in the repeal of the laws by which the establishment was sustained; p. 47. It was not that there was anything in the principles or constitution of the Church of England, as it existed in this country, which he deemed intrinsically deliterious to the public liberty, but it was, as the context shows, "the union of religious sentiment" enforced by law, which the general establishment of that or any other church in all the colonies would have produced, that he deprecated as dangerous to liberty. The unfettered and spontaneous diversity of opinions, of sects, of parties, of interests, in both politics and religion, he held to be the only practical security for the equal liberty of all, by the mutual vigilance and inspection they would exercise over each other, and the mutual forbearance they would finally learn to practice from an experience of that security.

That there was nothing in the Church of England, as it existed in the country, essent lly hostile to public liberty, the history of the colony, where it was first established and most widely spread its roots, satisfactorily proves. Virginia was, in an especial manner, the nursery of freedom in the New World. By the exercise of a bold initiative, she early established a representative assembly of her own, and, through that assembly, proclaimed the great constitutional principle of immunity from taxation, except by her own consent. During the period of the intestine trouble in the northern country, she virtually assumed and

exercised all the powers of independent self-government. She set the example of an appeal to arms in vindication of her rights a century before the final struggle for national independence; and in every stage of that great struggle, she was certainly behind none of her sister colonies in the energy and boldness with which she sustained the common cause. It can

not be said, therefore, that the Church of England, as it existed in Virginia, had extinguished or even depressed the spirit of liberty."

In 1783, after the war of the Revolution had closed, the question of maintaining the State Church became the great absorbing question. Bancroft says: "That the inherent perverseness of a religious establishment, of which a king residing in another part of the world and enforcing hostile political interests was the head, showed itself in Virginia. The majority of the legislators were still church men, but gradually a decided majority of the people had become dissenters, of whom the foremost were Baptists and Presbyterians.

When the struggle for independence was ended, of ninety-one clergymen of the Anglican Church in Virginia, twenty-eight only remained. Onefourth of the parishes had became extinct.

Churchmen began to fear the enfeeblement of religion from its want of compulsory support and from the excesses of fanaticism among dissenters.

These last had made their way, not

The

only without aid from the State, but under the burden of supporting a church which was not their own. church which had leaned on the State was alone in a decline. The system of an impartial support by the State of all branches of Christians was revived by members of "the Protestant Episcopal Church," as it now began to be called. Their petitions, favored by Patrick Henry, Harrison, then gover. nor; Pendleton, the chancellor; Richard Henry Lee, and many others of the foremost men, alleged a decay of public morals; and the remedy asked for was a general assessment analogous to the clause in the constitution of Massachusetts, which enjoined upon its towns "the maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality." The Presbyterians at first were divided. Their clergy, even while they held that human legisla. tion should concern human affairs alone, that conscience and religious worship lie beyond its reach, accepted the measure, provided it should respect every human belief, even "of the Mussulman and the Gentoo."

The Presbyterian laity, accustomed to support their own ministry, chose rather to continue to do so. Of the Baptists, alike ministers and people, rejected any alliance with the State. Early in the autumnal session of the legislature, Patrick proposed a resolution for a legal provision for the teachers of the Christian religion.

In the absence of Jefferson, the op

ponents of the measure were led by Madison, whom Witherspoon had imbued with theological lore. The assessment bill, he said, exceeds the functions of civil authority. The question has been stated as if it were, is religion necessary? The true question is, are establishments necessary for religion? And the answer is, they corrupt religion.

In the event of a statute for the support of the Christian religion, are the courts of law to decide what is Chris

tianity? and as a consequence to decide what is orthodoxy and what is heresy. In spite of all arguments a bill was brought in, by which it was provided for a general assessment on all taxable property for the support of teachers of the Christian religion.

Each person, as he paid his tax, was to say to which society he dedicated; in case he refused to do so, his payment was to be applied toward the maintenance of a country school. This bill led to great excitement, and in 1786 a bill, which had been drawn up by Jefferson, was passed, in and by which it was expressly declared that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; opinion in matters of religion shall in nowise diminish, enlarge or effect civil capacities. The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind."

"Thus," says Madison, "in Virginia

was extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind."

The principle on which religious liberty was settled in Virginia prevailed at once in Maryland. In every other American State, oppressive statutes concerning religion fell into disuse and were gradually repealed.

This statute of Virginia was translated into French and into Italian, and was widely circulated through Europe.

CHRISTIAN RENAISANCE.

