The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-17

Ebor, now York, and at Canterbury before the
Romanists brought their books 10 those shores.
The faith is the twelve articles of the Apostles
Creed, without the fourteen additional ones of
the Romieh Council OF Trent And the doctrines
of our rites and eacranents may be found in the
treatise Of Bertram on the Body and Blood In
the year $40, and In the homily of Hlfric, of st.
Adams, who fourisbed q hundred years later.
These men spoke the truth as IL is in Jesus, In
their day, and that truth was proclaimed Ia
Britain then, as II Is here now, and as IL was by
other Britieh bishops, priests and theologians
In the old time before them. 1t Is by proclaim
ing this one, uniform truth which Is Incapable
of addition or diminution without being injured
of this truth the same yesterday, to-day, and
forever-tbat eur Church arrests attention,
and has convinced the minds Of those
mutilated or garbled. But the great char
acterietic of our Church is her moderation
in all thinks. 1t is this which has
copciliated to our communion so many we'll
balanced and judicial minds. Entirely free
from fanatical zealotry, abhorring the extrava-
gancies of enthusiastic impulsiveness, cultivat-
ing gravity, steadipess of mind, and sound
speech which mayHot be condemned, we grow
most where violent counsels and extreme and
faDatical views on any points of religion prevail.
Take as an instance, for which 1 am indebted
TO Fuller, the city of New Haven. 1t was there
that all priests and bishops were said ito be of
the devil" 1t was there that the new sin was
coined, the heinous sin of being present when
prayers are read out of book by vicar or
bishop. 1t was there that the whispers of devils
lost their vaporous sulphur and became better
than bishops books. 1t was there that thirty
years ago the first Episcopal church was conse-
Grated and where an aged clergyman said then
that he remembered when there were but three
Episcopalians In the place. Now there are in
New Haven six or eight churches, 1000 Episco-
palian families, and 1900 communicates of our
Church. Some of you here tonight will In after
years remember how there were only two de-
cidedy catholic and apostolic churches iu Phia-
delphia, and one of them in the fire of perse-
eution for such prayers and confessions as the
Prayer Book allows. When those most ad-
yanced in life have disappeared, brethren, some
one will record ten churches where people may
come in Philadelphia and open their grefs.
Such is the effect of making things sin which
are no sin; such is the reaction from bigotry
and Zealotry to liberality and soundness of mind
and the words of the Book of Common Prayer.
Puritanism created constructive sins in scores.
In defiance of Luther and Calvin as the great
historian Macaulay has shown, ''they turned
the weekly festival of joy and praise by which
the Church had from early days commemorated
the resurrection of her Lord into a gloomy,
morose, and churlish Sabbath on which it was
sin to breathe the fresh air and crime to
smile, 1t was sin to dance round maypole;
1t was sin to fly hawk; it was sin to chase
buck deer it was sin to play at chess; it was sin
to wear ones hair longs 1t was sin to put starch
in ruff; it was sin to play on the harpsicord it
was sin to read the "Faery Queene." Rules which
the free and joyous spirit of Luther would have
deemed insupportabls rules of life which to the
SWISS re1ormers serene intellect would have
been contemptible were enforced as terms of
Church communion and on pain of damnation.
They abolished monasteries, it is true, but a
penalty that was almost retribution appeared to
settle down on themselves in the worse than
monastic gloom and ascetic severity which fell
upon house and home and children. II was
this which gave the catholic gladness and SIN
gleness of heart which we all find in the Epis-
copal Church, the advantage. (She has no con-
structiye sins.) The aims at unity in essential
faith, liberty in all matters of opinion and
charity in all things. Thus have / endeavored
to show you, brethren, how the prophecy of the
Psa!mst has been fulfilled, or is in process of
fulflment, respecting the branches of the vine
which Gods providence has permitted to be
planted in our land. Its history has illustrated
the prophetic statements that God cast out the
heather and planted 1t; that her hedge
broken down by persecution, and in Revolution
airy days, both in England and here, her grapes
were plucked off, and the blood of her martyrs
flowed as the purple juice exudes when you
crush the grape. But no weapon formed against
her has prospered. Room has been made for
her. where she once had no standpoint, aud she
now rejoices in the confidence and obedience of
some of the best and wisest In the land. Let us
pray God that our Lord Jesus Christ, the great
Pastor and Bishop of all souls, may deepen her
catholic roots in the hearts of His people, and
cover the everlasting hills with the shadow of
her branches she has already extended from the
sea to the river and from the river to the sea
beyond. May she grow always ard may her
shadow never be less.