T 7 of his conviction as to the VALIDITY ol Moravian Episcopal ordination, that his theory as to the lesser AMPLITUDE of this ordination was shared by the Brethren's Church? Could Bishop Stevens honestly believe that, the Bishops of our church would allow so narrow an inter pretation of that simple Ordination formula in our Liturgy, as to preclude the idea that an ordained Moravian Deacon, Presbyter or Bishop, has been as amply ordained to the Ministry in the Church ot God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the laying on ol the hands of the venerable Bishops of our Moravian Brethren’s Church, in the name ot the Triune God, as any man can be ordained by the laying on ol the hands of Bishop Stevens, who professes to ordain pat- excellence to the Ministry in the Church of t jod ? There is nought in the history ol the Moravian Episcopate ; nothing in the official action of our Synods and Conferences; nothing in the canon law ot our Church, which justifies such an interpretation ot the scope and intent of our Ordination formula. We protest, therefore, against a "First Subsidiary Reason ” which implies that such an interpretation, as Bishop Stevens gave, is authorized and entertained by our Brethren’s Church; and we assert that, it was- neither a wise, nor a bold, nor an honest thing, for any man to put such a construction upon our Ordination formula, with such an implication. What did Bishop Stevens mean when, after an- nouncing his belief in the VALIDITY of the Moravian Episcopal ordination, he suddenly raised this question of its AMPLITUDE? He lays one formula, the Moravian, upon the other formula, the Episcopalian, 2 i8 and says that his formula is more “ broad,” more “ wide,” and hence “ more ample ” than is our formula, on its face. We assert that the Moravian Church understands her formula to have an intent and scope just as "broad,” and as "wide,” and as “ample,” as the Episcopal formula, according to her own view of that intent and scope, as interpreted by her Law- book. He must then assert a lesser amplitude in the very face of her interpretation of her own formula, in the language of her Law-book, thus denying to the Moravian Brethren’s Church the right to interpret her own formula. Or does Bishop Stevens mean to assert that, inde- pendently of any interpretation of the Moravian for- mula, Bishops of the P. E. Church can and do ordain to the order of Deacon, Presbyter and Bishop, “ in the Church of God,” in an ampler degree than it is pos- sible for Moravian Bishops so to ordain, because the P. E. Church of God is ampler, in point of member- ship, social prestige and wealth? It is not the first time in my Ministry, nor will it" be the last time, that I must meet invidious criticisms of our Moravian Church. Let me relate to you an incident in my Ministry, to which it is always a com- fort and a source of satisfaction to refer. When in October, 1874, the Provincial authorities of our Church deputed me to convey, as correspond- ing delegate to the General Council of the Congre- gational Churches, then in session in New Haven, Conn., the fraternal greetings of our Moravian Church, that assembly, of Fathers and Brethren in Christ, gave 19 me, the representative of the smallest Protestant •denomination in point of numbers, as fraternal a wel- come as was given the representatives of the larger denominations. I shall never forget the session of the Council, at which it became my duty to present the •official greeting of our Church. The Rev. Dr. O. H. Tiffany, then of Washington, D. C., now of this city, had spoken, as the representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as a man has a right to speak when he represents so glorious a constituency as the millions •of the Methodist host. After him came the Rev. Dr. Edson, of Indianapolis, who. with all the exuberant vigor of his western Presbyterianism, spoke in the name of the re-united Presbyterian Church, with a fervor and an unction well worthy of the happy event still fresh in the minds' and hearts of his auditors. My name was next called by the Assistant Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Magoun, of Iowa, as the corresponding delegate to speak the word of fraternal greeting from the Moravian Church. You will allow me to repeat, in substance, what it was given me to say, under such circumstances, after having expressed my regret that an