. Ashworth summarizes certain items in the program 
 as follows: 
 
The Union Movement 51 
 
 "Meanwhile, as we wait for the realization of an ideal 
 unity, there must be a larger measure of cooperation in the 
 survey of unoccupied fields, a more strict division of terri- 
 tory among missionary agencies, a freer exchange of members 
 between all types of churches and a closer affiliation in all 
 forms of service where cooperation or union is already pos- 
 sible." (Union of Christian Forces in America, hy Robert 
 A. Ashtvorthy D.D., page 10-^f.) 
 
 The following authoritative utterances confirm the above 
 as reliable testimony: 
 
 "Territorial adjustment usually prepares the way for 
 union by virtually assuming the equality of churches and the 
 identity of essential teaching. For representatives of differ- 
 ent communions to advise a Korean or Chinese convert to 
 join the cliurch within whose geographical area he happens 
 to reside, irrespective of its denominational type, is to aban- 
 don the whole basis of sectarianism." {Unity and Missions, 
 hy Arthur J. Broivn^ page 155.) 
 
 "Alliances, territorial divisions and all similar coopera- 
 tive expedients are of limited and temporary value. They 
 are not the goal, but merely steps towards it." {Unity and 
 Missions^ hy Arthur J. Broion^ page 153.) 
 
 "The federated churches must either go forward toward 
 organic unity, or they must retrace the steps already taken. 
 Dr. Newman Smyth very truly sa^'S, 'Federations of churches 
 are to be regarded as at best only way-stations in the prog- 
 ress of the church; the line of development of true Catholicity 
 runs on and on, and our denominations are called to be 
 through passengers. They shall not otherwise finish their 
 course in faith.'" {Union of Christian Forces in America, 
 hy Rohert A. Ashworth, page 215.) 
 
 "All candidates should in the future be prepared for the 
 mission field by a systematic course in the principles and 
 practices of cooperating agencies to organize and execute 
 their work in the spirit of these principles." {Panama Con- 
 ference, Vol. Ill, page 103.) 
 
 "Everything done cooperatively, however insignificant in 
 itself, is a step towards the larger end." (Panama Con- 
 gress, Vol. Ill, page 78.) 
 
52 The Union Movement 
 
 The "Findings" which the New York organization se- 
 cured from the Chilean Conference, and which we have 
 quoted, favors "the creation of a united Chilean Evangelical 
 Church undivided by denominational distinctions which ob- 
 tain in other parts of Christendom," and declares that the 
 planks in the platform for present cooperation enumerated in 
 these "Findings," are "intermediate steps in achieving this 
 end." That is admirable candor. Nothing but the extermina- 
 tion of present denominations' will satisfy these brethren, and 
 they frankly publish the fact to all concerned. As radical as 
 is strict delimitation of territory, full recognition of any or- 
 ganization as a church which calls itself such, free exchange 
 of church letters and church members with these, etc.. such 
 things are "but intermediate steps, of limited and temporary 
 value." "They are not the goal, but merely steps toward it." 
 "Denominations are called to be through passengers." "Ev- 
 erything done cooperatively, however insignificant in itself, is 
 a step toward this larger end." This leaves no room for 
 anyone to doubt what participation in the Movement 
 means. It does not present a platform for denominational 
 cooperation but for denominational extinction by consolida- 
 tion. It does not, therefore, represent inter-denominational- 
 ism but anti-denominationalism. Indeed, denominational co- 
 operation does not require an extra missionary organization 
 at all with the expensive offices, the large corps of secretaries 
 and the great annual outlay of this Move^nent. If nothing 
 more than the cooperation of the denominational mission 
 hoards were sought, nothing hut the denominational mission 
 hoards would he needed to execute the plans. But inore and 
 mu^h more is sought. Of this we are informed quite plainly. 
 And a great organization is created to accomplish it. 
 
 It is well that we have such explicit statements made by 
 men whom all will concede to be credible spokesmen for the 
 Movement. This will enable all men to see what adoption of 
 
The Union Movement 53 
 
 any part of the present plans for cooperation which have 
 been projected by the Movement implies. The beginning of 
 cooj)eration with the Movement is, as they inform us, hut a 
 step toward union tvith all denominations whatsoever^ and in 
 all departments of mission work, and to the destined end that 
 denominational identity shall cease. 
 
 The call for the Panama Congress told ns that, 
 
 "In the matter of Christian service, we will welcome the co- 
 operation of any who are willing to cooperate in any part 
 of the Christian program. We should not demand union 
 with us in all our work as the condition of accepting allies 
 for any part of it." 
 
 And 
 
 "All communions or organizations which accept Jesus 
 Christ as Divine Saviour and Lord, and the Holy Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments as the Kevealed Word of God, 
 and whose purpose is to make tiie will of Christ prevail in 
 Latin-America, are cordially invited to participate in the 
 Panama Congress, and will be heartily welcomed." 
 
 Roman Catholics would be welcomed, and Seventh-Day 
 Adventists are in "good and regular standing" in the Move- 
 ment. Indeed it is difiScult to name a denomination, a schis- 
 matic sect, or religious junto in this country which is not eli- 
 gible to representation in such an assembly and entitled to all 
 the rights and privileges. 
 
 In ordinary Christian relations and matters of coopera- 
 tion one may choose his partners and the class and amount of 
 work in which he cooperates. But while the friends of this 
 Movement do "not demand union in all our work as the con- 
 dition of accepting allies," such allies are informed that once 
 admitted to membership, "federated churches must either go 
 forward to organic unity, or they must retrace the steps al- 
 
54 The Union Movement 
 
 ready taken." Now it seems to us that the simpler and more 
 agreeable course for the present is to be content with the 
 usual Christian relationships. For those who are not will- 
 ing to go "forward toward organic unity" with all the various 
 elements which make up the Movement, it is certainly a more 
 peaceful course to stay out than to kick out. 
 
 With this program announced and facing its inevitable 
 logic, indeed the avowed purpose of those who manage the 
 Movement, Baptists have only to decide whether they are 
 ready to volunteer the extinction of their historic position 
 and identity, and to acknowledge the right of a few self- 
 appointed men to manage their mission work and fix policies 
 for it. 
 
 Dr. MacFarland of the Federal Council, informs us — 
 
 "That another important movement is an effort to arrange 
 for regular lectureships and course on Federation in the cur- 
 ricula of theological seminaries and other institutions of 
 higher education."' (The Progress of Church Federation — 
 page 97.) 
 
 We are also told that 
 
 "All candidates should in the future be prepared for mis- 
 sion fields by a systematic course in the principles and prac- 
 tices of cooperating agencies to organize and execute their 
 work in the spirit of these principles." (Panama Congress, 
 Vol III, page 103.) 
 
 Those who are operating this Movement are set upon a 
 thoroughgoing work. They do not overlook the young people 
 in mission study classes, the students in the schools, nor the 
 missionaries on the field. All must be instructed in the pol- 
 icies of this Movement and enlisted for its promotion if com- 
 prehensive plans and persistent effort can accomplish this 
 end. 
 
The Union Movement 55 
 
 Dr. Arthur J. Brown, with his usually straightforward 
 frankness, gives us a passage which thoughtful men will 
 ponder : 
 
 "If a communion of a million believers has a vitally dis- 
 tinctive message to the world which no other communion is 
 adequately voicing, the duty of proclaiming it inescapably 
 rests upon each of its consistent congregations whether it has 
 ten or ten hundred members. In that case, the communion 
 should not only refuse to be a party to all such arrangements 
 as have been mentioned, but it should refuse to permit pulpit 
 exchanges with ministers of other communions, decline to 
 accept certificates of membership from them or to join in any 
 cooperative movements which imply recognition of equality, 
 and they should plant their congregations wherever they can, 
 irrespective of the presence of other denominations. Clergy- 
 men who take this position are consistent at least. The fact 
 that this attitude, when taken, is now so generally deprecated, 
 that those who still adhere to it usually consider themselves 
 on the defensive, that most communions gladly exchange 
 pulpits, intercommune, accept one another's baptisms, ordina- 
 tions, and letters of membership transfer, and are manifest- 
 ing an increasing disposition to enter into territorial, federa- 
 tive, cooperative, and even union agreements — these facts 
 eloquently testify to the breakdown of denominationalism. 
 It is diflacult to avoid the conclusion either that the denomi- 
 nations should not have gone so far as they have, or that 
 they should go farther on the present road which leads 
 straight to union. It is clear that new lines of cleavage are 
 forming and that these lines are not running parallel with 
 denominational lines but are crossing them at right angles." 
 (Unity and Missions, hy Dr. Arthur J. Brown, pages 72-73.) 
 
 We recommend that passage to both the most liberal and 
 illiberal among us for consideration. It contains food for 
 thought, as do most things which Dr. Brown writes in de- 
 fence of the union program, or other subject connected with 
 missions. 
 
56 The Union Movement 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOME PLANKS IN THE PLATFORM EXAMINED. 
 
 The foregoing list of quotations has not been extended 
 to include all the objectionable features of the program 
 which has been promulgated, and the weakness of the plat- 
 form upon which all denominations are asked to stand. 
 Neither do the limits fixed for this discussion admit of an 
 examination of each plank designated by the quotations, nor 
 even an extended consideration of any of them. We will, 
 however, undertake a brief examination of those around 
 which most controversy has gathered. This will, we think, 
 be sufficient to show that the platform is an insecure one, 
 and will justify Baptists, at least, in declining to adopt it 
 as their own. 
 
 First of all, there is this platform as a fundamental 
 weakness, a defective vieiv of a New Testament church. If 
 it is true that the church ''is the pillar and ground of the 
 truth," and that the churches are the agencies through which 
 it is God's purpose to give the gospel to the nations, then 
 certainly great care should be taken to accept and preserve 
 correct definitions of a church and sound views of the place, 
 policies and functions of the churches. This, we affirm, the 
 makers of the program have not done. 
 
 1. In the first place, they have adopted a definition of a 
 church which is not supported by so much as one verse of 
 Scripture. They call the respective denominations churches, 
 as for instance, "the Baptist church," "the Methodist church," 
 etc. Of course, they are not alone in this use of the word, 
 but such use is nevertheless a serious blunder, and especially 
 so in arguments for Christian union and a serious effort to 
 
The Union Movement 57 
 
 reform Ohristianity. The matter is made the more serious 
 in the case of its use by the leaders of this union Move- 
 ment because it enables them to becloud the issues 
 relative to the nature and rights of real churches. This 
 and other unscriptural uses of the term church occurs 
 with tedious repetition, while one may read whole volumes 
 of this literature without ever coming upon any words 
 analogous to those with which New Testament readers are 
 familiar; such as "the churches of Asia," "the church at 
 Antioch," "the church at Jerusalem," etc. One may say all 
 he can in favor of the scripturalness of such terms as an 
 invisible, universal, spiritual church, composed of all who 
 have passed into the kingdom of God through grace and by 
 personal faith in Christ, and still find no justification in 
 Scripture for such use of the word church as these writers 
 make. That they should use a term so unscriptural and 
 offensive to a great body of Christian people when pleading 
 for Christian union and attempting to reform Christendom 
 is one of the anomalies of the present situation. 
 
 I am aware that this is a matter which many will not 
 think serious enough to make a fuss about. Many who have 
 seen the evil of such unscriptural use of the term have not 
 been willing to face the high -browed scorn which contention 
 here invites. Even some Baptists have, contrary to all Bap- 
 tist or New Testament usage, adopted the popular term 
 rather than invite the cynical smile of those who look upon 
 contention as puerile. Nevertheless, is it a small thing to 
 call men back to New Testament ideas and definitions? In- 
 deed, what is all our biblical scholarship and criticism for 
 if such matters are inconsequential? The word church as 
 used in the New Testament has a very limited use and very 
 particular significance. 
 
 2. In the plank, "The Christian Church of China," "The 
 Evangelical Church of Mexico," etc., etc., is found an even 
 
58 The Union Movement 
 
 greater weakness of the platform. That so many leaders out 
 of several denominations with their respective historical deri- 
 vations could get together in so short a time on a platform 
 with this plank in it, is nothing less than astonishing. It 
 requires but a little knowledge of history and little ability to 
 forecast consequences to enable one to see that the consum- 
 mation of this ideal will, as certainly as realized, entail evils 
 which not only Baptists but others have long deplored. The 
 tendency in such case is inevitably toward a national church. 
 Christian history admits of no more plausible deduction than 
 this. If this idea gains favor w4th the denominations doing 
 mission work in China, and they form a federation for the 
 purpose of realizing ''The Christian Church of China," the 
 future will see a State Church, an Establishment, there, and, 
 in the end, this will as surely put blight upon Christianity 
 in China as the Church of Kome has put blight upon Italy 
 and Mexico. The language is the language of Komanists and 
 semi-Komanists, adopted by men who are neither, but who 
 ought to discard the mark. 
 
 The platform provides for a sort of pooling or combina- 
 tion of all the "Churches" or denominations in one national 
 church. It ought not to be necessary to say that Christianity 
 is not a national religion and a church of Jesus Christ is not 
 a national institution. No man is sent out under the Com- 
 mission to establish a Christianity with a national name, or 
 a church with either racial peculiarities or with national 
 boundaries. Political divisions do not alter New Testament 
 ideas of truth and ecclesiastical polity. A church, although 
 a local and single organization, is a definitely prescribed in- 
 stitution and a world power with a world parish. The 
 Apostles did not foster an institution delimited by national 
 boundaries or racial names. 
 
 This idea of a National Church is popularized by much 
 being said about "a self-governing," "self-supporting" and 
 
The Union Movembnt 59 
 
 "self-propagating" church. It may be appropriate, and I 
 doubt not to some illuminating, to state here that Baptists 
 have no other ideal for a church than that it shall be self- 
 governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. The differ- 
 ence, however, between Baptists and these friends of the "in- 
 digenous church" and "national church" is in the meaning 
 of the word church. Some who figure largely in these confer- 
 ences, and talk much about the self-governing church would 
 not, we dare say, talk thus, if it were understood that a 
 church is a single, local New Testament organization. You 
 may perhaps have a self-governing "Church," in their under- 
 standing of the term, but you cannot have self-governing 
 "churches" on the program of this Union Movement. The 
 administrators of the Movement do not even leave the de- 
 nominations unembarrassed in controlling their mission 
 work. 
 
 One evil growing out of this broad idea of what a church 
 is has already appeared on the mission fields, and a great 
 evil it is; namely, the development of an amazing disregard 
 for the sacred rights of the only institution which can with 
 propriety be called a church. The rights of the churches are 
 violated in the interest of The Church. The whole question 
 of the delimitation of territory is based upon disregard for 
 the most sacred rights of churches. 
 
 "In making territorial boundary lines so as to avoid over- 
 lapping, numerous churches have been shifted bodily from 
 one communion to another by formal agreement of the gov- 
 erning bodies on the field." (Dr. Arthur J. Brown, in Unity 
 and Missions, page — .) 
 
 That sounds strange coming from the same source that 
 the plea for a self-governing church comes from. It is to 
 be explained by the fact that the institution which Baptists 
 call a church, and for which they have reverent respect, is 
 
60 The Union Movement 
 
 not the thing which these friends call "the Church," and it is 
 thus that a great evil is enacted. If these gentlemen accepted 
 the word church as designating a sacred institution, pos- 
 sessed of peculiar nature, function and rights, no governing 
 body would dare shift one of the churches bodily from one 
 communion to another. Indeed, there would be no governing 
 body thus to legislate for a church. 
 
 A primary question is raised by this whole discussion. Can 
 it be possible that the New Testament, which is the Chris- 
 tian's "Kule of Faith and Practice," is without specifications 
 for a church, the institution through which the world is to 
 be saved? Has the Architect of Christianity left no plans 
 for that institution upon which the security and promulga- 
 tion of truth depends ? Is this primary Christian institution 
 left to new and uninstructed converts to constitute as they 
 please, or any set of men to play with as they would buttons 
 on a checkerboard? 
 
 "Jesus never taught a system of theology, nor ordained 
 a priesthood, or even an official ministry, nor organized a 
 church. The purpose of Jesus was to propagate a spirit, not 
 to establish an institution. He seems to have been willing 
 that the form should shape itself so long as the content and 
 purpose were good. He spoke of 'one flock,' not of 'one fold,' 
 with the ecclesiastical associations that such a term suggests 
 — 'they shall become one flock, one shepherd.' He prayed 
 that they who believed on him might be one, leaving it to the 
 spirit of love, without which no mode of unity is possible, 
 to determine what form would manifest it best." {Union 
 of Christian Forces in America, hy Robert A. Ashworth, page 
 
 Such disregard for the sanctity and rights of churches as 
 would shift them "bodily from one communion to another" is 
 consistent where such views are held. 
 
The Union Movement 61 
 
 3. The phrase, an "indigenous church," has become popu- 
 lar in recent years. Its use is one of those instances in this 
 modern age when a new word first spoken, a new theory first 
 advanced, by thoughtful men it may be, soon, like a new 
 bonnet or a new cut of gown, becomes a fashion, a fad, and 
 runs to extremes. The indigenous church idea is one of those 
 fancies which sometimes take possession of men of a certain 
 religious temperament. To be sure, it has for thoughtful 
 men a grain of truth, but it is that truth we must make sure 
 of, or we turn the whole matter into an ism. As in the case 
 of other things scientific and theological, the author of this 
 particular word has his voice multiplied in many echoes. It 
 provokes a smile that some should think that each faint echo 
 indicates such breadth, intellectual capacity and originality. 
 
 There is, of course, a sense in which Christianity should 
 become indigenous to China. That is to say, we should look 
 forward to the day when New Testament Christianity shall 
 express itself through the Chinese language, get itself illus- 
 trated in Chinese life and character, and when the Chinese 
 shall expound its truth, foster, control and propagate its 
 institutions, and offer to the world its products ; when Chris- 
 tianity shall be the natural and normal life of the Chinese 
 or Japanese people. That is desirable, and all should aim 
 at the realization of such an ideal. But we begin to realize 
 that ideal whenever we preach with faithfulness the truth of 
 the New Testament, and that truth is received into the inner 
 life of any single Chinese or Japanese. There is no other 
 way by which we may perfectly realize this ideal. This view 
 of the matter does not presage the much vaunted postulate 
 of an indigenous church which in China or Japan shall be 
 radically different from a New Testament church and New 
 Testament Christianity in any other land, or necessarily 
 different at all. Certainly, before we start on our mission, we 
 ought to drop those things from our message which belong 
 
62 The Union Movement 
 
 to one race, nation, or section merely, and all unscriptural 
 inheritances from dead controversies, as well as the cockle- 
 burs of political and ecclesiastical parties and prejudices. 
 We ought to do all of this whether we stay at home or go 
 to the mission fields. But if we leave our untaught converts 
 from heathenism to evolve a theology and churches out of 
 racial and national consciousness and environment, we will 
 leave them the sure victims of creeds and sects as bad as any 
 we know, although not identical. 
 This is the Union program: 
 
 "Each indigenous church in the mission field will gradu- 
 ally, out of these elements, build up that body of Christian 
 doctrine and that form of polity which is best adapted to 
 its life." {Edinburgh Conference, Vol. VIII, pages 134-5-) 
 
 Can anyone guess what such a doctrine and polity will 
 be? Certainly the scheme is advocated on the pre-supposi- 
 tion that doctrine and polity will be different from anything 
 with which the home constituencies are familiar, and that 
 they will differ on the respective mission fields. In the face 
 of such a program the question is forced : Does Christianity 
 not offer to the world a reliable and sacred body of truth 
 and furnish an authentic standard in such important matters 
 as these? Are the churches of Jesus Christ really to sub- 
 stitute for the Holy Scriptures as the criterion of doctrine 
 and polity the feelings, preferences and prejudices, or even 
 the consciences of raw converts from heathenism? Are we 
 really without an essential and unalterable message for the 
 mission fields? Have we nothing to teach our converts? 
 What have we been telling the heathen world hitherto, any- 
 how? If we have told them that Christ has commissioned 
 us to preached revealed truth to them, shall we now tell them 
 we have been mistaken? And must we all say this in con- 
 
The Union Movement 63 
 
 cert? The days of martyrdom will have fjassed when this 
 sort of thing gains currency. 
 
