The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-03-13
AN OPEN LETTER.


From the Bishop of Honolulu TO the
Chairman of the House of Bishops
of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the United States.
The following appeared in the Pa
cific Commercial Advertiser or Homo
lulu, on January "a, 1902:
Bishop Potter advises going to the
court.
Suggests an injunction to keep Bish-
| op Willis from ending Second Congre-
! cation.
II would by all means get out an
| injunction to restrain Bishop Willis
from attempting in any way to inter-
| fere with your congregation.
II am writing him by this mail in
/ very plain terms. ms.''-Extract from a let
/ ter of Bishop II. c. Potter to Rev. Al
exander Macintosh
! NV Dear Bishop of Kentucky-The
pleasant recollection l entertain or the
! courtesy with which you received me
Pinto the House of Bishops on Monday,
/ October 9TH, the fifth day of the ses-
sion of the general convention, held at
San Francisco, gives me assurance tnat
what / have now to lay before you
will be carefully weighed and consld-
cred
In the communication I laid before
YOUR house through the committee or
the bishops in council, l undertook,
through the action of the Diocesan
Synod of the Anglican Church in Ha-
wall to bring the church of the Church
of England in the Hawaiian Islands
into union with the Protestant Episco-
nal Church in the United States. The
task was one for which no precedent
existed in the history of the Anglican
communion. / need hardly mention
that it has involved weeks of anxious
care and continuous labor. Al the
outset we found ourselves confronted
! with obstacles which appeared insur-
mountable But in the issue, as the
record 1 have already sent you SHOWS,
without sacrifice 90 a single principle,
and yrfthout deviating from the funda-
mental provisions of the Anglican
Church in Hawaii, that church - noR
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
Hawaiian Islands, holding all its Yaiua-
BILE property subject to the constitution
and canons of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States. Reluctant
as many of our people We're to part
with the prayer book of the Church of
England, the situation was cheerfully
accepted, and by a unanimous standing
vote the synod acceded to the rule or
worship of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and promised allegiance to it's
constitution and canons. All this has
been done, and the prospect was
reached that on the day on which my
Jurisdiction ceases / should hand over
to the presiding bishop of the church
in the United States a diocese at unity
in itself.
Should this hope fail of realization.
the cause of the failure will be the
unholy, uncanonical interference OF the
bishop of New York. whose letter to a
clergyman in this diocese has been
published, urging him to take legal
proceedings against the bishop for no
other purpose than to prevent the al
Iegiance We have promised TO your
branch of the church going into effect.
and to carry into the new regime con-
ditions entirely foreign to all rules and
regulations of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. If any think that Bishop Pot
ter understands conditions here, it is
here less than ten hours. His uncanon-
ical action is based not on personal
knowledge, but on ex parte correspond
ence. This act of the bishop OF New
York by which he has stirred up the
elements of strife and disahection ana
aims at putting the liberties OF the
Protestant Episcopal Church IN the
Hawaiian Islands under the heel OF
faction which for forty years mas mn
dered the growth and development OF
the church of the Anglican commuhio
in these Islands is but the exposure
IF the hand which for months past
has beer2 directing a conspiracy against
fba liberties Of this church and do
cese.
Not TO 90 back further than last au-