older and more worthy representative of our Church had been prevented from being present with them, on that occasion. “Brethren, you will remember the grand Review that was held in Washington, immediately after the close of the Rebellion, when the veterans of the armies of the Republic passed in review before the great Captain, who had led them through the mighty conflict to its victorious issue. Many thousands of their fellow citizens, from all parts of this northern land, hurried to Washington, to witness the final Review. “ As the ranks of veterans came sweeping down the broad Penn- sylvania avenue of our capital city, in Regiments, Brigades, 20 Divisions, Army Corps and Grand Divisions, cheer upon cheer rang out in gladsome greeting. But why was it that, at certain points in the line of march, the crowds of enthusiastic spectators grew more enthusiastic in their cheering? The reason was readily apparent. “ It was caused whenever there was passing in review, a Brigade,, whose numbers had melted down to that of a full Regiment ; a Regiment scarcely mustering enough survivors to count a full Company; a Company of whom perhaps only a fde of veterans sur- vived, only men enough left, of those who had once swelled the ranks of the old organization, to carry the battle-stained, torn, Colors;: sometimes, too, only enough of the old flag left, to show the colors, and on which side the men had fought ! “These thinned ranks and tattered colors, and battle-scarred survivors, called forth the most enthusiastic recognition, because they had come forth from the thickest of the fight, and had borne the heat and burden of the campaigns of the war. Brethren, at the close of the Thirty Years’ War between the Protestant and Papal powers of Europe, it was found that the ex- treme Left wing of the Protestant host had been crushed, and by the terms of the Peace which ensued, the remnant of this Left wing, the Protestant Churches of Bohemia and Moravia, were left alone to face the fire and sword of the Jesuit oppressor, unaided by their brethren of other Protestant lands. “ I represent, to day, all that is left of that Church of heroic- martyrs and confessors. We are but few in number. But there are enough of us left to hold up the old Banner of the Fathers ; it is blood- stained and battle-rent ; but it is the same old flag, and what is left of it tells the story of which side we are on ; and we are not ashamed of it. “ In the name of our Moravian Brethren’s Church, whose fathers’ flag we still hold up, under it to carry on our dear Lord’s work, I greet you, and pray for the choicest blessings of God upon your counsels and your work ! ” I shall never forget the applause which rang through the old First Church of Christ, in New Haven, when the representatives of New England Congregation- alism, gathered from all sections of our American land, responded to these words of greeting. They made me forget that my Church was less ample in point of membership, and social prestige and wealth, by their hearty recognition of the glorious achievements of her heroic past, when our Fathers sacrificed every thing, their positions of highest trust in the state, their estates and their lives, in the defence of the truth as it is in lesus. And whenever, since that autumnal day in 1874. 1 have been called on to endure contemptuous criticism, 1 revert to the generous enthusiasm of the venerable Fathers and Brethren in Christian Council assembled in Old Center Church, on the New Haven Green ; and the “ample” fellowship in all the “validity” of true- hearted Christian brotherhood, which was extended to me by such a representative assembly of Christian scholarship and of genuine piety, makes amends for any contemptuous slight which a so called “ church- manship,” run in narrowest of sectarian grooves, may ■essay to put upon the Moravian Brethren's Church. Brethren, our number is not large, but it is “ ample ” enough for us to carry the old standard ; its folds are not “ample,” because they have been borne through the fire and blood of fiercest persecution ; but there is enough of the old flag left for you and for me to show which side we are on ; and nothing that our brother in the P. E. Church of God can say^ about us, will make us ashamed of. our colors, and of the cause they represent. Or does Bishop Stevens mean to assert the lesser amplitude of the Moravian Episcopal