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I merely appeal to universal human experience. I find that the great Council of Laodicea (whose Canons were confirmed, and so became of œcumenical authority at the great Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon) enacted that elections should always be held in private, and that was the summing up of the experience of the Church in all her provinces throughout Christendom for centuries. I need not point the learned gentlemen of this House to the facts of ancient primitive history. We know that then as now men were men with a strong spice of the old Adam in them. We know that then as now there were irregularities that made the faces of men blush. We know that what happened then may happen now, if it has not happened in this Church; and I call on the reverend clergy here present, and also the honorable laity, to say whether that experience of the Christian Church then, and never contradicted to this hour, it is worth while for us deliberately to reject.

One other thing. It is the experience of parliamentary bodies, as I am informed-I never had the honor to belong to any of them-that they find, when nominations are sent to them, that decency, expediency, courtesy, require that they should sit with closed doors. I ask, then, the members of this House whether in a matter so grave, so delicate, so complicated, so infinite in the questions it may bring up, as that of the fitness of a man to exercise the office of bishop in the Church of God, it is not best to ignore the gay, careless spectator, and whether we ought not to handle the subject with the delicate tenderness of fathers, or rather of brethren? At the same time, I must say that I am unwilling in this matter to leave personal character to the expressions of two classes of men who have been alluded to on this floor. One class is the timid men. God help the timid men who need the courage of secrecy to tell the truth. Men have no right to be timid in this House. I honor the noble Deputy from Connecticut for what he has said as to how in bitterness of soul he was compelled to resist the election of his own friend. I honor him for it, and I honor no man who would not do the same. There is another class, however, whom I would defend from themselves. I should not say that the fact existed if it had not already been alluded to on this floor. It is the class of men who talk wildly, who are ready to bring in careless accusations received from anonymous witnesses, perhaps in ways they would dislike to tell. Sir, I want the secret session upon this subject, but I want also a record of every word, of every syllable here spoken, for it is unhappily the case that any man standing upon this floor, even if he were a member of it, chosen bishop of a diocese, would be regarded as being guilty of an indiscretion if he were to defend himself on this floor; it would seem to unfit him for a bishopric. We know what has been said on that subject. I trust that such a thing may not be necessary. In the case of a missionary bishop who might not be upon the floor at all, it would be still worse. He has no chance whatever of saying what he has to say in his own defence. I would have the record here stenographically preserved as I said yesterday, usque ad literam, that he might have it to defend himself elsewhere if not here, so that when the mitre is not his, and he can no longer be suspected of bidding for its honor, he may nevertheless have the right of vindicating his doctrinal character as a priest, his personal character as a man. I, therefore, trust that the amendment of the honorable Lay Deputy from Kentucky will prevail, and then I trust this House now or at a later hour will provide for keeping a stenographic report of its secret debates.

Rev. Dr. LEWIN, of Maryland. Mr. President, I ask your indulgence and that of this House for

one moment. I think one point made by the venerable Dr. Mead, of Connecticut, was conclusive as regards the analogy between this General Convention and the Standing Committees. It is perfectly conclusive to my mind. But one point escaped him, a fact of history which I know he will recollect as soon as I call his attention to it. It happened in 1847, when the Diocese of Illinois sent the name of a gentleman here, as elected to be Assistant Bishop of that Diocese. Character was not at all involved, but there were certain points. I do not wish to go over those points, but they in no way touched the character of that gentleman as a man of God, as worthy to work in the Church of God, but still, in the judgment of the General Convention, it was thought that he ought not to be confirmed as a bishop. These things being openly spoken would not have injured his character, but might have injured his influence in the position in which he then was, and yet those points influenced the General Convention. The world outside would not have looked upon him in the same way in certain matters, but his character was perfectly unimpeached, as it was unimpeachable. The case was that of the Rev. Mr. Brinton, who was in 1847 sent here by the Diocese of Illinois. I believe then, if the General Convention had sat with closed doors, it would have been better. I adduce this circumstance simply to say that I am in favor of the original rule as proposed to be amended by the gentleman from Kentucky, and I am not in favor of confining it to the specific point of character. I do not think that character is necessarily involved, but it may come in; but there are a great many other points which also may come in, and which we can here discuss better amongst ourselves. It is not to protect ourselves, but to protect a clergyman who ought to be protected because he is worthy of all honor except that of the Episcopate. For this reason I shall go for the original rule of order as amended by the motion of the gentleman from Kentucky.

