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 THE TRIAL 
 
 EIGHT REV. BENJAMIN T. ONDERDONK, D. D 
 
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JLAr 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE MINORITY 
 
 / 
 
 OF 
 
 THE COURT 
 CONVENED UNDER THE THIRD CANON OF 1844, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CITY OF NEW YORK, ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1844, 
 FOR 
 
 THE TRIAL 
 
 RIGHT REV. BENJAMIN T. 0NDERD0NK, D. D 
 
 BISHOP OF NEW YORK J 
 ON A PRESENTMENT MADE BY THE 
 
 BISHOPS OF VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, AND GEORGIA. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 GEORGE S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLV. 
 
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 By d. APPLETON & CO., 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
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 O * ' 
 
3 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 . The following opinion, the reading of which was, in my view, most un- 
 justly arrested and forbidden in the proper place, is introduced here. 
 
 The solemn question is now submitted to my judgment, whether the 
 Rt. Rev. Benjamin T. Onderdonk, Bishop of New York, is guilty or not 
 guilty, according to the testimony adduced in this Court, of the allegations 
 contained in the Presentment made against him by the Rt. Rev. William 
 Meade, the Rt. Rev. James H. Otey, and the Rt. Rev. Stephen Elliott. 
 In forming my opinion on this question, my only solicitude has been to be 
 governed by the spirit and precepts of that Gospel by which at last we 
 must all be judged. 
 
 The first point, which presents itself to my mind, relates to the amount 
 of testimony required to sustain an allegation against an accused brother. 
 And here the Gospel, in my view, is explicit and imperative. Its direction, 
 1 Tim. v. 19, is as follows : — " Against an elder receive not an accusa- 
 tion, but before or under two or three witnesses or, according to the sense 
 of the best authorities, " unless it be testified to by at least two or three 
 witnesses." This direction, given by the Holy Ghost — given to a Bishop — 
 given to guide his judgment on charges preferred against an elder — is 
 precisely applicable to the present case ; in which Bishops, subject to the 
 authority of the Holy Ghost, are called upon to give judgment in respect 
 to accusations brought against an elder of the Church in the highest sense. 
 I feel that I should do violence, therefore, to my clear convictions of duty, 
 were I to attempt, by any means, to evade this Evangelical rule ; — a rule, 
 which the Church adopted in her best and purest age,* and from which 
 she has not since felt herself at liberty to depart. 
 
 It is said, I am aware, that this rule of the Gospel is liable to conflict 
 with the rule of the common law. Be it so. This is not an objection to 
 be addressed to the mind of a Christian Bishop, bound in his conscience to 
 act on the irreversible principles of the law of God. It is true, that, in 
 some respects, the laws of our country, being the laws of imperfect men, 
 are felt by the Church to be at variance with the spirit and requirements 
 of the divine law; and that the decisions of temporal Courts are not 
 always in accordance with the judgment of her tribunals. It is urged, I 
 know, that to require two witnesses in the ecclesiastical courts, while one 
 witness is admitted in the secular courts, might lead to an acquittal by the 
 Church, of the man who was pronounced guilty by the State. Were this 
 inevitably the case, which law is to yield, the human or the divine ? But, 
 suppose the amount of testimony, required to establish an allegation, be 
 the same in both descriptions of courts ; would this necessarily secure the 
 same decision in both 1 Do not the differences in men's perceptions, and 
 judgments, and motives, even in the same case and on the same testimony, 
 * often lead to opposite results ? And hence, have we not before us constant 
 examples, in which one court reverses the decision of another, or one jury 
 renders a different verdict from another ? But if, in the present case, we 
 
 * See Apostolic Canons — 75 Canon. 
 
4 
 
 are to admit, for the above reason, the necessity of acting upon the com- 
 mon law rule of evidence ; we should, for the same reason, insist upon an 
 unanimous verdict ; as this is required of juries under such law. Besides, 
 if in this Court we allow, as in our temporal courts, only one witness to a 
 fact, then the lowest menial, arraigned at the bar of those courts, has an 
 important advantage over a Bishop here : inasmuch as the evidence before a 
 jury to obtain an unanimous verdict, must necessarily be stronger and more 
 decisive, than is needed here where a bare majority may condemn. In 
 addition to this, the accused, under the common law, has the privilege of 
 challenging the members of a jury, on the ground of interest or prejudice ; 
 while each juryman is made to declare, under oath, that he has not pre- 
 judged the case, nor formed his opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the 
 prisoner. So that in the present trial, where there is neither challenge 
 nor oath, and where a simple majority are to decide, the justice of the 
 common law, even had the Gospel imposed no rule of evidence, would 
 seem to demand a more than ordinary strength of testimony. I am obliged, 
 however, by the rule of the Gospel before laid down, to insist, in the pre- 
 sent case, upon two witnesses to each accusation made against the Re- 
 spondent. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that if one witness testifies directly to a fact, 
 circumstances corroborating this fact may be adduced in the place of the 
 second witness. Admitting this view to be entirely consistent with the Gos- 
 pel rule, yet how does it affect the testimony in this trial ? To my mind, 
 most unfavorably ; as every circumstance attendant upon the alleged im- 
 moralities, goes to weaken the testimony adduced ; to show, not that the 
 witnesses actually perjured themselves, but that, under the influence of 
 imagination and prejudice, and party bias, they have made an overstatement 
 of the facts. Now, what are the circumstances, under which the alleged 
 misdemeanors are said to have been committed 1 Some of these will be 
 better exhibited under the specifications, to which they more properly be- 
 long. Still, there are certain circumstances, which characterize every 
 case. (1) A Bishop is charged with immorality and impurity, on the tes- 
 timony of a single communicant. And a Bishop, too, who had exhibited 
 from his boyhood and youth, peculiar marks of piety, and freedom from 
 "the lusts of the flesh;" and had passed a ministry of thirty years or 
 more, in the same city and congregation, without reproach or suspicion. It 
 might be demanded, surely, that such a Bishop should not be pronounced 
 guilty, except upon the most stubborn and unquestionable proof; that his 
 character and solemn assertion of innocence, should be allowed equal 
 weight with the testimony of one respectable witness. But (2) a Bishop is 
 charged with immorality at a time, when he is known to be especially 
 odious to his accusers on the ground of doctrine ; and to have gained a 
 signal triumph on this ground in two successive Conventions of his Diocese. 
 This circumstance, to say no more, ought not to be without its influence on 
 the mind of the Court in its judgment of the testimony. Again (3) a Bishop 
 is charged with having committed immoral acts under circumstances the 
 most extraordinary — circumstances, in every case, admitting of immediate 
 detection — as having made rude assaults upon wives in the presence of 
 husbands, upon sisters within reach of brothers, upon parishioners at 
 the side of pastors ! The improbability here is enough, surely, to demand 
 scrutiny and caution in respect to testimony. Again (4) a Bishop is 
 charged on the word of witnesses, who themselves were the alleged victims 
 
p 
 
 5 
 
 of his lustful violence, but without any expression on their part, at the time, 
 of that virtuous indignation which, upon the commonest principles of human 
 nature, might have been looked for ; without exclamation, or such act of 
 resistance as would attract the notice of persons in the same carriage or 
 apartment. Even could we account, on the score of peculiar temperament 
 or embarrassment, for the quiet submission under the alleged assaults, of a 
 single virtuous female, is it possible to believe that four such females — the 
 number testifying — should all, under the circumstances, have consented to 
 the outrage with no more audible and emphatic expressions of resentment, 
 than such as appear in their testimony ? Again (5) a Bishop is charged by 
 witnesses with having grossly and violently assailed their virtue, some three 
 or four or seven years ago ; who, at the time of the insult, did not think it 
 of a character sufficiently grave to demand exposure ; and whose hus- 
 bands, too, in some cases presbyters of the Church, — notwithstanding the 
 solemn vows of their office conspired with the impulse of a fresh indig- 
 nity, to prompt them, in the Church's name, if not their own, to demand 
 satisfaction, — consented to pass over the alleged immorality in silence. 
 Again (6) a Bishop is charged with assaults upon the virtue of the wit- 
 nesses years ago ; while it is in proof, that many of these witnesses have 
 since shown towards this Bishop a kindness and cordiality, wholly incom- 
 patible with the sense of wrong complained of in their testimony. Again 
 (7) a Bishop is charged with acts of " immorality and impurity," upon 
 proof known for years to the most aged and respectable presbyters of his 
 Diocese, but without any action or attempt on their part to secure his Pre- 
 sentment by the Diocesan Convention — the body, first of all, intrusted by 
 the general Canons with this duty. These circumstances, all of which, 
 more or less, bear upon the testimony of each witness, tend, in my view, 
 greatly to weaken such testimony ; while they demand of this Court the 
 most charitable judgment of the Respondent's acts. 
 
 The first article of the Presentment charges the Respondent with " im- 
 morality and impurity" in his conduct towards Mrs. Frances Livingston 
 Butler, in the summer of 1837. The allegation is founded on the affidavit 
 of her husband, the Rev. Clement M. Butler. The only witness to that 
 part of the allegation, which could possibly imply " immorality or impu- 
 rity," is the abovenamed lady. Her testimony must be viewed under all 
 the discrediting circumstances detailed in the above seven particulars ; and, 
 besides, as directly at variance with the testimony of her husband in the 
 gravest specification of his affidavit — the specification known to have pro- 
 duced more prejudice against the accused than any other contained in the 
 Presentment ; viz. that the accused attempted to raise the clothes of his wife ; 
 a thing which she, in her testimony, calls " a little matter" and which her 
 husband, in a letter explaining the discrepancy, represents as of trifling 
 moment. This, with various minor contradictions, which will be readily 
 seen by a comparison of their testimony, leaves too little proof upon which 
 to convict the Respondent. In my opinion, therefore, on this first article, 
 he is not guilty. 
 
 The second article charges him with " immorality and impurity," in be- 
 ing, on the above occasion, " under the influence of, and improperly excited 
 by, vinous or spirituous liquors." The indefiniteness of this allegation 
 must necessarily render the proof indefinite, and hence the impression on 
 the mind of the Court altogether doubtful. It must be dismissed, therefore, 
 as too vague in itself, and consequently as not of necessity implying guilt 
 
6 
 
 in the Respondent, even were it sufficiently proved. It is my opinion, there- 
 fore, that on this article he is not guilty. 
 
 The third article, founded on the affidavit of the Rev. Dr. Hawks, is 
 contradicted in every material point by the only witness (the Rev. Mr. 
 Bolles) adduced for the prosecution. On this, therefore, in my opinion, the 
 Respondent is not guilty. 
 
 The fourth article was dismissed by the Court for want of proof. That 
 this failure was not owing to want of exertion on the part of the Presenters, 
 will be seen by reference to their various petitions to the Court, and to the 
 correspondence between the Commission and Miss Ann Wilson. 
 
 The fifth and sixth articles are submitted with the single remark, that, 
 to my mind, the absurdities of the testimony are too palpable and enormous 
 for any human belief. I shall not hesitate here, therefore, to pronounce the 
 Respondent not guilty. 
 
 The seventh and eighth articles charge the Respondent with " immorality 
 and impurity" in his conduct towards Mrs. Charlotte Beare, the wife of the 
 Rev. Henry M. Beare, during the summer of 1842. This allegation rests 
 upon the testimony alone of this lady. She maybe pious, and incapable of 
 intentional misrepresentation ; still she is shown to be fastidious and sensi- 
 tive in the extreme. That which made a strong impression on her mind, 
 in her ride with the Bishop in the morning, seems, upon its being told to 
 her husband, to have had little effect upon him, but to have been regarded 
 and treated as the exaggeration of an over-wrought fancy. He urges the 
 Bishop to pass the night with him, against a previous invitation to remain 
 at Mr. Franklin's ; although, in going to his house, the Bishop must ride 
 on the seat with Mrs. Beare. And on the way, too, his suspicions were so 
 little excited by her complaint of the morning, that, according to his testi- 
 mony, he did not even once look round to note the Bishop's conduct. And 
 then, when he had arrived at home, and been informed by his wife of the 
 second assault, his composure is utterly inconsistent with a full belief of 
 the indignity alleged. He returns with her to the parlor, requests the of- 
 fending Bishop to conduct the family devotions, and leaves him, with the 
 usual tokens of good will, for the night. Morning comes, and they are all 
 again seated quietly together at breakfast. Soon after this, Mr. Beare takes 
 the Bishop in his carriage to College Point* On the way they stop at Mr. 
 Franklin's. No coldness is here observed in Mr. Beare's manner towards 
 the Bishop ; and, indeed, no word of complaint or remonstrance is spoken, 
 although they were alone during that morning's ride. Neither is there a 
 word spoken respecting this matter, to any of the brethren at the Point. 
 The Bishop is suffered to go on his way ; and days elapse, before the mat- 
 ter becomes sufficiently important to require notice. In all this, there is, 
 to my mind, a manifest want of confidence at first, on the part of the hus- 
 band, in the correctness of the apprehensions of the wife. Something he 
 believed ; but it required time and frequent repetitions of the story, to fix 
 in his mind a full belief of all that she has here testified. The excited state 
 of Mrs. Beare, and the manifest incredulity of her husband, at least for a 
 time, are enough to cast suspicion upon the testimony ; to produce in the 
 mind of the judge a fear, if not a conviction, that imagination has been 
 mistaken for fact. Besides this, the subsequent conduct of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Beare towards the Bishop greatly increases the difficulty, especially when 
 we consider that the cordiality and friendliness of that conduct, although 
 testified to by four or five most credible witnesses, is wholly forgotten by 
 
7 
 
 themselves. They profess to have no recollection of having urged the 
 Bishop, on his next visitation, to dine with them, notwithstanding his en- 
 gagement at Mrs. Franklin's ; while the Rev. Dr. Schroeder and Mrs. 
 Franklin testify directly to the fact. Viewing Mrs. Beare's testimony, 
 standing as it does alone, under the light which it thus reflects upon itself, 
 I cannot regard it as conclusive or satisfactory. 
 
 It is pleaded, I know, that what is called the confession of the Bishop to 
 the Rev. Drs. Milnor, Muhlenberg, and Higbee, supplies a second witness. 
 It cannot be denied, that if the Bishop confessed the truth of the facts al- 
 leged in this case, it is sufficiently established. But here the testimony 
 is confused, and somewhat conflicting. It seems that these gentlemen all 
 agree in the fact, that at their first interview with the Bishop he denied 
 these facts, or such of them as involved impurity ; and denied them with 
 apparent indignation. They also agree, that at the second interview the 
 Bishop appeared to be much affected, and endeavored to soothe Mr. Beare ; 
 assuring him of his high regard, and that he did not question the veracity 
 of his wife. Now to my mind, this last declaration, coupled with the deport- 
 ment of the Bishop at the second interview, is not only perfectly reconcila- 
 ble with his deportment and denial at the first interview, but also is 
 obliged to be reconciled with them, if we admit, as we do, the truth of the 
 testimony of Dr. Milnor. In the first place, the indignant denial of the 
 first interview may be reconciled with the ready admission of the second. 
 The denial was made in respect to actions alleged by a lady to be impure, 
 and made under a sense of injustice. The admission was made, not to the 
 lady bringing the allegation, but to her husband ; between whom and the 
 Bishop there subsisted the most affectionate confidence. When, therefore, 
 at the second interview the Bishop addressed Mr. Beare, he addressed an 
 intimate friend, for whom he felt the warmest interest, and whom he re- 
 garded as being under a misapprehension in respect to himself. What con- 
 duct then more natural, than that of the Bishop towards his young friend ? 
 The change of circumstances demanded in the Bishop a change of deport- 
 ment. And when he replied to the inquiry of Mr. Beare, " Do you question 
 the word or veracity of my wife ?" " No, I do not question her veracity ; but 
 you know how easily in some minds innocent things may be magnified into 
 faults," — I see in this no necessary contradiction of what he had affirmed the 
 previous day. But, in the second place, the testimony of Dr. Milnor, as to 
 his admonition of the Bishop, is absolutely irreconcilable with the idea of the 
 Bishop's having admitted on the second day, what he had denied on the first. 
 Let us examine. On the supposition that the Bishop admitted on the second 
 interview the allegations of Mrs. Beare, which he denied on the first, Dr. 
 Milnor, at the conclusion of these interviews, must have approached the 
 Bishop, and, with the conviction burdening his mind that the Bishop had 
 been guilty, by his own confession, not only of gross impurity, but also of 
 direct and palpable falsehood, addressed him in the following language: (I 
 give his own words,) " I hope, Bishop, that what has occurred in this in- 
 stance will put you on your guard in future — particularly as I have heard 
 other rumors of a similar kind." Now, is this the language of admonition, 
 which a grave and holy presbyter, laboring under the above supposed con- 
 viction of his Bishop's impurity and falsehood, would have employed ? 
 Even making all due allowance for his respect for the Episcopal office, 
 still, I ask, could the Rev. Dr. Milnor, in thus solemnly using his rightful 
 prerogative, employ words, which, on the above supposition, must have en- 
 
8 
 
 tirely defeated his own purpose, and confirmed the Bishop in self-delusion ? 
 But the Bishop replies to the Doctor. Is the reply such as we should have 
 looked for from one who had just confessed his guilt ? " In regard to ru- 
 mors of this kind, Doctor, about clergymen, there are few who have not at 
 some time had occasion to encounter them." Now, if Dr. Milnor had un- 
 derstood the Bishop as having confessed his guilt, would he not have re- 
 plied to this in somewhat such language as the following : " This may, 
 perhaps, be a sufficient answer in regard to unsubstantiated rumors ; but as 
 you have confessed the truth of Mrs. Beare's statements, I do not see how it 
 can apply here." Instead, however, of such a course of remark, the Doc- 
 tor simply rejoins to this effect : " Why, Bishop, I have been a clergyman 
 in this city for some thirty years, and I am not aware that any such rumors 
 have been in circulation about myself." Immediately upon this the rever- 
 end presbyters leave the Bishop's presence. But what course do they adopt 
 concerning what had passed ? Do they act like presbyters convinced of 
 their Bishop's guilt ? It is true, one of them expresses his disappointment 
 at the result of the interview, in very strong terms. What, however, is 
 their united action ? For this must be regarded as the true exponent of their 
 settled conviction about the matter. They agree to drop it, and never again 
 to mention it. Here their testimony concurs. We are bound, therefore, in 
 charity to themselves to infer, that they considered the Bishop as having 
 made no confession of guilt, and as having done nothing which really called 
 for the discipline of the Church. 
 
 On this last specification, therefore, my opinion is, that the Respondent 
 is not guilty. 
 
 It is said, I am aware, that the allegations, all having respect to the same 
 kind of acts, strengthen each other. This may be true, when we come to 
 consider the motive or habit of mind of the actor ; but not in determining 
 the fact of his having acted as alleged. The rules of evidence under the 
 common law require, that each fact alleged must be proved, as if it were 
 the only one. But, in assigning motive or character to an action, we may 
 safely inquire into the frequency and the circumstances of its commission. 
 For example : A prisoner, arraigned for murder on a number of indict- 
 ments, must be tried on each, as if it stood alone. And, in case the evi- 
 dence on each should be found insufficient, no jury would for one moment 
 think of allowing their number to operate in supplying this deficiency of 
 proof. But if a prisoner, already convicted of manslaughter, should be 
 arraigned for murder j and the question was, whether the act proved had 
 been committed with malicious intent to kill, then it might be lawful in 
 settling this question to have respect to his disposition and character, as 
 developed on former trials. The case before us, however, involves simply 
 a question of fact : Is the Respondent guilty or not guilty of the immoral 
 acts, as severally specified in the Presentment ? Each act, therefore, must 
 upon every rule of evidence be proved, as if it were the only one charged. 
 And, as each act, in my opinion, has not been proved, I consider the 
 Respondent not guilty under the Presentment. 
 
 L. SILLIMAN IVES, 
 
 Bishop of North Carolina. 
 
i 
 
 9 
 
 Adjudication of Sentence in the Case of the Presentment against the 
 Rt. Rev. Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, D. D., Bishop of New York, 
 by the Bishop of North Carolina. 
 
 [The Bishop of North Carolina, in submitting the following considerations for 
 the mildest sentence upon the Respondent, does it with the distinct avowal that, 
 in his judgment, these considerations should have secured the Respondent's ac- 
 quittal; and that nothing but the provisions of the Canon, and duty to the accused, 
 could have moved him to concur in any sentence.] 
 
 In consideration, 
 
 1. Of the long, faithful, and irreproachable ministerial life of the Rt. 
 Rev. Benjamin T. Onderdonk, convicted by a majority of this Court of 
 certain allegations of immorality ; 
 
 2. Of the character of these allegations, viewed in connection with the 
 naturally free and paternal manner of the said Bishop ; 
 
 3. Of the staleness of the acts alleged in the Presentment against him, 
 and of which he stands convicted ; 
 
 4. Of the peculiar and remarkable circumstances under which these 
 acts are alleged to have been committed ; 
 
 5. Of the fact that these acts were not considered at the time by the 
 offended parties as of sufficient consequence in themselves to call for inves- 
 tigation ; 
 
 6. Of the still more extraordinary fact, that after the things charged had 
 come to the knowledge, and, in one case, actually been made the ground of 
 the solemn and deliberate action, of three or four of the most distinguished 
 presbyters of this Diocese ; they were dismissed, or by common under- 
 standing and agreement dropped as not calling for further notice ; 
 
 7. Of the not less singular circumstance, that although the improprieties 
 alleged had, for some years, been known ; and the first and highest author- 
 ity for presentment had, by Canon of the General Convention, been lodged 
 in the Diocesan Convention ; yet that no member, either clerical or lay, of 
 the Diocese of the said Bishop has, according to the plea set up, made the 
 smallest effort for his presentment ; 
 
 8. Of the aggravating circumstance, that the said Bishop has for years 
 been suffering under the imputation of the gravest charge sworn to by a 
 presbyter of the Church ; but actually withdrawn from the Presentment, 
 as unfounded, and sworn to be false by one of the witnesses ; and, 
 
 9. Of the gratifying fact — gratifying I doubt not to every member of the 
 Court — that the said Bishop of New York, whatever may have been his 
 previous habit of mind, has for nearly three years last past, and since the 
 caution he received from the Rev. Dr. Milnor, given the best proof in an 
 irreproachable life that that habit has been overcome ; and that he is now 
 successfully and valiantly leading the hosts of God against the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil : — 
 
 In consideration of these things, and still adhering to the conviction de- 
 clared in my opinion, that the Respondent is not guilty ; 
 
 I, Levi Silliman Ives, Bishop of North Carolina, adjudge to the said 
 Rt. Rev. Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, Bishop of New York, the 
 smallest degree of admonition which the Canon, under which we pass sen- 
 tence, will admit. 
 
