again, are so dependent for usefulness upon the opinions of others, and yet none are so frequently, or rather continually, placed in situations where the opinions and prejudices of others are to be met, resisted, and overcome. Doubtless, the surest guide is from within, from prayer unto the Spirit of grace; and yet, when we see the frequent erroneous judgments into which youthful ministers are led by an honest but unwise zeal, we cannot but recognise the practical value of such a work as this might have been, from the pen of one who in his personal intercourse was so wise and persuasive, and at the same time in principle so uncompromising.

CHAPTER IV.

1805-Et. 20.

Controversy forced upon Mr. Hobart-Early History and Condition of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the ColoniesDesolation produced by the War of the Revolution-Difficulties which followed it-Dissensions-Steps for obtaining the Episcopate-Dr. Seabury-Scotch Bishops-Bishops White and Provoost-State of the Church when Mr. Hobart entered itJustification of his Course.

THESE labours gave a new reputation to the character of Mr. Hobart, both with the friends and opponents of the Church, and, it may be, first awakened his own mind to a true sense of its powers, since they involved him in a protracted discussion, on the subject of the Church, with some of the most learned and able of other communionsa controversy forced upon him from without, and one, therefore, which, in justice either to himself or the Church he advocated, he could not avoid.

But whatever may be thought of their result, the motive on his part, for the above publications, appears to have been the single sense of duty.

Rightly to appreciate Mr. Hobart's course in this matter, requires that the condition of the Episcopal Church at the time he wrote be clearly understood; and this can only be done, by giving to the reader a sketch of its previous story. The writer says story, for the history of the American Church is yet to be written, nor can it as yet be done in our country for want of the needful documents; that want, however, it is trusted, will soon be supplied in the enlargement of the library of the General Theological Seminary, where an alcove' appropriated to this subject is due to the character of our Church.

The Memoirs of the American Church, by Bishop

White, is indeed an invaluable work so far as personal recollections are concerned, for the period to which they relate; but its full history must be gathered from that of the Society in England beginning with its organization in 1698-from its multifarious correspondence-and from our own early annalists; while the contests in relation to an American episcopate, are still to be collected from a thousand nameless sources of local and individual history.

But passing this by, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Colonies, previous to the Revolution, consisted simply in members of the Church of England who had emigrated to this country, and, with their descendants, were gathered together in scattered and unconnected congregations, under clergymen ordained and sent out to them from the mother country. These bore, in general, the title of missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts;' receiving salaries from its funds varying from £40 to £100, and acknowledging canonical obedience to the Bishop of London for the time being, under whose jurisdiction they were placed by delegation from the Crown, so far at least as the government colonies were concerned. In the proprietary governments they were under the same control, but with more limitation, it being part, either expressed or implied, of their respective charters.

In Virginia and Maryland alone, the Church was by law established, and a competent provision of glebe land assigned for its support by the colonial assembly. In most, however, of the royal colonies, it enjoyed a species of government patronage, which gave it for a time a show of strength which in truth it did not possess and for which it afterward dearly paid.

Such, with slow improvement as to numbers and influence, continued to be the condition of the Church up to the period of the Revolutionary contest. At the north, in a few of the larger cities", congregations had by this

a Viz. Philadelphia, New-York, Newport, and Boston.

time arisen with means sufficient to support their own clergy; but beyond these towns all were missionaries, paid and supported either wholly or in part from abroad.

The evils of such a condition were obvious. At the south, legal establishment, and at the north, foreign funds, made the clergy independent of the laity, and the laity unconcerned about the Church. From the want of an episcopate there was no spiritual jurisdiction, either to confer orders, administer confirmation, or enforce discipline. The Church had, consequently, neither point of union nor power of increase; its ministers were chiefly foreigners, and therefore alien to the feelings of the people, while of such as went for orders it was estimated that more than one-fifth perished amid the perils of the journey.

To a Church thus constituted, (if Church it might be termed,) the consequences of the Revolution were for a time fatal. Identified by popular prejudice with the royal government, it fell in public opinion with it. In Virginia and Maryland, where the Church had been strongest, numbering, in the former alone, above one hundred clergymen, the popular fury was immediately directed against it as the stronghold of the royal party. The clergy were driven from their cures―the churches shut up or sold— and, in defiance of law, the glebe lands eventually declared forfeited. In the north, an equal fate awaited it—the support of the missionaries being withdrawn, they too were soon forced to follow-the churches closed, and their con gregations scattered. So utter, in short, was this dispersion, that for some years, (to give an individual illustration,) the present Bishop of Pennsylvania was the sole remnant of the clergy in the whole of that province. The war of the Revolution may therefore, in truth, be said to have desolated the Church, for out of that struggle it came forth with deserted temples, broken altars, and alienated property-deprived of its ablest clergy by death. or exile-destitute of the means of ordaining others, and labouring under the popular odium of attachment to mo

narchical principles and a foreign government, and that government the very one from whose thraldom the country had just freed itself. Never, certainly, was any portion of the Christian Church in a state of greater depression, and what with internal weakness, and external hostility, there seemed to be but little chance of its ever rising out of it.

Such a state of things it is not easy now to realize, either as to the condition of the Church or the feelings entertained toward it; but take the language of one who well remembers it. I have lived in days,' says the venerable Bishop White, 'in which there existed such prejudices in our land against the name, and still more against the office of a bishop, that it was doubtful whether any person in that character would be tolerated in the community b'

To add to these accumulated sorrows, the few churches that remained had no tie of brotherhood among themselves; the external bond being removed, they fell apart like a rope of sand-there was neither union, nor government, nor strength-each stood in its own state of helpless independency, fast tending, to use the expressive language of Burke, toward 'the dust and powder of individuality.'

In this state of destitution, to crown all other evils, the anarchy of heresy began to creep in among them. One of the most influential churches in Boston, and the oldest in the northern States, tracing back to the time of Charles II., openly professed Unitarianism, and new modelled its liturgy accordingly. Churchmen in South Carolina were for adopting a nominal episcopacy-the legislature in Maryland entertained the plan of themselves appointing ordainers and Socinian principles were avowed by some among the members of the Church, and suspected among many. Amid these concurring and overwhelming reasons for despair, there was but one, under the providence of

Dedication to Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church.