Rev. Dr. FARRINGTON, of New Jersey. Mr. President, I rise simply to take exception to an assertion which was positively made here by the Lay Deputy from Pennsylvania-namely, that the secret session held in Baltimore was in all respects satisfactory. I speak in the presence of many who were Deputies to that Convention, and I assert that the character of that secret session was not satisfactory to very many of us. I call others to bear me witness that the turn which the debate took was regarded as very unfortunate, and that there were cries of protest from members on the floor as to the assertions which were being made. And, sir, I say here in this Church that left that House pained with the character of the discussion, and pained by the influences which were brought to bear there to prevent our going into an election when the name of a godly, learned, and noble man had been sent down to the House. I left the church building with pain, and I then vowed that I never would agree to go into such a secret session again. This is all I have to say.

Rev. Dr. BURR, of Ohio. Mr. President, I have a word to say as to the practical bearing of this question. You may close your doors, but here is a great assembly, and how will it be possible for them to conceal or keep secret what shall be here spoken? It would be better to speak it openly at once. If I have occasion to speak of the character of a person here nominated by the House of Bishops or sent here by a diocese, I would much rather that my words should go correctly to the public as sent forth reports of our doings, than go to the world through by the reporters, who are making such excellent the garbled form in which what is said will otherwise necessarily be scattered abroad.

It is not possible for us to accomplish the object

which is intended to be accomplished by the closing of the doors. Gentlemen talk about the world as though the world came in here. The world is a very wide world. The Church is a very wide Church. And who is this world that comes in here? I suppose the audience in the galleries, and those who come in as spectators, are as much entitled to respect as we ourselves are? They are members of the same Church for the most part. They are not different from ourselves. They are not the bad world we sometimes speak of. They are the Christian world that hears what is said, and it is right that they should hear what is said. I want to disabuse the minds of those who have heard this debate, for one would suppose that the galleries were filled with bad people, and that we must speak in whispers, and not let them hear us. Sir, they are as good as we are. They are as much interested in the affairs of the Church as we are. We have been elected to come here and legislate, but there are others looking on upon our proceedings just as worthy as we are, just as wise as we are, just as competent to judge as we are, and just as careful of what they shall say of our doings here, and of our speeches here, as we shall be. It is therefore I say you cannot accomplish the object which you have in view in closing your doors. But suppose it be expedient to do so; suppose a case may arise at any time when it would be best, wisest, and

most prudent to close the doors, can we not do it? Are we forbidden to sit with closed doors under the old rule? Certainly not. We have sat in some cases with closed doors. I hope the old rule will stand.

Rev. Dr. ADAMS, of Wisconsin, obtained the floor.

The PRESIDENT pro tem. The hour has arrived for the recess, and the House takes a recess for one half-hour.

After half an hour's recess the House resumed its session.

RECEPTION OF FOREIGN VISITORS.

The PRESIDENT. This is the hour fixed for the reception.

The Committee appointed to present the Rt. Rev. George Augustus Selwyn, D.D the Lord Bishop of Lichfield; the Rt. Rev. Ashton Oxenden, D.D., Bishop of Montreal and Metropolitan of Canada; the Rt. Rev. James William Williams, D.D., Bishop of Quebec; and the other English and Colonial clergy in attendance on the Convention, appeared with the distinguished visitors, who were escorted to the platform and received by the President.

The Deputies rose to receive the distinguished visitors, and remained standing till they retired.

The PRESIDENT. Gentlemen of the House of Deputies, I have the exceeding gratification of introducing to you once again the Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Lichfield, whose name is dear and familiar beyond the bounds of Christendom as well as within them, and is now especially dear to all American Churchmen.

The LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD (who was greeted with great applause). My dear brethren, it was my wish that you should allow the Province of Montreal, Canada, to address you first, for the very natural reason that the Metropolitan of Canada brings an address from a whole province of our Church, while I regret to say that I only present addresses from my own diocese. Feelings of delicacy would have prevented me from taking any precedence over so large a body of our fellow-churchmen as the bishops and clerical and lay representatives of the Province of Canada, but your President has ruled otherwise, for reasons which I have no doubt are good in his own mind, and therefore I proceed at once to present to you

the addresses which have been drawn up by the archdeacons and rural deans in my Diocese of Lichfield, with the assurance, that you may perhaps think unnecessary, that every word which I shall now read to you represents the very cordial feeling of those who have attached their names to these memorials. The first is a memorial from the Archdeacon and Rural Deans of the Archdeaconry of Stafford, which I will read :

"The Archdeacon and Rural Deans of the Archdeaconry of Stafford to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Lichfield :

"MY LORD-We cannot allow your Lordship to leave the diocese for the purpose of being present at the Provincial Synod of the Church of Canada, and at the Convention of the bishops and clergy of the United States of America, without assuring you of our earnest desire that you may, by the blessing of God, have not only a prosperous voyage and safe return, but the fullest measure of comfort and benefit from your communion with Churches so intimately connected with our own by common origin and unity of doctrine and discipline.

"We further beg your Lordship to convey to those Churches our brotherly greeting, and the assurance of our sincere desire and prayer that they and the Church of this land may, in Christian love and zeal, promote the glory of God and the good of

mankind.

"We would add how much satisfaction we shall have in offering a loving and hospitable welcome to any members of those Churches who may attend the Conference in England, which, we understand, it is one great object of your Lordship's visit to promote.

(Signed)

H. MOOŘE, Archdeacon of Stafford. LOVELACE STAMER, R.D., of Stoke-on-Trent. GEORGE MATHER, R.D., of Cheadle.

H. SUTCLIFFE, R.D., of Newcastle.

J. FINCK SMITH, M.A., R.D., of Walsall.

J. H. ILES, M.A., Rural Dean, of Wolverhampton.
F. S. BOLTON, B.D., Rural Dean, of Stafford.
WILLIAM J. HALL, M. A., Rural Dean, of Trysull.
ADELBERT J. R. ANSON, R.D., of Himley.
J. W. MARSHALL, R.D., of Handsworth.
T. R. O. BRIDGEMAN, R.D., of Brewood.
C. P. GOOD, R.D., of Eccleshall.
A. F. BOUCHER, R.D., of Leek.
T. A. BANGHAM, R.D., of Lichfield.
C. P. WILBRAHÁM, R.D., of Penkridge.
R. M. GRIER, R.D., of Rugeley.
A. BROWNE, R.D., of Tamworth.
E. J. EDWARDS, R.D., of Trentham.
N. J. PEACH, R.D., of Tutbury.

W. HUTCHINSON, R.D., of Uttoxeter."

Of these names, many here will remember Mr. Iles and Mr. Bangham and Mr. Edwards, who were with me at your last General Convention, and the latter of whom is here now.

The second address which I have the honor to present is from the Archdeaconry of Derby :

"LICHFIELD, July 23, 1874. "To our Brother Churchmen in Canada and the United States:

"We, the undersigned, Rural Deans of Derbyshire, in the Diocese of Lichfield, desire to convey through the Right Rev. George Augustus, Lord Bishop of Lichfield, on the occasion of his visit to the Church in Canada and the United States of America, the expression of our true sympathy and fellowship with them as brethren in Christ. EDWARD BALSTON, D.D., Archdeacon of Derby and Rural Dean of Bakewell.

EDWARD HENRY ABERNY, B.A., Prebendary of Lichfield and Rural Dean of Derby.

R. M. JONES, M.A., Vicar of Cromford and Rural
Dean of Ashover.

GEORGE HULL, B.A., Vicar of Chapel Entsforth
and Rural Dean of Castleton.
AUGUSTUS ADAM BAGSHAWE, M.A., Cantab.,
Vicar of Wormhill and Rural Dean of Buxton.
HENRY JAMES FEILDEN, Rector of Kirk Lang-
ley and Rural Dean of Radborne.
SAMUEL ANDREW, Vicar of Tideswell and Rural
Dean of Eyam.

