[Footnote 46: _Journal_ of 1865, pp. 361, 190.]
If, in the face of facts like these, we judge of the future by the present and the past, what shall we say? Is there a hope that, in that mighty era when this great continent shall swarm with prosperous, intelligent, industrious millions, a church, which during a whole century, with every advantage of respectability and wealth, has met with such signal failure, shall rise into supremacy? Is there a probability great enough to justify our serious contemplation that a church, whose claim to be the "Church of the People" is thus denied by that unerring voice of history which is the echo of the voice of God, should be the "Church of the Future" in our country?
We know no better answer to these questions than the thrilling exhortation given by the venerable Dr. Muhlenberg to the Memorial Commission concerning their own duty to their church:
"Bid her," said he, "look over this vast continent, filling with people of all nations and languages and tongues, and see the folly of hoping to perpetuate among them an _Anglican_ communion, that will ever be recognized as aught more than an honorable sect. Bid her give over the vain attempt to cast all men's minds into one mould.
"Bid her cherish among her own members mutual tolerance of opinion in doctrine, and taste in worship; remembering that uniform sameness in lesser matters may be the ambition of a society, a party, a school in the church, but is far below any genuine aspirations of the church herself. It is the genius of Catholicism which is now knocking at her doors. Let her refuse to open. Let her, if she will, make them faster still with new bolts and bars, and then take her rest, to dream _a wilder dream than any of the Memorial of becoming the Catholic Church of these United States._" [Footnote 47]
[Footnote 47: _Memorial Papers_, p. 288.]
The conclusions to which the experience of a hundred years has thus directed us will be extended and confirmed by an examination of certain characteristics which the "Church of the Future," as a "Church of the People," must necessarily present, and by a comparison of these with the internal structure and external operations of the Episcopal Church. In the course of this examination we shall also probably discover the causes from which the past failures of the latter have resulted, and the means by which she might adapt herself more fully to the wants of the country and the age, if, in fact, such adaptation were any longer possible. Therefore we proceed: