Chapter XIII: Part II: Modern History (2)

Each of these several dioceses consists of various parishes, united under one bishop, and yielding obedience to the same local law. The organic principle of the diocese is a written constitution; and its organic life is manifested in a diocesan convention, in which the supreme legislative and judicial authority of the diocese resides.

Each of the several parishes which compose a diocese consists of a greater or less number of lay-people, united under one pastor and occupying certain fixed and well-known territorial limits. Its organic principle is usually a written constitution; and its organic life is manifested through a body of vestrymen, to whom the management of its parochial affairs is entrusted.

With the exception that the church possesses no chief executive, corresponding to the President of the United States, her organic system is almost identical with the political order of the government under which she lives.

The general convention of the church is composed of two houses, a house of bishops and a house of clerical and lay deputies. The house of bishops consists of all the bishops of the various dioceses, as members _ex officio_. The house of deputies consists of four delegates--two clerical and two lay--from each diocese, appointed in diocesan convention. A concurrence of both orders in the lower house, and of both houses, is necessary to a vote of the convention. [Footnote 50]

[Footnote 50: See Constitution, appendix to
_Journal_ of 1865, arts. 2 and 3.]

The convention of each diocese is composed of the clergy, canonically resident within its limits, and of a certain number of lay-deputies, appointed by the various congregations of which the diocese consists.

The vestrymen of each parish are elected annually by the people.

In each of these three bodies the lay element possesses the virtual supremacy. In general convention, no law can be enacted, no lax discipline can be reformed, no erroneous doctrine can be corrected, without the express acquiescence of the lay-deputies. In the diocesan convention, no bishop can be elected, no delegates to the general convention can be appointed, and no local diocesan regulations can be established, until the laity agree. In the parish, no pastor can be called, no church-building be erected, no regular order be determined, while the people withhold their permission. And though, upon the face of it, this power may seem to be entirely negative, yet it is not so; for, in the right to choose their pastors and convention-delegates, the real control of the diocesan conventions, and, through these, of their bishops and the general convention, is placed ultimately in their hands, and, whenever they might choose to organize for such a purpose, a single generation would suffice to overturn the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the church itself.

In this respect, also, the Episcopal Church has practically conformed herself to the model which our national institutions set before her. If she believes that, in religious as well as secular affairs, "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," her system and belief are certainly consistent, but it can hardly be pretended that either of them is divine. {158} Nor will it be denied that all the objections to which the temporal is open on the score of instability and weakness are doubly pertinent to the ecclesiastical, so long as those whom Christ intended that his church should govern on the contrary really govern her.

But however unstable and insecure in all her fundamental and organic principles the Episcopal Church has thus been rendered by the inherent nature of her system, she certainly is far from flexible in her methods of external operation. Here all the strength of her conservatism concentrates itself. The Prayer-Book is "the apple of her eye." It cost her less to blot out a creed in which the faith of ages was embodied, and rob her clergy of the power of absolution, than it would now to change a single syllable of her "incomparable liturgy." Yet nothing is more widely understood, even in her own borders, than that this very liturgy is the greatest barrier which stands between her and the masses of the people; and that her inflexible, unvarying use of it on all occasions is the great patent cause of her acknowledged failures.

The entire _Memorial_ movement proceeded upon the assumption that this inflexibility exists, and that to it must be attributed the uselessness of efforts which, under different methods, should have accomplished great results. The _Memorialists_ did not hesitate to say that, with "her fixed and invariable modes of public worship," her "canonical means and appliances," "her traditional customs and usages," she was "inadequate to do the work of the Lord," and that, in their view, it was necessary to define and act upon a system "broader and more comprehensive" than that which then existed, and "providing for as much freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as is compatible with the essential faith and order of the gospel." [Footnote 51] The commission boldly acknowledged that "we have to labor in places where very much of our work is outside of that contemplated in the plans of our offices," [Footnote 52] and that "our methods of dealing with men should be more direct and manifold." [Footnote 53] They admitted the "necessity of that diversity in our modes of operation which has not been heretofore sufficiently appreciated," [Footnote 54] and that "we have refused or neglected to use many gifts which Christ has bestowed on his church." [Footnote 55] Different bishops declared that her ministers "must often preach the gospel where the attempt to perform the entire service would be incongruous, unsuccessful, and injurious;" [Footnote 56] that at such times the clergy were "like David in Saul's armor," [Footnote 57] and objects of compassion in the eyes of others. The late Bishop Polk, with characteristic frankness, stated:

[Footnote 51: _Memorial Papers_, p. 30.]

[Footnote 52: _Ibid_. p. 50.]

[Footnote 53: _Ibid_. p. 53.]

[Footnote 54: _Ibid_. p. 52.]

[Footnote 55: _Ibid_. p. 58.]

[Footnote 56: _Ibid_. p. 126.]

[Footnote 57: _Ibid_. p. 160.]

