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 |iri. L/l7 i\L o o c o 
 
 AND 
 
 Historical Ropers 
 
 BEFORE 
 
 He Centennial Council 
 
 
 i7§^-i§§; 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ITHACA HERITAGE BOOKS 
 
 Endowed in 1976 
 
 BY 
 
 Alexis and Anastasu Romanoff 
 For the Benefit of the Humanities 
 
Cornell University Librai^ 
 BX 5917. V8A22 1885 
 
 Addresses and historical papers before t 
 
 3 1924 006 089 019 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006089019 
 
ADDKESSES AND HISTOEICAL PAPERS 
 
 EEFOKE THE 
 
 CENTENNIAL COUNCIL 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CMECH 
 
 DIOCESE OF YIEGII^riA, 
 
 AT ITS MEETINGS IN 
 
 ST. PAUL'S AND ST, JOHN'S CHURCHES, IN EICHMOND, 
 
 MAY 20-24, 1885. 
 
 NEW YOEK : 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3 B1BI.E HU0SE. 
 1885. 
 
coptkight, 1885, 
 
 By the Centennial Endowment Committee op the Theological 
 Seminakt op the Diocese op Vibginia. 
 
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 FRANKLIN PRESS : 
 
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 V** ^ BAND 
 
 AVERT, AND COMPANY 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 By a resolution of the Council at its closing session, 
 the following addresses and historical papers were 
 placed in the hands of the Committee on the Endow- 
 ment of the Theological Seminary of Virginia, for pub- 
 lication in book form. The spirit of love and cordial 
 interest manifested by the members of the Council, 
 and the large number of our Church-people from all 
 parts of the Diocese who came to honor the occasion, 
 should be grateful to lovers of the Episcopal Church 
 everywhere. We regretted the absence of many of the 
 alumni of our seminary whose career we follow with 
 loving interest, and many of the Virginia Clergy in 
 other Dioceses who we had hoped would share with 
 us the joy of the centennial celebration. We hope 
 that these pages will be read by them with some 
 interest, and that the book will remind them to offer 
 a prayer for God's blessing upon the old Diocese. We 
 desire to express our thanks to Mr. Thomas Whittaker 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 of New York for his cordial interest and kind help 
 
 in the publication of this volume. For want of time, 
 
 considerable portions of the opening address, and also 
 
 of the historical paper upon the Colonial Church, 
 
 which are printed here, were omitted in the delivery. 
 
 As an expression of the spirit, and a contribution 
 
 to the history, of the oldest Episcopal community in 
 
 America, we publish this book, and pray for God's 
 
 blessing upon it. 
 
 A. M. R., 
 
 Chairman of Endowment Committee. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OPENING ADDRESS 1 
 
 Ebv. a. M. Randolph, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 THE COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA .... 19 
 Rev. p. Slaughter, D.D. 
 
 HISTORY OP THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA ... 60 
 Rev. T. G. Dashiell. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA .... 97 
 Rt. Rev. Geoegb W. Pbtbbkin, D.D. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA . . .107 
 
 Rev. Jxtlitts E. Gbammbb, D.D. 
 
 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS . . . .127 
 Rev. C. I. Gibson, D.D. 
 
 CENTENNIAL SERMON ... .... 177 
 
 Rev. O. a. Kinsolving, D.D. 
 
OPENING ADDEESS. 
 
 BY A. M. RANDOLPH, D.D., LL.D., ASSISTANT BISHOP OF 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 We have expressed, in the lessons from Scripture and 
 in the hymns and prayers of this service, our sense of 
 God's goodness and mercy to our Church ia Virginia for 
 the past one hundred years, since its independent estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 The committee to whom was assigned the duty of 
 arranging religious services for this centennial of our 
 Church have appointed speakers and writers, who have 
 kindly consented to treat the subjects committed to them 
 before the several meetings to be held during the Coun- 
 cil. They wUl review the history of the Diocese from 
 its organization to the present year, the history of the 
 Church in the colony of Virginia from the settlement 
 at Jamestown to the close of the American Eevolution, 
 the life and character of some of its representative men 
 whose names are distinguished in that history, and then 
 the origin and growth and present condition of the reli- 
 gious institutions of our Church in the Diocese. They 
 have done thek best to make these centennial services 
 profitable and helpful and warming to the heart of the 
 Church in Virginia. 
 
 God grant that the retrospect may be wise and useful ! 
 
2 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 Memory has its blessed uses in the growth of individual 
 character, and in the providential training and progress 
 of nations and communities. In Revelation it is en- 
 joined as a command of God, that v^^e keep green in our 
 memories the great facts of our religious history. It is 
 one pui'pose, perhaps the main purpose, in the positive 
 institutions of religion, whose history we have in our 
 Bibles. It is an essential element in the plan of re- 
 demption. " Thou shalt remember all the way which 
 the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the 
 wilderness," was the command to the people of Israel. 
 We are to observe the religious principle in the com- 
 mand if the remembrance is to be a means of grace and 
 a channel of the Divine blessing. The memory is to 
 be a religious memory. When we look back over the 
 past, it must be to iuid God in that past if the retro- 
 spect is to be salutary : " Thou shalt remember the Lord 
 thy God that led thee," is the command. Memory must 
 work under the distinct recognition of Divine guidance 
 in every stage of the journey. 
 
 We are prone to abuse memory. We use it to look 
 at the human side of things, and at that alone, — to exalt 
 the men whom we paint as the heroes of the past, and, 
 in glorifying them, we glorify ourselves, their children, 
 and the supposed inheritors of their spirit ; or we use it 
 to pick out the dark things that lie in the distance be- 
 hind us, — the disappointments and losses, the pains and 
 sorrows and wrongs, of the past. When we do this, 
 memory becomes a hinderance instead of a help. Some 
 people, in looking either at their own lives or at the 
 world around them, may be said to have a talent for 
 
OPENING ADDBESS. 3 
 
 misery. They remember just the things they ought to 
 try to forget, and they forget the blessings they should 
 keep green in memory. They are miserable themselves, 
 and they make other people miserable. They cultivate 
 an ingenuity for extracting bitterness out of every pleas- 
 ant thing. "When the sun is rising, and filling the east 
 with the fresh glory of the dawn, they look persistently 
 westward, where the shadows of the night are still hang- 
 ing in funereal gloom. When the west is burning with 
 the glories of the sunset, they look obstinately eastward, 
 where the fading memories of the departing day are still 
 lingering. 
 
 In some of our moods, we are prone to use memory 
 as Jacob did when he stood before the king of Egypt. 
 Pharaoh asks him, " How old art thou % " Jacob an- 
 swers, " Few and evil have the days of the years of my 
 life been." He looked at the human side of his life, — 
 his sorrows, his disappointments, his failures, his follies, 
 and his broken vows. If we look at our sins, and away 
 from God's mercies, Jacob's answer finds an echo in every 
 life. It was wrong in him to talk of his life in that way, 
 for overarching all his sins and sorrows were the mercy 
 and the love of his covenant God. Later on, when in 
 a better and truer spirit he looks back at his checkered 
 life from out of the gathering mists of death, he speaks 
 to his children standing around his dying bed, of " the 
 God which fed me all my life long unto this day," and 
 " the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." We 
 should look for God in our history ; and, if we do that, 
 the retrospect must be strengthening to our faith and 
 cheering to our hope. 
 
4 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 There is a passage in the hundred and nineteenth 
 Psalm which I think is illustrated by the prayer and the 
 spirit of the men who were most largely instrumental in 
 the revival of the Church in Virginia three-quarters of a 
 century ago. The words are these : " It is time for the 
 Lord to work. . . . Therefore I love Thy command- 
 ments above gold. . . . And I hate every false way. 
 . . . Mine eyes run down with rivers of water, because 
 they observe not Thy law." 
 
 The writer is looking out upon an age of indifference 
 to religion, and defection from God's law. The specta- 
 cle turns him away in despair from man, and away from 
 all human resources, and draws forth this sublime invo- 
 cation of the activity and the power of God. The 
 defection and antagonism of his age deepens his own 
 reverence and loyalty to God's law. And then, as a 
 consequence of this loyalty, and as the reverse side of 
 his enthusiasm for God's law, he hates every false way. 
 This seems to be the movement of his feeling. 
 
 There are principles here that are worthy of our ear- 
 nest attention. The first is this : An awakened spiritual 
 life, which comes in answer to prayers to God, is the 
 motive-power of His kingdom in this world. It is the 
 secret strength of every true religious reformation and 
 revival. The antidote for scepticism and godlessness is 
 the spiritual quickening in the Church. I believe that 
 Christ has a great variety of ways for propagating His 
 truth and defending His cause, and we should pray to 
 Him for guidance and wisdom to the right use of every 
 weapon of offence and defence in the work of evangeliz- 
 ing the world. We are not to despise organization in our 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 5 
 
 Christian activities. We are not to regret the time we 
 spend upon perfecting the machinery of our churches. 
 But churches are continually gravitating towards faith 
 in mechanism, to the detriment of living faith in spirit- 
 ual power. They catch this from the spirit of the age, 
 which is characterized by an unlimited confidence in 
 machinery. One would suppose, from an observation 
 of some parishes in some quarters of the Church, that 
 the work of saving souls and redeeming mankind is to 
 be done by committees in the various departments of 
 what is called Church-work. Every principle has to 
 have its machine to propagate it. Each one of the Ten 
 Commandments, if its authority is to be respected and 
 its principle upheld, must be put into the hands of a 
 committee with a president, a secretary, and a treas- 
 urer. Dear friends, the simpler the machinery in the 
 work of the Christian Church, the better. Some one 
 has said, " The heavier your machinery, the more power 
 you need in your engine, the more fire in your furnace." 
 The higher the organization in churches, the more spirit- 
 ual life do they need to work them, lest faith be over- 
 weighted, and we put our trust in drill rather than in 
 Christian courage, in mechanism rather than in Christ. 
 
 No organization wUl avail to perpetuate itself, or stand 
 against the foes of Christianity. 
 
 The history of the Church is one long illustration of 
 the facility with which minds cultivated and uncultivated 
 have fallen into the snare of trusting in Church form and 
 Church government to propagate Christianity. Our 
 mother-Church of England, with its historic dignity, its 
 primitive order, and the resources of the wealthiest 
 
6 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 nation on earth behind it, fell into that snare ; and now 
 one-half of the numerical strength, and perhaps one- 
 half of the intelligence of the country, is in the ranks of 
 what we presumptuously and injudiciously call " dissent- 
 ing bodies " of Christians. Trust in your organization, 
 teach and preach your Church, its forms, its government, 
 its traditions, instead of teaching your Bibles, and preach- 
 ing the Gospel, and you will find the life ebbing, and the 
 intelligence of the country drifting away from you, and 
 Church bodies with inferior organization and vastly in- 
 ferior machinery, but with the true apostolical succession 
 of spiritual power and fidelity to Christ, doing the work 
 of the world's evangelization. 
 
 Nor, again, may we rely upon the intellectual and 
 logical defences of the faith. They have their uses, 
 and they are absolutely needful in an age of intellectual 
 activity. Every Church should have trained minds ; and 
 God will raise up such, if we use the means of educa- 
 tion at our disposal, to meet the foes of His Word on any 
 and every ground they may select for the attack. But 
 unbelief never has yielded and never will yield to logic. 
 An argument upon evidences may strengthen a waver- 
 ing faith, or confirm an honest doubter ; and it is an 
 immense moral power upon the Christian Church to see 
 its defences standing firm against the onset of its foes, 
 generation after generation. I have never yet seen an 
 infidel go unanswered. I have never yet seen an assault 
 upon God's Word that was not triumphantly repelled. 
 From Lucian and Porphyry, Celsus and Julian, down to 
 the latest phases of unbelief, the Christian apologists all 
 along the line have more than held their own. But 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 7 
 
 unbelief cannot be vanquished upon logical grounds, 
 because it does not rest on logical grounds. You may 
 convince a man that he is in error, by argument, if he 
 has arrived at the error by a process of reasoning. If 
 logic led him into it, logic may avail to lead him out 
 of it. With the majority of men, the judgment, the 
 conscience, and, above all, the feelings, form conclusions, 
 and then enlist the intellectual powers to support them 
 by the processes of ratiocination. The reasoning is an 
 after-thought. Behind it lay the original conviction 
 embedded in the higher faculties of feeling and spirit. 
 Change these, and you uproot the most obstinate con- 
 victions, as a building falls when you undermine the 
 foundations. You may grind a piece of ice as fine as 
 powder, but if you leave it out in the cold, it will freeze 
 again, and become as hard as ever. If you melt it in 
 the sun; it flows down in streams that quench the thirst 
 and fertilize the earth. Answer unbelief, beat it off 
 from its logical grounds, grind it to powder, and it is 
 unbelief still, but bring it close to the heart of the 
 Gospel, warm it in the sun of God's love, and its cohe- 
 rence is dissolved and its spirit broken. A constitution 
 of low vitality, of feeble tone, is open on every side 
 to disease. Build up the constitution, and the tenden- 
 cies to disease are progressively diminished. A cold 
 and formal Church breeds unbelief, as a diseased tree 
 breeds the fungus of growth. 
 
