students, with special distinctness on any particular topics, would undoubtedly accomplish their object. This course we are informed was taken; but nothing appears to have been elicited either to prove or to disprove the suspicions which had been excited. Drs. S. and A. were not satisfied with the manner in which the resolutions moved by them had been disposed of. Still less were they satisfied the next day, when a third resolution, requesting that the sermons which the members of the senior class had handed to the professor for inspection, might be laid before the committee-shared the fate of its predecessors, and was laid to sleep with them, like anti-slavery memorials on the tables of Congress. By this time, all parties, and particularly Drs. S. and A., seem to have felt that matters were verging towards a crisis. "The two Doctors," as the Churchman calls them, were plainly in a minority; the ruling influences were against them. Mr. Carey, having passed through all the canonical formalities, had presented his regular testimonials to the bishop, notwithstanding the refusal which he had met from his own immediate pastor. The Bish op, either because he desired a farther investigation for the satisfaction of his own conscience, or because he felt that some deference was due to the gentlemen in opposition, determined to hold a special examination of Mr. Carey, with the aid of a council of his presbyters. Friday evening, June 30th, the council was assembled. There were in attendance on the Bishop, as his counselors, Drs. Smith, Anthon, Berrian, M'Vickar, and Sea bury, and the Rev. Messrs. Haight, Higbee, and Price. Into the details of that examination, we do not propose to enter. "The two Doctors" began with stating, in words which they had written down beforehand, that they had resolved to propose to the examined, certain written questions, and to request that the answers to the same might also be in writing. Instantly, the suspicion seems to have filled the minds of the council, that written questions and written answers were designed to be the materials of an appeal to the public; and this mode of examination was strenuously opposed. The decision of the Bishop was, that the written questions might be proposed; and that though the candidate should not be required to answer in writing, the questioners might write down his answers, and read their record to the candidate in order to ensure its correctness. Thus conducted, the examination seems to have been attended with considerable excitement among the the presbyters, on both sides, with frequent interruptions, especially by Dr. Seabury, and with some confusion. It seems to have been the object of Drs. Smith and Anthon, to draw from the candidate either an explicit avowal, or a recantation, of the opinions which he had expressed in conversation, and which had been recorded in the "document" which we have transferred to our columns. In this they were not unsuccessful. The difference between the record of the young man's answers as written down by Drs. Smith and Anthon, and the representation of his answers and explanations as given by Drs. Seabury and M'Vickar, and Messrs. Haight and Higbee, does not seem to us to be very material. The examination having been completed in such fashion as was practicable under the conditions which have been described, the presbyters of the council were severally called on for their opinions as to the fitness of the candidate. Drs. Smith and Anthon objected to his ordination, and intimated the probability of their making written communications on the subject to the Bishop; the others unanimously, and some of them strenuously, advised that the candidate be ordained. The Bishop declined pronouncing a decision at that time; and after some words of mutual explanation and concession among the presbyters, and some unsuccessful efforts to obtain from the two who were dissatisfied, a pledge not to publish their notes of the examination, the company separated; the "two Doctors" having agreed with the Bishop, that if they had any communication to make, it should be made in writing by one o'clock the next day. Accordingly, on the next day, Saturday, July 1st, each of those gentlemen addressed a communication to the Bishop, protesting against the ordination of Mr. Carey, and desiring to be informed of the Bishop's decision as early as might be, or at all events, early enough to enable them, "if needful"-in Dr. Smith's language-" to take the last and most painful step pointed out by the church." Sunday morning came, the morning of the day on which the candidates from the Theological Seminary were to be ordained at St. Stephen's church; but no reply had come from the Bishop to tell the protesters whether Mr. Carey was to be ordained with the rest. At an early hour, therefore, notes were addressed to the Bishop, asking once more for information on that point. The reply was in the same words to each:-"It pains me to be obliged to say that the attitude of threatening which you thought proper to assume at the close of your letter of yesterday, precludes the propriety of my replying to it. Yours very truly." A written disclaimer of the construction which the Bishop had put upon their suggestion of a reason for asking information, was hastily dispatched from each of the protesters; and then, as the hour of public worship was already drawing near, they proceeded together to St. Stephen's, for the purpose of obtaining an interview with the Bishop and renewing the disavowal in person. Thus, at the last moment, they obtained the information that Mr. Carey was to be ordained. In the Sunday school room, where the information so earnestly and humbly sought had been at last vouchsafed to them, they took leave of the Bishop. Thence they went into the church, habited in their official robes, and seated themselves among the people. Morning prayer was read in the usual form, the