A rich variety of expression and of practice is to be expected as the Life streams through disciples of every race and clime and condition… It does not press men into a rigid mould of thought or action; rather it would pour its own joy into every mould of humanity. We have sought unity through agreement in doctrines and institutions; and the track of church history, like some new road through the desert, is strewn with the parched skeletons of our failures.

William Charles Braithwaite, 1919