The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-05-27
THE REUNION
OF CHR|STENDOM
An Original Aggressive
Sermon by the Rev.
DR.. Bolton.
HOW TO ACCOMPLISH 1T
Anglican, Roman and Orthodox
Fed by Catholic Chris.
tianity.
THE PRIVACY OF ST. PETER.
Rome's Faults, Past and Present.
The Universal Gospel of
Christ.
THE PRIVACY OF ST. PETER.

The midday discourse, delivered on Sun
day at the Episcopal Church of st. Mary
the Virgin by the pastor. Rev. w. w. Boil
ton, is calculated to excite discussion. 1t
was entitled "The Reunion of Christen-
DOM The tenor of it may be CLEANED
from the following excerpts:
at may be truly said," began the pas
tor, that among the Millions who this
day in every part of the globe are keeping
the feast of the Holy Ghost, the third per-
son of the ever blessed trinity-there Is
one subject strictly akin to the feast itself
that in every earnest mind forces its way
to the front and calls aloud for attention.
This is the reunion of Catholic Christen-
dom. For this is the birthday of the
church. This Is the day when God the
Holy Ghost came personally to dwell
among men, invisible to the eve, but
know full well to the soul. This is the
day that saw the various members Christ
the son of the eternal God had formed
drawn together and made into compact
whole, through the one spirit that
breathed himself into them. He made of
many one and intended it so TO remain,
but man, in bis own willful way, has
broken up the entity and to-day we find
ourselves in divided Christendom.
ut is grief to US. Surely men cannot
better spend the hours of the feast than in
an endeayor to try to find some way in
which the divisions may be healed and
Gods creation may yet again stand before
him whole and perfect thing. 1t will
not come by compromise. 1t VIII come
neither by absorption of the less, numeri-
cally considered, by the greater. nor by
individual conversions, so called, but time
will do 1t. Let US, however, be careful to
remember when we speak of the longed
for oneness OF the church, that there is a
sense in which, though divided, we yet are
one.
Catholic Christendom is most init
mately united. 1t is one vast compact
body, that feeds Anglican, Roman and
| Orthodox alike. We have wrecked the
perfect outward handiwork of God, the
Holy Ghost, and we can give ourselves no
rest until we repair the heinous and out
rageous wrong thus done our God. We
have punished innocent men in the wreck,
for we have been fighting when we should
have been sending the good news of the
Catholic faith far and wide to every nook
and corner of the earth. We have also
lost untold blessings for ourselves, for
discipline is slack and the world has
| grasped many position and firmly holds
it that it never would have been able to
take had the church always been one.
What mean we by the reunion of
we ul6du HOtulHS S1OIL OI
! the constitutional union which existed be-
fore the breakup of Western Christendom
in the sixteenth century, together with
union on similar lines with the Orthodox
churches that broke away from the center
OF unity long centuries before our own
crash came. There must needs be center
about which all the scattered forces may
gather, and that center was none other
and is to-day none other than
the See of Rome. Men are now 100
much in earnest to repair the breaches OF
Gods earthly Zion to bubble any longer
over what is fact. Men say that to al
low this is to give away the whole position
of the Anglican church. They say so be-
cause they are but surface thinkers. The
church is a sort of pyramid, but it is
something Anglicans cannot agree to that
the pyramid should be turned upside
down and the attempt should be made to
balance it on its top. The papacy is not
the basis of all the rest, but the finishing
stone. Yet because some do pervert 1t,
that is no reason why we should refuse to
acknowledge the fact that for Christendom
to become one again there must be some
central rallying point, and that this point
is the Apostolic See of Rome.
"Men have come TO ignore the rights OF
the See of Rome to any thing at all in the
way of special authority. Wemay readily
allow that st. Peter was, by the express
wish of Christ, something more than the
rest of the apostolic college, but such is a
verv long way off from allowing that be
was to the rest of the apostles the source
lof all that they were. The confusion oil
the two things is simply the result Of
prejudice. But, do not imagine that the
whole matter would be settled if to-day
Orthodox and Anglican formerly assented
to the primacy of authority residing In
the See of Rome. We should have begun
to see little daylight-that is. all. The
process of true unity must needs be very
slow. Councils could not do 1t; DEGREES
could not at once bring it about. Cen
turies ago men might have been whipped
into line, and few leaders have pro
nounced that all agreed, but NOWADAYS
such is clearly impossible. 1t will take
time, and all we have to do is to help il
forward Just so far as we can, leaving the
day of its accomplishment wholly out o.
mind.
s'To Rome's door must be laid in CHIEF
the wrong of disrupting Christendom. Ir
the good providence of God the papacy
grew to be the great center of Christian
unity, but when it proved false to its tru'
place and laid claim to more than 1t really
was men for conscience's sake had Il
break away. AS an organization we d.
, believe in the papacy--as doctrine WI
cannot We believe that the hope of re
union centers in Rome, but cannot Sc
how it can be brought about till Rome b
other than it now is. When the happ,
time has come we shall be as one vast ant
, united army, fighting sin and the unbri
dleu license of the world. Heresy Will fee
our power, schism be a suppliant at on
feet and the light of the glorious gospel G
Christ shall shine forth to the ends of tn
habitable EARTH