 Unbelief is not a set of opinions. The men in this 
 country, of the period after the American Eevolution, 
 who had imbibed the infidelity of Voltaire, had no con- 
 sistent opinions or theories about religion. The most 
 
B OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 intelligent of them knew little about the Bible. Some 
 of them were great political thinkers ; but, in dealing 
 with Christianity, their objections and speculations and 
 criticisms are for the most part ignorant and childish. 
 They stumbled over interpretations of the Bible, of 
 which an intelligent Sunday-school scholar would now 
 be ashamed. Their arguments for unbelief were com- 
 monplace, coarse, and crude, — such as have been an- 
 swered a hundred times in the history of free thought. 
 Voltaire, their master, is now discredited by every school 
 of educated infidelity, and his books, which constituted 
 the armory for their attacks upon Chi'istianity, are re- 
 garded as frivolous, and relegated to the dust of neglect. 
 Jefferson, and others of that time who were supposed 
 to be tainted with those views, were too strong as think- 
 ers to be satisfied with such surface arguments upon a 
 great subject. They did not apply their reasoning 
 powers and their faculties of investigation to the prob- 
 lems of religion. They found that their faith was gone, 
 and they groped about for reasons to justify its absence. 
 They had imbibed doubt from the spirit of the time ; 
 and there was nothing in a cold, formal Church, or in a 
 worldly and perfunctory ministry, to give the lie to that 
 doubt. Their difficulty was, that as far as they could 
 see, or cared to see, Christian people seemed to them 
 neither to believe the creeds they repeated, nor to feel 
 the power of the great truths and obligations which they 
 professed. Their scepticism and that of the masses of 
 that time was not rational, but it was moral and spiritual. 
 It was the chill of a wave which had quenched the fire 
 of zeal and the fervor of Christian convictions. 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 9 
 
 In a great degree that is true of all sceptical ages, 
 and of all phases of unbelief which become general. 
 It is a feeling in the community. It is an atmos- 
 phere which men breathe, and to change it we must 
 create a new atmosphere. The arguments that we 
 bring to bear upon men must be the practical logic 
 of regenerated lives. A renewed spiritual life must 
 work in us a higher tone of character in all our tem- 
 poral relations. Men can see this. They are bound 
 to be moved by its power, as they feel the warmth 
 of the sun. They pass by the subtleties of religious 
 controversy, and the endless and ever-shifting battle- 
 grounds between Christianity and its foes. They are 
 unfurnished for such discussions. Life is too busy and 
 too short, and faith is too precious, to encounter such 
 gratuitous perils. If the Gospel comforts sorrow, and 
 cleanses from sin, and answers the cry of the hungry 
 souls, that is enough for them. Men of all ages and 
 conditions judge principles by their fruits. Our faith 
 must change our characters. What Christian men pro- 
 fess to believe, must control their common life, and, if 
 it does not, we are helping the cause of scepticism far 
 more than the writers who assail the evidences of the 
 Christian faith. No matter how solemn may be our 
 religious assemblies ; no matter how fervent our prayers 
 may seem to be, or eloquent our preaching ; no matter 
 how many may join our churches, — we will make no 
 lasting impression on the commuunity unless within the 
 Church there is a loftier type of character and a nobler 
 morality than exists in the world outside of the Church. 
 
 Men are silently, and sometimes openly, saying to us 
 
10 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 Christians, " You say you want to convert us. Convert us 
 to what 1 To love and to keep God's laws ? What laws 
 do you keep that we do not 1 In your homes and in your 
 public duties, where is the difference between us and 
 you? Are you less extravagant in your furniture, your 
 dress, in what we call the shows of life, than we are ? 
 Are you less anxious to be rich, and more scrupulous in 
 your ways of making fortunes, than we are 1 Are you 
 less reckless in your speculations 1 Do you submit your 
 business transactions to the eye of God, as you tell us 
 to do ■? You talk of the future life of glory ; you sing 
 hymns about heaven. What manner of persons would 
 you be if you really believed those hymns to be true 1 
 Would it be possible for you to be so moved by petty 
 ambitions, so distracted by the petty struggles and re- 
 wards of this world, if you believed that you had within 
 your reach crowns that never fade away, and the glories 
 of heaven that pass man's understanding? Do you 
 believe that Christ died for your sins 1 And what are 
 you doing, and what are you willing to do, for Him] 
 Where is the life that illustrates the reality of these 
 wonderful convictions 1 " 
 
 That is the reasoning of multitudes who reject the 
 Christian revelation, or pass it by with indifference. 
 There may be in it much that is exaggerated and un- 
 reasonable, but still the basis is true. There must be a 
 quickened spiritual life in the Church. There must 
 be a renewed loyalty to the laws of God, a spiritual 
 and a moral reformation within the Church, before it 
 can propagate a real faith in the Gospel, or rescue men 
 from eternal destruction. 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. U 
 
 The history of the Church in Virginia, which we 
 commemorate to-day, illustrates the truth of these prin- 
 ciples. In the papers to be read, you will be told the 
 story as I have not the time to tell it. At the beginning 
 of this century, the friends of the Episcopal Church in 
 Vu'ginia had almost abandoned the hope that it could 
 ever be revived. From the re-organization of the 
 Church in 1785, to the year 1814, the decline in morals 
 and religion continued, and spiritual lethargy deepened, 
 even though the greater part of this time the Church 
 had a Bishop. The steady east wind of scepticism, 
 which had chilled the heart of the English Church dur- 
 ing the early and middle years of the eighteenth century, 
 reached the churches here during the last half of that 
 century. Thu'ty years of blight and chill passed before 
 the breath of a new life came from the same quarter. 
 During the last part of the eighteenth century, a great 
 movement began under Whitefield and the Wesleys, 
 which rescued vast masses of the English people from 
 atheism, and, under God, renewed the heart of the Eng- 
 lish Church. That wave travelled over the sea to us. 
 
 The historian of the Diocese, in his admirable sketch 
 of Bishop Meade, has this passage : " At sixteen years of 
 age the Bishop read Wilberforce's ' Practical View.' He 
 says of this, ' It gave direction and color to my whole 
 life.' It is curious that Wilberforce derived his reli- 
 gious impulse from his aunt, who got hers from White- 
 field. And thus is brought to light a chain connecting 
 two centuries and two continents through an influence 
 flowing from George Whitefield to William Meade, the 
 future Bishop of Virginia." 
 
12 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 And what was Whitefield's power over that backslid- 
 ing generation '? Undoubtedly he was a great preacher. 
 Absurd it would be to deny to him that title, in the face 
 of the fact that his preaching moved all classes of men. 
 There is little in his sermons, as we read them, that can 
 help us to understand their wonderful power. You find 
 in them nothing of the learning of Barrow, the rhetori- 
 cal fervor of Jeremy Taylor, the logic of Howe, the 
 freshness and vigor of Frederick Robertson of our own 
 time ; but, judged by efi"ects, he was a far greater 
 preacher than any one of them, or all of them put to- 
 gether. No class of society escaped the kindling power 
 of his enthusiasm and his personal intensity. Hard 
 sceptics like Hume, cold and unimpressible politicians 
 like Franklin, frivolous worldlings like Chesterfield, fol- 
 lowed him from place to place, and hung upon his 
 words. 
 
 We are told that Whitefield often prayed this prayer 
 of the Psalm: "Lord, I can do nothing; it is time for 
 Thee to work. They make void Thy law, therefore I 
 love Thy commandments above gold, and hate every false 
 way." It Avas praying to God for help, and believing 
 that He would help ; a love for the Gospel, made warm 
 by the antagonism of a sceptical age, and an awful 
 sense of the consequences of sin to his countrymen in 
 the violation of God's commands, — that, under the Spirit 
 of God, gave him his power. It was a spiritual and a 
 moral reformation which he preached, and that was 
 stronger with the cultivated and the ignorant than 
 Paley's Evidences and Butler's Analogy. 
 
 The story is repeated when the wave reached our own 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 13 
 
 land and our own dear Diocese. Bishop Moore comes 
 to us in 1814. Under his fervor, and the fidelity of 
 the men who worked with him, the tide of religious 
 life began to rise. Bishop Meade is consecrated in 
 1829. The story of the work of these two men and 
 their contemporaries will be told in the memorial papers 
 that are to be read. They illustrated the same princi- 
 ple upon which we have been dwelling. They were 
 men of prayer. They were men with an humble esti- 
 mate of themselves, and a great faith in the power 
 of God. In their preaching, as far as I can form an 
 opinion from memory and from reading, they did not try 
 to prop up the cross of Christ, but they pointed men 
 to it. With them Christian faith and Christian morality 
 were related as the fountain is related to the stream. 
 They taught that spiritual regeneration must bear its 
 fruit in moral reformation, and in newness of life in 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 Abundant success crowned their labors. They would 
 have been the first to warn us that it was not their own 
 arm that built up the waste places, and revived the lan- 
 guishing Church in Virginia, but " Thy right hand, and 
 Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance, because 
 Thou hadst a favor unto them." And we can do just the 
 work that they did, for God's strength is not spent : He 
 fainteth not, and is never weary. It is not humility, 
 but a lack of faith in the power of God, which speaks 
 of men like these as greater in faith, in self-denial, and 
 in spiritual power, than the men of our own day. We 
 may do a work for Christ as great, or greater than they 
 did, if we pray for Christ's grace, and lean upon His arm. 
 
14 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 The lesson of that revival is a lesson of faith in God. 
 Those men were true to God, and God blessed them 
 'beyond the measure of their largest hopes. When we 
 cease to rely upon our own strength ; when we cease to 
 glorify ourselves, our own Diocese and our own tradi- 
 tions, our Church polity and our evangelical fervor ; 
 when we learn to trust God and Christ with all our 
 hearts, and to care for nothing but the propagation of 
 His Gospel, and the victory of His righteousness among 
 men, — we shall then discern that He is as willing to 
 help us as He was to help them, and that the brightest 
 and best days of our fathers are but prophecies of 
 brighter and better days that are coming to us. 
 
 There is another principle in this passage, to which 
 I will call your attention before I close. The Psalmist 
 says in his prayer, " I love Thy laws, and I hate every 
 false way." As I said in the beginning, the idea there 
 is, that the love of God's truth and God's law involves a 
 protest against their denial. Churches are intrusted by 
 Christ with the positive truths of the Gospel, to proclaim 
 to the world. They are intrusted also with negations ; 
 that is, vdth protests against the errors springing out of 
 human nature that tend to overlay these positive truths. 
 A correlative of a love for a truth is the hatred of its 
 denial. A belief in, and a love of, a truth, implies a 
 protest against the denial of that truth. 
 
 In the English Church in 1833, and in the American 
 Episcopal Church a few years later, another movement 
 began, denying that principle. The Church of Eome 
 had all the positive truths of Christ's Gospel, but along 
 with these it affirmed a set of principles which neu- 
 
OPENING ADDBESS. 15 
 
 tralized and buried those positive truths. Protestants 
 taught that the sinner is saved, and his sins forgiven, 
 by and for the sake of Christ's atonement. Romanists 
 held that too ; but, in addition, they taught that the 
 intervention of the priest is necessary to apply that 
 atonement to the sinner, and that we must come to the 
 one Mediator between God and man through confession 
 and absolution, and the priestly sacrifice of human medi- 
 ators. Protestantism contends that this neutralizes the 
 Gospel, and protests against it. 
 
 Again : the Episcopal Church and all the Reformed 
 Churches believe in the real presence of Christ, not 
 tied to ordinances, but where two or three are gathered 
 together in His name, or in the inner court of the sanc- 
 tuary of the soul, the walls whereof are not made with 
 hands. The Romanist also believes in the real presence 
 of Christ, but conditions that presence by the consecra- 
 tion of the bread and wine in the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper, under the hands of the human priest- 
 hood. Protestantism contends that this neutralizes the 
 Gospel, and brings back the gloomy superstitions that 
 hung like a pall over the religious life of Europe for 
 many centuries. 
 
 To withdraw these protests of Protestantism in the 
 Episcopal Church, has been the aim of the party which 
 arose in 1833, and which has agitated both Churches 
 ever since. Neither in the mother-Church in England, 
 nor in her daughter in America, has this party achieved 
 a direct success in accomplishing its ultimate aims. It 
 has not succeeded in expunging any one of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles which breathe a condemnation of the errors 
 
16 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 of Home, and which bear witness to the profound con- 
 ception, in the Church of the Eeformation, of the disaster 
 to Christianity, and the ruin to souls, which those errors 
 had entailed upon Christendom for long ages. It has 
 not succeeded in restoring to the prayers, the ofllces, 
 and the rubrics of the Prayer-Book, the corruptions of 
 doctrine and the symbols of falsehood which had grown 
 into them through the centuries of Roman domination, 
 and which were ruthlessly excluded by the Reformers. 
 In this country it has failed, so far, to shake the loyalty 
 of the vast majority of Episcopalians to the name " Prot- 
 estant" in the title of the Church. Only the feebler 
 minds among them have aimed du-ectly at these radical 
 changes in the direction of Rome. The vdser ones 
 have directed their efforts towards sapping the founda- 
 tions, instead of an assault upon the citadel. 
 
 Their endeavor has been, to undermine the sen- 
 timent of antagonism to Romish principles, not with 
 a view to a re-union with the Roman Church, which 
 they profess to repudiate with as much emphasis as 
 Protestants do, but to claim for themselves and their 
 Church the power, the functions, the doctrines, and the 
 exclusive validity, which Rome claims for herself. They 
 have, in their writings and teachings to the people, re- 
 pudiated the name of Protestant. They have cast im- 
 putations upon the names of the Reformers, and sought 
 to pour contempt upon their spirit and their principles. 
 They have taught the women and children to caU the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Mass, and the com- 
 munion-table the altar. They have, by the power of 
 a compact minority, held the balance in the legislation 
 
OPENING ADDRESS. 17 
 
 of conventions. They have worried and intimidated 
 some of the Bishops until the protests against them from 
 that quarter have weakened, and become in many in- 
 stances ineffectual ; whilst many others who profess to 
 deprecate their practices have withheld their condem- 
 nation, and closed their lips, for fear of being assailed 
 as narrow-minded, impolitic, and uncharitable. They 
 have among them, in their ministry and their laity, men 
 and women of noble character, and self-sacrificing de- 
 votion worthy of a better cause. 
 
