[Footnote 42: Ibid. p. ix.]
Fourth, at the same general con before which the Memorial was first discussed, another document was presented, in tone and application almost exactly similar, which forms a valuable corroboration of the statements which we have already cited. This was the report of the Committee on the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, of which the Rev. Dr. Stevens, now Bishop of Pennsylvania, was chairman. In this report the following occurs:
"Not only have we to deal with these multitudes of emigrants, spreading their ignorance, their irreligion, and their superstitions over the land, but we should also carefully provide for another and deeply interesting class, those who come to us from countries and churches holding like principles of ecclesiastical polity and Christian faith, the sons of Sweden, and the children of the Church of England, and the brethren from Moravia. … Thousands of emigrants from these foreign churches, who, if properly looked after, would unite themselves to our church, are lost to us, and either relapse into infidelity or unite themselves with the sects around them, because we make no effort to win them to our bosom." [Footnote 43]
[Footnote 43: Journal of 1853, pp. 80, 81. ]
The report then calls attention to the new missionary fields opening in the West, and says:
"Every other evangelical denomination in the land has gone before us in this matter, and the Romish Church has planted bishops, clergy, schools, churches, convents, and colleges, while we have been debating about one bishop and two or three ministers. As in too many previous instances, our church has been too much stiffened with dignity to run, like the prophet, before the chariot of some political or commercial Ahab, but, like a laggard in the race, treads daintily and slowly in others' footsteps, and then, when almost too late, discovers her error." [Footnote 44]
[Footnote 44: Journal of 1853, p. 81.]
Such was the deliberate verdict of the bishops and the leading clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, concerning her efficiency, during and prior to the year 1856. Such was the intensity of the conviction which forced itself upon the minds of committees and conventions, and swept from one end of her communion to the other, that, without great changes in her mode of dealing with the masses of our people, no considerable influence over them could ever be obtained. It is no wonder that Bishop Upfold should have written, concerning these admissions, that
"Her worst enemies could not have said a worse thing of the church; and, if it be true, involves a cogent argument for at once abandoning a church so radically and essentially defective in its organization and working agencies." [Footnote 45]