THE “PERILOUS TENDENCY” OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
At the recent Protestant Episcopal General Convention, held at Minneapolis, Bishop Littlejohn, of Long Island, read a pastoral letter in which occurred the following significant expression:— “We are, indeed, between two perilous tendencies. On the one hand, there is a demand for concessions which will make it easy for members of Christian bodies, not in communion with the church, to enter her ministry, to transfer them bodily as congregations, with faint and feeble guards of soundness in their forms of worship; on the other, there is a plea put forth by some to enter into negotiations with the bishop of Rome, with a view to reunion, which is now known to be possible only by absolute submission to his unscriptural and unlawful demands. The wise thing for us to do is to hold fast to our position.” On this sentiment the Catholic Mirror comments as follows:— “Certainly, there is no great danger from the source first indicated—namely, an inroad of members from other Christian bodies. They do not like the Episcopal Church, and lose no opportunity to signify the fact, and the members of the Episcopal Church, except a very few, do not like them. “The other ‘perilous tendency,’ however, is of a genuine and formidable character, and with every passing year destined to become more so. Ritualism is becoming such a force that soon the policy of discretion now pursued will be no longer possible; it must be reckoned with, and there must come settlement. Plainly, Bishop Littlejohn perceives that the day is not far away. “It is useless to talk about the ‘bishop of Rome,’ and to allude to his ‘unscriptural and unlawful demands.’ There is a large body of members in the Episcopal Church who, as the bishop reluctantly admits, know and feel in their hearts that the bishop of Rome is the visible head of Christ’s church on earth, and who would be easier in mind if that reunion which is spoken of could only take place.”