 The Baptist position has been a long protest against 
 creeds evolved and compounded out of circumstance, and 
 Baptists have declined to attach historical excrescences 
 to their message. They are not, therefore, under necessity 
 of detaching themselves from them. For this reason the 
 Baptist situation ought not to be confounded or confused 
 with that of others. Those who have New Testament 
 churches at home do not need to change the type in going 
 to China. Those who have churches which are unsuited to 
 China, ought to change them in America. New Testament 
 churches are universally adaptable. One is made to wonder 
 if our Christian friends who are so enamored of self-govern- 
 ing, self-supporting and self-propagating churches have ever 
 really reflected that this is a trite historical ideal and prin- 
 ciple with Baptists. 
 
 Certain speakers and writers on the indigenous church 
 have simply forced a logic which is at variance with the pri- 
 mary facts in the case. Incongruous and unrelated matters 
 have been made to do service as major and minor premises. 
 That which has misled these speakers and writers into such 
 freakish logic is their desire to get rid of denominational 
 convictions as a barrier to immediate union and cooperation 
 in mission work and strengthen the administration of the 
 Movement. They tell us that the Christianity which will 
 most surely effect the redemption of China must be a Chinese 
 Christianity. Now, it requires but a little reflection to dis- 
 cover that this argument would repeal the Commission itself. 
 Jesus commands us to "go into all the world and preach the 
 gospel to every creature," and as a part of the same Com- 
 mission, we are instructed to teach men and specifically in- 
 formed what to teach them to observe. A man who preaches 
 
64 The Union Movement 
 
 the gospel to the nations has quite definite truths to preach 
 and equally definite duties to teach. 
 
 In interpreting the gospel revelation to the East and 
 fostering a Christianity in close conformity to the New Tes- 
 tament, we are not imposing an alien institution upon the 
 Oriental nature. We got our Bible and Christianity out of 
 the East, and the man who faithfully interprets this to Orien- 
 talists has a message designed for them and suited to them. 
 The missionary is charged with this duty. A faithful inter- 
 pretation will insure a perfect adaptation. Indeed, the fact 
 that we are taking back to the East that which we got out 
 of the East furnishes a strong reason for faithful and close 
 interpretation of the New Testament on Eastern fields in 
 particular. The gospel was first tried in the East and found 
 to meet the needs of the East, and it will again meet those 
 needs if we will faithfully transport it, although the Orien- 
 tal mind has become so beclouded and perverted by error that 
 it cannot now without help interpret the gospel for itself. 
 The same New Testament and the same gospel have been pro- 
 vided for all nations. The missionary ideal which will prove 
 most fruitful is a faithful proclamation and propagation of 
 the gospel and a full obedience to it. 
 
 An indigenous church which is built without stalwart 
 personal convictions of the inviolableness of Christian truth 
 as expounded in the New Testament cannot serve China in 
 her plight. If the gospel preached there and the churches 
 constituted there are not fashioned after the specifications 
 drawn by inspiration, the gospel will perish, "the Church" 
 will topple before it is built, and the nation which witnesses 
 the collapse will be the sufferer. On the heads ,of Chinese 
 and Japanese will fall the debris of this unsubstantial struc- 
 ture as surely as a fateful catastrophe has befallen all Roman 
 Catholic countries of the globe. Where men have built the 
 ecclesiastical structure without consulting the New Testa- 
 
The Union Movement 65 
 
 ment plans, and wherever Christianity is not a revolutioniz- 
 ing, reconstructing, regulating, original and unique force in 
 any nation and civilization, the result has been calamitous 
 for both Christianity and the nation. A Latin Christianity 
 has been a curse to the Latin peoples and a Chinese Chris- 
 tianity will curse China. The missionaries and mission 
 boards should keep in mind that the Kingdom of God is from 
 heaven, and that we cannot build into it wood, hay and 
 stubble of either personal or racial preference and pride, 
 the social or political elements of any nation or people. 
 
 Native churches and communities which are "determined 
 to develop along lines characteristic of their own civiliza- 
 tion and in forms indigenous to it" have suffered neglect of 
 proper instruction by somebody and need firm grounding in 
 the faith of the gospel. They need one like Jude to exhort 
 them that they "should earnestly contend for the faith once 
 for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). Such a regime as 
 that which is proposed will probably either multiply sects in- 
 stead of advance ultimate union, or, after a while, persecute 
 independent believers. 
 
 What China most needs is that which China is most with- 
 out, namely, a thoroughly vitalizing gospel, and that experi- 
 ence of God which such a gospel alone can produce. It can- 
 not have this without a conscience for spiritual and moral 
 values and a conviction of truth that will not bend. If mis- 
 sionaries carry the advice to the Chinese that they must origi- 
 nate a Chinese Christianity, the result will be a conglomerate 
 of human nature, personal pride, national vanity, with ele- 
 ments from other religions and an insufficient ingredient of 
 pure Christianity to effect the salvation of men and the 
 women who compose the nation. Says Prof. Fred L. Ander- 
 son : "Only out of red-hot guns of intelligence and wide-eyed 
 conviction can we ever throw shells with velocity and power 
 enough to smash the concrete Li^ge forts of hoary supersti- 
 tion." 
 5 
 
66 The Union Movement 
 
 After all, this whole matter resolves itself into this sim- 
 ple question: Are we under a Commission to carry to China 
 and the world a definite, explicit, unique message? That 
 Jesus specified something which must be carried by those 
 whom He commanded to go no one can successfully dispute. 
 The Commission was and is stated in such language that it 
 was not and need not be misunderstood. It cannot be inter- 
 preted vaguely or treated indifferently by those who recognize 
 His authority. 
 
 Jesus gave a message in which the duties required were 
 defined in such simple terms that all the mission boards in 
 America doing work in China could, if they would let the 
 New Testament and its scholarly interpreters speak, quickly 
 settle all their difi'erence as to what these duties are; and 
 when these were settled, they would possess a message of such 
 simplicity and power that they could, by agreement to carry 
 ity and it alone, and all of it, multiply missionary results in 
 one year to a degree that they cannot in ten years by dodging 
 the terms in the Commission upon which there is disagree- 
 ment, and by confusing issues with much talk about getting 
 together without first removing the things which separate 
 them. Surrendering the terms of that Commission and talk- 
 ing about union may for a time be a pleasant pastime, or 
 even occupation, for some very agreeable and deferential 
 souls, but such a program will not secure the healing of the 
 nations.. Dr. Arthur J. Brown says with admirable frank- 
 ness: 
 
 "Candour calls for the admission that the advocates of 
 union are also reenforced by men who have no real earnest- 
 ness of conviction, who care little for any particular doc- 
 trines." (Unity of Missions — page 238.) 
 
 The distinguished Prof. Gustav Warneck, of Halle, in a 
 letter to the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, 
 
The Union Movement 67 
 
 gave expression to the following observations which are 
 timely for the present discussion : 
 
 "The effort to reach non-Christian peoples, and to bring 
 them into the heart of the gospel, must never lead us to alter 
 the content of the gospel as proclaimed by the apostles. The 
 vital impulses which lie at the root of Christian missionary 
 effort equally with the forces by which the non-Christian 
 world can alone be regenerated are contained in the gospel 
 of Christ as the apostles proclaimed it, and which they knew 
 by experience to be the power of God unto salvation to every- 
 one that believeth. In problems which face the Christian 
 church today, we have not to do merely with methods, but 
 with the existence of the church itself. The honor of our 
 missionary work lies essentially not in method, but in the 
 substance of this gospel, in the men who proclaim it with the 
 full assurance of faith, and in the Christians who have been 
 regenerated by it to a new life of righteousness. Herein are 
 the potent sources of our power." 
 
 Again we say, let those who insist upon a Christianity 
 for the Orient which is not Occidental, reflect that we got 
 our Christianity out of the East, that this Oriental Chris- 
 tianity fits the Occidental mind and nature, and it may be 
 expected to fit the Orient if we take scrupulous care to return 
 it in its pristine purity. There is nothing in the type of 
 men and women in China and Japan to contradict this rule. 
 The Bible and the gospel are in earthly manifestation Orien- 
 tal in origin, and a Christianity which a faithful proclama- 
 tion establishes will be sufficiently Oriental. There was just 
 one gospel for "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the 
 dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judiea, and Cappadocia, in 
 Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and 
 in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Eome, 
 Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians" (Acts 2: 9-11). 
 We cannot see how living on one side of the Pacific Ocean 
 or the other has anything to do with the nature of the gos- 
 
68 The Union Movement 
 
 pel or the New Testament institution which is appointed 
 to preserve and propagate it. Paul preached the same gos- 
 pel and organized the same sort of churches on the western 
 side of the ^gean and among Europeans that he did on 
 the eastern side and among Asiatics. Indeed, he seems dili- 
 gently to have avoided incorporating western ideals into the 
 churches. The evil began when this was done. When the 
 imperialism of the Koman Empire became operative in Chris- 
 tianity for the purpose of making it "indigenous," the Roman 
 Catholic hierarchy was predetermined and apostolic Chris- 
 tianity began to wane. Fashioned on such a model, "the 
 Church" became imperialistic. 
 
 A faithful preaching of the duties required in the Com- 
 mission create no difficulties for a truly indigenous church 
 in any land or among any people. If we really covet for 
 Chinese and Japanese a religion which just suits their 
 natures and their environment, our chief concern should be 
 faithfully and exactly to interpret and expound the Scrip- 
 tures and the Christianity which we find in these Scriptures. 
 Any compromising, or side-stepping the terms of the Commis- 
 sion will defeat our purpose and produce a maladjustment 
 of religion and religious institutions to the lives of the peo- 
 ple and the nations. Mischief will surely come of false or 
 careless exegesis, and of having Christian institutions fash- 
 ioned by the natives without first having taught them in the 
 Scriptures and the doctrines of the gospel, and of failing to 
 render their consciences keenly sensitive to the truth which 
 constitutes the Christian message and is the steel framework 
 of the whole Christian structure. The world needs a true 
 and full translation, interpretation and exposition of the 
 New Testament, a faithful proclamation of truth and the 
 indoctrination of Christian disciples, as well as an exemplifi- 
 cation of the Christianity which is standardized in the Holy 
 Scriptures. That is our great missionary business, and this 
 
The Union Movement 69 
 
 will produce the much lauded indigenous Christianity. The 
 churches which will naturally issue from such a process will 
 take care of evangelical Christianity in China, and will at 
 the same time effect the redemption of the Chinese people. 
 
 We have a present task in begetting a conscience for this 
 sort of missionary propaganda, not in moderating the sensi- 
 tiveness of the Christian conscience for Christian truth by 
 compromise and termless agreements with those against 
 whose errors we have always protested. Better a little 
 longer the welter of controversy which gives evidence of per- 
 sonal and strong conviction, than build a Christianity in 
 China upon a conscience which is too accommodating and 
 too easily adaptable to suggestions without a "thus saith 
 the Lord" for them. The victories of the Cross were never 
 won by men who quickly raise or run to flags of truce. The 
 Chinese converts who are eventually to carry the gospel to 
 victory throughout China and sti^ngthen the Christian forces 
 for the salvation of the world will be men and women who 
 are propelled by the force of exalted views of the sure verity 
 of the universal and unchangeable gospel. Such men will 
 render their message apprehensible by giving it definition, 
 and they will give it dynamic by the invincible passion with 
 which they declare it and insist upon it being savor of 
 life unto life and of death unto death. Clear definition of 
 message, personal conviction of the truth which it contains 
 and a passion for converts to it are indispensible qualifica- 
 tions for effectual missionary service. 
 
 Mere deferentialness, will not stand the test to which 
 the churches of Christ ai^ again to be subjected. The 
 holy passion for truth which drives men to prayerful and 
 serious study of the Word of God for the settlement of ques- 
 tions in dispute will effect the evangelization of the world 
 and the unification of believers, if these ends are ever at- 
 tained. There will always be human need which only the 
 
70 The Union Movement 
 
 truth will satisfy. It is the man with a message and a con- 
 viction of its supreme importance who is convincing. That 
 man is sailing in shallow water whose sympathies are broader 
 than his convictions are deep. Sooner or later all such men 
 and the Christian enterprises which they seek to conduct will 
 strike the bars and will be imperiled by the breakers. 
 
 If we would see an indigenous Christianity and indigen- 
 ous churches in China and Japan, our first concern should 
 be that the Christianity and the churches which we plant 
 there are in close conformity to the New Testament. That 
 denominationalism which is first squared to the New Tes- 
 tament can be trusted to serve the ends of the gospel in any 
 land. That combination of denominations which, disregard- 
 ing this criterion, is bent upon an indigenous church, will 
 in time give the world another example of a conglomerate of 
 heterogeneous elements of heathen religions, national, polit- 
 ical and racial peculiarities, and, as a result, a feeble Chris- 
 tianity. For nearly two milleniums parts of the world have 
 suffered the consequences of a similar blunder. 
 
 The most sensible and important deliverance on this 
 matter of an indigenous Christianity we have come across is 
 from the pen of a distinguished Japanese Christian and sol- 
 dier. Col. F. Oshima. We commend his thoughtful words to 
 those who have become enamored of the indigenous church 
 idea which figures so large in federation sentiment, and who 
 insist so strongly upon orientalized Christianity. We give 
 but a brief extract from a thrilling message by this Japanese 
 patriot to his people: 
 
 "Buddhism and Confusianism with compromise and 
 syncretism were able to make comfortable terms with our 
 indigenous ideals. But in the case of Christianity the only 
 alternative is, shall Christianity be Japonicised, or shall 
 Japan be Christianized? There is no room for compromise. 
 Speaking as an ordinary patriot, I naturally desire to see 
 
The Union Movement 71 
 
 Christianity Japonicised, but when I reflect on Judaism, I 
 know that if Christianity were Japonicised, Japan would be 
 cut off from the world's life and be doomed to decay. On the 
 other hand, if our ancient faiths are filled out and exalted 
 and universalized by Christianity, then our nation shall 
 grow and flourish and fulfill a glorious mission in the world. 
 Christianity is neither Occidental nor Oriental. Like the 
 power of gravitation, it is all-inclusive." 
 
 There is indeed ground for doubt that the call for "the 
 Christian Church in China," the "indigenous Church," etc., 
 was conceived in China or the foreign field at all. There is 
 on the contrary very strong evidence that the idea was sug- 
 gested, as it certainly has been popularized, by men who were 
 not Orientals at all, although very naturally the suggestion 
 has been received with some pride by certain natives. From 
 various quarters the echoes of it were heard at more or less 
 frequent intervals prior to the World Missionary Confer- 
 ence at Edinburgh, but since that meeting and the organiza- 
 tion of the Continuation Committee, and since Dr. John K. 
 Mott's series of conferences in the Orient, this idea has be- 
 come the slogan of unionism. The chairman of the Contin- 
 uation Committee went abroad to put on the program of the 
 Edinburgh Conference: 
 
 "Both the missionaries and the Chinese Christian leaders 
 were ready, therefore, for the message of the Edinburgh Mis- 
 sionary Conference so strongly stated by its chairman in his 
 opening address at each Conference. They were prepared to 
 face together the whole task that is confronting the Chris- 
 tian forces in China. They recognized that the days of in- 
 dependent action were past, and that, if they were to act 
 together, they must first get together in conference to decide 
 upon plans of united action." {China Mission Year Book, 
 19 IS, page 63.) 
 
 That opening address fixed the key for each of these con- 
 ferences in harmony with the ideals of the Continuation Com- 
 mittee. 
 
72 The Union Movement 
 
 The Edinburgh Conference was held in 1910, the Continu- 
 ation Committee conferences were held in 1912 and 1913, in 
 India, China and Japan. Dr. Mott's guiding mind and genius 
 were manifest in all the plans and policies of these confer- 
 ences. The records of these wildly scattered conferences 
 give uniform evidence of the incorporation of the program of 
 the Continuation Committee and the ideas of its chairman. 
 It is not conceivable that certain ideas should have so pos- 
 sessed these various groups in different nationalities, sur- 
 rounded by varying conditions, and each group trained un- 
 der more or less different auspices, had they been left with- 
 out suggestion. Granting a thing so improbable, one would 
 still have to account for the identical terms in which the 
 ideas were expressed in the conclusions of these conferences 
 from Madras to Calcutta and from Canton to Shanghai, 
 and later in the conferences throughout South America. The 
 conferences were, as a matter of- fact, far more exposi- 
 tory of the program which the Continuation Committee was 
 designed to carry out than they were of the predisposition 
 and deliberate demands of the respective national groups. 
 The proof is overwhelming. 
 
 We quote the following from the Proceedings of the Cal- 
 cutta Conference: 
 
 "This Conference is of the opinion that there is undoubt- 
 edly a strong desire on the part of many of the leaders of 
 the Indian Christian community for a comprehensive church 
 organization adapted to the country. While the community 
 as a whole, as might be expected from its origin and history, 
 cannot be said to have shown any strong and widespread de- 
 sire in this direction, neither can it be said that there is any- 
 thing within the community itself which would militate 
 against the realization of such an ideal. This Conference, 
 therefore, considers that every facility should be afforded 
 for the spread and development of this desire in the Indian 
 community at large. While this Conference believes that the 
 
The Union Movement 73 
 
 Indian Church should continue to receive and absorb every 
 good influence which the Church of the West may impart, 
 it also believes that in resj>ect of forms and organization 
 the Indian Church should have entire freedom to develop on 
 such lines as will conduce to the most natural expression of 
 the spiritual instincts of Indian Christians." 
 
 While "there was no strong and widespread desire in this 
 direction within the community," there was nothing to "mil- 
 itate against the realization of such an ideal," it was decided 
 that "every facility should be afforded for the spread and 
 development" of the ideal of an indigenous church. There- 
 fore "the one united Indian Church" idea was fully launched, 
 and provincial and federal councils were projected for a 
 thorough carrying out of the policies of the Edinburgh Con- 
 ference. 
 
 The report of the conference in Canton in turn shows 
 the same earmarks. The following is quoted from the re- 
 port of one of the China conferences : 
 
 ". . . While, however, the Chinese Church should con- 
 tinue to receive and absorb every good influence which the 
 Church of the West can impart, it should, in respect of forms 
 and organization, have entire freedom to develop in accord 
 with the most natural expression and largest cultivation of 
 spiritual instincts of Chinese people." {Unity of Christian 
 Forces of America, page 1918.) 
 
 How remarkable that Indians and Chinese should decide 
 to "receive and absorb every good influence which the Church 
 of the West can impart," and yet develop on lines of "natural 
 expression and spiritual instincts," respectively! 
 
 Can anybody doubt the common source of this identical 
 language used in these conferences in India and China? 
 
 "The Conferences at Tsinan-fu, Pekin and Hankow," to 
 quote Dr. Ashworth, a champion of the program, "expressed 
 their convictions in practically identical terms." It is evl- 
 
74 The Union Movement 
 
 dent that these records do not give an impartial diagnosis so 
 much as they report a suggestion. The "practically iden- 
 tical terms" found in the records of the whole series of 
 conferences covering many points in India, China and Japan, 
 and later in South America, show the work of a guiding mind 
 and a steady consistency with the policies which certain men 
 left the Edinburgh Conference to put in operation on the 
 mission fields and which have been made the guiding prin- 
 ciples of the Movement. 
 
