support for the incumbents of their respective parishes. The chief evil recognized by the Convention was want of proper authority competent to administer discipline to the clergy. A standing committee, composed of clergy and laity, was instructed to consider the proper steps to obtain the consecration of a bishop, and to provide means for his support. Until the meeting of the next Convention rules were adopted for the order, government, and discipline of the church. The country was divided into districts, and a clergyman of each district was appointed as visitor to effect such discipline as was possible. Pluralities and acts of restraint were strictly prohibited; the use of the surplice and gown, preaching once at least on every Lord's day, catechising children, administering the eucharist at stated periods, and visiting the sick, were positively enjoined. It was resolved also that, for the present, the liturgy of the Church of England should be used, with such alterations only as had been rendered necessary by the American Revolution. The attention of the Convention was also called to a communication sent to it from the governor of Virginia, which had been communicated to the governor by our minister (John Adams) at the court of St. James, concerning the willingness of the church in Denmark to administer episcopal ordination to the American candidates for orders. The church declined to take any steps founded on this communication. The prevalent feeling was that the consecration of American bishops and the obtaining of holy orders for presbyters were not to be sought out of England until all prospect of obtaining them there should seem hopeless.

Steps had already been taken by clergymen of the States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, assembled by appointment in New Brunswick, N. J., May 13, 1784, for the general organization of the church in the United States.

DEPUTIES APPOINTED.

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At a meeting held on the 6th of the succeeding October, in New York, the Rev. Dr. Griffith attended as a delegate from Virginia. This purely voluntary assemblage proposed certain principles of ecclesiastical union, to be submitted to the churches of the several States. The Virginia Convention, after expressing a willingness to unite in the changed ecclesiastical constitution with the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the other States of America, accepted with some criticism the articles proposed as the basis of union. They elected deputies to the proposed Convention in Philadelphia, and gave them general instructions as to the course they were to follow. These deputies were the Rev. Dr. Griffith, the Rev. Mr. McCroskey, with John Page and William Lee, Esquires, laymen. Their instructions urged the deputies to liberality and moderation in procuring uniformity in doctrine and worship, advocated simplicity of creed, and desired only the retention of the Apostles' Creed. They deprecated any but the most cautious changes in the liturgy, and desired that utility might be the test of such ceremonies as might be retained. After instructing the deputies to communicate to the General Convention the proposition concerning Danish ordination, a standing committee was appointed, to which was confided the power of calling a Convention.

The impulse given to the church under this new organization seems to have roused still further the animosity of its opponents. The Presbyterians and Baptists now circulated memorials to the legislature, asking not merely for a repeal of the law incorporating the church, but also that the property of the church might be disposed of for the benefit of the public. At the next Convention of the church, in May, 1786, a petition to the legislature was prepared, to counteract the effect of the hostile memorials of the Baptists and Presbyterians; but it was of no avail. In

January, 1787, the act for incorporating the Episcopal Church was repealed. In May, 1787, the third Convention of the church assembled, but not, as before, under an act of incorporation. It was held that the effect of the repeal of that act returned the powers of the government and discipline of the church to the members at large. The members of the church in the several parishes had, therefore, been invited to elect two deputies from each parish, with full powers to form and establish such regulations for government, discipline, and worship as they might deem best; and to provide means for the care and proper use of such property as remained to the church. The diminished number of those who thus came together showed that the church had become disheartened by the persevering hostility of its opponents, and that many looked upon a further contest as hopeless. Its enemies had not as yet succeeded in procuring a distribution of its property. They left it in the condition in which it stood at the close of the Revolution, with this change, however: that, having now assumed an organized form, it could better distinguish between its friends and its foes.

Previous to this time the Convention of the church which was held in Richmond May 24, 1786, had received the report of the representatives to the General Convention, and a journal of the proceedings of that body was also presented. The proposed constitution of the church met with a ready adoption. Objections were raised to the Proposed Book and its obligatory use, but the Prayerbook finally adopted was received, and the Virginia church came into union with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. As the General Convention had recommended the election of a suitable person to be presented to the English prelates for consecration as Bishop of Virginia, such an election was held; and the Rev. Dr. Grif

DR. GRIFFITH ELECTED BISHOP.

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fith was chosen by a large majority. He was never consecrated, because, by reason of his own poverty and that of his church, means were not forthcoming to pay the expenses of a journey to England. He was a man of high character, and would have nobly filled the position to which he was thus called.

Two deputies were appointed to attend the next General Convention. The Rev. Dr. Griffith. was one of them. Until episcopal supervision could be had, the State was divided by this Convention into twenty-four districts, and a visitor was appointed for each of them. The powers of the standing committee were defined, and during the recess of Conventions it was to take care generally of the interests of the church.

On the 20th of June, 1786, the delegates from Virginia, Dr. Griffith and the Hon. Cyrus Griffin, appeared in Philadelphia in the General Convention; and Dr. Griffith was made its president. With this act we may fitly terminate the history of the church of Virginia as an independent organization.

CHAPTER III.

THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN MARYLAND.

THE fortunes of the Church of England in Maryland were not unlike those which befell the church in Virginia. The social characteristics of the two colonies were similar. The soil and climate were alike. Tobacco was the chief agricultural product of both, and its culture influenced to a marked degree the social habits of the community, while its fluctuations in value constituted the chief influence on their fortunes. In consequence of this absorbing interest in one product of the soil, commerce was depressed, and plantations took the place of towns, causing the population to be scattered, and strongly influencing the manners of the people and their modes of life. As in Virginia, slavery flourished, and convicts were imported for laborers, who, on the termination of their sentences, were apt to become an idle and dangerous element in the community. There was a distinct aristocratic class, though the distinction between planters and small farmers was not so marked as in the neighboring colony. There were more varieties of religious association, however. This, in the beginning, arose in great measure from the proprietary rule, which was a marked distinction of the colony.

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who in 1623 had acquired a palatinate in the southeastern part of Newfoundland, finding that climate too severe for a colony, embarked