 If they succeed, and in proportion as they accomplish 
 permanent success, the Prayer-Book must not only be 
 revised, but relegated to disuse, and another book of 
 worship must take its place. The history of our Church 
 in this country and in England must be re-written, and 
 its glorious achievements for the Gospel under the Prot- 
 estant spirit must take their place among the records of 
 the past. Its catholic love, and its conservative influ- 
 ence upon all the Protestant Churches around us, must 
 wane, and pass away. Of such a result I have no fear 
 if we watch and pray, and ask of Christ the courage 
 and fidelity to stand for our convictions of His truth. 
 
 God forbid that here or anywhere I should say a 
 word to fan into a flame the fires of ecclesiastical con- 
 troversy ! God forbid that I should cultivate the spirit 
 of suspicion towards the opinions or the practice of any 
 Christian brother in the ministry of the Gospel or out 
 of it! God save me from the spirit that measures a 
 man by my own conscience, and requires, before I can 
 commune with him, an absolute accord with my own 
 intellectual convictions ! God save us all from the spirit 
 
18 OPENING ADDRESS. 
 
 that hunts for heterodoxy in pulpit and in chancel, and 
 that will not be satisfied until it finds it ! If my brother 
 is in error, 1 must love him, I must pray for him. He 
 needs my prayers and my love more when he is in error 
 than when he is safe upon the highway of truth. But 
 still I must pray for myself, I must pray for you, and for 
 the Church in Virginia, that we may be true to the 
 Gospel that Paul preached, of a sinner's justification by 
 faith, of a sinner's free access to Christ by faith, true to 
 a gospel that has only one Priest, one Altar, and one 
 Sacrifice once offered for the sins of the world, — a gos- 
 pel that was overlaid and cumbered for long ages, but 
 was revived, under God, in the glorious days of the 
 Eeformation. Of that Reformation I hold that our 
 Prayer-Book is the noblest monument. 
 
 I invoke upon the Church in Virginia and in all of 
 our Dioceses, and in her dear name upon our sister 
 Churches of other denominations who hold the same 
 Gospel, and are fighting by our side in the strain and 
 the burden of the same great conflict against the enemies 
 of Christ, — I invoke the blessing of God the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and evermore. 
 
THE COLONIAL CHURCH OF YIRGINIA. 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED BY P. SLAUGHTER, D.D., HISTORI- 
 OGRAPHER OF THE DIOCESE OF VIRGINIA, AT THE 
 CENTENNIAL COUNCIL IN THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
 ON THE 21ST OF MAY, 1885. 
 
 "En dat Virginia Quintam." — Motto of seal of Virginia. 
 
 There is a God in history. History is a drama of 
 Divine Providence ; and, to my mind, one of the greatest 
 of all marvels is, that myriads of men, each doing his 
 ovra will, are all marching (unwittingly it may be) tow- 
 ards the realization of the Divine Idea, as seemingly 
 antagonizing forces in the heavens result in a sublime 
 harmony. 
 
 I cannot think that it was a mere coincidence, that 
 the revival of letters and of the arts, the discovery of 
 printing and of the polarity of the needle, just suc- 
 ceeded the reformation of religion, and just preceded 
 the discovery of America. It looks as if the new ideas 
 and the new instruments of that era demanded a new 
 world for their development, and as a fulcrum for the 
 new levers, which were to lift the old world out of the 
 old routine, and bring it under the influence of serener 
 heavens, and of an awakening spring. The minds of 
 meditative men were expectant of great changes, and 
 of a new world as the scene of them. The old fables 
 
20 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 of the Islands of the Blessed, of the golden Gardens of 
 the Hesperides, of the lost Atlantis of Plato, and of 
 the Ingens Tellus of Seneca, were revived. And, more 
 remarkable still, James Harrington a little later pre- 
 dicted and pictured a coming free republic, fairer than 
 had yet been seen, vi^hich he thought could not be 
 realized in England, but was reserved for the descend- 
 ants of Englishmen in a new Atlantis beyond the seas. 
 
 The discovery of America overturned the geographi- 
 cal systems of the ancients ; the opening of her mines 
 produced a revolution in commerce ; and the plantation 
 of her colonies gave land to the landless, a home to 
 the adventurer, and an asylum to the exile, from all 
 lands, where each might find a freer life and a fresher 
 nature. It disclosed an open field where truth and 
 error might have a fair fight, and where Church and 
 State, which had been so long leaning on each other, 
 might, in the contemplation of a new world, fresh, as 
 it were, from the hands of the Creator, outgrow the 
 fetters which impeded their progress, and, by toUsome 
 marches through Sloughs of Despond and over Moun- 
 tains of Difficulty, with bleeding feet, at last reach that 
 serene height on which, according to the laurelled poet 
 of England, " Freedom sat of old," and, under her 
 inspiration, accomplish a revolution which had no par- 
 allel in the annals of the world, and rear civil fabrics 
 which had no model on the face of the globe. 
 
 As " coming events cast their shadows before," it was 
 fit that events of so much magnitude should have their 
 appropriate heralds and attendants. For the ancient 
 and mediaeval world, the Mediterranean Sea was the 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 21 
 
 great highway of human intercourse, and, as has been 
 sententiously said, the one "sea of history." Egypt, 
 Palestine, Greece, and Italy all lay around it. But 
 times change. The old nations went to the rear ; and 
 Portugal and Spain, France and England, came to the 
 front, and looked out upon the wide Atlantic. The 
 attraction of the New World was added to the moving 
 forces let loose by the Eeformation. Then began that 
 series of battles, from Louis XIV. to Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, which Professor Holmes of the University of 
 Virginia long ago, and Professor Seely of Cambridge 
 lately, have shown, by a large induction of particu- 
 lars, were fought for the possession of the New World. 
 Whether the scene of these battles was Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, or America, the New Woi'ld was the " prize for 
 which they fought." How this view dignifies and invests 
 with new interest the battles of which Virginia was 
 the field during the colonial era ! By the light of these 
 facts they are seen to be acts in the drama of Divine 
 Providence, by which Virginia became the heritage of 
 the people and of the institutions of England, instead 
 of those of France or of Spain. The rivalry of princes, 
 the ambition to make a name, the lust of gold, and the 
 spirit of knightly adventure, inflamed the minds of men ; 
 and, under these impulses, vessels were traversing every 
 sea, raising crosses in every land they touched, and ex- 
 ploring rivers with the hope of finding a middle inland 
 passage to Cathay, of whose riches mariners told such 
 bewitching stories. Charters had been given by the 
 kings of England, to divers companies, for settlements 
 in Virginia, — which name covered the whole eastern 
 
22 COLONIAL CHURGH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 coast of America. The gallant Sir Walter Ealeigh 
 and others had failed in their efforts to make a per- 
 manent plantation. Spain and France were ahead of 
 England in America. The people were impatient. 
 The poets felt the inspiration of the hour, and gave 
 expression to thoughts and emotions which were beating 
 in many hearts. Drayton, in his " Poly-Olbion," gave 
 utterance to these thoughts in the words, — 
 
 " Britons, you stay too long. 
 Quicklj' aboard bestow you ; 
 And, with a merry gale, 
 Swell your stretched sail 
 With vows as strong 
 As the winds that blow you. 
 To get the pearl and gold. 
 And ours to hold 
 
 Virginia, 
 Earth's only paradise. 
 And in regions far 
 Such heroes bring ye forth 
 As those from whom we came ; 
 And plant our name 
 Under that star 
 Not known to our North." 
 
 In January, 1606-7, three frail barks left the Downs 
 in England, and, after a circuitous voyage, were driven 
 by a storm into the capes of Virginia on the 26th of 
 April, 1607, not knowing where they were. They 
 landed on the south cape, and erected a cross, calling 
 it Cape Henry, after the son of King James. On the 
 28th, says Percy, they " discovered up the bay," and 
 found a river on the south side, " running into the 
 
COLONIAL CHUBCH OF VIROINIA. 23 
 
 maia." Here they were regaled by the wild flowers 
 blooming on the banks, and by strawberries blushing 
 in the grass. Finding the water too shallow in the 
 mouth of the river, they rowed to a point of land where, 
 finding from six to twelve fathoms, they were " put in 
 good comfort," and called the place Cape (or Point) Com- 
 fort. On the 30th they coasted to Kichotan^ (Hampton), 
 and, continuing their explorations up the river, finally 
 (May 13) came to "Paspehas Country," where they 
 moored their ships to the trees in six fathoms of water ; 
 and on the 14th of May they landed, and laid the 
 foundation of the first permanent plantation of English- 
 men on the continent, — the site of the first city, the 
 first parish, and the first church, and the scene of the 
 first baptism,^ the first marriage, the first Holy Commun- 
 ion, in " his Majesty's ancient colony and dominion of 
 Virginia," and of the first Eepresentative Assembly in 
 America. On the 21st of May (this day two hundred 
 and seventy-eight years ago), Capts. Newport, Smith, 
 Archer, and Percy, with others, ascended the river, 
 resolved, they say, not to return without finding either 
 " the head of the river, the reported lake, the sea, or 
 some other issue." They had interviews with the In- 
 dians at Weyanoke, called upon the queen of the 
 Appomattox at her wigwam, and were interrupted, they 
 say, by " great craggy stones in the midst of the river, 
 where the water faUeth so rudely that not any boat can 
 
 ^ This word is variously spelled by different authors, — Kechoughtan, 
 Kichetan, Kichotan, etc. 
 
 2 The first Indian baptized by Protestants in America was Manteo at 
 Roanoke (1595), whom Raleigh appointed Lord of Roanoke. 
 
24 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 possibly pass." On an islet at the foot of the falls, they 
 erected, on Whit Sunday, the 24th (and it is curious 
 that next Sunday is Whit Sunday, and the 24th of 
 May), a cross with this inscription : " Jacobus Eex, 
 1607 ; " and in a fit of loyalty, but with wretched 
 taste, they changed the name of the river from impe- 
 rial Powhatan to the royal James, proclaiming King 
 James of England to have the most right to it, says 
 Percy. 
 
 On the 27th of May they returned to James Fort, as 
 they then called Jamestown, in honor of their new 
 triangular fort, which had been thrown up for their 
 protection against the Indians. On the 10th of June, 
 Capt, Smith, who had been excluded from the council, 
 was sworn in. They spent some weeks in "palisado- 
 ing " the fort, which had been assailed by four hundred 
 Indians during their absence. 
 
 On the 21st of June, they had their first public re- 
 ligious service in a grove. "The groves were God's 
 first temples," and the grandest cathedrals are dwarfed 
 in then- presence. Of them it may be said with more 
 truth than Byron said of St. Peter's at Eome, — 
 
 " Thou, of temples old or altars new, 
 Standest alone, with nothing like to thee, — 
 Worthiest of God, the Holy and the True." 
 
 The pulpit was a plank nailed to two trees ; the seats 
 were unhewn logs. The congregation numbered about 
 one hundred : we have a list of their names. Fifty-five 
 are set down as gentlemen, and the remainder as labor- 
 ers, mechanics, bricklayers, smiths, and a barber. The 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 25 
 
 minister, Eev. Eobert Hunt, read the first Church-ser- 
 vice, preached the fii-st sermon, and administered the 
 first Holy Communion to worshippers kneeling upon 
 their mother-earth. The wilderness, whose awful si- 
 lence had hitherto been unbroken save by the war- 
 whoop of the Indians, the screams of the eagle, and the 
 voices of other wild birds and beasts, now resounded 
 with the Word of God and the trumpet tones of our 
 grand old liturgy. Thus was inaugurated the Colonial 
 Church of Virginia. We would like to dwell upon the 
 picturesque phases of our primitive Church, describing 
 the three successive edifices of timber and the fii'st one 
 of brick, and the apostolic character of our first mission- 
 aries ; but I cannot do this without repeating what I 
 have lately contributed to Bishop Perry's " Centennial 
 History of the American Church." And an event now 
 occurred pregnant with such momentous consequences 
 to the present day as to demand especial attention and 
 illustration. 
 
 Just before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 
 a Dutch ship ascended the James River, and landed at 
 Jamestown twenty African slaves ; and the white man 
 and the red man and the black man stood face to face, 
 and gazed upon each other, in the New World. What 
 a subject for a grand historical picture by an artist who 
 had the " vision and the faculty divine " to see lying hid 
 in this group the germs of the history of these three 
 races, which have been unrolled before our eyes ! From 
 this point in space and this moment in time, these three 
 races started upon a new career of development. The 
 white man ran up the rivers, transcended the moun- 
 
26 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 tains, and poured along the plains, until the western 
 sea seemed to say to the wave of Anglo-Saxon people, 
 " Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther ; and here 
 shall thy proud waters be stayed." The red man melted 
 away before the pale faces like the snow before the sun. 
 He retired from Tidewater to Piedmont, and over the 
 hills, and far away towards the setting sun, as if he 
 could find rest for his weary feet only in the bosom of 
 the Pacific Ocean, or was destined to realize the fate 
 of the crew of the fabled phantom ship — 
 
 " Whose bark rides on and on, 
 And anchored ne'er shall be." 
 
 Now, what was it that distinguished the fates of these 
 two races I The white man was the heir of a long line 
 of illustrious ancestors. Behind him was the history of 
 England. He brought with him the language, the 
 laws, the literature, the religion, and the arts and arms, 
 of England. The red man had no historical past, no 
 literature, not even an alphabet, and no monument but 
 the rude mounds which mark the graves of his sires. 
 It was another illustration of the law, that, where two 
 races come into competition, the weaker must go to the 
 wall, — the law of the survival of the fittest. But how 
 came the black man to escape the fate of the Indian ? 
 He had no historical past. For ages his forefathers had 
 roamed over their native wilds without adding one cubit 
 to his intellectual or moral stature, or contributing one 
 mite to the progress of humanity. Here we must again 
 adore that mysterious Providence by which the Africo- 
 American " was bound to the car of the Anglo- Ameri- 
 
COLONIAL CHUROH OF VIRGINIA. 27 
 
 can," and, througli the manual-labor school of slavery, 
 was borne onward and upward, until he reached an 
 intellectual, moral, and religious stature which had 
 never been attained by his race, iu any age of the 
 world or any clime under the sun. For aught we 
 know, this may have been the best discipline for teach- 
 ing the rudiments of civilization to the savage ; that, 
 when the fulness of time had come, his fetters might 
 fall, and he stand, as he does to-day, upon the same 
 political platform with the white man, equal before the 
 law, and having a voice in the government of this great 
 Republic : while the poor Indian, original lord of the 
 soil, is still denied the rights of a citizen. " This is the 
 Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." It is 
 thus He makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and 
 restrains the remainder thereof. 
 
