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But taking the reports, just as they are, and what do they indicate? We find a Diocese prosperous forty-five years ago, and growing within this period up to a little above ten thousand members. We find the other, starting at the same point of time from a state of the lowest depression, with scarcely three congregations deserving the name, and reporting at the close of forty-three of these years, nearly two thirds the number of its formerly prosperous neighbor. If the two systems are faithfully worked, as they have been in these two fields, with the same comparative increase upon the original force, how at the end of the next forty, or even twenty years, will stand the comparison?

But there are other points of comparison much more suggestive. Numbers do not constitute an unerring test of prosperity. If a Diocese report ten or fifty thousand members, and another report five or only one thousand, and it be manifest that the latter is doing more, absolutely or relatively, that it is growing faster and working more effectively, the presumption is, that the latter is really in better condition. Now how do some of these statistical items bear upon this point? We have seen the comparative strength of the rank and file-that within the period in which Virginia Churchmanship proper has been working, it has grown much more rapidly than its opposing type. The proportion stands now as two to three. Is that proportion sustained in other things? How is it, for instance, as to relative increas ewithin the last six years? We are able to lay hands upon the Journals of General Convention for the years 1850 and 1857. The missing one of 1853 can not essentially modify our calculation. Taking these, therefore, as our guide, we find Connecticut in 1850, reporting 9360 communicants, in 1856 reporting 10,389, making a clear gain of 1029. Virginia in the first of these dates, reports 5347, in the second reports 6527, making a clear gain of 1180, that is, 151 more than Connecticut, absolutely, and a proportionate increase of more than double. Certainly this does not look as if Virginia were dying from exhaustion. If, however, such be the case, how is it with her sister? If, in six years, five thousand

bring in an increase of 1180 and nearly 10,000 bring in 1029, how long will it require for the smaller to become the greater? And so also as to the present fruit and work of these two Dioceses. They now stand as we have said in whole numbers, as three to two. Is that proportion maintained elsewhere? Let us see:

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Showing a proportionate overplus in these items, in favor of Virginia, in the number of confirmations, of baptisms, of ministers, of ordinations, both of presbyters and deacons, and an absolute overplus in that of contributions for the three years preceding.* In only one respect is the overplus in favor of her sister Diocese, and that is in the number of candidates for the ministry: an overplus which we predict will be dimin ished if not entirely removed in the report of the present year, as then, if we throw into the account of these forty-three years, those two Dioceses of China and Africa, called into being, and almost entirely carried on, by the Alumni of the Virginia Seminary, we shall know what to think of "her feebleness, mortifying depression, and overshadowed inferiority." We have no controversy with Connecticut. This comparison is forced upon us. But certainly if she has cause to exult over the result of the last fifty years, much more has her sister Diocese. And on the other hand, if that sister Diocese has reason to be humbled and mortified in view of these fifty years' fruit, much more has Connecticut.

Before leaving this point, we may call attention to one of these items, that of Baptism. Is it not cruel to remind a class of Churchmen, whose daily thoughts and nightly dreams seem

The last of these items includes contributions proper-not donations and legacies, of which latter there is no report from Virginia.

to be filled with this one ordinance and its effects, that they have been relatively outnumbered in its administration by another class, who perversely insist with Paul that Christ sent them not to baptize but to preach the Gospel? The fact is significant as showing, after all, who really most honor His Church, and all of her divinely appointed sacraments and ordinances.

But while this comparison shows that the reviewer's fact is as purely imaginary as is his explanation of it, there is another mode in which this fact may be still more clearly exhibited. No comparison between fields of Christian effort so diverse in their social and physical condition as are the two selected by the reviewer, can do justice to the one which is scattered over a sparsely settled country, and in the face of a strong popular and political prejudice. The one of these Dioceses, for instance, came out of the Revolution with the prestige of having been oppressed and persecuted-the other with the odium of having been connected with the State, and of having been itself disposed to persecute, if not actually doing so. Putting aside, therefore, all such comparisons between different Dioceses as uselessly odious, irritating, and only to be made in self-defense, let us look at the working of the two systems of which these Dioceses are the exponents, in the same field of operation, during different periods of Church existence. Ecclesiastical history in Virginia affords material for just such comparison. Prior to the Revolution, there were, as hinted already, some noble exceptions to the prevalent class of the colonial clergy. Some of these lived over into the interval between the Revolution and the revival of 1814 and 1815. But the large majority, the predominant class, were of a different character. They all had the same contempt and intolerance towards "the sects" which the reviewer exhibits. Some of them, from similarity of doctrinal views-those of Laud and his kind and others from that natural intolerance which is apt to be called forth in the ministry of a Church recognized and under the fostering care of the civil government. That which the reviewer now desiderates for the Virginians, they then en