 2 
 
f 
 
 10 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 DECLARATION OF OPINION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 COURT OF BISHOPS, 
 
 ASSEMBLED FOR THE TRIAL OF THE RT. REV. BENJAMIN T. ONDERDONK, D. D., BISHOP 
 
 OF NEW YORK ; 
 
 Prepared, and intended but not permitted to be read, before the decision of the 
 question, " guilty," or " not guilty V' 
 
 I am called on to declare whether, in my opinion, the Respondent in this 
 case is " guilty" or not " guilty" of immorality and impurity, in the following 
 article of the Presentment, which has just been read, viz., " That the said 
 Benjamin T. Onderdonk, on or about the first day of June, in the year of 
 our Lord 1837, being then Bishop of the said Church in the Diocese of 
 New York, was engaged in a tour of official duty, and was proceeding to 
 the town of Syracuse, in Onondaga county, in said Diocese of New York, 
 for the purpose, among other matters, of ordaining the Rev. Clement M. 
 Butler to the Priesthood ; that on his way to, and near, the said town of Syra- 
 cuse, the said Clement M. Butler, together with his wife, met him in a 
 carriage, for the purpose of conducting him, the said Benjamin T. Onder- 
 donk, to the said town ; that the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk entered the 
 said carriage, and took his seat on the back seat thereof by the side of the 
 said lady ; that they two alone occupied that seat, the said Clement M. 
 Butler and a person driving occupying the front seat ; that thereupon, after- 
 wards, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk impurely and unchastely put his 
 arm around the body of the said lady, and in an improper and unbecoming 
 manner pressed the said lady towards him ; that the said lady endeavored 
 to repress the said familiarities, and to bring said Benjamin T. Onderdonk to 
 a just sense of his duty in that behalf ; that the night came on before the said 
 parties reached the end of their journey, and that after it became dark, the 
 said Benjamin T. Onderdonk renewed his said improper conduct, and im- 
 purely and unchastely did pass his hand down and along the person and 
 legs of the said lady, and did otherwise behave towards her in so rude and 
 indecent a manner, that she, the said wife of the said Clement M. Butler, 
 was obliged to claim the protection of her husband, and thereupon she left 
 her seat in the said carriage, and rode upon the front seat thereof for the 
 rest of the journey, in doing which she was obliged to sit upon her husband's 
 lap ; and that owing to, and in consequence of, the said conduct of the said 
 Benjamin T. Onderdonk, the said lady became seriously sick, and her 
 health was so much affected as permanently to injure her constitution. 
 All which said actings on the part of the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, the 
 said Bishops presenting do charge as being in violation of his duty as Bishop, 
 and contrary to his consecration vow in that behalf, and to the great scan- 
 dal of the Church of Christ." 
 
11 
 
 I feel that the "opinion" I am thus called to give, is the most important I 
 have ever given ; and I must be allowed to enter at some length into the 
 grounds on which I give it. It is a most extraordinary case. It is as im- 
 portant as it is extraordinary. 
 
 The Respondent stands before us in his native place. For more than 
 fifty years he has resided in this city; the scene of his education, and the 
 chief seat of his labors, as it is the home of his birth. His childhood and 
 his youth were singular in purity and piety. For almost three and thirty 
 years he has exercised the ministry of Christ. For twenty years he was 
 connected with the largest parish in our whole communion; assiduous in 
 all the duties, exemplary in all the relations of his office. A most devoted 
 pastor ; faithful and capable, quite to a proverb, in what is called " the bu- 
 siness of the Church," diocesan and general ; the kind, and careful, and 
 laborious teacher of young men in preparation for the ministry ; directing 
 in their theological training a multitude of our most useful ministers, and 
 several of the Bishops. From his earliest connection with the ministry, he 
 enjoyed the fullest confidence of that most singular discerner of the charac- 
 ters of men, the honored Hobart ; and from the nearest place to him, as 
 counsellor and fellow-helper in the cares and labors of his office, was 
 called to be his successor in the apostleship. Before his elevation to that 
 office, and for some years afterwards, it may be said, without the fear of 
 contradiction, that never any word was heard to call in question his minis- 
 terial, his religious, or his moral character ; while no man can be found to 
 say, that he has ever seen a more entire and unreserved devotion of soul 
 and body to the Church. Of his administration of the Diocese of New 
 York, before and after its division, the record is before us all, in the contin- 
 ual, unexampled increase and prosperity which God has granted to the 
 prayers and labors of His servant. A blessing much enhanced, and rendered 
 more significant by this, that in two successive Conventions of the Diocese, 
 the last which have been held, when his Church principles, and his policy 
 as Bishop, were made the subject of the freest discussion, and most direct 
 and vigorous opposition, he was sustained by overwhelming majorities in 
 both of the two orders : and not a man among two hundred clergymen, or 
 among the lay representatives of one hundred and sixty-four congregations, 
 to hint at the preferment of a single charge against him. That three short 
 months should have produced a change so great and so disastrous in the po- 
 sition of the Respondent, is among the aspects of the case which make it 
 extraordinary, to the very borders of romance. Is it not extraordinary, and 
 well nigh without example, that such a childhood, such a youth, and such 
 a manhood, should justly lead to such a posture in old age ? Is it not extraor- 
 dinary that, if there be just grounds, and were, and they notorious (as it is 
 said) as long ago as 1838, that in neither of these two Conventions, — I do not 
 say the canonical minority in the two orders ; I do not say an aggregate 
 majority of the whole body ; I do not even say a responsible though small 
 minority ; — but I do say, one single man of clergymen or laymen, could be 
 found to move for an investigation, in redemption of the honor of the Church ? 
 This surely is a case most extraordinary. And as important as it is 
 extraordinary. I do not mean, immense as that must be, in its bearings on 
 the Respondent and his Diocese alone. I mean as it affects, and must 
 affect, for ever, our whole Church ; its mutual intercourse, its present in- 
 terests, its future influence, its history, its name, and fame. It is the first 
 carrying out of the canonical provision for the trial of a Bishop. The 
 
12 
 
 weight and value of the Church's discipline hereafter, m all its branches, 
 and in all its bearings, will much depend on the decision of this case : that, 
 as we promised at our consecration that we would be, so we now approve 
 ourselves to be, " so merciful that we be not too remiss ; so minister dis- 
 cipline that we forget not mercy." 
 
 Is the Respondent " guilty or not guilty of immorality and impurity," as 
 stated in the " article" now before us 1 To say that he is guilty of present 
 " immorality and impurity" by reason of an act committed, if committed 
 more than seven years ago, is obviously absurd. " Immorality," in John- 
 son's definition of it, is " want of virtue — contrariety to virtue." " Impu- 
 rity" is a quality or habit of the mind or heart. To hold that he who ever 
 has been tainted by the passage of an impure thought, is guilty of it now, 
 would be to shut us all out from the sight of God. Needful for all of us that 
 prayer of David, in his penitence, " Oh, remember not the sins and offences 
 of my youth !" It never can be held that if this charge were proved to 
 the full, it would establish " immorality and impurity," at present. I make 
 this remark once for all, as applying, in proportion to its date, to every 
 charge in the Presentment : and I put it to the heart of every. Bishop to 
 say now, whether, if all of them should be established, he could sustain, 
 against the admitted silence of two years and a half, the expression of the 
 Presentment, " being guilty of immorality and impurity ;" that is to say, 
 now addicted to immoral or impure habits. 
 
 But is the charge, as it now stands, established ? In setting forth a 
 charge so old in date, the Presentment lays itself under severe responsibili - 
 ties, as to the nature of the evidence required for its establishment. The 
 rule is granted on all hands, as founded, not on any law, but on the just 
 allowance for infirmity of men, in failure of memory, in the death or ab- 
 sence of material witnesses, in bar of frivolous, vexatious, or vindictive 
 prosecutions, that, in such cases, the clearest proof shall be required for 
 every allegation, while general explanations are to be allowed in the de- 
 fence. This is the voice of human nature, older than all statutes, and more 
 authoritative than any. It is incorporated in every statute book. It is 
 adopted, without statute, in the courts of equity. It is of obvious and uni- 
 versal obligation. It especially applies, in the latter portion of it, that 
 general explanations are to be allowed in the defence, to cases such as this, 
 where the immoral acts alleged are of a nature seldom susceptible of a 
 direct rebuttal. The Presentment, in taking in matters of allegation so re- 
 mote in time, is to be held, therefore, to the adduction of the clearest and 
 the most abundant proof. 
 
 Is the specification of ". immorality and impurity," as it stands in arti- 
 cle I. of the Presentment, so sustained ? It is " an accusation against an 
 elder." It is an accusation made in a Church Court. It is held, therefore, 
 in strictest terms, to the Church rule. Now, what is that ? Where shall 
 we look for it ? To holy Scripture, first. If God has spoken, man must not 
 object or qualify. I turn then to the three Epistles, which have been always 
 held as the inspired directory of order and of discipline for the whole Church, 
 in every age. I find the apostle Paul, writing by inspiration of the Holy 
 Ghost, giving express directions to the first Ephesian Bishop, (1 Tim. v. 19,) 
 " Against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witness- 
 es ;" clearly intending, as the original, and all received expositors will show,* 
 
 * I invite particular attention to the authorities which follow. I begin with 
 Poole, who, in his exposition of this text, condenses and combines the critical 
 
13 
 
 on the authority of" two or three witnesses." I go not back for any confirm- 
 ation of this rule to the Old Testament. It needs no confirmation. The 
 apostle had the mind of Christ. What he enjoins is to us an injunction 
 from the Lord our God. We are not to object to it from any consideration 
 of consequences. We are not to qualify it by any consideration of conve- 
 nience. It is, " Thus saith the Lord." He saith it who knows all possible 
 
 authority of Erasmus, Beza, Scultetus, Tremellius, Molinaeus, Illyricus, Pag- 
 ninus, Castalio, Vorstius, Piscator, Danaeus, Pricaeus, Hammond, and Grotius, 
 relying chiefly on the last. " Against an elder," (either, 1, in age ; or more prop- 
 erly, 2, in honor or dignity, as the context shows,) " receive not an accusation" 
 (or ecclesiastical charge,) " except wider two," &c. [In the original, he says (lit- 
 erally, unless, if not) there is a pleonasm, or double negation ; which, in Greek, as 
 scholars know, makes the denial more intense.] A ruler seems to be instructed 
 here, called by eminence, an overseer, or Bishop. For it belonged to such to 
 regulate the conduct of elders. Timothy, at that time, presided over the elders 
 at Ephesus. It may be asked, What need of this new rule concerning elders, 
 when of every accusation it is written, as in Deuteronomy xvii. 6, " At the mouth 
 of two witnesses, or three witnesses," &c. ? From this consideration some have 
 thought the text should be erased, as being superfluous. But the bringing of an 
 accusation is one thing, and the trial of the accused, whether the sentence of the 
 judge acquit him, or condemn him, is another. By the law of Moses, no one 
 could be condemned for any crime, but on the testimony of at least two witnesses. 
 [" One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in 
 any sin that he sinneth : at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three 
 witnesses, shall the matter be established." Deut. xix. 15.] One of the com- 
 mon people, however, might be arrested, and an investigation of his case com- 
 menced, on the testimony of one witness, not being an infamous person. It was 
 not so, however, with a member of the Sanhedrim, to whom an elder is here made 
 equal. In Jewish proceedings at law, there were these three stages. The ad- 
 mission of the charge, when the judge does not dismiss the complaint ; its con- 
 firmation, by the oath of the complainant ; and its trial, when the proofs and 
 arguments on either side are brought. Observe, the apostle does not say con- 
 demn not ; but receive not an accusation, (except on the authority of two or three 
 witnesses.) Repel informers. And why so"? 1. By reason of his weight of 
 character, and of the importance and dignity of his office. He is not to be dis- 
 credited, therefore, without great cause ; for his discredit is joined with the scan- 
 dal of the whole Church. It concerns the whole Church, therefore, that his repu 
 tation be not easily impaired. 2. Because the judgment of the whole people in his 
 behalf, at his election, readily outweighs a single witness. 3. Because the people 
 are severe towards those that are set over them, and feed them, and habitually 
 exaggerate their failings. For such is the malignant temper of the human mind, 
 that those whose duty it is to reprove the faults of others, are much exposed to 
 their ill-will. In the case of old men, there is this farther consideration, that evil 
 should not lightly be believed of one advanced in years, whose past life is his 
 protection, and his very name a mark of dignity. In loco. 
 
 Hammond, discussing, in his full and learned way, the three gradations in a 
 Jewish suit at law, concludes as follows : " The first of these only it is that be 
 longs to this place, the admission of the complaint, or accusation, which, against 
 a presbyter, or governor, of the Church, is not allowed under two or three wit- 
 nesses, in respect of the gravity of his person, and weight of his office or calling, 
 who must not be defamed, (as the being brought into the Court is a kind of defa- 
 mation,) if there be not great cause for it." In loco. 
 
 Whitby, first rendering the text, " Against an elder receive not an accusation 
 but upon the testimony of two or three witnesses," proceeds to say : " Whereas 
 the law had taken care that no man should be condemned, but by the mouth of two 
 or three witnesses, the Apostle, knowing how much the Church would suffer by the 
 rash accusation of her governors, bishops, and presbyters, seems to rise higher, 
 
14 
 
 results, and never is unmindful, in one commandment or one ordinance, of 
 the infirmities of his poor human creatures. I take the apostolical injunc- 
 tion, therefore, as it stands, and I apply it literally. It is not true 
 that he intended merely to enjoin the application to an elder, of a 
 rule which held among the Jews for every man's protection ; nor that 
 he meant to enforce through Timothy, the Jewish usage on this subject. 
 
 not Buffering an accusation to be admitted against them, without the like number 
 of witnesses." In loco. 
 
 Bloomfield, in loco, refers to Whitby, and translates "before," under the testi- 
 mony of" two or three witnesses." 
 
 Macknight, paraphrasing the text thus—" Against an elder, whether he be a 
 bishop, a president, or a deacon, receive not an accusation, unless it is offered to 
 be proved by two or three credible witnesses," says, in his note, " this," (" by two 
 or three witnesses,") " I think, is the proper translation of the clause. For I see 
 no reason why an accusation against an elder should not be received, unless in the 
 presence of witnesses. But I see a good reason for not receiving such an accu- 
 sation, unless it is offered to be proved by a sufficient number of credible witnesses. 
 This method of proceeding puts a stop to groundless accusations of the ministers 
 of religion." In loco. 
 
 Thomas Scott. " The character of an elder or pastor was of very great im- 
 portance : it would therefore be improper not only to condemn him> but even 1 to 
 receive an accusation againsf him, except it was attested by two or three credi- 
 ble witnesses. Many might be disposed to revile those faithful ministers, whose 
 doctrine and reproofs had offended them ; and indeed, the grand enmity of ' the 
 accuser of the brethren,' and of all his servants, would be excited against them. 
 It was therefore highly reasonable that no accusation, tending to bring the con- 
 duct of an elder to a public investigation, and thus to impeach or endanger his 
 character, should be regarded, if supported only by one solitary testimony, which 
 his denial of the crime must at least counterbalance." In loco. 
 
 Burkitt sustains the same views, " because it is the interest of the Church of 
 Christ, that the reputation of its ministers should be supported ; and because pre- 
 judiced persons will be ready to accuse without reason." In loco. 
 
 Doddridge, speaking, in loco, of the elders of the Church, says — "-Great care 
 should also be taken that their reputation, on which their usefulness will so much 
 depend, may not be lightly impeached. Accordingly, do not receive an accusation 
 against an elder, unless on the testimony of two or three credible witnesses, for the 
 single report of any one person is not material enough to set against the word of 
 an elder maintaining his own innocence." 
 
 Adam Clarke. " Be very cautious of receiving evil reports against those whose 
 business it is to preach to others, and correct their vices. Do not consider an el- 
 .der as guilty of any alleged crime, unless it be proved by two or three witnesses. 
 This the law of Moses required in respect to all. Among the Romans, a plebeian 
 might be condemned on the deposition of one credible witness ; but it required two 
 to convict a senator. The reason of this difference is evident ; those whose bu- 
 siness it is to correct others, will usually have many enemies : great caution 
 should therefore be used in admitting accusations against such persons." In 
 loco. 
 
 Matthew Henry. " Here is the Scripture method of proceeding against an 
 elder, when accused of any crime. Observe, 1. There must be an accusation ; it 
 must not be a flying, uncertain report ; but an accusation, containing a certain 
 charge, must be drawn up. Further, he is not to be proceeded against by way of 
 inquiry : this is according to the modern practice of the Inquisition, which draws 
 up articles for men to purge themselves of such crimes, or else to accuse them- 
 selves ; but, according to the advice of St. Paul, there must be an accusation 
 brought against an elder. 2. This accusation is not to be received unless sup- 
 ported by two or three credible witnesses ; and the accusation must be received 
 before them, that is, the accused must have the accusers face to face, because the 
 
15 
 
 It was to the Bishop of the Church at Ephesusthat he was giving direc- 
 tion, for the use and government of Greeks, and not of Jews ; and so of the 
 whole Church, in every age, through all the world ; and it comes in, you 
 will observe, in the midst of other precepts, touching elders, which are most 
 clearly of a catholic and abiding application. " Let the elders that rule 
 well, be counted worthy of double honor/' 1 Timothy v. 17. " Against 
 an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses," 19. 
 " Lay hands suddenly on no man," 22. I put myself, then, and I must put 
 myself in this, and every similar case, upon the literal sense of the Apostle's 
 rule. " I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more." 
 I bound myself to this when I was consecrated, saying, in answer to the ques- 
 tion, " Will you diligently exercise such discipline as by the authority of 
 God's word, and by the order of this Church, is committed to you ?" " 1 will 
 so do by the help of God." I find nothing in this apostolic rule of one wit- 
 ness, and circumstances amounting to another ; an interpretation of it 
 strangely unavailing in the present case, where circumstances uniformly 
 make against the testimony of the single witness by which any accusation 
 in the whole Presentment is attempted to be sustained. All that I read is, 
 " Against an elder receive not an accusation." — receive not any accusation, 
 — M but before, or under, or by, or on the authority, or upon the testimony 
 of two or three witnesses." That it was so understood in the early ages of 
 the Church, I prove by the seventy-fifth of the Apostolic Canons : " An here- 
 tic is not to be received as witness against a Bishop, neither only one believer ; 
 for in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established." 
 I appeal to the established rule of canon law, as bringing down with it this 
 
 reputation of a minister is, in a particular manner, a tender thing; and therefore, 
 before any thing be done in the least to blemish that reputation, great care must 
 be taken that the thing alleged against him be well proved, that he be not re- 
 proached upon an uncertain surmise." In loco. 
 
 Girdlestone. " It is no uncommon thing for the clergy, instead of being held 
 in honor of their brethren, to be the marked objects of censure, slander, and in- 
 dignity. So apt are men to fancy that any fault which they can find or feign in their 
 teachers, may serve for excuse of like failings in themselves. So unreasonably 
 do they expect, that perfection in their fellow-creatures, which is to be met with 
 only in our one great High Priest, eternal in the heavens. Well might each pri- 
 vate Christian herein adopt the rule, which is prescribed to Timothy concerning 
 an elder, to receive no accusation against such, ' but before two or three witnesses.' 
 Hush, let us say to those who are finding fault with our pastor, I dare not 
 so much as listen to your accusation, much less can I listen with satisfaction. If 
 what you say be true, it could do me no good to hear it. Take the charge to them 
 which are in authority. Take with you at least two or three witnesses, and lay 
 the matter before the rulers of the Church. It is their duty to inquire. It is their 
 duty, and I trust they will discharge it faithfully ; it is their duty to rebuke before 
 all the ministers, who sin, ' that others also may fear.' I trust that they will not 
 forget the Apostle's solemn charge, to observe these things, ' without preferring 
 one before another, doing nothing by partiality.' However much inconvenience 
 it may cost us, let us not refrain in such a case from offering them our testimony 
 as to the things we know. This may help to justice. And whether it substan- 
 tiate innocence, or tend to the removal of the guilty, it will promote the glory of 
 Christ. But let us, at the same time, be continually on the watch that we neither 
 revile, nor suffer others in our presence to revile, our ministers in private. Such 
 censure is more easy, and to our selfish nature more agreeable, than a public ac- 
 cusation. But it is at once cruel and unjust to them, hurtful to ourselves, and 
 detrimental to the honor of our Lord." In loco. 
 
16 
 
 ancient precept ; citing from Bishop Gibson's master work, " In the spiritual 
 courts they admit no proof but by two witnesses at least." — Codex Juris 
 Ecclesiastici Anglicani, 1011. I claim the practice of the civil law, in 
 this behalf, not as a rule, but as a witness ; and I reject the claim that the 
 common law must be allowed to limit the Apostle, on the same ground that 
 the binding force of the civil law, as law, would be rejected ; that this 
 Church has not enacted its adoption. On the simple, but to me, sufficient 
 word of the Apostle, I require two witnesses for the support of this, and (to 
 save time, I add,) of every other " accusation " included in the Present- 
 ment now before us. And, as there is to that which constitutes the " accu- 
 sation," the implication of criminality, no other than the single testimony of 
 Mrs. Butler — her husband saying expressly of all that he saw, " I did not 
 think it of such a character as to call for notice at the time," — I am bound 
 by my consecration vow to say, it is not proved. 
 
 I am aware that it is said, the " accusation" is the whole Presentment, 
 and this but one of several specifications under it. I ask, if this were the 
 only article, whether it would not be " an accusation ?" I ask, if every 
 specification or " article," is not, in like manner, " an accusation?" and 
 then, I ask, is not the Apostle's rule, the Church's rule, God's rule, this 
 Court's rule ; " against an elder receive not an accusation," — any accusa- 
 tion — but on the testimony of " two or three witnesses?" 
 
 I am aware that it may be said this rule was for the government of the 
 Presenting Bishops. It was for them to say whether every " article" or " ac- 
 cusation" was sufficiently sustained. That taking this for granted, it comes 
 before us now endorsed with their three names, and so maintained by full 
 "three witnesses." But this would prove too much, since it would substi- 
 tute their signatures for evidence, and make presentment condemnation. I 
 grant that it was for them to apply the Apostle's rule. I wish they had done 
 so. But if they had, if they had sent to us with every " article" or " ac- 
 cusation" the Scriptural full measure, " three witnesses," it would still have 
 remained for us to try their testimony. I remind the Court, that at an early 
 stage in these proceedings, the question was raised, what should be the number 
 of witnesses required for any charge, and its decision laid over for a subse- 
 quent consideration ; and I insist, that what was binding as the Scriptural rule 
 on the Presenting Bishops, inreceiving any " accusation" is binding a fortiori 
 on this Court, in trying every "accusation" included by them in this Pre- 
 sentment. 
 
 I am aware of what is called the argument by cumulation ; that an un- 
 proved charge is made to lend its color to another unproved charge, so that 
 one proved charge is made up of the two. Against this view, I hold, that, 
 of any number of specifications under a charge, all must be proved as fully 
 as if there were but one. I hold that no number of specifications, however 
 great, if none of them be fully proved, sustain a charge. It might as well 
 be claimed, that, from any series of mere minus quantities, plus ever could 
 result. I cite on this subject the sufficient authority of Starkie's well-known 
 work on Evidence. " The circumstances from which the conclusion is drawn 
 should be fully established. If the basis be unsound, the superstructure 
 cannot be secure. The party upon whom the burden of proof rests, is 
 bound to prove every single circumstance which is essential to the conclu- 
 sion, in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if the whole issue had 
 rested upon the proof of each individual and essential circumstance." — Third 
 American Edition, I. 507. 
 