ordination, in common with that of all other Protestant denomina- tions, because, We of the P. E. Church are the True 22 Church of God, and the other denominations are mere Sects ? If such be not only the “ First Subsidiary,” but the prime “ Reason,” for asserting this lesser amplitude of the Moravian Episcopal ordination, then it should be emphasized, as a fact, and all the more emphatically emphasized over against the profuse, un-official, pro- fessions of Episcopalian friendship and fraternal regard, that, with such a spirit of Sectarian Self-assertion and Exclusivism over against the Brethren of other Pro- testant Churches, the Moravian Brethren’s Church is at radical variance. There is no other Protestant denomination from which we do more differ, toto coelo, than we differ from the P. E. Church of God, if the intent and scope of this “ First Subsidiary Reason ” be, to assert that, We are the ampler Church of God, and you are only the “ restricted ” Brethren’s Church. Our Church, which officially recognizes as “valid” and “ample,” the ordination of all the other Protestant Churches, may, surely, and does demand as “ample” a recognition for herself, from them. Our Church is bound to a recognition of the fact that, at least as much is due to herself as she accords to all the other sister churches. It was this fell spirit of Sectarian Self-assertion and Exclusivism, in the 17th century, which crushed out our Bohemian and Moravian .churches, their schools and seminaries of learning; which destroyed their printing presses and burnt their Bibles, translated and published in the Slavic vernacular; which drove into exile, into prison, and to the stake or scaffold, the Nobility and the Peasantry of these lands, whilst 23 vieing with each other and with their Clergy, to prove their devotion unto the death, to the cause of an open Bible, and of the Unity of all Believers in Christ Jesus. We Moravians have learned in other centuries, and from the lips of red-cassocked Jesuit hierarchs, what the difference is, between soft speech and complaisant suavity in unofficial laudation, and the hard, formulated, assertion of Sectarian dogma, which runs into the narrow groove of hierarchical official action. Those Jesuit oppressors and usurpers, in the Papal Church of God, smiled, with quiet satisfaction, over the amplitude of their Church regency, but our heroic fathers died in exile, in the dungeon, at the stake or on the scaffold. Such a prelatical slap in the face as Bishop Stevens gave the Ministry of the Moravian Brethren’s Church, from his place in the pulpit of the P. E. Church of the Atonement, on Friday morning, when he asserted, in effect, that the Deacons, Presbyters and Bishops of our Moravian Church are not ordained Ministers in the Church of Jesus Church, ought to preclude any further fulsome adulation of the Brethren’s Church from that quarter, in regard either to the VALIDITY or to, what Bishop Stevens suggests as, the AMPLI- TUDE of the Episcopal Ordination of this venerable Protestant Church of God. And now a word as to that Episcopal Ordination, sometimes styled Apostolic succession,” which, it is now admitted with substantial unanimity on the part of historical specialists, acquainted with the results of thorough investigation, was conferred, in 1467, upon the first Bishops of our Church, and from 24 them has been transmitted, in due succession, to our day. What does the Law-book of our Church say? Chapter IX. Paragraph 60. “ Episcopal Ordination, which has been transmitted to us from the ancient Bohemian and Moravian Brethren’s Church, we, therefore, desire to hold dear and precious, as a Possession (Depositum) faithfully guarded by that venerable Church amidst Grievous Afflictions and Bloody Persecutions, which, when the Church seemed extirpated, was still maintained, in hope against hope, and which, at last, when the time for the Church’s renewal had come, was handed over to our Fathers. Upon this, essentially, rests not only our connection with the ancient Brethren’s Church, but also our right to call ourselves the renewed Brethren’s Church.” Now where did our Moravian Fathers of the ancient Church obtain this Episcopal Ordination in 1467, of which our Law-book says, that they “ faithfully guarded” it “amidst Grievous Afflictions and Bloody Persecutions,” and which “was handed over to our Fathers” of the renewed Church, on March 13th 