Alas! alas! in what a disadvantageous point of light, must all concerned in such an extraordinary stretch of university-discipline stand, among all foreign universities whatsoever? In what point of light it will be viewed by our ecclesiastical superiors at home, a very little time will discover. Nay, it is to be feared, the discovery is made already: for by a letter dated so lately as _March 29_, it appears that a certain venerable society “on account of some circumstances that have lately happened (probably the circumstances of a late expulsion) are under a necessity of coming to a resolution, to accept of no recommendation for persons to go abroad as missionaries, but such as have had a literary education, and have been bred up with a design to dedicate themselves to the ministry.” This resolution seems to be taken, in order the better to prevent any of these cast-outs, or any other laymen, however otherwise well qualified and recommended, from applying to the society for holy orders, that they may be employed and sent abroad as missionaries. But to what a sad dilemma will many serious persons be hereby reduced? They must not, by such resolutions it seems, be allowed to be lay-preachers, and yet if sent by their friends to the university to pursue their studies, in order that they may be regularly and episcopally ordained, if they sing hymns, pray extempore, or give a word of exhortation in a religious society, though entirely made up of the members of the established church, they must be _ipso facto_ expelled for so doing. _O tempora! O mores!_ If matters proceed in this channel, of what stamp, Reverend Sir, may we not suppose, our future missionaries to the islands and continent will be? To my certain knowledge, all of them are not looked upon as very burning and shining lights already. But if what little light of true religion some may have, is to be thus damped by acts of expulsion before they leave the university, and even this little light, as far as lies in the power of man, is to be thus turned into total darkness, how great must that darkness be! Surely it must be worse than _Egyptian_ darkness; a darkness that will be most deplorably felt by all true lovers of our common salvation both at home and abroad.
You need not be apprized, Reverend Sir, that a design for the establishment of episcopacy in our islands and plantations, hath been long upon the tapis; and that it hath been, in part at least, the subject of annual sermons for several years last past. No longer ago than in the year 1766, the present Bishop of _Landaff_ insisted upon the necessity and expediency of it in the most explicit manner; nay, his Lordship carries the matter so far, as to assure us that this point, _the establishment of episcopacy_, being obtained, “the _American_ church will go out of its infant state; be able to stand upon its own legs, and without foreign help support and spread itself: and then this society will have been brought to the happy issue intended.” Whether these assertions of his Lordship, when weighed in a proper balance, will not in some degree be found wanting, is not for me to determine. But supposing the reasoning to be just, and his Lordship’s assertions true, then I fear it will follow, that a society, which since its first institution hath been looked upon as a society for propagating the Gospel, hath been all the while rather a _society for propagating Episcopacy in foreign parts_: and if so, and if it ever should appear, that our Right Reverend Archbishops and Bishops do in the least countenance and encourage the unscriptural proceedings at _Edmund-Hall_, how must it increase the prejudices of our colonists, both in the islands and on the continent, against the establishment of episcopacy! That persons of all ranks, from _Quebec_ down to the two _Floridas_, are at this time prejudiced, and more than prejudiced against it, is very notorious; but how will the very thought of the introduction of _Lords Bishops_ even make them shudder? if their Lordships should think proper to countenance the expulsion of such worthy and truly religious students, whilst those who have no religion at all perhaps, may not only meet with countenance, but approbation and applause.