Are we Disciples, who started out a century ago to plead for Christian unity, losing our zeal for this holy cause, or are we losing confidence in ourselves as fit instruments of our Lord for promoting it? I think it would be a good move for the president of our international convention to appoint at once a committee to study and report on the question: What changes in the way of addition or subtraction are demanded among the Disciples to make their plea more efficient, either in its substance or in the manner of its presentation to the world?
The religious world today is very different from what it was a century ago. Science has given us a different conception of nature and of the universe. Biblical criticism has changed for most of us our view of the Bible, making it not a less but a more valuable book for the student of religion. This increase of light is evident in every department of knowledge. Is it possible that all these changes do not require any readjustment in the matter and method of a plea for unity inaugurated more than a century ago?
This suggestion bore fruit, a few years later, in the appointment of a Commission on Restudy of the Disciples of Christ. Since 1935, this commission has carried on a study of the past and the present with a view to finding what readjustments may profitably be made for the future. This is only one of many groups which are concerned that the Disciples shall not simply be "a great people," as they sometimes proudly and truly claim that they are, but shall go forward to the fulfillment of their highest purposes. There is yet much light to break from God's Word and from the teachings of their own experience.
A "Acceptance with God," 23 Acheson, Thomas, 69 Adams, John, 19, 29 Africans brought to England, 24 Ahorey, 60 Ainslie, Peter, 150 Alabama, "Christian" churches in, 98 Allen, T., M., 101 Altars, Abraham, 66 Amend, William, 85 America in 19th century: characteristics of, 28-31; churches in, 31-36 American and Foreign Bible Society, 109 American Christian Bible Society, 108 American Christian Education Society, 143 American Christian Missionary Society, 111, 112, 122-23, 124, 126, 143; founded, 110; ceases to function, 123 _American Christian Review_, 113, 122, 124 Ames, E. S., 138 Anabaptists, 18 Anglican Church, separation of Methodists from, 42f. Anti-Burgher Presbyterians, 60 Antislavery societies, 36 _Apology for renouncing the Jurisdiction of the Synod of Kentucky, An_, 54 _Apostolic Times_, 124 Arkansas College, 115 Armenians, missions to, 128 Asbury, Francis, 41-43 _passim_ "Associate membership," 138 Associated Free Agencies, 146 Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity, 150 Augsburg Confession, 19 Aulard, A., 19