under the control of civil law with other clergymen; no danger,
then, can now be feared from bishops but such as may be feared
from presbyters." And then they further say, how wisely! "Should
we consent to a temporary departure from Episcopacy, there would
be very little propriety in asking for it afterwards, and as
little reason ever to expect it in America."

The men who wrote those words grasped the real exigency as they
who spoke loudest about exigencies and impossibilities did not.
They foresaw, moreover, with the intuition of true wisdom, the
danger of resorting to the temporary expedient that had been
proposed. For, in truth, all history proves that such expedients
and makeshifts always exhibit a tendency to become permanent, and
very soon challenge for themselves a character, as legitimate and
ultimate, which is not claimed for them when they are adopted.
Then that thing, whatever it may be, to which they profess to lead
men up, drops out of sight, and they themselves fill the field of
vision. Had the plan of the Philadelphia pamphlet been adopted,
such I fully believe, such the clergy of Woodbury believed, must
inevitably have been the result. That it was not adopted, that the
dangers inherent in it were avoided, was largely owing to the
action of the day which we commemorate.

In what simplicity and godly sincerity of heart they took the step
that lay right before them, met the difficulty from which others
shrank, did "the next thing," and, therefore, wrought for a
marvellous future! Says a thoughtful writer: [Footnote: Aubrey de
Vere, _Sketches in Greece and Turkey_.] "Men of ambitious
imaginations retire into their study and devise some _magnum
opus_ which, like the world itself, is to be created out of