I79-J REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 353 



drawn together, many no doubt for Instruction ; others, perhaps, from 

 Curiosity, to witness a new scene in America, namely: the First Con- 

 secration of a Bishop for a Protestant Church by an authority within 

 itself acknowledged to be valid, and sufficient to relieve it from any 

 future necessity of sending its young candidates for the ministry across 

 a vast ocean for receiving holy orders. 



Therefore, thus guided and supported in my part of the duty, I rise 

 not only with some degree of confidence, but even with full hopes, from 

 the long experienced candor and indulgence of my brethren in the 

 ministry, that where I may fall short of their expectations, it will be 

 ascribed to the true cause, want of ability, rather than want of zeal, or 

 earnest endeavors to do better, were it'in my power. 



To proceed, then, my first address should be to you, my venerable 

 brother, elected for the office of a bishop. A long acquaintance and a 

 happy intercourse with you, in the exchange of good offices for the 

 support of our church, and for strengthening the hands of our brethren 

 in the ministry, during my residence of eight or nine years in the State 

 of Maryland, as well as other good considerations, render it unneces- 

 sary for me to say much on this part of my subject. 



Of what concerns the duties of a bishop, or a chief pastor, St. Paul's 

 Epistles to Timothy and Titus have been always considered as the true 

 primitive uncorrupted depositary; nay, indeed, the luminous source 

 of instruction to all preachers of the Gospel, at all 'times and under all 

 circumstances, as already suggested. 



The preacher then made a paraphrase of part of the Second 

 Epistle to Timothy, from which the text is taken, and which, he 

 says, was written under peculiar circumstances, "near the close of 

 St. Paul's life, when he was a prisoner and in bonds at Rome — 

 called in question for the faith of Christ, before the cruel Nero, at 

 a time, too, when he saw persecutions springing up from without, 

 and divisions, heresies and corruptions from within the church; 

 and lastly, at a time when he saw and believed that his own de- 

 parture, or dissolution from the body, was near at hand;" he 

 therefore directs this last and parting charge, as a legacy of spir- 

 itual instruction, to Timothy, in the fulness of love and zeal for 

 his future prosperity and success in the propagation of the sound 

 doctrine of the Cross of Christ. . . . He then proceeds : 



What a copious catalogue of evils does the anostle here prognosticate, 

 which would spring up in the world among .nen neglecting the gospel, 

 and not led by the power thereof. They have indeed sprung up, in 

 these latter days especially. Our own eyes have seen them ; and we 

 could enumerate the nations and people among whom they have chiefly 



