JOHN N. NORTON, A. M.,

RECTOR OF ASCENSION CHURCH, FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY; AUTHOR
OF "ROCKFORD PARISII," "SHORT SERMONS," "LIFE OF
BISHOP STEWART," ETC.

"How sacred is the relation between two persons, who, under the appointment
of a Christian Church, had been successfully engaged together in obtaining for it
the succession to the Apostolic office of the Episcopacy; who, in the subsequent
exercise of that Episcopacy, had jointly labored in all the ecclesiastical business
which has occurred among us; who, through the whole of it, never knew a word,
or even a sensation, tending to personal dissatisfaction or disunion !"

BISHOP WHITE.

NEW YORK:

General Protestant Episcopal S. School Union,

and Church Book Society,

762 BROADWAY.

1859.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,

By the GENERAL PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
UNION AND CHURCH BOOK SOCIETY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.

RENNIE, SHEA & LINDSAY, STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 81, 83, & 85 Centre-street,

NEW YORK.

ΤΟ

THE REV. GEORGE H. NORTON, JUN.,

RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, COLUMBUS, OHIO.

MY DEAR BROTHER:

When our good mother put her hand upon our heads, in the days of our boyhood, and said, "I should be so glad to see you both grow up to become clergymen !" perhaps we little realized that her heart's desire would be granted. And yet she has lived to see it come to pass.

The Hand of Providence which led you to the School of the Prophets, at Alexandria, and me to the General Seminary, at New York, has fixed our spheres of labor in different dioceses; but I know full well, that you are quite as zealous for the advancement of God's Holy Church, as I can possibly hope to be.

As a token of affection, I place your name at the opening of this volume, in which some important items of the Church's history are noted down. May we both be stimulated by the examples of the good and the devoted who have gone before, to make full proof of our ministry.

"The Episcopate itself had its appointments from God. The office of a Bishop was instituted by the authority and defined by the ordinance of God. Let them give us such an hierarchy, in which the Bishops may so bear rule, that they refuse not to submit to Christ, and to depend upon Him as their only Head; let them be so united together in a brotherly concord, as that His truth shall be their only bond of union; then, indeed, if there shall be any who will not reverence them, and pay them the most exact obedience, there is no anathema but I confess them worthy of it."

JOHN CALVIN.

"I would to God it lay in me to restore the government of Bishops. For I see what manner of Church we shall have, the ecclesiastical polity being dissolved. I do see that, hereafter, there will grow up a greater tyranny in the Church than there ever was before."

PHILIP MELANOTHON.

"I declare once more, that I live and die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgment or advice, will ever separate from it."

JOHN WESLEY.