The Wheeling Daily Register

Are We All Groping in the Dark,

The announcement of the withdrawal of the Rev. Mr. Latane, for many years the rector of the Episcopal church in Staunton, and more recently of St. Matthew's church, Wheeling, from the Protestant Episcopal Church, will strike his numerous friends with profound astonishment. Mr. Latane has for years been esteemed one of the ablest divines in the Church, and none who know him can question the honesty of his motives or the struggle that it must have cost him to sever his connection with the Church whose faithful minister he has been for so long a period. We will not think less of his piety, for we know he acts upon a conscientious conviction of duty in the step he has taken. Nor will we call him "a fool," as he suggests some may; but we are pained to believe his repudiation of his Church will not only be a serious blow to it, but to the cause of religion generally. When such men as Mr. Latane hesitate, doubt, and change their Church relations, others less decided in their religious convictions will lose all faith in any earthly tabernacle or communion whatever.—Richmond Whig.