This has been the ideal of the Anglican communion, and it believes that it can only be obtained by the union of the wide experience of the past guiding and inspiring the individual experience of the present. To hold the balance even is no more easy here than in other departments of life. And it may well be that in the Anglican communion the individual soul has been sometimes overlooked in the endeavor to reproduce a sense of the corporate communion. It, then, is not true, as is sometimes supposed, that the Episcopal Church is indifferent to the devotion of the soul to Christ, but, rather, that its emphasis has been laid upon the larger communion.

If this be true, then it will be seen that the Episcopal Church does not think of the church as the rival of Christ, but rather as a potent-though by no means exclusivemeans of full communion with him.

Until that is recognized there can, I think, be no real understanding of the reason for its insistence upon the perpetuation of its doctrine, discipline, and worship. To the consideration of these we will now turn, not in the conventional order in which they have been just named, but in the order which may make clearer what it is in each that we value.

The decision of our fathers to follow the Church of England so far as possible in a republic freed from all interference by the state met with a serious difficulty in perpetuating the ministry of the English Church. Before 1787 there had been no bishops in America, and every minister of the Church of England in the colonies had been obliged to seek ordination in England. How great the difficulties were the records of travel in those days reveal. Besides the "peril by water," the expense was almost prohibitive. As a result many of the clergy had come out from England, with all the prejudices which one would expect from men trained in the great universities and now thrown into a land, as it seemed to them, but half civilized. The piety

of the mother church at that time was at a low ebb, and some of the men who came out to minister in the new land were those who could obtain no benefice at home.* The wonder is not that there should have been unworthy ministers, but that the English Church should have survived at all. What appeal could such men make to the youth of this land? And how could they compete with the ministers of other churches who had been trained in the native colleges and were filled with an enthusiasm for the new republic and had a profound faith in the people whom they knew and loved? Moreover, not only were the ministers of the English Church at a disadvantage, but the laity were without the full administration of the rites of their church. No children could be confirmed, with the result that many were never admitted to the communion, and those who were admitted were often lacking in that serious preparation which would fit them to undertake the responsibilities of their membership.

How great must have been the temptation to follow the example of Wesley and appoint overseers who would guide the flock in the wilderness! How practical must it have seemed to the "man in the street" to accept the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin that he and John Adams should consecrate Dr. Seabury! How strong must have been the repugnance to seek favors from a church which had so shamefully neglected its children who were scattered abroad! The reference, in the Preface to the PrayerBook, to the "long continuance of the nursing care and protection" of the Church of England must seem to be either an example of biting irony or else an imitation of the fulsome and insincere flattery of the Preface to the King James version of the Bible. But Bishop White, while not without a sense of humor, was not the man to

* Those who do not care to read more serious histories may turn to Thackeray's "The Virginians" for a picture of the English Church in the colonies immediately before the Revolution.

indulge in such subtlety as irony, and was too honest to flatter any man. The truth is, the "nursing care" had not been altogether lacking, but it had been provided, not by the bishop of London, to whose diocese the colonial churches were officially assigned, but by the missionary spirit of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. "Queen Anne's Bounty" and some communion services given by one of the Georges had a certain material value, but the spiritual gifts were the offerings of a voluntary society, without which the English Church in this land would have perished.

"Why, then," it may be asked, "were our fathers so solicitous to perpetuate the ministry of the Church of England when they might have followed the example of those who set up a new form of civil government?" No doubt the first reason was that they desired to perpetuate the ministry with which those who were already members of the church were familiar, and also, as has been already pointed out, they were desirous of continuing in the new land the church which had been a unifying force in the old. Of course those who hold to the exclusive theory of the episcopate will see in this an indication of the overruling Providence which insured the one true ministry to this nation! But we are dealing not with theories but with the facts of history. So far as we can discover, Bishop White and his fellow laborers held no such exclusive view of the ministry.* In the Preface to the Prayer-Book they simply claim for themselves the same liberty as was enjoyed by "the different religious denominations of Christians in these States. . . to model and organize their respective churches and forms of worship and discipline in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future prosperity."

* That Bishop White seriously contemplated an abandonment of the Episcopacy is well known. See "The Holy Communion in Great Britain and America," J. Brett Langstaff.

Our fathers then determined to perpetuate the ministry of the English Church because they deemed it "convenient" so to do. Unquestionably, there were men in the English Church at that time who believed that no ministry save the Episcopal was in accordance with God's will, just as there were probably to be found as late as the nineteenth century men who held to the nonjurors' belief in the divine right of kings. But they were the exceptions. Tillotson, Bishop Butler, and Paley were the representatives of the prevailing opinion in the English Church in the eighteenth century, and they would have repudiated such a theory. They also believed in episcopacy because it was "convenient" or expedient.

So much for the reasons which led our fathers to insist upon a ministry which was apparently opposed to the democratic spirit of their day. They were subconsciously influenced by the tradition of the English Church, as the framers of the federal Constitution were influenced by the tradition of the political life of the English people.

To this tradition we must now turn if we would know why to many thoughtful Christians the Episcopal ministry seems to have a value for this day and country. In this I shall not argue nor shall I quote authorities. The opinions expressed are the result of many years of study, and those who are interested will find the authorities open to them as to every student of the history of the church.

CHAPTER X

THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY

In the Epistle to the Ephesians St. Paul says: "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things; and he gave some to be apostles and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." It will be noted that in this description of the ministry as it existed in his day the apostle says that it was one of the "gifts" which followed the ascension of Christ. What we understand by this somewhat unfamiliar language is not that the ministry was settled in a permanent form by Jesus when he walked with his disciples on the earth, but was the result of the influence of the spirit of Christ, which led to the establishment of a ministry which was found suitable for the upbuilding of the church and making men good. These men were not "officials." They were what they were because each had some particular "gift" or aptitude for the particular work to which he felt himself called. One man showed that he had the "apostolic" gift. When the word "apostle" is used today we are apt to think of one of the Twelve whom Jesus appointed, whom he called apostles or ambassadors. They were to go forth and bear witness to the fact that the king had come, and that all who would be saved must obey the law of the kingdom of God; just as William the Conqueror sent his ambassadors to the Saxon thanes, bidding all to come and "lay their hands in his" and work loyally with him for the building up of a true kingdom of England. After the death of Judas, we read that the Eleven came together to choose one to take the place of the traitor.