G. VERNON MELLOR, Vicar of Jaridgehay and
Rural Dean of Wirthworth.

T. A. ANSON, R.D., of Cabley.

J. D. MACFARLAINE, R.D., of Staveley.

J. K. MARSH, Vicar and Rural Dean of Brampton. N. H. DEACON, Vicar and Rural Dean of Alfreton. G. ARTHUR FESTING, M.A., Vicar of Clifton and Rural Dean of Ashburne.

MARISCHAL K. S. FRITH, M.A., Vicar of Allertree and Rural Dean of Duffield. JAMES THOMAS ALDERSON, Rector of Ravenstone, Rural Dean of Hartshorne.

F. C. FISHER, Rector of Walton-on-Trent, Rural Dean of Lullington."

The third address which I beg to present is from the Archdeaconry of Shropshire. It is signed by all the rural Deans of the Archdeaconry of Salop, in the Diocese of Lichfield, nine in number, viz.: the Vicar of Gt. Ness, the Rector of Middle, the Rector of Donington, the Minister of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, the Rector of Hodnet, the Vicar of Wellington, the Rector of Edgmond, the Rector of Cressage, the Rector of Whitechurch, J. A.

"LICHFIELD, July 31, 1874.

"We, the undersigned, Archdeacon and Rural Deans of Salop in the Diocese of Lichfield, grateful to God for the fatherly loving-kindness and wise oversight of our Reverend Missionary Bishop, and humbly desiring that the Divine Spirit may bless his unceasing labors for the brotherly intercommunion of the Churches of Christ, desire to send affectionate greeting to the Bishops and pastors of the Church on the other side of the Atlantic, by the mouth and hands of our Diocesan.

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I have the greatest pleasure, my dear brethren, in presenting these addresses to you, the more so because this is the second time when I have had the opportunity, by God's providence, of placing before you these expressions of brotherly sympathy and love from the Church on the other side of the water. I am sure if I had been able to procure the same kind expressions of opinion from the more distant Churches with which I was formerly connected, the Churches in Australasia and New Zealand, they would all have been to the same tenor, for I am convinced of this, that throughout the now widespread limits of our Anglican Communion, there is, at the present moment, one prevailing feeling of brotherly love and Christian harmony and concord, with earnest prayer offered up from all the branches of our Church that it may please God to extend that feeling more and more, day by day, and unite us evermore, day by day, in the bond of peace and in brotherly love.

This is all that I have at this present moment to say to you, except to remind you of one most interesting occasion which has occurred since I met you last, and that was the presentation of the almsbasin, which was furnished in the city of Baltimore as a memorial of the visit of the English Deputation to the General Convention in that city in the year

1871. It was my happiness to present that almsbasin to the Archbishop of Canterbury in concert with one whose loss we all lament, who is now with God in his rest, Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, who, hand in hand with me, each of us holding the alms-basin by one hand and on bended knee, presented that alms-basin for the Lord's table in St. Paul's Cathedral, on the 4th of July. On that occasion, I thought I could not do better than to send by the electric telegraph to Bishop Potter, the Bishop of the Diocese of New York, a telegram containing these few words, limited, of course, to the smallest possible range on account of the cost of the mode of conveyance, but expressing, therefore, so much more the concentrated feelings of our hearts. The words were these:

"Bishop Selwyn to Bishop Potter:

"Alins-basin presented in St. Paul's Cathedral, 4th of July. Independence is not disunion." [Applause.] If, my dear brethren, you should desire to take up one thought of a practical kind which occurs in these addresses, it is perfectly true that I have come in the earnest hope that my presence here, and that of my dear brother, the Metropolitan of Canada, may tend to bring to a point the question now being mooted in England, of the repetition of the Lambeth Conference of 1867, which I believe in my conscience and in my heart to have been the very greatest event that has happened for the benefit of our Protestant Episcopal Church since the time of the Reformation. If you should be pleased to take up that question and express any opinion upon it, I am sure it would give great gratification to all those in England who desire on every possible ground, social, brotherly, public, that the Bishops of all the various branches of our great Anglican Communion should meet again on English soil, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to consult for the good of our whole Church, for the extension of its work throughout the world, for the appeasing of all strife among ourselves, and so for furthering all those purposes which our Divine Lord has given us to do, and to aid us in which He sent down from heaven His blessed Spirit.