17 
 
 But I am not disposed to leave the matter even thus. Suppose the ob- 
 jection waived to the character and competency of the evidence. Is it 
 sufficient, then, to establish the acts charged in this " article," and to estab- 
 lish them as acts of immorality and impurity ; and does it follow, that to 
 deny these conclusions is to charge the witness as a perjured person ? Im- 
 morality and impurity, as qualities or habits, are evil from their seeking evil 
 ends ; and acts are either good or bad, in morals, according to their aim. 
 It is true that we infer the intention from the act ; but it is also true, that 
 where the intention of evil is not manifest, the acts of men are entitled to 
 any sufficient explanation of them, which involves no evil purpose. In the 
 first place, then, is there not great exposure to over-estimation of the facts 
 alleged, in the impression with which the witness started on the journey, 
 that the Respondent was not quite himself ? I do not at all allow that her 
 impression was correct ; but she, it seems, adopted it, and began to be sus- 
 picious of it, from the moment of their meeting at the house of Mr. Munn. 
 Should it not be thought of, in the consideration of her testimony, as giving 
 to her estimate of what occurred, an exaggerated and probably a distorted 
 character ? Should it not be taken in connection with all she has said, and 
 all she thought, to mitigate and correct it ? And now, as to the intention 
 of evil in the Respondent, what could it have been 1 What could have 
 originated — what could have encouraged it 1 Where was the opportunity ? 
 What was to come of it ? In this case, (and, it may as well be stated here, in 
 every case alleged,) ulterior evil seems impracticable. The actions charged, 
 were passages that could lead to nothing. In carriages — in the presence 
 or immediate reach of husbands, or near relations, or of a Christian Minis- 
 ter — or in a room with doors wide open — can any thing be thought of more 
 improbable ? I do not reason from the office, or supposed character, of the 
 Respondent. I rather reason from the very nature of things. No, or but 
 little previous acquaintance, (except in the case of Mrs. Butler, who had 
 been a child upon his knee) — no expectation of future intercourse — no at- 
 tempt to renew it — with no insidious preparation — without a word — without 
 a look of evil — suddenly, abruptly, roughly. Is this the working of the 
 will of a seducer ? Is this the driving of a lust towards its end ? Is this, as 
 all experience goes, in rerum naturd ? I think not. What then ? Is the 
 witness to the present allegation a perjured person ? Are all the other 
 witnesses perjured in like manner ? I make no such presumption. 
 Doubtless in the affidavit, and in the testimony under this present article, 
 there are discrepancies not easy to be reconciled. The improbability 
 of the statement, that a considerable portion of ten or twelve miles were 
 driven after dark, when the parties started an hour before sunset, on a day 
 when twilight lasted two hours after the sun was down, and continued to 
 drive steadily on. The disagreement betw r een the affidavit and the testi- 
 mony of Mr. and Mrs. Butler, as to when and how the most offensive im- 
 pression was first received by him. The singular want of understanding, 
 for so many years, between the witness and her husband, as to this point, 
 so that that which never did occur, and which she never said occurred, 
 should yet be sworn to in his solemn affidavit. But I leave all these to 
 state what I believe to be the true solution of this case, and of the rest. 
 The Respondent is a man of free and unsuspecting nature. The law of 
 kindness overflows in him. He has indulged it always in acts of great 
 familiarity. He has acquired a habit which might easily permit, in him, 
 freedoms of posture and of gesture, which another, with less purity of heart, 
 
 3 
 
16 
 
 might carefully avoid. It has been manifest in all his intercourse. 
 It is proverbial. Those who have known him well, think nothing of 
 it. In every ten to whom it might occur, there might be nine to do so ; 
 the tenth might view it otherwise. I do not justify it ; I regret it. But 
 there never seems to have been the thought of harm in it. It never sought 
 concealment : it was never gone after : it was never followed up : it was 
 done with the manner of a father to a child : it was accompanied with words 
 to that effect, as several witnesses have testified. He had been so exten- 
 sively connected, as a pastor and as a friend ; so many had grown up upon 
 his knee, as with the present witness ; these acts of fondness had so insen- 
 sibly stolen on, from infancy to childhood, to girlhood, to womanhood ; they 
 had so shaped his whole demeanor, that they were done, when done, with- 
 out a thought, and never thought of afterwards. In these ways, a care- 
 lessness of manner was acquired, which rendered postures that might be 
 mistaken, and motives that might be misconstrued, and gestures that might 
 be misconceived, and contacts that never were intended, an easy thing ; 
 and yet, however liable to error, in the judgment of the second per- 
 son, or of the looker-on, in him without a thought of evil. It is 
 so that I account for what must have occurred, to give any semblance 
 to the statements of the witness under this, as under the other articles. 
 Less occurred, I have no doubt, than in her excited apprehension was 
 supposed. Less occurred, I have no doubt, than to her recollection, over- 
 wrought by recent agitations, and the conforming influence of sympathy, 
 especially on female temperaments, now appears. I feel well satisfied 
 that, had she not been governed, at the time, as she admits she was, partly 
 by her remembrance of the kindly ways of her father's familiar friend, 
 and partly by what she supposed the excitement of his condition, the wo- 
 man nature that was in her would have overleaped the thought of prudence, 
 and found rescue long before. Nothing, as I believe, on full consideration 
 oj the evidence, was done, that had in it the thought of immorality or im- 
 purity. I therefore " declare" the Respondent, in my " opinion," not 
 guilty of the charge, or charges, alleged in Article I. of the Presentment. 
 
 II. I am called on to declare whether in my opinion the Respondent is 
 " guilty" or " not guilty" of immorality and impurity in the following " arti- 
 cle " which has just been read, viz : " that the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, 
 Bishop as aforesaid, at the said time and place mentioned in the last speci- 
 fication, was under the influence of, and improperly excited by, vinous or 
 spirituous liquors, drunk by him, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, contrary 
 to his duty as Bishop, and to the scandal and injury of said Church." 
 
 If it were proved that this were so, it could not be alleged as a charge of 
 present immorality. To have been " improperly excited" seven years and 
 a half ago, could not be claimed as going to establish the existence now of 
 evil habit. Not to say that by the very language used, a question of less or 
 more is introduced, entirely inconsistent with the terms of a Presentment. 
 But such as it is, it is by no means proved. It is not alleged that any thing 
 was drunk upon the road. The duties of the day — a full morning service, 
 and a sermon, with the Holy Communion ; a full evening service and a ser- 
 mon, with Confirmation — and setting out directly after the latter, hardly 
 allow the opportunity which such a charge required. It rests on the smell 
 of the breath, on a talkative disposition, on the supposed thickness of the voice, 
 and on sleeping heavily, all which might have occurred without improper 
 excitement ; and against all which are to be set the admitted facts, that 
 
19 
 
 many letters were read, some read aloud, and all without the slightest fail- 
 ure in articulation or intelligence. 
 
 I therefore declare the Respondent, in my " opinion," not guilty of the 
 charge or charges alleged in Article II. of the Presentment. 
 
 III. I am called on to declare whether in my " opinion " the Respondent 
 in this case is " guilty" or " not guilty" of immorality and impurity in the fol- 
 lowing * article" which has just been read, viz : that " the said Benjamin 
 T. Onderdonk, being then Bishop as aforesaid, was travelling in a public 
 stage from Batavia, in the Diocese of New York, to Utica in the same Dio- 
 cese, for the purpose of attending a meeting of the Convention of the said 
 Diocese, then about to be held at Utica ; that the only passengers in the 
 said stage were the said Bishop and the Rev. James A. Bolles and a young 
 woman to the said Presenting Bishops unknown, and whose name they are 
 not able to furnish ; that the said Bishop and young woman occupied the 
 back seat, and the said James A. Bolles the middle seat of the said stage ; 
 and that thereupon afterwards, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk impurely 
 and unchastely put his arm around the body of the said young woman, and 
 took other indecent liberties with her person, and behaved in so improper 
 and unbecoming a manner, that the said young woman endeavored to get 
 beyond the reach of the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, and finally, with a 
 view to escape his rudeness, left the stage before reaching the place of her 
 destination : which said conduct of the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, the 
 said Bishops present as contrary to his consecration vow in that behalf, and 
 to the scandal and injury of the Church aforesaid." 
 
 It would be fatal to this article, were there no other objection to it, that it 
 comes into the Presentment on inferior evidence, where there was better to 
 be had. Three Bishops, under this Canon, come in the place of two-thirds of 
 two-thirds of the whole number of clergy in any Diocese ; and of two-thirds 
 of two-thirds of the whole number of parishes canonically in union with 
 the Convention in said Diocese ; they are thus made equal to four-ninths 
 of any Diocese. It is a tremendous responsibility. It must be' borne with 
 very inferior opportunities, and with a liability to error greatly increased. 
 It must, therefore, if the peace of the Church, and the fraternal intercourse 
 of the Bishops are to be preserved, be exercised with the most rigorous 
 care. It should not have suffered itself, in this case, to make use of any 
 other person's affidavit, when the only witness, Mr. Bolles, was equally 
 accessible. " There is, however, as it seems," says Starkie, " but one rule 
 of policy which operates as a general principle of evidence ; the exclusion 
 in other cases being casual and fortuitous, and depending on grounds un- 
 connected with the principles on which the system is founded. This rule 
 or principle consists in requiring the best evidence to be adduced, which 
 the case admits of ; or rather, perhaps, more properly, in rejecting second- 
 ary and inferior evidence, when it is attempted to be substituted for evidence 
 of a higher and superior nature. This is a rule of policy grounded on 
 a reasonable suspicion, that the substitution of inferior for better evidence, 
 arises from some sinister motive ; and an apprehension that the best evi- 
 dence, if produced, would alter the case, to the prejudice of the party." I. 
 102. I desire here, once for all, to disclaim any doubt of fairness in the 
 Presenters, in this case. I look at facts, as they have come before us. 
 As to the first " article," that it was sustained by but one witness, so to 
 this, besides that objection, I also object, that that one witness, by his affi- 
 davit, was not made the basis of the charge ; but the affidavit of a person 
 
20 
 
 who was not a witness, and who could, therefore, give but hearsay evidence, 
 used for that purpose. Nor does the testimony of the only witness at all 
 sustain the charge. It is proved by him that the particulars were other- 
 wise than they are charged. It is proved by him, that he attached no 
 serious importance to what did occur ; and never would have mentioned 
 it, but for the rumor of the Butler case, which met him at Utica. It is 
 proved by him, that in the conversation of himself and a third person with 
 the Bishop, had at Utica, immediately thereafter, he (the witness) expressly 
 corrected, and positively denied, what constitutes, in this Presentment, the 
 whole gravamen of the charge. I therefore declare the Respondent, in my 
 "opinion," not guilty of the charge or charges alleged in Article HI. of 
 the Presentment. 
 
 IV. As no evidence has been adduced under the fourth " article" of the 
 Presentment, I of course "declare," as my "opinion," that the Respondent 
 is not guilty of the charge or charges alleged in it. 
 
 V. I am called on to declare, whether in my " opinion" the Respondent 
 iu this case is "guilty" or "not guilty" of immorality and impurity, in 
 the following " article," which has just been read, viz., " that between the 
 months of May and July, in the year of our Lord 1841, to wit, on or about 
 Sunday the 13th day of June in the said last mentioned year, the said 
 Benjamin T. Onderdonk, then being Bishop as aforesaid, visited St. James' 
 Church, Hamilton Square, New York city ; that soon after the services of 
 the Church were ended, and on the day last aforesaid, he left the said 
 church in a carriage in company with Miss Helen M. Rudderow, a young 
 lady, to proceed as a guest to the house of her brother, John Rudderow, 
 Esq. ; that while riding in the said carriage, by the side of the said young 
 lady, he, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, impurely and unchastely 
 thrust his hand beneath her dress, upon the bosom of the said Helen M, 
 Rudderow, to her great alarm and consternation, and in violation of the 
 proper duty of a Bishop, and in breach of the consecration vow of the 
 said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, to the great scandal and injury of the Church 
 of Christ." 
 
 Referring to the statement made at length, before, of habits of innocent 
 familiarity in the Respondent, which, to one who did not know him well, (as 
 was the case with the witness to this, and every other article in the Present- 
 ment, since the first,) might easily present the appearance of improper 
 freedoms ; considering the time and place, and circumstances of the al- 
 leged occurrence, as involving an inevitable exposure ; considering the 
 absence of that instinctive refuge which a woman finds or makes, who 
 feels herself insulted ; considering the subsequent deportment of the wit- 
 ness in this case towards the Respondent, as inconsistent with the thought, 
 at that time, that she had been so aggrieved ; considering that she stands 
 alone in the Presentment as a witness to this charge, appearing chiefly in 
 her sister's affidavit, upon hearsay merely ; considering that in her gene- 
 ral attestation, in her own brief affidavit, that " every word" of her sister 
 Jane's " is true," when she was not a witness of what is alleged to have oc- 
 curred between the Respondent and her sister, and could know it only on 
 her statement, she has shown herself not clearly sensible of the solemni- 
 ty of testimony under oath, I declare the Respondent, in my " opinion," 
 not guilty of the charge or charges alleged in article V. of this Presentment. 
 
 VI. 1 am called on to declare whether in my " opinion" the Respondent 
 in this case is " guilty," or " not guilty," of immorality and impurity in the 
 
21 
 
 following " article," which has just been read, viz. : " that on the same day 
 mentioned in the last specification, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, 
 " Bishop as aforesaid, was received at the house of the said John Rudde- 
 " row, in the parlor thereof, by Jane O. Rudderow, and that thereupon, the 
 " said Benjamin T. Onderdonk impurely and unchastely thrust his hand 
 "into the bosom of the said Jane O. Rudderow, and upon being repelled, 
 "took other indecent and unbecoming liberties with the said lady, in viola- 
 " tion of his duty as Bishop, and his consecration vow in that behalf, and 
 " to the great scandal and disgrace of his said office." 
 
 On the same grounds as those alleged before, under the last article, in- 
 creased by greater improbability, if that be possible, that the acts of the 
 Respondent, at the time, could have been such as to be thought insulting, 
 and by fuller evidence of subsequent cordiality, evincing a continued ab- 
 sence of such conviction ; rejecting the single witness, as insufficient, by 
 the rule of the Apostle, to prove any " accusation" against the Respondent; 
 and deeming what did occur between them as fully met by the explanation 
 given before, of the Respondent's manner, I declare him not guilty, in my 
 " opinion," of the charge or charges alleged in article VI. of this Pre- 
 sentment. 
 
 VII. I am called on to declare whether, in my " opinion," the Respondent 
 is " guilty," or " not guilty," " of immorality and impurity," in the following 
 " article" which has just been read. " That on or about the 17th day of 
 " July, in the year of our Lord 1842, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, then 
 " being Bishop as aforesaid, held a confirmation at Zion Church, Long Isl- 
 " and, in the Diocese of New York : that after the services were ended, the 
 " said Benjamin T. Onderdonk returned to the house of the Rev. Henry M. 
 u Beare, where he was a guest, in the carriage of the said Henry M. Beare, 
 " in company with Mrs. Charlotte E. Beare, the wife of the said Henry ; 
 " that the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, and Charlotte E. Beare, occupied 
 " the back seat of the said carriage, and the other persons in the same were 
 " so situated, as to have their backs towards the Bishop and the said Char- 
 " lotte ; that thereupon, he, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk, impurely and 
 " unchastely put his arm around the body of the said Charlotte, drew her 
 "towards himself, and at the same time felt her bosom in an improper and 
 " indecent manner, so as to scandalize the feelings of said lady, and cause 
 " her to remove herself from him as far as the side of the carriage would 
 " permit, to avoid his rudeness, in violation of his duty as Bishop, and 
 " of his consecration vow, in that behalf, and to the disgrace of his said 
 " office." 
 
 In the absence of more than one witness, (the article in the Presentment, 
 moreover, contrary to the rule alleged before from Starkie, is founded on 
 the affidavit of the husband of the witness, and not on her own ;) in the ex- 
 treme improbability that an impression then received of actual impurity 
 would have kept silence under it, and again exposed itself to a repetition of 
 the same, rather than walk a quarter of a mile, through Mr. Franklin's 
 lane, or request Mr. Thomas Beare to go that much out of his way ; in the 
 much greater improbability that such an impression would have exposed 
 itself at night to such a repetition, when, for all that has been shown, the 
 other carriage, and the boy that drove it in the morning, might have been 
 employed ; and explaining whatever did occur to excite the apprehension 
 of an undue freedom, by the indulgence in the careless way alluded to be- 
 
22 
 
 fore, I " declare" the Respondent not guilty, in my " opinion," of the 
 charge or charges alleged in Article VII. of the Presentment. 
 
 VIII. I am called on, finally, to "declare" whether, in my "opinion," 
 the Respondent in this case is " guilty," or " not guilty," " of immorality 
 and impurity," in the following " article," which has just been read, viz. : 
 " that in the afternoon of the said 17th day of July, in the year of our Lord 
 1842, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk held a confirmation at Whitestone 
 Chapel on Long Island aforesaid ; and after the services, went to spend the 
 evening at the house of Joseph L. Franklin, Esq., on said Island. That 
 about 9 o'clock at night, the said Bishop was returning home to the house 
 of the said Henry M. Beare, where he was a guest, and was accompanied, 
 in the carriage of the said Henry M. Beare, by the said Charlotte, the wife 
 of the said Henry — she being constrained by circumstances to ride with the 
 said Bishop, against her desire, and she and the said Bishop sitting alone on 
 the back seat. That while thus on their way, the said Benjamin T. Onder- 
 donk again insulted the said Charlotte E. Beare in the grossest manner, by 
 impurely and unchastely putting one arm around her body, while he thrust 
 the other hand beneath her dress upon her naked bosom ; that, upon the 
 same being indignantly repelled, the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk repeated 
 the indignity, and finished his rudeness by passing his hand in the most 
 indecent manner down the body of the said Charlotte, outside of her dress, 
 so that nothing but the end of her corset bone prevented his hand from being 
 pressed on the private parts of her body : all which acts and doings threw 
 the said Charlotte into the deepest distress, to the manifest scandal and 
 injury of the Church, of which the said Benjamin T. Onderdonk was a 
 Bishop, and in violation of his vows before God, solemnly entered into on 
 his consecration." 
 
 I apply to this " article" as the substratum of my explanation, the solution 
 given throughout, before. I grant that there may have been what seemed 
 to the witness (again the single witness) an undue familiarity of manner ; 
 and that, in the careless way before described, motions may have been made, 
 and contacts may have occurred, without a thought or consciousness in the 
 Respondent, which she misunderstood and misapplied. But I am unable to 
 resist the natural argument from my reliance on a woman's instinct, espe- 
 cially with her husband within her reach, against her then appreciation of 
 them in the way set forth in the Presentment ; and I find it impossible to 
 reconcile the uncalled for acts of courtesy and hospitality which have been 
 clearly proved, with such a sense of wrong as is therein declared. The strength 
 of this case lies in the supposed admission by the Respondent, at the second 
 interview, with sundry of the clergy, as inconsistent with his alleged denial, at 
 the first. The testimony here is somewhat difficult to reconcile. I put myself, 
 that I may get their sense, as nearly as may be, in the place of the witnesses of 
 the alleged admission. I suppose myself to have understood the Respondent, 
 on the second day, to admit that he had done the gross acts charged in the 
 Presentment ; and, I then ask myself, how is it possible that Dr. Milnor, Dr. 
 Muhlenberg, Dr. Higbee, and, above all, Mr. Beare, as Dr. Milnor positively 
 testifies, could have consented, expressly or by implication, to " say no more 
 about it?" I feel myself compelled to stand between their characters as 
 Christian men, and Christian ministers, and such an explanation. On the 
 other hand, I suppose the great anxiety of Mr. Beare to have been, to have 
 his wife relieved from the denial of her veracity, (as Dr. Muhlenberg, I 
 think, expresses it, " her word,") which had been just reported to him ; and 
 
23 
 
 the Respondent readily admitting that he designed to bring no charge against 
 her veracity, at the same time that all that she alleged against himself, as 
 being offensive, was without foundation, and the mere result of her misap- 
 prehension ; and the conclusion then becomes most natural. Mr. Beare was 
 relieved from the impression that his wife was charged with lying. All were 
 relieved from the impression that immorality or impurity was necessarily 
 involved in her statement of the case. And they parted with the understand- 
 ing that the affair was settled, and no more to be said about it. And there 
 is a further, and, if possible, even more conclusive test, that this is the true 
 solution, in the closing words of the second interview. If the Respondent 
 really owned his guilt, and Dr. Milnor understood it so, are not his admo- 
 nition, and the Respondent's answer, most remarkable ? We are to sup- 
 pose Dr. Milnor, when the Respondent had not only confessed impurity, but 
 convicted himself of falsehood, coolly addressing him as follows : " I hope, 
 Bishop, that what has now occurred, will put you on your guard ; the more, as 
 I have heard of other similar rumors !" This is surely not the language of 
 an aged Presbyter, whose mind was burdened by his Bishop's confession of 
 aggravated immorality, denied by him only the day before. And what does 
 the Respondent reply ? " In regard to rumors of this kind, Doctor, about 
 Clergymen, there are few that have not, at some time, had occasion to en- 
 counter them." Is this the answer of one who had just owned his guilt? 
 And if it had been, if he had so understood it then to be, could the rejoinder 
 of Dr. Milnor have been what has been stated ? Must it not rather have 
 been in words to this effect : " In regard to rumors not admitted, Bishop, 
 your remark is well ; but as you have just confessed all that relates to Mrs. 
 Beare, I see not how it can apply to you." I thus dispose of the weight at- 
 tempted to be brought to bear upon this case by the alleged discrepancy be- 
 tween the Respondent's conduct at the first, and at the second interview ; 
 and am compelled to "declare" him not guilty, in my "opinion," of the 
 charge or charges alleged in Article VIII. of this Presentment. 
 
 G. W. DOANE, 
 Bishop of New Jersey. 
 
 ADJUDICATION OF THE SENTENCE. 
 
 The undersigned has declared his " opinion" that the Respondent in this 
 case is not guilty of " immorality and impurity," as charged in the Present- 
 ment. He holds to that conviction. A majority of the Court, however, 
 have declared that in their "opinion" he is "guilty ;" and by the Canon, 
 " the Court," of which the undersigned is one, must now " pass sentence, 
 and award the penalty of admonition, suspension, or deposition." The un- 
 dersigned, and those who agreed with him in " opinion," must withhold 
 themselves from the further action of " the Court," and so expose the Re- 
 spondent, who, in their " opinion," is not guilty, to the highest sentence which 
 the Canon knows ; or else they must unite in consenting to a lower sentence 
 on one, who, in their opinion, is deserving of none. Between these two, 
 the undersigned does not permit himself to hesitate. " Deposition," by 
 the present canonical provisions of this Church, is irrevocable. Should 
 
24 
 
 such be the decision of a majority of this Court, not only the Respondent^ 
 but themselves would be cut off from any future beneficial action. The un- 
 dersigned is bound in conscience, so far as in him lies, to avert a result so 
 unjust and so unhappy. Therefore, although he has voted that the Respon- 
 dent is " not guilty," and still believes him so, his " sentence" is, that he 
 receive the lightest " admonition" permitted lij the Canon. 
 
 G. W. DOANE, 
 Bishop of New Jersey. 
 
 FARTHER ADJUDICATION OF THE SENTENCE. 
 
 The Court having failed, in two several scrutinies, to " pass sentence 7 
 on the Respondent, by a majority of their votes> the undersigned now con 
 sents to " suspension," to avoid " deposition." 
 
 G. W. DOANE, 
 Bishop of New Jersey. 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF THE NORTH WESTERN 
 
 DIOCESE. 
 
 I vote for admonition. 
 
 Had I been permitted yesterday to give my real opinion, I would have 
 said that articles 1st, 3d, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, were not proved, according 
 •to the Apostolic rule, 1 Timothy, v. 19, by which I consider myself bound 
 to judge in this case. 
 
 Article 2d, Not proved. 
 
 Article 4th, Not proved ; no evidence being brought forward. 
 
 And I would have added in reference to articles 7th and 8th, as follows : 
 If the declarations of the Bishop, which he made to the Rev. Mr. Beare, 
 had been considered by the Reverend gentlemen who were present on that 
 occasion, an acknowledgment of guilt, they were solemnly bound to pre- 
 sent him (the said Bishop) for trial ; or, at all events, they could not have 
 agreed to bury the subject. 
 
 JACKSON KEMPER. 
 
25 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW i^OKK. 
 In the name of God, Amen. 
 
 I, William H. De Lancey, Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York, 
 do hereby declare, that in my opinion the Rt. Rev. Benjamin T. Onderdonk, 
 D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New 
 York, who has been presented under Canon iii. of 1844, by the Rt. Rev. 
 William Meade, D. D., Bishop of Virginia, the Rt. Rev. James H. Otey, 
 D. D., Bishop of Tennessee, and the Rt. Rev. Stephen Elliott, D. D., 
 Bishop of Georgia, as guilty of immorality and impurity, in several specifi- 
 cations, 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the first article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the second article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the third article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the fifth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the sixth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the seventh arti- 
 cle of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the eighth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 And, having had no testimony offered against him in support of the spe- 
 cification in the fourth article of the aforementioned Presentment, is to be 
 held, and is by me, believed to be not guilty of the charge of immorality 
 and impurity therein alleged. 
 
 Given as my opinion, in Court assembled to try the said Rt. Rev. Benja- 
 min T. Onderdonk, under the aforesaid Presentment, January 2, 1845. 
 
