832:

"The congregations of our communion throughout the United
States were approaching annihilation. Although within this
city three Episcopal clergymen were resident and officiating,
the churches over the rest of the State had become deprived of
their clergy during the war, either by death or by departure
for England. In the Eastern States, with two or three
exceptions, there was a cessation of the exercises of the
pulpit, owing to the necessary disuse of the prayers for the
former civil rulers. In Maryland and Virginia, where the
church had enjoyed civil establishments, on the ceasing of
these, the incumbents of the parishes, almost without
exception, ceased to officiate. Farther south the condition of
the church was not better, to say the least."[210:1]

This extreme feebleness of Episcopalianism in the several States
conspired with the tendencies of the time in civil affairs to induce
upon the new organization a character not at all conformed to the ideal
of episcopal government. Instead of establishing as the unit of
organization the bishop in every principal town, governing his diocese
at the head of his clergy with some measure of authority, it was almost
a necessity of the time to constitute dioceses as big as kingdoms, and
then to take security against excess of power in the diocesan by
overslaughing his authority through exorbitant powers conferred upon a
periodical mixed synod, legislating for a whole continent, even in
matters confessedly variable and unessential. In the later evolution of
the system, this superior limitation of the bishop's powers is
supplemented from below by magnifying the authority of representative
bodies, diocesan and parochial, until the work of the bishop is reduced
as nearly as possible to the merely "ministerial" performance of certain
assigned functions according to prescribed directions. Concerning this
frame of government it is to be remarked: 1. That it was quite
consciously and confessedly devised for the government of a sect, with
the full and fraternal understanding that other "religious denominations
of Christians" (to use the favorite American euphemism) "were left at
full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective churches"
to suit themselves.[211:1] 2. That, judged according to its professed
purpose, it has proved itself a practically good and effective
government. 3. That it is in no prope