 The religious education of these races was devolved 
 by Divine Providence upon the Colonial Church, be- 
 cause for a century after this meeting there was no 
 other Christian organization in this colony. 
 
 And first as to the white race. We have already seen 
 something of what was done by the infant Church to 
 this date. Retui-ning to the point of departure, let me 
 say that Jamestown was the port of entry to which all 
 ships must come before " breaking bulk," and was the 
 centre of population from which lines of radiation ran 
 to all points of the compass. The rivers were the chief 
 roads along which the pioneers penetrated the wilder- 
 ness. Hence the fii'st counties and parishes were on 
 both sides of broad rivers, it being easier to go to 
 church and to court by water than by land. Hence 
 
28 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 from 1634 there was a constant progression of peoples, 
 counties, parishes, and churches, up James River and its 
 tributaries, down James River, and up the Elizabeth and 
 Nansemond, over to " Middle Plantation " (Williams- 
 burgh), thence up York, Rappahannock, and Potomac, 
 and the tributaries of each, to their head-springs in the 
 great mountains. It was not until 1716 that Gov. 
 Spotswood and his Knights of the Golden Horseshoe 
 fii'st lifted the blue veil which had hitherto hidden from 
 the eye of the white man the valley of Virginia. Then 
 the wave of people " poured through the passes," and, 
 meeting a tide of Scotch-Irish and Germans from 
 Pennsylvania, blended with it ; and the course of empire 
 continued its westward way. In 1734 the county of 
 Orange, whose bounds were nominally the utmost limits 
 of Virginia, was divided, and the counties of Frederick 
 and Augusta were formed. These in process of time 
 were broken up into other counties, to keep pace with 
 the people, until the procession terminated in the 
 County and Parish of Kentucky. 
 
 Over the Tidewater and Piedmontese sections, there 
 still stand venerable monuments of this grand march 
 of the Colonial Church, — the ruined tower at James- 
 town, old St. Luke's in Isle of Wight, St. Paul's 
 (Norfolk), St. John's (Hampton), Christ (Williamsburgh), 
 Blandford, and Wood's, and others too many to mention, 
 except old St. John's, which looks down upon us to-day 
 from Richmond Hill, and seeming to echo to the other 
 churches of the parish the words of the beloved apostle 
 after whom it is named: "Little children, love one 
 another." 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 29 
 
 Dr. Johnson, who was no sentimentaHst, said, " I do not 
 envy the man who can walk unmoved over historical 
 ground, and whose piety does not grow warmer among 
 the ruins of lona ; " and our own William Wirt said of 
 the ruins at Jamestown, " I feel my soul drawn towards 
 it by tender ties of sympathy, and I involuntarily open 
 my mouth to offer consolation to the di'ooping pile." 
 And I am confident that there is not one of my hearers 
 who will not join me in saying, — 
 
 More costly temples may around thee rise. 
 
 To pierce with taper pinnacles the skies. 
 
 Gorgeous with glittering dome and sculptured towers. 
 
 As if the stone had bloomed in giant flowers ; 
 
 But none of these have charms for me 
 
 Like those mossed roofs and green embroidery. 
 
 But there are other monuments of the Colonial era 
 which will endure long after the old churches shall have 
 crumbled into the dust from which they sprung. These 
 are the names of the parishes and counties, which are 
 historical, and point to persons and places and events in 
 the old country and in the olden time. They perpetu- 
 ate the memory of kings and queens, princes and prin- 
 cesses, statesmen and soldiers and battles, in English 
 history. Although we have so many beautiful Indian 
 names, our forefathers were so loyal that they preferred 
 English names. There are only four counties in Eastern 
 Vii'ginia that have Indian names. AU the others com- 
 memorate some member of the royal family, or English 
 statesman, or soldier, or colonial governor. When you 
 find a seeming exception, as Nelson or Madison, you may 
 be sure they are new counties, made since the Declara- 
 
30 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 tion of Independence. The same is true as to counties 
 and parishes instituted in the valley before the Revolu- 
 tion. After that date, the new counties represent the 
 new order, and are named after governors of the State, 
 members of Congress, soldiers, and pioneer settlers, with 
 a few Indian names. The change of Dunmore into Shen- 
 andoah, in 1777, is one of the first indications of the new 
 era. It would be a mistake to suppose that this ex- 
 tension of the borders of the Church sprung out of the 
 bosom of the Church. The Church had no power of 
 self-motion. She was tied to the State, and the State 
 carried the Church along with it. The method of 
 progress was this : the State offered bounties to pioneers 
 to penetrate the wilderness, and settle new plantations ; 
 and, when the settlers were too far from court-houses 
 and churches to attend them, the State threw the net 
 over them in the form of new parishes and new counties. 
 
 The great instruments of civilization in those days 
 were courts, jails, whipping-posts, stocks, ducking-stools, 
 and churches and church-wardens ; the latter being civil 
 officers, and a sort of censors morum, whose duty it was 
 to present all overt immoralities and breaches of the 
 peace to the county courts. 
 
 The execution of these duties often brought this officer 
 into conflict with the dissenters from the Established 
 Church, and thus involved the Church in the odium 
 attached to the State, with which it was so blended 
 that the people could not distinguish the one from the 
 other. 
 
 I have said that the religious education of the Indian 
 was devolved by Divine Providence upon the Colonial 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 31 
 
 Church, there having been for more than a century no 
 other church organization in the Colony. Let us see if 
 any thing was done in execution of this high trust. 
 This inquiry will bring to light some facts which have 
 been entirely ignored by general historians, and barely 
 touched by others, in whose eyes kings and queens, 
 knights and gentlemen, merchant princes, and the like, 
 are the prime factors in history. While the kings of Eng- 
 land looked upon the Colonies as so many plantations to 
 be worked for their benefit, to put money in their pockets, 
 and furnish places of honor and preferment for their 
 courtiers and satellites, it is also true that the missionary 
 spirit was neither dead nor dormant in England during 
 the colonial era : on the contrary, there were many 
 Christian hearts beating behind this enterprise. Some 
 such as the gallant Earl of Southampton, the Ferrars, 
 Hakluyt, and Sandys, were members of the Virginia 
 Company of London, under whose auspices the Colony 
 of Virginia was founded, and nursed in its infancy. In 
 theii' view, the chief end of the enterprise was the " plan- 
 tation of the Church in the New World," wholly given 
 to idolatry, and the diffusion of the light of the Gospel 
 among the Indians, who had so long sat in darkness and 
 the shadow of death. It was their influence which pro- 
 cured the insertion, in the charters and like documents, 
 of those " saving clauses " which redeemed the move- 
 ment from utter worldliness. These persons took care 
 that sermons should be frequently preached before the 
 Virginia Company, to keep before then- minds the truth 
 that the chief end of the enterprise was to plant the 
 banner of the cross in the camp of Satan. In 1609 
 
32 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 Crashaw, the father of the poet, preached before the 
 Company a rousing missionary sermon, the first ever 
 preached by a minister of the Church of England to those 
 about to carry her name to the New World. To Lord 
 Delaware, the captain-general, who was present, and 
 about to sail for Virginia, he said in conclusion, " Thy 
 ancestor took a king prisoner on the field of battle with 
 his own hands ; but thou shalt take the Devil captive in 
 his own kingdom, and thus the honor of thy house shall 
 be greater at the last than at the first. You are a general 
 of Englishmen, you go to commend Chi-istianity to the 
 heathen: then practise it yourself." Among the ser- 
 mons of like spirit before the Company, was one by Dr. 
 Symonds, and another by the famed Dr. Donne. The 
 latter said, " You have your charters, seals, and com- 
 missions ; what you lack is the Holy Ghost. This seals 
 the great seal, and authenticates authority. Without it 
 your patents and commissions will be but feeble crutches ; 
 with the breath of the Holy Spirit they will be as wings 
 on which you will fly the faster. Those of you who 
 are young may live to see that you have made this island, 
 which is the suburb of the Old World, a bridge, a gal- 
 lery, to the New, to join all to that world which shall 
 never grow old, — the kingdom of heaven." Sir Wil- 
 liam Alexander expressed the missionary feeling in the 
 lines, — 
 
 " In this last age time doth new worlds display, 
 That Christ a Church in all the earth may have. 
 
 America to Europe may succeed ; 
 
 God may of stones raise up to Abram seed. 
 
COLONIAL OnURCH OF VIRQINIA. 33 
 
 And our own saintly Church songster Herbert awak- 
 ened the jealousy of the courtiers of the Kiag by his 
 lines, — 
 
 " Eeligion stands tiptoe in our land, 
 
 Read 3' to pass to tbe American strand." ' 
 
 It was these good men who conceived the idea of 
 founding in Virginia a great university for the educa- 
 tion of young men, and " the training of the children 
 of the infidels in religion and civUity." The site of the 
 college was Henricopolis, which classical name has de- 
 generated into the vulgar Dutch Gap. The scheme 
 included a high school as a nursery for the university, 
 whose site was to be at Charles City, now City Point. 
 The university was endowed with fifteen thousand acres 
 of James-river bottom-land on both sides of the river 
 from the Falls to Curies Neck. The King was induced 
 to request the Archbishop to have collections taken up 
 in all the dioceses for this end. Dr. King, Bishop of 
 London, collected a thousand pounds. Five hundred 
 pounds were given by one who signed himself " Dust 
 and Ashes." Bibles, prayer-books, plate for baptismal 
 and communion offices, and other donations, flowed 
 into the treasury. A hundred and twenty-five pounds 
 were collected for the school by Copeland, chaplain 
 of an East-Indian ship. Tenants for the college lands, 
 including mechanics, brickmakers, etc., were sent 
 over under the charge of Thorpe, a model Christian 
 man. 
 
 This brilliant prospect was blighted in a single hour by 
 
 1 Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, puts this language and sentiment 
 of Herbert into his prose without acknowledgment. 
 
34 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 the massacre by the Indians on the 22d of March, 1622. 
 The whites and the Indians had been living in the kind- 
 liest intercourse. The latter up to the eve of the 
 targedy had been going in and out familiarly among the 
 vfhites, and had even borrowed their boats in maturing 
 the conspiracy, without exciting suspicion. The Indians 
 fell upon the whites like lightning from a clear sky. 
 Upwards of three hundred colonists, including six mem- 
 bers of the Council, fell under the tomahawk in a few 
 hours. Of eighty plantations, but eight escaped. But 
 there was one redeeming feature in the tragedy. The 
 colony was saved from utter extirpation by a Christian 
 Indian living with Mr. Pace opposite Jamestown. His 
 Indian brother slept with him that night, and tempted 
 him to kill Mr. Pace. But he quietly slipped out, and 
 informed Mr. Pace, who rowed over the river where it 
 is more than three miles wide, and gave the alarm at 
 Jamestown; and eight plantations were saved. The 
 name of Chanco should be ever green in the memory 
 of every Christian and patriot. A terrible revulsion of 
 feeling ensued; and a cry of vengeance was heard in 
 England and in the colony, in which at least one of 
 the colonial ministers joined. Rev. Mr. Stockton said, 
 " Kindly means for their conversion have failed. I 
 am no statesman, nor love I to meddle with any thing 
 but my books ; but I am persuaded, that, if Mars and 
 Minerva go hand in hand, they will do more good in 
 an hour than all your verbal Mercuries (missionaries) in 
 their lives. And until their priests and ancients have 
 their throats cut, there is no hope of their conversion." 
 The company in England instructed the authorities in 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 35 
 
 Virginia to wage war upon the Indians, without quar- 
 ter or truce. The authorities in Virginia replied, " We 
 have anticipated your instructions." Mr. Treasurer fell 
 upon the Tappahannocks, Sir George Yardley upon the 
 Weyanokes and Pamunkeys, Capt. West upon the Pow- 
 hatans, Capt. Madison upon the Potomacks.^ They 
 burned their towns, destroyed their corn and fishing- 
 nets, and chased them with mastiffs and bloodhounds. 
 Many years elapsed before laws were passed for the 
 better treatment of the aborigines, and the first mis- 
 sionary measure appears upon the statute-book ia the 
 following questionable shape. An Act of Assembly, 
 1665, declares, that, "for every eight wolves' heads 
 brought in by the Indians, they shall have a cow," and 
 adds, " This may he a step towards making them Chris- 
 tians." But, before further steps were taken, the war- 
 clouds rolling dun darkened the horizon, and issued 
 in Bacon's so-called " rebellion," when — 
 
 " Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain. 
 Sprung on the viewless winds to heaven again." 
 
