ago TIMOTHY FLINT

fierce and contending opinions then raging. But he
could not understand how the liberal views of the Gos-
pel which prevailed in the Episcopal communion,
could be made to agree with the thirty-nine articles.
When he came to the apostolic sanction of the Episco-
pacy, as established in the English church, he pro-
tested indignantly. He said :

It serins to us alto};rther the \vron;r time in the day, for a
man of calm, temperate and enlarged spirit of the author, to
come fonvard with the proposition, that the external form of the
constitution and government of any church is of Divine appoint-
ment.
This he thought was descending to the common secta-
rian plane, and making claims which were equally
valueless whether made by the oldest or the newest
sect.'"* It may be of interest as showing sectarian ten-
dencies to remark about the religious affiliations of
Mr. Flint's family. Near the close of his life they
were inclined to Unitarianism. James Timothy was
a Spiritualist and prepared a work in manuscript upon
this subject. The present generation -and those im-
mediately preceding them -are all Episcopalians, lib-
eral, and tolerant generally, in their opinions and prac-
tises of religion. They are still a strongly religious
family.*^"'

Mr. Flint had seen the immense amount of good
that was done by the Methodists, "on the very skirts
of civilization, and among a peculiar race of people,
upon whom no other denomination of Christian min-
isters would be likely to operate." He admitted the
zeal, the affectionate spirit and the brotherly love, the

494 ff^rstfrn Monthly Revic*w, vol. ii, 386-389.
*•■'• Letters of Mrs. Seip, 1907, 1908.