1735? I will summon only one witness, of the many unim- peachable witnesses which might be summoned,* to testify to the historical fact of the VALIDITY of this Episcopal Ordination, which, in the opinion of our Brother Stevens, runs back pari passu with that of the younger, Anglican, Protestant Church, to the times of the Apostles. Our witness is a Roman Catholic. When you and I remember what the position of the Papal church •over against our Fathers has been, the testimony of a Roman Catholic, in any degree favorable to us, will be apt to strike us as of peculiar weight. The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia ( Kirchen Lexi- * See Dc Schweiniu's •* Moravian Episcopatk ,' 1 London, 1S77. con, von Wetzer und Welte, Freiburg, in Breisgau, 1848) says, Vol. II, page 65: “ A body of Waldenses had settled on the Moravian Austrian frontier, of whom the Brethren knew that they had legitimate Bishops, descended from the Apostles in an unbroken succession.” “The Brethren, in 1467, caused three (previously ordained Priests) to be consecrated Bishops with the imposition of hands by the [Austrian] Waldensian, Bishop Stephen, who was afterwards burned at Vienna.” Bishop John Amos Comenius puts it thus, in his Ratio Discipline : They (Michael Bradacius and two other ordained Priests) were sent to certain Wal- denses on the confines of Austria and Moravia. “ They find their Bishop Stephen.” The Waldenses •“approve of and congratulate” the Brethren upon their secession from the Pope and the Calistines. J ‘ And what is more, conferring upon these three the power to make Ministers, they create them Bishops with the imposition of hands, and send them back to their own.” Now whence did Bishop Stephen and his colleagues, of the Austrian Waldensian Church, secure their Episcopal Ordination, which they conferred subse- quently upon Michael Bradacius and his two colleagues, of the Moravian Brethren’s Church ? Bishop Stephen with his colleague, had been conse- • crated by their predecessors, Bishops Frederic Neme/, and John Wlach. Bishops Nemez and Wlach, previously ordained to the Priesthood, at Prague, by the Roman Catholic Bishop Nicholas (Philibert), a Legate of the Council of Basle, on the 14th of September, 1433, were sent to Basle in the summer of the following year, 1434 26 and were there consecrated Bishops, in a Convocation of clergy, by Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, in attendance upon the Council of Basle. Bishops Nemez and Wlach, subsequently, conse- crated as their successors in the Waldensian Church Stephen and his colleague. Bishop Stephen and his colleague, in 1467, conse- crated Michael Bradacius and his two colleagues, at the earnest request of the Synod of the Moravian Brethren’s Church, to the Episcopate. Bishop Brada- cius and the other two, previous to joining the Mora- vian Brethren, had been Episcopally ordained Priests, in the Roman Catholic and Waldensian Churches. Bishop John Holmes, says : (History of the United Brethren, Vol. I, page 52.) The first question which came before the Synod of 1467, was, whether ordination by a number of Presbyters so as equally valid with that performed by a Bishop. The decision of the Synod was to this effect ; — that Presbyterian ordination was consonant with Apostolic practice (1 Tim., IV, 14), and the usage of the Primitive Church, which might be proved from the writings of the Primitive Fathers ; consequently the newly elected ministers might be ordained by those now exercising the sacred functions of the Gospel among them, and who had previously been Calixtine clergymen in Priest’s orders. But as for many ages no ordination had been deemed valid in the reigning church unless performed by a Bishop, they resolved to use every possible means for obtaining Episcopal ordination, that their enemies might thus be deprhied of every pretext for discrediting the Ministry among them." The entire succession of Bishops from 1467 to 1865, in the subsequent history of the Brethren’s Church, is printed in the “Moravian Manual” (pp. 108-111), embracing, up to that date, 167 Bishops. This is the documentary proof of the language of our Law-book, which records the faithful guardianship exercised in all these centuries over the “possession,” “dear and precions,” by historical association, of an Ordination which was recognized in its “ validity ” alike by Papist foe and