The Episcopal Church.
--The "Pastoral Letter," to the Clergy and Lady lately received, emanating from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church, South, assembled in "General Council" last November, at Augusta, Ga., is replete with interest. We have space however, to quote but briefly from this able document, as follows, from the printed copy forwarded. It shows that the cause of Christian, religion is steadily progressing in our land. "The Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States, under which we have been exercising our legislative functions is the same as that of the Church from which we have been providentially separated, save that we have introduced into it a germ of expansion which was wanting in the old Constitution." "The Canon Law, which has been adopted during our present session, is altogether in its spirit, and almost in its letter, identical with that under which we have hitherto prospered. It is the same moderate, just, and equal body of tiual law by which the Church has been governed on this continent also her reception from the Church of England of the measures of an Apostolic Ministry, and turgical form of worship." "The Prayer Book we have left untouched in every particular save where a change of our civil Government and the formation of a new nation have made alteration essentially requisite. Three words comprise all the amendment which has been deemed necessary in the present emergency, for we have felt unwilling in the existing confection of affairs, to-day rash hands upon a Book consecrated by the use of ages, and hallowed by associations the most sacred and precious." Our highest encouragement is derived from the fact that we hold the sacred trust of the faith once delivered to the Saints, and that we hold it in connection with a ministry whose succession from Christ and His apostles in undoubted and with a form of worship, simple and pure, yet submit and scriptural — having all the strength that Divine Truth and a Divine Commission can give us. We can press on without any doubts resting upon our hearts as to the truth which we are touching, as to the validity of the sacraments which we are administering or as to the authority of the orders which we are transmitting. Upon all these points we are secure, and we can go forward offering to all men, with boldness and confidence, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Saints."
