Dated at New London, June 10th, A. D. 1884.
The Bishop of St. Andrews read the following reply of the Synod to the address from the Diocese of Connecticut:
To the Right Reverend John Williams, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Connecticut, the Reverend the Clergy, and the faithful Laity of the Diocese, from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland in Synod assembled: Love and greeting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To receive any representatives of the American Church to-day and to accord them a hearty welcome must be a cause of sincere satisfaction to us; but in greeting you, dear brother, whom God has set over Seabury's own diocese of Connecticut, and those who accompany you as representing your flock, we experience a peculiar pleasure. For giving us the happiness of seeing you here to-day we thank you sincerely, and we thank the faithful of your diocese for providing that their Bishop, in now visiting the scene of his heroic predecessor's consecration, should not be unattended by some of their own number, whose presence should be expressive of the interest which they themselves feel in the event which we are commemorating, and also (as we are glad to believe) of their love towards the Church which gave them their first bishop.
"Connecticut," said the saintly Bishop Alexander Jolly in his letter to the Bishop of Maryland in 1816, "has been a word of peculiar endearment to me since the happy day when I had the honour and joy of being introduced to the first ever-memorable bishop of that highly favored see, whose name ever excites in my heart the warmest veneration."
The Scottish Church, dear brother, finds in these words a true expression of her own feelings—feelings which the visit which we have "the honour and joy" of receiving to-day from so worthy a successor of Connecticut's first bishop, will serve to intensify for the future. You will the more readily therefore believe, brother, that the words of gratitude towards our Church, which, in your own name and in the name of your diocese, have just been spoken, must be in the highest degree gratifying to us.
We cordially unite with you in your expressions of thankfulness to Almighty God for the work which he has vouchsafed to carry out through the agency of those branches of His Church which you and we respectively represent.
We rejoice to hear of the vigorous life which the Church in your diocese has manifested in the remarkable growth which the past century has seen it make. We pray that it may continue to receive God's blessing in rich abundance, and bring forth much fruit to His glory.
We have a lively sense at the same time of our Lord's great mercy to ourselves in lifting us up from our poor and despised estate, in bringing us to comparative honour, and comforting us on every side.
We trust that through His grace the work, still future, for which He has been training and strengthening us through so many generations, may be thoroughly and faithfully done by us and by those who will come after us.