the hierarchy of the Episcopal, be
considered as Republican churches; and admitting that many errors have
crept into the established church from its too intimate union with the
State, I think it will be proved that, in rejecting its errors and the
domination of the mitre, the seceders have fallen into still greater
evils; and have, for the latter, substituted a despotism to which every
thing, even religion itself, must in America succumb.

In a republic, or democracy, the people will rule in every thing: in the
Congregational church they rule as deacons; in the Presbyterian as
elders. Affairs are litigated and decided in committees and councils,
and thus is the pastoral office deprived of its primitive and legitimate
influence, and the ministers are tyrannised over by the laity, in the
most absurd and most unjustifiable manner. If the minister does not
submit to their decisions, if he asserts his right as a minister to
preach the word according to his reading of it, he is arraigned and
dismissed. In short, although sent for to instruct the people, he must
consent to be instructed by them, or surrender up his trust. Thus do
the ministers lose all their dignity and become the slaves of the
congregation, who give them their choice, either to read the Scriptures
according to _their_ reading, or to go and starve. I was once
canvassing this question with an American, who pronounced that the laity
were quite right, and that it was the duty of the minister to preach as
his congregation wished. His argument was this:--"If I send to
Manchester for any article to be manufactured, I expect it to be made
exactly after the pattern given; if not, I will not take it: so it is
with the minister: he must find goods exactly suited to his customers,
or expect them to be left on his hands!"

And it really would appear as if such were the general opinion in the
United States. Mr Colton, an American minister, who turned from the
Presbyterian to the Episcopal church, in his "Reasons for Episcopacy,"
makes the following remarks:--

[I must request the reader's forbearance at the extreme length of the
quotations, but I cannot well avoid making them. Whatever weight my
opinion, as the opinion of an observant traveller may have, it must
naturally be much increased if supported, as it always is when
opportunity offers, by _American_ authority.]

Speaking of the deacons and elders of their churches, he says--"They may
be honest and good