I have nothing more to say on the present occasion but to assure you of my own unabated feeling of brotherly love towards you all, and to hope that my visit here again with my dear friend Mr. Edwards, who comes a second time for that purpose, may not be altogether unproductive of beneficial results. [Applause.]

The PRESIDENT. I have now the pleasure of introducing to you the Most Rev. Lord Bishop of Montreal and Metropolitan of Canada.

The LORD BISHOP OF MONTREAL. My Brethren and Mr. President, I beg leave to say that it is to me a matter of very deep interest and of heartfelt joy that I have been permitted to attend the meeting of this grand and great Convention. When I first arrived in the city of New York on Tuesday evening, I confess to a feeling of loneliness in entering your great and gorgeous city; but that feeling of solitariness left me as soon as I entered the vast and noble congregation that met me in this chapel on the following morning. I then felt that I was among beloved brethren, brethren of a sister Church, and may I not say almost brethren of the same Church as my own, for these two Churches, the Church of England in Canada and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, are in point of fact almost identical. Their outward form is nearly similar. We hold together the same great and glorious and precious definite truths, and we worship together under the same blessed forms which we both look upon as our mutual inheritance. We of the Church of Canada, I can assure you, look with

great admiration upon your Church, because of its Constitution, which I believe is as perfect and symmetrical as human minds can devise. That Constitution, we remember, was formed some eighty years ago, and it has served as a sort of model upon which have been since founded the various forms of Church Constitution in our Colonies. Truly, I may say so as regards the Church of Canada, the Church in New Zealand, and the Church in Australia.

Then we also admire your Church for its onward progress, for its determination, in God's strength, to go forward and continually make an agressive movement in this, its land. We remember that some three-quarters of a century ago there was but one diocese of the Episcopal Protestant Church in this land, and now that Episcopate has been multiplied fifty-fold. We earnestly desire to copy your zeal in that respect, and to be a progressive and an advancing Church, an aggressive Church.

But we admire, most of all, your zeal and earnestness and devotedness in uplifting the cross of Christ and bringing sinners to the common Saviour; and it is for this reason that, at a late meeting of the Provincial Synod of Canada, of which I have the great honor to be the President, an address was agreed on to be presented to this Convention. I was charged with that address in common with my friend and brother, our Prolocutor; and although I have conceded to him the honor and privilege of presenting that address to you-having already presented it myself to the Upper House-I still feel that I stand here in a somewhat public capacity, as representing the Church of England in Canada.

And now, my Christian friends and brethren, I desire to thank you for having listened to me; Idesire to thank you for having admitted me to-day into your House; and I desire earnestly to pray that it may please God to pour out upon you largely, in your deliberations at this time, towards which the eye of the Church is directed, the spirit of wisdom, forbearance, Christian gentleness and union, and of Christian and spiritual holiness. I trust that this meeting of the Convention may be the means, under Him, of promoting His glory, and of advancing the great interests of the Church in this land. [Applause.]

The PRESIDENT. I next present the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Kingston.

The LORD BISHOP OF KINGSTON. My friends, I come among you to-day in a position which I scarcely wish to occupy in one respect, representing only myself. I am the Bishop of a small Island, not measuring more than a hundred and forty miles in length, not including in it more than about half a million inhabitants, and in which I have not the oversight of more than about one hundred church-stations; but I have come here simply upon the invitation of a single individual Bishop of your own Church, with whom I have had the honor of forming a warm friendship and attachment, and I have been able to reconcile with other arrangements visiting New York just at the time of all others at which I should naturally desire to do so. In truth, I feel myself almost overwhelmed already by the warmth and kindness of the reception which I have personally experienced. I sincerely say that I could wish for no better spirit to prevail in any branch of the Church of Christ, with which I have ever been acquainted, than that which seems to me to be existing here, at least among those with whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. It is true, as yet, I have to make the acquaintance, I hope, of a good many more of the presbyters of this Church. In the upper House I have been almost overwhelmed with kindness, and this, I must say, I think to be no light matter. Truly it is the mutual love which