"I am satisfied our liturgical services as now used are to a
certain extent impediments in our way. ... There are
circumstances in which all the services help us. ... There are
other circumstances in which the use of all the service is a
manifest and felt hinderance. ... We are not as powerful a
church as we might be if we had more liberty. Of this I am
fully persuaded." [Footnote 58]

[Footnote 58: _Ibid_. pp. 160, 161.]

The missionary bishop of Oregon and Washington, out of his large experience, concludes:

"There are undoubtedly great advantages resulting to the church
from a general uniformity of worship; but if that uniformity be
so minute and fixed as to refuse adaptation to the actual
condition and wants of Christian men, or to restrain in any
degree the preaching of the gospel to every creature, then it
becomes a yoke of bondage and a damage to Christ's kingdom."
[Footnote 59]

[Footnote 59: _Memorial Papers_, p. 213.]

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The Rev. Dr. Howe remarks:

"I do not believe, sir, that the difficulty lies in the
organization of the church, ... but in the unvarying and (in
the esteem of many) invariable use of our forms and other
usages of worship. ... The church may be entirely Catholic in
her doctrine and polity, yet she can never be
_practically_ so while she requires all men to worship
everywhere in precisely the same forms." [Footnote 60]

[Footnote 60: _Ibid_. p. 256.]

The Rev. Dr. Trapier asserts that

"in the country-places, among the rural population, it has
proved to be an almost hopeless task to introduce our services,
that is, in their integrity." [Footnote 61]

[Footnote 61: _Ibid_. p. 316.]

And so great an advocate of formal worship as the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton is reputed to have been exclaims:

"You cannot fulfil the Lord's will while the canons of our
church are left in their stiffness." [Footnote 62]

[Footnote 62: _Ibid_. p. 330.]

We have already seen how much effect the movement, of which these well-considered statements form a part, finally produced upon the external system of the church, and it is only too well known that at this day the declarations of the _Memorialists_ are as applicable as they were twelve years ago. The evangelical leaders, hopeless of legitimated liberty, have grown more and more restless under the unyielding yoke, and here and there some bolder spirit has burst away from the intolerable servitude, and asserted his right and duty to do "the Lord's work" unhampered by her human institutions. Ever and anon some anxious writer ventures to repeat the declarations and the prayers of the _Memorial_. But those who dare to look for any change are few in number, and the high hopes of former days, that the iron bars were soon to be unloosed and the eager wings of Christian zeal unbound, are already well-nigh buried in despair.

That, in reference to either of these two essential characteristics, any improvement will take place we see no reason to believe. It would be contradictory to all experience if the Episcopal laity should voluntarily relinquish their share in the government and administration of the church which they uphold, or that, by any exercise of spiritual power, the clergy could compel them to its resignation. It seems to us almost equally impossible that the inflexibility of operation which prevents her success can ever be materially diminished. Her liturgy is her _centrum unitatis_, her teacher, her authoritative law. It is the golden band which binds her members to one another; which unites bishop to bishop, diocese to diocese, priest to priest; which links her with the centuries of the past, and reaches onward to the future; which keeps her heterogeneous elements in contact with one another, as the electric coil binds into one repellent particles of steel. In it her denominational existence is bound up, and with material changes in it she herself is fated to dissolve and die.

It cannot be. No day will ever come when Protestant Episcopalianism can convert this people. No day will ever come when, if converted, she could govern them. Honored for her learning, her decorum, and her wealth, she may endure to witness many generations pass away. Great names will be in her and great men will be of her. She will do her work in the world, whatever that may be; but her continuance will be that of a sect, and a sect only, until the day of her absorption comes.

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III. The "Church of the Future" is a church of uniform and consistent faith.

It seems almost superfluous for us to argue in support of this proposition. That divine truth is one, that what God teaches is unchangeable and every way harmonious with itself, are axioms which even the unlearned can see to be infallible. And that the thoughtful, earnest, practical people who must by and by cover this great continent will ever acknowledge as God's representative and their spiritual teacher a church whose faith is variable and undefined, whose theologians are at issue concerning fundamental points of doctrine, and whose public preaching is in perpetual self-contradiction and uncertainty, is utterly impossible. The "Church of the Future" is a "Church of Truth," a church of divine origin and of divine authority, over whom is one Lord, and in whom is one spirit; a church whose voice is ever clear and certain, whose unity with herself is evidence of her unity with God, and who, in gathering the nations to her footstool, maketh them all "to be of one mind in the house," through "the faith once delivered to the saints."

Will the Episcopal Church justify this description? Has she that "pure and uncorrupted faith," that "word of the gospel," which is "always, and everywhere, and by all" invariably taught and held?

Everybody knows better. She herself denies it. Years ago one of her bishops described her as a church in which parties were "arrayed in bitter hostility to each other;" in which there was "so much difference of opinion upon important points of doctrine that the bishops and other ministers could not be brought to agree;" in which "one part denies all claim to an evangelical, that is, a gospel, character, to all who do not agree with them in every particular," while "the other party denies to the former any just right to the name of churchman." [Footnote 63]

[Footnote 63: _Memorial Papers_, p. 187.]

