. If it had
a few less, nothing. We have an Episcopalian Church in this country,
and it has all the imperfection of a poor relation. It is always
boasting of a rich relative. In England the creed is made by law, the
same as we pass statutes here. And when a gentleman dies in England,
in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary
for the power of heaven to read the acts of Parliament. It becomes a
question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point.
Lost on demurrer.

A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel Seabury,
was sent over to England to get some apostolic succession. We hadn't a
drop in the house. It was necessary for the bishops of the English
church to put their hands upon his head. They refused; there was no
act of Parliament justifying--it. He had then to go to the Scotch
Bishops; and, had the Scotch Bishops refused, we never would have had
any apostolic succession in the new world. And God would have been
driven out of half the world; and the true church never could have been
founded. But the Scotch Bishops put their hands on his head, and now
we have an unbroken succession of heads and hands from St. Paul to the
last bishop.

In this country the Episcopal Church has done some good, and I want to
thank that Church. Having, on an average, less religion than the
others, on an average you have done more good to mankind. You
preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate music, you did not
absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor
architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep
time with your feet than with your hands. And some went so far as to
say that people could play cards, and God would overlook it, or would
look the other way. For all these things accept my thanks.

When I was a boy, the other Churches looked upon dancing as probably
the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost; and they used to teach that
when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing seven-up, that the Eternal God
stood whetting the sword of His eternal wrath waiting to strike them
down to the lowest hell. And so that Church has done some good.

After a while, in England, a couple of gentlemen, or a couple of men by
the name of Wesley and Whitfield, said: "If everybody is going to hell,
nearly, somebody ought to mention it." The Episcopal clergy said:
"Keep still; don't tear your gown." Wesley and Whitfield said: "This