Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/19

15 beyond the precincts of the British empire. Since we last met here, four Bishops have been added to our communion abroad, making an Episcopate of fifteen members. Every month brings us evidence of the reality and extension of the work of the Church in our Colonial dioceses. The Church of England is making herself known and felt as a spiritual kingdom in all parts of the earth; and there must needs be at home some intense life and energetic power which can throw out its influence through so remote a sphere. When any one talks to us of dangers and divisions, let the extension of our communion suffice to show, that what are mistaken for dangers and divisions, are chiefly the efforts of inward power necessary to all great actions and movements of the Church. I am firmly persuaded that the last three centuries have opened a new era, so to speak, in the history of Christendom; and that the basis of doctrine and discipline which has been vindicated by this branch of the Church Catholic is destined to be the basis of unity to the Church of the next ages. Already it has made itself felt where we might least expect to find it; and they that leave little unsaid against us, have silently approximated to the theory and rule of the Church of England. This is our foundation, and on it, and from it, we have to work. The first condition of our usefulness at this day is this,—a steadfast and thorough faith in the life and truth of the Church of England; and that not as a successful controversial