No one can doubt the essential unity of the Christian Movement, Dut at the same time we cannot close our eyes to the fact that one of the greatest practical weaknesses in our efforts to attain our common ideals has been our disunity. Last year Bishop Root,' his report to the National Christian Conference of China, speaking of this weakness, said: The most apparent weakness of the Christian Movement as a whole is its disunity... differences of nationality and of ecclesiastical connexion divide the missions. Personal differences often divide members of the same Mission from one another."" He summed up by saying: The time has fully come to face without flinching and as far as possible without pride or prejudice, the facts of the situation, and io consider what steps can be taken immediately, looking toward such further cooperation and reconciliation as will minimize the manifold weaknesses due to our disunity.'
If this is true of China, where so many union organizations are already well, established, surely at this time, when the great earthquake and the fire have swept away many of our barriers to unity and federation, it becomes our responsibility to seriously study the present situation with a view to wiping out the weakness caused by our lack of practical cooperation and. unity:
The great war taught us the value of union effort and the weakness of division. But our vested interests have made union movements very difficult in Japan. The various Japanese churches, struggling for self-support, have made Church union almost impossible, and have in this way retarded the more dominant interests of the kingdom of God; now, however, as a natural result of this great catastrophe, much of our property in Tokyo and Yokohama has been either entirely destroyed or greatly damaged. Before attemptitig to reconstruct our work, it is, imperative that a thorough ly of the whole situation showd bs made; xand that reconstruction should be undertaken with a complete understanding among the various organizations concerned as to what really is in the interests of the whole work of Christ in japan.
The Executive of the Federation of Christian Missions felt that it was not practical to call a special meeting of the Federation at this time; after considerable discussion they decided to call together as many as possible of the Christian workers from Yokohama and Tokyo to initiate a movement looking toward 'a general investigation of ihe whole situation as it affects: Christian work, especially in these two cities; but incidentally as it affects the work of the kingdom of God throughout the whole empire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.