The result is, that a large portion of the most exemplary and intelligent part of the church feel themselves to be in a dubious and false position, and are daily querying whether _professing_ to be a _peculiar_ people is not doing more harm than good; and whether it would not be better that the influence of good men should rest on their _unassociated_ individual character, and not on organizations making such high profession where the light of goodness is obscured by associated darkness. Great doubt and skepticism, both in the church and out of it, have thus arisen also as to _what real religion consists in_, and as to what _are_ the true claims of the church and its ministry. Multitudes who would enter the church if it was regarded simply as an association of persons to support the ordinances appointed by Jesus Christ, and to aid each other in obeying his Word, turn from its present position and claims with distrust or disgust. At the same time ministers and church members, feeling these difficulties, have more and more relinquished the Augustinian theory as the basis of their organization, and are advancing to an open avowal of the common‐sense ground, _i.e._, that the real invisible church of Christ embraces all those who acknowledge him as their Lord and Master, and make it their chief aim to understand and to obey his teachings, and that a _visible church_ is any association of persons who organize to aid each other in this object, by sustaining a ministry and worship as _they_ understand to be most in agreement with the teachings of Christ. The Episcopal church, both in Great Britain and in this country, although as strictly Augustinian in its articles as any other, has taken the lead of all others in practically renouncing that system. Any man can more readily secure all the privileges of membership in that church without any confession of faith or public profession of a “change of nature,” than in any of the other Augustinian denominations, and this is probably one great reason of its prosperity in this country.