Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

because, although he lived within twenty miles of them, in a huge City, requiring of itself all his cares, he had to travel off five hundred miles, to other huge Cities! How many hopeful enterprize have had no help, because all they could get from an overburthened man was merely kind words from a kindly heart, neither time, nor supervision, nor government, nor aid! We are spilling out at least half as much as we are pouring in. Only in the Cities are the fruits of our labor prevented from being lost. In the country parts, save when population is very dense, this territorial Bishoprick is wasting away the number of the baptized and confirmed and communicants.

We proceeded, farther than this, to manifest another advantage, of which a vestige does not exist among us at the present time; that is, the natural springing forth from the See Bishoprick of an arrangement like that of the old Provinces of the Primitive Church. We showed, that the State would necessarily represent these. In New York, for instance, there being ten or fifteen Bishopricks and Bishops, easily and naturally they would conclude to meet together upon Church affairs, which might concern peculiarly the Church in that State. Here at once would come into existence a State Council, corresponding to the old Provincial Council.

*

In these councils we see many benefits, the solution of many problems. An University in each State, a fully endowed, distinctly religious, amply supported University, with Students in abundance, because upheld by the energies of twelve or fifteen Bishops and Dioceses, guiding the wealth, the population, the Students of the whole State in that direction. Could not the wealth, the population, the benevolence of the Church in the State of New York effect this at this very present time, if the Church in that State had fifteen Bishops, or ten, or six, each settled in a City, all meeting together in council, and all trustees, with a certain pro rata number of their several Clergy

* Of course our readers will see at once we do not suppose such cases as that of Rhode Island and Delaware. These, as States, are exceptional. But the vast majority of the States would unquestionably bear in time such fruit, under the See Bishoprick, and be bettered by it.

and Laity, of one great Institution, belonging to the Church in the whole State? No doubt of it at all.

Again if the General Theological Seminary, instead of being on the basis it is, where the word 'General' means in effect that which no one in particular cares anything about; or if, instead of being or becoming the Seminary of a Diocese, as it is likely to be, which implies a machine too large, and affording a supply too large by far for the demands of one Diocese, it were made "the General Theological Seminary of the Church in the State of New York." The word 'General,' originally was intended to mean the Seminary to which all the students and candidates of the whole Church were to come. This interpretation is completely refuted and annulled by that old personage, Time, who 'opinionum commenta delet, naturæ judicia confirmat.' If its basis were made the State of NewYork and all the Dioceses therein, taking thus a different basis from the imagined and intended Universal Seminary, the proposed Diocesan Seminary-if it were 'General' as admitting on equal grounds to all its emoluments, candidates from all Dioceses in the Union in general, sending its Clergy graduates freely to all States in the Union, and lastly, teaching the doctrines of the Church in general-could not such a Seminary exist and grow upon the same basis as the University of the Church in the whole State? And if we added to this the Presidency of a Bishop whose See should be the length and breadth of the Seminary grounds, his Presbyters the Professors, his Deacons the Tutors, we should have our Theological Education on such a basis it has not hitherto been upon. This last matter, that the head of a Theological Seminary ought to be in Bishop's Orders, is no new thing, but one very old indeed in the Church. The General Theological Seminary of the Russian Empire at this day has a Bishop for its President.†

Take Training Schools, in the same way the same arguments will apply. In fact, the Episcopate in the City originates Church education in that City, and then the See Episcopate meeting in the Provincial or State Council creates, upholds, supports general Education, Universities, General Theological

* Bacon. Gregory Boulgakoff, Bishop of Vinnitza, (Titular.)

Seminaries, General Training Schools for the Church in the whole State.

But as this arrangement has not got into existence yet, perhaps we may be looked upon as dreamers; but, nevertheless, let us only examine the nature of things, and we shall plainly see that all this can be. Look at Primitive Antiquity, it will show the same. Then look at our Colleges, Seminaries, Parish Schools, all the attempts we have made over the United States, all more or less failing, not because of means deficient, or population insufficient, but simply because the interest has not been kept up,-and then consider this Provincial arrangement, it will be at once manifest, that it can support, uphold, concentrate the interest in a way that nothing else can. And then, if still you think that we dream, look at the Roman Catholics who have Bishops in Cities of New York, where we refused to have them.* See the Educational work they actually do-look at their Parish Schools, their Colleges, their High Schools, all completely and perfectly working upon their system, and learn that if we, springing from the pure Catholic and Apostolic Church of England, do not place our Bishops in the Apostolic position, as our duty is to do, the corrupt Church of Rome will do it with theirs, and reap the advantages of it.

