Writers belonging to various Christian denominations have recently had much to say about the Laity and their privileges and responsibilities within the Church. It is plain that the Church is unthinkable apart from membership, and this membership consists largely of laymen. We are, however, painfully conscious that for the majority connexion with the Church is vague, and it seems natural to speculate whether deeper sympathy might not be roused if membership more clearly carried with it a real share in a life of obvious activity. The Calvinistic Reformers made serious efforts in this direction, with reference both to Worship and to Government, and corresponding strategy is everywhere needed today, for nothing will occupy a prominent place in a man's heart that does not make an appreciable demand upon his attention and supply him with agreeable outlets for his energy. Experience teaches the observant minister that he must offer church-people something definite to do, something that will bring out their capabilities and promote the exercise of their gifts, stir their pride and stimulate loyal sentiments and render fellowship interesting and action rewarding. Being busy about a church is not being religious; but religion will have a better chance with the ordinary person as the Church forces itself to a higher place on the list of his priorities. Both rights and obligations ought to be underlined.

‘Ipse enim dixit, solum unum necessarium, nempe verbum Idei in quo vivit homo’ (Luke 10.42). One thing alone is essential, namely, the Word of God by which man lives. These words could be put as a motto to Luther's entire theology. For the Roman Catholic the sacrifice of the Mass is supreme and absolutely essential for salvation. In Luther the Word occupies this place, and he rejects the sacrifice of the Mass. It is not the Eucharist but the Word which stands in the centre of his theology; the Word has been given for man's salvation, and every-thing is subordinate to it.

We confess Holy Baptism as the act of grace of our Lord and Saviour fesus Christ, by which, on the command and promise of His Word, we are sealed in a second birth to eternal life as sons and heirs of His eternal Kingdom and members of His holy Church, in order that by the Holy Spirit, in His Word and faith, we may be daily baptised into His death and raised with Him.

I do not think that I am doing an injustice to anyone in writing that the book that Balthasar has devoted to Karl Barth constitutes the largest, most unprejudiced and most intelligent attempt that has hitherto been made to set forth clearly the thought of the master of Basel, by identifying his deep-lying connexions with modern Protestant theology, and by setting forth with precision his opposition in regard to Catholicism. One should not lose sight of the fact that Father Balthasar writes as a Roman Catholic theologian. One can easily imagine that a Roman Catholic is sensitive, more than we Protestants, to a determinate intellectual atmosphere, a certain family likeness, which is beyond doubt common to all modern Protestant theologians and which distinguishes the lot of them from the tradition of scholastic ontological thought; and it is a situation that we may enjoy when, although in the realm of Protestantism Barthians and Liberals have for a quarter of a century been exchanging fierce blows in a duel which each imagines to be to the death, a sensitive and cultured theologian can come from the other side with a smile of kindly irony and say: ‘And yet at root you are all very much alike: you are all moderns.’ Balthasar is one of a small group of Roman theologians who have taken upon themselves as their life's mission the study of the theological positions of Protestantism, in order to put the discussion between Catholicism and Protestantism on a serious footing.

‘Wherefore the apostles, following the rule, doctrine, and commandment of our Saviour Christ, their master, ordained in his kingdom and congregation two officers: one called, after the Greek word, bishop, in English an overseer: which same was called priest after the Greek, elder in English, because of his age, discretion, and sadness… Another officer they chose, and called him deacon after the Greek, a minister in English, to minister the alms of the people unto the poor and needy.’ This is rather a different doctrine of the apostolic succession from that which we normally associate nowadays with Anglican teaching. Its exponent was of course condemned by the traditionalist hierarchy of his day and finally came to a heretic's death. But a generation later the doctrine of Tyndale had become the commonly accepted teaching of the leaders of his Church, and it could be held without any sense of disloyalty to the newly reformed articles and liturgy.