The wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by their misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of vengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813—that my story may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor—then I will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of Waterloo!
The Episcopalian Crisis.
In medical science, a crisis is the change in a disease which indicates its event, the recovery or death of the patient, and is, therefore, the critical moment. Webster also defines crisis to be "the decisive state of things, or the point of time when an affair is arrived at its height, and must soon terminate, or suffer a material change." No attentive observer of the religious movements which are going on around us can fail to see that the Episcopalians are, at this moment, in an interesting condition. On the one hand, the ritualists are pushing ceremonial and doctrine much further than even the elasticity of Protestantism will permit, while, on the other, the low-churchmen, alarmed at the demonstrations of their opponents, are renewing the battle-cries of the Reformation, lest the labors of Luther and Henry VIII, should be frustrated in their communion. There will soon be the clashing of arms and the interchange of active hostilities. As Catholics, we cannot but take a deep interest in the result, and we hope that all the combatants will, before going into battle, understand the cause for which they are fighting, and then faithfully fight to victory or death. An honest man should always stand by his colors, or at least openly renounce them. The object of this article is, to give a diagnosis of the present state of Episcopalianism, and, as far as our abilities and kind intentions go, to prescribe a remedy for the patient.
In the first place, we find that there is a feverish excitement about the trial of the Rev. Mr. Tyng, who, in violation of a canon, has had the hardihood to preach in a church of another denomination than his own. The canon under which he is arraigned seems to present a case against the reverend gentleman, and from the complexion of the court appointed to try him he has little chance of escaping conviction. But we imagine that even his condemnation will be nominal, and appear more as the assertion of a power than the exercise of it. The low-churchmen are quite excited by the discussion of the points involved in the trial. A writer in The Episcopalian considers the affair as the most important in the annals of American ecclesiastical history. Whatever the verdict of the court may be, it is of little account compared to the angry feelings and bitter divisions among brethren which will flow from it, and become more or less permanent. Certainly, there is more bitterness among the different sections of Episcopalians, than there is between them and other Protestants. Low-churchmen love their Protestant brethren, with the one exception of high-churchmen, whom they regard with a natural antipathy. High-churchmen love none but themselves, not the sects whom they eschew, nor the Catholic Church, which eschews them. The trial of Rev. Mr. Tyng is not the cause of the angry feelings which are now manifested, but merely the occasion for bringing them out. They exist before any occasion, and are found in the very heart of the Episcopal Church. If the Rev. Dr. Dix had preached in a Methodist place of worship, it is quite possible that no one would have made objection; but Mr. Tyng, being on the other side of the house, cannot have the same liberty. The truth is, that all rules have a wide interpretation, and are to be explained by custom, and here the defendant in the exciting trial has the advantage. Even if he should be condemned, he will be likely to have nearly all the popular sympathy, and so will become the greater man, as a kind of martyr for his principles.
The occasion, however, has brought out a bold manifesto from the high-churchmen, which is to be understood as their platform, around which they seek to rally their friends. Sixty-four clergymen have joined together to form what they call "The American Church Union," to which they invite all Episcopalians who sympathize with them. They declare that the evils of the time are fearful, "the young are growing up without education, the community is familiarized with scenes of lewdness, the marriage contract is made contemptible, the ordinances of the Gospel of Christ are disused, and the public worship of God is neglected." While thus the torrent of iniquity rages around them, they find that an evil has arisen within the Episcopal fold, which threatens the subversion of their whole system. It is nothing less than the denial of the necessity of ordination of ministers by bishops. "The right is claimed of preaching anywhere, at pleasure; ministers of non-Episcopal communities are invited to preach in our churches; and the intention is announced of breaking down every barrier between our church and the religious bodies around her." To counteract this destructive movement, they associate themselves together, in a union offensive and defensive. They promise to uphold the laws, the canons, and to follow the "godly admonitions of the bishops," while they seek "to maintain unimpaired principles which they have received from their fathers, Seabury, White, Griswold, Hobart, Doane, and Wainwright."
