Excerpt from The Future of Presbyterianism in the United States

All American churches are in the stream of that tendency which is rushing on towards the unity of Christ's Church. The hedges which separate the denominations are traditional theories and practices; but they are no longer realities to thinking and working men and women. The liberals of every denomination of Christians are more in accord with one another than they are with the conservatives in their own denominations. The problem in the near future is this: Can the liberals remain in comfort in their several denominations and so become the bridges of Church Unity or will they be forced to unite in a comprehensive frame of Church Unity outside the existing denominations; or will they rally around the more liberal communions There seems to be little doubt that the liberals at the present time are quite comfortable as Episcopalians and as Congregationalists, and not altogether uncomfortable as Baptists and as Methodists, and that there is no other denomination in which they are so uncomfortable as in the Presbyterian Church. It is possible that they may, after a year or more of battle for liberty, be compelled to retire from the existing Presbyterian Church and abandon it to a traditional, unscholarly and fossilized majority and then organize a liberal Presbyterian Church as has been done twice before in this country. But this is not probable at the present time. The liberals will still continue to make themselves as comfortable as possible during the brief period of theological war, until a final struggle may determine their destiny. They will go on in theological investigation they will continue the study of the higher criticism of Holy Scripture; they will seek more light upon the dark problems of the future of the earth and man they will continue to seek God through the Church and the Reason as well as through the Bible they will remain the great constitutional party they will be patient, brave, painstaking and heroic, until the Presbyterian Church becomes as broad, catholic and progressive as her Congregational and Episcopal sisters and then Church Unity will be nigh, at the doors, and a happy end of controversy will be seen in a united Protestantism, which will be then encouraged to seek a higher and grander unity, in which the Roman and Greek communions will likewise share.

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