"I do not believe, sir, that the difficulty lies in the organization of the church, ... but in the unvarying and (in the esteem of many) invariable use of our forms and other usages of worship. ... The church may be entirely Catholic in her doctrine and polity, yet she can never be _practically_ so while she requires all men to worship everywhere in precisely the same forms." [Footnote 60] [Footnote 60: _Ibid_. p. 256.] The Rev. Dr. Trapier asserts that "in the country-places, among the rural population, it has proved to be an almost hopeless task to introduce our services, that is, in their integrity." [Footnote 61] [Footnote 61: _Ibid_. p. 316.] And so great an advocate of formal worship as the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton is reputed to have been exclaims: "You cannot fulfil the Lord's will while the canons of our church are left in their stiffness." [Footnote 62] [Footnote 62: _Ibid_. p. 330.] We have already seen how much effect the movement, of which these well-considered statements form a part, finally produced upon the external system of the church, and it is only too well known that at this day the declarations of the _Memorialists_ are as applicable as they were twelve years ago. The evangelical leaders, hopeless of legitimated liberty, have grown more and more restless under the unyielding yoke, and here and there some bolder spirit has burst away from the intolerable servitude, and asserted his right and duty to do "the Lord's work" unhampered by her human institutions. Ever and anon some anxious writer ventures to repeat the declarations and the prayers of the _Memorial_. But those who dare to look for any change are few in number, and the high hopes of former days, that the iron bars were soon to be unloosed and the eager wings of Christian zeal unbound, are already well-nigh buried in despair. That, in reference to either of these two essential characteristics, any improvement will take place we see no reason to believe. It would be contradictory to all experience if the Episcopal laity should voluntarily relinquish their share in the government and administration of the church which they uphold, or that, by any exercise of spiritual power, the clergy could compel them to its resignation. It seems to us almost equally impossible that the inflexibility of operation which prevents her success can ever be materially diminished. Her liturgy is her _centrum unitatis_, her teacher, her authoritative law. It is the golden band which binds her members to one another; which unites bishop to bishop, diocese to diocese, priest to priest; which links her with the centuries of the past, and reaches onward to the future; which keeps her heterogeneous elements in contact with one another, as the electric coil binds into one repellent particles of steel. In it her denominational existence is bound up, and with material changes in it she herself is fated to dissolve and die.