endeavoring to do
in respect to those of the throne. He accordingly promoted him from
one post of influence and honor to another, until he made him at last
Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus he was placed upon the summit of
ecclesiastical grandeur and power.

He commenced his work, however, of strengthening and aggrandizing the
Church, before he was appointed to this high office. He was Bishop of
London for many years, which is a post, in some respects, second only
to that of Archbishop of Canterbury. While in this station, he was
appointed by the king to many high civil offices. He had great
capacity for the transaction of business, and for the fulfillment of
high trusts, whether of Church or state. He was a man of great
integrity and moral worth. He was stern and severe in manners but
learned and accomplished. His whole soul was bent on what he
undoubtedly considered the great duty of his life, supporting and
confirming the authority of the king and the power and influence of
English Episcopacy. Notwithstanding his high qualifications, however,
many persons were jealous of the influence which he possessed with the
king, and murmured against the appointment of a churchman to such high
offices of state.

There was another source of hostility to Laud. There was a large part
of the people of England who were against the Church of England
altogether. They did not like a system in which all power and
influence came, as it were, from above downward. The king made the
noblemen, the noblemen made the bishops, the bishops made the clergy,
and the clergy ruled their flocks; the flocks themselves having
nothing to say or do but to submit. It is very different with
Episcopacy in this country. The people here choose the clergy, and the
clergy choose the bishops, so that power in the Church, as in every
thing else here, goes from below upward. The two systems, when at
rest, look very similar in the two countries; but when in action, the
current of life flows in contrary directions, making the two
diametrically opposite to each other in spirit and power. In England,
Episcopacy is an engine by which the people are ecclesiastically
governed. Here, it is the machinery by which they govern. Thus, though
the forms appear similar, the action is very diverse.

Now in England there was a large and increasing party that hated and
opposed the whole Episcopal system. Laud, to counteract this tendency,
attempted to define, and enlarge, and exte