52 CHURCH UNITY 



tolicity, — connection with the apostolic 

 commission ? The succession of pres- 

 byters from the apostles is undisputed 

 throughout Christendom, even where the 

 prelatic succession has been broken. They 

 do not often boast of it, nor too much 

 value it ; but they have it, as a person of 

 good descent has such a lineage, and knows 

 that he has it, though he may not display 

 it before the world. Lastly, is the test to 

 be fidelity to that " sacred deposit of the 

 primitive faith and order which Christ and 

 his apostles committed to the Church ? " 1 

 There is no sense in which Presbyterian 

 ministers are not " ordained to be stewards 

 and trustees of that deposit for the common 

 and equal benefit of all men." Nor do they 

 hold one another lightly to their ordination 

 vows. They can, indeed, gladly honor the 

 American bishops as also and pre-eminently 

 custodians of the same deposit ; and if they 

 do not concede to them an exclusive "stew- 

 ardship of grace and truth," in this opinion 

 they are sustained by all the rest of Chris- 

 tendom, both Catholic and Protestant. 



There is another Episcopalian miscon- 

 ception as to the historic liturgy contained 

 1 The Preamble of the Chicago Declaration. 



