All Christian love has its source and exemplar in the love of God. ‘Beloved,’ wrote St. John, ‘if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’, or again, ‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’ St. Paul was equally clear; it is God's love which ‘has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’, and it is the love of Christ (which is, of course, the love of God revealed in Christ) that constrains us to live no longer for ourselves—the usual way in which our human love is evidenced. Dietrich Bonhoeffer echoed this from his German prison, ‘No one knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God… It is only the concrete action and suffering of Jesus Christ which will make it possible to understand what love is.’ So we must begin with the love of God; and yet our understanding of God's love comes to us through the experience of human love. It was with a picture of an earthly father, surrounded by the human things of home and field, calves and kids, robes and rings, sons and servants, that Jesus made His most vivid portrait of the love of God; and it was not only in dying on Calvary, but also in living in human fellowship with Peter and John, Martha and Mary that Jesus Himself exhibited the Father's love to men.

Reflection on Divine Service from the ecumenical point of view has brought us to the realisation that the question of reform of the Order of Service is not a matter of what is effective, or beautiful or reverend within that Service. These traditional standards originating from psychology, aesthetics and history may be considered as outdated. It is rather a question of what is right and fitting as to the details pertaining to the Service. The standard for the ritual ordering of Church Service is the testimony in the Holy Scriptures to the truth of Christ and to His reality. Hence we shall examine, firstly, the essence of the Service as we find it in the Scriptures, and above all in the New Testament. Then, secondly, we shall inquire into the nature of music as we encounter it in the performance of its own special function. And finally, in a third section, we shall clarify the task which faces music in its performance in the Services of the Church. By these means we shall attempt to define the contents of the Lutheran liturgy, and the responsibilities which present themselves to the choir, the organ and the ensemble of brass instruments.

The subject of relations between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches exercises a peculiarly urgent claim upon the attention of contemporary students of theology. Nevertheless many may be reluctant to allow that the task of dealing with it can profitably be undertaken by a historian–even if he be a church historian; and I suspect that some will read the words ‘a Retrospect’ with depression or alarm. Is this not a time for looking forward rather than back? Did we not read with approval the signatories' declaration in the Joint Report on Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches: ‘We have renounced, and believe that the Churches concerned should renounce, the method of selecting and measuring such faults and errors in the past history of the Churches now conferring as might be judged to be responsible for our present divisions. These matters have been investigated frequently, and complete agreement on them is not to be expected at this stage in history… The time has come when the voice of mutual recrimination should be silent'? And has Bishop How not reminded us that ‘Scotland needs a purged memory’?

It is very dangerous to make a single word or paragraph the central theme of a doctrine or dogma, even when due considerations are given to content and context; but in the case of lutron, in Mark 10.45, it becomes inevitable, for it expresses the essence of the mission of our Lord. ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life a Lutron on behalf of many.’