The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-16
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER Is, 1884.
The Sunday Journal has the largest and
best circulation Of any Sunday paper in In
diana. Price three cents.
THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

The celebration at Baltimore, on Friday, of
the one hundredth anniversary of the conse-
Grafton of the first bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in America, was an occasion
for graduation to that powerful Christian or
ganization. The changes wrought in the
hundred years stretching between Nov. IA,
1884, and Nov. IA, 1884, are no less marked
in the Episcopal Church than in the Nation.
Previous to the Revolution members of the
Church Of England had settled in all
parts of the colonies. In Maryland
especially they were very numerous,
and as early as 1892 they seem to have con-
stituted a majority Of the population, sutii-
GENTLY large to establish their religion as the
religion of the colony. No bishop was pro
vided for them, however, until after the peace
of 1888. Up to that time the Episcopal Church
in this country was under the oversight of the
Bishop of London, and American candidates
for the ministry were under the necessity OF
crossing the Atlantic to obtain orders. Efforts
had indeed been made to secure
an episcopate in the colonies; but
these efforts had been defeated by
a two-fold influence, one growing out Of po-
litical complications and animosities, and an
other a jealousy of episcopacy as associated
with lordly titles and vast incomes. 1t is
also affirmed that, especially in New England,
a fear that if the colonial dependence Of our
country on the crown of England should
be much longer perpetuated, the establish
ment of an episcopate like that in England
would be inevitable, contributed much to the
zeal which characterized the struggle for
American independence. In this state OF
things, as was natural, when the
war had actually broken out, some
of the Church of England people, and
more especially those Of the Northern
States, were opposed to it, and became what
were called Tories, while others, and particu-
larly those in the Southern States, heartily
espoused the cause. Washington himself was
a Church of England man before the Revolu-
ton, and lived and died in that faith. Mr..
Duche, the first chaplain of Congress, was a
Church of England clergyman.
AS early as August, 1882, a plan had been
proposed for a union and organization of the
Church of England people into an independ-
emit branch of the church of Christ. No or
ganization, however, was completed until
September, 1885; but before this the
Episcopalians of Connecticut elected the
Rev. Samuel Seabury, d. D., to be their
bishop. DR.. Seabury, in consequence Of some
political obstacle to his getting ordination in
England, was conseorated at Aberdeen, Nov.
IA, 1884, by three Scottish bishops, Robert
Kilgour, Arthur Petrie and John Skinner.
The general convention, which met in 1875,
made application to the English Church for
the conservation of bishops for the American
Church, in order to perpetuate the succession
in the Anglican line. For this Office, DR..
William White, of Pennsylvania, and DR..
ignated and elected, each respectively, by the
parishes in the States to which they belonged.
They were consecrated in the Lambeth Palace
Chapel, Feb. 4, 1887; and on Sept. 10, 100,
James Madison, of Virginia, was in like man
ner consecrated for the American church in
Virginia.
In 1889 the general convention met, con-
sisting of the then bishops and clerical and
lay delegates from each of the States in which
any diocesan organization had been effected,
At this meeting a constitution and canons
for the organization and government Of the
church as a branch Of the Catholic Church of
Christ were adopted. The English Prayer
book, as revised and adapted to
the altered political circumstances
of the country, was set forth to be used i'll all
the congregations after Oct. l, 1880, and it
remains unchanged to the present day. The
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States retains from the Church of England
the Apostles and Nicene creeds, the thirty
nine articles, with a slight modification in
reference to the connection Of the civil gov
ernment with the church, the catechism, the
baptismal Offices and the ordinal. In this re-
vision of the Offices Bishops Seabury and
White were chiefly instrumental, and Bishop
White has left his testimony to the harmony
and agreement of views and feelings with
which they co-operated.
Starting without State aid as an established
Aurch, the American church has made steady