 WILLIAM H. DE LANCEY, 
 Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York. 
 
 I reserve to myself the right to put on the records of the Court, if I should 
 think fit, the grounds and reasons of the opinion. 
 
 W. H. DE LANCEY. 
 
 New York, Jan. 2, 1845. 
 
 4 
 
 \ 
 
26 
 
 GROUNDS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 
 
 Having solemnly declared my opinion that the Right Rev. Benjamin 
 Tredwell Onderdonk, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese of New York, is not 
 guilty of the charges and specifications laid against him in the Present- 
 ment made by the Right Rev. Wm. Meade of Virginia, the Right Rev. 
 James H. Otey of Tennessee, and the Right Rev. Stephen Elliott of 
 Georgia ; and having claimed the right to put on the records of the Court 
 the grounds and reasons of my opinion, I herein set forth the views, prin- 
 ciples, and considerations, which have led me to the opinion which I have 
 declared in this case. 
 
 I bring to the decision of the question no aid from the previous know- 
 ledge or study of law, or the practice of it in any court. 
 
 I have never before sat on any ecclesiastical tribunal. My guide must 
 be the plain common sense which God has given me, enlightened by the 
 Scriptures of truth, and swayed by the best judgment I can bring to bear 
 upon the character of the testimony given, and the force of the circum- 
 stances which modify its influence on my mind. 
 
 It must be admitted, that the canon, under which the court is constituted 
 and compelled to act, is, in many respects, defective. It leaves unsettled and 
 even untouched many most important points, on which the minds of mem- 
 bers of the court have been much embarrassed. It fixes no rule as to the 
 number of witnesses necessary to prove a charge. It fixes no rule as to 
 the limitation of time, beyond which charges are to be regarded as stale 
 and undeserving of investigation. It is somewhat dubious as to the ques- 
 tion, whether the Presenters can sit as judges. It gives no power to chal- 
 lenge the right of a Bishop to act as juror and judge, who for any reason 
 may be supposed to be inimical to the accused party. It fixes no penalty 
 for witnesses not appearing, when summoned. It fails to explain the 
 meaning of the term " suspension," or whether the Court can limit it or 
 not. It provides no mode of removing the sentence of suspension. It 
 compels those, who think an arraigned person not guilty, to vote upon the 
 question of his punishment. It puts the Presenters in the attitude of accu- 
 sers, committed to the necessity of convicting the accused, in order to 
 justify their own action in making the Presentment. Under such a Canon, 
 we have been compelled to grope our way through the investigation of 
 this case, even with the advantage of able counsel on both sides ; some- 
 times as the analogy of courts of law would direct ; sometimes as courts- 
 martial should furnish the model ; sometimes as the common law would 
 guide us ; sometimes as the civil law would point out ; sometimes as the 
 ecclesiastical law would dictate ; and sometimes (and on one or two most 
 important particulars) thrown back upon the direct declarations of the 
 Holy Scriptures, as they would bear upon the case. 
 
27 
 
 The Court itself bears the twofold character of jury to try the cause, 
 and judge to expound the law. 
 
 A Presentment is, of necessity, founded on ex-parte testimony. In this 
 case, but one or two of the parties aggrieved have made depositions for 
 themselves. In the other instances, other individuals make affidavits of 
 what they know, not of themselves, but .«rom the aggrieved parties. Thus 
 Mr. Butler and Mr. Beare make the affidavits of the alleged insults to their 
 wives, respectively. In the case of Mr. Bolles, Dr. Hawks makes the affi- 
 davit on which the Presentment is made. The mere Presentment, there- 
 fore, proves nothing, except as its allegations may be supported by the 
 testimony adduced on the trial. But the affidavits on which it is founded 
 may, in my opinion, properly be used as tests of the accuracy and credi- 
 bility of the witnesses concerned ; for, if they swear before the Court dif- 
 ferently from what they did in their affidavits for the Presenters, such diver- 
 sity must, as far as it goes, affect unfavorably their testimony. 
 
 The Court is to try the Presentment, as it is made. It has no power to 
 make a new presentment. It can decide only, whether the presentment is 
 made according to the Canon ; whether it is so made, that the charges and 
 specifications can be tried. And, if these points are settled affirmatively, 
 it is to hear the evidence ; and, having deliberated upon it, to decide 
 whether the accused party is, or is not, guilty of the offences as presented ; 
 and, if guilty, then to award and pronounce the sentence. The Canon 
 seems to tie down the Court to the mere question of guilty or not guilty, of 
 the offences as charged, and does not allow of saying any thing but yea or 
 nay to that question. 
 
 No part of the Presentment, which is uncanonically made, can properly 
 bear upon that part which is canonical. No allegations, rumors, or stories, 
 which exist in the public mind out of the Court, can be allowed to have 
 influence, as evidence, upon the opinion I am to form of these charges and 
 specifications. They are to be decided by the evidence actually produced 
 in relation to them ; and not to be affected by any proofs, or evidence, or 
 allegations of other matters of a similar kind, which may or may not be 
 true, but which are not before me in this issue. 
 
 Neither the suspicion, nor even the knowledge of bad motives, or folly, 
 or mistake in the ulterior origin, or actual getting up of the Presentment, 
 either on the part of the Presenters or of those who procured and laid be- 
 fore them the affidavits on which it is founded, or of those who directly or 
 indirectly instigated, suggested, and fostered the proceeding in its remoter 
 origin, can be allowed to have any influence in judging of the truth of the 
 charges and specifications in the form and shape in which they are made 
 in the Presentment. Each charge and specification must stand on its own 
 merits and claims to truth. I must isolate each charge and specification, 
 as if it were the only one contained in the Presentment, and try its truth * 
 by itself, — by its own testimony and circumstances, — by what applies to 
 it, and not by the testimony and circumstances which belong to another 
 distinct charge and specification. 
 
 Nor can the deficient proof of one charge and specification be added to 
 the deficient proof of any other charge and specification, in order that to- 
 gether they may amount to reliable evidence, any more than the putting 
 together of half a dozen paralytics would help to make them all sound, or 
 even to make one sound man. 
 
 In considering the testimony, it becomes necessary for me to settle in my 
 
25 
 
 own mind the question, as to the number of witnesses essential to the es- 
 tablishment of each charge and specification. To me the supreme law on 
 this subject is Holy Scripture. The laws of man may vary from Scrip- 
 ture on this point, as they do on the subject of marriage and divorce. I 
 could not concur with the counsel for the Presenters in declaring, that the 
 law of God, as given to Moses, was not so good for the elucidation or as- 
 certainment of truth, as the common law. The law of God the Father in 
 the Old Testament* — the law of God the Son in the New Testament,! as 
 given by His own lips — and the law of God the Holy Ghost, as given 
 through the inspired Apostle, St. Paul, to Timothy, exacting more than one 
 witness, appears to me to leave me no option in requiring at least twoj 
 witnesses to each charge and specification, however differently the vary- 
 ing law of man may permit, or enjoin. I can conceive of no fair exposi- 
 tion, of 1 Timothy v. 19, " Against an elder receive not an accusation, 
 except before two or three witnesses" which can justify me in disregarding 
 so explicit an injunction, or one so pertinently and obviously applicable to 
 this case. Now there is but one direct witness to each specification, ex- 
 cept as to the second article. 
 
 When I come to qualify this testimony of each single witness, by the 
 circumstances attendant on the transaction, instead of finding them to fur- 
 nish the weight of an additional witness, they seem to me to weaken the 
 allegations of the single witness by their inconsistency with the other alle- 
 gations, the character, and the very nature of the witness. 
 
 The question being a question of the extent of familiarities — Vhether they 
 were such as of necessity imply the criminal, impure, and immoral feel- 
 ings and desires on the part of the Respondent, which form the gravamen 
 of the charge against him ; I must look to the circumstances of the case 
 to ascertain whether they are capable of an interpretation consistent with 
 purity of feeling ; whether they actually occurred to such an extent, as 
 of necessity and unavoidably to infer such criminality ; and whether the 
 circumstances and conduct of the parties show, that they were so inter- 
 preted and understood by the aggrieved individuals at the time, and by 
 those to whom they were then made known. 
 
 I place great reliance on incidental evidence — that which comes out, 
 as a necessary and unavoidable inference, from acts of the parties, or from 
 their omissions to act, where the circumstances of the case, if the allega- 
 tions were true, would require them to act. Thus the law of virtue and 
 modesty requires resistance, immediate and persevering, to the extent to 
 which the power of the party can go against aggression. The law of hon- 
 esty requires truth to be told firmly, however gently. The law of Chris- 
 tian duty forbids connivance at crime, just as I understand the law of the 
 land forbids compounding felony. If the acts of individuals — whose virtue, 
 honesty, or Christian duty is assailed — conform to what the law respec- 
 tively requires, it confirms the testimony. If these acts and proceedings 
 do not so conform — if they are in direct hostility to what this law of vir- 
 tue, honesty, or Christian duty would require — then to my mind the testi- 
 mony of the witness is proportionably weakened, and its credibility may 
 
 * Deut. xvii. 6. Numbers xxxv. 30. Deut xix. 15. 
 t Matt, xviii. 16. John viii. 17. 
 
 t The Second Canon of 1802, of the Diocese of New York, which continued in 
 force until 1834, required two witnesses to substantiate any charge. See p. 118 of On- 
 derdonk's Edition of 2s . Y. Journals. 
 
29 
 
 even be wholly destroyed. Thus, if persons of high character and stand- 
 ing in the Church are privy to, and cotemporary with acts in the Bishop 
 which appear immoral, and have the power of presenting him, or making 
 an effort to have him presented, and yet do not take such step ; I must 
 infer, that those acts, however they appear now to have been immoral, 
 could not in reality have been so, or he would have been then arraigned 
 and tried. The fact, that they were not noticed, brought to light, and tried 
 at the time, by those whose obvious duty it was to take such steps, and 
 who had it in their power to do so, forces me to conclude, either that the 
 persons were connivers at the immorality, which the high character of the 
 parties forbids — or else, that the acts were at the time capable of a con- 
 struction not implying immorality or guilt ; and, if they were so at the 
 time, the mere lapse of time could not impart an immorality to them, 
 which they did not then have. 
 
 Now, since the year 1834, the Diocese of New York has had a Canon for 
 the trial of a Bishop, (see Canon xvii. of 1834, of Diocese of New York ;) 
 which Canon gives to the Convention, if in session, and to the Standing Com- 
 mittee during the recess of the Convention, the power, by a vote of two- 
 thirds, to present a Bishop, and have him tried. Since 1837 eight Conven- 
 tions have been held in this Diocese, and no steps have been taken, no voice 
 lifted, no vote given, no motion made to present the Respondent by the clergy 
 or laity, to some of whom these various alleged criminal acts were known. 
 Could they have been deemed so unmoral, so criminal, so incapable of ex- 
 planation, so nakedly outrageous as they are now testified to be, and yet not 
 at the time have led to an attempt at canonical investigation and censure by 
 those who knew all about them ? If it be said that the Convention was too 
 cumbrous or uncertain a body to take up such charges and act upon them, 
 and this circumstance deterred them, I answer, that, during the recess of the 
 Convention, the Standing Committee of the Diocese, which consists of eight 
 persons, viz: four clergymen and four laymen, have, by the aforesaid 
 Canon, the right to present. If it be said that the acts were known only to 
 a few, and they thought it best to say nothing about them, I answer, that I 
 must believe that Dr. Hawks, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Bolles, Mr. Butler, in 1838, 
 and that Drs. Milnor, Muhlenberg, Wainwright, Higbee, Turner, and Messrs. 
 Richmond, Beare, and others, have not only failed to do their duty, but ac- 
 tually conspired (by an agreement on the part of some of them, in regard 
 to the case of Mrs. Beare) to connive at the criminality of the Bishop, and 
 conceal his guilt. Some of these clergymen have been members of the 
 Convention of the Diocese again and again. Can I now declare to be im- 
 moral, impure, and criminal, acts which transpired from two and a half to 
 seven and a half years ago, when they, who were cotemporary with them, 
 and knew them in all their aggravation, whose duty it was to have them 
 punished, if of the evil nature alleged, and who were members of the very 
 canonical body which had committed to it the power and duty of originating 
 action in the case, did at the time omit to take, urge, or recommend any 
 canonical action in regard to them ? In the absence of all evidence that 
 such omission was at the solicitation of the Respondent, and with the testi- 
 mony before us of his uniform denial of the truth of these rumors as alleged 
 against him whenever brought to his notice, he is entitled, in my opinion, 
 to the inference in his favor that they were not, at the time of the occur- 
 rence, of the criminal extent and immoral character now ascribed to them. 
 
 It is in favor of the Respondent, that the witnesses are not volunteer wit- 
 
30 
 
 nesses; that they come reluctantly, after urging3; that some of them have 
 tried to avoid being brought forward in connection with these charges. None 
 of them seem to have acted or come forward with any strong conviction of 
 the highly criminal and immoral character of the Bishop's acts, as charged 
 in the specifications. It is not with the prompt and stern sense of duty to 
 the Church, not with feelings of outraged modesty insisting on redress and 
 vindication, that they appear. They are dragged into Court. While the re- 
 luctance of the witnesses to come forward is most satisfactory evidence that 
 they are not knowingly parties to any conspiracy in this case against the 
 Bishop ; it does at the same time as forcibly evince to my mind, that the 
 acts alleged could not have been of so clearly outrageous and immoral a 
 nature on his part as the Presentment declares, or there would have been 
 less indisposition to appear in the case. 
 
 It is very remarkable, that in every case of the alleged assaults upon the 
 modesty and virtue of females, third parties were present or accessible ; and 
 that in no one case is the Respondent testified by the party concerned to have 
 been resisted as effectually, as in the circumstances of the case he might 
 easily have been. Mrs. Butler allows the Bishop to put his arm about her. 
 Mr. Butler sees him in the position several times, and does not think it 
 worth noticing, though he thought the Bishop overcome with wine at the mo- 
 ment : — That is, a husband sees a man whom he believes to be " excited by 
 liquor" embracing his wife with his arm, and quietly determines that he will 
 take no notice of it ; when a word on his part — a single word of even re- 
 spectful admonition—might have arrested the proceeding and all its conse- 
 quents ! Christian duty may account for the forbearance from anger and 
 excitement on the occasion : it does not account for his utter silence. Mrs. 
 Butler's overstrained and enigmatical language about the Bishop's hand is 
 not only contrary to all nature, as a reproach or rebuke for criminal fami- 
 liarity with her person, but might have been called forth by the most inno- 
 cent freedom, that paternal manners and fatherly intimacy with the lady 
 would allow. In the case of Miss Helen M. Rudderow, a single word to 
 Mr. Richmond would have intercepted and ended the most extraordinary 
 continuance, for nearly half an hour, in an half-open carriage, on a public 
 highway, during a general conversation in which all the persons more or 
 less partook, of the alleged insult. She says she felt like jumping out of 
 the carriage, if she could have done it, to save herself from the Bishop's 
 hand ; and yet she could not speak a single word to preserve her person 
 from insult, though at the very time engaged in conversation on general to- 
 pics, both with Mr. R. and the Bishop ! She feared to expose the Bishop to 
 Mr. Richmond ! She would have exposed him to Mr. R. by jumping out 
 of the carriage, as in her cross-examination she says she attempted to do, 
 but was afraid to expose him by a word, which would have been equally ef- 
 fectual. In the case of Miss Jane O. Rudderow, by simply rising and leav- 
 ing the room after the first alleged insult, or by speaking in a tone to attract 
 her brothers' attention, or by calling them in without actually exposing the 
 Bishop to their indignation, (the thing she says she was afraid of, and gives 
 as the reason for making no outcry,) she had been safe. But she, too, is 
 silent. In the case of Mrs. Beare, the same extraordinary silence under a 
 most aggravated alleged insult is preserved : when a word, even an offer to 
 take a seat by the side of her husband, and place the boy behind with the 
 Bishop, would have shielded her entirely. To me all this appears compati- 
 ble only with a very limited extent of familiarity ; and wholly unaccounta- 
 
31 
 
 ble, if the familiarity was actually of the criminal nature and extent al- 
 leged. 
 
 I listened with attention to the analysis of the testimony by the learned 
 counsel on both sides, and regard it as unnecessary here to review the same 
 in detail. Granting all allowance to the ordinary character of human tes- 
 timony, which is substantial truth with circumstantial variety, yet the vari- 
 ations of the testimony from the precise charges of the affidavits and the 
 Presentment, the looseness of some of the allegations, the inconsistency of 
 the gravity of the charges with the quiescent conduct of the witnesses under 
 the alleged insults, the subsequent intercourse of almost all the insulted 
 parties with the Respondent characterized by cordiality, or at least by no 
 change in demeanor towards him, and the fact that each specification except 
 one rested upon the testimony of a single direct witness, could not but im- 
 press me with the conviction that these matters were resolvable into exag- 
 gerations of such familiarities as are liable to misinterpretation and highly 
 imprudent, but not implying of necessity the guilty criminality which the Pre- 
 sentment charges. I could not but be struck with the fact, that the charges in 
 the affidavits were stronger than those in the Presentment ; that the terms of 
 the Presentment were stronger than the testimony of the witnesses ; so that 
 there was a sort of diminishing or vanishing scale of allegations in the case, 
 the lowest and weakest point of which was the actual testimony produced. 
 
 No word or look of a corrupt, impure, or unbecoming character is alleged 
 by any of the witnesses to have accompanied the familiarities complained 
 of — a circumstance, constituting in my view additional evidence of the ab- 
 sence from them of an impure and immoral character, and that they were 
 not of the criminal extent alleged. 
 
 That imprudences do not imply immorality, and that even acts which 
 bear the appearance of crime may yet be devoid of the reality, is the 
 ground taken by the Ecclesiastical Court consisting of Bishops Mcllvaine, 
 M'Coskry, and Kemper, which sat in October, 1837, in the case of the pre- 
 sent Bishop of Kentucky, (the only trial of a Bishop hitherto known in this 
 country,) and which declared him guilty in several instances of the act as 
 specified, but without criminality — even using in reference to the second 
 charge, embracing forty-two specifications and affecting moral character, 
 in one case the following language, " Guilty of a careless and unauthorized 
 statement, but acquitted of insincerity and in another case, " Guilty of 
 the facts alleged ; an evil motive not appearing, but indiscretion manifest;" 
 and in another case, " Guilty of inconsistency, reconcilable, however, with 
 honesty and in another case, " Guilty in this, that the facts alleged are 
 true, and the Court cannot reconcile them with propriety or justice. It is 
 believed, however, that the accused did not urge his view with regard to 
 the money after it was objected to and, in five other instances, " Guilty 
 without criminality — incautious language is proved without evidence of 
 wrong intention ;" and finally upon the whole charge, as covering the pre- 
 ceding specifications, declaring as follows, viz : " After mature considera- 
 tion of the evidence to the several specifications under charge 2d, the Court 
 find the accused not guilty of the charge ; at the same time that they can- 
 not acquit him of having sometimes, in seasons of mental excitement, used 
 language in a manner so careless and indiscreet as naturally to expose him 
 to a suspicion of insincerity, which a wide spread and long established re- 
 putation contradicts."* 
 
 * See " Sentence of the Court in the case of the Convention of the Diocese of Ken- 
 tucky, vs. the Rt. Rev. B. B. Smith, D. D.» 
 
32 
 
 That general good character should weigh down mere rumors and un- 
 
 sustained allegations, appears to me to be obviously proper. How far it 
 should weigh against even sworn statements of transactions of old date, 
 it is difficult to say. That it should have some weight is, I believe, al- 
 lowed. In the case of the consecration of the present Senior Bishop, 
 many years ago, as Bishop of Ohio, against whom an affidavit of some 
 highly improper, not to say criminal act was produced by respectable 
 parties, the late Bishop White took this very ground, and would not op- 
 pose the consecration on account of such affidavits ; holding that testimo- 
 ^ nials produced to the general good character of the clergyman assailed, 
 were a sufficient security that there must be some mistake or misappre- 
 hension in the matter. In this view he is said to have had the sanction 
 of the late Judge Washington, to whom he submitted the grounds of his 
 opinion.* 
 
 In looking to the respective characters of the Respondent and the ag- 
 grieved parties, I do not institute any comparison in favor of either. The 
 Respondent is a Bishop, and they are communicants. Both are to be be- 
 lieved as declaring what they think to be truth. They affirm — the Bishop 
 denies. Abstractedly, I put them on an equality. I ask myself, then, has 
 the Bishop's conduct been consistent with his denial ? I must answer, yes. 
 A uniform denial of these charges as idle tales, and a treatment of the 
 parties with no variation of manner or intercourse, braving investigation for 
 years, openly and boldly exposing himself, in the discharge of his duties, to 
 obloquy and ill feeling from some who harbored the evil reports, not re- 
 strained by any apparent fear of offending and irritating them by avowal of 
 views of theology or policy to which they were known to be inimical — this 
 appears to me to be the conduct of a man not conscious of liability to crim- 
 inal charges being brought against him. 
 
 On the other hand, how has it been with the aggrieved parties in this case ? 
 Has their conduct been consistent with their affirmations 1 I cannot say, 
 yes. They have repeated their respective stories again and again in pri- 
 vate, alleging grievous insult ; and yet, not only have taken no steps (ex- 
 cept in the cases of Mrs. Beare and Mr. Bolles) to confront the Bishop 
 themselves, or have him confronted by their friends, much less have they 
 sought to have the charges officially investigated by any proper tribunal ; 
 but they now most reluctantly come forward in the case, and, although en- 
 tirely independent on the Bishop in every matter, are, by the influence of 
 others, dragged into Court, to testify responsibly what they have so often 
 avowed on the irresponsibility of private allegation ; and not only so, but 
 have, after the alleged insults, every one of them, (except Mrs. Butler, who 
 never met him again,) treated the offending party with more or less respect, 
 and maintained more or less of a continued intimacy or intercourse with him. 
 
 If, then, on a comparison of the allegations of the two parties, I should 
 incline to place more reliance on the denial than on the affirmation, I do 
 but conform to what appears to me to be the dictate of common sense. 
 
 In the case of the events testified to by Mr. Bolles, they were brought to 
 the Bishop's knowledge by Mr. Bolles and Dr. Hawks, on the urgent ad- 
 vice of Dr. Taylor ; and the result was at once so to strip the charge of 
 the aggravations connected with it, and to reduce it from crime to impru- 
 dence, that now the Court does not hesitate, on the testimony of Mr. Bolles 
 himself, to acquit the Bishop. 
 
 * For this statement I am indebted to Bishop Kemper. 
 
33 
 
 In the case of Mrs. Beare, the alleged immoralities were brought, to the 
 Bishop's notice ; and the result was, after an interview between the Bishop 
 and Mr. Beare on the subject, in the presence of sundry clergymen, that 
 Mr. B. and the gentlemen present, on no solicitation of the Bishop, come 
 to an understanding with each other, that no further steps are to be taken in 
 the case ; and both Mr. and Mrs. Beare not only treat him with respect, 
 but extend to him the hospitality of their house. So that, whenever the 
 Bishop has been confronted by these charges at the time, it resulted in such 
 explanations as to avert the idea of criminality. 
 
 I do not consider the uniformity of the Bishop's denial of these charges 
 as affected by what passed at the interview in relation to Mrs. Beare's 
 case. *At the first interview, all the witnesses testify to a distinct denial. 
 At the second interview it does not appear that the charges were dis- 
 tinctly renewed in such a form as to call for distinct denial. The ques- 
 tion of Mr. Beare was, in substance, as to the Bishop's denial of his wife's 
 veracity. The answer of the Bishop was naturally directed to softening 
 the absolute denial of her veracity into a form which would not irritate 
 and exasperate Mr. Beare by a new issue as to his wife's credibility. 
 He tells him that he would not question his wife's veracity, but that 
 there is some mistake or misapprehension in the matter. I do not think 
 that this can fairly be considered a shrinking from his denial of the al- 
 leged insults, and certainly is not, in my judgment, to be taken as a con- 
 fession of guilt. 
 
