Page:The Jubilee, or what I heard and saw in London.djvu/11

Rh I observe placards announcing, in large capitals, that the Jubilee Services will take place at Westminster Abbey on the following day, that the Bishop of Western New York will preach at St. James's, Piccadilly, on the same evening, and that the Bishop of Michigan will in like manner officiate at St. Paul's on the 16th.

At once the question occurs to the mind. What will the Londoners think of this mention of American Bishops? Some will perhaps imagine that New York and Michigan are English colonies, to which the Queen has sent out two Bishops, to preside over the Church in those distant regions. Others, who know better, will be aware that New York and Michigan are States of the American Republic, but will be sorely puzzled to conceive how Bishops can exist in a country where there is no royal supremacy, no king or queen, or nobility. Some, perhaps, to remove their difficulties, may have recourse to books, and may even consult my own book, entitled "America, and the American Church." They will then find that every American Bishop is elected by the clerical and lay members of his diocese, and is afterwards consecrated, or ordained to the episcopal office, by three American Bishops. If they inquire by whom those three Bishops were consecrated, they will find that each of them was consecrated by three others; and, again, each of those by three others, until going backward through the Church of England, as existing subsequently, and prior, to the Reformation, the inquirer finds himself in Apostolic times, and thus stumbles on the doctrine, or rather on the fact, of the Apostolic Succession.

Having provided myself with tickets of admission to the Abbey and to the Cathedral, I stationed myself