212 EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [CHAP. XXXVJ. 



who would shorten to a minimum the term of service even of 

 men who fill literary or scientific chairs.&quot; I informed them 

 that nearly the whole University lectures at Oxford and Cam 

 bridge, had of late years, in opposition to earlier usage, been 

 transferred to temporary occupants of tutorships, who looked for 

 ward to the resigning of their academical functions as soon as 

 they could afford to marry, or could obtain church preferment ; 

 so that the extreme democracy of Kentucky would at least have 

 no claim to originality, should they apply their maxim of rotation 

 in office to a body of academical lecturers. 



On Sunday we attended service in an Episcopal church. The 

 young preacher dwelt largely on the supreme authority of the 

 Church, and lamented that many dogmas and pious usages, 

 which had received the unbroken sanction of fifteen centuries, 

 should have been presumptuously set at naught by the rebellious 

 spirit of the sixteenth century, the great intellectual movement 

 of which he described as marked by two characteristics, &quot; non 

 sense and philosophy ;&quot; nor was it easy to discover which of 

 these two influences, in their reference to matters ecclesiastical, 

 were most evil in his sight. After a long dissertation in this 

 strain, he called up to him a number of intelligent looking young 

 girls to be catechized, and I never saw a set of children with 

 more agreeable or animated countenances, or who displayed more 

 of that modest reverence and entire, unreflecting trust in their 

 teacher, which it is so pleasing to see in young pupils. That 

 some of the questions should have reference to the doctrines just 

 laid down in the preceding discourse was to be expected. One 

 of the last interrogatories, &quot; Who wrote the Prayer-book?&quot; puz 

 zled the whole class. After waiting in vain for an answer, the 

 minister exclaimed, &quot; Your mother ;&quot; and made a short pause, 

 during which I saw the girls exchange quick glances, and I 

 found time to imagine that each might be exclaiming mentally 

 to herself, &quot; Can he mean my mother ?&quot; when he added, in a 

 solemn and emphatic tone, &quot; Your mother, the Church !&quot; Had 

 his congregation belonged to any other than the Anglican Church, 

 I might simply have felt regret and melancholy at much that I 

 had witnessed ; as it was, I came out of the church in a state of 