 That is an uncommon variety of indigenous plant which 
 was rooted at Edinburgh and transported to the mission 
 fields via New York! Personally the writer certainly does 
 not question the goodness or greatness of the leaders of this 
 Movement. They have by their characters and devotion to 
 Christian Missions won their places, and their places are high 
 and secure in the confidence of the Christian world. Mission- 
 ary policies, however, have their merit or demerit apart from 
 the individuals who operate them. It is not, therefore, in 
 disrespect for anybody that we ask. How much more unsuc- 
 tarian and indigenous for China are missionary and eccle- 
 siastical policies which are determined by Drs. John K. 
 Mott, Kobert E. Speer, and others, and transplanted 
 in China than the policies of Methodism, for instance, 
 which were conceived by Drs. John Wesley, George Whit- 
 field, and others? Keligious policies which are substituted 
 for and supplant other systems, become a system in them- 
 selves. Who is wise enough to guarantee that the recognition 
 of the policies of this Movement and the adoption of its 
 principles will not in the end prove as objectionable as any- 
 thing we now have? Certainly no present division of the 
 evangelical forces of Christendom has greater centralization 
 in management than has this Movement. Is this the direc- 
 tion in which the world is moving and religious bodies ought 
 to move? 
 
The Union Movement 75 
 
 This indigenous church idea is not the only one now be- 
 ginning to nourish on the foreign field which is fragrant with 
 the odors of other hemispheres. Concerning the consolida- 
 tion of certain churches of several denominations in a cer- 
 tain mission in Japan, which was affected by this Movement, 
 one missionary wrote it was "not confined to Japan, nor did 
 it originate in Japan." Another wrote, "The native pastors 
 are all opposed to the efi'ort, and quite a number of the mem- 
 bers of the churches." The Movement has put on its program 
 and uttered its shibboleth of one indigenous church in the 
 Philippine Islands. Here is what Rev. H. W. Munger, a 
 missionary to the Filipinos, says about it: 
 
 "Another reason advanced for effecting this union is that 
 we ought not to impose our ecclesiastical forms and organiza- 
 tions upon these people, but that we ought to nationalize 
 Christianity and establish an indigenous church. True 
 enough, so we ought. But what do they propose to do to 
 establish this indigenous church? A committee is appointed, 
 half of which are Americans and half are Filipinos. This 
 committee sits down and draws up a polity, taking a little 
 from the Methodists, a little from the Presbyterians, a little 
 from the Episcopalians, a little from the Baptists, etc., and 
 they call that an indigenous polity. It is only a crazy quilt 
 of western church politics. It is no more indigenous than the 
 entire Presbyterian organization from the general assembly 
 down to the local presbyteries transplanted over here en 
 masse. The missionaries propose to organize a national 
 Filipino church. But, in the very nature of the case, the 
 foreign missionaries cannot organize a Filipino church. This 
 can be done only by the Filipinos themselves. If there is to 
 be one national church they must establish it, and not the 
 missionaries. 
 
 "Now, are the Filipinos ready for this movement? 
 are they advocating it? is there a demand for it? I have dis- 
 covered none in my field." 
 
76 The Union Movement 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A BASIS OF UNION. 
 
 A DISTINCTION must be made between union and coopera- 
 tioxi. In this chapter we discuss the attitude of Southern 
 Bajt/tists to Christian union. We will then offer some obser- 
 vations upon cooperation. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Convention has made distinct de- 
 liverance, both as to a basis of union with others and lines 
 of possible and proper cooperation pending an agreement 
 upon things which now separate Christians into denomina- 
 tions. The Convention has declared for both union and co- 
 operation — union of a certain sort and on certain terms 
 which are equally fair to all, and cooperation, the mean- 
 while, to a certain extent. These two facts should be kept 
 in mind and kept separate. There can be no perfect union 
 which is not genuine and scriptural, and there cannot con- 
 sistently be an unlimited cooperation until such union is 
 realized. To force a union while rejecting, even tabooing, 
 the scriptural terms of union, is a poor sign of the Christian 
 spirit which must be depended upon to hold the federation 
 together. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Convention has shown its faith by 
 its works in this matter of Christian union. For successive 
 years Dr. E. C. Dargan was appointed a special representa- 
 tive of the Convention to the meetings of "The World Con- 
 ference on Faith and Order." The first report of this com- 
 mittee was presented to the Convention at its session in 
 1912. Its spirit and attitude are indicated by the following 
 extracts : 
 
The Union Movement 77 
 
 "We are thankful to recognize that there is an increas- 
 ing spiritual unity among all the true followers of our Lord, 
 and we heartily engage to promote by all suitable means the 
 furtherance and strengthening of this really impressive and 
 growing union among all Christians. . . . With regard 
 to questions of doctrines and polity, we are sure that under 
 present conditions uniformity or any organic union based 
 upon that cannot be expected. We believe in 'the unity of 
 the Spirit in the bond of peace,' but we also understand that 
 'where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.' In the 
 exercise and expression of this liberty there will no doubt 
 remain some ditierences of view and of conviction in regard 
 to many important teachings and institutions of our com- 
 mon Christianity. In regard to these, all Christians should 
 hold for themselves and for each other the right to differ, 
 but to differ in peace and love. Granting to all others most 
 freely and cordially the freedom of personal judgment which 
 we claim for ourselves, we feel it only frank and just to say 
 that many of the tenets which are regarded as divisive be- 
 tween ourselves and our brethren of other communions are 
 and ever must be cherished and defended by us as the clear 
 teachings of God's W^ord, and on these matters we can never 
 evade or compromise." 
 
 In 1913, Dr. George W. Truett offered the following reso- 
 lution to the Baptist General Convention of Texas: 
 
 "Whereas, The subject of Christian union is now com- 
 manding the wide and earnest attention of Christians every- 
 where. Therefore, be it 
 
 '^Resolved, That a committee of nine be appointed to draft 
 a report expressing the views and sentiments of this body 
 concerning such subject." 
 
 This resolution was passed heartily by the Convention, 
 and Dr. Truett was made chairman of the proposed com- 
 mittee and associated with him were such men as Drs. J. B. 
 Gambrell, J. L. Gross, and others. Later in the session the 
 
78 The Union Movement 
 
 committee offered to the body a statement, the character of 
 which is indicated in the following excerpts : 
 
 ''1. We look with deep and sympathetic interest on the 
 efforts now making throughout the Christian world, to re- 
 unite the scattered and ofttime antagonistic forces of Chris- 
 tendom. We deplore the divisions that obtain among the 
 lovers of Jesus, and the many evils resulting therefrom. We 
 long for Christian union. We pray for it and will labor for 
 it, on a scriptural basis; but we insist that it cannot and 
 should not be secured on any other basis. 
 
 "2. We hold the immemorial position of Baptists that 
 all true believers in Christ as their personal Saviour are 
 saved, having been born again; and this, without the inter- 
 vention of preacher, priest, ordinance, sacrament or church. 
 Therefore, we profoundly rejoice in our spiritual union with 
 all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. We hold 
 them as brothers in the saving grace of Christ, and heirs 
 with us of life and immortality. We love their fellowship, 
 and maintain that the spiritual union of all believers is now 
 and ever will be a blessed reality. This spiritual union does 
 not depend on organizations, or forms, or rituals. It is 
 deeper, higher, broader, and more stable than any and all 
 organizations." 
 
 Following this statement, the Texas paper points out 
 some things in the Baptist contention which involve funda- 
 mental Christian truth, and npon which there can be no 
 thought of compromise, adding: 
 
 "Our most cherished beliefs, our deep sense of duty, will 
 not permit us to enter into any federation, council, or what 
 not, that would in any way obscure the positions set out 
 above, or hinder us in the full and free preaching of the 
 whole counsel of God to all the people of the world. By our 
 very principles we are automatically separated, ecclesias- 
 tically, from all other people, and we cannot help it, unless 
 we stultify our consciences or renounce the truth, as we are 
 given to see the trnth, a course no Christian would wish us 
 to take." 
 
The Union Movement 79 
 
 In 1914, the Efllciency Commission, already referred to, 
 appointed the year before and composed of truly representa- 
 tive men from every section of the South, presented to the 
 Southern Baptist Convention, as a part of a larger report, 
 a ''Pronouncement on Christian Union and Denominational 
 EflSciency." While much of the report was referred back to 
 the committee, this part of it on Christian union was adopted 
 heartily by the Convention. We quote from this pronounce- 
 ment: 
 
 "This Convention rejoices in the many evidences of in- 
 creasing interest in the subject of Christian union among 
 Christian people everywhere. Many evils arise from the 
 divided state of modern Christendom. The prayer of Jesus 
 in the seventeenth chapter of John and the many exhorta- 
 tions to unity in the Epistles of the New Testament should 
 keep us constantly reminded that this matter lay very near 
 the heart of the Master and of His apostles. 
 
 "We have deep, abiding joy in the spiritual unity and 
 brotherhood which bind together all believers in Jesus Christ, 
 of every name and in every clime. W^e are intensely grate- 
 ful for that form of personal religious experience which is 
 the priceless possession of every soul who has known the re- 
 deeming grace of God in Christ. . . . We are also in 
 hearty accord with every movement and cause in which 
 Christians of every name may take part without doing vio- 
 lence to the sacred mandates of conscience and without im- 
 pairing their sense of loyalty to Christ." 
 
 The above extracts from these important documents give 
 a very clear and conclusive understanding of the sentiment 
 and conviction of Southern Baptists concerning this impor- 
 tant matter. The truth is, Southern Baptists recognize the 
 evils of a divided Christianity much more clearly than do 
 some who are the champions of a union which is promoted 
 in sentiment only. They know well the waste, the confusion 
 and the follv of division. No well-informed and well- 
 
80 The Union Movement 
 
 grounded Baptist ever said that such things as divide Chris- 
 tians are of no consequence and make no difference, nor that 
 a multitude of denominations is better than a united Chris- 
 tendom. They deplore schism in the body of Christ, and 
 would heal it; but they would do this by going directly to 
 the causes of division, and would not seek it by evading the 
 only things that divide us. The simplest and quickest way to 
 get together, as well as the only way to stay together, is to 
 catalogue the things which divide us and proceed to get these 
 out of the way. If there is brotherhood enough to hold a union 
 together, there ought to be brotherhood enough calmly and 
 in high Christian spirit and courage to sit together in con- 
 ference on these matters which cause the deplored divisions. 
 Certainly if the friends of union really possess the breadth 
 and charity of which they seem so self-conscious, there ought 
 to be no diflSculty in the way of a frank and fraternal confer- 
 ence about these matters. Baptists are ready to go into a 
 conference with any body of Christian men at any time for 
 a settlement of the real issues. They will neither offer nor 
 take offense in the discussion of these matters. The best 
 proof that any advocate of Christian union can give of a 
 broad and unprejudiced mind, a liberal and fraternal spirit, 
 is to agree to face with his brethren their differences and 
 arbitrate them by the standard of a sound and scholarly in- 
 terpretation of the Scriptures. There is no other way per- 
 manently to satisfy a good Christian conscience ; nor is there 
 any other way to guarantee unity and prevent more divisions. 
 The way to get together is to get those things out of the 
 way which separate us. Presumably all real Christians are 
 already sufficiently united in their feelings to cooperate 
 freely if only the matters about which they differ were out 
 of the way. The bar is not hate for their brethren, but their 
 love for the truth, or what they think to be the truth. It 
 
The Union Movement 81 
 
 is not because they lack courtesy, but because they have con- 
 science. 
 
 That Christians of all people should exemplify a high 
 degree of courtesy in their conduct toward others, there can 
 be but one opinion among men who understand Christian 
 ethics. Discourtesy is unseemly in anybody; it is a breach 
 of Christian behavior in a disciple of Christ and an aggra- 
 vated form of this when shown other Christians. This is or 
 ought to be understood by everybody. It ought also to be 
 understood that right, loyalty, sincerity, duty, are all in- 
 volved in the matter of Christian cooperation, and that con- 
 duct in this case transcends mere etiquette. But for a con- 
 science which was stronger than conventional observance 
 and the recognized proprieties, there had been no Protes- 
 tantism. 
 
 "Though love repine and reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply — 
 'Tis man's perdition to be safe 
 
 When for the truth he ought to die." 
 
 There are several denominations in this country now which 
 came into existence by immature and improper effort to pro- 
 mote unity. Unwise and aggressive measures to realize union 
 have often disturbed the Christian unity which already ex- 
 isted, and we are threatened with another instance of this 
 on an immense scale and with disastrous results to Christian 
 missions. This effect has already occurred in some denomi- 
 nations and in some missions. A missionary writes : 
 
 "Before this great stir of the last few years the fellow- 
 ship between Baptists and all evangelistic missionaries was 
 admirable. One of the joys of my first few years as a mis- 
 sionary was the seeming ability on the part of nearly every- 
 body to go along with his own work and love everybody else." 
 
82 The Union Movement 
 
 The friends of missions and of union will blunder by forc- 
 ing this issue on the foreign field in advance of their ability 
 to realize it on the home field. To do so is to present to 
 China and Japan that which has at least the semblance of 
 a program of concealment. Representative and observant 
 men of these nations are moving among us every day, and 
 they will know and tell abroad whether we practice at home 
 what we preach to Japanese and Chinese. The insistence upon 
 distinct denominational lines here with independent denomi- 
 national schools, papers, publishing houses and other forms 
 of institutional Christianity, with competition between the 
 denominations in every town and village, while pooling these 
 interests on the foreign field and proclaiming unity and co- 
 operation will not in the end secure for us the largest respect 
 and for Christianity the largest influence in these nations. 
 
 Besides this, the mature Christian leaders at home ought 
 in all reason to settle their differences here, and not leave the 
 settlement of them for the immature converts from heathen- 
 ism. If these are encouraged to search the Scriptures, they 
 will meet these questions which divide us. They will, for in- 
 stance, be brought to face the matter of whether all men are 
 saved by faith in Christ, or whether some are thus saved and 
 others by ordinances; whether there is "one baptism" or 
 many. We could both save time and our Christian converts 
 much trouble if we would be big enough, broad enough and 
 brotherly enough to settle these questions here. 
 
 But let us be frank and no one be deceived. The Baptist 
 people are not ready to cease bearing their witness to certain 
 principles and practices which have always characterized 
 them. They will go straight on to the world with their tes- 
 timony to the scripturalness of their distinctive principles. 
 It is not with Baptists a question of North or South, of 
 partisan pride, venerable counsel, sectionalism or sectarian- 
 ism, but the fundamental question of whether the Word of 
 
The Union Movement 83 
 
 God is binding on the life and conscience or may be bent to 
 suit convenience or preference; it is even whether salvation 
 is of Christ by faith only or not. One great denomination, 
 which neither immerses nor requires faith in Christ as a 
 condition of receiving the form which it substitutes for bap- 
 tism, puts forth as one plank in its proposed platform for 
 a united Christianity this : 
 
 "We believe that all who have been duly baptized with 
 water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost are members of the Holy Catholic Church." (The 
 Bouse of Bishops Protestant Episcopal Church. Quoted in 
 Unity and Missions, hy Arthur J. Broion, D.D., page 191.) 
 
 If Jesus' blood is the atonement for the world's sins, and 
 if faith in Christ is the means by which a sinner avails him- 
 self of the benefits of that atonement, then there is heresy 
 enough in that plank of this platform for union to let the 
 world through to perdition. It is because just that sort of 
 thing is either expressed or implied as a part of the whole 
 present program for union, that Baptists cannot have any of 
 it. To do so is to surrender their age-long contention and the 
 fundamental principles of evangelical Christianity. 
 
 Adoniram Judson was no sooner convinced of the Baptist 
 faith than he concluded that it necessarily separated him 
 from his own Congregational brethren. In a letter to a Mr. 
 Emerson he wrote: 
 
 "This change of my sentiments will materially affect my 
 future life. Neither myself nor my missionary brethren think 
 that a cooperation would on all accounts, be pleasant or prac- 
 ticable. The Board of Commissioners will doubtless consider 
 my becoming a Baptist as dissolving my connection with 
 them. They will be as unwilling to employ a Baptist mis- 
 sionary as I am to comply with their instructions which di- 
 rect us to baptize 'believers with their households.' " 
 
84 The Union Movement 
 
 Mrs. Judson wrote by the same mail: 
 
 "It has been and still is one of the most trying circum- 
 stances of my life to think of doing that which I know will 
 be considered a very great evil by most of my Christian 
 friends. We are now cast out into the wide world, not 
 knowing where we shall go, or what will befall us at the 
 place of our destination." 
 
 For these missionaries the proposed union would have 
 been impossible. 
 
 It is precisely in the work of missionary propagandism 
 that we cannot conceal or compromise our distinctive mes- 
 sage. The very things upon which we take issue with our 
 pedo-Baptist brethren give peculiar value to the missionary 
 message. We do not go to China or Japan primarily to bap- 
 tize anybody, but to secure the conversion of men by telling 
 them that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, and that 
 they may have the benefit of this by believing in Him and by 
 this belief alone. There is a great gulf between the theolo- 
 gies of the two men, one of whom says that a little water on 
 the head of a child makes him a child of God, and the other 
 of whom preaches consistently, "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ and thou shalt be saved." 
 
 This call to unite with other denominations in mission 
 work raises again the crucial question of how a sinner is 
 saved, and involves the future witness of Baptists to this 
 fundamental fact of religion, as well as the continued iden- 
 tity of the people who have through the ages steadfastly and 
 consistently, against great odds, borne their testimony to the 
 evangelical view of this matter. Decision to join the Move- 
 ment or not to join it will determine wihether Baptists shall 
 longer bear their witness to the all-sufiiciency of the atone- 
 ment and justification by faith alone, or admit on common 
 ground ritualistic and ceremonial supplements which contra- 
 
The Union Movement 85 
 
 diet these essential trutlis of the gospel. Baptists have borne 
 a distinctive message in matters fundamental to an effective 
 world-evangelism. They have borne consistent, and among 
 the great denominations, the only consistent witness to atone- 
 ment by the blood of Christ and by the blood alone; of salva- 
 tion by personal faith in Christ and by such faith only; of a 
 church membership conditioned upon personal profession of 
 belief in these regenerating facts and personal and voluntary 
 obedience to the initial act of obedience which symbolizes the 
 fundamental elements in the gospel message. To neutralize 
 Baptist accent on these vital elements of the evangelical mis- 
 sionary message, or to form an alliance on terms which admit- 
 that the difference between them and their ceremonial oppo- 
 sites is insignificant is not for Baptist federation but capitu- 
 lation, and it would mean inevitable disaster to pure Christi- 
 anity. Such surrender on our part would release ceremonial- 
 ism from its strongest restraint and the result would be an 
 accelerated movement toward the religious magic of which 
 Komanism is today the adept administrator. 
 
 The distinction is too great and the consequence too 
 dreadful for us to welcome a federation which blinks at such 
 differences, or which renders it an impropriety for one to 
 point out the radical contradiction of the respective posi- 
 tions. 
 
 Perhaps we may as well confess our audacity and say that 
 Baptists have not yet abandoned the hope of converting the 
 world, not to their name perhaps, for that is not their ambi- 
 tion or contention, but to truths so paramount and a position 
 so evangelical as those we are insisting do characterize and 
 distinguish them. The saddest plight into which Christians 
 have fallen is not the multiplicity of denominations, as de- 
 plorable and as wasteful as that is, but that they have fallen 
 so far apart upon the primary and transcendent matters of 
 how a man is saved, the atandard which he shall set, even 
 
S6 The Union Movement 
 
 in the first act of obedience, for his regenerated life, and 
 that sectarian jealousy has created such super-sensitiveness 
 that offence is given if the fundamental facts are insisted 
 upon. Baptists and others represent opposite poles in these 
 matters. The mistaking of these is a grave matter, and 
 until the terms of union are agreed upon there is justification 
 for separate existence. 
 
