Will the Episcopal Church justify this description? Has she that "pure and uncorrupted faith," that "word of the gospel," which is "always, and everywhere, and by all" invariably taught and held?
Everybody knows better. She herself denies it. Years ago one of her bishops described her as a church in which parties were "arrayed in bitter hostility to each other;" in which there was "so much difference of opinion upon important points of doctrine that the bishops and other ministers could not be brought to agree;" in which "one part denies all claim to an evangelical, that is, a gospel, character, to all who do not agree with them in every particular," while "the other party denies to the former any just right to the name of churchman." [Footnote 63]
[Footnote 63: _Memorial Papers_, p. 187.]
Years ago a venerable presbyter declared that the prime source of all her difficulties was that "_the house_" was "_divided against itself_" and that so long as men were "ordained to her ministry, clothed with her authority, and seated in her high places, who cannot conscientiously teach her Catechism for children, and whose work of love it is to revile her doctrines, her institutions, and her faithful people, her enemies" [Footnote 64] would rejoice, and the world repudiate her claims.
The church in the United States has not yet brought forth a Colenso, neither has a Pusey yet arisen in her midst; but the diversity between these leaders of the Anglican communion is hardly greater than obtains between the congregations on this side of the Atlantic. The rector of old Trinity with his confessional, the rector of St. George's with his prayer-meeting, are exponents of parties, the gulf of whose separation cleaves downward to the bottom of the great plan of man's salvation. "Father" Morrill at St. Alban's, and the younger Tyng beneath the missionary tent in the public square, represent creeds and principles as different as any that divide the world. Under the shelter of a liturgy which each interprets according to his personal views, they dwell together, and through its rigid formularies preserve external uniformity. But everywhere outside of it their unity is wanting. Pulpit is arrayed against pulpit, seminary against seminary, society against society. Her bishops are catalogued as "high" and "low," and looked to as the leaders of her hostile factions. Her general convention seeks safety in inaction. Her ecclesiastical existence hangs upon the thread of compromise.