ently a budget of woe, but not so in reality. It only shows that the onward path of the Church is hard. It is a great trial of our piety and energy. But that good will come out of the seeming catastrophes I have never doubted. I trust that the rolling away of the dark clouds may reveal some blessing."

And the blessings came in due time. God, in His great mercy, relieved him of his heavy burden and gave him rest before the worst of the great storm had burst upon him, saving him from a broken heart, which surely must have been his had he lived a few months longer.

When Bishop Brown, on his dying bed, knew that the end of his labors and trials had come, and his dearest friends gently urged that he would be so greatly missed, he replied sweetly, but forcibly: "No sentiment. All will be well, whatever may happen."

I have quoted here his dying words. The clouds were rolling away and the heavens were open. He saw by faith that the toil and hardships he had suffered were not in vain; that God's blessing would be upon the diocese, and that where His blessing is, man's feeble work would be consecrated to endless good. He saw by faith that the blessing would surely come. And it did come in the peace of God vouchsafed to him, and in the successor God raised up in answer to his prayers and ours.

I

CHAPTER VIII

THE EPISCOPATE

"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world"

HAD never thought of it as a possibility of coming

to myself. It was like a thunderbolt out of the blue. I had visited a parish in Fond du Lac diocese one summer, taking supply work, and had stayed a few weeks at Nashotah. I had known Bishop J. H. Hobart Brown, my predecessor, and he had preached for me at the Advent, when attending the General Convention in Boston. He was younger than myself, and it was not likely I should survive him, nor was there the least likelihood of my being his successor. He broke down under the strain of worry and work, and fell like a soldier shot down at his post. A most excellent priest was chosen to succeed him, but he declined, and subsequently I was elected.

But it did not come without some blessed mortification. The Church at large did not desire me. I was a Catholic and a religious. Dr. deKoven had been rejected or forced to withdraw. Why should one who had the bad reputation of being an advanced man be confirmed by the Bishops? I was glad to know that my own Bishop, Dr. Paddock, voted for me. Perhaps the confirmation of my election was owing largely to the action of Dr. Potter, the Bishop of New York. He wrote a letter, which was largely

made known, in my favor. He became ever to me a wise counsellor and helpful friend. He was truly a broad, liberal, ecclesiastical statesman. He wrote me once, when giving me permission to officiate in his diocese, that he "did not care to say how much he agreed with me, lest people should think him a heretic!" He seemed best to understand my position of being an Evangelical at heart, while in belief a liberal Catholic. I believe also Phillips Brooks, as a member of the Standing Committee, in the greatness of his heart, voted affirmatively, and I was finally confirmed by the House of Bishops.

There was one other thing connected with the election that brought its own trial, and so purifying blessing. In my human eagerness for the spiritual life and union with God I had once, in my ignorance or pride, asked the dear Lord to give me a stigmata. A wiser and more humble spirituality would wait on what He gives, and not ask for one. Now a stigmata need not be given in the body, but in the soul, and so it came to pass. After giving my young life to the parish work in Baltimore, and having been promised the rectorship when it was vacant, I was rejected. I had a vision of the work that could be done there, and it was with some disappointment that I relinquished it.

Again, what could have been more dear to me than the Society of St. John? Yet there came a strain in our relation to it, and at what I believed a call of duty to the American Church, I was forced to leave it. The mental suffering at that time, with all the