priests' orders. Four more--i. e., twenty-four in the whole--will
be as many as the present ability of the Church can support. It
does, however, grow, and converts from Presbyterianism are not
unfrequent." The growth has been so great that at our last annual
convention in this diocese the reported contributions, including
parochial expenses and salaries, amounted to upwards of $620,000,
and if there had been no omissions to make returns the aggregate
would have--been considerably larger. If we give a moment's
attention to the whole Church in the country, we find that we have
sixty-six living bishops, the list from Seabury down numbering one
hundred and thirty-four; and the clergy in all the dioceses and
missionary jurisdictions must be well nigh on to four thousand.

It is in no spirit of boasting that we make this comparison. "Not
unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise,
for Thy loving mercy and for Thy truth's sake." Yet it is becoming
on this one-hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the first
bishop of Connecticut to remember that results under God have
flowed from it so vast in extent that no human eye could have
forseen them at the time; no human heart could have believed that
the Episcopal Church in America, cemented in one body and carrying
with united zeal her doctrines and ritual into every part of our
great republic, would so soon verify in a broader sense than he
used them the words of the ancient seer: "How goodly are thy
tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are
they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of
lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted." It is becoming also on
this anniversary to remember with profound gratitude that we live
in an age when happily persecution for the sake of religion has
passed away, and when the ever old but ever new commandment of