ead the signs of the times." His opinions carried
enormous weight though not habitually swaying votes.

In Diocesan circles as well as in Christ Church, he was absolutely
fearless in utterance, and was among those who were eager for the
Episcopal Church to make large ventures of faith. Like Bishop Brent, he
commanded a vision and a breadth of spirit which were incomprehensible
to those who could not conceive of a universal Christianity free of
sectarian doctrines and dogmas. In this respect he reflected and
perpetuated the greatness of Phillips Brooks who thus stated his
position: "I cannot live truly with the men of my own church unless I
also have a consciousness of common life with all Christian believers,
with all religious men, with all mankind." As a natural consequence of
such conviction, Mr. Nelson was insistent that the Episcopal Church
become a constituent member of the Federal Council of Churches, and
lived to see accomplished that small but significant step towards
cooperation among the churches.

In the debates that occurred in various years on such subjects as the
proposal to eliminate the word "Protestant" from the official name of
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and on
the status of the Presiding Bishop, he was very firm but kindly and
tactful in setting forth the Protestant emphasis in the
Catholic-Protestant fabric of his church. He argued that the word
"Protestant" in the title is there to protect the right of every sort of
churchman. His candor was disarming, and he could get away with such
unvarnished statements as this: "As you know I am a Protestant of the
Protestants. I do not belong to the Catholic party in the Episcopal
Church. I belong to the Protestant party. I believe in Protestantism; I
do not believe in Catholicism, I never have, and please God, I never
will. I believe in Protestantism; but I believe more, and deeper, and
further and broader, and higher in manhood and womanhood. I can see a
vision of God in the man and in the woman, in the Catholic as well as in
the Protestant, in the Jew, in the atheist, as well as in the
Episcopalian."[16] He was alert to any move that threatened the
democratic basis of the Episcopal Church and diminished the power of the
clergy and the laity, holding in the instance of the Presiding Bishop's
status that the proposal for something similar to an archbishopric would
introduce a monarchical form of government into a church