It was thought by those of the Protestant Episcopal church, who had studied its history during the 18th century, that it would at least be allowed to retain its name if not its power during the 19th century. But even that seems doomed, and it would seem, if we are to judge by the utterances of some of its most learned theologists in the recent great convocation in our midst, that they would expunge even its name, and grasp that of the great parent church, from which it was severed by royal prerogative three hundred years ago.

The name "The Protestant Episcopal Church in America" has been pronounced meaningless. We deny it. We deny it. It has as much significance here as the English church or "Church of England" has in England with this exception: In England it is the ESTABLISHED Church, while here it appears as a high and lofty monument, erected to religious freedom and as marking the triumph

of civilization over papal supremacy and papal abuses in England and in the continent of Europe.

It marks the vicissitudes, the growth and development of mankind during a period that is spanned by five centuries. It came to this country as the heritage of constitutional government and has been handed down to us, liberalized and enlightened by our free institutions.

"The preservation of that heritage,” here as in England, "has been mainly due to the combination of sturdy independence, reverence for law and order, and practical common sense, which so pre-eminently distinguished the English people. Actuated by this spirit, they have been enabled, under the guidance of some wise and great sovereigns, and of a long line of illustrious statesmen, to adapt the English constitution to the varying needs of successive ages, while preserving its fundamental principles intact."

The exorbitant claims of jurisdiction and territorial power asserted by Hildebrand and his successors, together with the pecuniary exactions founded. on these claims, were persistently, though with varying degrees of firmness, resisted by the English kings and people, and it took centuries to shake off the yoke that had been fastened upon them.

By the Great Charter" the church recovered its liberties and foreign, superior and monastic orders were abolished, and the flow of money which had been directed for ages

into the Roman exchequer, arrested.

The destruction of papal power, emoluments and influence in England and the reduction of the national church to due subordination of the State was an achievement fit to be commemorated, and it was so commemorated in the name of Protestant Episcopal which is the synonym of the English reformation. It stands for temporal and spiritual independence from the see of Rome.

"The Chancellor of the Diocese" of Chicago would obliterate and expunge the, name of "Protestant Episcopal " Protestant Episcopal" as meaningless, and would "strip it of every flourishing branch and leaf, and leave it a naked, withered and dishonored trunk." We protest. The history of that church joins together the two great ages of human civilization.

To this day the constitution, the doctrines and the services of the Protestant Episcopal church retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she sprang. Her name is significant of the origin and when that is gone all is gone.

She occupies a middle position between the churches at Rome and Ge

Cardinal Pole might have heartily joined in them.

The Church of Rome held that episcopacy was of divine institution, and that certain supernatural graces of a high order had been transmitted by the imposition of hands through fifty generations, from the eleven who received their commission on the Galilean mount to the bishops who met at Trent.

A large body of Protestants on the other hand regarded prelacy as positively unlawful, and persuaded themselves that they found a very different form of ecclesiastical government prescribed in scripture.

The founders of the Anglican church took a middle course. They retained episcopacy; but they did not declare it to be an institution essential to the welfare of a Christian society or to the efficacy of the sacraments.

But it may be that we are to behold the extinction of this great church and the substitution of some other in its place.

It was Macauley who said, after studying with the most intense interest the Roman Catholic church :

"She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world, and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all; she was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols

Nothing generally excites admiration sooner than success achieved in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, natural or artificial. By the latter term is meant that resistance which has its animus furandi in jealousy, the rage of man, in competition, or peradventure in the "ignorant fumes that mantle the clearer reason" of a brother man. This is true in all vocations, especially the learned professions. Suppose a case;-suppose an Ohio boy to have passed through the High Schools of one of the important towns of that State at fourteen years of age, whose aspirations for scholarship led him to work as hard with his hands for the means of acquiring that education, as with his head for its advantages, whose life-work takes on at first, ambition to be a mechanic and the time spent usually by boys at their play, found him occupied with a set of cabinet making

ness.

tools, in a workshop making useful articles of furniture, thus feeling his way toward permanent self-support. At fifteen he is in Colorado, clerking, and at sixteen in general charge of one of the branch stores belonging to one of the largest mercantile firms of Southern Colorado, supplying the miner's outfits and doing a very large busiAt seventeen, back in Ohio, energetically at study in an academy, completing a four years' course in two years. Afterwards a school teacher in Kansas; next employed as an expert book-keeper at Emporia, where he again became interested in mercantile pursuits, this time as a partner in an established house, serving at the same time, as President of the Young Men's Christian Association. Then for a while law engaged his attention, and he studied it accordingly, but finally drifted into the study of medicine, in which he became interested when