We are forced, then, to come to a scrutiny of the cause or causes. It need not be said that the questions raised by the Oxford Tractarian School, and the new practices, or revival of old ones, proposed and introduced by them, have not only produced great excitement, and entailed a lasting controversy in the sister churches of England and of the United States, but that they have excited the mind, and put in action the tongues and pens of the whole religious world, both in England and in this country-more especially, perhaps, in this. It was quite enough to have these matters to cope with in the Church; but the action from without has been even more noisy and more vigorous of its own kind. The enemies of the Episcopal Church in this country have been delighted to have such an opportunity as these events have given them, to renew and bring home the charge, before the public, of the affinities between the Episcopal and the Roman churches; and it can not be denied that the facts of the case, as they appear on the surface, especially to those who desired occasion, and who were willing to pervert the truth, and make the most of such appearances, have given great force to their arguments. The Protestant religious public of the United States, who are without our pale, have, for the most part, been made to believe that Puseyism and Romanism were about to swallow up the American Episcopal Church. Hundreds of young men, in a course of education in the colleges and theological seminaries of the country, who had meditated application for orders in the Episcopal Church, and who would have been useful there, have, no doubt, been startled by these appearances, and relinquished their purpose. They are, in consequence, lost to the Church for ever; and hundreds more of the same class will, doubtless, be influenced in the same manner, to the same result, before all occasion of these apprehensions shall have ceased. All these would naturally desire to serve in the Episcopal Church as it was; but they are afraid of it as it now is. They are Protestants, and fear to come in contact with any thing that looks like Romanism. In the eyes of the Protestant world around, the Episcopal Church has lost standing, reputation, confidence, by being supposed to be inclined to the Church of Rome. Previous to the introduction of those novelties in the Church, she was rapidly rising in general esteem, and scarcely a mouth was opened against her. The rate of her increase, compared with that of the country, exceeded by much the increase of any other religious body in the same comparison. But they who sought occasion to injure her, found it; and they have not been overscrupulous of the truth in their representation of the facts. They have magnified and perverted them, till they have made a wide-spread and deep impression on the public mind suited to their purpose an impression which will require an age, perhaps ages, to controvert and overcome. If there be any truth in facts and figures, such as the table on which these remarks are founded, discloses; if we take into consideration not only the great falling off of the increase of our Church since 1840; and not only what she would naturally have gained, unassailed by these untoward influences; but the indefinite amount of her injury that must long time abide in consequence of them, we may, perhaps, fairly conclude that not less than fifty years of her legitimate

growth must be struck from the records of history by the operation of this single cause! What Churchman, with his eyes open to these facts, would dare to have even the smallest share of this responsibility?" (P. 244.)

In the above citation, we think, stands disclosed the chief, we might say, the only cause of the great falling off in the increase of our Church within the last few years. There is another obstacle to our legitimate growth, which we shall notice by and by; but here is enough to show what has put us back so far in the growth which we should have acquired by this time, "under our present ecclesiastical system," the defects of which, as we think, have been somewhat exagge rated in the Memorial which we have had under consideration. Who can deny, that we prospered well and greatly under that very system, down to 1840? Doubtless we should have prospered more, if there had not been another great defect in our Church, of which we propose yet to speak. We have only proposed first to show how wide of the mark these Memorialists have gone in their specifications. The fact of a great falling off in the increase of our Church, was indisputable. But it would be absurd to allege as a cause, that very system under which we had made such progress previously to the falling off. Must we suppose that these Memorialists did not see the real cause? or, that they did not dare to announce it? That something of a profound, deeply-seated, and all-pervading character-all-pervading in the Church and out of it-was the matter, they seem to have been quite aware; and we have sometimes more than half suspected, that the concoctors of this Memorial understood the real cause well enough, but having no small responsibility in putting it in force, they proposed to beat a retreat under a factitious guise, without confessing to their fault. Dr. Colton's "Genius and Mission," had told the whole story, and although they might not choose to be indebted to such a source for information, they might, nevertheless, profit by it in a movement of this kind. Consistency is a jewel of too high a price to be thrown away, without a very imperative pressure. But we think that, as conscientious men, they should have paused, before they attempted to rescue themselves from the grave responsibility of favoring Tractarianism, by im

peaching the Church before the world, and casting all the fault of this great and enduring check of her welfare on "her present ecclesiastical system, her canonical means and appliances, her fixed and invariable modes of public worship, and her traditional customs and usages"; and in that way out-Heroding Herod, and putting the opponents of our Church to the blush, because they had never accused her of half so great defects. We desire to know what is left in our Church worthy of respect, if this sweeping and comprehensive impeachment is to be entertained? In this line of movement, should we not expect to see the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States disbanded, and "our American Protestant Christianity" left in better hands?