 Nothing more was done until the Rev. Dr. Blair came 
 to Virginia as the commissary of the Bishop of London. 
 He was the chief instrument in reviving the scheme for 
 building a college, which had been initiated by the Gen- 
 eral Assembly in 1660-61. I cannot here give in detail 
 the history of William and Mary College, whose success 
 was chiefly owing to the ability, zeal, and untuing energy 
 of Commissary Blair, manifested both in England and 
 in Virginia. It will sufiice for my purpose now to say 
 
 1 In Indian names, the orthography of the olden time is retained. 
 
36 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 that the end of this institution was affirmed both by the 
 charter and the General Assembly to be, " That the 
 Church in Vu-ginia may be furnished with a seminary 
 of ministers of the Gospel, and for the pious education 
 of young men ; but also that the Christian faith may be 
 propagated among the Indians." In 1691 Hon. Robert 
 Boyle left a legacy which was invested in an English 
 estate called Braiferton, and the interest applied to the 
 building in the college green, known as the Braiferton, 
 where Indians were educated until the Revolution. 
 Most of these relapsed into heathenism after returning 
 to their people ; a few of them became servants to the 
 English. Gov. Spotswood founded an Indian school on 
 the Meherrin River, called Christanna, under the care of 
 that good man Mr. Griffin. The governor went in per- 
 son among the Indians, and selected scholars. Hugh 
 Jones, professor at William and Mary, says, in his " His- 
 tory of Virginia," that he had seen as many as seventy 
 pupils there, and that Mr. Griffin was so beloved by the 
 Saponeys that they would have made him their king. 
 But he adds that the school was broken up through 
 " opposition of pride and interest," and Griffin was trans- 
 ferred to the Brafferton professorship in William and 
 Mary. Persons came down in sloops from Maryland, 
 and Virginia planters attended in their coaches, four- 
 in-hand, the first commencement at the college ; and 
 the scene was made more picturesque by the presence of 
 Indians. From these scattered items we cannot form a 
 just judgment of the efficacy of the means used for the 
 conversion of the Indians. Sufficient data are wanting, 
 church records being few and far between. The cases 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 37 
 
 of Pocahontas and Chanco warrant the hope that there 
 may have been many such. 
 
 But if these had been the only fruits gathered, they 
 would have been worth far more than the labor ex- 
 pended in their culture. We have seen that the colony 
 was saved from utter extirpation, by the pious offices of 
 one converted Indian. But for his warning, Virginia 
 might have been a French or Spanish province, and the 
 course of history reversed. And Pocahontas not only 
 saved the life of Smith by interposing her own person 
 between him and the uplifted tomahawk, and by timely 
 warnings of impending danger saved the colony from 
 extinction, but her descendants have been leading mem- 
 bers of the Church in every generation ; and they sit here 
 to-day in the persons of ministers and lay delegates to 
 this Council, of gracious matrons and maids ; and her 
 blood runs in the veins of the present honored and 
 Right Reverend Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia. It 
 is curious, that, when Sir Thomas Gates first visited 
 Kecoughtan (Hampton), the Indian commander there 
 was Pochins, the brother of Pocahontas, and that Hamp- 
 ton should have become the site of the present Indian 
 Institute. When, some time ago, the Bishop of this 
 Diocese confirmed a class of Indian youths there, their 
 hearts would doubtless have been stirred with a deeper 
 emotion if they had known that he who laid his hands 
 on their heads was a descendant of the aboriginal ruler 
 of this realm. 
 
38 COLONIAL CHUECH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 THE BLACK KACE. 
 
 But I have said that Divine Providence had devolved 
 the religious education of the black race upon the Colo- 
 nial Church of Virginia. 
 
 In considering this subject, it should be borne in 
 mind, that, abhorrent as slavery is to the men of this 
 generation, it was quite otherwise in those days. It had 
 always prevailed in some form in the Old World, and 
 was not limited to the African race. White men were 
 enslaved at that very time by the Moors in Africa. 
 Bishop Cosin of England gave five hundred pounds out 
 of his own purse for the redemption of Englishmen 
 from African slavery. Columbus himself sent to SevUle 
 five hundred Indian slaves. Indians were enslaved in 
 New England. Political and other white convicts were 
 sent by England to the colonies, and made slaves for a 
 term of years. One hundred vu'tuous young English 
 white women were sent from England to Virginia, and 
 sold for wives at the rate of five hundred pounds leaf- 
 tobacco each. But it must be confessed that the African 
 race had been in a peculiar sense the victims of slavery, 
 not only among their own people in Africa, but specially 
 in America. The Portuguese initiated the African slave- 
 trade in the fifteenth century. Isabella and Ferdinand 
 of Spain, Charles V. of Germany, Queen Elizabeth and 
 the Stuart kings of England, encouraged it, and profited 
 by the traffic. The North-American colonists generally 
 objected at first to receiving them, and often afterwards 
 protested against the trade in vain. And one of the 
 counts in the uidictments of England in the original 
 
COLONIAL GHUBOH OF VIRGINIA. 39 
 
 draft of the Declaration of Independence was "the 
 inhuman negative interposed by the mother-country " to 
 the Colonial laws forbidding the slave-trade. The twenty 
 negroes brought to Virginia in 1619 were bartered for 
 provisions, of which the master of the vessel pleaded he 
 was in dire need. The massacre of the whites by the 
 Indians occurred in less than three years after the land- 
 ing of the negroes. We have a census of the victims 
 of that massacre, and it is remarkable that there is not 
 an African among them. Whether they were spared 
 on account of their color, is not known. We have also 
 a census of the Colonists one year after the massacre ; 
 and we find at Flower de Hundred eleven negroes, at 
 James City two negro women, at Isle of Wight four 
 men and one woman, at Basses Choice one man and 
 one woman, at Elizabeth City one man ; at Shii-ley one 
 man had died, leaving just twenty-one negroes. But, 
 what is more interesting, we find at Elizabeth City in 
 the following year, 1624 (incidentally mentioned in the 
 census), that a negro child was baptized, and called 
 William ; and what adds to the interest is, that the very 
 next entry is the baptism of an Indian child called 
 William Crashaw, after the preacher whose sermon I 
 have quoted. Now, we have no baptismal registers till 
 forty years after this date, which invests these two en- 
 tries with special value because they prove, what would 
 otherwise be unknown, that within two years after the 
 massacre an Indian child was baptized, and within a 
 few years after the landing of these heathen negroes 
 one of their children (it may have the first born in the 
 Colony) was taken into the Christian Church. These 
 
40 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 significant facts have escaped the notice of all the his- 
 torians ; and they raise the strongest presumption, that, 
 if we had the Church recoj.'ds of this date, we should 
 see that it is not true, as has been so often affirmed, 
 that " no man cared for their souls." This presumption 
 is enhanced by the further fact that our earliest extant 
 baptismal registers, as those of Gloucester, Middlesex, 
 and old Charles Parish, beginning just after 1660, are 
 full of the baptisms of negro children, intermixed with 
 the whites, and often outnumbering them. Another 
 deeply interesting fact, which will surprise many of my 
 hearers, is, that the first man who ever lifted up his 
 voice against the African slave-trade was one of the 
 poor, despised Colonial Clergymen of Virginia. Clark- 
 son awarded this honor to Rev. Morgan Godwyn, even 
 over Bishop Sanderson and Baxter. Godwyn went from 
 Virginia to Barbadoes, where he fought a good fight for 
 the negro and the Indian, in the face of fierce oppo- 
 sition. He wrote a very strong pamphlet in America, 
 entitled " The Negro and the Indian's Advocate," which 
 was printed in London in 1680. He asks if the negro 
 and the Indian, like the barren fig-tree, are smitten 
 with a perpetual curse. He cites with force the case 
 of the Ethiopian in Acts, and of Ebed-melech in 
 Jeremiah. He also published a sermon, and concludes, 
 " Whatever may be the issue, I have delivered my soul; 
 and my work is with the Lord." A curious question 
 was started in Virginia as to the efficacy of baptism, 
 whether it did not operate the emancipation of a slave, 
 — a new phase of the opus operatum. His Majesty's 
 solicitor-general in England was consulted on it, and 
 
COLONIAL CHUBOH OF VIRGINIA. 41 
 
 gave his opinion in the negative. In 1700 the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Whites, 
 the Indians, and the Negroes in the Colonies, was char- 
 tered by William and Mary. It was composed of the 
 most eminent men in Church and State in England, and 
 accomplished a great work among the three races in 
 many of the Colonies, especially in South Carolina and 
 the Northern Colonies; but the Church, being estab- 
 lished in Virginia, did not partake of its nursing care 
 and protection. One hundred and eighteen sermons 
 were preached before it by English bishops. Its very 
 seal was a sermon. Gibson, Bishop of London in 1727, 
 made a powerful appeal to the ministers and people of 
 the Colonies in behalf of the religious education of the 
 negroes. Ten thousand copies of it were distributed in 
 America, and awakened much interest. There was once 
 a picture in the Colonies, in which were represented the 
 eighteen first-fruits to Christ from the heathen who had 
 died in the faith. They were dressed in their native 
 African costumes, and standing before the thi'one with 
 palms in theu' hands, with this inscription : " These 
 are redeemed from among men, being the fii-st-fruits 
 unto God and the Lamb.'" I do not know what its 
 merits were as a work of art ; but the conception is beau- 
 tiful, and touches the heart.^ One of the most success- 
 ful preachers in Virginia to the negroes was that great 
 and good man the Rev. Samuel Davies, whom they 
 delighted to hear, and who thought their singing better 
 than oratorios, or St. Cecilia's Day. The Baptists, and 
 
 1 Since this address was delivered, I have found this picture: it is 
 called " The first-fruits." 
 
42 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIBGINIA. 
 
 the Methodists too, who came much later, had a great 
 attraction for these Africans, and ultimately nearly mo- 
 nopolized them. It is well known, however, that many 
 of the negroes were interested in the services of the 
 Episcopal Church, and worshipped with the families of 
 their owners. Robert (known as King) Carter owned 
 nearly or quite a thousand slaves ; and it is an interest- 
 ing fact, that, when he built the historical church in 
 Lancaster, he reserved one-third of it for his tenants and 
 servants. When old St. Paul's Church in King George 
 was in ruins, and had been forsaken as a place of wor- 
 ship, an old negro woman who had come from Africa in 
 her childhood, and had been instructed in Christianity, 
 and accustomed to attend the church Avith her mistress, 
 gave a very touching testimonial of her attachment to the 
 service. She used to go alone on Sunday, and sit amid 
 the ruins, and say the prayers and chant the anthems ; 
 and, when asked why she did not go with the multitude, 
 replied that it " did her more good to think over the old 
 prayers, and sing the old psalms, than to go in any of 
 the new ways." To my mind, this African woman, thus 
 sitting and singing in the ruins of the old church, was 
 a sublimer spectacle than that of the Roman Marius 
 among the ruins of Carthage, of whom Velleius Pater- 
 culus has so touchingly said, — 
 
 "Marius aspiciens Carthaginem — ilia intuens Marium alter 
 alteri possent esse solatio." 
 
 Could this African Church-woman have had a fore- 
 sight of what our eyes see to-day, — a miniature repub- 
 lic, like a Ught-house, on the western coast of Africa, 
 
COLONIAL CHUBCH OF VIRGINIA. 43 
 
 with a Church and Bishop-elect, most of whose pioneer 
 settlers and whose first president were negroes Christian- 
 ized in Virginia, whose capital, Monrovia, was named 
 from a Virginian slaveholder, — and then, turning her 
 eyes homeward, see thousands of African communicants 
 in the South and in her own Virginia churches, and 
 schools springing up on every side, an Episcopal Theo- 
 logical Seminaiy for her race in Petersburgh, under the 
 charge of an accomplished white professor, and ordained 
 ministers of her race sitting by the side of their white 
 brethren in council, she would doubtless have chanted 
 the swan-song of Simeon, — 
 
 " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy sei^vant depart in peace, 
 for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." 
 
 TPIE MORAL OF THE STORY. 
 
 History is not merely a chronological narrative, a 
 dead thing of names and dates and facts, a body with- 
 out a soul. It is a living growth, from germ to shoot 
 and stalk and flower and fruit. 
 
 The old method of writing history was to distribute 
 it into reigns of kings and queens, and then fit the 
 facts, by a Procrustean process, into these artificial divis- 
 ions. If "I were to pursue this method, I would make a 
 chart, putting at the head of it the names of the kings 
 and queens who reigned over the Colony, marking the 
 date and duration of each reign. Under this line I 
 would place the names of the Bishops of London, with 
 the dates of their jurisdictions. I would then enumerate 
 the parishes and their incumbents, with the date and 
 duration of the ministry of each Clergyman in each 
 
44 COLONIAL GRUBCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 parish. This I have done in a manuscript hook for 
 reference. One may improve his memory by mastering 
 all the facts of history, and never learn the lesson they 
 teach. It is like the old method of teaching geometry 
 in the Oldfield schools. The pupO. committed to memory 
 a proposition in Euclid as it was written in the book. 
 He came before the blackboard, drew his diagram, and 
 rattled off the words like a parrot, concluding with a 
 triumphant air, Quod erat demonstrandum. But, if the 
 master should unhappily change the letters of the alpha- 
 bet which marked the lines and angles of the diagram, 
 the pupil was covered with confusion. His memory, 
 not his reason, was called into play; and he had learned 
 nothing but words, and had no conception of the prin- 
 ciples involved in the proposition. A great master has 
 said that the historian should ask himself questions, set 
 for himself problems, and try and find out what it all 
 means. 
 
