Still we cannot afford to disregard the hindrance to the
progress of the Christian Faith and Christian Life among men created by
the existing divisions among Christians. Harm is caused by them in
another way of which we may be, perhaps, less conscious. They bring loss
to ourselves individually within the denominations to which we severally
belong. We should gain incalculably from the strengthening of our faith
through a wider fellowship with those who share it, the greater volume
of evidence for the reality of spiritual things which would thus be
brought before us; and from the enrichment of our spiritual knowledge
and life through closer acquaintance with a variety of types of
Christian character and experience; and not least from that moral
training which is to be obtained through common action, in proportion to
the effort that has to be made in order to understand the point of view
of others, and the suppression of mere egoism that is involved.
These are strong reasons for aiming at Christian unity. But further
there comes to all of us at this time a powerful incentive to reflection
on the subject, and to such endeavours to further it as we can make, in
the signs of a movement towards it, the greater prominence which the
subject has assumed in the thought of Christians, the evidence of more
fervent aspirations after it, the clearer recognition of the injury
caused by divisions.
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