The Spirit of Malines The Conversations at Malines 1921-1925 (Les

Conversations de Matinee 1921-1925). (Humphrey Milford. 2s. 6d.) WHAT is the " One Catholic and Apostolic Church ? " Two

apparently contradictory, though really complementary, answers to this question have long been current. One, the mystical, stresses the Church Invisible—the " blessed company of all faithful people." The other, the institutional, stresses that Church Visible which claims historic continuity with the primitive fellowship. Where held together, these two con- ceptions give us that rich doctrine of the Body and Soul of the Church, which—though certainly orthodox—is too often ignored. The sense of the Church Invisible, a vast spiritual organism transcending historical and denominational divisions, and of which the " living " and the 't dead " form part, has always been paramount in the East. But in the West it has been obscured by increasing emphasis on that juridical conception of the Church Visible, as conterminous with those under Roman obedience, which has just received vigorous restatement in the Encyclical of January 10th. Yet this necessary institutional nucleus derives its real authority from

the fact that it is the temporal incarnation of that " grande reality invisible, qui remplit le temps et l'eternite, et constitue le principe vital de l'Eglise "*—a reality, spirit, and life which

is always one, however wide the external divisions between its

members may seem to be. And since every validly baptized person belongs by declaration to the Body as well as the Soul of the Church, and can only be expelled from it by deliberate unbelief or mortal sin—excommunication alone being powerless

to effect thist —a certain profound union of Christendom already exists. It is probable that the most spiritual minds of all Communions will come more and more to find their common centre in this truth ; and that visible reunion, when achieved, will be the flower of a seed sown long before in the invisible fields of the Spirit, and cherished in secret by a few. Perhaps it is from this point of view that we shall best appraise, without undue exultation or discouragement, the work that has been done by the Conversations of Malines. The official report, though incomplete and marked by a certain reticence, at least allows us to estimate their temper ; and note how far this was in advance of the average denominational nind. The constitution of the Conference is well known ; on the Roman Catholic side the , saintly Cardinal Mercier,

Monsignor (now Cardinal) Van Roey, and the late Abbe Portal ; on the Anglican side, Lord Halifax, Dr. Frere (now.

Bishop of Truro), and the Dean of Wells. At a later stage Bishop Gore and Dr. Kidd were added to the English group at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury ; and Monsignor Battifol and the Abbe Hemmer to the Roman. The pub- lished report maintains a studied reserve as to the part played by individuals in the discussions ; and, in accordance with Cardinal Mercier's desire, deals only with points of agreement.

But it gives a list of the memoranda prepared and discussed at each Conversation, with their respective authors from which we can learn the significant fact that the Conversations quickly passed from the sphere of general doctrinal agreements based on the Creeds, to a discussion of Papal claims ; and that this subject, on which the differences of opinion were most acute, thereafter remained in the foreground.

The serious divisions within_our own Communion as revealed by the Prayer Book vote, with the recent Papal repudiation of the spirit which informed the Conversations—and even of some of the views which the Roman Catholic speakers ex- pressed—seem at first sight to place these discussions at a great distance from the actualities of our current religious life." Their tone was in the best sense pan-Christian ; which official institutionalism, whether Catholic Or Protestant, is certainly not. Hence the warning which Cardinal Mercier addressed to his own people four yeara ago, and repeated in his

*Dom Andre de Lilienfeld, Pour • 1' Union, p. 6. ( collection, Tome II., No. 10.) Those who desire a deeper under- stendinof all that underlies the Malines Report are advised to study this valuable-monograph. " - - - - • Cf. Antoine Malvy, S.7., " Les dissidents de bonne foi font-its partie du Corps de l'Eglise 1" •(Recherches des Sciences Religicuses, Fey. 2, 199227).

beautiful letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, will doubtless be needed by all who were concerned in the Conversations or sympathize with their aim : " Success is slow to come, your trouble appears wasted. Be on your guard, nature and her eagerness mislead you ; an effort of charity is never lost."

In spite of the apparent impossibility of reconciling union by absorption with union by mutual consent—the ideal of the autocracy with that of the commonwealth—it may be that in these Conversations we are privileged to look upon the first faint beginnings of a movement destined at last to transform the Christian world. Those now living are unlikely to see this transformation. But there are many signs that enlightened spirits within all the Churches are longing for that union which transcends uniformity and is based not on identic means, but on common ends ; and once such desires inspire great person- alities, they may have mighty and unforeseen results. The establishment and work of the Moines d'Union, the growing rapprochement between the Anglican and Orthodox Churches, the Lambeth Appeal, the Lutheran " High Church " move-

ment, the swift success of such journals as Irdnikon and Una Sancta—all these things witness to the kindling of a new fire. That the flames are still tiny and flicker ought not to dis- courage us ; what really matters is that the fire should have been lit. De Sanctis has lately shown in his study of Con- version, that all great, mutations, whether spiritual or biological,

pass through a period of more or less violent oscillation between the extremes of the old and the new before the fresh equili- brium is established ; and it is for this trying yet necessary stage in the life-history of Christendom that we should now be prepared. Here even the most tentative swing-forward has far greater significance than the inevitable swing-hack. As the Dean of Wells observed at the close of the first Malines Conversation, the fact that such meetings—the first of the kind since the Reformation—could take place, was in itself a cause of deepest satisfaction. Still more satisfaction may legiti- mately be felt at the shedding of prejudices, and improvement of sympathy,. to which the Report bears witness. This was strikingly shown in some of the utterances of the Roman Catholic members ; two of whom agreed that the Roman Church stood to gain much, both as regards spiritual values and administration, from reunion with the English Church. Perhaps the most impressive single statement was that of a speaker at the fourth meeting, who said :

" It had long been present to his mind that our. efforts at rapprochement could not have as their end an absorption of the Anglican Church by the Latin Church ; Nit they imperiously require, in the name alike of Catholic principle and of the past history of the Anglican Church, the union of the latter with the Roman Church. The possibilities of the practical embodiment of these two leading ideas—viz., no absorption of the Anglican Church in the Ronien, and no separation from Rome—were desetvirig of

careful study." --

On the whole it does not seem excessive to say that those who met at Malines, whilst retaining' their own loyalties undiminished, met as members of one Invisible Church. In

Cardinal Mercier's words, their " association was chiefly spiritual." They met therefore as men who gave the primacy to supernatural values ; and who desired by the clearing up of historic misunderstandings to bring one stage nearer realiza- tion that visible Catholic unity envisaged in the Lambeth Appeal, which all recognized as essential to the full spiritual effectiveness of the ehristiaio Church.

It is open to us to believe that.this reach-forward towards a nobler future was premature, in view of the average lever of the institutional mind. It may eyed be found to evoke, within both the Comthunioni concerned, a violent and apparently injurious reaction. Yet ,those religious, movements which have had the greatest transforming results,• have usually

begun with a little company who have striven for the apparently impossible under the protective inspiration of a saint. Thus,

whatever the immediate future may bring forth, all those who took part in the Conversations, and those who• shared their hopes and desires, may take„ to to themselyes the words of Cardinal Wiseman : ” If. I have hoped too much, .if I haye been too charitable, I am quite willing-to take the risk ofbeing laughed at for my- simplicity ; not only in heaven, but also