Postscript to tract 42

Abstract

As the foregoing Tract was issuing from the press, there appeared a '' Statement of Proceedings relating to the Establishment of a Bishopric of the United Church of England and Ireland in Jerusalem: Published by Authority." I regret that this document was not published earlier. And I gladly avail myself of the opportunity afforded by a second issue of the Tract, to subjoin some additional remarks suggested by the perusal of the "Statement," and of two pamphlets mentioned below, to rectify one or two unintentional mistakes, and to supply an omission which to several of my readers may have appeared singular.

In the absence of sufficient data, I forebore speaking on the part which the Lutheran King of Prussia had taken in the erection of this Anglican episcopate in Palestine. Those data are now furnished by the "Statement of Proceedings," and in the Circulars of the Prussian minister of spiritual affairs addressed to all the royal consistories in his master's dominions.

The immediate objects contemplated by the Anglican authorities at home, and the position which they were instructing their delegate to take abroad, were matters left open to speculation. In the "Statement" certain objects are distinctly avowed, and specific instructions, given to Bishop Alexander, are enumerated. This is satisfactory, in so far as it brings the question into more tangible form, and facilitates the inquiry into the fitness of the course taken, as well as into its probable issue in regard of Anglican Protestantism and Christianity in general... [Excerpt]