The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-03-30
THE CHURCH CONTROVERSY.

If there is no essential difference be-
tween the Anglican and American
Episcopal churches. as His Lordship,
the Bishop of Honolulu, argues, then, of
course, American communicates have
no cause to complain of the present
church establishment IN these Islands.
whatever may be their attitude toward
persons connected with it. But we
fancy that the declaration vii. be as
surprising to them as it is to US.
| 1t has been customary among Brit
ish Protestant eccleslastics to speak of
the church in America not as 1.-The
church." but as "a daughter church.
| If we mistake not, Bishop Willis him
self has so described it. If the dis
tinction thus made is a proper one,
then the church in America has the
same individual entity that the daugh-
ter-especially the daughter who has
set up in housekeeping for hersef-has
as distinguished from her parent She
lis quite an independent parsonage. She
is free to order her household as she
wants to-; she owes no more than dis
cretionary obedience to her parent. with
whom she certainly cannot be confused.
and with whose identity she cannot be
included.
That the terms Anglican" and Amer
ican'' church are not always inter-
! changeable appears in Bishop Willis
letter to the Advertiser under date of
March 18th. Therein he speaks of the
American prayer book" and he admits
that if prayers for King Edward were
read in the Anglican churches here, it
would be ground for dissatisfaction in
the minds of American churchmen.
Surely this is not speaking of the Epis-
,copal church as one but as two or more.
Separate institutions, governed by diff
fering views Of church polity seem thus
to have been recognized by the Bishop
himself. May we not enquire whether,
If this difference is marked enough to
permit Americans to object "5ustly'' to
any part of the Anglican prayer book.
it is not enough to permit them to OBJ
ject, with equal justice, to any part
of the Anglican church administration?
/. The american church does not, we
Shins, regard itself as Anglican. It
takes no orders from the Archbishop of
Canterbury; it does not pray for the
royalty of England; it is so far apart
from the Established church that the
Duke of Newcastle finds some difficulty
form of cooperative sympathy with
the high ritualists of England; if the
charge was made that the church is
English and not. distinctively American
in it's administration, and national sym
pathies, that charge would be repealed
by bishops. clergy and press alike So
here we have a difference, yes, a yawn-
ing divergence, between the two great
Episcopal bodies.
Because of this state of separate re-
sponsibility the American church does
not invade British soil and the Angli-
can church does not invade American
soil. The only place we know of where
the Anglican body holds American
ground is here: and this is notNa mat
ter of invasion but survival. Still the
effect is, after all, that of forcible
entry, whatever the legal right of domi-
Gle may be. Admitting that the Angli-
can church be ignored, American
Ichurchmen insist that this is no reason
why the American church should not
also acquire vested interests here. They
would prefer an American mission to a
foreign Episcopate: and as this Is
American soil, what reason is there
why a request for the establishment of
such a mission should be denied? Is
there any canon declaring that where
an Anglican See is located on American
soil an American See can obtain no
jurisdiction?