The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-18 00:00:00

The Anglo-American Church at Paris.

The following letter has been addressed to the
Times:—

" Sir,—At a meeting this morning of the Anglo-
American Committee for providing British and
American Churchmen with an additional place of
worship during the Exhibition at Paris, I was in-
structed to write and request you to allow the com-
mittee to make known to the British public through
your columns the liberality of the Prefet de la
Seine in granting a valuable site for the church
which it is proposed to erect.

It is due to Mr. Lawson, the American chaplain,
and to a distinguished lady, a member of his con-
gregation, to state that the Prefet was first interested
in the movement by their intervention.
A deputation of American and English clergy-
men and gentlemen was then appointed to wait upon
him at the Hotel de Ville. He received us with the
greatest courtesy, and placed at our disposal any
amount of land we might require in the Avenue
Rapp, in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Exhibition building, giving us the choice among
various parcels of ground belonging to the city of
Paris, and setting aside all other applications till we
had selected what suited us best.

Our choice was made on the spot the next day,
and the site may now be considered to be ours during
the entire period of the Exhibition.
These are the facts which the Anglo-American
Church Committee wish to place before the British
and American public. And as it was the opinion
of the committee that some official acknowledgment
of the Prefet's kindness and liberality would best
show that it was appreciated by those whose welfare
it is intended to promote, I was likewise authorised
to put myself in communication with the Lord
Mayor upon the subject, leaving it to his Lordship's
discretion to call a meeting of Churchmen at the
Mansion-house, or take such other steps as shall
seem to his Lordship best adapted to convey to the
Prefet an adequate expression of thanks.
I may take this opportunity of stating that funds
are urgently required for carrying out the object in
view, which ought to commend itself to all Anglican
Churchmen for support, not only on the grounds of
duty and necessity—for those who propose to come
themselves or to send others in large numbers to
Paris during the summer ought to remember that
the Rcman Catholic churches will afford no oppor-
tunities for edifying worship, and that the English
churches are already full, and will shortly be so to
overflowing, but on the yet higher grounds of
Christian unity and brotherhood, which are likely
to be promoted by the Anglo-American Church
assuming, as the Greek Church has already done, a
prominent position in a great Roman Catholic
centre like Paris, and that especially during the
time of the Exhibition of all nations. The Roman-
ists here are in the habit of confounding the Anglo-
American Church with the various Protestant sects,
and scarcely know that we have an Apostolical suc-
cession of bishops, an ordained clergy, and a
Liturgy which contains all pure Catholic doctrine.
The opportunity, therefore, seems to be a favour-
able one to set before them the fact that we not
only possess these great privileges and value them,
but that the Church to which we belong is as widely
spread in its members as it is one in its articles of