IT has this day become my duty to address you for the first time in the capacity of your Ordinary on the subject of your sacred calling; and though I cannot but feel that the duty might have been more advantageously bestowed, yet, since it has pleased Divine Providence to devolve it on me, I must endeavour to perform it with the best ability I may.

The Colonial Church has for many years been labouring under considerable difficulties, which have impeded her functions, and indeed rendered half her efforts for the propagation of religion abortive. The absence of episcopal jurisdiction, the want of that superintending authority, on the principles of which our ecclesiasIDelivered at the First Visitation, in the Parish Church of St. John, on the 29th March, 1826. al, ne quiltbahnut

tical polity is framed, could not but be felt as a real and serious grievance by the clergy and laity; by the clergy as withholding from them the wisdom and protection of their bishop, together with the exercise of those canons to which their obedience has been sworn; and by the laity as depriving them of that appeal against the possible immorality or incapacity of their ministers, to which by the laws and customs of the realm they are undoubtedly entitled.

The existence of a Church of England establishment in the Colonies, without episcopacy to guide, or ecclesiastical law to protect it, was an anomaly productive of no little absurdity and of considerable inconvenience. To this evil which had existed to the detriment of all parties for more than two centuries, the wisdom of his Majesty's Government has applied the remedy. and by the erection of sundry new Sees which severally include all the dependencies of the British Crown, the religion of the Church of England stands now fully established in the Colonies, with the same rites, ceremonies, laws, and ordinances, as obtain in the oldest Dioceses of the mother country. The colonial laws, which prescribe the provision of the clergy, have attempted no aggression on their rights and no alteration in their duty.

16 With regard to the extent of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Colonies of Great Britain, I

think that a correct opinion may be grounded on the following positions.

I. That the first colonists brought to the place of their settlement the ecclesiastical as well as the civil constitution of the Mother Country, so far as it might be applicable to the circumstances of the Colony.

II. That to the early condition of the Colonies very little of the canon law could be necessary; but in proportion as Churches were built, rectories endowed, and clergy procured to serve them, such spiritual laws, as were requisite for the governance and protection of a Church so established, grew into force, although there may have been no person resident in the colony legally authorized to administer them.

III. That as the Crown of England is the source of all ecclesiastical power throughout the empire, it was competent to his Majesty to appoint authorities to carry ecclesiastical jurisdiction into effect; but that as the canon is entirely subordinate to statutary law, and the colonial legislatures with the assent of the Sovereign may enact statutes of pre-eminent obligation in the colonies, there can be no doubt that in those colonies wherein such statutes have been enacted in exclusion or alteration of the Canon Law, no ecclesiastical jurisdiction can be established until they be previously repealed.

IV. That it was upon this last-mentioned

principle, that it became necessary to the va lidity of the episcopal commissions in the West Indies, that they should be recognized and adopted by the local legislatures.

Lastly. As there are no laws in the Statute-Book of Bermuda, which have any tendency to eject or modify the ecclesiastical law, excepting the solitary act of 1787, which merely regards the settlement of intestate estates, it may be presumed that nothing ulterior to his Majesty's Commission is essential to its establishment in this colony.... The objects which his Majesty's ministers have in view, in the appointment of Church authorities abroad, seem to me to be principally these two:-to confer on the Church establishment the means of more permanent usefulness and respectability, and to provide more effectually than had been hitherto done for the religious instruction of a humbler class of the community, whose spiritual welfare has been long and sinfully neglected.

You must, however, be sensible, My reverend Brethren, that the attainment of these desirable objects must very materially depend on you. If you prosecute them with that diligence, steadiness, and zeal, which have ever characterized your order, there is no doubt that by the blessing of God you will accomplish them, even to the most sanguine expectation of your country. But it is only by the faithful and assiduous performance

of your duties that you can acquire the cordial goodwill and co-operation of your parishioners, without which much of your ministerial endeavours will prove ineffectual. In the performance of these duties I need hardly tell you that much piety, learning, prudence, patience, and knowledge of the world, will be requisite, and that a great portion of your time must therefore be dedicated to the cultivation of these attributes of the clerical character. Your's is a situation of high dignity and commensurate responsibility: while the sense of the one inspires you with a becoming humility, let the consciousness of the other excite you with a generous ambition to every Christian, every philanthropic virtue. The real dignity of all situations in life unquestionably rests upon their several pretensions to utility; and where, I would ask, is the situation that opens a wider field of public usefulness to its professor than the one to which you have been solemnly ordained and dedicated?

The instruction of men in the momentous concerns of salvation, the education of immortal spirits for eternity, is committed to your care; the temporal and everlasting happiness of a large portion of your fellow-creatures may be augmented by your exertions, and if you suffer this opportunity for the exercise of such practical benevolence to elapse, if you fail to enforce "both by your preaching and living" the reli