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.

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 office, 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.

the one Temperance Society, the one Bible Society, the one Society for good works of all kinds. This is, as we Churchmen have come to acknowledge it, the true principle. And our action is, to take from that corporation, that society, that system, the Head, which alone gives the working power!

The Laity of the Church, in their appointed work, the field which God has opened before them in our American Cities, that sad field of misery and vice and wickedness which the writer of these papers has seen with his own eyes, are much wronged by the want of that manifold system of benevolence so fully elaborated and brought to such perfection in the Primitive Church, so much needed now. But having spoken about this in the first Article, we refer to that paper; and for an account of the benevolence of the Primitive Christians, to Cave's Primitive Christianity, in which an amount of undoubted facts will be found, greatly different from the practice of the present day, and yet most hopeful to all who hold the principles of the Church.

But to resume,-our conclusion in reference to all Orders in the Church, the Bishops, the Presbyters, the Deacons, as well as the Laity is, that in our estimation, all would profit by the restoration of the See Bishoprick; because by it all would be placed in the natural and normal position in which they were, by the Constitution of the Church, intended to be. Our busi

We would note this matter of Constitutionalism. In the Human constitution a multitude of bodily organs, functions and powers coëxist, none of which can override, or displace, or annihilate the others, or any of them, and yet each exerts a controlling action over every other. These are all kept in existence as well as in harmony by a central controlling life. Look at the Sects into which the Middle Age Church broke; in each of them there exists one element it received from the Old Church, and that overrides and annihilates the rest. The Bishop of Rome, among Romanists, swallows up all other Bishops. The Presbytery, among Presby. terians, swallows up the Episcopate and the Laity. The Congregation, in Congregationalism, destroys the Episcopacy and the Presbyterate. So it is in Doctrine. With us it is not so; all the elements of the Church life and belief exist with us Constitutionally.

And yet, how much Constitutional life is lost by the fact of our not having the Primitive See, but the Territorial Bishoprick, is very hard to say. The Bishop, the Presbytery, the Laity of an ancient City Bishoprick, before Constantine, seems to have had an integral Constitutional life, both in believing, and in doing good, and in casting off evil, that we have not.

ness, therefore, in this Article is to ask, and we hope satisfactorily to answer the question, 'How shall we get the See Bishoprick ?'

But, before we go on to this, there are some preliminary explanations necessary. There has been an advocacy in the Church, for many years, of Small Bishopricks.' We have had the feeling, that some, (we say some, not all,) advocates of this measure have had the persuasion on their minds, that this measure of See Bishopricks is in some degree opposed to their measure of small Bishopricks. Now we wish plainly and distinctly to say, that all their arguments are ours. We admit

all they say and urge all they say as ours. Everything that moves them moves us. But this we say,-If we wish small Bishopricks, the only way to get at them is by the See Bishoprick. Establish the City as the 'See,' or 'seat' of the Episcopate, and at once, naturally and easily, and by an organic process, the division comes gradually, quietly, and just when needed, of these present huge Bishopricks, into small ones. The Cities are, upon the Apostolic plan, the centers in which and from which the growth of the whole Church takes place. Every City is a new center, and the Episcopate thus is easily and constitutionally propagated from City to City over the whole land, until all the Bishopricks are small. But our present State arrangement is an impediment to division, to any increase in numbers or diminution in size, and, in truth, renders it almost wholly impossible.

Let us thank God, however, that everywhere through our Cities the feeling among the Church's children is in favor of good works, as in the days of old. Let us thank God, too, that our greatest souls feel, that there was and again can be a Christian System around a common center, doing all the work which the Gospel says can and should be done. Let us thank God also, that everywhere through the Church there are men who deeply feel particular departments of work, particular practical doctrines also, although in their devotion they would make the part swallow up and become the whole-the eye, the whole body, or the foot, or the head. All these, when the central unity, the central corporation, is fully recognized and has received, the head, in which alone the corporate action is perfected and by which the corporation is completed, shall find their constitutional place, and rejoice in the one great corporate constitutional life. In the mean time, all these testify to the want of that natural head for the Church in every City, for which in these papers we cry.

Suppose, for example, that instead of the Diocese of Ohio, there had been the Diocese of Cincinnati: how naturally, easily, and quietly the suggestion, that Cleveland ought to be the seat of another Bishoprick, would have entered men's minds ! How quietly would the Church in Cleveland have claimed and obtained its Bishop long ago? and yet it is fifteen or twenty years since it was felt, that the Diocese of Ohio ought to be divided, and a movement was made toward the division, which was defeated. And now there are two Bishops in Ohio, Apostolic Bishops, but not in the Apostolic position. But the Roman Catholics have their Bishop of Cincinnati, their Bishop of Cleveland also; and so far they have all the advantages given by the See, and we have abandoned them.

Again, there is Pennsylvania: had Bishop White followed the Apostolic manner and been Bishop of the Church in Philadelphia, how long ago would we have had a See, filled by an able and educated man, in Pittsburgh? Does not every one see, that, by the very nature of things, the Bishoprick of Philadelphia would have suggested the Bishoprick of Pittsburgh, and the division would have taken place as soon as the Bishop of Philadelphia felt himself overloaded, and the Church in Pittsburgh felt its want. But the Roman Catholics are not so dull as we. They have Bishops in both these Cities, and another in Erie. And thus a large city, which by its position is isolated from the rest of the State, and, by its population, its wealth, and the education and enlightenment of its citizens, is capable of being a most efficient center of action to the Church, is deprived of the organization whereby God intended the Holy Catholic Church to be propagated.

Look again at the State of New York, in the Eastern Ecclesiastical Division: there are in it at least eight Missionary

* The Church Journal, Jan. 12th, 1859, arranges the Diocesan statistics of Eastern New York in eight groups, of which each has a City as a natural center, sufficient Churches, sufficient communicants, and above all, sufficient external population for a Diocese and its Bishop, considering them as the Missionary Institutions of the Church and the main means of bringing in those that are without. We refer to the paper as a most interesting one, and one that looks in the right direction. The centers are New York, Brooklyn, Westchester, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Troy, Albany and Plattsburgh. No doubt, were the See Bishoprick the rule, all these VOL. XIV.-NO. I.

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