 On the other hand calm reflection will convince candid 
 men that baptism as held and practiced by Baptists can 
 easily be made a valuable rallying point for Christian union 
 instead of longer being a cause of division. Three observa- 
 tions will show that this is true. 
 
 1. Baptists have for this ordinance the confirmation of 
 the scholarship of all denominations. Says A. T. Robertson, 
 D.D., LL.D. : "The testimony of modern scholars on the sub- 
 ject of immersion as the baptism of the New Testament is 
 as unanimous as one can ever expect to find on any question 
 of scholarship. All modern lexicons give no other meaning 
 for baptizo but to dip or immerse." G. Campbell Morgan 
 says: ''The first thing I have to say is there is no question 
 at all that baptism in those (New Testament) days meant 
 immersion. That is not open to question." While we may 
 not class all of them as scholars, yet the great founders and 
 leaders of the great denominations agree with the scholars in 
 declaring that this is the scriptural act. John Wesley, the 
 founder of Methodism, said that ''Immersion was the cus- 
 tom of the first church and the rule of the Church of Eng- 
 land." John Calvin, the founder of Presbyterianism, said that 
 "The word baptize signifies to immerse, and it is certain that 
 immersion was the practice of the ancient church." Chal- 
 mers, the Free Churchman, said that "The original meaning 
 of the word baptism is immersion." Alford, the Episco- 
 palian, declared that "Baptism is the burial in water of the 
 old man." These are but samples of pages of testimony 
 
The Union Movement 87 
 
 which might be given. The denominations would not have 
 to repudiate their founders to agree with Baptists on this 
 question. 
 
 2. Immersion is approved by the Christian conscience of 
 all denominations. No denomination rejects it. E. Y. Mul- 
 lins, D.U., LL.I)., says: "Again, immersion is the one form 
 of the rite which is universally admitted as scriptural. On 
 its face it looks like an absurd proceeding for Christians to 
 adopt a divisive principle in order to secure Christian unity. 
 Everybody's conscience concedes that immei-sion is true New 
 Testament baptism. Millions of consciences do not concede 
 that sprinkling or pouring is baptism. Yet many insist that 
 the only way to Christian union is the admission of sprink- 
 ling and pouring as true baptism. How, then, can unity be 
 evolved out of a divisive plank in the platform? It is like 
 Democrats and Eepublicans trying to insert a free trade 
 and protective tariff plank in the same political platform. 
 Unity of action can never be secured until the ground com- 
 mon to all parties is made the starting point. Any other 
 method of procedure is predestined to failure from the out- 
 set." Adoption of this mode, therefore, by all need not be 
 a cause of division anywhere. Members of all denominations 
 give it cordial fellowship. 
 
 3. All the other denominations are not united among 
 themselves on any other form for baptism. There are many 
 men and women in other churches whom nothing but immer- 
 sion could satisfy; and there is no agreement among even 
 the leaders as to the meaning of the divisive practice of in- 
 fant sprinkling. "They differ widely among themselves both 
 as to the meaning and value of infant baptism, and as to 
 the grounds on which to advocate and justify the practice. 
 There is abundant literature on the subject, and every argu- 
 ment used in its favor and every Scripture quoted in its sup- 
 port, has been declared by one or more pedo-Baptists them- 
 
88 The Union Movement 
 
 selves as of no value in favor or support of baptizing un- 
 believing cliildren. Indeed, the concession has been so gen- 
 eral and sweeping bj its advocates one against the other as 
 to neutralize all the arguments and to leave the practice 
 without support." {Dr. E. E. Folk.) 
 
 Why, therefore, should not sane and serious-minded men 
 who are seeking for grounds of Christian union, agree to 
 conform to the findings of ripe scholarship and the universal 
 Christian conscience, and adopt this mode, and use it as a 
 rallying point for Christian union? This would prepare 
 the way for the friendly settlement of other differences. Un- 
 til this is done, it is certain that baptism will stand as a 
 barrier to union. There will always be men of conscience 
 and respect for learning who will not discard the concensus 
 of the world's scholarship on a question like this. 
 
 We do not intimate that baptism is the sum of our differ- 
 ences, although we do affirm that it involves fundamental 
 elements of the Christian mission and message and proper 
 respect for the New Testament as the standard for the Chris- 
 tian life; and that it is, therefore, suggestive of radical dis- 
 tinctions between the Baptist position and the union pro- 
 gram. Immersion is not a soul-saving device, but it is more 
 than a form — it is a significant act of obedience. 
 
 In another connection we have stated the significance of 
 the ordinances in the following terms: 
 
 '^TJie ordinances have a most intimate relation to the 
 most vital part of the gospel. Next to a right apprehension 
 of the meaning of Christ's death, that is to say, a right view 
 of the atonement, is a correct understanding of the mean- 
 ing and design of the ordinances. . . . The man who 
 has lost from his message that which these ordinances con- 
 tain and proclaim has no gospel at all, and can wever make 
 a real convert. 
 
 ''These ordinances were appointed to preserve in the 
 midst of all changes the death and resurrection of Jesus. 
 
The Union Movement 89 
 
 Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justification. 
 Outside of that death and resurrection there is absolutely no 
 hope for any lost man anyivhere in any age. If these two 
 fundamental facts are lost, or their nwaning is lost, the world 
 will he lost. Whatever else men lose or fail to understand, 
 they must not he suffered to lose or misunderstand the fact 
 and meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection. Jesus adopted 
 these symhols and instituted these ordinances to guard 
 against such loss and such calamity as their loss loould entail. 
 . . . It is significant that Jesus said, ^This cup is the 
 new testament in my hlood.^ Thus he gave to the ordinance 
 tlie very name later given to the gospel in all its elaboration 
 in the lAves, Acts, and Epistles, as if Jesus meant that we 
 have it all in essential essence in the ordinance. The ordi- 
 nance is the 'New Testament, the covenant in His hlood, the 
 atonement, not written, not spoken, hut exhibited in an act. 
 All the gospel is in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and 
 these ttco acts and their significance must be saved, or all 
 the preachers and all the churches cannot save anybody. 
 These are the vital elements of the missionary message. Any- 
 thing less will fail to effect the ends which the gospel con- 
 templates. ... 
 
 ^^The ordinances are not to he observed as a means of 
 life, but as a memorial of death. They do not purify the 
 candidate, hut preach the gospel to the beholder. Benefits 
 are derived from them, not so much by observance as by ob- 
 servation. They do not procure^ they proclaim. The ordi- 
 nances do not possess magic, but they do preach majestic 
 truths. They do not expiate sin, but exhibit the atonement. 
 They have no sacramental virtue, hut they have pedagogical 
 value. The memorial supper and the baptismal entombment 
 proclaim the vicarious atonement. They are to be preserved 
 unchanged that they may be observed ivith religious purpose. 
 Anything which touches these ordinances touches the vital 
 heart of the gospel." {The Gospel in Ttvo Acts, by J. F. 
 Love.) 
 
90 The Union Movement 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IMPOSSIBLE CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Two forms of cooperation in whicli it is impossible for 
 Baptists to engage and which is insisted upon by the Move- 
 ment, should receive special consideration, namely, that 
 which concerns the conduct of schools and the publication of 
 literature. 
 
 We cannot differ with others as we do concerning matters 
 which relate immediately to such fundamental questions as 
 the authority of God's Word and the ground and plan of 
 salvation, and agree, for instance, that anybody shall preempt 
 missionary territory, or to abandon the spiritual care of those 
 whom on any field we have taught these distinctions; or to 
 transfer and receive church members as though no such dis- 
 tinction existed. Much less can we afford to federate our 
 teaching work with that in which these distinctions are 
 ignored or contradicted. Teachers and schools are supposed 
 to put premium upon truth-seeking, and to make teaching 
 their chief business. We will not agree to neutralize these 
 distinctive truths in the classroom or in a common literature. 
 
 1. First, then, the educational policy of the Movement, 
 which is quite clearly outlined in the quotations given in 
 Chapter IV, is one which the Southern Baptist Convention 
 has emphatically disavowed. It is, moreover, one which in- 
 validates the whole Movement as a scheme of missionary prop- 
 agandism. Said a college professor to the writer recently in 
 speaking of the scientific spirit which dominates the intellec- 
 tual processes of the educator : "The school man says give us 
 the facts and we will philosophize later." To start a Christian 
 missionary school by waiving such facts as have given us the 
 
The Union Movement 91 
 
 denominational divisions and pertain to the missionary mes- 
 sage, is to negative tlie contention of school men for frank and 
 fearless facing of facts. Fidelity to the truth and a willing- 
 ness to accept it wherever found is of the genius and essence 
 of true education, and, for the school man, the facts of Scrip- 
 ture and of religion fall into the same category. Moreover, 
 it is a notable fact that school men plead for the recognition 
 of new truth in religion, whatever the consequences. To 
 justify this contention, the principle must be applied to old 
 truth as well as new. But the educational program of this 
 Movement provides for waiving distinctions and definitions 
 without regard to the proof on which they rest and the sub- 
 stitution of sentiment for the usual intellectual standards. 
 It is proposed to select a heterogeneous faculty who are to 
 arrange a curriculum which such a faculty can put into effect 
 without regard to the truth or falsity of the theological sys- 
 tems, doctrinal and ecclesiastical classifications represented. 
 
 Can such a course foster intellectual straightforwardness 
 and sincerity? What can be expected of such an educational 
 program? Very probably its finished product will be a color- 
 less theology and an anaemic religious life. The process per- 
 verts the usual course of scholarship, subverts the primaiy 
 function of the school, and invalidates conviction for truth, 
 and this truth of the most sacred kind. 
 
 The sentiment for federating schools is supported by cer- 
 tain arguments which should be examined. There can be 
 no question of the sincerity of the arguments, but there is 
 abundant room to question that they afford convincing rea- 
 sons why Baptists, or anybody else for that matter, should 
 jeopardize their identity and distinctive message in the in- 
 terest of such a program. 
 
 In seeking to make their arguments plausible the friends 
 of cooperation in educational work have complicated the pure 
 merits of the case for such education with certain other 
 
92 The Union Movement 
 
 questions, and thus confused tlie issue. For instance, the 
 educational revival on the mission fields and the advancing 
 educational standards are pleaded as proof of the necessity 
 for a very high, and therefore a very expensive class of edu- 
 cational work. There is a large element of fact in the state- 
 ment, but there are larger elements of fact omitted. One of 
 the omitted facts is that there are vast strata of undisturbed 
 ignorance on all the foreign fields to which higher learning 
 is out of range and will be for many decades. The masses 
 who represent the ignorance furnish large missionary oppor- 
 tunity to schools of lower grade and to native preachers of 
 moderate learning, and will do so for a long time to come. 
 All the needs of China cannot be met by standardized schools, 
 nor by highly educated men, as great need as there is for 
 these. Baptists have a mission to all classes, and the course 
 which the denomination has pursued at home has proved to 
 be a wise one. We have had men to match our mountain- 
 peak scholars and men to match the multitude in the plains. 
 We shall need such men in China if we are to perform a 
 nation-wide service. The absorption by a few great institu- 
 tions of the limited amount of money which Southern Bap- 
 tists can put into educational work on the foreign field would 
 go far to defeat us at our task. A premature and uniform 
 standardization of all classes of educational work in China 
 will be at the cost of general intelligence, much physical 
 suffering, and the loss of many souls. 
 
 One of the most plausible arguments for a far-reaching co- 
 operation in educational work is that for economy. We may, 
 for the present, grant that educational work on the foreign 
 field can be conducted more cheaply as a union enterprise 
 than independently. By pooling their educational interests 
 the Christian denominations that work in China, for instance, 
 can, we will say, maintain schools, colleges, and theological 
 seminaries of superior efficiency at a minimum expense to the 
 
The Union Movement 93 
 
 participating boards. If Baptists are more concerned about 
 saving dollars than they are about saving the truth, they may 
 have their opportunity in an alliance with those who are 
 ready for an educational merger. We shall in such case save 
 some good dollars, but we shall in the process just as certainly 
 lose our distinctiveness and help compound a missionary 
 message which will be found lacking in essential elements, 
 and we will produce a class of preachers who have such little 
 conviction and passion for this message that they will neither 
 endure hardness for it nor give it convincing pungency. But 
 we have strong testimony that even on the score of economy 
 there is no saving. Dr. Robert E. Speer says : 
 
 "It seems clear from experience that union in higher 
 educational work does not reduce expense. If each separate 
 denomination undertook to provide single-handed the same 
 kind of institution which it joins in providing cooperatively 
 it would, of course, have to meet a far larger expense than 
 its share of the union institution. But as a matter of fact 
 what most denominations would try to provide separately is 
 less than the union institution, and sometimes less even than 
 their share in the union institution soon requires. For the 
 united effort attempts what the separate effort would not 
 attempt, and the obligation of the union draws the different 
 participants on to an exj>ense on its account to which they 
 would not have felt so necessitously constrained if they had 
 not incurred the associated obligation. The union schemes 
 are not only financially more expensive, they demand also 
 an amount of time in conferences and managers' meetings 
 and in the solution of the new problem which they create 
 which make them administratively a heavier burden than 
 purely denominational institutions." (China Year Book, 
 1917.) 
 
 That we need schools to teach Christian workers in China 
 is a fact which all will admit, and that the equipment and 
 support of these schools is a good use to make of missionary 
 
94 The Union Movement 
 
 money is equally true; but the fact that these schools are 
 justified on the ground that missionary workers must be 
 taught, becomes an argument for the right sort of teaching 
 in the schools. Teaching is the most important thing, the 
 peculiar function, the justifying merit of a school. No high 
 standards for equipment or scholarship can be substituted 
 for the right teaching to justify the money which creates and 
 supports them. Schools must teach and mission schools must 
 inculcate, illuminate and guarantee the missionary message, 
 and in doing so must also turn out students who are impas- 
 sioned for it, glory in it, and who will propagate it with 
 unwavering confidence and conviction that it is the very truth 
 of God. No union school has ever done this and none will 
 do it. The process insures a diluted message and a debili- 
 tated discipleship. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, a poor economy which saves a few 
 dollars but loses essential elements of the missionary mes- 
 sage, and forfeits the potentiality of deep conviction in the 
 preacher product. A full and vital message, burning convic- 
 tion, and a strong passion for souls are essential prerequisites 
 and qualifications in a native ministry. The missionary 
 value of the teaching done in a mission school is the crucial 
 test of its efiiciency and the chief justification for its support 
 out of the mission treasury. Thoughtful Christian men will 
 not overlook this primal fact. Although important, the chief 
 thing is not men of calibre for mission service, but a mes- 
 sage full of original gospel content and of rejuvenating vital- 
 ities. Dr. Frank Eawlinson has put the case for sound theo- 
 logical teaching strongly and admirably in the following sen- 
 tence: "Theological instruction," he says, "involves the in- 
 terpretation of Christianity to the Chinese at its most vital 
 point." Just because the theological instruction is or should 
 be primarily an interpretation of vital Christianity, should 
 the teaching which is done in theological schools and religious 
 
The Union Movement 95 
 
 instruction in other schools as well, be faithfully done by 
 the teacher who represents a great denomination. 
 
 It is contended that students will not attend the small 
 schools which Baptists can build and maintain, but will go 
 to the larger and more amply equipped schools. There is 
 force in this, too, but it needs to be modified by two very 
 pertinent considerations. The first is/ that the loyalty of 
 Baptist students to Baptist schools is in large degree deter- 
 mined by the loyalty of their pastors, religious instructors 
 and parents to denominational principles and enterprises. 
 It has often been observed at home, and no doubt holds true 
 abroad, that where there has been neglect of careful indoc- 
 trination of those under the influence of Baptist churches 
 and Baptist preachers, and they have not been patiently and 
 faithfully taught the gi'^at principles which distinguish us, 
 the risk of losing them to larger schools is great. On the 
 other hand, we have noticed that when pastors and religious 
 teachers are steadfast in their denominational convictions 
 and watchful of their opportunities to fix the denominational 
 alignment of the young, most of those who go to college enter 
 their own denominational institutions, and most of them, too, 
 come back into the life of the denomination to make their 
 education which was acquired under such auspices a bless- 
 ing to their own people. There is no reason to believe that 
 this rule will work radically some other way on the foreign 
 field. 
 
 The other observation is this: The denominational school 
 at home is outclassed in equipment and reputation by other 
 schools, and yet I do not hear of our school men advocating 
 an educational merger with other denominations here, nor 
 that these small schools are without students. I do hear, 
 to the contrary, that the denomination is deriving a far 
 larger benefit from the young men and women who attend 
 small denominational colleges than it is from those who 
 
96 The Union Movement 
 
 attend the great universities. The truth is that the Baptist 
 graduates of the great state and independent universities 
 who prove to be constructive and conserving factors in the 
 life and work of Baptist churches is an exception which is 
 greatly prized by those churches which have such in their 
 membership. 
 
 Tlie editor of the Watchman-Examiner makes this sensi- 
 ble suggestion : "Before going in for union theological sem- 
 inaries abroad why not test it out by having Crozer unite 
 with Princeton, Colgate and Eochester with Union, and New- 
 ton with Andover? This could be done with less danger to 
 our students than would accompany union theological work 
 in foreign fields, for our Baptist boys here are reared in Bap- 
 tist homes and have BaptivSt blood in their veins and know 
 what they believe, while our Baptist boys abroad have had 
 none of these advantages. Let us not rob these boys of the 
 privileges that we ourselves have had. We believe in Bap- 
 tist theological seminaries at home and abroad." 
 
 It is argued that Baptists cannot found, equip and main- 
 tain schools which will be able to compete with the govern- 
 ment and federated schools. It is very probably the truth 
 that we cannot compete with the government and federated 
 schools ; but do we have to compete in every instance, or nec- 
 essarily at all? Indeed, is successful competition the chief 
 consideration which should control us in any line of Chris- 
 tian work, and especially in a line which so distinctly affects 
 the very message we are under commission to proclaim and 
 the denominational marks which justify our separate exist- 
 ence at all ? The chief thing is a faithful grounding in Chris- 
 tian truth and a conscience and a passion for it. The best 
 educational work now being done in America is not done 
 in competition with the University of Chicago. 
 
 Again the issue is confused by presuming that, in the 
 case of Southern Baptists, the Foreign Mission Board is going 
 
The Union Movement 97 
 
 to attempt a more far-reaching educational program than the 
 Board itself contemplates. The Board is fully aware that 
 it will not be able to provide such an educational scheme as 
 may be really desirable. We shall evidently have to confine 
 ourselves to a limited educational work and leave something, 
 yes, much, in this line to be done by the native Christians 
 when they become sufficiently numerous and able to do it. 
 This may not be best, but it is a necessity, and it is cer- 
 tainly better to have fewer schools than both an impaired 
 message and a home constituency divided over a program 
 of federation abroad which no one has ever thought of 
 or advocated for the home field. The most liberal-minded 
 school man at home talks up the denominational type of 
 Christian education. There is just as good reason for talking 
 it up for the foreign fields. Certainly the Foreign Mission 
 Board knows that it is working under limited financial abili- 
 ty, and does not think of attempting an educational program 
 which some good and honored men think it is bound to un- 
 dertake or unite with other denominations in educational 
 work. 
 