Protestant friend. A later Stevens, of 1881, 2 7 arises with friendly “ pretext for discrediting'' the earlier Stephen’s Ordination, of 1467, as less “ample ” than his own, of American P. E. Church of God amplitude, and as, therefore, needing to be amplified by his ordaining touch. The sum and substance of the whole matter is simply this: If there be any such thing as “ Apostolic succession,” the Moravian Brethren’s Church has it. If there be any such thing as “Apostolic succession,” and if there be anything in it, the Moravian Brethren’s Church has whatever there is in it. And this (act, of her “possession” of “Apostolic succession,” it is which so stirs up all the Jesuitical casuistry of modern American Episcopalians, to rid themselves of the logical sequences which follow from their arrogant assumption, that only an Episcopally ordained min- istry is valid : that only a Church with an “ apos- tolically” ordained Bishop may claim to be a true Church; and that any such PLpiscopal Church, which first occupies any territory, has the primacy, absorbing the jurisdiction. For, if these points are insisted on, then the American Moravian Episcopal Brethren’s Church might fairly claim, on the strength of Brother Stevens’ arrogant assumption over against all the other Protestant denominations, a primacy, absorbing Episcopal jurisdiction in America,* because the Amer- ican Moravian Episcopate was established in this country in 1744, forty-three years before the estab- lishment. in 1787, of the Episcopate of the American P. E. Church. * Consult “ Protestant Churchman ,” New York City, May-June, 18564 “ Episcopal Recorder ,” Philadelphia, June 17th, 1854, May-June, 1856; see also Pamphlet “ The Two Views of Episcopacy, Old and New," 1856. 28 The recognition of the validity of our Moravian Episcopal Ordination, by the formal Act of the Parlia- ment of Great Britain, in 1749, and by the whole bench of English Bishops, does not diminish the difficulties and perplexities of the situation, for our P. P 2 . brethren in America. Phe Anglican Church has always officially recog- nized the oldest of the sisterhood of Protestant Churches. Bishop John Amos Comenius was consecrated at Lissa, in 1632, the 54th Bishop in the line of unin- terrupted succession from Bishop Michael Bradacius, who had been consecrated in 1467. Bishop Comenius was driven into exile from Fulnec, in Moravia, in those years of bloody persecution, 1621-24. when 30,000 Moravian families, including 500 families of noble birth, left all for Christ’s sake, and went into exile. Bishop John Amos Comenius was one of the leading scholars and educators of the times in which he lived. His Latin Grammar ( Janua Linguarum Reserata) introduced a new method for the study of that language. Phe book was translated into twelve European languages, besides being translated into the Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Mongolian languages. During the years of his exile, Comenius was officially ■summoned, in 1641, by the English Parliament, to visit London, to reform the English educational system. Phe troubles in Ireland interfered with his permanent ■engagement by the English government. In 1642 he left London, and proceeded to Sweden, to which country he had been urgently invited in 1638, by the 29 Royal Council, and in that country he enjoyed the special patronage of the Chancellor Oxenstierna. How near to our own America it brings this illus- trious Divine and Bishop, of our venerable Mother Church, to read this tribute to his apostolic heroism and eminent scholarship, from the pen of an earlier New Englander, written of him when Bishop Comenius was a resident of Amsterdam, in Holland. 1 read this pas- sage from Cotton Mather’s Magnalia , published in 1702, Vol. IV, Page 128. “ That brave old man, Johannes Amos Comenius, the fame of whose worth has been trumpeted as far as more than three languages (whereas everyone is indebted to his Janua) can carry it, was agreed withal by our Mr. Winthrop, in his travels through the Low Countries, to come over into New England and illuminate this College (Harvard) and country in the quality of President, but the solicitations of the Swedish Ambassador diverting him another way, that incomparable Moravian became not an American." The aged hero appealed to the kindly offices of the Anglican Church, in bchalt of the broken rem- nants of — "the left wing of