While we confess that our sympathies are with the signers of this pastoral, we frankly avow that it is somewhat vague and, to our minds, inconsistent. No doctrine whatever is clearly stated, except that of the necessity of episcopal ordination. The creeds are referred to, and the (undisputed?) general councils; but no explanation of their teaching is given. And then, he will be a wise man who can follow, at the same time, in the steps of the fathers whom they name. Seabury, Hobart, and Doane were high-churchmen in various degrees of altitude; but White and Griswold were quite on the other side of the fence; while Dr. Wainwright was generally thought to have been on both sides at the same time. To us, therefore, he seems the best and most gentlemanly model for the rising generation of churchmen who would be "all things to all men." Then, again, he who would follow the godly admonitions of the bishops must be able to go to the four points of the compass at the same time. Fancy an adventurer who would obey the admonitions of Bishops McIlvaine and Potter, or, at the same time, follow the counsels of Doctors Coxe and Clark. The convulsions of Mazeppa would be nothing to the agonies of his mind. No physician could prescribe a remedy for such a patient. "No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise the other." Why, therefore, in this enlightened day, write contradictions and talk nonsense? Some time ago, twenty-eight bishops made a solemn declaration against ritualism; "and," says the Protestant Churchman, "one of the gentlemen who has signed this address of the American Union not only soundly lectured, but held up to scorn and derision" these prelates, and especially the Boanerges of Western New York, who, smelling Romanism from afar, vaults like a beaked bird upon his prey. "O shame!" says the writer we have quoted, "where is thy blush?"
While thus the armies of the high-churchmen have begun to array themselves for battle, the bugle sounds loudly from the opposing camp, and the evangelicals are gathering together in earnest. A church union is being formed among them, and a writer in the Episcopalian thus speaks the designs of his party: "Let this evangelical church union be extended to every diocese and parish in the land where its principles are approved. The sacramental system is not the Gospel system, but its direct antipodes, in which the sacraments are degraded from their true position of sacred emblems, and made to serve as pack-horses to carry lazy sinners to heaven. I hear hundreds of ministers and thousands of laymen exclaim, 'Oh! that we had the power to rescue the church from the hands of those who are corrupting it!' These will be rejoiced to learn that nothing is more simple and feasible. How? I reply by saying, what even high-churchmen will hardly dare to deny, that the church of the Reformation was eminently an evangelical church, and that the evangelical portion of the present Episcopal Church constitutes absolutely all of the real successors of the English Reformed Church in this country. Ritualists and sacramentarians have no more right in this communion than avowed Romanists." The low-churchmen have the decided majority, and thus give letters dimissory to their offending brethren. "God speed the Church Union!" says a contributor to the Protestant Churchman; "but let Mr. Hopkins and his friends beware lest they themselves should be the very first upon whom this discipline shall fall. Dr. Guillotine experienced the beautiful operation of that ingenious instrument of death invented by himself. This is a precedent from which these gentlemen might learn a lesson."
The low-churchmen make a point that, while they prefer the episcopal form as more scriptural and more conformed to the primitive system, they do not unchurch other Christian denominations, and that, in this respect, they follow the teachings of the founders of the reformed English communion. They also contend that the right of the church to amend or change its laws and services is inalienable, and that the time has arrived when some important changes should be made. Bishop Griswold, whose "godly admonitions" the Church Union desires to follow, thus expressed himself: "In the baptismal office are, unfortunately, some few words which are well known to be more injurious to the peace and growth of our church than any one thing that can be named." "Allow me," says the Bishop of Chester, "to omit or alter fifteen words, and I will reconcile fifteen thousand dissenters to the church." It appears, also, that an opinion was expressed by a late presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church that the great body of Episcopalians desire some change in the phraseology of their services, and that the peace and prosperity of the church require it.