 2. A common missionary literature is on the program of 
 the Movement. Some of the arguments which are made 
 for cooperation in school work are made for coopera- 
 tion in the production of literature on the mission fields. 
 The plea for economy is made with the same plausibility 
 in its favor and there are the same objections to it. The func- 
 tion of both schools and religious publications is teaching. 
 The usefulness of both is seriously impaired when their teach- 
 ing value is lowered. When Christian literature is issued 
 under joint denominational auspices and neutral terms are 
 used in translations and in setting forth doctrinal and 
 ecclesiastical ideas, it fails in its peculiar function of teach- 
 ing and ceases to have peculiar value for any denomination. 
 The Commission nnder w^hich we are operating contains 
 7 
 
98 The Union Movement 
 
 orders to teach some very definite things. The Commission 
 can never be expounded by a union literature. It is pre- 
 cisely the things which are contained in the Commission upon 
 which, in large part, Baptists and others are separated. 
 Christian literature has perhaps been the most effective 
 agency in modern times for advancing the truth. Baptist 
 principles have gained great currency through the printed 
 page. These principles can thus be stated clearly, and in 
 this form can be studied dispassionately by the seekers after 
 truth. The speaker may show some heat and stir up warm 
 personal antipathies, but the personal element is reduced to 
 a minimum in literature, and the reader is dealing with a 
 calm teacher and is calmed in turn. No thoughtful man who 
 feels himself to be in possession of great truths which the 
 world needs will consent to have so powerful an agent 
 neutralized. Honest men can fined a safer course than this 
 sort of federation. If, for instance, the translators do not 
 know the meaning of certain New Testament words, let them 
 ask scholars who do know. Baptists are willing to let the 
 great scholars decide in every case the question of what is 
 the exact term to be used, but they will not consent to eva- 
 sion in matters of religion and religious duty for the sake 
 of being agreeable. 
 
 Economy is, I think, the most material and therefore the 
 most inconsequential, although to some perhaps the most 
 plausible argument in favor of combination. But even this 
 is answered by the experiments which have been made at 
 home. If proof on the home field counts for anything, then 
 the argument is in favor of the independent denominational 
 type of Christianity both for effectiveness and economy. The 
 demonstration is complete that the most extravagantly expen- 
 sive forms of Christian work at home, as regards both outlay 
 and results, are those forms which are administered as unde- 
 nominational and inter-denominational enterprise. This is 
 
The Union Movement 99 
 
 notorious. Demonstration has been made in repeated in- 
 stances and tlie proof is overwhelming. We make no war on 
 the Y. M. C. A., but it is an example of the cost of these 
 institutions which are administered undenominationally. 
 Here are some illuminating figures which we quote as we 
 find them : 
 
 "Four hundred and twenty-three buildings, valued at 
 161,700,000, have been acquired by the Young Men's Christian 
 Association of North America during the last sixteen years, 
 according to statistics of the Association just made public. 
 In 1000 the organization had 359 buildings, valued at $21,- 
 600,000, and it has 782 buildings, valued at |83,300,000 now. 
 In 11)15 alone the Association opened twenty-three new build- 
 ings, valued at |6, 000, 000, in the United States, and expects 
 to erect as many more in the next twelve months." 
 
 Has anyone seen results to justify these enormous ex- 
 penditures? For genuine and purely Christian and mission- 
 ary results the average city 1^. M. C. A. with a |150,000 plant 
 and an annual consumption of, say |25,000, does not compare 
 with a 110,000 church plant and a |2,000 pastor dedicated 
 to Christian work under denominational auspices. There are 
 connected with the 1^. M. C. A. many men who represent the 
 very finest type of modern Christianity. They are intelli- 
 gent, consecrated, active and effective. There can be no dis- 
 paragement of them or their purposes, but they have, almost 
 to a man, been drawn from the forces which the churches 
 have produced, and having produced, could use better than 
 the Y. M. C. A. to advance the cause of Christ. Perhaps the 
 churches in the cities especially ought to adopt some of the 
 methods of the Y. M. C. A., but in my opinion not all of 
 them by any means. If this were done, and the young men 
 who are making a success of the Y. M. C. A. were utilized by 
 the churches which have produced them, they would be a 
 tremendous force for a full-rounded Christianity and for its 
 
100 The Union Movement 
 
 impact upon the whole of society and not a mere segment of 
 it, however important that segment may be. The Commis- 
 sion cannot be fulfilled by the Y. M. C. A. It does not even 
 professedly undertake to fulfill it. It renders a limited 
 though highly important service to a very limited number of 
 young men, but does not attempt to reach "every creature," 
 nor include in its program and activities "all things" which 
 are contained in the Commission. The fulfillment and ex- 
 ecution of that Commission is the business of Christian 
 men and must be accomplished through the churches of 
 Christ. 
 
 But, coming back to the matter of economy, we insist that 
 the advantages are with the denominational type of Chris- 
 tianity. And in the matter of the schools, the small denomi- 
 national colleges at home do their excellent work on small 
 capital while the universities require almost fabulous sums. 
 This is true from the state university to the University of 
 Chicago, which received last year more money, independent 
 of tuition, than all American Baptists gave to Foreign Mis- 
 sions for preaching, teaching, healing, housing, on fields 
 which represent a thousand million human souls. 
 
The Union Movement 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A FEASIBLE CO-OPERATION. 
 
 While we are waiting to see realized a real Christian 
 union, what cooperation can we practice without weakening 
 contention for specific terms of such union? A limitless co- 
 operation, under present conditions, prepares for a condition- 
 less union. Men of right conscience and proper jealousy for 
 sound views of Christian truth and practice cannot tolerate 
 such union. There is, however, a possible and legitimate co- 
 operation even in the present state of Christendom. Baptists 
 have always recognized this. The Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion has made record of the fact, although in this as in its 
 definition of the limitations of such cooperation, it has not 
 enlarged upon the matter. 
 
 In the report of the Efficiency Commission, submitted to 
 the Convention in 1914, occurs the following language : 
 
 ''We wish to add that pending the realization of Chris- 
 tian union in the ideal sense, we may resort to the principle 
 of Christian cooperation. Many moral, social, civic and 
 other movements invite the united effort of every lover of 
 his fellowmen and friends of righteousness. Our modern 
 civilization is undergoing many changes and making rapid 
 progress in material things. Moral issues are multiplying 
 on all hands. The moral forces of the nation are challenged 
 as never before. We hereby avow in the most emphatic man- 
 ner our desire and willingness to cooperate in all practicable 
 ways in every cause of righteousness. We join hands with 
 Christians of all names in seeking these common ends." 
 
 In the report of the Foreign Mission Board, which was 
 adopted by the Convention in 1916, the Board says : 
 
102 The Union Movement 
 
 "We reafiSrm these sentiments. We would have all our 
 people recognize the bonds of brotherhood which unite Chris- 
 tians of every name, cultivate a large spirit of fraternity and 
 strive together with others to secure the closest possible im- 
 pact of our common Christianity upon the social order for 
 the establishment of righteousness in the earth." 
 
 It is this recognit-ion by Southern Baptists that there are 
 forms of cooperation ictu which Southern Baptists can enter 
 with other Christians, and, as the Texas deliverance declares, 
 "with Catholics and Jews." This cooperation, however, is 
 limited to those matters participation in which does not 
 carry inferences that surrender is made of principles of the 
 denomination and of essential truth for which it stands, 
 does not give endorsement to contradictions of these, nor 
 submit to the dictatorship of a few supervisors of denomi- 
 national missionary affairs. 
 
 Our Baptist people have, as a rule, always lived on 
 friendly terms with their Christian neighbors, and the de- 
 nomination has cooperated with others in a varied social 
 and humanitarian service. The relationship which obtained 
 between Southern Baptists and other evangelical denomina- 
 tions on the mission fields caused no disturbance in the Bap- 
 tist ranks until the Edinburgh Conference met in 1910. It 
 was at this Conference that the new missionary statesman- 
 ship first showed its hand in a large and ecumenical way and 
 to such degree as to arouse the mistrust of Baptists. The 
 Movement which issued from that Conference and perpet- 
 uates it intrudes into denominational policies and missionary 
 management. It is this assumption of prerogatives which 
 has called forth protest. 
 
 A brief review of the history of inter-denominational 
 missionary conferences will help to keep the case before us. 
 
 The Edinburgh Conference was but one of a succession of 
 inter-denominational missionary gatherings, but it was one 
 
The Union Movement 103 
 
 in some of its features very distinct from all of tliem. Bap- 
 tists participated in all such previous conferences and in 
 this one. In May, 1854, the first of these great meetings was 
 held in New York. In October of the same year, another 
 was held in London. *'The most important result was the 
 promotion of brotherly feeling and a helpful interchange of 
 opinion on a limited number of topics." Another was held 
 in Liverpool in 18C0, and a similar one in Conference Hall, 
 London, in 1878, at which thirty-four missionary societies 
 were represented, and probably for the first time the ques- 
 tion of "surveys" was the leading topic of discussion. In 
 1888 the Centenary Missionary Conference was held in Lon- 
 don. The emphasis of this conference fell upon the matter 
 of diffusing information about missions, the importance and 
 success of the work, and a limited cooperati<m received favor- 
 able consideration. The Ecumenical Missionary Conference 
 met in New York during the latter part of April and first of 
 May, 1900. This was the sixth and the greatest of all these 
 inter-denominational meetings. Two thousand three hundred 
 representatives, from 115 societies and 48 countries, were 
 present. 
 
 All of the above conferences sought to stimulate inter- 
 est in missions, increase general knowledge of the great task, 
 and to promote large giving. They incited fellowship along 
 these lines of endeavor, but left matters of policy and admin- 
 istration to the respective denominations and their appointed 
 and responsible agents. Discussion, action and plans were 
 confined to a "limited number of topics," and the result was 
 "brotherly feeling and a helpful interchange of opinion." 
 When the Conference met in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910, 
 it was at once evident that the new statesmanship would give 
 certain direction to the Conference and make it a powerful 
 means to secure definite ends which had not in the other 
 
104 The Union Movement 
 
 conferences been the main consideration; which, indeed, 
 scarcely received consideration at all. A spasm of sentiment 
 for union and an excessive deferentialness forbade the dis- 
 cussion in the Conference of missions to Roman Catholic 
 countries. 
 
 "The Edinburgh Conference represents a decided step for- 
 ward in the conference idea." The subjects, which were as- 
 signed the "commissions'' two years in advance of the Con- 
 ference, show that it was not intended that discussion should 
 now be confined to a "limited number of topics," but to cer- 
 tain matters which the leaders wished to put forth. Says 
 a friendly historian of this Conference: "It will readily be 
 seen from the topics of the various commissions that the 
 attention of this Conference was turned to questions of 
 policy and internal development of missionary work." Com- 
 mission VIII reported on "Cooperation and the Promotion 
 of Unity." This was the climacteric feature of the Confer- 
 ence. Up to this point plans and discussion had been cul- 
 minating. Before adjournment a "Continuation Committee," 
 consisting of thirty-five members, was appointed, which in a 
 two days' session before leaving Edinburgh elected Dr. John 
 R. Mott chairman and appointed sub-committees. This or- 
 ganization is now practically world-wide. 
 
 "The Edinburgh Conference was unique in another impor- 
 tant particular. Other conferences ended with their adjourn- 
 ment, but the Edinburgh Conference goes on through its Con- 
 tinuation Committee. It is this fact which gives significance 
 to the Committee. The Conference set in motion powerful 
 forces and accelerated others which were already in opera- 
 tion. It was felt that it should not dissolve without creat- 
 ing some body which could deal more deliberately and sys- 
 tematically with those forces. Antecedent fears that the Con- 
 ference might go too far vanished as sessions progressed, un- 
 til amid scenes of profound solemnity and emotion the dele- 
 
The Union Movement 105 
 
 gates by unanimous vote constituted the Continuation Com- 
 mittee. The Committee represents interests which have 
 never before been united. . . . 
 
 ''The Committee is prosecuting its work through twelve 
 special committees along many lines which illustrate the need 
 of cooperative study. Not least among these is the promo- 
 tion of cooperation and unity in mission work." (Unity in 
 Missions, hy Arthur J. Brown, page I40.) 
 
 The significance of cooperation has, in the case of this 
 Movement, been entirely changed. The ultimate end and aim 
 for which cooperation is asked is denominational absorption 
 and elimination. 
 
 The name "Continuation Committee" is explicative of its 
 function. The purpose of the Conference in the appoint- 
 ment of the Continuation Committee was in part declared 
 to be "to carry out on lines of the Conference itself the fol- 
 lowing ideas : 
 
 "(1) To maintain in prominence the idea of the World 
 Missionary Conference as a means of coordinating missionary 
 work, etc. 
 
 "(4) To devise plans for maintaining the intercourse 
 which the World Missionary Conference has stimulated be- 
 tween different bodies of workers.'^ {Report of Commission 
 VIII, page U60.) 
 
 The Congress on Christian work in Latin-America, which 
 met in Panama in 1916, followed the lead of the Edinburgh 
 Conference and had a commission on ''Cooperation and the 
 Promotion of Unity." The union program was now well 
 projected, and the Movement had its lines out. The Panama 
 Congress was a harmonious expression of the policies of the 
 Movement. The report of the above Commission, issued by 
 the Congress, and published by the Missionary Education 
 
106 The Union Movement 
 
 Movement, New York, in three volumes, is an illuminating 
 commentary. 
 
 This mighty Movement is now not only world-wide in its 
 activities and plans, powerful in the personalities, influences 
 and resources which are behind it, but it comprehends the 
 whole scheme of missionary effort and seeks to combine at 
 home and abroad every sort of sect which claims any common 
 element of Christian faith, in every task which the respective 
 denominations have set for themselves on the foreign field 
 and referred to their appointed agents for administration. 
 
 Indiscrimination in making provision for representation 
 in the Panama Congress and the change of name for it in 
 order to placate the Koman Catholics brought forth an heroic 
 protest from sixty-odd honored missionaries in South 
 America, a fact which, strange to say, receives no recognition 
 in the report of the Congress, which would have the world 
 believe that endorsement was well-nigh unanimous. 
 
 Cooperation in the plans of the Movement is much more 
 than, and something quite different from, ordinary Christian 
 cooperation. We insist that this distinction should be kept 
 in mind by those who discuss the matter and the attitude of 
 Southern Baptists to this Movement. Fraternal Christian 
 relationships and denominational cooperation on the basis 
 of this platform are not the same things. Cooperation in 
 this instance by a denomination or its representative agency 
 means commitment to well-defined policies originated and 
 operated outside of the denominations ; and such cooperation 
 does not afford the denominations a chance to control these 
 policies. Even those who have the most friendly regard for 
 other Christians and other denominations must see that the 
 carefully laid and fully matured plans and policies of this 
 Movement forbid denominational cooperation where a de- 
 nomination has a missionary program of its own and dis- 
 tinctive principles to guard. Perhaps this distinction and 
 
The Union Movement 107 
 
 the writer's personal attitude toward the leaders of the Move- 
 ment are made as plain as we can make them in letters which 
 the writer addressed to an ofificer of the Foreign Missions 
 Conference who had informed him that he had been elected 
 to membership on the Committee of Reference and Counsel of 
 that Conference. The letter is the second of several letters, 
 in the first of which the writer had, as courteously as he 
 could, declined membership on the Committee of Reference 
 and Counsel : 
 
 "My Dear Doctor: 
 
 "When I was notified of my election to membership on 
 the Committee, I wrote asking that my name be omitted from 
 the list of members. The brethren composing the Counsel, in 
 a spirit of fraternity, did not act on this request. I think 
 that a very frank and brotherly statement ought to be made, 
 at least to you, concerning my personal attitude and that of 
 Southern Baptists as expressed through their Convention. 
 
 "I have, and I feel certain that the great majority of my 
 brethren have, a feeling of genuine Christian love for all our 
 brethren and for the class of men in particular who repre- 
 sent the Foreign Missions Conference of North x\merica. The 
 Conference has, however, projected certain movements which 
 are strongly emphasized and which claim a large attention by 
 those who compose the Conference, to which neither I nor 
 the brotherhood represented by this Board could give con- 
 sent. I refer in particular to the far-reaching plans for cer- 
 tain forms of union effort in Foreign Mission work. I need 
 not name the particular items in the program of the Confer- 
 ence to which we object. I may simply say for myself, that 
 while I covet a large fellowship with my brethren of what- 
 ever name who love my Saviour and are seeking to promote 
 His honor and secure for men the benefits which are found 
 in Him, I cannot give my influence to an extra-denomina- 
 tional organization which undertakes to determine questions 
 of policy for the respective denominational mission boards. T 
 believe that there is a common ground on which we can meet 
 for mutual edification, instruction and inspiration. If the 
 
108 The Union Movement 
 
 Foreign Missions Conference had confined itself to this class 
 of work, and not assumed to fix policies for the mission 
 boards, and in that way interfere with recognized principles 
 of the respective denominations, there would have been, as 
 it seems to me, a large field of usefulness for it. However, 
 I have no disposition to dictate to the Conference nor to 
 worry you with a long letter. I am only giving you in a 
 frank and fraternal way my personal reasons for asking that 
 my name be dropped from membership. 
 "Yours fraternally," 
 
 It became necessary to write a third letter, which is as 
 follows : 
 
 "My Dear Doctor: 
 
 "I have your favor of June 15, and have the highest ap- 
 preciation of the spirit in which you write. I do not, how- 
 ever, feel that it is wise for me to withdraw my request that 
 my name be dropped from membership in the Foreign Mis- 
 sions Conference. 
 
 "I do not think that the Conference exercises any author- 
 ity over any board or organization. I do think, however, 
 that several positions to which the Conference is thoroughly 
 committed, and which are advocated in much of the litera- 
 ture sent out by the respective commissions, give occasion 
 for much embarrassment to cooperating boards which have 
 contrary convictions to those which are a part of the general 
 program of the Conference. For instance, the whole move- 
 ment seems committed to the national church idea, the in- 
 discriminate exchange of church letters, union school work, 
 including theological work, and strongly favors the partition- 
 ing of territory. Southern Baptists are on record in opposi- 
 tion to these policies, as the Minutes of the last three sessions 
 of the Convention will show. I am persuaded that you are 
 well enough acquainted with the views of Southern Baptists 
 to understand fully that a policy which includes particulars 
 such as these which I have recited, antagonize the customs 
 and the convictions of our people. I am quite persuaded that 
 the brethren of the Foreign Missions Conference would not 
 receive with favor, especially from a new member of one of 
 
The Union Movement 109 
 
 its committees, any suggestion looking to so radical a change 
 in policy as would be necessary to bring tiie Movement into 
 working harmony with Southern Baptists' views on such 
 matters. It seems best, therefore, both because of my per- 
 sonal convictions, and because of my official relation to the 
 denomination, that I should not be considered a member of 
 the Conference. 
 
 "You will let me say that I recognize the fact that I and 
 my people are very likely to be placed in a false light by 
 this dissent. Men who are thoroughly committed to the 
 above policies, and who have given them their unquestioning 
 support in the Foreign Missions Conference, will think that 
 we lack sympathy and breadth of view — a judgment to which 
 we do not, of course, plead guilty. Southern Baptists are 
 not surpassed by any people in the world in according just 
 liberty of judgment and conscience to others, and in still 
 holding those who exercise these in fraternal regard. We 
 feel, however, that such matters as we have referred to are 
 to be settled finally on a sharpened religious conscience rather 
 than by the cultivation of laxity. We feel, furthermore, that 
 the most stalwart conviction is necessary in order to put 
 afield a conquering missionary program, and that if we would 
 save Japan, China and the other lands, we must foster a 
 sensitive conscience for truth and the strongest possible per- 
 sonal conviction of its sacredness. We believe it is far better 
 for the missionary enterprise that all parties should hold 
 steadfastly and courageously to their convictions until such 
 light has broken in as will convince them that they ought to 
 abandon them. So long as any group of Christians hold con- 
 victions which they think to be founded upon the Word of 
 God, the rest of us ought, it seems to me, to respect their 
 convictions, and never seek to combine influences which will 
 embarrass them. Under the circumstances no one who holds 
 the common faith of Southern Baptists could be a member 
 of the Foreign Missions Conference without being embar- 
 rassed and embarrassing other brethren who are committed 
 to the policies of the organization. 
 