 The charge of drunkenness, or, as it is worded, of being " improperly 
 excited by vinous or spirituous liquors," I regard as disproved by inci- 
 dental testimony in relation to Mr. Peck, as it fell from Mrs. Butler. The 
 circumstances which proved to Mr. B. and Mrs. B. that the Bishop was in 
 the condition alleged, were his tainted breath, his high spirits, his thick- 
 ness of speech, and his talkativeness. Now of all these Mr. Peck, being 
 in the carriage, was as cognizant as Mr. and Mrs. B. They were as per- 
 ceptible to him certainly as to Mr. B., who was on the front seat beside 
 Mr. Peck. Moreover, Mrs. Butler testifies that Mr. Peck was peculiarly 
 sensitive to improprieties of professing Christians ; that such improprieties 
 constituted the obstacle to his conversion ; and it is obvious that both Mr. 
 and Mrs. B. were very anxious that a good impression should be made 
 upon Mr. Peck by the Bishop, as Mr. P. had recently connected himself 
 with the Episcopal Church. From Mr. Peck's state of mind, then, it is to 
 be supposed that he would be alive to any impropriety, and instantly re- 
 pelled in disgust from the Episcopal Church, by the knowledge of so gross 
 an instance of it in the Bishop, as partial or even suspected drunkenness. 
 But was this the case ? Mrs. Butler says explicitly, No ! To the ques- 
 tion, " Did the driver" (Mr. Peck) " continue to be connected with the 
 Parish ?" her answer is, " He did." To my mind the inference is plain, 
 that the account of the condition of the Respondent is exaggerated by the 
 witnesses. The thickness of speech is explained by his having preached 
 twice, instituted a clergyman, and held a confirmation that very day, be- 
 fore the ride commenced. A single glass of wine would have produced 
 the tainted breath. And the talkativeness and high spirits, somewhat in- 
 consistent with thickness of speech, are easily resolvable into the well 
 known cheerful and courteous disposition of the Respondent, and his meet- 
 ing with the recently married son and daughter of his old friends, and who 
 had ridden fifty miles to meet him ; the lady herself having always been 
 
I 
 
 34 
 
 regarded and treated by him as a daughter, and for the ordination of whose 
 husband he was to take a journey of fifty miles by night. 
 
 The result of the whole view of the case has been, not only to make 
 me doubt of the guilt of the Respondent, (and with a doubt upon my mind, 
 I could not be justified in pronouncing him guilty,) but also to satisfy me 
 that there was no such testimony, supporting each charge and specifica- 
 tion, as the Scripture to my mind requires me to exact, in order to convict 
 a Christian brother of criminal, impure, and immoral conduct, as charged 
 and specified in this Presentment. 
 
 While, therefore, I can see in the conduct of the Bishop on these several 
 occasions much to condemn, as imprudent, foolish, and likely to be misun- 
 derstood and misrepresented to the injury of the Church ; yet not seeing 
 in it satisfactory proof of an extent of familiarity, implying criminal and 
 immoral and impure desires or designs, as charged in the Presentment, I 
 have answered, (my conscience and judgment concurring,) to the question 
 propounded by the canon in regard to each charge and specification as laid 
 in the Presentment, that in my opinion the Respondent is not guilty. 
 
 The sentence of suspension pronounced upon the Respondent was voted 
 for by me, because, although declaring him not guilty, the Canon requires 
 me, as one of the members of the Court, to vote upon the question of what 
 penalty shall be awarded to the accused party, when found guilty by a 
 majority of the Court. The question of guilty or not guilty is one ques- 
 tion, on which the whole Court must vote. The question, whether, if de- 
 clared guilty, he shall be admonished, suspended, or degraded, is another 
 question, on which also the whole Court must vote. Believing him not 
 guilty, I must, if compelled to vote, give my vote for the lowest degree of 
 punishment, viz., admonition. Failing to procure that award, and compel- 
 led to vote on the question again, I vote for the next lowest degree of pun- 
 ishment, viz., suspension, in which a majority of the Court having concur, 
 red, it becomes the canonical penalty awarded by the Court. Failing also 
 to obtain from the Court a limitation of the sentence to one year, and to al- 
 low him the private exercise of his ministry ; I am compelled to acquiesce 
 in the final decision of a majority of the Court ; which suspends the Right 
 Rev. Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, D. D., from the exercise of his office 
 as Bishop, and from his ministerial functions. 
 
 W. H. DE LANCEY, 
 Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York. 
 
 Note. — I wish to put on record, also, that I, with others, opposed the 
 •publication of the proceedings of the Court, and of the testimony in the 
 case ; because, however much it might favor the Respondent, by showing 
 the precise extent of the charges and the actual character of the testimony, 
 to publish them, such publication would tend to injure the very moral and 
 religious feeling of the Church and of the community, which the act of dis- 
 cipline upon the Respondent was designed to promote. The majority of 
 the Court decided otherwise. 
 
 W. H. DE LANCEY. 
 
35 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The Bishop of South Carolina gives his opinion as follows : 
 
 It cannot be denied, that our brother the Bishop of New York, from early 
 manhood to the present time, when he has passed the meridian of life, has 
 been unreservedly and zealously devoted to the service of the Church ; and 
 that he has been, and continues to be, eminently useful. But there is "no 
 man that sinneth not," and there are sins which do "easily beset us and 
 if one person be liable to sins of the flesh, another to sins of the world, 
 covetousness or ambition, and a third to sins of the devil, falsehood or slan- 
 der, " envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness," it is not for man to 
 decide which is the greater sin. If the acts of sin be repented of, the indi- 
 vidual cannot truly be called an immoral man ; and the evidences of a true 
 repentance are, habitual public confession of sin and supplication for pardon, 
 the stated participation of the holy communion, and amendment of life, or 
 in other words, living " soberly, righteously, and godly." 
 
 With respect to the specifications before us, (except one, in a modified 
 degree, explained in my vote,) I believe our brother is not guilty. As to 
 the two most serious specifications — to suppose a man would attempt the 
 virtue (for it amounts to that) of a wife in the presence, hearing, and close 
 by her newly-married young husband, is preposterous and ridiculous. 
 
 Such a suspicion might possibly be entertained of a madman, or a fool, 
 or a reckless creature, entirely without character. " Quern Deus vultperdere 
 prius demented." But who questions, in the present instance, the vigor of 
 intellect, the experience of life, the tried integrity, the piety, charity, and 
 self-denial. 
 
 The beginning of this prosecution was not right. The first movement 
 was rumor, (created and fanned, as I believe, by carelessness, or folly, or 
 dislike, or revenge,) which has existed for several years, but the most part 
 of it never met my ear until in or after February, 1844 ; and I understood 
 the said rumor had been in circulation among the members of the Conven- 
 tion of the Diocese of South Carolina, which was held in that month. The 
 second movement was previous to, or during, the sitting of the General 
 Convention, which was in October, 1844. 
 
 The first ostensible movers to direct action, were not the persons who 
 considered themselves aggrieved ; nor were they members of the Diocese 
 of New York, especially obligated and interested in the matter, but of three 
 other Dioceses. The Jirst application for redress was not, as it should have 
 been, to the Convention of the Diocese of New York, but to the House of 
 Bishops, which had no authority in the case. This course of proceeding 
 appears to me unfavorable to truth and justice, and to the sacred independ- 
 ence of each Diocese ; and too favorable to party spirit, and to schism. 
 
 The Presentment, in addition to " immorality," names " impurity," 
 which is not named in the Canon, and therefore ought not to have been 
 named in the Presentment. The allegations characterize the acts in a way 
 which prejudges the accused, and adopt epithets which are indefinite, or 
 relate to manners, not to morals. The alleged offences are of so old a date, 
 
 \ 
 
36 
 
 that charity requires us to believe, if they were committed, they have been 
 repented of. 
 
 The Apostle Peter's great sin being repented of, was not only forgiven, 
 but he was permitted to retain his high office ; and who will say that he did 
 not exercise it to edification ? Charges of old date cannot be investigated 
 satisfactorily, by reason of the death or removal of material witnesses, and 
 of the imperfection of human memory, and perhaps the inveteracy of preju- 
 dice. 
 
 The circumstances, in this case, constitute an a priori argument of great 
 weight — such as the character and age of the Respondent, his paternal 
 official relation to the parties, the place and the time — which authorize the 
 belief that there must be misunderstanding or misconstruction. Holy 
 Scripture (1 Thess. v. 22) sanctions the distinction between evil and that 
 which may have the appearance of it. Familiar manners are peculiarly 
 liable to misunderstanding, by persons who may have adopted ascetic or 
 blue law, or other overstrained notions of morality — by persons under the 
 influence of prejudice — and in those places, and at those times, where and 
 when there exists a fierce conflict of opinion, and feeling, and interest ; for 
 example, at times of political excitement, in our own country, persons of 
 character, till then unimpeached, and truly unimpeachable, have been 
 charged with the most improbable, gross, and unnatural crimes. 
 
 The witnesses to all the specifications as to which the verdict was 
 "guilty," were the very persons who considered themselves injured, 
 and who, having made affidavits or statements out of Court, were under 
 strong temptation to sustain them, and therefore cannot reasonably be con- 
 sidered impartial witnesses ; and moreover, their testimony before the 
 Court, their statements, as set down in the Presentment, their affidavits, 
 letters produced, and conversations attested, exhibit discrepancies in seve- 
 ral very important particulars. 
 
 The conduct of the complainants at the time of, and subsequent to, the 
 alleged improprieties, has been remarkably inconsistent and difficult to be 
 explained. 
 
 All the specifications except one, viz., the second, were attempted to be 
 proved by the testimony of one person ; and the very attempt was wrong, 
 being contrary to the injunction of the Apostle Paul to the Bishop at Ephe-, 
 sus — " Against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three 
 witnesses." — (1 Tim. iv. 19.) And the Divine Wisdom, under the old 
 dispensation, laid down this rule. " One witness shall not rise up against a 
 man for any iniquity, or for any sin : at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the 
 mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established." (Deut. xix. 15; 
 xv. 17 ; Numb. xxxv. 30.) To this authority the apostolical Canon, the 
 75th, defers. An heretic is not to be received against a Bishop, neither 
 only one believer, for " in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every 
 word be established." It cannot be said, that although there was but one 
 witness for each act, yet there were circumstances corroborating her tes- 
 timony ; even if this were true, still there would be only one witness, and 
 Holy Scripture demands two witnesses : and the credibility of each one 
 must be fortified by circumstances, or it will be questionable. But in the 
 present instance the circumstances went to discredit the witness — that is, 
 to manifest defect of memory, or of prudence, or of consistency. 
 
 It might be asked, are the memory and judgment of the material wit- 
 nesses to be regarded as infallible ? Were they perfectly free from pre- 
 
37 
 
 judice ? from the strongest of prejudices — that connected with party the- 
 ology ? Are they to be supposed capable of drawing the line of demarca- 
 tion with perfect accuracy between manners and morals — evil, and the ap- 
 pearance of it ? Have they in the beginning and progress of this matter, • 
 at all times manifested the charity which thinketh no evil ? Is it given to 
 any mortal to discern the thoughts and intents ? Are we not told, " The 
 Lord seeth not as man seeth. The Lord (that is, he only, he exclusively) 
 looketh at the heart." (1 Sam. xvi. 7.) Are we not enjoined, "Judge 
 not according to the appearance V (John vii. 24.) The scribes and 
 Pharisees did not charge the person in John viii. 3, on suspicion, or on the 
 ground of a doubtful act. 
 
 But waiving the scrutiny of the testimony, and the considerations named, 
 the undersigned insists that each act from which it was attempted to prove 
 immorality, each act which gives any the least color to the imputation of 
 impure feeling, has but one witness. In its sternness the common law al- 
 lows of a single witness. But an ecclesiastical court ought to be govern- 
 ed by the law of Scripture — the more strictly just law of the civil code. 
 It is inconsistent with justice and humanity to create a precedent for al- 
 lowing character to be sworn away by one person. And we have a sol- 
 emn warning how dangerous it is to depart from the scriptural rule, in a 
 late trial, when a Presbyter was convicted of a gross crime, and ruined in 
 property by the secular court, on the testimony of one person ; and it 
 has since been fully established that he was entirely without guilt. 
 
 Good will come to our brother from this prosecution, for "it is good to be 
 afflicted." No good will come to our ecclesiastical confederacy. I pray 
 God that much evil may not come to it ; that it may not be shaken to its 
 very centre by the proceedings and decision in this prosecution. 
 
 The occasion reminds us to cling with tenacity to, and to be thankful for, 
 the divinely-ordered, the essential independence of each Diocese ; and for the 
 blessed promise to (not a particular Church, or association of Churches, 
 which may pass away, but to) the Church Catholic — the Church regarded 
 as one — that she shall outlive every shock, under the protection, and gui- 
 dance, and favor of the divine Head and Lord. 
 
 C. E. GADSDEN, 
 Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. 
 
 Note. It has been published in a pamphlet as follows : " On the first or 
 second day of the Convention, our Bishop was informed, in the presence of 
 several of his Presbyters, in the vestry-room of St. Michael's Church, that 
 a resolution, requesting the Trustees from our Diocese, to move in the Board 
 an inquiry into the state of the Seminary, would probably be proposed," &c. 
 
 Never, till I read that pamphlet, did I know there was any the least con- 
 nection with that "inquiry" and the moral character of the Rt. Rev. Pro- 
 fessor. I thought, up to this time, (Jan., 1845,) that the inquiry, and " the 
 rumor" referred to in the resolution of the Convention, had exclusive ref- 
 erence to errors in theology. 
 
38 
 
 OPINION OF THE BISHOP OF MARYLAND. 
 
 Having been, as I think, improperly hindered from making the following 
 declaration of opinion, at the time prescribed by the Canon, I avail myself 
 of the opportunity allowed, before passing to sentence, to read it, with a 
 view to its thus obtaining a place on the record of the Court. 
 
 W. R. WHITTINGHAM. 
 
 In the Name of God, Amen. 
 
 In my opinion the Rt. Reverend Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, D. D., 
 Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York, 
 having been presented by the Right Reverend William Meade, D. D., Bish- 
 op of Virginia ; the Ri^ht Reverend James Hervey Otey, D. D., Bishop of 
 Tennessee; and the Right Reverend Stephen Elliott, D. D., Bishop of 
 Georgia, as guilty of immorality and impurity in several specifications ; — 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the first article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment: 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the second article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment: 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the third article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the fifth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the sixth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the seventh article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 Is not guilty of immorality and impurity, as specified in the eighth article 
 of the aforementioned Presentment : 
 
 And having had no testimony offered against him in support of the spe- 
 cifications in the fourth article of the aforementioned Presentment, is to be 
 held, and is by me believed, to be not guilty of the charge of immorality 
 and impurity therein alleged. 
 
 Given as my judgment, in the Court assembled in the case, this second 
 day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
 hundred and fortv-five. 
 
 WILLIAM ROLLINSON WHITTINGHAM, 
 
 Bishop of Maryland. 
 
 The reasons of the above opinion and judgment, it is my intention to fur- 
 nish hereafter, for entry upon the record of the Court. 
 
 WILLIAM ROLLINSON WHITTINGHAM, 
 
 Bishop of Maryland. 
 
39 
 
 Reasons for the Opinion of the Bishop of Maryland, in the case of the 
 Presentment against the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, 
 Bishop of New York. 
 
 The Presentment against the Bishop of New York comes before me bur- 
 dened with many improbabilities, which must be taken into account in 
 weighing the testimony by which it is supported. Among these I do not 
 reckon the improbability of heinous transgression on the part of one so high 
 in office in the Church. That has its weight ; but its weight is no greater 
 in this case than it must be in the case of any Presentment against a 
 Bishop for crime or immorality. The improbabilities now in view, are pe- 
 culiar to the present case. 
 
 The Presentment sets forth immorality and impurity as a prevalent dis- 
 position of mind, evidenced by repeated acts spread over a series of years. 
 The existence of such a disposition of mind in one filling so public a station, 
 circulating so constantly in society through the wide extent of so large a 
 Diocese, holding free and habitual intercourse with such multitudes of peo- 
 ple — by no means all friendly disposed — without detection and exposure, 
 through so long a series of years, is in a high degree improbable. The 
 manifestation of such a disposition in the kind of acts charged, and under 
 the circumstances specified, and no otherwise, is very improbable ; and it is 
 equally improbable, had more overt acts, of a worse description, been com- 
 mitted, that reports so long and so extensively known as those concerning 
 the allegations in the Presentment have been proved to be, should not have 
 called out the knowledge of them, and placed them within the reach of the 
 diligence of the suggesters and framers of this Presentment. 
 
 Another kind of improbability grows out of the number and silence of 
 the persons cognizant of the allegations made, in connection with their 
 character and standing in society. It is very difficult to believe that so 
 many clergymen, several of them of the very highest repute for wisdom 
 and piety, should have so long connived at such guilt as is charged in the 
 Presentment. If true, the charges of that document are charges against 
 every clergyman who knew of them and kept them secret. The only 
 ground on which the conduct of so many, so intelligent, so respectable 
 clergymen can be justified, is that they did not believe the stories which 
 they heard ; or, knowing and believing certain facts, did not regard them 
 as susceptible of the coloring put upon them in the Presentment. 
 
 Still another improbability appears in the conduct of the individuals pro- 
 fessedly aggrieved. One such instance of forbearance as both Mr. Butler 
 and Mr. Beare must have manifested, had they at the time regarded the 
 treatment of their wives in the color now given it, is sufficiently unlikely — 
 the occurrence of two, under circumstances so nearly similar, is greatly 
 so. It is not to be explained by a recurrence to Christian principle, operating 
 similarly in the hearts of Christian men, because Mr. Butler and Mr. Beare 
 did not, on their own showing, act on Christian principle ; they did not tell 
 their brother of the fault now alleged, and in the spirit of meekness expostu- 
 late with him ; the sin which they chose not to reprove, their charity did not 
 cover. 
 
 The discretion of the females, in all the instances of alleged insult, is 
 
40 
 
 equally extraordinary. Placed, in every instance, in situations affording 
 opportunity of instant discovery of the insult to the persons most concerned, 
 most entitled, and best able, to check and punish it, they appear, in every 
 case, for a time, and, in all but one, throughout, by silence and abstinence 
 from every mode of giving an alarm, to have connived at the conduct 
 which they now represent as an insufferable outrage. The subsequent con- 
 duct of all, Mrs. Butler alone excepted, is similarly strange and inexplicable. 
 They exchange civilities with him by whom they have been insulted. 
 They receive and render courtesies. In every instance they share the 
 friendly meal ; in one it is proffered and urged upon the offender, as a 
 guest. They gossip with others of liberties and improprieties ; but to the 
 party on whom they charge them, they give no hint or token that he has ever 
 given them offence. In three instances, he remains in utter ignorance that 
 any thing which may have passed between him and them, has been taken 
 amiss ; nay, in two, to satisfy him that it has not, he has the strong evi- 
 dence of an unsolicited visit from one of the two aggrieved sisters. 
 
 The charge of immorality and impurity In the acts alleged, acquires 
 improbability from the circumstances, in every specified case. That any 
 one possessed of common sagacity and self-conduct, (to say nothing of his 
 bearing the office of a Bishop,) should have chosen to indulge his evil dis- 
 positions in circumstances so unfavorable, is hardly conceivable. An open 
 carriage on a public road, (in two instances in broad daylight,) in the com- 
 pany of other persons, (in two instances the husband of the lady alleged to 
 have been insulted,) are the last situations in which one would suppose a 
 man, having a character to lose, likely to give rein to impure desire, and 
 indulge in immoral practices. 
 
 The time, too, in every instance, increases the improbability. After, or 
 before, or between the most solemn services of the holy religion of which 
 he is a minister, the Respondent is charged with having grovelled in his 
 impurity and immorality. Precisely when he might be expected, if ever, 
 to have been free from unchaste desires, even if habitual, he is alleged to 
 have ffiven them their ran";e. 
 
 The mode is as strange as the time. No previous or subsequent jovial- 
 ity, frolicksomeness, liberty, or even lightness of speech or manner, is al- 
 leged. Without an indecent word, without a hint or expression capable of 
 evil construction, without, so far as appears in evidence, a look or gesture 
 (apart from the alleged manipulation) significative of impure excitement, 
 the insults are represented to have been, deliberately, coldly, almost sol- 
 emnly perpetrated, unexplained, never followed up, on persons the most 
 unlikely to permit them, at times the most incongruous, under circum- 
 stances the most likely to bring about detection, summary punishment, and 
 deep, irremediable disgrace. 
 
 Most of these improbabilities inhere in the Presentment, on its very face ; 
 all have been fully brought out in the course of trial. They do not make the 
 charges absolutely incredible — incapable of proof — but they do make it the 
 duty of a judge to require the very strongest and fullest testimony for their 
 support. 
 
 Now, what has been the evidence adduced on trial, to sustain these 
 charges ? In every case, of a single witness only ; that witness in each 
 case an interested witness, and in each case discredited. In the case of 
 Mrs. Butler — Mr. Butler saw nothing immoral or impure, that he felt dis- 
 posed to complain of as an improper liberty. What he retailed throughout 
 
41 
 
 the country for seven years, was his wife's story, exaggerated by her fan- 
 cies, carelessly heard and recklessly repeated, even to the very verge of 
 perjury. Had he never made to Mr. Irving, and Mr. Lucas, and Mr. Hub- 
 bard, and Bishop Meade, and Dr. Henshaw, and Mr. Gallagher, and prob- 
 ably many more besides, the false and wholly unfounded representation 
 that the Respondent had attempted to lift Mrs. Butler's clothes, this Court 
 would probably never have been called together. 
 
 The origin of that falsehood, to my mind, utterly discredits Mrs. Butler's 
 evidence. Hard as it is to say it, justice demands the expression of the 
 opinion, that the woman who, from the actions which Mrs. Butler herself 
 has ascribed to the Bishop, could jump to the conclusion that " he was 
 about," or "likely," " to pull up her clothes," was in a frame of mind ca- 
 pable of putting gross misconstruction upon innocent or even accidental 
 movements, and not likely to make any allowance for any freedom which 
 the relation (by her admitted to have been almost filial) between herself and 
 the friend of her father, and of her own childhood, might have prompted, 
 and excused, if not justified. 
 
 Mrs. Butler, it appears, naturally of a nervous temperament, had been 
 greatly fatigued by the long, rough ride of the preceding day and night. 
 Again undergoing fatigue, she was, in the physical sense of the terms, irritable 
 and excitable. Recently married, and within a year a mother, it is not mar- 
 vellous that her excitability should take a particular direction. A single mis- 
 conception of a caress, such as she testifies she had often before admitted and 
 received from the Bishop, in equal purity and unsuspiciousness on both sides 
 — a misconception perhaps owing to a jolt of the carriage moving over an un- 
 even road — might originate a train of misconstructions, and the active imagi- 
 nation, which out of a grasp of the leg (if that did occur) could run on to 
 divine an intention to lift the clothes, might easily lend significance to con- 
 tacts and pressures growing out of the uneasy motion of a carriage on a deep 
 and broken road. 
 
 I see no evidence, therefore, of immoral and impure conduct on 
 the part of the Bishop in the ride with Mrs. Butler. She, the only 
 witness, is likely to have mistaken the precise nature and occasion of the 
 ac/s about which she testifies ; of their intention, (in which alone the 
 criminality of such acts, apart from the occasion, must be sought,) she has 
 convicted herself of incompetency to judge, by the groundless suspicion 
 communicated to her husband, and so long by him regarded and reported as 
 the statement of a fact. The inherent improbabilities of the charge all weigh 
 against such worthless evidence, and lead me to believe Mr. Butler and 
 his brother clergymen, and Bishop Meade, for the four years between 1840 
 and the date of the Presentment, right in their conduct, whatever may have 
 been their opinion ; and to pronounce the Bishop, what they treated him as 
 being, not guilty of the first specification in the Presentment. 
 
