Satisfied, too, I am, that the display of these principles, and the zealous defence of them have most essentially contributed to revive and increase our Church. In a late visitation through the Diocese, in company with Dr. Bowden, I found some of the most enlightened and zealous members of our Church, and persons of influence and standing in society, who traced either their conversion to the Church, or the confirmation of their attachment to it, to the display and defence of its principles in the various writings which from time to time have appeared; and most certainly to the same cause may be traced the zeal and spirit of the young men in this quarter, who have lately entered the ministry, and of others who are preparing for it.

These views, in connection with other circumstances, naturally excited the desire that the Churchman's Magazine should continue to support the principles which it has hitherto maintained, and that it should be conducted on a plan, which, without aspiring to high literary merit, would give the plain people of our communion what they much want, plain and solid religious information; and that of course it should be afforded at a price which would render it accessible to persons of this description. Your publication appears to aim principally at gratifying readers of a higher order, and the price will necessarily prevent its general circulation.

My cares and duties always prevented that attention to the work which was necessary to raise it even to the humble standing which I was desirous it should attain; and the change of my situation, and consequent increase of my cares and duties, entirely interfered with my charge of the work, I have at length concluded to fall in with a suggestion of the Rev. Mr. Rudd, and to transfer the publication of it to Elizabethtown.

I know you will not be displeased with the candour with which I address you. I cannot repress, however unpleasant, the apprehension, that your views of the best mode of advancing the interests of our Church, differ in some respects from those which, in common with others, I have been accustomed to entertain. Yet that very liberality which I sometimes fear will lead its votaries into an indifference to those distinctive principles which to the glory of our Church, have preserved her from the assaults of heresy, schism, and enthusiasm, will prompt you to excuse in me this honest difference of opinion, to believe me sincere in the sen

timent that the prudent, the resolute, and dispassionate defence of those doctrines, of that ministry, and of that worship, which distinguish our Church from other Christian societies, is not incompatible with the promotion of the endearing charities of life, with strengthening the bonds of society, but is, in fact, the surest way of extending the kingdom of the Redeemer. Accuse me not, my dear Sir, of assuming the office of a senior, in regard to one for whom, on many accounts, I feel veneration and esteem; but it did not appear to me possible, without this candid exposition, to account to you for my wishing to continue the Churchman's Magazine, under its present title, and on its original principles; and independently of this consideration, I felt prompted to indulge the liberty, which I trust you will excuse, of expressing to you my fears (I wish they may prove erroneous) that little good is to be expected to our Church from a publication, which, though it may not "abandon an iota" of her discriminating tenets, discipline, and worship, certainly asserts its claims to patronage on its determination to keep them entirely out of view, as those “subordinate subjects on which there must be a difference among Christians," as the only means of discarding that sectarian spirit so long at variance with the spirit of amity and the bond of peace. You see, my dear Sir, I have occupied the whole of my paper, and I have trespassed long on your patience; I conclude with assuring you that

I am, very truly, &c.

JOHN H. HOBART.'

The argument of this letter seems to have been for a time conclusive, but the Churchman's Magazine soon after this, coming to a violent end, through the destruction by fire of the printing-office and its contents, the scheme was renewed in a more open field of patronage, but, as the Bishop augured of it, was found wanting in a substantial basis, and soon fell to the ground.

In October of this year (1812) he had the pleasure of paying a visit to his native city, to unite in the consecration of the Rev. Theodore Dehon, D. D., for the Diocese of South-Carolina, being the second in its episcopate, and

following after an interval of eleven years-the Right Reverend Robert Smith, its first bishop, having died in 1801. The consecration was held in Christ Church, Philadelphia, a church of many holy thoughts to one who had been baptized, confirmed, and ordained within its sacred walls; and who was now engaged at the same altar in conferring upon another the apostolic office and benediction.

CHAPTER XII.

4. D. 1813. Æt. 38.

Duties performed in 1813-Address to the Convention-Three leading Points of Policy, 1. Missionary Cause; 2. Observance of the Liturgy; 3. Ministerial Education-Letter to Mrs. S. on the Subject-Theological Grammar School—Objects— Failure-Letters-Col. Troup-C. F. Mercer.

As this year (1813) may be considered the first in which Bishop Hobart was free to carry forward his views of Episcopal usefulness, it may be well to examine the evidences it affords of his labours and his policy. In the course of the year he extended Episcopal visitation to thirty-three parishes scattered over his extensive Diocese, travelling in it more than two thousand miles; held confirmation in twenty-three churches-confirming eleven hundred persons, and ordaining seven.

In his address to the Convention, he urges mainly upon their consideration the three following points, which may be considered, in truth, as the pillars of his whole subsequent policy.

First. The necessity of missionary labour, as the only adequate means of meeting the spiritual wants of a scattered population. His previous exertions in this good cause have been already mentioned. He now recommended to the Convention a higher course, the adoption of a canon, in place of his resolution of 1808, for the raising of funds for their support, thus making imperative upon all the churches of the Diocese, an annual collection for that specific purpose. This may be considered the foundation, humanly speaking, of the subsequently rapid

extension of the Church through the northern and western parts of the State. The missionary cause was one which Bishop Hobart never ceased to urge, and with such success, that whereas, he found in the Diocese but two missionaries, he left in it, at his death, over fifty, and scarce a church throughout the country that was not indebted, either wholly or in part, to their labours.

The second point was the spiritual character of the Liturgy, its obligations, and its competency, in the hands of the faithful pastor, to meet all the wants of the awakened and the penitent in social prayer. He viewed it, in short, as a needful barrier, and the only adequate one, against that flood of fanaticism which was even then beginning to swell up in our country, and by which many denominations in it have since been almost desolated. At the time Bishop Hobart began these warnings, few believed him, for few foresaw the danger, and many, even within the Church, cried out 'shame' against him, as needlessly tying up 'the liberty of prophesying.' We may leave it, now, even, to his oppugners to say, whether the true prophetic spirit did not rather lie in the warning against it than in the exercise of it.

On this point Bishop Hobart was steady and uniform, never failing to urge it on all fit occasions, and the more earnestly as he saw the signs of the coming whirlwind. The following extract gives the picture of the missionary and his labours, and the blessing which attends the faithful use of the Liturgy.

'We no longer perceive in his place in this Convention, our venerable brother the Rev. Davenport Phelps. He has gone to his rest. For many years he had been employed as a missionary in the western parts of the State. Having visited the extensive district in which he officiated, I am able to bear testimony to the high estimation in which he was held for his pious and exemplary character, and for the fidelity and prudent zeal with which he discharged his arduous and laborious duties. He is justly revered as the founder of the congregations in the most western counties