"I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints; the Forgiveness of Sins," etc. In this sentence, according to Bishop Pearson on the Creed, are announced four important doctrines: 1. The Holy Ghost; 2. The Holy Catholic Church; 3. The Communion of Saints; 4. The Forgiveness of Sins. To each one of these the good Bishop devotes some twenty or thirty pages of explanation. But it is customary with many clergymen in reading to slur the second and third articles together, thus: "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints"--that is to say, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, which is the communion of saints. Now, in the standard edition of the English Prayer Book, and in all the editions published from it, the separate articles of faith are divided by semicolons--thus: "The Holy Ghost; The Holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints." But in our American editions the punctuation is altered to suit a modern rationalistic idea--thus: "The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints." The doctrine of the Communion of Saints, as held by primitive Christians, and held still by the Roman and Greek Churches, is thus dropped out of view in the modern Protestant Episcopal reading. But what is this doctrine? Bishop Pearson devotes a long essay to it, ending thus: Every one may learn by this what he is to understand by this part of the article in which he professeth to believe in the Communion of Saints. Thereby he is conceived to express thus much: "I am fully persuaded of this, as a necessary and infallible truth, that such persons as are truly sanctified in the Church of Christ, while they live in the crooked generations of men and struggle with all the miseries of this world, have fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost ... that they partake of the kindness and care of the blessed angels who take delight in ministrations for their benefit, that ... they have an intimate union and conjunction with all the saints on earth as being members of Christ; NOR IS THIS UNION SEPARATED BY THE DEATH OF ANY, but they have communion with all the saints who, from the death of Abel, have departed this life in the fear of God, and now enjoy the presence of the Father, and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. "_And thus I believe in the Communion of Saints._" Now, we appeal to the consciences of modern Christians whether this statement of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints represents the doctrine that they have heard preached from the pulpit, and whether it has been made practically so much the food and nourishment of their souls as to give them all the support under affliction and bereavement which it certainly is calculated to do?