 The first moral I would deduce from the history of 
 the Colonial Church is, that a Church without a Bishop 
 is not an Episcopal Church at all. An Episcopal Church 
 derives its very name from its characteristic feature, — 
 episcopos, Bishop. This ofiice is essential to its being, 
 to its propagation, and to its discipline. Without a 
 Bishop, its baptized members cannot be confirmed, nor 
 can its ministers be ordained. It has no overseeing and 
 directing head, and no centre of unity to fall back upon, 
 and rally its broken ranks. That such a Church should 
 be inefiicient was inevitable, and to visit her sins upon 
 her severely is unjust and cruel. Such, practically, was 
 our Colonial Church. To say that we had a Bishop in 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 45 
 
 London, is little to the purpose, if not a mockery. The 
 Bishop of London never made a single visitation to Vir- 
 ginia in a hundred and seventy-five years. During that 
 long period there vras not a confirmation or ordination 
 in Virginia. A Colonial candidate for Orders had to 
 incur the expense and peril of a protracted voyage to 
 England in a frail bark. About one-fifth of all who 
 went over for Orders never returned. Two, returning, 
 perished almost iu sight of their haven in New Jersey. 
 One congregation in 1745 sent over a candidate, who 
 was ordained, and, on returning, was lost at sea. They 
 sent another in 1752, and he died on his passage from 
 England. The same congregation sent a third (1757), 
 who was taken by the French, and died a prisoner at 
 Bayonne. They sent a fourth (1759), who was seized 
 by small-pox in London, and barely escaped with his 
 life. The famous Devereux Jarratt was near dying of 
 the same disease in London when he went for Orders. 
 Many promising young men, graduates of colleges, who 
 would have taken Orders in our Church if we had had 
 a Bishop, entered other ministries rather than encounter 
 the peril and delay and expense of going to London. 
 Under such circumstances it was impossible to supply 
 our pulpit with a native ministry ; and the people, who 
 would not be without the ofiices of the Church, were 
 constrained to tolerate many ministers who left their 
 country for their country's good. In the words of a 
 chronicler of the time (Hammond), " Many came who 
 wore black coats, could babble in the pulpit, and roare 
 in the tavern." Eather than entertain such ministers, 
 many parishes preferred lay readers. Jamestown was 
 
46 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 without an ordained minister for twenty-five years. 
 Hence the vestries generally refused to present minis- 
 ters to the governor for induction, which would have 
 fastened the minister on the parish for life. Their only 
 protection was, to hire them from year to year, and then 
 put them upon their good behavior. This was a per- 
 petual cause of strife between ministers and vestries, and 
 of complaint by the Clergy to the governors and to the 
 Bishops of London. They complained that the vestries 
 were their masters. They called the lay readers "leaden 
 lay priests " of the vestries' ordination. Bishop Wilber- 
 force and others have echoed the plaints of the Clergy ; 
 but the truth is, that, in the absence of a Bishop and of 
 conventions with legislative powers, these were meas- 
 ures of self-defence. 
 
 As an historical fact, the Bishop of London had no 
 legal jurisdiction in the Colonies. 
 
 The Colonial governors were ordered not to suffer a 
 minister to officiate in the plantations without a license 
 from the Bishop of London, as a matter of convenience, 
 several of these having been members of the Virginia 
 Company in London. When, in 1679, the king, in a 
 fit of favoritism, gave Virginia to Lord Culpepper, the 
 patent included absolute power over the Church, without 
 any reference to the Bishop of London. When Bishop 
 Gibson acceded to the See of London, in 1725, he con- 
 sulted the attorney-general, who reported that jurisdic- 
 tion in the Colonies did not legally belong to any Bishop in 
 England. He refused to act until he was empowered 
 by a patent. But the patent was limited to his person, 
 and expired with his life, and was never renewed ; so 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 47 
 
 that he was the only Bishop that ever had lawful juris- 
 diction in Virginia. This is .a specimen of the " nurs- 
 ing care and protection" of our "nursing fathers and 
 mothers" in England. Among the many Uls flowing 
 from our want of a Bishop is the following fact, but 
 little known. Virginia should be credited for special 
 kindness to the Huguenot refugees, and to German 
 Protestants who sought an asylum in her bosom. The 
 Huguenots were given lands on James Eiver, and had 
 special privileges conferred upon them by the General 
 Assembly. Like favors were bestowed upon the Ger- 
 mans at Gov. Spotswood's hon-works at Germanna, the 
 site of the first iron-furnace in America. The Germans 
 were Lutheran. Their minister was very old, and they 
 wished to have a young man to aid and succeed him. 
 They petitioned the Bishop of London to ordain a min- 
 ister, and to send over with him the liturgy of the 
 Church of England translated into high Dutch, which 
 they wished to use in their public service. Nothing 
 more was heard of this petition. These Germans moved 
 to Madison County, and built the antique church now 
 standing in good condition. The funds for buUding the 
 church, and for buying a large pipe-organ, now in use, 
 were collected by a special agent in Europe. The sub- 
 scribers entered their names in a book, with the sums 
 given ; and many of them added some sentiment. It is 
 a curious literary melange of diverse languages and 
 dialects, — Latin, French, and German, Dutch and Eng- 
 lish. Some of the subscribers were eminent in the 
 Church and in the State and in colleges. The date is 
 1736. I have that book now. If we had had a Bishop, 
 
48 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 or if this petition had been heeded in liOndon, we might 
 have had to-day a flourishing German Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia. 
 
 Another moral which this story teaches is, that pro- 
 scription for religious opinion is not only wrong in prin- 
 ciple, but an egregious blunder in policy. Christendom 
 was a long time in finding out that religion is not the 
 mere bending of the knee to authority, but the alle- 
 giance of the mind and heart to what seems to be the 
 truth. From the time of Constantine it had been held 
 throughout Christendom, that Christian princes were 
 bound to defend and enforce the faith with the secular 
 arm. The Reformation recognized this duty in the civil 
 magistrate, and all Christians when dominant acted on 
 this principle. Eoraanists proscribed Protestants, and 
 the latter when in the ascendant retaliated. 
 
 The Church of England proscribed Protestant dis- 
 senters, and the latter entered into a " solemn league 
 and covenant " to extirpate Episcopacy from the earth. 
 The Colonial authorities in Virginia punished with fine 
 and imprisonment dissenters from the Establishment who 
 would not avail themselves of the provisions of the Act 
 of Toleration. The Puritans in New England deprived 
 Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quakers of the right of 
 sufi"rage, — of the liberty of worshipping God according 
 to their consciences, — forbade the use of the Prayer- 
 Book and the keeping of Christmas, and put some 
 Quakers to death. In the words of the Baptist chroni- 
 cler (Leland), " The dragon roared in Virginia, but he 
 was not red ; no blood for religious opinion ever stained 
 our soil." 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 49 
 
 From the way in which the subject is sometimes 
 treated, one would infer that religious persecution in 
 Virginia was something exceptional, — a sin not seen 
 elsewhere, and never to be forgiven or forgotten. The 
 fact is ignored, that Episcopal ministers in Virginia who 
 felt themselves bound in conscience to pray for the King 
 were punished ; as in the case of E,ev. Mr. Macrae of 
 Cumberland, who was knocked down in the night, tied, 
 and scourged nigh unto death, and Mr. Boucher, who 
 passed through a mob, pistol in hand, to his pulpit. 
 These men were wrong in their opinions, but they were 
 sufferers for conscience' sake. Patrick Henry protested 
 against the outrage upon Macrae, and Washington re- 
 spected Boucher. Men were a long time finding out, 
 that, while power may force outward conformity, love 
 is the only key which can unlock the human heart. 
 Individuals among the primitive Fathers, and moderns 
 like Locke and Jeremy Taylor, saw the truth ; but they 
 were voices crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the 
 way of the Lord." But even Taylor, like the Maryland- 
 ers, did not embrace in his charity infidels who denied 
 the foundations of the faith. To us it seems incredible 
 that any one could find the Inquisition in the Gospel, 
 and persecute their brethren in the name of a God who 
 is love, and commands us to love one another. Every 
 thing which obscures love is doomed to disappear. 
 Charity is, after all, the highest mark of the true 
 
 Church. 
 
 CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Another lesson which this story teaches is, that the 
 union of Church and State is an unnatural union, " the 
 
50 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 direful spring of woes unnumbered." We may liken 
 it, as Sheridan did the coalition between Fox and Lord 
 North, to the conjunction of certain planets which were 
 supposed to shed a disastrous influence upon the earth. 
 Among other ills, it was the cause of our not having a 
 Colonial Bishop, and also of the odium brought upon 
 the Church by its leaning upon the secular arm. If 
 the Church of England bad been free, she would have 
 organized the Church in Virginia when we had such 
 men as Hunt and Whittaker for the office of a Bishop, 
 and when there was no other religious organization in 
 the land to oppose it. But the Church of England had 
 no power on the premises. Bishops were nominated 
 ostensibly by the king, but really by the prime minister, 
 who was governed by the political effect of such meas- 
 ures. Dissenters held the balance of power, and most 
 politicians courted their favor. Dissenters were opposed 
 to the appointment of Bishops in the Colonies, not only 
 upon sectarian grounds, but also because Bishops were 
 associated in their minds with the " Star Chamber " and 
 " Courts of High Commission," which had long been 
 engines of oppression in England. The appeals of the 
 Colonists for a Bishop were piteous enough to have moved 
 a heart of stone. There never was, they said, so large a 
 country, with so many Christians in it, without a Bishop. 
 " Do, we implore you, take away our reproach among 
 the enemies of our Church." The Roman Catholics had 
 a Bishop in Canada. The Moravians had a Bishop. 
 The staff of the Spanish Church in America consisted, 
 as early as 1649, of six Archbishops and thirty-two 
 Bishops, while the Church of England had not one. 
 
COLONIAL CHUBGH OF VIBOINIA. 51 
 
 Clarendon induced Charles II. to appoint a Bishop 
 for Virginia ; and Dr. Murray, the king's companion in 
 exile, was nominated, and the patent made out by the 
 lord keeper (Bridgeman). But Bridgeman was removed 
 before the measure was perfected. When Commissary 
 Blah- begged the attorney-general to consider that " the 
 Americans had souls to be saved, as well as English- 
 men," Seymour replied, " Souls "? D — your souls ! make 
 tobacco." Of the famous " Cabal Ministry " (so called 
 because the initials of their names spelled that word), 
 one was an atheist, one a deist, one a Koman Catholic, 
 and one a Presbyterian ; and this composite cabinet 
 controlled the appointment of Bishops. In Queen 
 Anne's time the measure was once more on the eve of 
 consummation, but was frustrated by her death. 
 
 The Dissenters had a standing committee to agitate 
 against Colonial Bishops. Bishops Butler, Gibson, and 
 Seeker thought they had devised a scheme which would 
 remove the objections of the Dissenters ; but it came to 
 nought. Nothing could better illustrate the temper of 
 the politicians than the treatment of the saintly Dr. 
 Berkeley by the wily Walpole. Berkeley had procured 
 a private subscription fund of five thousand pounds for 
 a college in America for the education of Indians. The 
 British Government had given him a charter, and prom- 
 ised to add twenty thousand pounds to the endowment. 
 Berkeley came to Newport, and waited several years 
 for the money. In the mean time he built a house, 
 now standing. He spent his time in writing his " Minute 
 Philosopher," and composed the poem beginning, — 
 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way." 
 
52 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 Becoming weary of waiting, he induced Bishop Gibson 
 to call upon Walpole, and demand an explicit answer. 
 Walpole said to Gibson, " If you ask me as prime min- 
 ister. I say the money should be surely paid ; but if 
 you ask me as a friend, I advise Dr. Berkeley by all 
 means to give up his present expectations." I need not 
 recite the history of the subject further. 
 
 The dissatisfaction of Churchmen in America at the 
 frivolous indiflFerence of the British ministry, and the 
 rising spirit of independence among the people gener- 
 ally, stimulated by a feeling which culminated in the 
 " Stamp Act," made any further agitation of the subject 
 so inexpedient that even a convocation of the Virginia 
 Clergy voted against it, and received the thanks of 
 the General Assembly, which was composed chiefly of 
 Churchmen. It has been said by several historians, 
 upon the authority of Mr. JeflFerson, that, at the time 
 of the Revolution, Dissenters outnumbered Churchmen 
 two to one. JeiFerson afterwards (vol. i. p. 31) reduced 
 his conjecture to a bare majority. His biographer. Pro- 
 fessor Tucker, treats both estimates as clearly erroneous. 
 William C. Eives, in his " Life and Times of James Mad- 
 ison," says the opinion of Mr. Madison is doubtless more 
 to be relied on. " The proportion of Dissenters was 
 considerably less than one-half of those who professed 
 themselves members of any church." Mr. Saunders, 
 the eminent lawyer of Williamsburgh, says, " It is man- 
 ifest, from the history of the day and from the legislative 
 proceedings, that the great majority of the representa- 
 tives who dissolved Church and State were Episcopal- 
 ians, and that they clung to the Church as long as they 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 53 
 
 could." This will explain the gradual dissolution of 
 Church and State. The Bill of Rights, which, Mr. 
 Grigsby says, contains in essence the history in minia- 
 ture of England's struggle for liberty, struck the first 
 blow. Then followed acts suspending, from time to 
 time, the salaries of ministers ; then the Act of Incor- 
 poration, open to all Christians ; then propositions for 
 a general assessment for support of religion, for the 
 benefit of all sects alike, which was defeated by a re- 
 monstrance prepared by Madison at the instance of 
 Mason and Nicholas; then, in 1799, the act repealing 
 all laws since the Revolution touching church property. 
 
 Bishop Meade compared the roll of delegates with 
 the vestry-books, and said nearly the whole of them 
 were vestrymen. It is certain that the president (Pen- 
 dleton) and draughtsmen of the Revolution, the chair- 
 man of the committee of the whole (Cary), its mover 
 (Nelson), and its leading advocate (Henry) were. 
 
 The great work of the Convention was the BiU of 
 Rights and the first written Constitution. The master- 
 spirit of the Convention was George Mason, who drew 
 the famed Declaration of Rights, which declares that 
 " Religion is the duty we owe to our Creator, and the 
 manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason 
 and conviction, and not by force ; and therefore all men 
 are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, 
 according to the dictates of conscience." The word 
 " toleration " was stricken out of the original draught 
 on motion of Mr. Madison. The Convention expunged 
 from the liturgy the prayer for the king, appointed 
 Patrick Henry governor, and surrounded him with a 
 
54 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 council consisting of the following vestrymen: John 
 Page, Dudley Digges, Jno. Taylor, John Blair, Benjamin 
 Harrison of Berkeley, Benjamin Harrison of Brandon, 
 Charles Carter of Shirley, Edmund Randolph attorney- 
 general. It has been the habit of some writers, to rep- 
 resent the Episcopalians as struggling in a body to save 
 the Establishment. This is an error and an injustice. 
 The contests in the Legislature were between Church- 
 men and Churchmen. Patrick Henry and Pendleton 
 and Nicholas tried to save something from the wreck. 
 Churchmen like Mason and Madison were leaders in 
 securing religious freedom. Nicholas joined with Mason 
 in asking Madison to prepare the remonstrance which 
 defeated the assessments. The last tie was severed by 
 the confiscation of the glebes in 1802, — a measure 
 which would have been decided to be unconstitutional, 
 but for the sudden death of Pendleton with the opinion 
 of the court in his pockets. The present speaker thinks 
 that the confiscation of the glebes was right, they hav- 
 ing been paid for by a tax on all the people. 
 
