The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-11-28
A Stir Among CIApurchnpem.

"A SGAF among CHAaEPCh@A&Ms
lFrom the New Orleans Christian Advocate
There were some grave and most
perllOus irregularities committed at the
Evangelical Alliance in New York.
Some Baptists were so fOrgettul OF their
sacred duty and obligations as to unite
with other Christians at the Lords
table. The most astounding and un-
pardonable thing of all, however, was
the course of the Dean of Canterbury in
assisting at the holy communion, in a
Presby meeting house" Bishop
Cummins, and some other Low Church
men, committed the same upardOnable
sin, but for the Dean of Canterbury,
the very pink and perfection of Angli-
can dignity and eminence, to come
pOachlng upon the premises of the Bish
Op OF New York and setting such q
tearfully demoralizing example to Amer
lean prelacy, is positively, shocking and
uncomfortable. 4 Bishop Tozer, ali the
at the time, and Bishop Potter, of New
York, somewhat later, adds his testi-
mOny against this heinous breach of
courtesy and church order. The Meth
dist notices the affair in the following
terms:
Bishop Potter has written letter to
the Evening Post, of this city, in which
he shows that he is bound up in the
same narrow formula rs his cO-bishOp
of Zanzibar. He sees in the beautiful
terbury only a piece of discourtesy.
stirs no pleasurable emotion in him; hC
dwells only on the canonical irregulari-
ty of communion with Presbyterians
and Baptists.
To our minds there is something very
small in all this. It continually re-
minds us of the old Pharisees. Their
great trouble was that Jesus was irreg-
ular. He healed men on the Sabbath
he cOnsorted with publicans and sin
ners; he did not belong to their set;
he was not scribe, nor was he Phari-
see. They saw nothing Of good in his
sweet charity, his elf-sacritCe, his pa
thence and his works. Their eyes were
closed to everything but the fact that
he did not follow their customs.
+ Bishop Potter is a courteous gentle
man and labOriOus preacher, but it
seems to us that he and all who think
with him revive again the Pharisaic
spirit. To them piety, love and the
fruits of godly living are nothing; if
Christians in whom all such fruits ap-=
pear are without the pale of apostolic
they are schismatics, who
destroy the unity of the body Of
Christ.
The age, as Bishop Potter will find,
has OutgrOwn this narrowness. Nor
will the Christian world consent to be
hemmed in by it much longer. The
longing for more perfect fellowship will
not be stifed; and if canons are in
the way of its qualification, then so much
the worse for the canOns. The London
Times has recently said that modern
common sense cannot appreciate these
fictitious distictiOns set up by Angli-
canism. twill judge men by their lives,
and will infer that q church is a true
church if it builds its members up in
piety, and blesses the world.
Bishop Potter answers the justitiCa-
ton of the Dean of Canterbury from
the example OF Dean Afford ina curious
way: a.... .-.... 49,
Besides, the case of Dean Afford can
hardly be a precedent for the case of
the present Dean of Canterbury, for in
one important respect they are not par
allel. But Dean Afford did indeed ex-
ercise his ministry at Berlin in q way
not easy to be recOnciled with his Ordi-
nary vows, and so far the cases are
parallel. But Dean Afford did not
carry his Irregularities into the diocese
Of a sister church, in disregard Of the
well-knOwn order of that church-ir-
regularities which, in form if not in in
tenti0n, would have been o. discOurtesy
toward the Bishop of that diocese. At
Berlin there was no sister church in
with the Anglican Church,
and consequently no injury to any such
church. The case of the Dean of Can
terbury in the city of New York was a
very different one. / do not wish to
dwell upon it but am not in the least
surprised that Bishop Tozer felt con-
strained to disayOW, all sympathy with
it; and ]. think he need feel no concern
at the way in which he has been as
sailed (not in your paper, hut in other
for his manly letter-a letter
which it is we'll known first found it's
way into print not by design, but by &C
cident.D. H.. 49,. --.. --eoss-.1.
Here is the territorial idea once more.
DR.. Adams church is in Bishop POtter's
and the Dean of Canterbury can
not, with propriety, follow out his fra
ternal impulses in the city of New York.
On the other hand, it may be said that
the dean is not answerable to him for
his conduct. He has his rights as @
Christian which are quite as valid as
Bishop Potter's claims asa bishop. The
act which has called out these animad-
versions will, we hope, be a precedent
for many others of q like kind.