CHAPTER XXV.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States-Organization of the Church after the Revolution--Efforts to Unite the Separate ChurchesSubsequent History of the Church-The "Mission Service" of 1885-'86.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE UNITED

TH

STATES.

HE Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States is a daughter of the Church of England. The Church of England in the Colonies labored under many disadvantages. In the absence of bishops, its ministry could be replenished only by emigration from the mother Church of England, or by a double voyage of candidates across the Atlantic. The same cause naturally led to a relaxation of discipline. Although many of the clergy in the Colonies were exemplary and devoted men, yet the condition of things, in those distant dependencies, was such as to open a refuge there for clergymen of doubtful reputation and antecedents in the Church of England. The evils resulting from this state of things led to early, but unsuccessful attempts to secure the introduction of bishops into the American Colonies.

The Episcopal oversight of the Colonies was committed to the Bishop of London. Commissioners of the Bishop, who were charged by him with authority to enforce the discipline of the Church, were appointed for Virginia, Maryland, New York, and South Carolina. But the effort on the part of the clergy of the Colonies to secure the Episcopacy not