 I would not pluck one laurel from the brow of any 
 champion of civil and religious liberty. The leaders, as 
 Washington, Mason, the Lees, etc., were members of 
 the Church of England. But the Dissenters, whose 
 necks were galled, spurred the leaders to a quicker pace, 
 giving an onward motion to the car ; while the Conserva- 
 tives kept it from running ofi" the track. 
 
 I will now try and sum up the whole subject in a bold 
 figure. 
 
 In the Scandinavian mythology, the human family is 
 likened to a tree, which is called " Igdrasil," the ash- 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 55 
 
 tree of existence. Carlyle admired the metaphor very 
 much, as if it had been original. It is a favorite figure 
 in the Bible, where it is applied to individuals, dynasties, 
 and races. A good man is likened to a tree by the 
 water-side, that will bring forth its fruit in due season ; 
 a prosperous wicked man, to a spreading green bay-tree. 
 The prophets use it profusely. Ezekiel, by a very bold 
 metaphor, compares the Assyrian to a cedar of Lebanon 
 whose height rose above all the trees of the field, and 
 there was not one like to it in its beauty. It was made 
 great by the waters running around its roots, and under 
 its manifold boughs and wide-spreading branches the 
 nations came and dwelt. Daniel has the same figure of 
 a tree whose top touched heaven, and was seen to the 
 ends of the earth. Encouraged by such examples, I 
 venture to give a new application to the figure. As 
 I have meditated upon the history of Vu-ginia and of 
 our fatherland, in my fond fancy I seemed to see it rise 
 before me in the form of a grand old Druidical oak, 
 with its original Celtic root in the caves of the old 
 Britons, grafted in succession by Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, 
 and Norman shoots, fertilized by a stream of culture 
 whose spring was Athens, and by another stream whose 
 fountain was in Jerusalem, both conveyed in Roman 
 aqueducts. By a marvellous power of assimilation, it 
 incorporated all these heterogeneous elements into one 
 homogeneous growth. It gradually and grandly rose 
 through the centuries, stretching forth its weather-beaten 
 arms to the peltings of the pitiless ravages of time, war, 
 flood, and fires of persecution ; and yet it survived, and 
 brought forth fruit, — good fruit and evil fruit. Civil 
 
56 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIBOINIA. 
 
 excrescences disfigured it, superstitious mistletoes fas- 
 tened and fed upon its vitals ; and yet it grew great men 
 and great measures, — Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, 
 Trial by Jury, Habeas Corpus, and tbe like, — every bud 
 a book, every leaf a literature, every bough a biography. 
 As in Daniel's figure a great eagle with great wings came 
 and plucked off the twigs from the topmost bough, and 
 transplanted them in a land of traffic in a good soil by 
 great waters ; so, in the fulness of time, offshoots from 
 the old oak were transplanted all along the coast of 
 America, and first here in Virginia. In the virgin soil 
 of the New World they struck their roots deeply, and 
 grew vigorously for nearly two hundred years, repro- 
 ducing the like phenomena, with civil excrescences, 
 superstitious mistletoe, and also great men and great 
 measures. But when the hour had struck in heaven, 
 as in the case of Daniel's tree, the watcher came down 
 from heaven, and cried with a loud voice, " Hew down 
 the tree, but leave the root ; and when seven times have 
 passed, when iniquity is broken off, and mercy is showed 
 the poor, and men know that the Heavens do rule, the 
 dew shall fall upon it, and it shall grow again." So the 
 axe was laid to our tree ; and it tottered under blows re- 
 luctantly struck by loving hands, for seven years, before 
 its final fall. But the root was left ; and from it has 
 sprung our Liberty Tree, bearing freedom of speech, 
 freedom of the press, freedom of religion. 
 
 " Welcome, great Century of Liberty, 
 Thou fairest daughter of slow- teeming Time ! " •* 
 
 This is our century-plant, which has interlocked its 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 57 
 
 branches with all the other transplants which together 
 cover the continent, and afford shade and shelter and 
 food for all the nations. And they have come, and are 
 coming, — Europe, Asia, and Africa. 
 
 The world has never witnessed an emigration like 
 that to America, since the first dispersion of mankind. 
 They are swarming in a tide as resistless and unreturn- 
 ing as the travellers to eternity. " Those who are left 
 behind seem to feel a melancholy restlessness, like a bird 
 whose wing is crippled at the season of migration; and 
 a voice like that heard before the final destruction of 
 Jerusalem seems to cry in their ears, Ai'ise, let us depart 
 hence." These heterogeneous peoples of every clime, 
 kindred, and tongue, mingling together, like the disinte- 
 gration of different rocks, ought to make a richer soil 
 for a greater growth in the future than has been seen in 
 the past. The time may come when it may overspread 
 South America, and one pulse and one spirit circulate 
 from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circle, and America 
 realize the dream of Cromwell for England, and become 
 the grand propaganda de fide for the inhabited world, 
 sending back a refluent tide of Christian people speak- 
 ing all tongues to the ends of the earth. 
 
 But what became of the vine that leaned upon the 
 old tree for support] When the old tree around which 
 it was twined fell, it was torn from its embrace, trailed 
 upon the ground, and trampled in the dust, until it was 
 thought that the life was crushed out of her. And men 
 took up the lamentation of the Psalmist, — " Thou hast 
 brought a vine out of Egypt : Thou hast cast out the 
 heathen, and planted it. . . . She sent out her boughs 
 
58 COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why 
 hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all 
 they which pass by the way do pluck her % . . . Look 
 down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine. ... It 
 is cut down. . . . Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy 
 right hand, upon the son of man whom Thou madest 
 strong for Thyself. . . . Quicken us, and we will call 
 upon Thy name." And the prayer was heard. So soon 
 as it was remembered that the source of vitality was 
 not the State, but the Christ, — " I am the vine, ye are 
 the branches," — the life-current began to flow, and 
 " the vine revived like the corn, grew like the barley ; 
 its scent was as of the wine of Lebanon, to say nothing 
 of occasional feasts upon the ' clusters of Eshcol.' " 
 
 To drop this long-drawn figure, and come down to 
 plain prose, let me say, that, as our Church no longer 
 leans upon the secular arm, but is self-supporting, — 
 clothed only with the armor of God, the shield of faith, 
 the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
 which is the word of God, with her feet shod with the 
 preparation of the Gospel of peace, — we may humbly 
 hope that she, as a part of the sacramental host of God's 
 elect, may win victories against the rulers of the dark- 
 ness of this world, if not upon so grand a scale, yet like 
 those which the primitive Church won on the fields of 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa, when she first was free. 
 
 Fifteen hundred years of civil and religious despotism, 
 and one hundred years of liberty, have prepared our 
 weak eyes for the new transfiguration, when, — as the 
 sun, as he rises, draws up the vapors till they hide his 
 face, and at noon scatters them, revealing the landscape 
 
COLONIAL CHURCH OF VIRGINIA. 59 
 
 in its beauty, — so the " fulness of the Godhead " in 
 Jesus shall blaze through the veil of flesh, chase away 
 the vapors with which the passions of men have clouded 
 His face, and He shall be recognized as the central Sun 
 of the universe, before whom all creatures in heaven 
 and earth shall bow, and " every tongue confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA FROM 1785 
 TO THE DEATH OF BISHOP MEADE. 
 
 ADDRESS BY BEV. T. G. DASHIELL. 
 
 This narrative must of necessity include events with- 
 in the memory of some who are now living. It is a 
 history which brings before us what some might call the 
 romance, and which all should regard as the heroism, of 
 religious annals. 
 
 No proper idea can be formed of such a history of 
 our Church, unless we can have, to some extent, an 
 adequate statement of its circumstances at the date 
 when the narrative begins. 
 
 The war of the Revolution had been practically con- 
 cluded about two years when the Convention of 1785 
 assembled. 
 
 It was a Convention without a head, representing a 
 Diocese without organization, and laboring under a 
 pressure of poverty, of disheartening distress, and of 
 opposition, which compels one to present a mournful 
 picture of our beloved Church as she was then, in her 
 struggles. 
 
 No class of citizens had to feel the desolations of 
 war as severely as those who composed our Episcopal 
 congregations. As a matter of necessity, no church 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 61 
 
 emerged from that war as much demoralized as our 
 own. No church was so stripped of the means of mate- 
 rial support. Our church edifices were dismantled, most 
 of the congregations dispersed, and many of the clergy- 
 were reduced to the hard alternative of starving in their 
 abundant fields, or of themselves becoming deserters of 
 our altars. This poverty, this material wretchedness, 
 was bad enough ; but worse than this was the poverty 
 in religious principle, the scant appearances of piety, 
 the feeble, flickering flame of devotion, the symptoms 
 of approaching death of reverence and godliness. All 
 history tells how the desolations of war are more sadly 
 and more plainly left upon a people in this respect than 
 in any other. Fields that have been wasted can soon be 
 made to rejoice with a teeming harvest ; homes and towns 
 demolished may speedily be renewed : but the waste of 
 character, the destruction of morality, how slowly is such 
 a loss repaired ! In addition to this formidable negative 
 evil, the destruction of religious character was the more 
 formidable positive evil of opposition to Christianity. 
 
 Let the garden alone, and not only will the flowers die 
 out, but weeds will grow apace. Let religious culture 
 alone, and not only will the Church become enfeebled, 
 but sin will be vitalized. Not only will the garden of 
 the Lord fail to bring forth the fruits of righteousness, 
 but the fair fields will be overrun with the noxious 
 growth of indiff"erence, of profligacy, of infidelity. 
 
 We cannot fully describe the condition of things when, 
 in May, 1785, the Convention met to re-organize this 
 Diocese. But let a few facts be stated, — facts which, 
 perhaps, can be easily remembered. When Yii'gini^ 
 
62 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 committed herself to the war of the Revolution in 1776, 
 the Diocese had ninety-five parishes, one hundred and 
 sixty-four churches and chapels, and ninety-one clergy- 
 men. At the time I speak of, she found many of her 
 churches utterly destroyed, or so injured as to render 
 the vs^ork of repair entirely impracticable. This de- 
 struction or irreparable damage might have been ex- 
 pected as a consequence of the seven-years' war, but in 
 some cases there was no such excuse admissible. Be- 
 sides this loss of church property, she found twenty- 
 three out of ninety-five parishes out of existence. They 
 were extinct, their organization gone. Of the remain- 
 ing seventy-two parishes, thirty-four were without min- 
 isterial supply. Of her ninety-one clergymen, only 
 twenty-eight remained. As to these twenty-eight, there 
 was such a feeling of bitterness toward some of them, 
 that thirteen had to leave the parishes which they had 
 served, and seek employment and support in some of 
 the vacant fields. This left only fifteen in the cure 
 of the parishes which they held during the war. Eight 
 others came in, which increased the total number of the 
 clergy to thirty-six. This was the exact number that, 
 with seventy-one laymen, made up the Convention of 
 1785. 
 
 What a work they undertook ! To build up a Diocese 
 upon ground absolutely vacant, may necessitate hard toil ; 
 but how much more difficult where there must first be 
 cleared away the debris occasioned by material destruc- 
 tion, by intellectual and moral confusion ! To recon- 
 struct, any one can see how far that may exceed the 
 labor and discouragement of any effort at first construe- 
 
BISTORT OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 63 
 
 tion. Our brethren of that day went with corn-age to 
 their undertaking. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. James Madison was president. A large 
 committee was appointed to prepare rules and regula- 
 tions for the Church in the Commonwealth, and also to 
 report upon the proceedings of the General Convention 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church held in New York 
 in October, 1784. The Convention declared itself 
 willing to unite with the other Dioceses in the organi- 
 zation of the general Church. 
 
 It took positive ground as to its independence as a 
 Diocese by declaring, that, in its opinion, " The canons 
 of the Church of England have no obligations on the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in this Commonwealth." 
 That resolution stands unrepealed. 
 
 An earnest and pathetic address was sent forth to the 
 friends of the Church in the Diocese, appealing to them 
 to come up to its help ; that it had languished from neg- 
 lect, but that its friends were doubtless true, and there- 
 fore were confided in as men and women who would 
 not desert the object of their choice. It pointed to the 
 glebes and the affections of the Church-people as all 
 that was left to the Diocese ; yet, with assurance that 
 this Church is the plant which God Himself had planted, 
 and which we in His name must nurture, and which 
 must bless mankind and glorify the Master, the people 
 are urgently entreated to come up to the arduous work. 
 
 Some of the canons and orders of this first Conven- 
 tion may be worthy of citation. One of them requu-ed 
 a Bishop to hold a parish, afiii-ming that a Bishop's office 
 differs nothing from that of other ministers of God, 
 
64 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 except the power of ordaining and confirming. That 
 opinion was afterwards revoked. 
 
 Ministers were not allowed to leave their parishes 
 longer than a month without the consent of the vestry. 
 
 Ministers were required to wear a surplice during 
 time of prayer at public worship, and a gown whilst 
 preaching. 
 
 No action was taken, at this Convention, toward what 
 would seem the first act in the work of re-organization ; 
 viz., the election of a Bishop. 
 
