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GARDINER, ROBERT HALLOWELL III 207“Thomas Gallaudet,” American Annals of the Deaf 47 (Nov. 1902): 393–403; JohnH. Kent, “Rev. Thomas Gallaudet,” American Annals of the Deaf 67 (Sept. 1922):326–33; Otto Benjamin Berg, A Missionary Chronicle: Being a History of theMinistry to the Deaf in the Episcopal Church, 1850–1980 (Hollywood, Md., 1984);Otto Benjamin Berg and Henry L. Buzzard, Thomas Gallaudet: Apostle to the Deaf(New York, 1989).GARDINER, ROBERT HALLOWELL III (9 September 1855, Fort Tejon,Calif.–15 June 1924, Boston). Education: A.B., Harvard College, 1876; studiedat Harvard Law School, 1878–79. Career: French teacher, Roxbury Latin School,1877; lawyer, Boston, 1880–1924.Robert Gardiner, an active Episcopal layman and leading contributor to theearly stages of the ecumenical movement, was born in California in 1855. Hewas educated at Harvard University and became a successful Boston lawyer atthe end of the nineteenth century. Committed to the cause of social reform, heserved as a trustee of the Christian Social Union and of the Episcopal City Missionin Boston. He was also a delegate to numerous General Conventions, and at the1916 convention he espoused the idea of electing women as deputies. Followingthe World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, he was appointed by theEpiscopal Church to help in the planning of a world conference on faith andorder. Gardiner’s preparation for this event, which eventually took place in 1927in Lausanne, Switzerland, was thorough and effective. He assumed the burden ofcarrying out the negotiations and writing the letters necessary to pave the wayfor this remarkable international Christian gathering—an organizing effort towhich he gave the last 14 years of his life.Gardiner’s stress on Christian unity derived from his understanding of thechurch as the corporate body of Christ. He especially believed in the JohannineChrist who is one with the Father and with his followers (John 17:20–21). As hewrote in an article in The Churchman magazine, he looked forward to “the timewhen the Church, visibly the one Body, shall proclaim, with irresistible power,the Gospel of the Incarnation.” Gardiner’s thoughtful and well-informed approachto the Christian faith also led him to emphasize the church’s responsibilities inthe world. He urged Christians “to fight personally against the sin around us,especially the great sin of the unjust conditions of society.”Although Gardiner died in Boston in 1924, he was honored posthumously atthe Lausanne conference in 1927.BibliographyA. Papers at the headquarters of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland,and at General Theological Seminary in New York; “A Lawyer’s View of theFunction of the Church,” Publications of the Christian Social Union, no. 37 (15May 1897): 1–20; “The Church and the Federal Council,” TLC, 28 December 1912,290–93; “Creed, Life, and Unity,” Christian Union Quarterly 3 (April 1914): 111–