He had not been long at Taneytown before he and his church-trustees fell out,--a thing at that time so common that it would not be worth mentioning, says his biographer, had it not been the occasion of making Gallitzin first think of founding an independent colony established on entirely Catholic lines. In the year 1798 Bishop Carroll wrote to inform him that some of his flock had been complaining of his harshness and high-handedness. The good Bishop knew how to take such an accusation with a very large grain of salt; still he thought it well to remind his ardent missionary to temper zeal for God's glory with gentleness and forbearance toward his neighbor. The advice was given in the most paternal spirit; and it may well have been that Gallitzin, with the blood of many a Russian despot in his veins, should sometimes have found it difficult to accommodate himself to the ways of American democracy. But he was singularly clear-headed as well as far-seeing; and not many years were needed to prove to the rising episcopate that he had been contending for something worth a contest--the freedom and independence of action of the clergy, without which a priest's position in regard to his flock becomes false and untenable. The trustee system, which answers among the various Protestant sects, does not work well in a Catholic parish. The priest's position is that of the spiritual father of a family, not that of a salaried preacher to a congregation of critics. It may here be objected that trustees were useful in the erection of churches, founding of missions, etc. Even in such cases it is not clear that the system worked well. In a new country, where speculation was the order of the day, sharp practice might be resorted to in the building of a church or school as unscrupulously as in that of a theatre or factory. Sacred buildings would be erected with borrowed money, which might be reclaimed by an unfortunate speculator at a moment when it was impossible to pay back the loan; and thus a church might come under the hammer, without any regard to its holy character. Pews--of the old-fashioned kind, provided with lock and key--filled the churches, and were let to the highest bidders by auction. To Gallitzin, such a system, which left the poor no alternative but to be jostled in the doorway or to stop at home, was an abomination. He also strongly resented trial sermons, such as are usual among Presbyterians, where the congregations are free to choose whichever candidate has pleased them best by his discourse. Gallitzin could not and would not be a parish priest under such conditions. It was not for this that he had left home and country and fortune and honors.