1

Church in these States in a common ecclesiastical government, con-
stitutes no part of the elements essential to their Church unity.
It was no part of that system of doctrine and usage which was ne-
cessary to establish their claim as members of the Catholic Church,
and the possession or recognition of which was indispensible to
their recognition by each other, or by any other parts of the Church,
as in Catholic Communion. Their claim to such recognition rests
upon higher grounds, (than the constitutional bond) - grounds, it
may be, which are embodied, in part, at least, in that bond, but
which they occupy, and which they would continue to occupy, as well
without as with the existence of that bond. That bond was creat-
ed in imitation of the action of the several States within which
our Dioceses lay, and for purposes of expediency. It was a meas-
ure of wisdom and operated well; but it is a novelty in
the Church, no case having ever existed before in which Dioceses
of the Church of Christ were ever bound together by such a bond;
and it was adopted, as all measures of expediency must be, sub-
ject to such mutations as a higher expediency or the force of e-
vents might make necessary. A separation of one or more of the
Dioceses fro the union into which they were brought by their ad-
option of such a Constitution as that under which we have been act-
ing can in no sense, therefore, be regarded as a breach of the
unity of the Church.

{The next few lines of this letter are illegible, and the remainder is wholly lost.}