be created in which both may be included, in which executive as
well as advisory powers can be centred and which would represent
the Church as a whole.

Whatever the final adjustment may be, it must be such as to
conserve the freedom and initiative of the Associations. In an
enterprise as many-sided as that of the Christian Church, it is
never possible to move the whole body as fast as it ought to go.
There must always be pioneers who go before and map out the
course. To these must be accorded the freedom to experiment in
new fields. Such pioneers the Associations have been, and they
will be truest to themselves if they keep to this conception of their
task. Much that they were once doing alone is now being done as
well or better by the churches. Where this is true let them be glad
and count it the highest proof of their success. There are broad
fields still unoccupied in which the kind of service the Associations
can render was never more needed than to-day. In entering these
fields the Associations will find opportunity for an enlarging min-
istry. Only let it be clearly understood on both sides what these
fields are, and as they move forward may it be not as rivals but
as allies of the churches.

An indispensable condition of any satisfactory adjustment is
that the churches themselves should come together. With a
divided Church it is impossible for bodies as strong as the Associa-
tions to deal. Hence we are led inevitably to the third and last
branch of our practical inquiry; namely, what the churches in their
corporate capacity are doing to realize their union with one another.

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