We then went on farther, to show many other advantages of the See Bishoprick, which we need not specify here, as this Article is intended merely as a supplement to the first. We need only say as the sum of all, that according to our knowledge, our experience and our conviction, our Bishops, our

* They have four Bishopricks in the State of New York; Albany, Buffalo, NewYork, Brooklyn; and yet the number of their Clergy in the State is actually less than the number we have! They have in the State three hundred and sixty Clergy, we four hundred and sixty-nine. We take these numbers from our General Convention Journal of 1859, and their 'Metropolitan Almanac of 1860,' published in Baltimore. It is a real curiosity to see their Dioceses, and to every Diocese what a mass of institutions are at work for them! To be sure they have had in twenty years an influx of Foreign Romanists of about three million in number. Still they have provided for them,-forty-nine Bishops, two thousand three hundred Clergy, Colleges, Seminaries and Schools, &c., in abundance. We do not blame them. They are doing their duty according to their knowledge. We only grieve that we are so far behind, through our own fault.

Clergy, our Laity, would be put, all and each of them, in an highly improved position by the change.

Our Bishops would be increased in power, in influence, in social standing,* and in dignity. In means they would not be worse off than they are at present, and ultimately they would be a great deal better by the change.

Our Presbyters, too, would be vastly the gainers in having their Bishops more helpful, more cordial, more like fathers than a mere confirming, ordaining, consecrating functionary, can be, who has to travel from place to place at railroad speed, in order to do his ordinary duties in even the most perfunctory, official way. They would find the discipline of the Church vastly improved by the assistance of the Bishop. The Presbyter's hands would be upheld by the help of his Bishop, now in fact rendered unavailable; for power entrusted and duty enjoined, must have time and opportunity to be exercised in. If these last be taken away, the first cannot be employed or done. The Presbyter, also better known and better valued, both in himself and his parochial relations to his spiritual Father, would be less assailable in his Parish by mere faction, and mere revengeful intrigue,-and thus, far more permanent in his position. There would be fewer quarrels in the presence and under the eye of a spiritual Father, and those few more easily brought to a head, more justly decided by the personal influence and judicial authority of a Bishop in the position in which he ought to be. Our Presbyters would all profit in a thousand ways by the change. In fact, this change would be to us all the realizing of the principles, and facts, and truths of the Episcopate, because of which we are in the Church and

* A short time ago, we were in a large City in a large State; a lady, a communicant of our Church, said to the writer, "I saw our Bishop to-day." What, madam, how can Bishop X. be here!" "Oh, no," was the answer, "I meant Bishop Y." X and Y represent unknown quantities. X. was our Bishop, who has, say, five big cities under his jurisdiction. Y., the Roman Catholic, resident in one.

6

In fact, a resident Bishop in a City as his See, at once becomes a prominent, well known, influential citizen, by the fact of his office. The sitting' in the See, (sedes,) instead of being itinerant, gives the Bishop a social position the Roman Catholics know well the value of, and work very assiduously. Our Bishops seem hardly to dream of this fact, and yet it is a fact; one too that tells.

not outside of it. As it is, because of the want, we are fast becoming itinerants in the tenure of our parishes, and Presbyterians or Congregationalists in our actions, or else we float upon the tide hither and thither, thinking, 'that as things are now-so have they been from the beginning-the world never was better, most likely it never will be worse.' The worst temper possible for a Christian Clergyman, yet the one our present surroundings the most tend to produce in us.

Again, the laity, as in old time, would be brought close to their spiritual father. He would reap his reward in their loyalty, they theirs in spiritual supervision, love and instruction. But better still would be the result for the Laity. Being at present pew-holders, having nothing to do, except they force themselves into it-they would find at once that the Church, in its Primitive idea and reality, is in fact a great corporation for the doing of all the good works of the Gospel, where there is the most need and scope of their being done, that is in the City. For then this reality would be brought at once into full activity and life by this small change,—we are wrong,―by this great change, the restoration of its Head to the Church in each City. Religious worship on week-days and Sundays in its full perfection,-the Pastoral work of the Presbyters,—the official duties of the Deacon according to the truth of his of fice, the work of the deaconesses and widows, that Apostolic Order then restored to the Church,-the poor, aided and comforted in their poverty,—the sick, attended in the hospitals,— the ignorant, instructed patiently, the young, catechised and thoroughly trained,—all that manifold system of good works and benevolence, in Cities, which any one can see the proof of in Bingham's Antiquities, and Cave's Primitive Christianity. For all these there is a Christian corporation, intended to be in every City, a Christian system of Worship, of Doctrine, of Discipline, and a system of Christian officers to carry it through, the Bishop, Clergy and Laity in each City. This is, upon the principles of the Gospel, the one Benevolent Society,

*The close and strictly paternal relation in which the early Bishops stood to the Laity of their charge, is most admirably brought out in Bishop Whittingham's letter upon small Dioceses. To this we refer our readers.

« AnteriorContinuar »