 The testimony in support of the second article of the Presentment, 
 deserves only to be characterized as absurd and self-confutatory. 
 
 The Presentment has not ventured to charge inebriation, or intoxication. 
 It is only undue, or improper excitement, by vinous or spirituous liquors, that 
 is alleged. What is such undue or improper excitement ? No quantity 
 of vinous or spirituous liquors can be taken, without producing some 
 excitement. Is, therefore, all or any excitement improper, and present- 
 able ? If not, where is the limit, within the line of intoxication ? The 
 evidence, in support of the specification, is, that the Bishop "talked a 
 
4 
 
 42 
 
 great deal/' "talked thickly," "slept heavily during the night," (after a 
 day of fatiguing duty, while riding all night,) and that "his breath smelt of 
 wine, or spirituous liquors." A single glass of wine, taken at Mr. 
 Munn's, whence it is said he started on that ride, would account for the 
 latter circumstance ; and it appears impossible to account for it otherwise ; 
 for he did not join company with Mr. and Mrs. Butler after a full carouse, 
 or deep potations, but at the close of the protracted religious services, in 
 which he had borne the principal part, without, it is presumable, any 
 public indications of disqualification by indulgence ; of which evidence 
 might, and, no doubt, would have been produced, had it existed. The 
 " much and thick" talking, weigh little against the evidence that, at the 
 same time, though in a carriage in rough motion, and with fading light, 
 he was able to read several letters, parts of them aloud, and to discourse 
 intelligently of their contents. No incoherency, no absurdity, no incon- 
 gruity ; above all, no indecency of talk is testified. The " much" talking, 
 for aught that appears, was the innocent indulgence of unsuspicious frank- 
 ness ; the " thick" talking, perhaps, the imagination of those whose nice 
 senses had detected the "fumes" of liquor; or, more likely, the somewhat 
 affected articulation of organs fatigued by hard duty through the day. 
 The second specification of the Presentment is wholly unsupported by the 
 testimony, and I find the Respondent not guilty of the same. 
 
 The third specification has been still more miserably sustained. Every 
 circumstance charged has been disproved by the only witness competent to 
 testify. Nothing alleged in this article took place as there recounted ; and 
 what did actually take place, was regarded by the witness and reporter, 
 not as impure and immoral, but as, at the utmost, " foolish and indiscreet ; ; ' 
 and, certainly, as described by him, requires no little sensitive suspicious- 
 ness to give it a color deserving of that light censure. On the showing of 
 the very testimony adduced for the Presentment, the Respondent is not 
 guilty of the charge and specifications set forth in its third article. 
 
 The fourth article has not been tried. The fifth and sixth articles, teem- 
 ing with improbabilities as they stand in the Presentment, have been con- 
 nected by the testimony with a tissue of improbabilities still more astound- 
 ing ; and yet depend, each, upon the unsupported evidence of a solitary 
 witness, without the slightest corroborative or circumstantial proof ; that wit- 
 ness, in each case, being discredited by her own conduct at the time and 
 subsequently, and giving evidence on the trial with a plain disposition to 
 color facts and keep back testimony. 
 
 In the case of Helen Rudderow, it is improbable that a ride of three quar- 
 ters of a mile should have consumed half an 'hour ; it is very improbable 
 that during all that time, save five minutes, a man sitting on the back seat 
 of an open carriage with a lady, should have kept his hand thrust far down 
 in her bosom, pressing and grasping it, as they passed through a street on 
 New York island, at mid-day ; it is exceedingly improbable that a lady so 
 abused, possessing any degree of self-respect, should have made no outcry ; 
 it is in the highest degree improbable that this should have taken place with 
 another person in the carriage, within hearing, sight, and reach ; that per- 
 son a man, a clergyman, the friend and pastor of the insulted female, and 
 he be in no way solicited to attend and interfere ; but it is most of all im- 
 probable that that person should have been the Rev. James C. Richmond, 
 keen-sighted, active, observant, as all who know him know he is ; and 
 that he should have been in conversation with both the parties thus strange- 
 
ly situated, exchanging questions and replies with both, frequently turning 
 so as to look the alleged transgressor in the face, and should have seen and 
 known so little of the matter, that while his diligent agency is recognisable 
 in every part of the proceedings resulting in this Presentment, he can tes- 
 tify nothing even corroborative of the evidence of Miss Rudderow, which 
 he reduced to writing and procured to be made in the shape of an affidavit. 
 
 That affidavit discredits the witness whose sole testimony is to establish this 
 tissue of improbabilities. By swearing, in the postscript to Jane Rudderow's 
 affidavit, that every word her sister has therein said is true, Helen Rud- 
 derow has proved her own unfitness to bear testimony upon oath ; for of 
 most of the statements thus confirmed she could have had no personal know- 
 ledge, and some are incontestably disproved. 
 
 The conduct of Miss Rudderow, as described by herself, discredits her 
 testimony. It is not conceivable that any virtuous female, treated as she 
 represents herself to have been during nearly half an hour, would welcome 
 to her home the man by whom she had been outraged, and send down a 
 younger sister to bear him company, and " entertain" him in a room alone. 
 The woman who could do so is unworthy of belief : the woman who can 
 represent herself as having done so, compels me, in mercy to her, to reject 
 her evidence. Such testimony, destitute of the slightest corroboration, is 
 greatly outweighed by the many and extreme improbabilities of the story 
 which depends on it; and I have no hesitation in concluding that, of im- 
 morality and impurity in the manner specified in the fifth article of the Pre- 
 sentment, the Respondent is not guilty. 
 
 With relation to the allegations of Jane O. Rudderow, it is hard to say 
 which occasions most surprise, the tenor of her testimony, or the absence of 
 other testimony to support it, considering what she testifies. That any man 
 of decent character (setting out of view his position as a clergyman and a 
 Bishop) should have had the hardihood at first greeting a young woman in 
 her own house, in an open room, within hearing of her two brothers grown 
 to man's estate, to insult her, as Miss Rudderow describes herself to have 
 been insulted, is sufficiently improbable ; that she should have suffered it, 
 (and that, too, after previous warning by her sister,) without outcry, or the 
 slightest intimation to her brothers that their company was desirable, is still 
 more improbable ; that she, and her equally insulted sister, should have 
 quietly dined with him, and suffered his company after dinner, is very 
 strange ; but, that then she should have given him an opportunity of conver- 
 sation remote from others, by going with him to the end of the piazza ; that 
 there he should have repeated his insult in the presence of half a dozen 
 others, a mother's quick eyes among them, without protest from her or no- 
 tice on their part ; and that again, a few minutes afterwards, in a small 
 room with several others present, he should avail himself of her going to 
 the window, to rush after her, pass with her behind a painted window-shade 
 that hung four inches from the glass of art outside window, and beneath that 
 semi-transparent covering again perpetrate the outrage of thrusting his hand 
 far down into her naked bosom through a high-necked, close-fastened dress, 
 without resistance on her part, or attracting any observation by the company 
 in the room, whose sole and honored guest he was ; — these are improbabili- 
 ties surpassing belief. Where is the sister-in-law who was in the piazza, 
 and in the room, when these things are said to have taken place ? She 
 personally appeared in Court. Why did she give no evidence 1 Of course, 
 because she had none to give. She knew nothing of all this. It took place 
 
44 
 
 in her presence, her sister says ; but she cannot corroborate the testimony of 
 that sister by the recollection of a single circumstance. In the affidavit of 
 Jane Rudderow, the remark of her mother, now deceased, is related. She 
 cannot be called upon to give testimony. The sister-in-law who can, saw 
 nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of the marvels that were going on before 
 their eyes, or within their hearing. Of the subsequent conduct of the Rudde- 
 rows, their own reluctant testimony makes it clear enough that it has been 
 inconsistent, and throws discredit on their alleged grievances ; that of Jane 
 is wholly irreconcilable with any degree of womanly sensitiveness and deli- 
 cacy, if, previously to her voluntary offer to call upon the Bishop in his 
 study, to which Mr. Dowdney and Miss Rutter testify, she had really received 
 from him the treatment recounted in her testimony. On the unsupported 
 word of such a witness it is impossible to receive the tissue of improba- 
 bilities strung together in her story. Without other and better proof, I can- 
 not but believe the Respondent not guilty of the immorality and impurity 
 charged against him in the sixth article of the Presentment. 
 
 The seventh and eighth articles, distinct allegations, but parts of the same 
 story, have the peculiarity of a show of support for the testimony of the 
 single witness on whom, in that, like all the others, they depend. If the 
 allegations, as they now stand in the Presentment, were ever made to 
 the Respondent, and admitted by him, they would, by that confession, be 
 sufficiently proved. It has been contended that they were so made, and 
 admitted ; and to that effect, the testimony of Drs. Milnor and Muhlenberg 
 has been adduced. On the other hand, the united testimony of all present, 
 that at the interview when they were first made known to the Respondent, 
 he denied them ; the admitted uncertainty whether that denial had refer- 
 ence to the criminal character given to what passed between him and Mrs. 
 Beare, or to the attempted statement of what did pass ; the discrepant testi- 
 mony of Drs. Milnor and Muhlenberg, as to the way in which that state- 
 ment was made ; the clear, distinct, and full evidence of Dr. Higbee, as to 
 his impression of the denial made at the first interview, and the kind of ad- 
 mission made at the second ; and the evident treacherousness of Dr. Mil- 
 nor's memory, which has betrayed him into contradictory statements rela- 
 tive to a matter of no less importance than his own faithfulness to the agree- 
 ment or understanding, after those interviews, to make no further mention 
 of the transaction ; afford abundant ground to doubt the correctness of Dr. 
 Milnor's uncorroborated recollections, and to acquiesce in the impression of 
 Dr. Higbee, which alone is reconcilable with what all admit to have taken 
 place between Dr. Milnor and the Bishop, at the close of the second inter- 
 view, and with the honesty and piety of character of all four clergymen 
 concerned ; — to wit, that the Bishop did not admit the allegations as implying 
 guilt, but sought to reconcile a difference, which he, in the most charitable 
 view of the conduct of his accuser, attributed to mistake and misconstruction. 
 
 The charge of impurity and immorality in the case of Mrs. Beare, then, 
 and the specifications on which that charge is grounded, still rest on the 
 single testimony of Mrs. Beare. When presented to the Respondent by his 
 brethren of the clergy, he denied them with indignation ; and there is not 
 the slightest evidence to fix what extent he meant to give to his subsequent 
 declaration that he would not impeach the veracity of Mrs. Beare. 
 
 What he would not do, Mrs. Beare herself has compelled this Court to 
 do, by her unfortunate statements concerning a written document in which 
 she had set down the particulars of her story. The witness who could pos- 
 
45 
 
 itively declare of such a document, " it is destroyed," and then, within five 
 minutes, be brought, by the searching interrogatories of Counsel, to admit, 
 in so many words, " It is not destroyed," cannot claim credit for veracity. 
 Neither does Mrs. Beare's very remarkable want of memory concerning 
 transactions which one would suppose she, of all others, would be least 
 likely to forget in any their minutest circumstances — transactions sub- 
 sequently to her alleged insult, with him by whom she complains of having 
 been insulted — wear the appearance of veracity. It is as hard to believe 
 that she and her husband could have so entirely forgotten all that sufficient 
 witnesses have proved to have passed between them and the Bishop, subse- 
 quently to the transactions now made ground of accusation against him, 
 as it is to conceive how such things could have passed between them and 
 him, had they at the time believed him to be guilty of the immorality and 
 impurity now laid to his charge. 
 
 Whether the manner of the Bishop in the morning's ride with Mrs. Beare, 
 which has been made the subject of the seventh article of the Presentment, 
 was not too free and caressing for the lively sensibility of that lady ; 
 whether it was not accounted for, and justified by the more than ordinary 
 intimacy, and paternal intercourse of the Bishop with her husband from 
 his boyhood, and the consequent filial relation of the wife to the husband's 
 old friend and second father ; — these are questions not for this Court to solve. 
 Our business is with the extent and intentions of the freedoms taken. Were 
 they immoral in their nature ? Were they impure in their design ? Mrs. 
 Beare's own account of them does not prove that either she or her husband 
 so regarded them, when she first made her complaint to him. She thought 
 them " unbecoming," "too familiar ;" she did not like them : and he sym- 
 pathized with his newly-married wife, as was natural. But did they think 
 the acts criminal ? They do not say so. They cannot : for if they did, 
 the conduct of both, for the remainder of the day and evening, would 
 be set in an extraordinary light ; and the husband, who, knowing and 
 believing his wife to have been grossly insulted in the day-time, had 
 placed her again that night in the situation that had exposed her to the in- 
 sult, would deserve a name harsher than I care to introduce. Mr. Beare 
 did not believe the story now before the Court, when he took his wife home 
 from Mr. Franklin's in the evening ride, which is made the subject of the 
 eighth specification. There is no evidence that he ever believed it, except 
 so far as to be sure that it had foundation, to be confident in his wife's ve- 
 racity, to acquit her of intentional false witness. Now it is observable that 
 Mrs. Beare, like Mrs. Butler, was newly-married when these occurrences 
 took place. A new station in life had brought with it new notions of propriety, 
 of dignity, of decency. What, as in Mrs. Butler's case, the girl might have 
 suffered without a thought of impropriety, the bride regarded in a different 
 light ; the caresses of a parent were no longer uppermost in her mind, and 
 what, under other circumstances, might have been taken as they were meant, 
 for tokens of paternal fondness, became disgusting under another construc- 
 tion, lent them by the prevailing current of her affections. That Mrs. 
 Beare, having once misconstrued the attention of the Bishop, is capable of 
 so framing her narrative of what then and subsequently transpired, as to 
 make it bear her out in her misconstructions, the whole tenor of her tes- 
 timony too plainly shows. Ingenuousness, frankness, and candor, are not the 
 characteristics of that testimony. It was painful to listen to the efforts of Coun- 
 sel to obtain from this witness direct and positive answers on topics which it 
 
46 
 
 was her interest to avoid. There is too much in the testimony of Mrs. Beare 
 that looks like convenient forgetfulness, evasion, and coloring by partial 
 and imperfect statements, to leave a doubt that when she had once commit- 
 ted herself to her husband as to the character of the Bishop's familiarities, 
 she was capable of viewing and representing every thing that might sub- 
 sequently occur, in the aspect most favorable to her declared anticipations. 
 Into the details of her representation of the occurrences in the second ride, 
 I do not care to go, for obvious reasons. Setting aside moral improbabili- 
 ties, there are circumstantial difficulties in her statement that will not bear 
 examination ; and that statement has the additional disadvantage of being 
 set forth quite differently in her own evidence, in the affidavit of her hus- 
 band, and in the recollections of Dr. Muhlenberg — no two agreeing in the 
 minute details which alone give explicitness and atrocity to the alleged 
 offence. ' I cannot receive such facts, from such a witness, under the wit- 
 ness's own coloring. Whatever may have taken place between the Bish- 
 op and Mrs. Beare on that occasion, I find no adequate support for the 
 charge of designed indecency on his part, improbable as the person, the 
 time, and the circumstances make it. There must be more and better evi- 
 dence, before I can convict the Respondent of the immorality and impurity 
 alleged in the seventh and eighth specifications of the Presentment. To 
 my mind he appears now, what I believe him to have appeared to the four 
 clergymen who first brought the allegations to his notice, not guilty of such 
 immorality and impurity. 
 
 The specifications severally unproved, cannot jointly make up proof of 
 guilt. To do that, the whole must be regarded as one fact,*of which each 
 specification then becomes an essential circumstance ; and the same degree 
 of proof becomes necessary to establish such essential circumstance, that is 
 requisite for the establishment of the entire fact which it is taken to make up. 
 
 The failure of proof under each specification, has destroyed an essential 
 circumstance of the general charge ; and the failure under all, has left that 
 charge wholly devoid of existence, and therefore incapable of proof. Guilt has 
 not been proved in either of the specifications alleged in the Presentment ; 
 it would be equally absurd and unjust to consider it as proved, apart from 
 the specifications and out of them. The Respondent is not guilty of immo- 
 rality and impurity, as specified in the first, second, third, fifth, sixth, sev- 
 enth, and eighth articles of the Presentment. Not having been tried on the 
 fourth, there remains no specification of the alleged immorality and im- 
 purity. He is, therefore, not guilty of the charge at all. 
 
 This being my opinion, grounded on the reasons adduced, (among many 
 others that might be given,) it is unnecessary that I should examine the ques- 
 tion whether these accusations, being sustained each only by a single witness, 
 can be entertained at all by this Court. Other members of the Court have 
 learnedly and conclusively shown that they cannot. For me, it is enough 
 to find them all improbable, and each unproved, to be assured that, whether 
 rightly entertained or not, they must needs be dismissed, on the principles that 
 govern all human judgments in the investigation of the evidence of facts 
 and motives. 
 
 WILLIAM ROLLINSON WHITTINGHAM, 
 
 Bishop of Maryland. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 To the note, at the bottom of page 3, should" have been appended : —The fol- 
 lowing is from the II. Canon, Of the trial of a Clergyman, in the Diocese of 
 North Carolina. " No charge shall be substantiated on the testimony of less than 
 two witnesses. In all questions a unanimous vote shall be necessary to a 
 decision. 1 * 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Co. 
 
 COMPLETE WORKS OF MR. RICHARD HOOKER; 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND DEAXH. 
 BY ISAAC WALTON. 
 
 ARRANGED EY THE REV. JOHN KEBLI, M A. 
 
 In two elegant octavo volumes. — Price §4 00. 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Editor's Preface comprises a general survey of the former edition of Hooker'* 
 Works, with Historical Illustrations of the period. After which, follows the Life of 
 Hooker, by Isaac Walton. Those articles occupy nearly two- fifths of the first volume of 
 the English edition. His chief work succeeds, on the " Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." 
 
 It commences with a lengthened Preface designed as an Address " to them who seek the 
 Reformation of the Laws and Orders Ecclesiastical of the Church of England." 
 
 The discussion is divided into eight books, which include an investigation of the topics 
 tliU3 stated. 
 
 1. Laws and their several kinds in general. 
 
 2. The use of the divine law contained in Scripture; whether that be the only law 
 which ought to serve for our direction in ah things without exception ; or whether Scripture 
 is the only rule of all things, which, in this life, may be done by men. 
 
 3. Laws concerning Ecclesiastical Polity, whether the form thereof be in Scripture so 
 set down that no addition or change is lawful: or whether, in Scripture, there must be 
 of necessity contained a form of church polity, the laws whereof may in no wise be altered. 
 
 4. General exceptions taken against the laws of our polity, as being popish, and banisheJ 
 out of certain reformed churches; or the assertion, that our form of church polity is cor 
 rupted with popish orders, rites, and ceremoniej, banished out of certain reformed churches, 
 whose example therein we ought to have follower} 
 
 5. The fifth book occupies two-fifths of the vchole work, subdivided into eighty-ono 
 chapters, including all the principal topics which, in the sixteenth century, were the suo- 
 jects of polemical disputation between the members uf the Established" Church of England 
 and the Puritans. The character and extent of the research ran accurately be under- 
 stood fiom this general delineation. Our laws that concern the public religious duties 
 of the church, and the manner of bestowing that Order, which enableth men, in sundry 
 degrees and callings, to execute the same ; or the assertion that touching the s'everal du- 
 ties of tho Christian religion, there is among us much superstition retained in them • acd 
 concerning persons who, for performance of those dutie-, aie endued with the power uf 
 ecclesiastical order, and laws and proceedings according thereunto, are many ways hereia 
 also corrupt. 
 
 6. The Power of Jurisdiction, which the Reformed platform claimeth unto lay-elders, 
 with others ; or the assertion, that our laws are corrupt and repugnant to t"i>e laws of God' 
 in matters belonging to the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in that we have not' 
 throughout all churches, ceitain lay-elders established or the exercise of tha*. power. 
 
 7. The Tower of Jurisdiction, and the honour which is annexed thereunto in Bishops or 
 the assertion, that there ought not to be in the Church, Bishops endued with suc'n autkority 
 and honour as ours are. 
 
 8. The power of ecclesiastical dominion, or supreme authority, which with ua, the high- 
 est governor or prince hath, as well in regard of domestical jurisdiction, as of thai other'fo- 
 reignly claimed by the Bishop of Rome ; or the assertion, that to no civil p-ince or governor 
 there may be given such power of ecclesiastical dominion, as by the laws of the land be- 
 longeth unto the supreme regent thereof. 
 
 After those eight Books of " The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," follow two Sermons 
 " The certainty and perpetuity of Faith in the elect ; especially of the Prophet Habakk'ik'a 
 faith ;" and "Justification, Works, and how the foundation of faith is overthrown." 
 
 Next are introduced — "A supplication made to the Council by Master Walter Tra- 
 rers," — and 'Mi. Hooker's answer to the supplication that Mr. Traversmade to the council.* 
 
 Then follow two sermons — " On the nature of pride,"— and a " Remedy against sorrow 
 and fear." 
 
 Two Sermons on part of the epistle of the Apostle Jude, are next inserted — with a prefa- 
 tory dedication, by Henry Jacksoa. 
 
 The last article in the works of Mr. Hooker is, a Sermon on Prayer. 
 
 To render the work more valuable and adapted for reference and utility to the Student, a 
 fery copious Topical Index is added. 
 
 The English edition in three volumes sells at $10 00. The American is an exact reprint, 
 at less than half the price. 
 
 From Lowndes^ British Librarian and Book-Collector's Guide. 
 " Keble's preface, like Walton's life, should precede every subsequent edition. 
 " Hooker is universally distinguished for long drawn melody and mellifluence of tea 
 guage, and his works must find a place in every well chosen clerical library." 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Sf Co. 
 
 BURNET'S HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, by Gilbert 
 Burnet, D. D., late Lord Bishop of Salisbury — with the Collection of 
 Records and a copious Index, revised and corrected, with additional 
 Notes and a Preface, by the Rev. E. Nares, D. D., late Professor of 
 Modern History in the University of Oxford. Illustrated with a Front- 
 ispiece and twenty-three engraved Portraits, forming four elegant 8vo. 
 vols. $3 00. 
 
 K cheap Edition is printed, containing the History in three vols, with- 
 out the Records — which form the fourth volume of the above. — Price, 
 in boards, $2 50. 
 
 To the student either of civil or religious history no epoch can bo of more importance 
 that of the lteformation in England. It signalized the overthrow, in one of its strong- 
 est holds, of the Roman power, and gave an impulse to the human mind, the full results of 
 which are <*ven now but partly realized. Almost all freedom of inquiry — all toleration in 
 matters of -eligion, had its biith-hour then ; and without a familiar acquaintance with all its 
 principal events, but little progiess can he made in understanding the nature and ultimate 
 tendencies of the resolution then effected. 
 
 The History of Bishop Burnet is one of the most celebrated and by far the most fre- 
 quently quoted t^t my that has been written of this great event. Upon the original publi- 
 cation of the first volume, it was received in Great Britain with the loudest and most extra- 
 vagant encomium* The author received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and was 
 requested by them tc continue the woik. In continuing it he had the assistance of the most 
 learned and eminent divines of bis time ; and he confesses his indebtedness for important aid 
 to Lloyd, Tillotson, and 8tilm xqfleet, three of the greatest of England's Bishops. 
 " I know," says he, in his Preface to the second volume, " that nothing can more effectually 
 recommend this work, than to say that it passed with their hearty approbation, after they had 
 examined it with that care which their great zeal for the cause concerned in it, and their 
 goodness to the author and freedom with him, obliged them to use." 
 
