The specimen we have given is a fair average. In future generations, when a classical student is given a bishop’s address to read, his labor for that day will be easy.
Almost any bishop’s address will substantiate the statements we have made. We refer to them freely, without wasting time in selection.
We begin a new paragraph: The system of the Protestant Episcopal Church is eminently congregational.
If a parish chooses to “call” a given man, he is “called.”
Should the bishop “interfere” and recommend him, the recommendation, without an exception that has ever come to our knowledge, militates against the proposed “call.”
Should a parish desire to get rid of a pastor, it does so with or without the consent of the bishop, as happens, in the estimation of the wardens, to be most convenient. The officers may consult the bishop, and, if he agree with them, well and good. The words of the diocesan are quoted from Dan to Beersheba, and the pastor is made to feel the lack of sympathy—“Even his bishop is against him,” is whispered by young and old.
If the bishop does not agree with them, they do not consult him again. They proceed to accomplish what they desire as if he had no existence, and—they always succeed.
There is a farcical canon of the Protestant Episcopal Church which says, if a parish dismiss its rector without concurrence, it shall not be admitted into convention until it has apologized.
It is a very easy thing for the wardens and vestrymen to address the convention, after they have accomplished their ends, with “Your honorable body thinks we have done wrong, and—we are sorry for it,” or something else equally ambiguous and absurd. The officers of the parish and the laymen of the congregation have done what they wished, and are content. As the convention is composed principally of laymen, the sympathy is naturally with the laymen’s side of the question. The rector is hurriedly passed over, his clerical brethren looking helplessly on.
To get a new parish the dismissed rector must “candidate”—a feature of clerical life most revolting to any man with a spark of manhood in him.