put the question, whether Methodism as an institution can afford to stand on such a foundation ?

The facts which we have given above in the Life of John Wesley, we trust will come before not a few of our Methodist brethren. His views upon other points, especially the Sacraments, we should like to present. We believe there are large numbers of their Preachers, who, to-day, have far more real sympathy with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, than with Methodism in the present stage of its development. Methodism in a great degree has finished its work. It is not what it was. Its old badges of distinctive unworldliness, its old tone and spirit, which made Methodism what it was, are gone. Its strongly marked teachings, both as to the Institutions and Doctrines of Grace, have given place largely to a modified German Rationalism. The influences, under which this change has been silently going on, we are not now seeking; the fact itself is indisputable, and many of the Methodists of the old school freely confess it. The Church from which it went out, on the contrary, is growing in life and efficiency; and in its late "Memorial Movement," it has proffered the fraternal hand to all who are yearning for Unity in the One Body of Christ, that we may labor for one great end, the salvation of the souls for whom Christ died, and the glory of God. The Protestant Episcopal Church will meet this great question fairly. Certain great principles she can never abandon; for they rest, not upon mere opinion, but upon undoubted Facts, and are cherished by her in the deepest convictions of her conscience. But there is no good reason why multitudes of the Methodists, whose best life came from the Church of England, who are one with us in Doctrine, and are so like us in Organization and Ritual, and who will find our Government more representative as well as Scriptural than theirs, we say there is, we believe, no sufficient reason why Methodists and Churchmen should not link their hearts and hands together, in one and the same blessed work.

1

ART. IV.-EARLY ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH.

1. The third and Last Volume of the Voyages, Navigations, Trafiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Collected by RICHARD HAKLUYT, Preacher and sometimes Student of Christ's Church in Oxford. London, 1600.

2. The General Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Islies. From their first beginning, Ano. 1584 to the present 1624, by CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, Sometymes Governor of those Countries. London, 1624.

3. PURCHAS; His Pilgrims, in Five Books. Vol. IV. London, 1625.

4. The History of the first Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, by WILLIAM SMITH, A. M., President of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. London, 1753.

5. Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of America, by FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D. D., Vol. I. New York, 1836.

6. The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia: Collected by WILLIAM STRACHEY, Gent., The first Secretary of the Colony. Hakluyt Society, London, 1849.

7. Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society. Vol. II. New York, 1853.

8. The History of the Church of England in the Colonies and Foreign Dependencies of the British Empire. By the Rev. JAMES S. M. ANDERSON, M. A., Chaplain in ordinary to the Queen. London, 1856.

9. Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. By BISHOP MEADE. Philadelphia, 1857.

CHAPTER I. 1578 to 1609.

If there is one department of Ecclesiastical History more than another, in which American Churchmen need to be inter

ested and instructed, it is that which concerns the first planting of the Church on this Continent. By means of School books, Tales, Poems and Anniversary Orations, the belief has been wrought into the common mind of Americans, that not only the love of liberty, but that education, civilization, the Gospel and all the institutions of Christianity were first brought to this country, and here planted and nourished, by the Puritans, flying from the oppression and persecution of the Church of England. To say nothing of the romance, which represents these Pilgrims from Holland, where they had dwelt in peace and quietness for eleven years, as flying from the cruelty of that Church, to whose "every Article” they did "assent wholly," it is high time that Churchmen were more familiar with the facts of their own history, and of the first planting of the Gospel in this New World.

A popular historian,† echoing the common sentiment in reference to the landing of the Pilgrim fathers, says, "It was the origin of New England; it was the planting of New England institutions. Inquisitive historians have loved to mark every vestige of the Pilgrims; poets of the purest minds have commemorated their virtues; the noblest genius has been called into exercise to display their merits worthily, and to trace the consequences of this daring enterprise." And so it has come to be a bold and startling heresy, not to believe that the Mayflower brought the first ray of Gospel light, and the true germ of Civil Liberty to this benighted land, or to doubt for a moment that Plymouth and Salem are the true Meccas of this New World.

The truth is, however, that the first legislative representative Assembly held in America, was under the auspices of the London Company in 1619, in the Choir of the Jamestown Church, with the Minister of the Church for Chaplain, and the Prayer Book to guide their devotions. Bancroft can not help, with all his prejudices, acknowledging that,

*"Seven Articles of the Church of Leyden."

+ Bancroft.

"The London Company merits the praise of having auspicated liberty in America. On this ordinance Virginia created the superstructure of her liberties. Its influences were wide and enduring, and can be traced through all her history. It constituted the plantation in its infancy a nursery of freemen, and succeeding generations learned to cherish institutions which were as old as the prosperity of their fathers. It may be doubted whether any public act during the reign of James was of more permanent or pervading influence, and it reflects glory on Sir Edwin Sandys, the Earl of Southampton, and the patriot party of England, [all Churchmen,] that, though they were unable to establish guarantees of a liberal administration at home, they were careful to connect popular freedom inseparably with the life, prosperity and state of Society in Virginia."

Let it be known then that "American Liberty" was born and well nursed, before the "blarney stone of New England" was ever heard of.

There is something to be said concerning this subject, that pertains to a very different system from that which was brought to New England in 1620, and which will carry the reader back to a much earlier date. But how few of the present age and generation know anything of the early efforts of the members of the Church of England, towards establishing the pure and Apostolic Faith in this new found world, and consecrating to God's glory the first settlement of the British name in America? Of those "daring enterprises" little or nothing has ever been said by way of eulogy. Indeed there has been a studied silence in regard to them, in all our popular histories. Neither poetry, nor romance, nor oratory have been employed to magnify the piety and heroism of the patrons and leaders of those early ventures in the cause of Christ, or to preserve in their posterity a grateful remembrance of their virtues. And yet, men of higher purpose, of holier zeal, or of a more self-sacrificing spirit, have been rarely found in any age of the Church. We, who now enjoy the fruits of their faith. and devotion, have been too long content with this ignorance of their history, and indifference to their memory. To give a complete account of their labors and achievements, will be impossible in the present undertaking. The most we can hope

for will be the partial rescue of their memories from the shameful forgetfulness into which they have fallen.

The title of our Article, and the list of works placed at the head, will indicate its purpose, as well as point out the period to which we shall confine our attention. The work of the Rev. Mr. Anderson, the second edition of which appeared in 1856, is a most valuable contribution to the early history of the Church in this country, and we shall have the most frequent occasion to refer to its contents.

It is to the religious and Missionary zeal, manifested in the first settlement of the American Continent by Englishmen, that we desire now to call attention. It is very commonly thought, that this whole work was in the hands of those who had no higher purpose than worldly gain and ambition, or an escape from the restraints of civilized and Christian society, to the wild license of a new country. But no one can become familiar with the history of these events, without learning, that a genuine love for the souls of those who were sitting in darkness, and a holy zeal for the extension of the Church of Christ, was the animating spirit with many of the early promoters of American colonization.

This was a period of sad contentions, civil and religious, at home, and of threatening national jealousies and conflicts abroad. It was a most unpromising time either for Missionary effort or commercial enterprise. And it must ever be a cause of animating gratitude, to every lover of our pure and Apostolic Faith, that amid the confessed religious declension of that period, and in spite of the restraints imposed upon the Church by a vacillating and faithless State Government, there were found men of such true Christian zeal, as to undertake the planting of the Church of Christ in this far off wilderness. Still it will not surprise us, that such a work should have been undertaken, when we come to know the devout and earnest character of those Clergymen and Laymen of the Church of England, who were among its chief promoters.

That many persons should have been drawn into the enter

*See Church Review, Oct. No. for 1857.