 "I beg you to accept for yourself my thanks for your cour- 
 teous letter and my assurance of goodwill and Christian 
 regard for all my brethren who compose the Conference. 
 ''Yours fraternally," 
 
110 The Union Movement 
 
 The respective denominations in America must surrender 
 their own policies in favor of the policies of this Movement, 
 as radically difierent as these are, or they must stay out of 
 the Movement. The Movement does not represent the prac- 
 tices of any denomination in America. Kepresentation in 
 it is not a question of joining a company of Christian breth- 
 ren for the purpose of conferring and deciding upon plans 
 and policies of cooperation. The plans and policies of the 
 Movement are matured and announced even down to details, 
 and are already in operation the world over. They repre- 
 sent the mission theories of a few individuals and not the 
 ideals of any denomination, if practice at home speaks con- 
 vincingly at all. We repeat that cooperation in such case 
 means denominational capitulation to the leadership of a 
 few men, however good and wise these men may be. 
 
 But why should this Movement fix, not only policies for 
 the conduct of missionary enterprises which are supported 
 by the denominations, and, as we would therefore reasonably 
 conclude, should be under denominational control, but also 
 fix standards of Christian breadth and fraternity? Just why 
 should inclination to join up denominational work and 
 destiny with a Movement so young, with policies so radical, 
 and directed by so small a company of men, however hon- 
 ored, be looked upon as a special mark of intellectual breadth 
 and Christian maturity, and disinclination to do so be 
 thought a mark of unbrotherliness and general ugliness? 
 Why should the men and Movement which infringe upon the 
 missionary and ecclesiastical policies of all Christian denom- 
 inations, be accorded the distinction of being considered the 
 exemplars of superior civility? 
 
 Of course, every good cause is sure to be espoused by 
 some men who are intolerant and who make their defense 
 of it in a bad spirit. This is likely to occur in the present 
 case, but neither party, we dare say, will secure the follow- 
 
The Union Movement 111 
 
 ing of all the intolerant and vindictive spirits, and therefore 
 there is no ground for considering either to be the sole 
 ollender. All good men want to see the truth preached in 
 love, and there is quite as ample provision made for this by 
 the denominations as there is by inter-denominational move- 
 ments. All denominationalists are not as courteous and 
 charitable as we would have them be, and all the inter-denom- 
 inationalists are not as beautifully sweet as they would have 
 others to be. We have seen some pacifists who were quite 
 belligerent in the advocacy of their principles. Some who 
 make most of sentiment for broad fellowships sometimes flare 
 hot against those of their own household of faith who do not 
 agree with them. Such a question as Christian union affords 
 excellent occasion for all of us to examine ourselves. 
 
 We have not outlined in this chapter, as the heading of 
 it might suggest, a possible cooperation, although mutual 
 Christian tasks are acknowledged. It may be best to leave the 
 matter in this shape as individuals will probably decide the 
 matter for themselves, whatever course the denominations 
 may pursue, individuals being influenced only by their own 
 preferences and whatever restraint their respect for the atti- 
 tude and policies of their denominations may have upon 
 them. 
 
 It is proper, however, that we should say that there are 
 certain lines of Christian work, some of it for Foreign Mis- 
 sions, in which cordial and helpful joint eff'ort is possible. 
 It may also be said that such cooperation could more likely 
 be secured if unembarrased by the program under review. It 
 is a pity that attempt to deal with mission policies which 
 belong to the denominations as such should be allowed to 
 cause mistrust and interfere with a possible, a helpful and a 
 harmless cooperation. Distinctive denominational principles 
 are not involved in such questions as a common social serv- 
 ice, temperance and moral reform, public sanitation, inter- 
 
112 The Union Movement 
 
 national peace, Sabbath observance, joint protests against 
 the appropriation of public funds to sectarian institutions, 
 defense of the public schools^ etc., etc. There is room for 
 conference between mission boards of respective denomina- 
 tions concerning such matters as office efficiency and econ- 
 omy, transportation and passports for missionaries, combined 
 influence in the interest of international protection of mis- 
 sionaries and mission property, methods of financing the 
 missionary enterprise, the development of certain classes of 
 givers, the health and comfort of missionaries. A large part 
 of the literature which is used to promote interest in mis- 
 sions could be produced and used by the denominational 
 boards in common and at great saving of mission money if 
 the matter were left to them and they could see that their 
 policies were not interfered with in such literature. 
 
 Southern Baptists do cooperate with others in matters 
 where denominational principles are not involved, as in the 
 selection of international Sunday school lessons, international 
 peace and various forms of Christian charity. There is no 
 reason why there should not be points of contact in Foreign 
 Mission work, and individuals should not act with equal free- 
 dom in this as in other things, except that a program has 
 been made which challenges fundamental principles and mis- 
 sionary policies of the denomination. Cooperation with such 
 a Movement cannot be had without disparaging denomina- 
 tional principles and policies. Much of the literature pro- 
 duced by the Missionary Education Movement, which is sim- 
 ply a department of this general Movement, is unadaptable 
 to the use of those who care for their denominational pro- 
 grams, and it stands in the way of cordial relations. If the 
 Mission Study books which carry the program of the Move- 
 ment are put into the hands of the immature in our churches, 
 these get but one side of a question, and that the side which is 
 subversive of the very principles which the denomination 
 
The Union Movement 113 
 
 feels it is bound to inculcate in the minds of the young. This 
 is but an example of how the Movement itself defeats pos- 
 sible cooperation and becomes responsible for protest and 
 dissent. Men who have assumed to project a Movement 
 which subverts all denominationalism and flatly contradicts 
 historical and operative policies and practices of all denomi- 
 nations should not be surprised at this. Southern Baptists 
 have fully made up their minds that they will not consent to 
 a course so radical although thoughtful men among them 
 will regret that Christian and denominational relationships 
 have been disturbed. 
 8 
 
114 The Union Movement 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A BAPTIST FOKEIGN MISSION PROGEAM. 
 
 But what is the chief significance of a situation thus pro- 
 duced? What deductions will Baptists draw from it? On 
 what line of action will the denomination concentrate its 
 powers? 
 
 The Baptist attitude is not a negative one. Baptists are 
 propagandists. They have a genius for propagandism. The 
 history of the denomination is a record of missionary leader- 
 ship, evangelization, multiplication of numbers, expansion, 
 growth and achievement. There is a reason for this. Bap- 
 tists hold a faith which is vitalizing and energizing. They 
 are sticklers for the essential and vital elements in the gos- 
 pel, the safeguarding and faithful proclamation of these. 
 They hold truth which is quickening and propelling in those 
 who accept it. A dynamic faith and a static denomination 
 are incongruous and impossible. Vitality in the message 
 keeps up vitality and activity in a denomination which holds 
 the truth consistently. There is a tremendous energy in the 
 Baptist millions in America. It must be utilized or prove 
 ruinous. It will be found destructive if it is not made con- 
 structive. Their faith generates activity. 
 
 This faith makes Baptists very annoying to some people 
 who do not understand why they are such ardent propa- 
 gandists. A stalwart faith makes valiant disciples. A valid 
 confession of faith with Baptists includes personal experi- 
 ence of the doctrines of grace. Such a creed is sure to gender 
 activity and aggressiveness. Men cannot be expected long 
 to keep up enthusiasm for mere forms, ceremonies, externals. 
 It is natural that cold, dull uniformity should follow formal- 
 
The Union Movement 115 
 
 ism and ceremonialism, but no one can find membership in a 
 Baptist church, nor be accepted as a candidate for one of 
 the Christian ordinances, who does not profess personal ex- 
 I>erience of truth which vitally relates the soul to God. The 
 Baptist contention for the New Testament ordinances is to 
 be explained by the fact that these ordinances signify the 
 paramount facts of the gospel of atonement and presuppose 
 a personal experience of these doctrines by those who ob- 
 serve them. In these two ordinances ceremony is reduced 
 to the minimum, even as they represent sympathetically the 
 minimum to which a saving faith can be reduced. 
 
 The things, therefore, which constitute the reason and the 
 justification for a separate Baptist denomination, are at 
 their roots those which concern the essential essence of a 
 pure evangelicalism and an effectual missionary message; 
 while the things which distinguish other denominations one 
 from another and separate them from Baptists, concern, in a 
 very la^'ge way, to say the least, superficialities, which, where 
 they do not impinge vital doctrines, do not strengthen the 
 missionary message. No people in the world, therefore, have 
 irrenter instification for forming themselves into a mission- 
 ary irroup or cause for zeal in propagating their faith than 
 "Rnr^^^is+s have. 
 
 What then? Well, manifestly, Baptists must have a For- 
 eign Mission program of their own. 
 
 T. A Baptist Foreign Mission Program is a Necessity. 
 
 1. Baptists must, as thus appears, have siicJi a pronram 
 to save their missionary message. This message, so full of 
 jrop]iel vitalities and so clearly distinguished by the primacy 
 and freedom which it gives to fundamental and essential 
 elements of the gospel, is peculiarly threatened by this Move- 
 ment which proposes to put an end to denominational self- 
 
116 The Union Movement 
 
 propagation. We do not need to reproduce the proof of this. 
 Ample and fair quotations already given warrant the state- 
 ment. Other denominations can decide for themselves in the 
 light of facts which, for all of them are portentious, but Bap- 
 tists everywhere should act, and act decisively and in con- 
 cert. If such a missionary message as Baptists bear is 
 suffered to be neutralized by this Movement, the whole mis- 
 sionary enterprise will suffer great loss for an indefinite 
 future. One cannot think of missionary policies without 
 thinking of the whole future of his denomination and of 
 evangelical Christianity itself. The missionary method and 
 message are tremendously determinative of the type of Chris- 
 tianity which shall prevail in the world. Baptists not only 
 have their part of the task of saving the world, but they 
 have the gravest responsibility for saving the truth by which 
 the world is to be saved. 
 
 2. Southern Baptists must have a great Foreign Mission 
 program to justify their dissent, and to meet the difficulties 
 which the Federation Movement is making for denomina- 
 tional mission work. Our most convincing argument against 
 wrong missionary methods is the practice of right and effec- 
 tive methods. This is, too, the only escape from defeat for 
 our missionary enterprise. A vigorous offensive has al- 
 ways proved to be a winning strategy for Baptists. 
 Neither sentimental neutrality of the inter-denominational 
 type, nor the grouchy defensive tactics of the hardshells has 
 ever saved the Baptist message or advanced the denomina- 
 tion's lines. Surrender or ineffective isolation has always fol- 
 lowed such manoeuvers as these. But wherever Baptists have 
 in high and holy courage acted under the Commission and 
 gone straight to the people, teaching them to obey the truth 
 and giving them an example of such obedience and of the 
 excellencies of a loving Christian spirit, they have won. This 
 is the lesson which all achievement and growth has for us. 
 
The Union Movement 117 
 
 That is a very simple program, but it wins victories and 
 will, at last, set the King on his throne. Southern Baptists 
 accepted the challenge to prosecute a great Foreign Mission 
 program when they went to record as opposed to the union 
 program which was set up in New York. They both assumed 
 solemn obligations and put themselves under necessity of en- 
 larging their work and prosecuting it with increasing vigor 
 when they declined to be a party to this compromising alli- 
 ance. A truly great denominational Foreign Mission pro- 
 gram will justify our attitude, show that we are missionary 
 Baptists indeed and not merely protesters. By such a pro- 
 gram we will demonstrate again the superior value of our 
 principles. 
 
 3. A constructive Foreign Mission program is necessary 
 in order to unify the denomination. Nothing can so draw 
 and hold the denomination together on the home field, the 
 missionaries together on the foreign field, and secure unison 
 of purpose and action between the missionaries and the home 
 constituency as a great positive offensive. Camp life is 
 always attended with friction and personal alienations which 
 are forgotten in the trenches. Our people believe in the 
 gospel as in nothing else and that the gospel alone is the 
 means of life to any people. There is no hope for the Bap- 
 tist who cannot be enlisted by proper effort and spirit in 
 the task of giving the gospel to those who must perish with- 
 out it. The Foreign Mission enterprise, because of its sole 
 dependence upon the gospel, the vastness of human need 
 which it faces, the sacrificial spirit which alone will take 
 care of it, is above any other enterprise of the denomination 
 a unifying factor. Advocates of inter-denominational ism 
 see their greatest opportunity to effect their ends by identify- 
 ing them with this enterprise which is so full of sentiment. 
 If American Baptists are wise, they will see in the enter- 
 prise an opportunity to unify their own constituency and to 
 
118 The Union Movement 
 
 marshall it for the largest service it can possibly render to 
 a lost world in the name of its Lord. If Foreign Missions 
 serves this high and holy purpose, it must be so conducted 
 as to claim the confidence and subdue the conscience of Bap- 
 tist people. It must, therefore, be projected on a scale 
 which will engage the best energies of all and leave little 
 time and occasion for idle and hurtful disputation. 
 
 4. We need a large Foreign Mission program to amplify 
 the lives of our people. Men grow toward their ideals and 
 are made in likeness to them. Keligious denominations are 
 subject to the same law. If we are to be a great people, we 
 must aim at big things, and aiming at them, we shall grow 
 big men and big women for the Kingdom of God. We covet 
 more than soundness for the faith and safety for the ship 
 of missionary enterprise. We covet for the denomination 
 men and women who in Christian character and spirituality 
 match this great enterprise. There are things to be done 
 which little men cannot do; but this enterprise has often 
 made big men out of unpromising individuals when once it 
 claimed their hearts and their hands. If American Baptists 
 would have the denomination adorned with men and women 
 resplendent in Christian graces equal to any rivals, they 
 should seek by every legitimate means to bring all their num- 
 bers under the spell of this enterprise which seeks to set 
 Jesus on His throne above all kings and usurpers. Through 
 the periscope of Foreign Missions men and women who are 
 submerged in their daily tasks of office, field or kitchen, get 
 world views, and their souls are inflated by the dream of 
 universal empire for their adorable Saviour, the Prince of 
 Peace. The missionary ideal sets amplias before the eyes of 
 every participant. 
 
 5. Justice to our missionaries demands that tee shall 
 reenforce them dy such a program. The Southern Baptist 
 Convention has said to the Foreign Mission Board and to its 
 
The Union Movement 119 
 
 missionaries that it will not conduct its Foreign Mission 
 work on tlie lines of this new Movement, but that it will 
 maintain the same type of denominationalism and operate 
 the same missionary policies abroad that it does at home. 
 The missionaries of the Foreign Mission Board of the South- 
 ern Baptist Convention have accepted in good faith the de- 
 liverance of the Convention. They are true men and desire 
 to see a unified denomination at home, engaged in prosecut- 
 ing with confidence and conscience a positive and winning 
 campaign abroad. The men and women who represent 
 Southern Baptists in Mexico, the South America Republics, 
 Japan, China, Africa and Italy will keep faith with their 
 brethren. If they are given that support which is necessary 
 to keep heart, they will show invincible missionary heroism 
 and carry our Baptist missionary cause to victory in these 
 lands; although for a season, at least, there will be strong 
 odds against some of them and the course they are under 
 instructions to pursue. 
 
 Southern Baptists could not well be under a more solemn 
 obligation than this to enforce and strongly support these 
 men who are at such a time called upon to hold the outposts. 
 The missionaries need men and equipment, and they need 
 these immediately and in unprecedented and numbers suffi- 
 ciency. But, if, after announcing our dissent and authorizing 
 the continuance of an independent denominational program, 
 we continue to leave more than half of the native churches 
 without houses of worship, hospitals without equipment, 
 surgeons without instruments, schools with half the normal 
 corps of teachers, and send out a dozen missionaries when 
 fifty or a hundred are urgently needed to strengthen im- 
 periled positions and lead victorious offensives, we shall 
 thereby let good and true men suffer while they faithfully 
 endeavor to prosecute the will of their brethren at home. 
 The Judson Centennial money has enabled the Board to 
 
120 The Union Movement 
 
 take care of some of these needs which we had suffered to 
 go without attention from the beginning of our work; but 
 so great is the accumulated need, and such are the growing 
 necessities of the work on the vast field of our missionary 
 operations, hundreds of equally urgent matters are still un- 
 provided for. 
 
 Baptist missionaries in China, in their triennial meeting 
 at Chefoo in June, 1916, adopted ''A Baptist Program for 
 China." This program is thoroughly constructive as well 
 as sound. The reason, the motive and the character of it is 
 suggested by this : ^'Living as we do in the greatest mission 
 field of the world, we, too, are constrained to place before 
 our home churches, our mission boards, and our missions in 
 China, individually and collectively, a Baptist program for 
 China which, we believe, will unite all our missions in a con- 
 structive and progressive work, and challenge every Baptist 
 missionary in China to put forth his best efforts." 
 
 The program includes evangelism, educational work, med- 
 ical work, publication work, etc. It is worthy of the hearts 
 and heads of American Baptist missionaries in China and 
 constitutes a mighty challenge to the home constituency. For 
 anybody who needs it, this program gives the most convincing 
 evidence that the missionaries in China can, if we will sup- 
 port them, be trusted to take care of the policies and the work 
 of American Baptists in the world's great Eepublic. One of 
 the missionaries, commenting upon this program, says : "It 
 is a challenge to the cooperation of all the Baptists in China, 
 and, if Baptists here dare to think big thoughts, surely there 
 are Baptists at home who will dare to help." 
 
 Another says : "Our greatest need is unity of action. A 
 uniting of Baptist strength on a Baptist program would 
 mean the greatest triumph for the Cross the world has ever 
 seen." 
 
The Union Movement 121 
 
 An editorial writer in the IStew East says of this program : 
 "It is essentially constructive and is a challenge both to the 
 progi-essive and conservative Baptist to build up in China 
 institutions worthy of our Baptist heritage. This Baptist 
 program for China ought to be satisfactory." 
 
 The above program was to be submitted to several Mis- 
 sions, and then to the Board for Approval. As an example 
 of the favor with which this Baptist program was received 
 by one of the Missions and of the readiness of the mission- 
 aries to cooperate, we quote the following from the Minutes 
 of the South China Mission under date of January 1^ 1917: 
 
 "Whereas^ The Foreign Mission Board, with the hearty 
 endorsement of the Southern Baptist Convention, has decided 
 to carry od its mission enterprises independently of other 
 denominations; and, 
 
 "Whereas, The China Baptist Conference, in its recent 
 meeting at Chefoo, has recommended to the Baptist Missions 
 of China, and their respective Boards, a Program which aims 
 at the unifying of Baptists, and the enlisting of all Baptist 
 forces in the developing of Baptist enterprises. 
 
 '^Be it resolved, That we, the South China Mission, greatly 
 rejoice at the effort to bring about unity and cooperation 
 among the Baptist forces in China, and, that we give our 
 hearty endorsement to a general Baptist Program for China, 
 and pledge ourselves to cooperate with the other Baptist Mis- 
 sions of China in every practical way." 
 
 These records show something of the possibilities of a 
 great denominational program. Certainly these men and 
 women at the front who take seriously the action of the 
 Convention deserve consideration at the hands of the home 
 constituency. I am persuaded that when the brotherhood 
 has been made to realize the significance of the thing which 
 the Convention has done in determining upon its independent 
 course of action and the dire need on the fields for reenforce- 
 
122 The Union Movement 
 
 ment, the means will be provided. Many times have I been 
 impressed that the people at home love their missionaries. 
 There is nothing more beautiful connected with Foreign Mis- 
 sions than the genuine and profound affection of Christian 
 men and women for those who hazard all for the name of 
 Christ. If there is anything more beautiful than this, it is 
 the humility, the modesty, the absence of self-consciousness 
 and devotion which characterize nearly all foreign mission- 
 aries. Love for these men and women will prompt our people 
 to give the money necessary to strengthen their hands when 
 they are fully informed of how absolute are the necessities 
 to be met. 
 