But possibly these Memorialists will say, We did not mean so much. There is your language, gentlemen. Convince us, if it means less, and that our interpretation is not a fair one. Show that, if our opponents take your words, they have not greatly the advantage of us. We shall readily and cheerfully go with these Memorialists for the adaptation of our ecclesiastical system, of our canons, of our modes of worship, and of our customs and usages, to what they call "the moral and social necessities of the day, and the exigencies of the times." It is not unwelcome to us to see this great principle conceded in such a quarter, and so far entertained by our Right Reverend Fathers, as to have appointed a Commission to inquire in what manner and how far the principle should be applied to our Church economy. It is no small and no unimportant stage of progress, that the question should be started under such auspices. But we shall not be so radical as these Memorialists. Although we fully admit that "our ecclesiastical system" is defective, and that it can be improved in some important particulars, we do not think that these defects have had any agency in the check to the growth of our Church, except negatively, that it has not done so well as it would have done without them. No one can deny that her career was a triumphant and glorious one down to 1840, since which time, alas! we can not say so much for her progress; and she acquired all this success under "our present ecclesiastical system," though somewhat hampered by its tightness. We would loosen it only

with great circumspection; but still we would loosen it, because we believe it would be better.

As we have said, we are glad that the principle of amendment and adaptation is conceded in such quarters. All know that we adopted our ecclesiastical system and our Prayer Book as a compromise, in trying times, because, from the excited and exciting spirit of that period, there was danger of carrying change too far, if any great change were admitted. From that time to this, our Church has doubtless labored under great disadvantages for want of adaptation to the genius of the American people and of American institutions of adaptation, we mean, in non-essentials. There has been a want of the statesmanship of churchmanship-for doubtless there is such a thing and it consists in the science and tact of adaptation. There are parts of our Prayer Book not adapted. We have canonical regulations, and several things in our ecclesiastical economy, not adapted; and, as our Memoralists allege, we have "traditional customs and usages" not adapted. Hence the embarrassments and want of uniformity in the use of the Liturgy, and in the administration of the rites and ceremonies of the Church. It is, perhaps, for the want of such adaptation, which could not be effected when the Prayer Book was adopted, that the Tractarians among us affect to find a justification in reviving the usages of the Papal Church, in the extreme importance attached to saints' days, fasts, festivals, and other customs, which have never been made incumbent by canonical authority, and which have not been generally practised by the American Episcopal Church.

But the Tractarians have gone beyond the record, and revived usages nowhere to be found in any authority of the American Church-even against her authority-as, for example, the custom of turning to worship towards the wall, where the Communion-table is, with the back towards the congregation. The ordination-vows are two: First, "I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines;" and, next, "to the worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States." Worship, doubtless, includes modes. This turning to the wall in prayer violates both doctrine and prescribed mode: doctrine, because our XXVIIIth Article repudiates the

idea, that there is any thing in that direction to worship more than anywhere else. The reason in the Church of Rome of turning towards the altar to worship, is the dogma of Transubstantiation, and there was never any other reason. But our XXVIIIth Article expressly repudiates this doctrine, and calls the practice idolatry. And it violates prescribed mode, because, in the first place, there is no rubric to authorize it; and next, because the exceptional rubric in the Communionoffice, directing the priest to "stand before the table, that he may with more readiness and decency break the bread," etc., establishes a general rule, that in no other case shall this position be taken, as in no other case is it prescribed.

This turning towards the wall to worship is a very serious matter, because, in the first place, it connives at the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and as such "is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions," as alleged in our XXVIIIth article. Or, if it be not an idolatrous conformity to the Church of Rome, then is it idolatry in a worse sense by a recognition of the pagan idea, that the Deity resides at his shrine. On one or the other of the horns of this dilemma, they who turn to worship towards the wall, with their backs towards the people, must hang. If they are not Romanists, they are Pagans, quo ad hoc. Let them choose. Is not this a serious matter? With such practices-and this is only one of many, though perhaps the worst of all-does any one imagine that our Church can prosper among American Protestants ? It is death to us, and it has proved so. Every body sees through it all, and every body knows that these are practices of the Church of Rome, and not of a Protestant Church. The American people are Protestants, and they will never entertain these usages. They know that Rome has got into the Episcopal Church by Tractarian influences, and that is the reason why our growth has been so much retarded. There is not a child, well-informed, that does not understand this matter.

Why did not these Memorialists come to the point, and tell the whole truth? They knew perfectly well what was the matter. But, peradventure, they were too far committed to VOL. II.-15.