 The present edition of this great work has been edited with laborious care by Dr. Nares, 
 who professes to have corrected important errors into which the author fell, and to have 
 made such improvements in the order of the work as will render it far more useful to the 
 reader or historical student. Preliminary explanations, full and sufficient to the clear under- 
 standing of the author, are given, and marginal references are made throughout the book, so 
 as greatly to facilitate and render accurate its consultation. The v hole is published in four 
 large octavo volumes of six hundred pages in each— printed upon heavy paper in large and 
 clear type. It contains portraits of twenty-four of the most celebrated characters of the 
 Reformation, and is issued in a very neat style. It will of course find a place in every the- 
 ologian's library — and will, by no means, we trust, be confined to that comparatively limited 
 sphere. — JV. Y. Tribune. 
 
 BURNET ON THE XXXIX. ARTICLES. 
 
 An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles' of the Church of England. 
 By Gilbert Burnet, D. D., late Bishop of Salisbury. With an Ap- 
 pendix, containing the Augsburg Confession, Creed of Pope Pius IV., 
 &c. Revised and corrected, with copious Notes and additional Refer- 
 ences, by the Rev. James R. Page, A. M., of Queen's College, Cam- 
 bridge. In one handsome 8vo. volume. ^2 00. 
 
 " No Churchman, no Theologian, can stand in need of information as to the character or 
 value of Bishop Burnet's Exposition, which long since took its fitting place as one of the 
 acknowledged and admired standards of the Church. It is only needful that we sper.k of 
 the labours of the editor of the present edition, and these appear to ble-nd a fitting modesty 
 with eminent industry and judgment. Thus, while Mr. Page ha3 carefully verified, and in 
 many instances corrected and enlarged the r eferences to the Fathers. Councils, and other au- 
 thorities, and greatly multiplied the Scripture citations— for the Bishop seems in many 
 cases to have forgotten that his readers would not all be as familiar with the Sacred Text as 
 himself, and might not as readily find a passage even when they knew it existed— he (Mr, 
 P.) has scrupulously left the text untouched, and added whatever illustrative matter he has 
 been able to gather in the form of Notes and an Appendix. The documents collected in tho 
 latter are of great and abiding value." 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Applcton 6f Co 
 
 PAROCHIAL SERMONS. 
 
 BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, B. D. 
 
 Fellow of Oriel College and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford. The 
 6 vols. London edition, complete in two elegant 8vo. vols, of upwards 
 of 600 pages each. $5 00. 
 
 ftjT Mr. Newman's Sermons have probably attained a higher character than any others 
 ever published in this country. The following are a few of the recommendatory notices of 
 the press, received hy the publishers: — 
 
 " It would he rather late now to praise sermons whose reputation is9o well established u 
 those of Mr. Newmrtn ; and it would be unpardonable vanity to suppose that any thin" we 
 might say could add to the very high commendations thev haTe received from some of our 
 Right Reverend Fathers in God. We quoted l ist week the strong language of the Bishop of 
 Maryland: the Bishop of New York says, '-for simplicity and godly sincerity, for humble 
 and child-like reliance on the word of God, and for close, pointed, and uncompromin iig pre- 
 sentation of the tiuths and duties of the gospel, I know not their superiors." T" o Bjahofi 
 of New Jersey thus speaks of them, in a letter to the publishers : ■ I have looke and longed 
 for an edition of these sermons, as your noblest contributions to the sacred literature of the 
 times. Mr. Newman's Sermons are of an order by themselves. There is a naturalness, a 
 pressure towards the point proposed, an ever salient freshness abou* them, which will at 
 tract a class of readers to whom sermons are not ordinarily attractive :"— and the Bishop of 
 North Carolina writes, ' I do not hesitate to say, — after a constant us ,' of them in my closet, 
 and an observation of their effect upon some of my friends, for the last six years, — that they 
 are among the very best practical sermons in the English language ; that while they are free 
 from those extravagances of opinion usually ascribed to the author of the 90rh Tract, they 
 assert in the strongest manner the true doctrines of the Reformation in England, and enforce 
 with peculiar solemnity and effect that holiness of life, with the means thereto, so charac- 
 teristic of the Fathers of that trying age." 
 
 The sermons are 155 in number, being an exact reprint of the London edition in six 
 volumes. — Banner of the Cross. 
 
 " Of Mr. Newman's Sermons it may be safely said, that they are adapted to the begetting 
 sins of the age ; that the author traces them with a masterly hand to the most secret springs 
 of intellectual pride ; and that he explains and enfWces the great principles and duties of 
 Evangelical holiness, with a grace and simplicity of style, and unction of manner, which are 
 seldom surpassed. We therefore heartily commend his Sermons to our readers, and earn- 
 estly hope they may rind their way into every family." — The Churchman. 
 
 " As a compendium of Christian duty, these Sermons will be read by people of all denomi- 
 nations. As models of style, they will be valued bv writers in every department of litera 
 tare."— United States OazeUe. 
 
 "These Sermons must eventually be received and quoted as among the Standard Theo- 
 logical Writings of this century, and that, too, within the time of this generation."— Phil. 
 Sat. Post. 
 
 "They hear the marks of an original and highly catholic mind, and many of them breathe 
 a deep devotional spirit.— Albany Argus. * 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 BEARING ON SUBJECTS OF THE DAY. 
 
 BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, B i>. 
 
 One elegant volume, 12juo. Price $1 25. 
 
 This volume contains twenty-. viz Sermons, which aie thus entitled : —Work of the Chris- 
 tian. — Saintliness not forfeited by the Penitent.— Our Lord's last Supper and his first.— 
 Dangers to the Pcrritent.^— The Throe Offices of Christ.— Faith and Experience.— Faith and 
 the World. — The Church and the World.— Indulgence in religious privileges.--Connexion 
 between personal and public improvement. — Christian Nobleness. -doshua a type of Christ 
 and his foilpwejs. — Elislia a type of Christ and his followers. — The Christian Church a con- 
 tinuation of the Jewish.— The Principle of continuity between the Jewish and Christian 
 Churches. — The Christian Church an imperial power. — Sanctity the token of the Christian, 
 empire. — Condition of the Members of the Christian Empire. — The Apostolical Christian. — 
 Wiidom and Innocence. — Invisible presence of Christ. — Outward and inward Notes of the 
 Church. — Grounds for itedfastness in our religious profession.--Elijah the prophet of the 
 latter days.— Feasting in captivity.— The parting of friends. 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Sf Co, 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED AT CLAPHAM AND GLASBURY, 
 
 BY THE REV. CHARLES BRADLEY, A. M. 
 Two volumes of English edition in one. Price $1 25. 
 
 The Sermons of this Divine are much admired for their plain, yet chaste and elegant 
 style ; they will bo found admirably adapted for family reading arid preaching, where no pastor 
 is located. Recommendations might be given, if space would admit, from several of out 
 Bishops and Clergy — also from Ministers of various denominations. 
 
 The following are a few of the English critical opinions of their merit : — 
 
 "Bradley's Discourses are judicious and practical, scriptural and devout."- Lowndes's 
 British Librarian. 
 
 "Very able and judicious." — Rev. E. Bickersteth. 
 
 u Bradley's style is sententious, pithy, and colloquial. He is simple without being quaint : 
 and he almost holds conversation with his hearers, without descending from the dignity el 
 the sacred chair." — Eclectic Review 
 
 " We earnestly desire that every pulpit in the kingdom may ever be the vehicle of dis- 
 courses as judicious and practical, as scriptural and devout as these. " — Christian Observer. 
 
 HARE'S PAROCHIAL SERMONS. 
 
 Sermons to a Country Congregation. By Augustus WHIiam Hare, A. M., 
 late Fellow of New College, and Rector of Alton Barnes. One vol- 
 ume, royal 8vo. $2 25. 
 
 M Any one who can be pleased with delicacy of thought expressed in the most simple 
 language — any one who can feel the charm of finding practical duties elucidated and enforced 
 by apt. and varied illustrations — will be delighted with this volume, which presents us with 
 the workings of a pious and highly-gifted mind.*'— r Quarterly Review. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTED 
 
 £n the Ways of the Gospel and the Church, in a series of Discourses de- 
 livered at St. James' Church, Goshen, New York. By the Rev. J. A. 
 Spencer, A M., late Rector. One elegant vol. 12mo. $>1 25. 
 
 This is the first volume of Sermons by an American Divine which has appeared for some 
 years. Their style is characterized by clearness, directness, and force — and thev combine, 
 in a happy degree, solid good sense and animation. The great truths of the gospei are pre- 
 sented in a familiar and plain manner; as the church catholic has always held them, and as 
 they are held by the reformed branches in England and America. 
 
 The Intioduction contains a biief view of the origin, use, and advantages of the various 
 festivals and fasts of the Church ; and to the sermons are appended notes from the writings 
 of Hooker, Barrow, Taylor, Peaison, Chillingworth, Leslie, Horsley, Hobart, and other stand- 
 ard divines, illustrating and enforcing the doctrines contained in them. The book is well 
 adapted to the present distracted state of the public mind, to lead the honest inquirer to a 
 full knowledge of the truth as it is-in Jesus, and to give a correct view of the position occupied 
 by the Church. 
 
 The following is the copy of a letter of recommendation, by the Right Rev. Bishop 
 Onderdonk, of the Diocese of New York :— 
 
 " Having great confidence in the qualifications of the Rev. Jesse A.Spencer for pastoral 
 instruction in the Church ofGod, from a personal acquaintance with him as an alumnus of 
 the General Theological Seminary of the Piotestant Episcopal Church, and as a Deacon and 
 Presbyter of my Diocese, it gives me pleasure to learn, that in his present physical inability 
 to discharge the active duties of the ministry, he purposes publishing a seleet number of hra 
 sermons. Nothing doubting that they will he found instructive and edifying to those who 
 sincerely desire to grow in the knowledge and practice of the gospel, I commend them to 
 the pationage of the Diocese ; and this the more earnestly, as their publication may be hoped 
 to be a source of temporal comfort and support to a very worthy seivant of the altar, afflicted, 
 et an early period of his ministry, with loss of bodily power to be devoted to its functions." 
 
 S 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appltton Sf Co. 
 
 PALMER'S TREATISE ON THE CHURCH. 
 
 A Treatise on the Church of Christ. Designed chiefly for tho use of 
 Students in Theology. By the Rev. William Palmer, M. A., of Wor- 
 cester College, Oxford. Edited with Notes, by the Right Rev. W. R. 
 Wiuttinghain, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church i 11 the 
 Diocese of Maryland. Two vols. Svo., handsomely printed on line pa- 
 per. $5 00. 
 
 ■' fjie treatise of Mr. Palmer is the best exposition and vindication of Church Principle* 
 that we have ever read ; excelling contemporaneous treatises in depth of learning and solid- 
 ity of judgment, as much as it excels older treatises on the likj subjects, in adaptation to 
 the wants and habits of the age. Of its influence in England, where it lias passed through 
 two edition.- - , we have not the means to form an opinion ; but we*l>elieve that in this coun- 
 try it has already, even before its reprint, done more to restore the sound tone of Catholic 
 principles and feeling th in any other one work of the age. The author's learning, and 
 powers of combination and arrangement, great as they obvious])' are, are less remarkable 
 than tho sterling good sen<c, the vigorous and solid judgment, which is eveiywhere 
 manifest in the trea ise. and confers on it its distinctive excellence. The style of the 
 author i< di«tingni.-*hed for dignity and masculine energy, while his tone is everywhere nat- 
 ural j on proper occasions, reverential ; an. I always, so far as we remember, sufficiently con- 
 ciliatory. 
 
 To our clergy and intelligent l iity who desire to -see the Church justly discriminated 
 from Romanists on tin? one hand, and dissenting denominations on the other, we earnestly 
 commend Palmer's Treatise on the Church." — .V. Y. Churchman. 
 
 •'This able, elaborate, and learned vindication of the cl iim of the Piotestant Episcopal 
 Church, to be considered the true Catholic Church, and the exposure which is heie made ol 
 the grounds of difference between it and the lltniish Churcb, and of the baseless pretensions 
 of that Church to be the ' one Holy Catholic, and Aposudic Church,' will assuredly commend 
 these volumes to the favor of Churchmen. — Jv. Y .imrrican. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES ANGLIC ANUS; 
 
 BEIXG 
 
 A TREATISE ON PREACHING 
 
 In a Series of Letters by the Rfv. W. Crfst.f.y, M. A. Revised, with 
 Supplementary Notes, In the fteV. Benjamin I. Haight, M. A., Rector 
 of All Saints' Church, New York. In one handsomelv printed volume, 
 J2mo. Price $1 25. 
 
 Advertisrment. — In preparing the American edition of Mr. GfOf ley's valuable Treatise, a few 
 foot notes have been iifKJed by tin- editor, which are distinguished by brackets. The inora 
 extended notes at llieeud have been rejected from the best works' on the subject — and which, 
 with one or two exceptions are not easily accessible. to the American Student. 
 
 UK ADS OF COXTFXTS. 
 Letter I. Introductory. Pm:t I. On the matter <>f a Sermon. Letter If. The 
 end or object of Preaching. IN. The principal topics of the Pre aclior. IV. and V. Now 
 to gain the Confidence of the hoards —First, lly showing goodness of diameter. VI. 
 Secondly, By showing a friendly disposition towards them VII. Thirdly, By showing 
 ability to instruct them. V1N On Arguments- those derivable from Scripture. TX. On 
 Aigumcnts. X. On ll)ti<tn;t on. XI. How to move the passions or feelings- -First, By 
 indirect means. XII. Secondly, By diteet means. Part II. On Style. XIII. On Style 
 — general remnik*. XIV. Perspicuity, Foice, and El.: gance. X\'. to XVI II. On Style, as 
 dependent on the choice, number, and arrangement of words. XIX. The Connectives. 
 Part IN. On the Method of Composing. XX On the Choice of a Subject. XXI. 
 On C'wectinjr Materials. XXII. What Materials and Topics should generally be thrown 
 aside. XXNI. On the Method. of Composing. XXIV. Ob the Exordium. XXV. On Dis- 
 cussion — Lectures. XXVI. On Discns>ion — Text-Sermons. XXVII. On Discussion-- 
 Subject-Sermons XXVIII. On Application. XXIX On the Conclusion. Part IV. On 
 Delivery. XXX. Management of the Voice. XXXI. Eamestness and Feeling. XXXII. 
 Gesture and Expression. XXXIII. Extemporaneous Preaching. Supplementary Xotes. 
 A. — Matter of Pi-eaehingi P. — Sermons to be plain. C. — Texts. IX— Unity.' E. — Exposi 
 tory Preaching. F. — Written Mid Extemporary Sermons. 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Applet on Sf Co 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST; 
 
 OR 
 
 Mints Re§pccSing the Principles, Constitution, and Ordinance*, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 BY FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M. A., 
 Chaplain of Guy's Hospital, Professor of English Literature and History. King's College 
 London. In one elegant octavo volume of GOO pages, uniform in style with Newman's Sor- 
 mons, Palmer on the Church, §c. &2 50. 
 The following brief table of contents illustrates the more important topics treated on in this 
 very able work. 
 
 Part I. On the. Principles of the Quakers, and of the different religions bodies which have 
 arisen since the Reformation, and of the systems to which they have given birth. Chapter I. 
 — QUAKERISM. On the positive doctrines of the Quakers — onlinary objections to these 
 Doctrines. The Quaker System — Practical Woi kings of the Quaker System. Chapter 
 II.— PUKE PROTESTANTISM. The leading Principles of the Refoimation— Objections 
 to the Principles of the Reformation Considered — Protestant Systems— The Practical Work- 
 ings of the Protestant Systems. Chapter III. — UNIT ARIANTSM— its History and Ob- 
 ject Illustiated. Chapter IV. — On the Tendency of the Religious, Philosophical, 
 and Political Movements which have taken place in Protestant Bodies since 
 the middle of the last Century. The Religious Movements, Philosophical Move- 
 ments, Political Movements. 
 
 Part II. Of the Catholic Church and the Romish System. Chapter I —Recapitulation 
 Chapter II. — Indications ok a Spiritual Constitution. Chapter III. — The Scrip- 
 tural view of this Constitution. Chapter IV. — Signs of a Spiritual Society — Baptism — 
 The Creeds — Forms of Worship— The Eucharist — The Ministry — the Scriptures. Chapter 
 V. — Of the Relation of the Church and National Bodies — Introductory— Objections of the 
 Quakers— The Pure Theocratist— The Separatist— The Patrician— The Modern Statesman 
 — The Modern Interpreter of Prophecy. 
 
 Part III. The English Church and the. Systems which Divide it. Chapter I. — Intro- 
 ductory—How far this Subject is connected with those previously Discussed. Do the Signs 
 of a Universal and Spiritual Constitution exist in England? Does the Universal Church in 
 England exist apart from its Civil Institutions in Union with them ? What is the form of 
 Character which belongs especially to Englishmen? To what depravation is it liable? 
 Chapter II.— The English System:;. The Liberal System — The Evangelical System — 
 The High Church or Catholic System. Reflections on the Systems, and on our position 
 generally. 
 
 Mr. Maurice's work is eminently fittGd to engage the attention and meet the wants of all 
 interested in the several movements that are now taking place in the religious community ; 
 it takes up the pretensions generally of the several Protestant denominations and of the Ro- 
 manists, so as to commend itself in the growing interest in the controversy between the lat- 
 ter and their opponents. The political portion of the work contains much that is attractive 
 to a thoughtful man, of any or of no religious persuasion, in reference to the existing and 
 possible future state of our country. 
 
 " On the theory of the Church of Christ, all should consult the work of Mr. Maurice, 
 the most philosophical writer of the day." — Professor Garbctt's Hampton Lectures, 1842. 
 
 PEARSON ON THE CREED. 
 
 An Exposition of the Creed, by John Pearson, D. D., late Bishop of Chea- 
 ter. With an Appendix, containing the principal Greek and Latin 
 Creeds. Revised and corrected by the Rev. W. S. Dobson, M. A., Pe- 
 terhouse, Cambridge. In one handsome Svo. volume. $2 00. 
 
 The. following may be stated as the advantages of this edition over all others. 
 
 First — Great care has been taken to correct the numerous enors in the references to the 
 texts of Scripture which had crept in by reason of the repeated editions through which thi9 
 admirable work has passed ; and many references, as will be seen on turning to the Index of 
 Texts, have been added. 
 
 Secondly — The Quotations in the Notes have been almost universally identified and the 
 icfeience to them adjoined. 
 
 Lastly— Tho principal Symhola or Creeds, of which the particular Articles have been 
 cited by the Author, have been annexed ; and wherever the original writers have given the 
 Symhola in a scattered and disjointed manner, the detached puts have been brought into a 
 successive and connected point of view. These have been added in Chronological order in 
 the foim of an Appendix.— Vide Editor. 
 
 7 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Applcton 6f Co. 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY. 
 
 The volumes of this Standard Series aro highly recommended by the Bishops and Clergy 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Publishers beg to state, while in so short a time 
 this Library has incteased to so many volumes, they are encouraged to make yet larger addi- 
 tions, and earnestly hope it may receive all the encouragement it deserves. 
 
 The following works have already appeared : — 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BY THE REV. HENRY EDWARD MANNING, M A., 
 
 Archdeacon of Chichester. Complete in one elegant volume, 16mo. Price 
 $1 00. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Part I. The History and Exposition of the Doctrine of Catholic Unitt. 
 Chap. I. The Antiquity of the Article, "I believe in the Holy Church." II. The Inter- 
 pretation of the Article, "The Holy Church," as taught by uninspired writers. III. The 
 Unity of the Church as taught in Holy Scripture. IV. The Form and Matter of Unity. 
 Conclusion to the first part. 
 
 Part II. The Moral Design ok Catholic Unity. Chap. I. The Moral Design of the 
 Church as shown by Holy Scripture. II. The Unity of the Church a means to restore the 
 true Knowledge of God. III. The Unity of the Church a Means to restore Man to the 
 Image of God. IV. The Unity of the Church a Probation of the Faith and Will of Mao. 
 Conclusion to the second part. 
 
 Part III. The Doctrine ok Catholic Unity applied to the Actual State or 
 Christendom. Chap. I. The Unity of the Church the only Revealed way of Salvation.. 
 II. The Loss of Objective Unity. III. The Loss of Subjective Unity. General Conclusion 
 
 " This is a profound and eloquent treatise on a most interesting subject — one that has of 
 late received peculiar attention, and at piesent exeicises the minds of thoughtful Christians, 
 perhaps more than any other. Thousands are beginning to be convinced that the only true 
 and real bond of concoid is the kingdom of Christ, and to inquiie anxiously into tho mean- 
 ing of that article of the Creed — " I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church." All such 
 will read with avidity the admirable treatise which has been so favouiably received in 
 England, and whose republication in such beautiful style entitles Messrs. Appleton to the 
 thanks of American Churchmen. Archdeacon Manning is well known by o.her theological 
 works: but his Unity of the Church is the most matured and celebrated production of bis 
 pen, and it has placed him high in the rank of Anglican divines." — Banner of the Cross. 
 
 THE DOUBLE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 By the Rev. Win. Ingraham Kip, author of " Lenten Fast." One ele- 
 gant volume, 16mo., of 415 pages. Price 75cts. 
 
 Contents. — I. Introductory. Necessity for Knowing the reasons why we are Church- 
 men II. Episcopicv proved from Scripture. III. Episcopacy proved from History. IV. 
 Antiquity and Authority for Forms of Praver. V. History of our Liturgy. VI. The 
 Church's View of Baptism. VII. The Moral Training of the Church. VIII. Popular Ob- 
 jections to the Church. IX. The Church in all ages the Keeper of the Truth. X. Con- 
 clusion. The Catholic Churchman. 
 
 " This is a sound, clear, and able production— a book much wanted for these times, and 
 one that we feel persuaded will prove eminently useful. It is a happy delineation of th it 
 double witness which the Church bears against Romanism and ultra-Protestantism, and 
 points out her middle path as the only one of truth and safety."— Banner of Hie Cross. 
 
 M Here we have another valuable* and learned contribution, though in a popular form 
 withal, to thtological literature, and presented in Appleton's best manner. 
 
 " The Rev Mr. Kip has embodied in this volume, and somewhat expanded and ilJustiated 
 with notes, a series of lectures which he delivered to his congregation in Albany, last 
 winter, on ' The Distinctive Principles of the Church.' These lectures, as we learn from the 
 preface, were delivered ' at a season of strange excitement among different denominations,' 
 and designed as a safeguaul to his own people against the injurious influence ..>f such ex- 
 citement."— JV. Y. American. . 
 
 " This volume deserves a conspicuous place among the numerous publications which tb* 
 discussion of Church Principles has called out. The author has a considerable power of 
 illustration, and has presented some points in a very striking light. His Lectures on the 
 Antiquities and Forms of Prayer, and the History of our Liturgy, aie exceedingly valuable .*» 
 Christian Witness and Advocate. 
 
 8 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Sp Co. 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY. — Continued. 
 
 STfje (ftfjurcfjman's (ftompamon tu tfje (ftloset : 
 
 OR, A COMPLETE 
 
 MANUAL OF PRIVATE DEVOTIONS: 
 
 Collected from the writings of Archbishop Laud, Bishop Andrews, Bishop 
 Ken, Dr. Hickes, Mr. Kettlewell, Mr. Spinckes, and other eminent 
 old English divines. With a Preface by the Rev. Mr. Spinckes. 
 Edited by Francis E. Paget, M. A. One elegant volume, 16mo. $1 00 
 
 The pious leader will require no more recommendation of this volume than that which he 
 will find in its title-page. A Manual of Prayers compiled from the devotional writings of 
 Laud and Andrews, Ken and Hickes, Kettlewell and Spinckes, cannot be otherwise than 
 acceptable to all who love those principles which they unanimously taught, and for the 
 maintaining of which, (with the exception of the good Bishop of Wintor, whose lot was cast 
 in tranquil times,) they suffered according to the measure which God required of each : to all 
 who would fain follow them in the paths of self-denial, spiritual-mindedness. meekness, and 
 obedience. And that this book has been to past generations what it is hoped it may like- 
 wise be to our own, is evident from the fact that it is one of the few of the devotional works 
 of the seventeenth century, which continued to be in constant demand during the eighteenth. 
 Its value was appreciated, and it continued to be reprinted from time to time to the middle 
 of the last century ; and it is presented to the public once more, with the anxious desire 
 that as it found favour to the last, while Church principles were declining, so it may prove 
 acceptable to the many, who (blessed be God) seem now to be zealously and faithfully seek- 
 ing their way back to the "old paths'' from which we have wandered.— Editor's Preface. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN: 
 
 Or, the Devout Penitent ; a Book of Devotion, containing the Whole 
 Dutv of a Christian in all occasions and necessities, fitted to the main 
 use "of a holy life, by R. Sherlock, D. D. ; with a Life of the Author, by 
 the Right Rev. Bishop W T ilson, Author of " Sacra Privata," &c. One 
 elegant volume, 16mo. $1 00. 
 