 The necessities of the work and the whole situation which 
 obtains in the case of Baptist Foreign Missions creates a de- 
 mand for a great program. It is significant and bears heavily 
 upon the question of obligation, that these great necessities 
 did not arise until the denomination at home was well able to 
 take care of them. The challenge of such an hour was not 
 made to Southern Baptists with all the weight of present 
 considerations until they had multiplied tlieir numbers into 
 millions, their wealth into billions, and had lived to see the 
 Southern states the most thoroughly evangelized territory 
 on the face of the globe, and more completely dominated by 
 their faith than any like territory the world over. God calls 
 us to this service at a time when we are able to go up at His 
 command and possess the land. To falter and turn back 
 before such duty and opportunity is to doom ourselves to an 
 ingrowing denominationalism which can neither take care of 
 the truth nor of itself in the face of conditions now prevail- 
 ing. We as well as Providence have contributed to the 
 urgency of the present hour, and we cannot preserve our 
 unity and justify our course if we fail to make and support 
 a great Foreign Mission program at this time. 
 
The Union Movement 123 
 
 II. Some Essentials to the Program Itself. 
 
 Not only is there a necessity for a Baptist Foreign Mis- 
 sion program, but there are certain things which pertain to 
 such a program that must be considered. 
 
 1. This program should he put on at once. There is not 
 a moment to be lost. To defer it is to defeat it. Already 
 important situations are threatened and advantages of the 
 campaign are being lost. The death roll of heroic mission- 
 aries has been lengthened in recent months. Many of these 
 who have answered the last roll call sullered needless over- 
 burden and exhaustion. One little woman, who came home 
 two years ago for a brief period of rest, after twenty-tw^o 
 years of service in China, told a company of her sisters that 
 the greatest burden she had borne was that she had been com- 
 pelled to live on borrowed money. She gave her last $200, 
 the total savings of a lifetime, to help pay a debt on the For- 
 eign Mii^sion Board. She now rests indeed. A few mission- 
 aries have been sent out, but an altogether inadequate num- 
 ber have gone to fill up the gaps in China which she and 
 others have left after fighting to the death-line. For ten 
 years or more Southern Baptists have been deferring obliga- 
 tions which belong to the current support of the work until 
 the need is acute, and further delay in meeting these obliga- 
 tions is certain to involve inevitable and irreparable loss and 
 as equally certain to break the spirits and impair the health 
 of splendid men and women who ask nothing of Southern 
 Baptists except an opportunity and the means to serve Christ 
 and their denomination in the hard and destitute places of 
 the earth. Any postponing of the duty to reenforce these 
 men and w^omen will produce consequences wiiich can never 
 be set down to the praise and the joy of Baptists. 
 
 2. To fulfill its purpose, the program jnust recognize the 
 incomparahle magnitude of the Foreign Mission task — the 
 
124 The Union Movement 
 
 vast area of the habitable globe yet to be evangelized ; the in- 
 comprehensible millions still to be won to Christ; the in- 
 evitable conditions and difficulties against which this par- 
 ticular work must be prosecuted ; the fact that in this single 
 enterprise all our Christian enterprises are included; and, 
 therefore, the exceptional claim of Foreign Missions upon 
 American Christians and the necessity for an altered pro- 
 portion in our benevolences. We cannot, on the foreign field, 
 take care of education, publication, hospital, church building, 
 colportage on what is required at home to provide for one of 
 these departments. I say, we cannot take care of all these 
 departments, on our vast field among a thousand millions 
 people, on the basis of our contributions to single Chris- 
 tian enterprises at home among thirty-six millions of people 
 where evangelical Christianity and Christian workers abound 
 as nowhere else. No program can assure success in handling 
 this multiform undertaking which does not call upon indi- 
 viduals and churches to give to this prodigious and all-inclu- 
 sive task of Foreign Missions a greatly increased support. 
 A church budget which apportions but 15 or 20 per cent, of 
 the contributions of its members to this greatest and only 
 unified appeal will never enable Southern Baptists to take 
 care of the independent denominational program which the 
 action of the Convention proposed. If there is reluctance to 
 recognize and face facts so palpable, the denomination must 
 face the inevitable result of seeing its program on the foreign 
 field fail. The denomination will be humiliated by its fail- 
 ure to maintain that which it authorized, and the forces 
 which are against a denominational program will gain much 
 advantage thereby. 
 
 3. The program should definitely contemplate and in- 
 clude the entrance into new doors of opportunity wherever 
 and as fast as God makes plain to us that He has opened 
 them and promising fields incite us, Paul was constantly 
 
The Union Movement 125 
 
 exploring new fields in his missionary work, and, as a wise 
 husbandman, was ever breaking new ground. Southern Bap- 
 tists thrust forth their representatives into most of the fields 
 now occupied when they were few and poor in comparison 
 with their numbers and wealth at the present time. The 
 denomination needs again to ''break forth" and enter Eussia 
 and perhaps shortly needy European countries. The denom- 
 ination will find it hard to justify itself in ignoring the 
 providential tokens and the missionary opportunities which 
 are presented in connection with the new Russian situation. 
 There should be the speediest and most resolute effort to 
 assemble forces and resources for the purpose of making a 
 determined and prolonged siege in Eussia. Never in the 
 history of the world, perhaps, was there a mission field so 
 urgent in its need and so ripe for Baptist harvests as this. 
 
 4. Those who project and promote this program should 
 do it in full and definite knowledge of the constituency which 
 must he looked to for support of it. The vast numbers of 
 men and women whom we have won to Christ, and who now 
 hold the Baptist faith and bear their name in the South, is 
 the greatest of all facts to be considered in connection with 
 a missionary program. Inconsiderateness for the viewpoint 
 of these millions of Southern Baptists, obliviousness or in- 
 difference to their faith, their importance to the work, or 
 disregard for their confidence and cooperation in missionary 
 policies, will result in great weakness to the denominational 
 program, as these things have provoked their rebuke of the 
 Federation Movement, the leaders of which did not deign to 
 take account of the opinions of these millions of Christian 
 men and women. The views of the largest religious body in 
 the South were considered negligible by the makers of that 
 program. The Baptist program should contemplate, as a 
 large part of our missionary task, the enlistment of every one 
 of the volunteer professors of the Baptist faith, and provide 
 
126 The Union Movement 
 
 for the comradeship of all in the great effort to subdue the 
 world to the reign of Christ. We need the combined and con- 
 centrated powers of this mighty host upon the gigantic task 
 of taking the gospel message to all the world. There are 
 nearly three million white Baptists within the bounds of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. Unification and utilization of 
 these great numbers in missionary advance is of vastly great 
 importance to evangelical Christianity. No agency, nor all 
 agencies of the denomination, can fulfill the Baptist mission 
 without the Baptist people. Next to the task of taking the 
 world for Christ, indeed having precedence over it, is that 
 of getting our Baptist hosts together on this positive mis- 
 sionary program. 
 
 We do not want Baptist platforms for special groups. We 
 should not expect these hosts to get on a platform which is 
 made for a few. We should not encourage factions. All 
 truly great Baptists are unifying forces in the denomination 
 and seek to rally all the people to sound and constructive 
 lines of denominational life and endeavor. The man who 
 has not a stronger passion for fellowship with the people of 
 his own faith and for union within the r'enomination than 
 he has for these things outside the denomination is not quali- 
 fied for large service in the denomination at this time, how- 
 ever sound he may be in the Baptist faith, or however learned 
 he may be in the sciences. The man who thinks himself too 
 good a Baptist to cooperate with his brethren and he who 
 feels that the Baptist masses are not his sort, are alike ab- 
 normal types, and cannot be unifying forces in the denomi- 
 nation. Such Baptists remind one of the old lady who com- 
 plained that all the men in the military drill were out of 
 step except her boy John I The normal Baptist finds it 
 natural and congenial to live on terms of fellowship and in 
 cooperation with his Baptist brethren. 
 
The Union Movement 127 
 
 Every one knows that many of our members are back- 
 ward in their development. There is no greater, more broth- 
 erly or broad-minded service for great men to render than 
 that of so feeling, speaking and acting as to bring these into 
 the fellowship of service. We shall need men to work the 
 program who have an acute sense of sympathy for those who 
 have been belated by circumstances. Men who successfully 
 serve the denomination must have a craving for the fellow- 
 ship of all their brethren in the larger life and service, and 
 they will not tax the confidence of these by showing a closer 
 affinity and greater fraternal consideration for others than 
 they do for those of their own household of faith. 
 
 Speaking generally, there has been a faithful indoctrina- 
 tion of our people of every section of the South in the Bap- 
 tist faith. Speaking generally again, there has been a fail- 
 ure faithfully to indoctrinate them concerning the Baptist 
 work. There is just as true and just as Scriptural a doctrine 
 of missions as there is of repentance and of the ordinances. 
 The same Commission which commands the teaching and 
 observance of the ordinances commands missions. But from 
 neglect of this fact there is more conviction for scriptural 
 ordinances than there is conscience for the missionary task. 
 Many, even of our ministers, show more enthusiasm for 
 defending the Word than they do for supporting the 
 work. Grounding in the faith is good preparation for 
 great denominational achievement, and strong personal con- 
 viction of the truth has driving power for the missionary 
 enterprise, when men learn that the latter is a sacred counter- 
 part of the first. It is the duty of pastors and all other 
 leaders to give information about our Baptist work to all 
 who hold the Baptist faith. 
 
 Here is suggested the leadership which is needed in the 
 denomination at this time. We do not need men who aspire 
 to lead factions, nor those who are so broad that they chafe 
 
128 The Union Movement 
 
 under denominational restrictions and feel the shame of Bap- 
 tist narrowness, nor those who play to galleries, high or low. 
 The great need is for men who are sincerely and frankly Bap- 
 tist in their faith, brotherly in their spirits, and positively 
 and passionately missionary; men who are neither autocrats 
 nor demagogues ; who have courage and grace to lead in great 
 tasks, and in doing so make for peace and not strife among 
 brethren. 
 
 5. The cooperation of all American Baptists sJiould "be) 
 sought for this denominational program. Such cooperation 
 of the Baptists of all sections, including the splendid Cana- 
 dian brotherhood, in a worthy missionary program, would 
 insure its success and enable the denomination to make its 
 largest contribution to Christian missionary effort. There 
 are no cooperative possibilities like this for American Bap- 
 tists, /ti^er-denominational cooperation, such as that which 
 is proposed, puts the truth in jeopardy, surrenders denomi- 
 national policies in favor of federated policies, divides the de- 
 nomination and dissipates its energies ; while intra-denomina- 
 tional cooperation safeguards our principles and the mission- 
 ary message, strengthens the confidence of all and unifies the 
 denomination in mission work, thus multiplying its power 
 for good. It would be thoroughly heartening if we could 
 indeed have a World Baptist Alliance which would guarantee 
 the faithful delivery of the Baptist message, uniform policies 
 and a united brotherhood on all the mission fields. If spokes- 
 men for the Baptist missionary program can be found in all 
 sections of the country, this ideal can be realized in the case 
 of American Baptists at least. The great majority of Amer- 
 ican Baptists, North and South, East and West, hold a com- 
 mon faith, and are prepared for congenial fellowship and 
 cooperative service, whatever exception to this may appear 
 in occasional individual utterances, which in some cases are 
 more significantly frequent and loud than representative. 
 
The Union Movement 129 
 
 It may be said with confidence that the Baptist who repu- 
 diates the recognized beliefs and practices of Baptist churches 
 does not represent the masses of Bai>tists, North and South. 
 He speaks without authorization, and misrepresents both 
 the history and the rank and file of his denomination. 
 
 Baptists, North and South, we be brethren ! We have a 
 common faith to bind us, to defend against common foes, and 
 to propagate among men and women who have great need 
 of it. Shall we suffer anybody to lead us into lightly dis- 
 claiming our history and acknowledging indifference to the 
 things which have made the actors in that history immortal ? 
 Shall we capitulate to a missionary administration the ulti- 
 mate aim of which is acknowledged to be the unconditional 
 elimination of our own and every type of denominationalism? 
 I trow not ! Those who assume to lead American Baptists 
 of any section into the support of such a program, will, 
 sooner or later, find that they do not represent the great 
 masses of our people anywhere. The question we are facing 
 is not (we must keep repeating) one of Christian relation- 
 ship. It is not even one of inter-denominational cooperation. 
 The main question, squarely put to Baptists and other 
 denominations, is whether they will be led or forced 
 by a few leaders into the surrender of their denominational- 
 ism. This union program was not made by the denomina- 
 tions, nor by their mission boards, but by a few^ individuals 
 in their own associate capacity. It contradicts in many 
 respects the policies and practices of every denomination in 
 America and frankly declares for their abrogation. Let Ba}> 
 tists, at least, not be coerced nor abandon their own people to 
 follow such leadership. Those who attempt to follow it will 
 undoubtedly find that the Baptist masses will not follow 
 them. Let American Baptists stand together and advance 
 together. The world is prepared for our message, needs our 
 principles to safeguard achievements in democracy and to 
 
130 The Union Movement 
 
 conserve the highest interests of society and religion. The 
 heathen world needs a message with all the elements of the 
 gospel in it, and with conscience and conviction behind it. 
 The century-hour has struck for Baptist missionary advance. 
 The present program of a clamant Union Movement is as 
 sure to fail as a pure and vigorous evangelical Christianity 
 survives, and vice versa. That Movement cannot take care 
 of the truth nor effect pure missionary ends without it. The 
 Movement has forced a contest between itself and the de- 
 nominations. Baptists certainly ought to know where to 
 cast their influence. 
 
 The call of Paul to enter Macedonia was not more plain, 
 more convincing, or more personal than the call of God to 
 American Baptists today to unite in a great, constructive, 
 and heroic Foreign Mission campaign. If Baptists of any 
 section suffer the denomination to be divided and diverted 
 from the policies and the work of the denomination by an 
 extra-denominational organization whose leaders represent 
 themselves and strictly speaking no single denomination in 
 America, a great denominational blunder will be made, and 
 the cause of Foreign Missions will suffer seriously. It can- 
 not be admitted in reason that a movement which makes all 
 the denominations in America contradict themselves in mis- 
 sionary policies at home and abroad, has strong claims upon 
 any man who believes in the history, the faith, the sincerity 
 and the consistency of his own denomination. 
 
 But dissent and mere defense will not win the day. Noth- 
 ing but a mighty offensive will save Baptists from defeat in 
 the present crisis. Inter-denominational missionary confer- 
 ences have been held and these have issued their programs. 
 Why should not American Baptists call a Baptist Missionary 
 Conference of men who in faith and spirit really represent 
 them? And why should not such a conference put forth a 
 Baptist Foreign Mission Program for the world which rep- 
 
The Union Movement 131 
 
 resents the historic faith and the home policies of the denomi- 
 nation ; which will unify our vast numbers, insure the fuller 
 and wider proclamation of our vital missionary message and 
 the fulfillment of the mission to the world which the posses- 
 sion of such a message implies and imposes? Meanwhile in- 
 •dividual Baptists are challenged by Providence and the cir- 
 cumstances of the hour to exercise themselves in prayers, 
 pleadings with their fellow church members, personal work, 
 and large giving, to meet an extraordinary situation, and by 
 such devotion and sacrifice to renew their pledge to God, 
 their brothers and the workers on far-off mission fields, that 
 our witness shall not fail until Christ is made known to the 
 last man of the long-neglected millions of our lost brothers. 
 
132 The Union Movement 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 The following is a digest of an article by Dr. Jolin Fox, 
 of New York, first published in the Princeton Theological 
 Review, for October, 1916, under the title, "Christian Unity, 
 Church Unity and the Panama Congress." Dr. Fox is a dis- 
 tinguished Presbyterian minister. Corresponding Secretary 
 of the American Bible Society, a man of liberal scholarship, 
 and, as his official position would indicate, a man of large 
 Christian relationships. Moreover, he speaks from close ob- 
 servation of the Movement and from intimate personal knowl- 
 edge of the conduct of the Congress itself, having attended 
 and participated in it. The article came into our hands after 
 the preceding pages were written, and we sincerely regret 
 that the limits fixed for this book require us to omit valuable 
 parts of it. Dr. Fox knows nothing of the contents of this 
 book, is in no way responsible for anything in it. Moreover, 
 to prevent possible misunderstanding, it should be said that 
 he expressed his personal views in the article and did not 
 claim to represent either his colleagues or the Board of Man- 
 agers of the American Bible Society. 
 
 Christian Unity^ Church Unity, and the 
 Panama Congress. 
 
 By Rev. John Fox, D.D., New York. 
 
 A considerable number of missionaries and others, some of the 
 first rank, did not like the manner in which the preparations of 
 the Conference had been managed and still retained a conviction 
 that the Edinburgh Conference had shirked its duty as to Roman- 
 ism by excluding them from full participation in its discussion. 
 
The Union Movement 133 
 
 Along with them there was a still more important body of native 
 ministers in Latin-America who felt dissatisfied, and said so, and 
 said further that many of their brethren would not come at all 
 for that reason. They were probably not much mollified by the 
 methods of procedure adopted by the Congress. The personnel of 
 the Business Committee, the officers of the Congress, and the scope 
 of their powers were all pre-determined by a Committee of Arrange- 
 ments in New York. 
 
 By these arrangements no man or woman could offer any motion 
 or amendment whatever on the floor of the Congress. It must first 
 be offered to the Business Committee, and only the consent of two- 
 thirds of the Committee of twenty-five (picked out in advance in 
 New York) could bring it to the floor. Nor was the Business Com- 
 mittee required to report at the end of the Congress what papers 
 or proposals had been submitted to it and rejected. A proposal to 
 require this was rejected. There were at least three papers of im- 
 portance presented which were thus decently buried in Committee, 
 and the fact of their rejection never reported to the Congress. 
 
 The admirable and much beloved chairman of the Congress was 
 given final power to decide every question of order without appeal 
 to the House. Only his unique personal attractions made this even 
 tolerable. 
 
 Then another singular provision must be mentioned. The eight 
 long Reports of Commissions, referred to above, were presented. 
 These Commissions consisted of about twenty-five persons each, 
 scattered widely, who for a year or more past have been preparing 
 their reports. Without discussing the methods pursued by them 
 privately, the reports all printed, making something like 800 pages 
 of a fair-sized book, absorbed most of the time of the Congress dur- 
 ing its business sessions. The chairman of each Commission, or 
 whoever he selected, had forty-five minutes to defend their position 
 and "findings;" but all other speakers were limited to seven 
 minutes, which as time lessened became five or less. They had also 
 to signify in writing their intention of speaking by two o'clock in 
 the afternoon of the day previous. This killed real debate. A man 
 might ask to speak in the course of the debate, in writing, but it 
 was left with the chairman to decide whether he should speak or 
 not. 
 
 When all these particulars are stated, nine men out of ten would 
 say what has been said very sharply since the Congress adjourned. 
 
134 The Union Movement 
 
 that it was a clear case of the "steam roller." Considered as a 
 method governing a large body, the steam roller has the merit of 
 quick despatch of business and the easy suppression of cranks. The 
 spirit and intention of this procedure was far removed from un- 
 brotherly discourtesy. On the contrary, the steam roller was man- 
 aged with such courtesy, gentleness, and skill, that it was almost 
 a pleasure to be thus rolled over. Dr. Speer and Dr. Mott both did 
 all in their power to make the process agreeable. One felt in the 
 air a vague spiritual chloroform. Those known to disagree with 
 the Business Committee were invited to sit with it and given full 
 liberties of debate. But usually nothing came of it. What was to 
 be done was virtually settled in advance by "the real heart of the 
 organism" (The Business Committee). A Roman Catholic visitor 
 might have smiled -to see these Protestants or "Evangelicals" ap- 
 parently adopting a thoroughly Papal method of procedure and 
 wondered whether it was intended as a compliment to Rome. 
 
