"Bid her," said he, "look over this vast continent, filling with people of all nations and languages and tongues, and see the folly of hoping to perpetuate among them an _Anglican_ communion, that will ever be recognized as aught more than an honorable sect. Bid her give over the vain attempt to cast all men's minds into one mould. "Bid her cherish among her own members mutual tolerance of opinion in doctrine, and taste in worship; remembering that uniform sameness in lesser matters may be the ambition of a society, a party, a school in the church, but is far below any genuine aspirations of the church herself. It is the genius of Catholicism which is now knocking at her doors. Let her refuse to open. Let her, if she will, make them faster still with new bolts and bars, and then take her rest, to dream _a wilder dream than any of the Memorial of becoming the Catholic Church of these United States._" [Footnote 47] [Footnote 47: _Memorial Papers_, p. 288.] The conclusions to which the experience of a hundred years has thus directed us will be extended and confirmed by an examination of certain characteristics which the "Church of the Future," as a "Church of the People," must necessarily present, and by a comparison of these with the internal structure and external operations of the Episcopal Church. In the course of this examination we shall also probably discover the causes from which the past failures of the latter have resulted, and the means by which she might adapt herself more fully to the wants of the country and the age, if, in fact, such adaptation were any longer possible. Therefore we proceed: II. The "Church of the Future" is a church of stability in principle and flexibility in operation. The work of the church of God upon the earth is to teach and govern men. The truth, by which alone the intellect can be enlightened, the law, by which alone the heart and life can be subjected to the will of God, are both entrusted to her keeping. Doctrine informing and directing discipline, discipline realizing and preserving doctrine--such is the system by which her Lord commanded her to subdue the world, and by which to this day the world has been subdued. The people whose church the "Church of the Future" is to be, and of whom, as its members, it must be composed, will be a _free_ people. The race from which they spring long ago recognized, as fundamental truth, that the will of the people is the highest law, and every civil and political institution which is or is to be derives its origin and permanence from the sole fiat of the citizen. There is no power above it by which its errors may be corrected or its excesses be restrained. {156} The popular vote is the tribunal from whose decision there can be no appeal. The ballot-box is the throne of state, from which supreme authority comes down only to take up the thunderbolts of war.