concerned, and it was confined to the clergy, perhaps, among other
reasons, for fear of reviving the former opposition on this side
to an American Episcopate, and thus of defeating their plan to
complete the organization of the Church and secure its inherent
perpetuity in this country. The times were troubled, and the
establishment of peace with a foreign power did not necessarily
produce tranquillity and happiness at home. Mischiefs and
jealousies still lingered with those who had contended for
liberty, and the chief Protestant sects, which have all erected
their banners and had their camping-ground in the Church of
England, were ready to welcome her weakness and overthrow because
her priests and her people, for the most part, had been on the
side of the Crown during the long struggle for independence. But
it is not possible to destroy what God holds in His hand. The
passions of men work vast evil till, in calmer moments, they
subside and a better light shines through their principles and
their actions.

The outcome of the meeting at Woodbury, after many hindrances and
perplexities, was the consecration by the non-juring Bishops of
the Church of Scotland of the Rev. SAMUEL SEABURY as the first
Bishop of Connecticut and of the Episcopal Church in the United
States. We owe to this consecration some of the best features of
our Book of Common Prayer. We owe to it the compactness and unity
of our great American Communion, and surely it was well to have
what we used on Sunday last--a form of thanksgiving for this our
hundredth anniversary of the election of Bishop Seabury that God
did "so replenish him with the truth of His doctrine and endue him
with innocency of life that he was enabled, both by word and deed,
faithfully to serve Him in the office of a bishop to the glory of