 Let it be said that there is some precedent for the un-democratic, 
 un-American, un-Protestant character of the method of procedure 
 above outlined, but it takes more than precedent to justify what 
 is always inherently wrong. The fact that this, or something worse 
 was done at Edinburgh, does not either justify or sanctify it. The 
 Congress threw away its proper opportunity to say, not with bitter 
 vituperation, but with calm, grave simplicity and strength, what 
 ought to have been said not only as to Romanism, but as to rational- 
 ism. They are the twin evils which we confront in Latin-America 
 today. The Congress, as a whole, said nothing about either. It 
 was an army without a flag or a bugle. 
 
 Dr. Beach glows with enthusiasm over it: 
 
 "Indeed, the Congress was permeated with the Zeitgeist and 
 tingled with the Oeistesdrang of this epochal-period in the evolution 
 of the missionary enterprise. It was the rich air of recent advance 
 in the science of missions and burned with the ardor which the 
 impelling spirit of Unity and Cooperation is imparting in these 
 latter days." 
 
 No one could sit through the Conference and carry away any 
 ather impression than that the conclusions reached were not to be 
 lightly set aside, but bore a kind of general imprimatur, somewhat 
 as the finding of a grand jury does to a petit jury. There was "a 
 case" and a "true bill" — a very effective way to get a thing done. 
 
The Union Movement 135 
 
 On the last day of the session, the Business Committee proposed 
 a series of resolutions re-constituting and enlarging the Committee 
 on Cooperation in Latin-America. The sixth section reads as follows: 
 
 "That the American and Canadian Section should take steps as 
 promptly as possible to give effect to the findings of the various 
 Commissions in the light of the discussions of the Congress, so far 
 as the cooperation of the missionary agencies of the United States 
 and Canada is concerned." 
 
 "To give effect to the Findings" certainly means that these Find- 
 ings were to be treated as possessing the weight and obligation com- 
 ing from so distinguished and expert a body of men and women; 
 but these Findings were not voted on and under the rules could 
 not be adequately and properly discussed. 
 
 Such a "Continuation Committee" and the powers with which 
 it is clothed foreshadow a missionary policy for the churches. 
 
 After dwelling on the eminence and ability of the missionary 
 leaders who were present, it is finally declared: "This lends great 
 weight to their conclusions and possibly even greater than were 
 these the official deliverances of legislative and ecclesiastical todies.^* 
 [Italics ours.] 
 
 The great value of many of the detailed suggestions on the 
 immense variety of subjects included in the Findings of these 
 Committees ought not to blind us to the fact that we have here 
 a genuine imperium in imperio, a wonderfully constructed piece 
 of quasi-ecclesiasticism erected in the very midst of the ordinary 
 ecclesiastical machinery which is supposed to control Missions and 
 Missionary-made Churches. It indirectly has a powerful effect on 
 the churches from which these Missions originally proceeded. It 
 is all the more effective as its true character is not avowed and 
 we believe is not thoroughly realized by its projectors and pro- 
 moters. It is a growth, the inevitable effort of a certain tendency 
 in missionary activity, a Geistesdrang, as Dr. Beach says. Its final 
 effect, if consistently carried out, is the reshaping and reorganizing 
 of all missions which accept its spirit and method based on one 
 comprehensive general principle, namely inter-denominational co- 
 operation leading toward and in many cases distinctly aiming at 
 the attainment of church unity as distinguished from the more gen- 
 eral concept of Christian unity in the older usage of that term. 
 This comes out very clearly in the reports, first, of Commission 
 Number VIII on Cooperation and the Promotion of Unity, and even 
 
136 The Union Movement 
 
 more clearly in the subsequent reports of the twenty-one Conferences 
 above named. 
 
 It is pretty plain that for the most part the Continuation Com- 
 mittee's ideal begins with Cooperation, continues with Federation 
 and ends with Unification. It aims to bring first the missionary 
 organizations at work in the field and then the churches which they 
 represent into some kind of strange huge organism, which all shall 
 recognize as supreme. 
 
 Should we throw down denominational lines altogether and make 
 one great comprehensive Protestant or "Evangelical" Church? What 
 kind of a creed, polity, cultus will such a church, if organized, have 
 and hold? What guarantees can we give to believers in the doc- 
 trines of grace and devout lovers of the Bible as an infallible book 
 that the plagues of modern Protestant Rationalism will not be added 
 to the^ plague of Roman Ritualism in the newly planted churches, 
 or in the "unified" church, such as Dr. Brown so stoutly argues 
 there ought to be? In a word, Protestant Christendom came fairly 
 face to face on that 
 
 "Narrow neck of land, 
 'Twixt two unbounded seas" 
 
 with the whole matter of the unity of Christ's Church in the pecu- 
 liar environment of Latin-America. It was "proved with hard 
 questions." 
 
 In answering such questions large powers were put into the 
 hands of a comparatively few persons who shaped the general policy 
 for the whole body of cooperating churches in a given direction, 
 just as the Edinburgh Conference did. The Panama Congress thus 
 became a spoke in the wheel, a wheel revolving with ever increasing 
 momentum in the direction of unity, not unity in the broader sense 
 but in the narrower and more technical sense of an organic unifica- 
 tion of Protestant Christendom, with re-union with Rome as pos- 
 sible in the future. Formal proof of this statement would require 
 us to traverse with great care the reports of the Eight Commissions 
 and especially their "Findings;" but their general tenor is unmis- 
 takable. The whole temper of the rulers and leaders of the Con- 
 gress was to touch far too lightly on Protestant affirmations. 
 
 Here, then, was the situation — an attitude of timidity before the 
 unabated claims of the Roman power, a tolerant, doubtful — with 
 some an approving — attitude to amendments to the Bible proposed 
 
The Union Movement 137 
 
 by the modern critics. Is this really the message that Latin-America 
 needs? Do we propose to nail this thesis upon the church door as 
 an addition to the ninety-five theses that Luther put there? 
 
 This regrettable situation comes about not by direct intention 
 but as part of the modern shrinking from clear and discriminating 
 doctrinal affirmations and from the strange perversion of Christ's 
 high priestly prayer by the assumption that in order to attain unity 
 of external organization we may wrap in a napkin and lay away 
 the Lord's talent of divine truth committed to us. It all falls in 
 with much that is in the highest degree popular. The Zeigeist and 
 the Geistesclrang is a compound made up of enthusiasm for missions 
 on the one hand and enthusiasm for a minimized gospel or a false 
 gospel on the other. Dr. Beach speaks with disapproval of "hyper 
 evangelicals." In the Panama dialect this means "Hyper Protes- 
 tants." But a watered down Protestantism soon ceases to be evan- 
 gelical. 
 
 We are constantly bidden nowadays to "think in Continents." 
 How little regard is paid to the great Continent of thought! This 
 was true at Panama. Speaking quite broadly and making due allow- 
 ance for exceptions, its key-note was unity by minimizing the doc- 
 trinal and ecclesiastical differences between the various members 
 of the Protestant group of churches and on the ground of mission- 
 ary expediency aiming at the abolition of these differences by 
 largely ignoring them and, with at least a part of the leaders of 
 the Congress, a distinct purpose of doing the same thing as to the 
 graver differences that separate us from Rome. This unity which 
 Dr. Brown and others are demanding is to be brought about not 
 by the orderly process of an approach by the official authorities of 
 each denomination to other churches, but by special "movements" 
 seizing the existing machinery of Foreign Mission Boards and their 
 elaborate subsidiary organizations, and using them for the purpose 
 of bringing about first cooperation and finally organic union by in- 
 genious indirection. First insist on organic union on the great 
 mission fields and then cry out against the conservatism of any 
 Mission Board or any denomination that hangs out against it. It 
 was almost amusing to see the confidence with which brethren dis- 
 posed of difficulties over which a Luther or a Calvin would have 
 sweat blood. The Anglican communion and its counterpart on this 
 side of the sea, the Confessional Lutheran Churches, the Pan-Presby- 
 terian family, Methodism with its splendid organization, the Inde- 
 
138 The Union Movement 
 
 pendent, Congregational and Baptist Churches — these are not fungus 
 growths or flowers that bloom in the spring; they are giant oaks, 
 hardy mountain pines, cedars of Lebanon. They have their roots 
 of doctrinal conviction, ordered government, devotional habit. It 
 is hard to see how any one can seriously believe that they can be 
 picked up and clapped together by a Business Committee or a Con- 
 gress, or a hundred Congresses. Before the goal is reached the 
 people will have something to say about whether they are to give 
 up things which they believe and love with all their hearts because 
 a Continuation Committee or a concatenated jungle of similar com- 
 mittees imagines that it can be done. One of the most admired of 
 Baptist secretaries declared with burning earnestness: "the tap 
 root of Romanism is infant baptism," his hand resting almost on 
 the shoulder of an equally esteemed and beloved brother, a Bishop 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the expression of whose coun- 
 tenance at this startling declaration deserved to be preserved as a 
 souvenir of the Congress. How could these two brethren, no mat- 
 ter how much they love and respect each other, honestly join in 
 conducting a Union Theological Semimry in which Baptism, its 
 nature, mode and subject could be discussed. The Calvinistic 
 Churches love their Arminian allies as brethren and know well 
 there is much they can learn from them; but how foolish it is to 
 pretend that they are not divided as to some very important ques- 
 tions. 
 
 With the utmost sincerity we pay our tribute of admiration to 
 Dr. John R. Mott and Dr. Robert E. Speer, our fellow presbyter. 
 May their tribe increase. Dr. Mott's public honors are well de- 
 served. Dr. Speer's praise is in all the churches, so is that of Dr. 
 Arthur J. Brown, and a hundred others; but what they now propose 
 is to achieve the impossible. Christ has made it impossible to have 
 unity without the truth and the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit 
 by and through the truth. Let us be content to walk in His way, 
 and not choose our own paths. 
 
 Let all ministers, missionaries. Congresses and Assemblies learn 
 that there is no other road to the best cooperation and the only 
 real Unity than an absolute fidelity to the truth as God gives us 
 to see it, mixed plentifully with humility and brotherly love. 
 
The Union Movement 139 
 
 No. II. 
 
 The following article by Bishop Warren A. Candler ap- 
 peared in an Atlanta daily paper, the Journal. Dr. Fox and 
 Bishop Candler, one a Northern Presbyterian and the other a 
 Southern Methodist, are examples of many men of large in- 
 fluence who are viewing this Movement with deep concern. 
 Like Dr. Fox, Bishop Candler knows nothing of the contents 
 of this book. They certainly would not endorse much that is 
 said here in exposition and defense of Baptist views, a fact 
 which suggests the impracticableness and immaturity of 
 present federation. Bishop Candler speaks for himself and 
 cannot be held responsible for anything contained in the 
 book except his own utterances. The observations of these 
 two distinguished men show a rising tide of sentiment with 
 which all wise men will reckon. 
 
 Taking Away the Freedom op the Churches. 
 By Bishop W. A. Candler, in Atlanta Journal. 
 
 (The following article expresses convictions whicli are becoming 
 prevalent and which are pressing to the front for discussion.) 
 
 The churches of our country are suffering from a multiplied 
 number of parasitic organizations, which are sapping their freedom 
 and sucking their funds. These parasitic bodies emphasize their 
 inter-denominational character and prate much about what they 
 call, with misleading pretence of charity and broad-mindedness, 
 "Christian unity." By their very nature they have to assume an 
 inter-denominational attitude; for one church would not be enough 
 to satisfy their cravings for power and their lust for funds. More- 
 over, such an attitude appeals to the support of that class of mis- 
 taken minds who dislike all churches, and yet wish to preserve 
 some sort of semblance of devotion to Christianity — the class of 
 men who profess great breadth of view and have no depth of con- 
 viction, and who mistake vagueness for virtue. 
 
140 The Union Movement 
 
 These parasitic organizations might be called syndicates of 
 syncretists, but in many instances they are too small to be called 
 syndicates, and wholly unworthy of being dignified with the name 
 of syncretists. Yet they remind one of the syncretists who operated 
 in the Grseca-Roman world during the first century of the Christian 
 era. Like the syncretists of that age, they have a certain skill in 
 the making of mosaic creeds out of all sorts of fragments of belief, 
 and their religion presents the appearance of a Joseph's coat of 
 many colors. They imitate the shallow-minded pro-consul, Gellius, 
 who invited the rival philosophers of Athens to come to terms, offer- 
 ing himself as arbiter entirely competent to pass upon and settle 
 their differences of belief. In like manner the committees of these 
 parasitic organizations constitute themselves as councils to conciliate 
 all the churches, and then control the bodies which they have con- 
 ciliated. 
 
 They are thoroughly worldly in their spirit and methods, mimick- 
 ing "big business" and appropriating its pompous phraseology. They 
 rely on combinations to convert the world rather than upon Christ's 
 power, and the consecration of the saints to His service. Such 
 methods fall in well with a commercial age, in which "trusts" and 
 syndicates abound, defying the laws of both God and man. But 
 these methods are most tyrannical whenever they can be, and are 
 injurious always. 
 
 Like the men of "big business," they claim that their organiza- 
 tions "save waste" and "conserve energy;" but whatever may be 
 the justice of such a claim when made by the men of "big busi- 
 ness," it is wholly groundless when put forth by the men of these 
 parasitic organizations. They make waste, and they enfeeble energy. 
 They hold manifold conventions of the most useless and expensive 
 sort, and thereby induce the churches to pay for their junketing 
 journeys. In summer the mountains are filled with their meet- 
 ings, and at other seasons they fly here and there like birds of 
 passage, now sailing over sunlit seas, beyond the chilling blasts of 
 winter, or assembling at resorts, which otherwise they could never 
 visit. Their offices, secretaries, stenographers and printers' bills 
 are even more expensive than their journeys over land and sea, and 
 the funds required for these expenses are drawn from the churches 
 to whom they assume to dictate plans and policies. 
 
 They carefully and frequently assert that their functions are 
 only "advisory" to the churches, and that they have no legislative 
 
The Union Movement 141 
 
 authority, but this assertion must be taken with many degrees of 
 allowance and considerable (jualification. These parasitic bodies 
 aspire to exercise a sort of overlordship over the churches, and they 
 realize this ambitious aspiration whenever and wherever they can. 
 
 With respect to some interests, a number of the churches have 
 become mere appanages of the organizations of overlords; the ter- 
 ritory in which they do missionary work, for example, is delimited 
 for them by the overlords, and the mission fields are marked off 
 with corn-row processes. A Methodist Board of Missions may not 
 operate in one area, while a Baptist Board may not labor in another, 
 and a Presbyterian Board may not plant churches in still another. 
 
 If, under providential constraint, a Methodist convert removes 
 to the region occupied by the Baptists, he must change his church 
 connection, or have none at all, and, in turn, if a Baptist, for any 
 cause, takes up residence in the area in which the Methodists 
 operate, he must change his faith or have no church membership 
 there. Can faith be other than feeble when it thus conforms to the 
 character of the chameleon? Hardly. 
 
 In the interest of the freedom of the faith, and the sincerity of 
 faith, it is time for the churches to throw off the yoke of these 
 overlords. Otherwise, our Christianity will become colorless and 
 characterless. 
 
 Strength of character, in both individuals and churches, is in 
 direct proportion to strength and definiteness of conviction. Merger, 
 in which men renounce their convictions, results in nothing better 
 than forceless fusions. Good men and great men cannot be made 
 by any such process. Power for the highest and best service is not 
 secured by throwing overboard principles. The zealous advocate 
 for truth and right, as he sees it, is the good man, and the sincere 
 man; and God wants such men for the work of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven; He cannot use men who believe nothing, or who care little 
 for what they believe. 
 
 If the process of agglomeration, under the pressure of the over- 
 lords of the churches, continues much longer, the outcome will be 
 an almost worthless amalgam in the home fields, and the reproduc- 
 tion of the same type in the foreign field. In the end, that may 
 mean a convictionless and compromise Christianity in what are 
 now heathen lands which future generations will have to reform at 
 great expense and with much difficulty. 
 
142 The Union Movement 
 
 For every purpose of a wise and brotherly cooperation the 
 churches of our country can deal with one another directly far bet- 
 ter than through the mediation of the parasitic organizations which 
 sap their freedom and suck their funds. Christian brotherhood and 
 comity can be had without submitting the churches to the control 
 of overlording bodies. No anti-denominational and self-constituted 
 league of peace is necessary to constrain the churches to mutual 
 love and respect. 
 
 No. III. 
 Voices from the Dead to the Living. 
 
 In this hour when strange voices are calling American 
 Baptists away from principles and policies in the strength 
 of which they have achieved their successes and conferred 
 their largest benefits upon the world, their leaders may well 
 heed voices which speak to them from the dead in the follow- 
 ing quotations. J. M. Frost, William E. Hatcher^ Edward 
 Bright, and George Dana Boardman will be considered as 
 worthy representatives of the faith of American Baptists, 
 North and South, during the past generation. The first 
 served his denomination for more than a score of years as the 
 Corresponding Secretary of the Sunday School Board of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention; the second, as pastor, writer 
 and popular denominational speaker; the third, as the hon- 
 ored and distinguished editor of the New York Examiner; 
 the fourth, the son of a missionary, as pastor of the First 
 Baptist Churchy Philadelphia, and an accomplished contribu- 
 tor to the literature of the denomination. Neither of these 
 great men was the leader of a faction, nor the spokesman of 
 any particular class or section. They were truly representa- 
 tive Baptists and unifying forces and constructive factors 
 in the life of their people. 
 
The Union Movement 143 
 
 Dr. J. M. Frost: 
 
 "You will never lose anything in all your perplexing problems 
 by staying close to our denominational policies." 
 
 Dr. Wiluam E. Hatcher: 
 
 "Let Baptists stand as those who do not doubt. They must not 
 be pushed off their ground by the rush of the crowd. Let them co- 
 operate to the limit of their ability, but let them not sacrifice the 
 truth in order to go with the multitude. If their contention is 
 true, it cannot be displeasing to their Lord, and if they must suffer 
 in order to be true, let them be true and rejoice that they are 
 counted worthy to suffer." 
 
 Dr. Edward Bright: 
 
 At the close of the first fifty years of the American Baptist For- 
 eign Mission Society, Dr. Edward Bright, the distinguished and 
 long-time editor of the Examiner, New York, offered the following 
 resolution to the Missionary Union, now the Missionary Society of 
 the Northern Baptist Convention: ''Resolved, That at the end of 
 this first fifty years of our American Baptist missionary operations, 
 this Missionary Union gives it as their deliberate opinion that Amer- 
 ican Baptists have no reason to be ashamed of their principles, 
 their ministry, their membership, or their work, and that in view 
 of the fruits of the past and the promise of the future, they have 
 every reason to stand by their principles with new firmness and 
 new hope." 
 
 George Dana Boardman: 
 
 "Unity cannot be secured by compromise. This is the mistake 
 of those unfortunates who are afflicted with cardiac hypertrophy 
 or diseased enlargement of the heart. Compromise is often right 
 in matters of polity and method. Compromise is always wrong in 
 matters of principle or duty. Truth abhors compromise as light 
 abhors darkness. Truth advances her kingdom by affirmation, not 
 by evasion; by victory, not by surrender. The man who is willing 
 to surrender his own convictions for the sake of "unity" is a man 
 whose convictions for the sake of unity or anything else, are to 
 be distrusted. For he who begins by being false to himself will 
 end with being false to everybody else. Moreover, the unity which 
 is brought about by compromise is not unity at all; it is only a 
 weak, sentimental, flabby uniformity." 
 
xs) M® MS) lU® cnis) M® I 
 
 Books by Dr. Love 
 
 Baptist Position and Position for a Bap- 
 tist (Paper, 15c) $ .25 
 
 Spiritual Farming 50 
 
 The Unique Message and Universal Mis- 
 sion of Christianity 1.25 
 
 Gospel in Two Acts (Paper) .10 
 
 Mission of our Nation 1.00 
 
 Gospel for the Eye (Love and Gambrell) . . .30 
 
 (Cloth-bound, unless otherwise indicated.) 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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