[Sidenote: His business capacity.] King Charles had made him so. He had observed that Laud, who had been advanced to some high stations in the Church by his father, King James, was desirous to enlarge and strengthen the powers and prerogatives of the Church, just as he himself was endeavoring to do in respect to those of the throne. He accordingly promoted him from one post of influence and honor to another, until he made him at last Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus he was placed upon the summit of ecclesiastical grandeur and power. [Sidenote: Laud's character.] [Sidenote: Episcopacy in England and the United States.] He commenced his work, however, of strengthening and aggrandizing the Church, before he was appointed to this high office. He was Bishop of London for many years, which is a post, in some respects, second only to that of Archbishop of Canterbury. While in this station, he was appointed by the king to many high civil offices. He had great capacity for the transaction of business, and for the fulfillment of high trusts, whether of Church or state. He was a man of great integrity and moral worth. He was stern and severe in manners, but learned and accomplished. His whole soul was bent on what he undoubtedly considered the great duty of his life, supporting and confirming the authority of the king, and the power and influence of English Episcopacy. Notwithstanding his high qualifications, however, many persons were jealous of the influence which he possessed with the king, and murmured against the appointment of a churchman to such high offices of state. There was another source of hostility to Laud. There was a large part of the people of England who were against the Church of England altogether. They did not like a system in which all power and influence came, as it were, from above downward. The king made the noblemen, the noblemen made the bishops, the bishops made the clergy, and the clergy ruled their flocks; the flocks themselves having nothing to say or do but to submit. It is very different with Episcopacy in this country. The people here choose the clergy, and the clergy choose the bishops, so that power in the Church, as in every thing else here, goes from below upward. The two systems, when at rest, look very similar in the two countries; but when in action, the current of life flows in contrary directions, making the two diametrically opposite to each other in spirit and power. In England, Episcopacy is an engine by which the people are ecclesiastically governed. Here, it is the machinery by which they govern. Whatever the forms are, the fact must be that the people govern here. [Sidenote: Opposition to the Established Church.] [Sidenote: The Puritans.]