on with other sects even in the work of
training candidates for the ministry. Among the "honorary
vice-presidents" of their "American Education Society" was Bishop
Griswold, of the Eastern Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

[407:1] Sermon at consecration of Bishop H. U. Onderdonk, 1827.

[407:2] Minutes of the Convention of Delegates met to consult on
Missions in the City of Cincinnati, A.D. 1831. The position of the
bishop was more logical than that of the convention, forasmuch as he
held, by a powerful effort of faith, that "his own" church is the church
of the United States, in an exclusive sense; while the divines at
Cincinnati earnestly repudiate such exclusive pretensions for their
church, and hold to a plurality of sectarian churches on the same
territory, each one of which is divinely invested with the prerogatives
and duties of "the church of Christ." A _usus loquendi_ which seems to
be hopelessly imbedded in the English language applies the word "church"
to each one of the several sects into which the church is divided. It is
this corruption of language which leads to the canonization of schism as
a divine ordinance.

[408:1] The first proposal for such an assembly seems to be contained in
an article by L. Bacon in the "New Englander" for April, 1844. "Why
might there not be, ere long, some general conference in which the
various evangelical bodies of this country and Great Britain and of the
continent of Europe should be in some way represented, and in which the
great cause of reformed and spiritual Christianity throughout the world
should be made the subject of detailed and deliberate consideration,
with prayer and praise? That would be an 'ecumenical council' such as
never yet assembled since the apostles parted from each other at
Jerusalem--a council not for legislation and division, but for union and
communion and for the extension of the saving knowledge of Christ" (pp.
253, 254).

[409:1] See the pungent strictures of Horace Bushnell on "The
Evangelical Alliance," in the "New Englander" for January, 1847, p. 109.

[410:1] James i. 27: "Pure and unpolluted worship, in the eye of God,
consists in visiting widows and orphans in their tribulation, and
keeping one's self spotless from the world."

[410:2] An agreement has been made, in this State, among five leading
denominations, to avoid competing enterprises in sparsely settled
communities. An interdenominational committee sees to the carr