which they were brought face to face. Ordination, Confirmation,
and the government of the Church must of need be secured. Nor can
we greatly wonder if what no entreaties had been able to obtain
while the colonies were a part of the British Empire, seemed now
to many an almost hopeless undertaking. The surrender at Yorktown
in 1781 was to many American churchmen the death-blow to their
hopes for an American Episcopate. There were men enough to see the
difficulties and discouragements, to talk and write and speculate
about them; but where should those men be found who would grapple
with them, and by grappling with them overcome them? I answer,
they were found in those ten clergymen who met at Woodbury in
1783, "Men that had understanding of the times." And is it not
always somewhat after this sort, when any great step is to be
taken, and there are manifold difficulties in the way? Do not men
dwell on the difficulties, and exaggerate the dangers, and suggest
expedients and makeshifts, till some one, without fuss or noise,
takes the step, and lo! the mountain has been levelled and the way
lies open? Depend upon it, there is a wealth of wisdom in these
simple lines:

"From an old English parsonage down by the sea, There came in the
twilight a message to me; Its quaint Saxon legend deeply engraven,
Hath, as it seems to me, teaching from heaven; And all through the
hours the quiet words ring, Like a low inspiration: 'Doe the nexte
thynge.'"

And what the next thing was for this Church when these western
colonies became a nation, we have already seen.

The need of some decided and vigorous action was made more obvious