Letter from Archbishop Benson, Addington Park, Croydon, to the Rev. Charles H. Brooks, 1888 November 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

Replying to Rev. Brooks' letter to him on "...the great practical difficulties which surround you when you try to put into practice the general principles which the Lambeth Conference laid down with regard to the attitude of the Western towards the Eastern Churches...No such general principles can be expected to be applicable in every individual case. But inspite of such occasional exceptions I hold the principles to be of such great importance that I would venture to suggest to you a few considerations why we should endeavour, even at the cost of individual hardship, to maintain them. On the very threshold of this question of our attitude towards the Greeks we ask ourselves (1) what is our aim, our ideal, for them individually, and (2) what is our hope for the future of their church;" setting forth his views in answer to the two questions and discussing reform and reunion; concluding "But if this is to be our determined & persistent aim it must, I fear, involve hardship in individual cases. For every time we encourage a Greek to leave his own church, and every time we receive one into our own, we increase the suspicion and irritation of their priests, and provoke that persecuting & intolerant spirit of which you give such sad examples. If, on the other hand, in such a case, the English Missionary, being well known to set his face against proselytism, were to approach the priest or the Bishop, and disarming suspicion & hostility by his obviously disinterested motives, were to act as a mediator & peace maker he might at once be an effective worker in the direction both of Reform and of Reunion."