CHURCH UNION OF I925

Protestant church union in Canada was discussed as early as I887. in September of I902, when both the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and the General Conference of the Methodist Church each met by coincidence in Winnipeg for their annual meetings, delegates from the Presbyterian Church brought greeting to the Methodist Conference and suggested, "had the time not come for a great national church in Canada." The Methodist Conference approved a project for organic union. Negotiations were opened between the Presbyterians and the Canadian Congregationalists in 1893 but were going nowhere. Following the I902 address, the dream ofa Canadian church seized the imaginations and challenged the Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists. in a matter of months, the three churches appointed ajoint committee representing effective leadership of the three churches.

One of the members of the Presbyterian delegation was Rev. Alexander Falconer, now a college principal, and former minister of Queen Square Church, Charlottetown.

Five sub-committees were appointed to seek common ground of agreement on doctrine, policy, the ministry, administration and law. Some were strongly opposed to union, but at the close the Conference was unanimous in the decision that the only course open was to go forward, slowly and carefully and only as fast and as far as the membership of the different churches would approve.

At the instigation of the General Assembly in I906, Baptists and Anglicans were invited tojoin in negotiations. At the Baptist convention of I907 they announced organic church union was not "an essential condition ofChristian unity." They believed it was the Divine Will that Baptists should "maintain a separate existence." The approach to the Anglicans did not even produce a meeting. The dream of a comprehensive Canadian Protestant church was reduced to its original narrower base of a three-church union.

The main reason for union was the potential effectiveness of the three similar churches joined into one, while the reasons against included the differences of the three communions, the belief that righteousness, not size, was the best measure of religious influence, and that Christ's prayer that all might be one could be fairly met by 'spiritual unity'. The common grounds of agreement were met without unusual incident and the final report embodying the Basis of Union was received by the General Assembly in I909. The Basis of Union report was sent down to presbyteries, sessions and congregations "in order that they may be fully informed as to the whole question, and be prepared to deal with it when it comes before them for disposal." After a debate limited to one hour, the Assembly of l9l0 voted in favor of union and then sent the resolution down to the presbyteries.

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