the Protestant army in the Thirty Years’ war” — the Brethren’s Church, in Moravia. His great anxiety was that the Moravian Episcopal succession be maintained intact ; that it might not die out; in vitw of the time, which he confidently believed would come, when God would “ Renew our Days as of old. ’ After a brief residence in Poland, Hungary and Silesia, he spent the greater part of the last years of his life in Holland, where lie died in November, 1671, a broken-hearted exile, mourning over his beloved Moravian Zion’s desolation. Let me now read to you a page, or two, from Whately’s " Gospel in Bohemia ,” to give you some impression of the kind of men who constituted the lay 30 membership of the old Moravian and Bohemian Brethren’s Church. After the battle of Prague, in 1620, which was favorable to the Papal supremacy, “ Fifty of the most distinguished Noblemen and Gentlemen of Prague, whose high character and qualities had rendered them the ornaments of their country” “ were seized, arrested, and imprisoned in the citadel of Prague.” “ On the 19th of June, 1621, the sen- tence was finally pronounced by the Judges. Twenty-seven of the prisoners were condemned to death by beheading; some of them were to lose the hand or the tongue first. The remainder whose lives were spared, were condemned to exile or imprisonment for life, and forfeiture of property.” “On the evening of June 21st,” “the Jesuits and Capuchins” J ‘ crowded about the prisoners, harassing them (in the words of the Chronicle) like swarms of flies. To some they held out hopes of life, and by this and other means, they endeavored to induce them to recant. But not one wavered.” It was a bright June morning, when these noble martyrs came forth, each, in his turn, mounting the scaffold to receive the death-blow. The sound of the trumpets and drums of the soldiery, was employed to drown the lamentation and weeping of the populace who saw these heroes die. “The next to die was the Baron de Budowa, a man advanced in life, but full of animation and vigor, and richly gifted in talents and acquirements. He with Otto de Loss, were officially the “ Watchers of the Crown.” “The Jesuits harassed him much upon his triai. Later his enemies reproached him with presumption for his full as- surance of safety.” This noble Moravian had a clear notion of the validity and amplitude of his assured hope. “ A Jesuit [and oh ! how suave these men can be when trying to cheat you out of the truth] professed to quote Scripture to the effect that a man could not know whether he was the subject of 3 > grace or wrath. Baron de Budowa referred to the Apostle’s words. 4 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of Righteousness.' ” “The Jesuit objected — ” The suave Papist professed to doubt the validity of the Baron’s assurance, and did not seem to know all that was written as to the amplitude of the assurance : “The Jesuit objected that Saint Paul said this of himself only. Budowa replied by quoting the end of the verse. “ Not to me only but unto All them also that love His appearing ! The heroic Baron proved to the ignorant Jesuit, that his was the valid assurance of a salvation as “ample” as it was “valid.” “An honor awaits thee, my grey head,” Budowa said on the scaffold, “ to be a Witness for the Truth, and to wear the Martyr’s crown.” He then prayed for the Church, his country and his enemies, and, commending his soul to God, received the blow of the executioner.” Let me quote only one more incident from the bloody tragedy of that day in Prague. “ John Kutnaw was the youngest of the victims, lie was scarcely forty; but in his lofty enthusiasm and joyful firmness he almost surpassed them all. A Jesuit [another suave “ undoubted Catholic ” brother] who had vainly endeavored to convert Kut- naw, said to one of his colleagues, ‘ These men are as hard as roBks ; they cannot be moved. ’ ‘ Yes’ ’ said Kutnaw ; ‘you are right. We are founded on Christ, a Rock that shall never be moved i “ Kutnaw sang a Bohemian hymn as he approached the scaffold. His last words were, ‘ I have committed no crime ; I die because I have been faithful to my Country and to the Gospel. God forgive my enemies ; they know not what they do; and then, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, and receive my spirit.’ ” My Brethren, could we ask for a nobler ancestry ? Is there a nobler heritage, than to be standing in 32 due order of succession to men of such “ undoubted Apostolic” heroism, who were validly and “amply” anointed from on high, with the unction of the Holy One, to know the truth, and once having known it, to hold it faithfully, even unto death ! When, in 1722, men and women, awakened by the power of the Holy Spirit, left their Moravian estates, to find, in the good providence of God, the exiles" refuge in Saxony, on the estate of a young nobleman, under whose patronage they might enjoy a free gos- pel, it was not many years before God opened a way for the transfer to these descendants of the old Moravians, of the Episcopal succession of their fathers. The grandson of the sainted John Amos Comenius, Bishop Daniel E, Jablonsky, who, with others, had been duly consecrated a Bishop, in expectation of a reorganization of the Church of the fathers, consecrated at Berlin, March 13th, 1735, with the written concur- rence of his colleague, the aged Bishop Christian Sitkovius, David Nitschmann, to be the first Bishop of the renewed Brethren's Church. Bishop David Nitschmann came to America that same year, in the same ship which brought John and Charles Wesley to Georgia, and after almost forty years of faithful and ample work for the Lord’s cause, on sea and land (he crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic), this worthy suc- cessor, in the Episcopate, of Bkadacius and Comenius, rested from his labors on the 8th of October, 1772. His body rests, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, in the old God’s Acre of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, of which community Bishop Nitschmann was the founder, in 1741. What John Wesley thought of Nitschmann, and of 33 Spangenberg (a name our brother Wm. Bacon Stevens professes so highly to esteem), as the “undoubted Apostolic” successors of the lathers of the ancient Church, we are told by the Rev. Dr. Abel Stevens, in his “ History of Methodism.” “Wesley’s churchly prejudices were rebuked by the Apostolic purity of their ecclesiastical forms. They met, he says, to consult concerning the affairs of their Church ; Spangenberg being about to go to Pennsylvania, and Bishop Nitschmann to return to Germany.” Then followed an ordination by Bishop Nitschmann, which Wesley described. “ The great simplicity, as well as solemnity, of the proceeding, almost made him forget the 1700 years between him and the Apostles, and imagine himself in one of those assemblies where form and state were unknown, but Paul, the tent-maker, or Peter, the fisherman, presided, with the demonstration of the spirit and of power.” The Rev. Dr. Abel Stevens, of the M. E. Church, does not quote any subsequent opinion, as put on record by Bishop John Wesley, who afterwards came to ordain men to the ministry of the M. E. Church, using the formula, “I ordain you a Deacon (Presbyter or Bishop) of the Church of God,” that, the use of such a formula made the ordination “ more ample” than the ordination which he witnessed that day, in Georgia, when Bishop Nitschmann’s Apostolic simplicity of form almost caused the Anglican Episcopalian, John Wesley, to forget the 1 700 years between that company and Apostolic times. It was reserved for an abler Stevens of the P. E. Church, to stretch these identical words so broadly and so widely, as to cause the words of saintly Nitschmann, and Zinzendorf, and Spangenberg, to 3 34 shrink into a less “ample” ordination formula, than that with which this same, suave, Stevens re-ordained the Moravian Presbyter of 1881, with the P. E. ordinal, to the Diaconate of that denomination. Let Bishop Stevens, this professed friend of our Moravian Brethren’s Church, follow up the footsteps of our Missionaries to icy Greenland, and tell those successors of the Apostles, in their heroic persistency to compass the salvation of heathen souls by preaching the cross of Christ for seven long, weary, years, before a soul would heed them, that his “ undoubted Apostolic” hands must needs be laid upon them, to bestow upon them “ a more ample ordination,” thus “widening out (their) commission to its utmost breadth and making it commensurate with the demands of a world-wide humanity ! ” Let Bishop Stevens hurry after our Missionaries, from one island of the sea to another, from one conti- nent to another, from one hemisphere to another, and tell those Moravian successors of the