joyed in the fullest abundance. "Uncompromising views" were freely presented. The infants were all baptized. Funerals were scarcely regarded as decent, marriages were not legal, unless solemnized by an Episcopal minister. And if Dean Swift could have been made Bishop, doubtless the whole population would have been confirmed and communicating. "Sectarians and Dissenters" were regarded as the filth and offscouring of the earth; and as we fear would be the case with us if the reviewer, like the old clergy, possessed connection with the civil government, an occasional solitary meditation in the county jail sharpened their own perceptions as to the enormity of their offenses, or helped to warn others against straying away from orthodoxy. No compromise in that mode of preaching or upholding the Church! And to borrow the language of the reviewer, it brought forth, as might "reasonably" be expected, its appropriate fruit; but it was of a very different character from that which his language would lead us to anticipate. The experiment was an utter failure. The only vitality remaining, with which to begin the present onward movement, was with a portion of the laity who had never given up the Evangelical principles of the standards of their mother Church, and the exceptional minority of the clergy just mentioned. Nor can popular prejudice be urged as an explanation of this failure. That popular prejudice was indeed overpowering. But it ought not to have been so. The same prejudice hampered the evangelical movement, rising upon the grave of this carcass of uncompromising Churchmanship. But it did not overpower this latter movement. That movement has lived and strengthened in spite of what killed its antecedent. It is living down prejudice now, and the Episcopal Church of Virginia holds a position at this time in public estimation, beyond that of any former period. No less clearly from this comparison than the former is it manifest, that the reviewer's fact, like his explanation, has no actual existence. If there were no principle involved, Virginia might well decline his advice, upon the score of policy.

As illustrative of this point, we may take the results afford

ed in the ministry of one of the ablest men of the types of uncompromising Churchmen, that Virginia or any other Diocese has produced. No one whose opinion is of any value—certainly not the Editors of the Church Review-has any doubt as to the talent, eloquence, energy, and force of character, of Bishop Ravenscroft. And yet his ministry in Virginia, for such a man, was a failure. If uncompromising principlesmeaning by this, un-Churching principles-are so successful, why did not he succeed more abundantly in his Presbyteratein his Episcopate? Why has not North-Carolina distanced Virginia? Why has not New-Jersey, which was so far in advance of Virginia in 1814, done the same thing?

Just about as well founded is the idea that Whitefield was connected with any Church movement in Virginia of an important character. The date of the revival between the years 1812 and 1815, as compared with that of his visit to Virginia, will show the absurdity of such an imagination. Doubtless the men who were the laborers in that revival-as did the whole English and American Church-received an impulse from that great awakening, in the benefit of which Whitefield also participated. High and Broad Churchmen alike, in England, now freely admit the beneficial influence of the work of Wesley and his associates, indirectly, as well upon the Church of England as upon themselves. It is to be hoped that New as well as Old England, is still enjoying some of the fruits of that great harvest. But as to any peculiar relation of Whitefield to Virginia, the assertion is purely ridiculous. He passed through Virginia twice, in going from New-England to Georgia, and was no where less personally acceptable. In the time of Commissary Blair, he preached once as an. Episcopal cler. gyman in Williamsburgh. The Commisary soon after hearing of his irregularities, wrote to the Bishop of London to know his opinion about him, and what course should be pursued towards him. Soon after, Whitefield spent five days in Hanover county among the first separatists from the Church, and just before President Davies came to the Colony. This induced five of the most respectable clergymen of that part of the Colony, to memorialize the Governor and Legislature on the

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