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Show DRIFT OF THE EPISCOPAL C HURCH. The Xew York World last week wired to many Bishops and prominent clergymen for an expression expres-sion of opinion touching the feasability of a reunion re-union between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Prot-estant Episcopal Churches. We are not to suppose sup-pose that the idea of a corporate reunion of the two churches is a new one, or a dream of some enthusiast en-thusiast early in the morning of the Twentieth century. Twice before, at least, has the matter been seriously considered, once with considerable probability of success. The first was in the reign of Charles I. An account ac-count of it was given by Cerri, who was commissioned commis-sioned by Pope Innocent XI. to report to him on the religious state of England. This report was apparently and unofficially first published in French in the year 1701, and in 1715 translated and published pub-lished in English by Sir Richard Steele. This translation is extremely scarce and very little' known. .The effort of Monsignor Cerri for reconciliation recon-ciliation must have been considered important at the time, as it is alluded to in some of the state papers. The great difficulty which lay in the path of reconcilliation was in the Oath of Supremacy, which seemed to render impossible the acceptance of the Primacy and Supremacy of the Pope by English ecclesiastic and civil officers. In fact, the obstacle to reunion was political and not religious. The next attempt at reunion was that proposed by certain French ecclesiastics in the Eighteenth century and recorded by Mos-heim Mos-heim in his "History." " Then, in 1719, when the Relief Bill was passed, there were those who thought, j ft they saw an opening for renewing negotiations for reunion. Bishop Barrington, in a pastoral letter addressed to his clergy, thus expressed himself: "There appears to me to be, in the present circumstances circum-stances of Europe, better grounds of hope for a successful issue to a dispassionate investigation of the differences which separate the two churches of England and Rome. With this view and these, hopes I continue to exert my humble efforts in this great cause of charity and truth; and what public duty of greater magnitude can present itself to us than the restoration of peace and union to the church, by the reconcilliation of the Churches of England and Rome?" The friendly words of the Bishop of Durham were reciprocated by more than one of the Catholic Bishops of the time. Xot until 1SC4 was this hope of reconcilliation revived, when the Tractarian Movement might.be said to have had its beginning. It, however, never assumed the' proportions of a national desire, but resulted in the conversion to the Catholic Church of many of the most intellectual clergymen and laymen of the Anglican Communion. The Romeward tendency of many distinguished clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States is not alone an expression of hope for the union of the two churches; it is also a protest pro-test against the doctrinal looseness and religious supinencss of many of the Bishops and ministers of the Episcopal Church. In the United States the sentinels on the watch towers of Israel have left their posts and are fraternizing with the enemy. The concurrence of the House of Bishops with the House of Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, in the passage of the Open Pulpit Act, has given thoughtful and conscientious con-scientious clergymen and laymen of that church ample material for serious reflection. The General Convention of the Church, assembled at Richmond last Autumn, contained very few crumbs of comfort com-fort for those who have at heart the doctrinal integrity in-tegrity and a decent ceremonial of the Episcopal Church. Since the adoption of the ninth canon at that convention it is now permissible for the Anglican An-glican clergy to fraternize in Divinis with dissent ing bodies and to extend the hospitality of their pulpits to Methodist, Baptist, or even Unitarian ministers. It is now right and proper, if a clergyman clergy-man and his Bishop so agree, to permit any Protestant Prot-estant minister, or, indeed, any man they will, to deliver any message he may from the pulpit of an Episcopal Church. The only proviso is that the dissenting minister, be he a heretic or a semi-infidel, call"' himself a Christian. In the amendment to Canon 19 the Bishops have trampled down the hedge and now the wild boar from the woods and the wild beasts of the field may enter and root up the vineyard. It is the worst blow, and delivered by her own sons, that this church has been hit since she separated from her Anglican mother. |