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165 While at New Orleans I heard Father Beckwith, the bishop elect of Georgia. His church is about a mile & a half from the St. Charles's Hotel, in one of the best suburbs of the city. In going I asked a gentleman, who was seated next to me in the street car, the way. He replied that he was one of the doctor's congregation, & would be my guide. This led to some conversation. He said ,"that of late years in New Orleans, and elsewhere in the States, the Episcopal Church had begun to exist itself , & was doing wonders in bringing people into its communion." I told him that only a few days before I had seen it stated in an editorial of a New York paper, "that the Episcopal Church was now quite the Church of the best society in the United States; & that if one wished to get into good society it was wise to join this communion." He replied "that statements of this kind read well in newspapers; & that of course there were some people who could be influenced by such considerations; but that in his opinion the most effective unclear for attracting people to the Episcopal Church was the character of the Church itself, & of those who did belong, & had belonged to it. It was an historical church, with a grand theological literature of its own, & that indeed almost the whole literature of England appeared to belong to the Episcopal Church; & it had, which he thought the most potent reason of all, a definite creed & a dignified ritual."

Dr. Beckwith's congregation consisted of about a thousand...