2/2 LIFE AND COKRESPONDEiXCE OF THE [I/Sq 



copal Churches in the United States Considered," the presence 

 of the laity voting in councils of the Church, and especially the 

 introducing them into trials of an ecclesiastic — which it was 

 wrongly supposed by some that it was the purpose of Bishop 

 White and Dr. Smith to do — with some things done in the Con- 

 ventions of 1784, 1785 and 1786, had caused dissatisfaction and 

 anxiety with the northern clergy, and some estrangement. 



But there was another matter of importance. Bishop Seabury 

 had been consecrated by Bishops of the Church in Scotland; the 

 English Bishops having declined to consecrate him from reasons 

 of political prudence only. His personal fitness — indeed his emi- 

 nent personal fitness — even for the high and sacred office of a 

 Bishop, no one that I have heard of, ever disputed. He stands 

 forth and will always stand forth as one of the great, the heroic 

 characters of the Church in America. 



No man was more able to appreciate the value of this great 

 churchman and bishop than Dr. Smith ; none more able to vindi- 

 cate his right to the high orders which he claimed. As a Scots- 

 man, too, and a churchman alike, he felt a pride in doing so. 

 According!}', immediately after the arrival in America of Bishop 

 Seabury, with whom he had long maintained an intercourse of a 

 free and friendly character, he wrote to him informing him of what 

 had been doing in Maryland in his absence, etc., and receiving 

 from him the following interesting and authoritative statement 

 of the reasons why he had accepted Scottish orders rather than 

 English. Bishop Seabury, writing to him on the 15th of August, 

 1785, says as follows: 



The grand difficulty that defeated my application for consecration in 

 England appeared to me to be the want of an application from the 

 State of Connecticut. Other objections were made, viz. : that there was 

 no precise diocese marked out by the civil authority, nor a stated 

 revenue appointed for the Bishop's support. But those were removed. 

 The other remained — for the civil authority in Connecticut is Presby- 

 terian, and therefore could not be supposed would petition for a bishop. 

 And had this been removed, I am not sure another would not have 

 started up : for this happened to me several times. I waited, and pro- 

 cured a copy of an Act of the Legislature of Connecticut, which puts 

 all denominations of Christians on a footing of equality (except the 

 Roman Catholics, and to them it gives a free toleration), certified by 

 the Secretary of State ; for to Connecticut all my negotiations were 