protesting Doctors uttering the responses duly with the responding people, as set down in the book. The sermon was pronounced; and to that they gave a becoming attention. Next came, according to the arrangements of the day, the ordination service. That we may see precisely what was said and done, let us open the Prayer-book at “the form and manner of making deacons." The Bishop is "sitting in his chair near to the holy table." The candidates, "each of them being decently habited," are presented to him by a priest, "saying these words," from the book, "Reverend Father in God, I present unto you these persons present, to be ad mitted deacons." Up to this point in the proceed ings, every thing was regular and rubrical. But immediately after these last words had been uttered by the Bishop, there was a response, of which nothing appears in the Prayer-book. Drs. Smith and Anthon arose "in one of the pews in the middle aisle," and read each a separate "protest" from a written paper. Dr. Smith's protest was in these words, (True Issue, p. 35.) "Upon this solemn call of the church, made by you, reverend father in God, as one of its chief pastors, I, Hugh Smith, Doctor in Divinity, a presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of New York, and rector of St. Peter's church, come forth, in the name of God, to declare, before Him and this congregation, my solemn conviction and belief, that there is a most serious and weighty impediment to the ordination of Mr. Arthur Carey, who has now been presented to you to be admitted a deacon, founded upon his holding sentiments not conformable to the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal church in these United States of America, and in too close con formity with those of the church of Rome, as more fully set forth in a protest from me, placed in your hands yesterday. Now, therefore, under a sacred sense of duty to the church, and to its Divine head, who purchased it with his blood, I do again, before God and this congregation, thus solemnly and publicly protest against his ordination to the diaconate. Dated this 2d day of July, 1843. HUGH SMITH." Dr. Anthon's paper, though not in precisely the same form, was to the same effect, beginning, "Reverend Father in God, I, Henry Anthon, Doctor in Divinity, a presbyter," &c. The ordinary course of proceedings on such occasions having been thus interrupted-not unexpectedly, we may presume-the Bishop rose in his place and replied as follows, "The accusation now brought against one of the persons presented to be ordered deacons, has recently been fully investigated by me, with the knowledge and in the presence of his accusers, and with the advantage of the valuable aid and counsel of six of the worthiest, wisest, and most learned of the presbyters of this diocese, including the three who are assisting in the present solemnities. The result was, that there was no just ground for rejecting the candidate's application for holy orders. There is consequently no reason for any change in the solemn service of the day, and therefore all these persons, being found meet to be ordered, are commended to the prayers of the congregation."-Full and True Statement, PP. 5, 6. Immediately upon the utterance of the last word, Bishop Ives of North Carolina, who was assisting the diocesan of New York in the solemnities of that day, commenced the reading of the litany; and at the same moment the protesting presbyters "took their hats," as we are informed by a writer" whose opinion," the Churchman says, "is entitled to the highest consideration"-and then, as we are told by Dr. Seabury himself, "turned their backs on the altar, [O tempora !] and the bishops, [O mores!] and walked out of the church." Yet it was done "respectfully," according to their account of the matter, and under the conviction, that the just effect and force of their protest would be impaired by their remaining in the house, and that their "withdrawing would be a protest in acts not less than in words." It happened most unpropitiously for the loved repose and reserve of the Episcopal church, that just at the time of these occurrences, the editors of the newspapers in the city of New York, were looking about them with more than ordinary solicitude for some new thing. No election, national, state or municipal, was near enough to be a subject of daily and engrossing interest. No debates in Congress, with occasional interludes of fisticuffs and challenges among members from the more chivalrous regions, filled the boldness, skill, and manfulness the public capacity of excitement. with which they have conducted No new paroxysm of commercial their defense. The Churchman of distress, no murder uncommonly the week following the ordination mysterious or horrible, no astound- contained a communication signed ing series of forgeries, no great N. E. O., (Novi-Eboracensis Oncriminal trial with endless disquisi- derdonk?) which as it speaks with tions on insanity, was aiding the authority, and is certified by the eddaily sale of newspapers. The itor to have proceeded "from a Bunker Hill celebration had just source entitled to the highest rehad its day; and Mr. Dickens' new spect," may be properly regarded as work had proved so flat a thing that the Bishop's own statement. In the no body was inquiring what would be same sheet, the editor, Dr. Seabury, in the next number. Consequently, gave his account of the protest at such an occurrence as the ordina- St. Stephen's, which he entitled, a tion of Mr. Carey with the protest "Disturbance of public worship." of two eminent clergymen against In both these articles the protesters him, on the ground of his being in are severely handled; though the effect a Roman Catholic, became editor having as yet much less perthe town's talk, and filled the news- sonal feeling than N. E. O., tries to papers, not only in the city of New treat them respectfully. Nothing York, but every where else. Nor was said respecting the merits of the did the arrivals from Europe just charge against Mr. Carey; but the about those days help to divert the attention of readers was adroitly public attention from these matters. directed towards another question, The astounding progress of O'Con- namely, whether Drs. Smith and nell's movement for giving to Po- Anthon had a right to interrupt the pery its natural ascendency in Ire- ordination service, at the call of the land-the admired secession of one Bishop, with their protests. half of the established church in Scotland-the universal agitation in England about Tractarianism, together with the University censure of Dr. Pusey, himself, at Oxfordgave to an ecclesiastico-religious question of this kind a new and surprising power of interesting the whole people. Thus the Bishop and his advising and consenting presbyters were suddenly put upon their defense. A matter adjudicated and disposed of by the authorities of the diocese, had somehow got itself appealed as it were to a general council; and unless the Bishop and his counselors should appear and plead, their cause would go by default. Disapproba tion of what they had done was beginning to be uttered semper, ubique, ab omnibus; and unless they could do something to turn the tide of opinion, they were likely to be overwhelmed. We give them credit for It was now time for the protesters to be heard. to be heard. They immediately published a note in the daily papers, saying that though they had intended to be silent, "the attacks made on them in the Churchman, left them no alternative between a silence which might be misinterpreted and a full disclosure,"—and that, therefore, "they would lay before the public in a few days a full statement of the case." Their "full statement" was accordingly published, entitled, "The True Issue for the True Churchman." As for the publications which followed in the Churchman, both editorial and from correspondents far and near, we have no room to trace their succession. Suffice it to say here, that as collected in the "Full and True Statement," they make a bulky, but by no means stupid pamphlet. Out of these two pamphlets, together with Mr. Haight's "Letter to a Pa rishioner," we have collected with some labor the foregoing narrative, which we are sure is impartial, and which we think is fair. We now propose to express in the briefest manner possible, some inquiries and impressions of our own, touching the subject matter of this history. This we do in the hope of subserving in our humble way the great interests of "evangelical truth and apostolic order." The first impression which this controversy makes upon our minds, is, that it is a sudden manifestation of divisions which have heretofore been studiously veiled from the public eye. Such controversies as this so serious, so impassioned, so involved in great principles-however suddenly they may break out, do not break out among those who up to that moment are entirely agreed. Undoubtedly, Drs. Smith and Anthon are both Churchmen-high Churchmen, if they please to be called by that name. Undoubtedly they both believe in baptismal regeneration, and in the exclusive validity of Episcopal ordination, and of ordinances administered by Episcopalian clergymen. We dare say they have had little sympathy with the thoroughly evangelical partysmall enough this side of Philadel phia-of which the late Dr. Bedell, may be taken as a representative. At the same time, nothing can be plainer to the reader of these pamphlets, than that for some time past Drs. Smith and Anthon have been anticipating the arrival of a crisis in the affairs of the communion with which they are connected. They talk about" the Church as she was,' and "a growing indifference to those great principles, for which, at the era of the Reformation, martyrs died." They ask, “shall a stand at last be made, and will Churchmen finally rally in defense of their own principles and standards?" They say, "a great issue has been joined through circumstances apparently at Vol. I. 75 once casual and trivial." This is not the language of men who have been surprised into a controversy with those whom they have all along regarded as of the same opinion in all things with themselves. So, on the other hand, the manner of the writers in the Churchman towards these gentlemen, is very much like the venting of an ancient and long festering dislike. Dr. Seabury, in his first editorial was evidently restraining himself and laboring to be courteous. But as the controversy proceeds, he gradually forgets his reserve. He almost calls Dr. Smith a fool. He pronounces him "incompetent to apprehend, and much more to express the operations of a mind so vastly superior to his own as Mr. Carey's." He tells of "the weakness and vanity, and fidgeti ness, and gossiping propensities of Dr. Hugh Smith." To Dr. Anthon he imputes some personal prejudice, pronouncing him "the very last man whom Mr. C. would have chosen for his judge." The key to this enigma we find in the very last sentence of the pamphlet, where a correspondent of the Churchman tells us that Mr. C. "entered Columbia College in the Sophomore class, in which at the time, a young man of great talent and worth, the son of the Rev. Dr. Anthon, held the highest rank, and Mr. Carey carried off the palm at the conclusion of the course." We quote this, not to pronounce upon the meanness that uses such weapons in such a controversy, but only to say that the dislike which vents itself in this way is of no sudden or accidental growth. Much has been said within a few years past, to set forth the harmony and "repose" of the Episcopal church. Other great Christian communions have been agitated with questions and strifes. But "our church," it has been said, enjoys peace in all her borders; such is the efficacy of an episcopal government and a venerable liturgy. Here and |