we, as fellow-workers with the Lord Jesus Christ, have one to another. It is to this we are to look to overcome all differences that may still subsist between us, and cement us yet more closely into a more perfect organization. Still, whatsoever is wanting in the completing of our machinery for carrying out the same purpose for which we are associated, even here, I find, in the United States, your Church has not attained an absolute perfection of organization. You are occupying your time still with questions of great importance in rendering that organization, in your own judgment, more perfect; and you are invited to debate, you have been just invited to debate to-day, by my Right Reverend Brother, the Bishop of Lichfield, whether you cannot do more to cement your union with all the other branches of the Anglican Church, by meeting in conference in another land, or it might be, byand-by, perhaps, here also. But what is the foundation of all this but that love of a common Christianity which we share?

I wish I could, upon this occasion, assure you that I am speaking the sentiments of the Clergy of my own Diocese. They were not aware of my intention to come here, nor was I myself, at the time of the meeting of our last Synod. I may, however, be permitted to say that, having been one of a large number of Bishops assembled from different parts of the West Indies in conference the other day, we united in praying the Archbishop of Canterbury ere long to take such steps as would effect the meeting of another conference at Lambeth. Mainly for this reason, let me assure you that we all have felt that our union with the other branches of the Church cannot be complete so long as only the Church of England and the Church of the Colonies immediately connected with England are affected. We need your presence, your sympathy, your co-operation, too. We did not see how we could be linked on to all branches of this great Church, to which we are dearly attached, unless you joined with us. And I would earnestly pray that the time may come when such meetings as this at which I have the pleasure of being present may be seen to be but the anticipation of a time yet to come, when the Bishops, the clergy, and the laity of the great Church of this land, and the Bishops, the clergy, and the laity of other branches of the same, shall meet together in conference, and exchange brotherly greetings with mutual prayers for God's blessing on each other, such as that in which I have the happiness of taking my humble part now. [Great applause.]

The PRESIDENT. I now present to you the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Quebec.

The LORD BISHOP OF QUEBEC. Mr. President and my very dear Brethren: After what has been said by our Metropolitan, who speaks by right of place for the Canadian Church, and whose name lends the weight of personal esteem and of a character well and widely known to the authority of his office, I should not have ventured to obtrude myself upon this Convention. Since, however, your courtesy makes occasion for me to introduce myself with my own voice to those whose acquaintance I have come so far to make, I avail myself gladly of the permission to tell you, in few words, how much my spirit rejoices to join with you in the communion of worship and of counsel which belongs to the brotherhood of Christ, to tell you with what a thrill of joy in the warmth of your fellowship I feel my heart throb with the common pulsation of the one body wherein we are all members one of another. Our presence here to-day is, and is intended to be, a token and a testimony of our respect for the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and those of us who are deputed by the Provincial

Synod of Canada are charged further to consult with you in such manner as to you shall seem expedient for the furtherance of a still closer union between these two branches of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, yours and ours.

I must confess that, although I had willingly for the reasons I have indicated undertaken to form one of this deputation, this latter part of our office seems to me a little superfluous, for though there may be, for all I know, certain accidents and details of intercommunion admitting of smoother adjustment, yet the substance of the unity in the one body and the one spirit I am right sure now we have. Freely at the Lord's table, without let or hindrance, the brethren intermingle; freely the clergy pass to and fro and minister in the cure of souls. Of the closeness, the completeness of the organic unity of this connection, I am in my own person a living witness, for when I was called and commissioned to be a Bishop in the Church of Canada, upon my head was laid the honored hand of him who was of late the presiding Bishop of the American Church.

We are here, my very dear friends, as witnesses to manifest a unity which does exist; we are, some of us, to consult, if need be, for drawing yet closer the bonds of that unity in all cases. The unity of the Spirit we endeavor to keep, and I am persuaded shall keep, in the bonds of peace. [Applause.]

I

The PRESIDENT. We have present with us, am happy to say, and I beg to introduce to you, the Lord Bishop-I should say, the late Missionary Bishop-of Zanzibar.

