prospects as to the issue. This is said without the remotest idea of a comparison with any other,* but merely on account of a longer and more intimate acquaintance. And, perhaps, what is now announced may not be altogether without a reference to self, although, it is trusted, not operating in a faulty line. For whether it be the infirmity of age, advance of years, or, as it is rather hoped, an interest in the future prosperity of the Church, there is cherished a satisfaction in the recollection of counsels formerly given to one who is in future to be a colleague; who may, in the common course of affairs, be expected to survive; and through whom, there may accordingly be hoped to be some small measure of usefulness when he who gave those counsels shall be no more.'t

The hopes expressed by his venerable consecrator in this affectionate but guarded eulogium, it may be here added, were more than fulfilled in the subsequent career of this youthful brother;' fulfilled in all but that one point in which the aged speaker was no doubt naturally the most confident: contrary to his anticipation, the youthful brother' has gone to the tomb before him, while the aged patriarch is still left to guide and bless a second and a third generation of his spiritual children, and to muse over the inscrutable ways of Providence, in leaving

*The Rev. Alexander V. Griswold, of the Eastern Diocese, was to be consecrated at the same time.

+ Consecration Sermon, 1811.

so long the aged stock, while its own vigorous saplings, one after another, are reft away.

His feelings upon that lamented event, the death of Bishop Hobart, it may be here permitted to anticipate.

During my long life, Sir,' said he, addressing a friend in New-York, 'I have not known any work of death, exterior to the circle of my own family, so afflictive to me as the present. I have known, and had occasion to remark, the character of my now deceased friend from his very early boyhood, and can truly say that I have never known any man on whose integrity and conscientiousness of conduct I have had more full reliance than on his. In contemplating what must be the brevity of my stay in this vale of tears, it has been a gratification to me to expect that I should leave behind me a brother whose past zeal and labors were a pledge that he would not cease to be efficient in extending our Church, and in the preservation of her integrity. But a higher disposal has forbidden the accomplishment of my wishes; much, as I verily believe, to his gain, although greatly to our loss and that of the Church.'*

But this is anticipation. For nineteen years was he spared to the Church over which he was now placed.

By the consecration of these two new bishops, a state of things was avoided, full of anxiety at least, if not of peril, to the Protestant Episcopal

* Schroeder's Sermon, p. 66.

Church. This addition of numbers contributed also to give greater weight to the legislative acts of the House of Bishops. At the two preceding General Conventions that House had consisted but of two members, and at the latter of these, Bishop White, anticipating his being left alone, had canvassed, as he states,* in his own mind whether one individual could be considered as constituting 'a House.' Fortunately, this moot question he was not called upon to decide.

6 THE AMERICAN EPISCOPATE.

There have been consecrated for the American Church, to this date, thirty-one Bishops;-Bishop Seabury, of Connecticut, by Bishop Kilgour, of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishops Petrie and Skinner being present and assisting; Bishops White of Pennsylvania, and Provoost of New-York, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, [Moore,] the Archbishop of York, [Markham,] the Bishop of Bath and Wells, [Moss,] and the Bishop of Peterborough, [Hinchliff,] being present and assisting; Bishop Madison, of Virginia, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Rochester being present and assisting; Bishop Claggett of Maryland, by Bishop Provoost, Bishops Seabury, White, and Madison being present and assisting; and Bishops Smith, of South-Carolina, Bass, of Massachusetts, Jarvis, of Connecticut, Moore, of New-York, Parker, of Massachusetts, Hobart, of New-York, Griswold, of the

*White's Memoirs.

Eastern Diocese, Dehon, of South-Carolina, Moore, of Virginia, Kemp, of Maryland, Croes, of New-Jersey, Bowen, of South-Carolina, Chase, of Ohio, Brownell, of Connecticut, Ravenscroft, of North-Carolina, Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania, Meade, of Virginia, Stone, of Maryland, Onderdonk, of New-York, Ives, of NorthCarolina, Hopkins, of Vermont, Smith, of Kentucky, M'Ilvaine, of Ohio, Doane, of New-Jersey, Otey, of Tennessee, and Kemper, Missionary Bishop for Missouri and Indiana, all by Bishop White. Of the whole number fourteen have died. The House of Bishops now consists of the seventeen whose names follow, in the order of seniority. BISHOP WHITE, Presiding Bishop, now in the fiftieth year of his Episcopate, Bishops Griswold, Moore, Bowen, Chase, Brownell, H. U. Onderdonk, Meade, Stone, B. T. Onderdonk, Ives, Hopkins, Smith, M'Ilvaine, Doane, Otey, and Kemper.

* Missionary Bishop.

CHAPTER X.

A. D. 1811 - Et. 36.

Controversies before and after his Election-Rev. Cave Jones-Character-Solemn Appeal '-Result-Claim of Bishop Provoost-How settled-Decision of the Convention-Separation of Mr. Jones from Trinity Church-His latter Years.

It is painful to open the scene of Bishop Hobart's apostolic labors with a picture foreign to their holy and peaceful spirit, yet so it is. His election had not been unanimous; nor could such agreement well be anticipated; for, however prominent his claims on the score of talent, zeal, and useful labors, yet on that of age, experience, and as many thought, of prudence, there were others who stood before him he was besides but an assistant minister, and not the oldest of those assistants, in the parish of Trinity Church. Many, too, mistaking in him the energy of duty for the promptings of a selfish ambition, predicted danger to the Church from the too rapid elevation of such a spirit.

Under the best of circumstances, the path to greatness is said not to be smooth; but with him it was through an ordeal as of fire; amid the war and strife of tongues had he to reach that station which all subsequently acknowledged he both merited and adorned,