GENERAL PRINCIPLES 47 



that they do not feel keenly their isolation 

 from their fellow Christians? Why, they 

 have been discussing among themselves 



this matter of church unity for fifty 

 years, while Presbyterians have not moved 

 an inch toward them. After much mis- 

 giving they have offered grave conces- 

 sions, upon which Presbyterians have only 

 advanced with fresh demands and scruples. 

 One feels almost ashamed to notice such 

 objections, when he thinks of that apostle 

 of the movement, the noble-hearted Muh- 

 lenberg, and now, alas ! of its zealous 

 martyr, the lamented Langdon, to say 

 nothing of its still living advocates, who 

 are showing us every day that the strict- 

 est churchmanship may consist with an 

 earnest desire for church unity. 



There is also a Presbyterian misconcep- 

 tion of the scope of the historic episco- 

 pate. Because that much misrepresented 

 institution is sometimes vindicated on ex- 

 treme High Church ground, as involving 

 an exclusively prelatical transmission of 

 supernatural grace from the apostles, and 

 because it is proffered for acceptance with 

 all the claims and appliances of a priestly 

 ritual, it is inferred that such is the only 