Apostles, whether immured in the Leper Hospital of Jerusalem, or amid the Himalayan mountains in the Thibetan land, in Africa or in Australia, among the Indians of America, or the Negroes of Africa ; tell them that an “ undoubted Apostolic” touch, from his hand is neces- sary, with uttered words of his P. E. ordinal, in order that their “ commission ” may be “ widened out ” to an “utmost breadth,” “commensurate with the demands of a world-wicle humanity ! ” I reply to the insult put upon the Apostolic Ministry of our Moravian Brethren’s Church by the man who stands in the place of William White, his apostolic predecessor, that our Moravian tipiscopal 35 Ordination is not so “weak” as to need “ fortifying,” nor so “narrow” as to need “ amplifying,” at his hands. Bishop White, who presided in 1789 over the con- vention held for the organization of the P. E. Church of the United States, was ordained to the Episcopate, in that denomination, more than forty years after the establishment in this country of the Moravian Episco- pate in 1744, and William White had special, personal reasons for refusing, at any time, to lend himself to any official or unofficial utterance or action, in the way of an arrogant attack upon the validity or the ampli- tude of Moravian Episcopal Orders. But there is another name that comes up, unbidden, at such an hour. It is the name of a man whose fame and life-work, now that he has gone to glory, belong to no one denomination, but to the Church of Christ in America. I refer to the Saint John of our American Protestant Church, the late William A. Muhlenberg. In the time in which the good providence of God per- mitted me to aid Dr. Muhlenberg, in the pastoral work of Saint Luke’s Hospital, in New York City, his brotherly words breathed a far different spirit, and came forth in the utterance of an “ ample” fellowship, in all the “validity” of a brotherhood, that recognized the Ministry of the Moravian Brethren’s Church, since the time of Stephen, the Bishop of 1467, as ordained -with a “Commission ” which needed no re touching at the hands of Stevens, the Bishop of 1881, in order to its “widening out” to the “utmost breadth,” to make it “ commensurate with the demands of a world-wide humanity ! ” William A. Muhlenberg recognized the Episcopally ordained Ministry of the Moravian Breth- ren’s Church, as having received, in the language of 36 our Church’s Constitution, the world wide “ Commission TO FEED THE CHURCH OF GoD (Acts XX, 28) WHICH He HATH PURCHASED WITH HlS OWN BLOOD.” I turn away from the arrogant assumption of Stevens, to the ample churchmanship of William A. Muhlenberg, whose hand I grasp, in the spirit of the “valid ” fellowship and “ample,” of which the younger Wesley sings : “ Let saints below in concert sing With those to glory gone : For all the servants of our King, In heaven and earth, are One. “ One family, we dwell in Him, One Church, above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death. “ One army of the living God, To His command we bow ; Part of the host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now. “ E’en now, by faith, we join our hands With those that went before ; And greet the blood-besprinkled bands On the eternal shore.” And now to Thee, the One Spirit, be glory, with the Father, and with the Son, in the Church which is by Christ Jesus ; the Holy, Universal, Christian Church, in the Communion of Saints, at all times, and from eternity to eternity: Amen. Errata. — Page 23, 12th line from bottom: read “ Christ'' for “Church.” Page 36, 3d line from bottom: read “ in," for “by.” ANYBODY GOOD ENOUGH FOR ^ GOOD ENOUGH FOR > ANYBODY. first Moravian Church, (Organized 1742.) Franklin and Wood Streets. PHILADELPHIA. ALL SEATS FREE. Sunday Services,* 10.30 A. M. and 7.30 P. M. Sunday School, . . . . 2.30 “ Our Pastor’s Bible Class, . . 2.30 “ Wednesday Evening Bible Talks, . 745 “ Friday Evening Teachers’ and Prayer Meeting, . . . 7 45 “ Saturday Afternoon Sewing School, 2.30 “ The Membership, Elders and Pastor, bid all Friends and Strangers “Welcome,” to these services. YOU are specially invited. REV. WM. PNR Y RICE, PASTOR, 823 N. Seventh Street. N. B.— The Social Union of the Members and Friends of the First Moravian Church, holds its regular meeting on the THIRD TUESDAY in every month. ♦ HairiiourSoci.il Prayer Meeting, in the Lecture- Room, before the Sunday livening Service. \