The major premise of this syllogism is evidently sound. If the minor is reliable in fact as well as form, the conclusion is unmistakable. Our inquiry is thus reduced to this:
Whether the Protestant Episcopal Church is best adapted, by its internal structure and external operations, to control and harmonize American society?
The answer to this inquiry will unfold our own view of the matter now in issue, and will, we trust, set forth some of the principal criteria by which the church of the future may, at this day, be humanly discerned.
1. The "church of the future" is a "church of the people."
The American nation is now, and always must remain, in the strictest sense, "a people." The order of our political and civil institutions, the vast area of our territory and the unlimited susceptibility of its development, the achievements of art and mechanism by which alone that development can be secured, all necessitate, in the future, as in the present, a nation of working-men, homogeneous in principles, in intelligence, and in toil. Classes of society, except so far as based upon the accidents of personal friendship, cultivation, or locality, are practically now, and must hereafter become more and more, unknown. The distinctions by which its divisions in the Old World were created and maintained, lost the last hold upon America when slavery went down in the fierce tempest of the recent war. The proud prerogatives of race and birth are henceforth without value. Every man must receive himself from the hands of his Creator just as that Creator made him, and carve out for himself a destiny, limited only by his individual ambition, and by his fidelity to the end for which his life and independence were bestowed upon him.
Unfavorable as such a state of things may be for the extreme cultivation of the few, that the great masses gain immeasurably by it, is undeniable. A race of farmers, of mechanics, of tradesmen, of laborers, can never be illiterate, immoral, or impoverished. A race whose future embraces the population and political direction of a continent, into whose veins the choicest blood of the eastern hemisphere pours itself with an exhaustless tide, whose wisdom is the experience of six thousand years, and whose labors already testify to the vigor of its ripe and lusty manhood, must be a people in whose ranks each individual counts one, and by the overwhelming pressure of whose progress ignorance and pauperism must eventually disappear.
The church which gathers this grand race of the future into her bosom, and holds them by her spiritual hand, must, therefore, be a church adapted to the wants, the sympathies, the tastes of working-men. Its creed must be within the scope of their intelligence. Its worship must give form to their devotion. Its teaching must be simple, earnest, hearty, like themselves. Its pastoral care must be at once familiar, constant, and encouraging. Just what the so-called "masses" need to-day, in faith, in ceremony, in the pulpit, in the priest, will the whole nation seek for in those years of coming labor. Just that internal structure and external operation which now most fully and most readily supplies that need, will characterize that church which then absorbs the rest and guides and governs this great people in all heavenly things. And if, of all the clashing sects of Protestantism, there is one which is destined to occupy this exalted station, it is that one which is to-day the "church of the people," and whose trophies, won in warfare with the toiling multitudes of past and present generations, are the sure omens of complete and final victory.
Judged by this standard, what prospect has the Protestant Episcopal Church of becoming the "church of the future" in our country?
This question merits a most serious and thorough answer; not merely as a speculative problem, but as a matter eminently practical, affording a fair test of her divine commission, and of the quality of the spiritual workmanship which she performs. For this reason, we attempt to pass upon her no verdict of our own, but, turning to her best authorities, gather from them the data of her progress, and the measure of her churchly capabilities.
The first few years of this half-century were a season of unusual prosperity to the Episcopal Church. From 1850 to 1856 the numerical increase of her membership far exceeded that of any former period. The ranks of her clergy gained largely in extent and influence. A spirit of unprecedented activity seemed aroused within her; and, above all, was manifested a disposition to rally round herself the other Protestant denominations, and unite them with her into one ecclesiastical body.