 "The Practical Christian now submitted to the reader, from the seventh English edition, 
 is by fai the most important of all Dr. Sherlock's works. It was a work of gradual growth 
 and progressive enlargement, and we have his biographer's testimony to the fact, that he 
 made it the model of his own devotions — ' strictly observing himself what he so earnestly 
 
 recommended to others.' The following devotions, living impressions, as it were, of the 
 
 living mould— bring the tutor of Bishop Wilson again before us, and it may be devoutly hoped 
 that as their author, when living, succeeded in forming one of the noblest characters in the 
 Church's Modern Calendar, so now, though absent from us in body, this his work, instinct as 
 it everywhere is with his own saintly spirit, may tend to produce many more such chaiacters 
 to the glory of God and the edification of his Holy Church. — Editor's Preface. 
 
 " Considered as a manual of private devotion, and a mean? of practical preparation for 
 the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, this book is among the best, if not 
 the best, ever commended to the members of our Church." — The Churchman. 
 
 OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST: 
 
 Four books by Thomas A Kempis. One elegantly printed volume, 16mo 
 
 " The author of this invaluable work was born about the year 1380, and has always been 
 honoured by the Church for his eminent sanctity. Of the many piou3 works composed by 
 him, his 1 Imitation of Christ ' (being collections of his devotional thoughts and meditations 
 on important practical subjects, together with a separate treatise on the Holy Communion) 
 h :ne most celebrated, and has ever been admired and valued by devout Christians of every 
 name. It has passed through numerous editions and translations, the first of which into 
 English is said to have been made by the illustrious Lady Margaret, mother of King Henry 
 VII. Messrs. Appleton's very beautiful edition is a reprint from the last English, the trans- 
 lation of which was chiefly copied from one printed at London in 1677. It deserves to be a 
 companion of the good Bishop Wilson's Sacra Privata."— Banner of the Cross. 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Apphton Sf Co. 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY. — Continued. 
 
 LEARN TO LIVE. 
 
 Disce Vivcre — Learn to Live. WJigrejp is shown that the Life of Christ 
 is and ought to he an express pattern for imitation unto the life of a 
 Christian. By Christopher Sutton, 1). D. One elegant volume, IGrao. 
 Price $1 00 
 
 "The above work was written liy its author after his 'Disco Mori,' and befoie hie 
 Godly Meditations on the Lord's Supper ;' and it may lie said to come between tliem also 
 m respoct to the depth and s Tioumess of to io in wh cli it is written. The unusually fer- 
 vent Laagu ig£ of his last woik, tin Meditations, w as suggested by its particularly sacred sub- 
 ject; the ' Disce Mori,' on the other hand, which was his first, treating on a auhject which 
 belongs to n itura] as well as revealed religion, admitted of reflections derived from a vuriety 
 of sources, besides those wh.cb are especially of a Christian or gospel cluracter. In the 
 work which came next, the ' Disce Vivere.' be moulded liis materials, aftoi the manner 
 of a Kcmpis. into un ' fmitatio Christ) ; ; each chapter inculcating some duty, upon the 
 pattern of Him who gave Himself to bo the beginning and the end of all perfection— Editor's 
 Preface. 
 
 LEARN TO DIE. 
 
 Disce Mcri — Learn to Die. A Religious Discourse, moving every Chris- 
 tian man to enter into a serious Remembrance of his End. By Chris- 
 topher Sutton, D. J)., hie Prebend of Westminster. 1 vol. Ibmo., ele- 
 gantly ornamented. 9,1 00 
 
 " Of the throe works of this excellent author lately reprinted in England, the ' Disc? 
 Mori ' is, in our judgment, decidedly th s bfsl It was the favourite book of the Bishop of 
 Joly, who (the touching incident cannot he forgotten) died with it in his hands. It was this 
 Ret, we believe, which first recr.lled the book from the oblivion into which it had fallen ; 
 and our readers may remember, that shortly after its republication in England we urged an 
 American reprint, on the ground that it win a hook which would prove universally acceptable 
 to the Church, Such is siiii our opinion ; we do not believe that a single journal or clergy- 
 man in the Church will be found in say' a word in its disparagement ; but that, on the con- 
 trary, all will unite in commending it as one of the very best of our practical woiks, equally 
 devotional ami almost equally rich with the similar work of Taylor, and free from those 
 features with which Taylor startle* such weak minds as have a morbid dread of Romanism. 
 Our columns h ive be. mi, and now that the work is repiinted, will again be. enriched with 
 extracts which will make the ' Disce Mori ' favourably known to our readers. "--Churchman. 
 
 MEDITATIONS ON THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 Godly Meditations upon the most Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
 By Christopher Sutton, D. D., late Prebend of Westminster. 1vol. 
 royal 16mo., elegantly ornamented. $1 00. 
 
 " We announced m our last number the republication in this country of Sutton's 1 Medi- 
 tations on the Lord's Supper,' and having since read the work, are prepared to recommend it 
 warmly and without qualification to the perusal of our readers. It is purely practical ; the 
 doctrine of the eueharUt being touched upon only in so far as was necessary to guard against 
 error. Its standard of piety is very high, and the helps which it affords to a devout partici- 
 pation o:" the holy sa^nment of which it treats, should make it the inseparable rompanion 
 of every communicant. We know indeed of no woik on the subject that can in all respects 
 he compared with it ; and for it« agency in promoting that advancement in holiness alter 
 which every Christian should stiive, have no hesitation in classing it witii the Treatise on 
 ' Holy Living and Dyinu',' of Bishop Taylor, and the ' Sacra Brivata,' of Bishop Wilson. 
 The period at which the boo!; was written will account for and excuse what in the present 
 age would be regarded as defects of style; but these are fewer than might have been ex- 
 pected, and are soon lost si_'ht of in the contemplation of the many and great excellencies 
 with which it abounds. The publishers have done good service to the country in the publi- 
 cation of this work, which is a beaiuii'.tl reprint of the Oxford edition, and we are glad to 
 learn that it will be speedily followed by the ' Disce Vivere ' and ' Disce Mori ' of the same 
 author — Banner vfthc Cru.>* 
 
 10 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Qk 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY. — Continued. 
 
 THE RECTORY OF VALEHEAD: 
 
 OR THE RECORDS OF A HOLY HOME. 
 BY THE REV. R. W. EVANS. 
 
 From the Twelfth English edition. One elegantly printed volume, 16mo. 
 
 75 cents. 
 
 u Universally and cordially do we recommend this delightful volume. We believe no 
 person could read this work and not be the better for its pious and touching lessons. It is a 
 page taken from the book of life, and eloquent with all the instruction of an excellent pat- 
 tern ; it is a commentary on the affectionate warning, ' Remember thy Creator in the days 
 of thy youth.' We have not for some time seen a work we could so deservedly praise, or 
 so conscientiously recommend." — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " This work illustrates with great simplicity and beauty and variety, the privileges, bless- 
 ings, and influences of the Christian home. It is rich in elegant description, in fine moral 
 sentiment, and withal is happily imbued with the spirit of genuine Chiistianity. In wish- 
 ing it an extensive circulation, we are sure that we are only wishing well to the cause of 
 domestic piety and order and happiness. — Albany Advertiser. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF A CHURCHMAN. 
 
 BY THE REV. W. GRESLEY, A. M 
 
 From the Seventh English edition. One elegant volume, 16mo. 75 cents. 
 
 " The present volume is an attempt to paint the feelings, habits of thought, and mode of 
 action which naturally flow from a sincere attachment to the system of-belief and discipline 
 adopted in our Church. 
 
 " Church principles have been so much discussed of late, that I would have willingly 
 passed over that part of the subject ; but daily experience proves that they are still very 
 impeifectly understood, or little considered, by the mass of those who call themselvei 
 Churchmen. I have therefore devoted some chapters in the earlier part of the work to a 
 brief, though not careless or hasty, discussion of the principles of the Church of Christ 
 But the main pait of the volume is occupied upon the illustration of the practical working of 
 those principles when sincerely received, setting forth their value in the commerce of daily life, 
 and how surely they conduct those who embrace them in the safe and quiet path of holy 
 Me."— Author's Preface. 
 
 LYRA APOSTOLICA. 
 
 From the Fifth English edition One elegantly printed volume 75 cents. 
 
 " Here is a volume of poetry on grave subjects ; where the taste, the sensibilities, and 
 the judgment, all are interested. Some of its topics are purely imaginative, but the large 
 majority are on matteis to which every thoughtful mind often recurs ; and by the consider- 
 ation of which the heart and conscience are benefited. In this elegant volume, there are 
 forty-five sections, and one hundred and seventy-nine Lyric poems, all short, and many of 
 them sweet."— JV. Y. American- 
 
 " This is a collection of Lyrical Odes, which originally were published in the British Ma- 
 gazine ; and were subsequently combined in a handsome volume. Tbey are all upon grave 
 topics, and arranged under forty-five different heads ; and their poetical merits are commen- 
 surate with the serious dignity of the subjects. It cannot be expected that one hundred and se- 
 venty-nine different poems, written by an association of authors, can be equal and uniform in 
 poetic ability — nevertheless, they all exhibit a high degree of merit. Some of the Odes are of a 
 very superior order, and contain such pithy instruction that the wotk is just fit for the pock- 
 et of every lover of Christian Song, on account of the brevity of almost all the articles 
 Johnson once stated that there could not possibly be any good poetry on sacred subjects. If 
 the volumes of Milton, and Young, and Cowper, and Montgomery, had not shown the error 
 of his decision, the Lyra Apostolica would prove that his opinion was contrary to fact. The 
 beauty of the work accords with its melodious chants." — JV. Y. Courier and Enquirer. 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Co. 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY.— Continued. 
 
 BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR ON EPISCOPACY. 
 
 The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy asserted and maintained , 
 to which is added, Clerus Domini : a Discourse on the Office Ministeri- 
 al ; by the Right Rev. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, D. D. One elegant vol- 
 ume, 16mo. Price $1 00. 
 
 The reprint iQ a portable form of this Eminent Divine's masterly Defence of Episco- 
 pucy cannot fa'l of being welcomed by every Churchman. 
 
 'With the imagination of a Poet, and the fervor of an Apostle, Jeremy Taylor cannot he 
 republished in any shape that he will not have readers. More especially, just now will this 
 treatise of his be read, when, by feebler hands and far less well furnished minds, attempts 
 are making to depreciate that sacred order and those sacred offices which are here with tri 
 umphant eloquence maintained. 
 
 " The publishers have presented this jewel in a fitting casket." — JV. Y. American, Feb. 
 17, 1844 
 
 " Jeremy Taylor was not simply an ornament to the English Church, but in his Christian 
 walk and conversation an example to Christians of all denominations. His style has in it all 
 the elements of eloquence, earnestness of purpose, comprehensiveness of thought, and de- 
 votional fervor. The work under notice is particularly adapted to the study of such Epis- 
 copalians as would understand the grounds of their recognized orders. — U. S. Saturday 
 Post. 
 
 " On the merit of Bishop Taylor it would-be absurd and useless to expatiate. His piety 
 has been the subject and admiration, and his eloquence the theme of praise, to our best writ- 
 ers. " — British Critic. 
 
 THE GOLDEN GROVE: 
 
 A choice Manual, containing what is to be believed, practised, and de- 
 sired, or prayed for ; the prayers being fitted for the several days of the 
 week . To which is added, a Guide for the Penitent, or a Model drawn 
 up for the help of devout souls wounded with sin. Also, Festival 
 Hymns, &c. By the Right Rev. Bishop Jeremy Taylor. One vol. 
 16mo. $0 50. 
 
 "The name of Jeremy Taylor will always be a sufficient passport to any work on whoso 
 title page it appears. Of no writer of his period, or indeed of any other period, could it be 
 more truly said, that he has given ' thoughts that breathe in words that burn.' The present 
 little work may perhaps be regarded as among the choicest of his productions. While it is 
 designed to be a guide to devotion, it breathes much of the spirit of devotion, and abounds 
 in lessons of deep practical wisdom. Its author was an Episcopalian, and Episcopalians may 
 well be proud of him ; but his character and writings can no more be the property of one de- 
 nomination than the air or the light, or any other of God's universal blessings, to the world.*' 
 — Albany Advertiser 
 
 SACRA PRIVATA. 
 
 The Private Meditations, Devotions, and Prayers of the Right Rev. T. 
 Wilson, D. D., Lord Bishop of Soder and Man. First complete edi- 
 tion. One vol. royal 16mo., elegantly ornamented. $1 00. 
 
 "The Messis. Appleton have brought out, in elegant style, Wilson's 4 Sacra Privala' 
 entire. The reprint is an honour to the American progs. The work itseJf is, perhaps, on the 
 whole, the best devotional treatise in the language, and it now appears in a dress worthy of 
 its character. It has never before in this country been printed entire. We shall say more 
 another time, but for the present will only urge upon every reader, from motives of duty and 
 interest, foi private benefit and public good, to buy tlie book. Buy good books, shun the doubt- 
 ful, and burn the bad."— The Churchman. 
 
 A neat Miniature Edition, abridged for popular use, is also published. 
 Price 31 1-4 cents. 
 
 12 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Appleton Sf Co. 
 
 CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY— Continued. 
 
 THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH; 
 
 Or, Christian History of England in early British, Saxon, and Norman 
 Times. By the Rev. Edward Churton, M. A. With a Preface, by 
 the Right Rev. Bishop Ives. One vol. l6mo. elegantly ornamented 
 $1 00. 
 
 " The following delightful pages place before us some of the ohoicest examples — both 
 clerical and lay— of the true Christian spirit in the EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH. In 
 tiuth, these pages are crowded with weighty lessons. Heie our laity will find that these no- 
 ble foundations of charity in the mother country — the existence of which they have been 
 accustomed to ascribe to the credulity of ignorance, 01 the fears of superstition, successfully 
 practised upon by the arts' of priests, had a higher and holier origin — that they sprung into 
 boing under the warm impulses of that divine and expansive benevolence of which the corf- 
 straining power of Christ's love mado his early followers such large partakers at the period 
 while yet Christian men fully recognized their high vocations, as ' stewards of the manifold 
 gifts of God'— lived under the abiding conviction, that we are not our own, but that, 
 ' bought with the precious blood of Christ,' we are 'bound to glorify him in our bodies and 
 our spirits which are his.' Here, too, our clergy may learn a lesson of true self-devotion to 
 their Master— may see, strikingly and beautifully illustrated, that love for Christ, and that 
 zeal for his. kingdom, which alone can bear us tranquilly and successfully through the la- 
 bours and trials of the holy ministry — may see the operation of the true missionary spirit — 
 the spirit of endurance and self-sacrifice, which shrinks from no obstacles when the salva- 
 tion Of sinners is to be achieved under the command and the promise of the Almighty Goo! — 
 may see, in short, an' impressive and instructive exemplification of that child-like submission 
 to God, that pure and simple trust in him, which, at his bidding, performs duty, and leaves 
 the result to his providence and grace. 
 
 u But, to read these pages with profit, we must pray to God for a portion of that spirit 
 which indited them, and which so manifestly control the events which they record — must 
 read them with a spiritual eye ; with an eye intent upon discovering, not that which may 
 help to sustain some preconceived notion, but that which, prompted by the spirit of Christ, 
 and accomplished through the power of his saving truth, exhibits to us some great principle 
 of Christian action, and some powerful motive to go and do likewise." — Fide Preface. 
 
 TALES OF THE VILLAGE ; 
 
 In which the Principles of the Romanist, Churchman, Dissenter, and In- 
 fidel are contrasted. By the Rev. Francis E. Pagkt, M. A. In three 
 elegant vols. ISmo. $1 75. 
 
 "These three handsome little volumes constitute series of Tales, purporting to be the 
 record kept by a country clergyman, of scenes passing under his own view, in the discharge 
 of his parochial duties. They have had great success in England, as, we doubt not, this first 
 American edition of them will have here. 
 
 " They are well contrived s tales to interest the reader, and skilfully used as vehicles 
 for setting forth the sound doctrines of the Church, which, while 'protesting against Rome, 
 remains Catholic, and while protesting against Geneva, is Reformed ; whose hand is against 
 all error, and all error against it.' 
 
 " The first series or volume, presents a popular view of the contrast in opinions and 
 modes of thought between Churchmen and Romanists ; the second sets forth Church princi- 
 ples, as opposed to what, in England, is termed Dissent ; and the third places in contrast the 
 character of the Churchman and the Infidel. 
 
 " At any time these volumes would be valuable, especially to the young. At present, 
 when men's minds are much turned to such subjects, they cannot fail of being eagerly 
 sought for." — New- York American. 
 
 " The first, second, and third series, in as many small volumes, of these popular tales, are 
 now offered to the American public. At present, we have only room to commend them, and 
 wo do it most heartily, to all who desire edification combined with amusement." — The 
 Churchman. 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS BELLS; 
 
 A Tale of Holy Tide, and other Poems. By the Rev. J. W. Bnowt?, au~ 
 thor of " Constance," "Virginia," &c. One vol. royal 16mo., elegantly 
 ornamented. $0 75. 
 
 * Many of the smaller pieces in this volume have appeared from time to timo in various 
 journals and magazines, and have been received with unqualified favour. The lea.ing poem 
 was written for the most pait during the season whose enjoyments and happy inti' ences it 
 is designed to commemorate. The plan' of it was suggested by the perusal of Washington 
 Irviog's delightful Essays on the Christmas season, in *Jie Sketch Book." — Preface. 
 
 13 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published bp D. Appltion Co. 
 
 A MANUAL FOR COMMUNICANTS; 
 
 Or, the Order for A d ministering the Holy Communion ; conveniently 
 arranged with Meditations and Prayers from Old English Divineg, 
 being the Eucharistica of Samuel Wilherforcc, M. A., Archdeacon of 
 Surry, (adapted to the Anr;ric:m service.) Convenient size for the 
 pocket. cents; gilt leaves, 50 cents. 
 
 11 The order of this work is as follows : -First. " The Exhortation ;" comprising the two 
 exhortations which are inserted in tlie Communion Office; then the " Ante-Communion •" 
 next, " The Canon ol the Holy Con.ii'.union," beginning with the OfFertoiy and endiri" with 
 the Form coadministering the elements ; and lastly, the Post -Communion. This part ofthfl 
 woik is the Communion Office as COttta ned in the Prayer Hook, slightly altered in its 
 arrangement, and accompanied with a few short devotional meditations in the margin. After 
 this is ihe Introduction by Archdeacon Wiliierfoiee chiefly On the imncnancc of attendance 
 at the lord's Tabl.i, and the carsesof the present neglect of the privilege. 
 
 "We have next a brief iiotire oi the writer from Whose winks nre taken the extracts 
 which form the body of the volume. These are Colet, Ctranmcr. Jewel, Hooker, Andrew.*. 
 Put ton, Laud, Half, Hammond, Taylor. Leiyrhfon, Rre\irit, Patrick; Addison, Ken, Sparrow, 
 He vc ridge, Hicks, Comber, Kcuhucjl, \\ Msoil. Slid Potter: whose names are arranged ill 
 chronological order. With a mention in 'ew lines of their lives and characters. The remainder 
 of the work is divided into three fruits ; of which the first ror.si ts of Meditations on the 
 Holy Communion ; ihe second of Prayers before and aft^r Communion ; to which are added, 
 Bishop Wil o;rs Meditations on Select Passages, and Hishop Pali b-k's Tiayer for one who 
 cannot publicly communicate; and the third of select passages explanatory of the Holv 
 Sacrament and the benefits of its worthy r- caption. 
 
 11 'These meditations, piayers and exposition?, are given in the very words of the illus- 
 trious divines above mentioned, maityts, confessors. i-nd doetots of the Church; and they 
 fpnu altogether such a body of instructive matter as is nowhere else to be found in the same 
 compass. 'I hough collected from various authors, the whole is pervaded by a unity of spirit 
 and purpose; and we most, earnestly (minuend the woik as better fitted than any other 
 which we know, to subserve the ends of sound edification and fervent and substantial devo- 
 tion. The American reprint has been edited by a deacon of great promise in the Church, 
 and is appropriate 1 } - dedicated to the Bishop of this diocer-e." — Churchman. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION: 
 
 Or, an Historical Inquiry into the Ideality and Causation of Scriptural 
 Election, ns received and maintained in the primitive Church of Christ. 
 By George Stanley Faber, B. 1)., author <>f " Difficulties of Roman- 
 ism," " Difficulties of IniMciiry," &c. Complete in one volume, 
 octavo. $1 75. 
 
 " .Mr. Fuber verifies his opinion by demonstialion. We cannot pay a higher respect to 
 his work than by recommending it to all. ' — Chnr.h oj England Quarterly Review. 
 
 LETTERS TO MY GODCHILD. 
 
 BY THE REV. L SWAIIT, A. M. 
 
 One elegant miniature volume, ('rice 37 1-2 cents. 
 
 '• The design of this little work — dedicated by permission to Hi hop Ondordonk, and 
 commended by Bitmap L>elancey. toubom while in preparation the .MS., was submitted— is to 
 enable those whom distance or othei circumstances prevent from adequately discharging 
 their Bponsoiial duties, to place in the hands of their godchildren a treatise which shall 
 elucidate the relations between tlie sponsor and bis godchild, and supply, as far as may be, 
 the want of immediate and constant personal supervision. 
 
 The commendation of this Diocesan is an a ll-sufticicnt introduction of Mr. Swart's use- 
 ful little book. "-..V. Y. American. 
 
 OGILBY ON LAY BAPTISM. 
 
 Art Outline on the Argument against the validity of Lay-Baptism. By 
 the Rev. John D. Ogilby, D. D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 
 One volume, 12mo. $0 75. 
 
 " We have been favoured with a copy of the above work. From a cursory inspection a? 
 it, wo take it to be a thorough, fearless, and able discussion of the subject which it proposes 
 — aiming less to excite inquiry, than to satisfy by learned and ingenious argument inquiries 
 alreftdv excited." Churchman. 
 
 14 
 
Valuable Episcopal Works Published by D. Applet on 4* Co 
 
 MAGEE ON ATONEMENT AND SACRIFICE. 
 
 Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement 
 and Sacrifice, and on the Principal Arguments advanced, and the 
 Mode of Reasoning employed, by the Opponents of those Doctrines, as 
 held by the Established Church. By the late most Rev. William 
 AI'Gfe, D. D., Archbishop of Dublin. Two vols, roval 8vo. beauti 
 fully printed. $5 00. 
 
 " This is one of the ablest critical and polemical works of modern timed Archbishop 
 Magee is truly a malcus heretirolum. He is an excellent scholar, an acute reasoner, and is 
 possessed of a most extensive acquaintance with the wide field of argument to which his 
 volumes are devoted — the profound Biblical information on a variety of topics which the 
 Archbishop brings forward, must endear his name to all lovers of Christianity." — Orme. 
 
 tracts on (S^rtsttan Boctnuc anU practice* 
 
 Under this general head it is proposed to publish a series of Catechetical 
 Works, illustrating the Doctrine, Discipline, and Practice of the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church in the United States. The following commence the 
 Series : 
 
 A HELP TO CATECHISING; 
 
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 16 
 
IMPORTANT NEW WORKS, 
 
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 THE X.IPE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
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