BISHOP TOZER. I am very glad to say that I have a point of agreement which none of my brethren from abroad have with you in the United States, from my never having been a Lord Bishop, and I am very glad that I am so far a republican that that title could never legitimately and truly appertain to me. [Laughter.]

At this late period of the proceedings I cannot detain you by a speech. There are many standing before me who have been standing a long time, and I am sure at a very great inconvenience; and it would be less than human to say that one was exceedingly interested in the sight before one, that one was exceedingly interested in the proceedings of this Convention, and that one was hopeful that they would issue in the greater solidity of the Church and the greater charity exhibited by one member towards another.

I have nothing more to say than that I thank you extremely for the kind way in which you have allowed me to appear before you this morning.

The PRESIDENT. I next present Reverend Dr. Geddes, Prolocutor of the Church of Canada.

Rev. Dr. GEDDES. Mr. President, Reverend Brethren, and Brethren of the Laity: I appear before you in an official capacity. The Most Reverend the Metropolitan of Canada has already informed you that we come bearers of a message of Christian love and warm affection from the Church in Canada to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, as represented in your august and venerable body. I shall first of all read that address, and then, with the permission of your President, I shall venture to offer a few observations : "To the Right Reverend the Bishops, and the Clerical and Lay Representatives, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States:

The Provincial Synod of Canada, now in session, desires to send its very hearty and fraternal greeting to the Right Reverend the Bishops, and the Clerical and Lay Deputies, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, and earnestly prays that their approaching General Convention may be so blessed by Almighty God, that by their means His truth may be established, and His king

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J. GAMBLE GEDDES,

CHARLES HAMILTON, M.A., Clerical Sec'y Prov. Synod.

F. MACKENZIE,

Lay Secretary. MONTREAL, 11th September, 1874."

I need scarcely say that the address you have just heard, necessarily short, expresses very inadequately the warm and earnest and hearty interest felt by the Church in Canada in the prosperity of the Church in the United States. We, as Canadian Churchmen, have with feelings of admiration and gratitude, I may say, to Almighty God, seen the mighty growth of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this great and growing country. We recall the struggles she had to make, and manfully did she make them, during the earlier period of her history, when, holding the vital principle of the Primitive Church, sine episcopo nulla ecclesia, she was yet deprived of the Episcopacy, and was obliged for a long time to spend her strength in loneliness and discouragement. "Her vineyard the wild boar of the wood appeared to be rooting up; her hedges were broken down, and everybody that passed by plucked off her grapes." This was her sad and lonely condition then, and now what do we behold? A church with her nearly threescore Bishops, her three thousand Clergy, Priests, and Deacons, her noble body of loyal and devoted Laymen, and her tens and hundreds of thousands of communicants-a mighty and a powerful host combined to carry forward the standard of the cross, "fair and beauteous as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." We look at the records of her history, and see the catalogue of those great and holy men whose memories shed a lustre upon the page of her history, commencing with the dauntless Seabury, the Father of the American Episcopate, the memorable White, the noble-hearted Hobart, the accomplished Hopkins, the eloquent Doane, the courtly Wainwright and Delancey, the saintly and venerable Bishop of Ohio, McIlvaine, the good and learned and legal minded Whitehouse, men who by their learning and their zeal and their piety would adorn the Episcopal Bench of any Church in Christendom. [Applause.] When we survey these things we feel proud of your achievements as a Church. We feel proud of our relationship to you, the younger sister, the two sisters, daughters of the beloved, venerable, and venerated mother, the dear old Church of England. [Great applause.]

Engaged, then, in the same holy work with yourself, having the same anxieties and encouragements, the same hopes and fears, we come here to ask your sympathy and your prayers; and we come to offer you in return our poor prayers and our heartfelt and warmest sympathy.

In the name of the venerable Archdeacons and the reverend clergy who form a deputation with me, in the name, I may say, of the whole Church in Canada-for the Metropolitan will authorize me, I trust, to say so we bid you God-speed in your great and holy work. We say to you in the language of the Psalmist, "The Lord prosper you we wish you good luck in the name of the Lord. [Applause.]

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The PRESIDENT. The venerable Archdeacon Fuller I now present.

Archdeacon FULLER. I had not expected to have the honor of being presented to this body this afternoon, but it being urged upon me by my dear

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