Years ago a venerable presbyter declared that the prime source of all her difficulties was that "_the house_" was "_divided against itself_" and that so long as men were "ordained to her ministry, clothed with her authority, and seated in her high places, who cannot conscientiously teach her Catechism for children, and whose work of love it is to revile her doctrines, her institutions, and her faithful people, her enemies" [Footnote 64] would rejoice, and the world repudiate her claims.

[Footnote 64: _Ibid_. p. 236.]

The church in the United States has not yet brought forth a Colenso, neither has a Pusey yet arisen in her midst; but the diversity between these leaders of the Anglican communion is hardly greater than obtains between the congregations on this side of the Atlantic. The rector of old Trinity with his confessional, the rector of St. George's with his prayer-meeting, are exponents of parties, the gulf of whose separation cleaves downward to the bottom of the great plan of man's salvation. "Father" Morrill at St. Alban's, and the younger Tyng beneath the missionary tent in the public square, represent creeds and principles as different as any that divide the world. Under the shelter of a liturgy which each interprets according to his personal views, they dwell together, and through its rigid formularies preserve external uniformity. But everywhere outside of it their unity is wanting. Pulpit is arrayed against pulpit, seminary against seminary, society against society. Her bishops are catalogued as "high" and "low," and looked to as the leaders of her hostile factions. Her general convention seeks safety in inaction. Her ecclesiastical existence hangs upon the thread of compromise.

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How long this state of things can continue we venture not to prophesy. Whether the Episcopal Church is destined to disintegrate like other sects around her, or whether she will overcome the dangerous schismatic miasm which infests her members and be once more the home of peace and unity, are questions which we have no need to answer. But that this state of things was ever possible proves that her uniformity, wherever it exists, is merely _accidental_, and never can confer upon her teachings that authority which a clear-sighted and sensible people will demand as a condition of their faith.

There are still other characteristics which the "Church of the Future" will possess, but the limits of this article forbid us to examine them. The three to which we have directed our attention are those which were most easily discernible, and concerning which material for research and comparison lay most readily at hand. They have answered our question as definitely as if the whole ground had been gone over, and have told us that, so far as human calculations can extend, the Protestant Episcopal Church will never be the "Church of the Future" in our country.

In attempting to demonstrate this proposition we have been actuated by no feeling of hostility toward the Episcopal Church. Too many sacred memories, too many years of deep and fond affection, have made her priests and people dear forever to our hearts. We believe that, in the inscrutable providence of God, she has a work to do; a work which, stained with heresy and rent with schism as she is, none else can do so well. Standing between the Catholic Church and the remoter darknesses of Rationalism and Infidelity, she catches the light of its eternal truth more fully, and breathes a far diviner atmosphere than they. She drinks in the solemn beauty of its apostolic order. She feels the power of its infallible authority. She wonders at its vast and perfect unity. She strives to reproduce these marks of the true church upon her own exterior, and calls her neighbors to examine and admire.

Thus she becomes the school-mistress to lead them to the truth. How many, who by birth, by prejudice, by old associations, appeared to be for ever aliens to the Catholic fold, have yielded first to the modified Protestantism of the Episcopal Church, and through her have been led straight home to the real mother of their souls! The names of Newman and Spencer, Faber, Ives, and Baker, teach us how much Catholics may owe to her who, even since her fall, has nursed the spiritual infancy of many saints of God. And we, who from her breast drew our first reverence for Holy Church, and, guided by her hand, at last beheld the beacon-light which led us to the Rock of Peter and the Home of Peace, can never cease to love her, or to pray that her great work may spread until the people of this nation, entranced by her reflected beauty, may turn their eyes to whence her light proceeds, and hasten onward to the Catholic Church, in which the sun of truth for ever shines.

Let, then, the general convention of 1868, so soon to gather in this great metropolis, awake to the emergency and quit themselves like men. The task imposed upon them is worthy of their toil, and, though the church for which they legislate reap not the harvest, they shall have their reward. {162} The influence of their grand and solemn worship, of their fixed, conservative ideas, is necessary to keep down this restless age, and make it look with calmness on the questions of the day. Let that worship be established and those ideas extended in every town and hamlet to which the Catholic Church has not preceded them. Let her bishops and her clergy imbue the people with veneration for apostolic order and with a spirit of submission to apostolic power. Let her maintain the truths which she preserves, and with them build foundations in the national heart for the erection of the divine temple of the Christian faith. Let her do this and so fulfil the work which lies before her, doubting not lest the Lord forget her labor, but hoping that the way of grace she paves for others it may be finally her lot to tread.

And when the "Church of the Future" counts the trophies of her victory, and reviews the means by which it was accomplished, the work of Protestant Episcopalianism shall not be forgotten, and the workmen who performed it shall receive the meed of praise which is their due.

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From The French Of Erckmann And Chatrian.

The Invasion; Or, Yegof The Fool.