when they should be taught and preached. He then added, very emphatically, "If GOD spares my life, I intend delivering a course of sermons on Episcopacy this winter." This course, he informed me, he had then in preparation.' *

As Bishop Hobart's views in this question were, and, perhaps, still are branded by many with want of Christian liberality, it is due to him to give his vindication in his own words.

Christian liberality' extends its charity, not to opinions but to men; judging candidly of their motives, their character, and conduct. Tenacious of what it deems truth, it earnestly endeavors, in the spirit of Christian kindness, to reclaim others from error. But there is a spurious liberality, whose tendency is to confound entirely the boundaries between truth and error. It acts under influence of the maxim, not the less pernicious, because it allures in the flowing harmony of numbers.

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,

He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.”

Christian unity is a fundamental principle of the Gospel, and schism a deadly sin. But Christian unity is to be obtained, not by a dishonorable concealment or abandonment of principle, where there is no real change of opinion; nor even by a union in doctrine, could such a union be sincerely effected, of religious sects who

* Page 185.

continue to differ in regard to the ministry of the Church. The Episcopalian declines with mildness and prudence, but with decision and firmness, all proffered compromises and associations, which do not recognise these orders of the ministry, and which may tend to weaken this attachment to the distinctive principles of his own Church. He respects the consciences of others. He guards their rights, but he will not sacrifice or endanger his own. He defends and enforces those true principles of Christian unity which characterize his Church. He does his duty, and leaves the rest to God, in the prayer and in the belief that the gracious Head of the Church will, in his own good time, overcome the errors, the prejudices, and the passions of men, to the advancement of Christian fellowship and peace; so that, at length, “the whole of his dispersed sheep shall be gathered into one fold, under one shepherd, JESUS CHRIST our Lord."'*

How far the evils predicted by Bishop Hobart, as likely to result from such union in general societies, have been in truth experienced by other denominations, it is for them to say; certain it is such impression has gone abroad, that they have not proved baseless. To take a few authorities as they incidentally

occur.

'We award,' says the leading paper of the Methodists, in 1835, 'to the Episcopalians the priority in the defence of church, or denominational religious societies,

* Berrian, pp. 173–175.

in opposition to the plan of national religious societies. We are informed that Bishop Hobart was the first to make a stand. Had other able men and excellent papers, upon the conviction of this being the better course, defended it with constancy, firmness, and discretion, the general Church of GOD in this country would have been in a much better state.'

The language of the Reformed Dutch Church is to a similar effect.

'The spirit-stirring Liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and a scrupulous adherence to it has, under God, notwithstanding the mutation of men and things, and all the aspersions cast upon her, as coldness, formality, and want of devotional feeling,—we say, a scrupulous adherence to her Liturgy, has preserved her integrity beyond any denomination of Christians since the Reformation. Even defection from the articles of her faith, by men within her own bosom, has been restrained in its course by the form of sound words, so that, whatever dissensions prevail within, all are still united in maintaining a common cause. The example, we hesitate not to say, is worthy of imitation. It might be so in our Church. And why not?'*

But the controversy is now past, and a wider experience of missionary labor has enabled the Christian world to judge of the expediency, or inexpediency, of uniting the distribution of the Prayer-book with the Bible-and what says it?

Banner of Church, vol. i. p. 131.

Let facts decide. At the very moment (and it is a notable coincidence) that Presbyterians in America were pressing Bishop Hobart with the triumphant question, ' Of what possible use is the Prayer-book in converting the Heathen?' at that very moment were Presbyterian missionaries in the east, engaged in translating into those foreign tongues that very book, as being the greatest aid they could have in converting the Heathen; and, what is more, making the translation of it to precede, in some instances, that of the Scriptures themselves, as an expedient introduction of them to the narrow and bewildered minds of the Heathen. Under date of September 4, 1817, the Rev. Dr. Morrison, the apostle,' as he has been well termed, of China, thus writes home, himself a Dissenter, to a board composed of Dissenters.

'I have translated the Morning and Evening Prayers just as they stand in the Book of Common Prayer, altering only those which relate to the rulers of the land. These I am printing, together with the Psalter divided for the thirty days of the month. I intend them as a help for social worship, and as affording excellent and suitable expressions for individual devotion. The Heathen at first requires helps for social devotion, and to me it appeared, that the richness of devotional phraseology, the elevated views of the Deity, and the explícit and full recognition of the work of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, were so many excellences, that a version

of them into Chinese, as they were, was better than for me to new-model them.'*

How striking the refutation! While 'an Episcopalian' was here penning the assertion, 'beyond the bounds of the Church no man wants a Prayer-book,' heathen converts in India were crying out for its introduction; and Christian zeal and learning making even those who rejected it themselves, busy in giving it to them. On this point Christian missionaries now concur-' to the Heathen, in his blindness,' the Bible (with reverence be it spoken) is a sealed book, 'unless some man guide him;' he must have the voice of the living instructer, or some other aid, to explain, to unfold, and teach it to him. In short, it is the Church,' that must carry forward the Gospel. This was the sum and substance of Bishop Hobart's argument, and it has been, by ten thousand facts, triumphantly established.

6

A recent letter from that devoted missionary,' as he may well be termed, Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, places this matter in a strong light: 'I am more and more convinced,' says he,' that the Episcopal Churches, with their paternal order, their Liturgies, their offices of religion, their meek and holy doctrine, their visibility

* Dr. Morrison's Letter.