 The next year, however, that important step was 
 taken. There was an attendance far less than in 1785, 
 — only sixteen clergy and forty-seven laymen. It con- 
 tinued in session a week, and on its last day elected as 
 Bishop the Rev. Dr. David Griffith. 
 
 Dr. Griffith was elected but never consecrated. He 
 was a good man, and would, no doubt, have been earnest 
 and zealous in rebuilding the Church ; but such was the 
 low condition of the Diocese that means could not be 
 raised to send him to Europe for consecration. He went 
 to Philadelphia as a delegate from Virginia to the Gen- 
 eral Convention in 1789, and whilst in that city was 
 taken to his eternal rest. 
 
 It would be impossible to set before you any detailed 
 history of these years. Still I think it practicable, 
 within the limits that may be allowed me, to recite 
 with distinctness the most important subjects that ought 
 to be borne in mind. I will then state that a review of 
 the decade from 1785 to 1795 presents, first, an accu- 
 mulation of hinder ances and difficulties, constituting a 
 dreary page in religious history, together with a very 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 65 
 
 discouraging condition at the end of that time. The 
 work done by the conventions was carefully and wisely 
 matured. No blame can attach to the good men who 
 legislated for the Diocese. Their enactments especially 
 worth recording here are as follows : — 
 
 I. A determination to have Episcopal supervision as 
 soon as possible. This was carried into action by the 
 election of Dr. Griffith in 1786, and in 1790, the -year 
 after his death, by the election of Dr. James Madison. 
 Bishop Madison was consecrated in September, 1790; 
 and upon his return to Virginia the Diocese found itself 
 for the first time really officered as an Episcopal Church, 
 although that Church had existed in Vii-ginia for a hun- 
 dred and eighty-four years. 
 
 II. Aggressive plans were formulated with a view to 
 reaching and improving every county in the State. The 
 whole Diocese was in 1786 laid off into districts. 
 These were twenty-four in number, called presbyteries. 
 Each district contained several counties, and was placed 
 under a minister, called its " visitor." His duty was to 
 assemble annually the Clergy in these counties, that 
 they might consider and adopt the best measures for the 
 purposes had in view. 
 
 III. Instructions of a solemn and pungent nature 
 were pressed upon the laity with real apostolic fervor by 
 Bishop Madison, insisting upon their earnest co-operation 
 in the work of Church revival. He entreats them to 
 have life and ardor in worship ; to be liberal in giving 
 to the support of the Church, in order, that, through a 
 standing ministry, there might be secured to the parents, 
 to their children, and their children's children, the 
 
66 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 great blessings of the Gospel of Christ. More solemn 
 instructions even than these were pressed upon the 
 Ministry, to be preachers of the Gospel, not readers of 
 sermons ; to be animated in rendering the services of 
 the liturgy ; to promote interest in the singing ; to urge 
 regularity and devoutness as to the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper ; to declare the whole counsel of God ; to 
 be prudent, gentle, yet fearless in discipline ; and, above 
 all, to be patterns of all good works. Certainly the 
 plans were well laid. That they met with no immediate 
 encouragement, does not detract from their meetness. 
 
 Now we must turn for a moment from the excellence 
 of these measures, to the peculiar and persistent opposi- 
 tion these good men had to face. 
 
 I. There was the growing indifference of many in the 
 Church itself. Iniquity abounded, and the love of many 
 waxed cold. The influence of Church-members was 
 against, not for, the Church, which calls itself holy. 
 Even when Christians live their best, and work most 
 zealously, it Avill often be necessary to ask, "Who hath 
 believed our report ] " When they have no zeal except 
 for self-indulgence or worldly enjoyment, there is no 
 testimony for her about which the question can be raised. 
 There has never been a time in which there was not this 
 discouragement, but it was peculiarly so in the early 
 years of our present Diocese. 
 
 II. Then the Church was actively hindered by some 
 whom she had a right to regard as friends. It was in 
 this way : An Act of Incorporation had been granted 
 to her prior to 1785. It soon became an occasion of a 
 great outcry. The other denominations were especially 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 67 
 
 clamorous; and some highly distinguished men, who 
 beyond doubt preferred the Episcopal Church to any 
 other, helped to swell the tumult. How far they were 
 influenced by a desire to gain the approval, and so to 
 gain the votes, of "oi ttoAAoi," we need not speculate. 
 It is the fact, that, in a somewhat indirect way, men of 
 place and power brought the force of their talent and 
 the prestige of their antecedents to aid in striking down 
 our Church in those trying days. 
 
 III. Another great trouble was the low state of reli- 
 gion everywhere, and in all denominations, in the Com- 
 monwealth. The enmity towards the Episcopal Church 
 seems, in great part, to have led to this. Very possibly 
 some who reviled and pei'secuted us may have thought 
 they were doing God service. They may have sup- 
 posed, that, if they could only crush our Church, they 
 could establish a purer and more spiritual order of 
 things. But beyond all question they made a sad mis- 
 take. The war upon us seems to have engendered 
 universal unfriendliness to all that was holy and of 
 good report. It gives me no pleasure to recite the 
 actual condition of things at that time, but truth com- 
 pels me to quote from the record. Says Devereux Jar- 
 ratt, in writing upon this subject, " It must be apparent 
 to every man, that religion was more respected and re- 
 vered, and had a greater influence on the manners of 
 men in general, while the Church had the countenance 
 of the State, than now." 
 
 He depicts faithfully the mournful condition of the 
 Episcopal Church ; but as a faithful historian, he asserts 
 that there is nothing better to be declared of other 
 
68 BISTORT OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 Christian bodies. Says he, " There is an awful falling- 
 off on every hand." Upon Presbyterian authority he 
 learned that religion was at a low ebb among them. 
 The Baptists, he ascertained, were equally declining. 
 The Methodists were splitting, and falling to pieces. As 
 revival in any one evangelical body is sure to radiate its 
 warmth and to extend its re-animating power, so spiritual 
 deadness makes itself just as surely felt. This was a 
 great, perhaps the greatest, discouragement in the earlier 
 part of Bishop Madison's episcopate. 
 
 IV. Another and sadly discouraging part of the 
 Church history in this decade was the persistent and 
 finally successful attempt at spoiling the Church of her 
 property in the glebes. This was all that was left her 
 to aid in the maintenance of her impoverished Clergy, 
 and upon these possessions the eyes of her enemies 
 fastened with the unyielding determination to wrest 
 them from her. Whilst the contest between the Church 
 and her persecutors goes beyond this decade, it still 
 must be considered as part of the first ten years after 
 her re-organization. It is painful to know that Christian 
 bodies were the chief promoters of this great wrong, 
 and the employers of the specious, uncandid arguments 
 by which the spoliation was at last accomplished. I 
 speak of the arguments as specious and uncandid : so 
 they were. The technical point raised by the prose- 
 cutors, that exclusive rights and privileges could not be 
 conferred upon a Church, was abundantly met by the 
 reply, that no exclusive privilege had been conferred 
 upon this Church in allowing it merely to hold its own 
 property. 
 
HISTORY OF TEE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 69 
 
 The statement that most of the glebes were originally 
 purchased by " the people," and that they ought to be 
 disposed of according to the wishes of a majority of 
 " the people," was also abundantly met by the reminder 
 that many of the glebes were private donations, and 
 that " the people " whose taxes bought the others were 
 Episcopalians, as there were no other Church-people in 
 the Colony at that time. The controversy went over to 
 1802, when an Act was passed under which the glebes 
 were confiscated. 
 
 I must stop at this point to close the history of the 
 first decade. 
 
 The depressions of the Church, by all that I have 
 mentioned, showed their effect in the decreasing attend- 
 ance upon the conventions. In 1795 we have no record 
 of any such meeting. Beaten against by all the assaults 
 upon her peace, the Church declined ; so that at the end 
 of ten years there was not enough of life or force to 
 bring her sons together. 
 
 It may be well to notice here, that there were, in 
 all, ten such omissions of the annual convention ; which 
 explains the fact, that, whilst this is our one-hundredth 
 anniversary, it is our ninetieth council. 
 
 Now I shall endeavor to group together the facts that 
 are embraced in the history from 1785 to 1814. In 
 1802 the Church spoliation was legalized. A remark- 
 able providence, in the death of Judge Pendleton of the 
 Supreme Court, whose voice would have been for us, 
 left that court divided when the case was brought before 
 them on appeal. He died the night before the decision 
 was to be rendered, and the equal division of the court 
 
70 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 allowed the Act of 1802 to stand. Says the record, 
 " Under this Act, not only glebes, but churches, and 
 even communion plate, have been sold. The purchasers 
 of the glebes have, in every instance where a sale was 
 made, paid almost nothing for them. After all that has 
 been done, how has the public been benefited, either in 
 a moral or a pecuniary way ] If it has been benefited, 
 let those who can, show it. It is denied that the public 
 has in any way derived the least benefit from the sale 
 of any of the glebes which have been sold. It is well 
 known that in some counties money has got into the 
 hands of some of the overseers of the poor, and there it 
 has remained." 
 
 Says Dr. Hawks in his history, " Nay, at this mo- 
 ment, should we ask where are the vessels which were 
 once consecrated to the service of Almighty God, to be 
 used in that holy sacrament which the Redeemer insti- 
 tuted for a perpetual memory, etc., what must be the 
 answer] The sacred vessels of the temple have been 
 scattered ; they have passed, in some instances, into 
 impious hands. A reckless sensualist has administered 
 the morning dram to his guests from the silver cup 
 which has often contained the consecrated symbol of 
 his Saviour's blood. In another instance the entire set 
 of communion plate of one of the old churches went 
 into the hands of a non-Episcopal family." 
 
 The Convention agitated the question until 1805, 
 when it abandoned the cause as hopeless. Wrongs of 
 this kind were not contemplated by the law of 1802, but 
 they were the consequences of that law. It was during 
 Bishop Madison's episcopate that the Church, with the 
 
HISTOBY OF TEE CHUBCR IN VIRGINIA. 71 
 
 aid of the very ablest counsel, was engaged in the fruit- 
 less effort to maintain her rights. 
 
 Of course, the effect of such a bitter contest upon the 
 spiritual condition of a Diocese would be very great. 
 The Church-members were angered by what seemed a 
 relentless persecution, and by a shameful yielding of 
 legislators to mere popular clamor. The re-action upon 
 themselves was lamentable, and is shown in the decline 
 of Church interest and religious affection, especially in 
 the failure of a number of conventions to meet in the 
 years intervening from 1798 to 1812. 
 
 How far the spirit of the Bishop himself was affected 
 by these adversities, does not appear from the record. 
 He must have felt them very oppressively ; but he seems, 
 however, to have been unwearied in exhortation to his 
 Clergy, and to the Diocese at large ; pleading for the 
 cultivation of holiness, of an unfeigned devotion to 
 the work that was upon them ; urging all to more 
 constant efforts for the Church of their affections. 
 
 As an illustration of the greatness of Bishop Madi- 
 son's desires for the good of all men, and of his large- 
 hearted catholicity, it will be proper to mention his in- 
 troduction to his convention of the idea of bringing about 
 an union of all Christian churches. His words I need 
 not quote : they will be found in his address to the Con- 
 vention of 179-3. As he very likely ascertained in ad- 
 vance that his Diocese regarded his hopes as altogether 
 beyond the possibility of reahzation, and that none of the 
 Christian bodies of the day were prepared to second his 
 opinions, he rested content with the mere publication of 
 his own thoughts, but suggested nothing in the way 
 of a matured plan. 
 
72 HISTOBT OF TEE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 In 1806 a convention was called to elect an assistant 
 to Bishop Madison, who felt the infirmities of age in- 
 creasing so as to render him unequal to the manifold 
 burdens of his office as he was then circumstanced. 
 
 His episcopal duties at that period of oui; histoiy 
 were of necessity very arduous. The anxieties on ac- 
 count of his peculiar difficulties, his cares for his minis- 
 ters, and his distress at the decline of the Church, 
 greatly augmented this heavy pressure. 
 
 In addition to all these, he had charge of the interests 
 of William and Mary College. For these reasons he 
 asked the Diocese, poor as it was, to consider the weak- 
 ness of his failing body, and to elect a colleague to share 
 the duties of his office. If the Convention of 1806 met, it 
 left no record. It quite certainly never met. The Con- 
 vention of 1805, which appointed an election for 1806, 
 had only sixteen Clergy and twenty-three laymen. The 
 question of giving Bishop Madison an assistant was not 
 again considered. Indeed, so great was the decline of 
 the Church, that from 1806 to 1811 it seems that there 
 was no convention at all. These were emphatically the 
 dark days of Episcopacy in Virginia. The Bishop was 
 gradually suiking in health, and he and his few Clergy 
 appear to have yielded almost to despair in reference to 
 bringing the Church up from the dust. In the year 
 1811 the General Convention in Xew Haven expressed 
 the fear that the Church in Virginia was gone. 
 
 Two months before the time for the Convention of 
 1812, Bishop Madison's death occm-red. As is often 
 the case in affliction, this event seemed to act as an 
 emphatic call to the few resolute spii-its who were left 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH JN VIRGINIA. 73 
 
 in the Diocese ; and on the 13th of May in that year, a 
 special convention assembled in Richmond. They were 
 few in number : thu-teen Clergymen and twelve laymen 
 were all who were gotten together. It was a small 
 gathering, but it is not for God to work by many or by 
 few. The character rather than the numerical propor- 
 tions of an assembly gives presage of results. Quality, 
 not quantity, is the great desideratum in times of trial. 
 I have nothing to say as to the members, generally, of 
 the Convention of 1812 ; but in that little council there 
 was one young man whose name for the first time 
 appears in our journals. From the start, he gave proof 
 of the material of which he was made. The impression 
 of his simple, sturdy piety, his unselfish devotion, his 
 unfaltering courage, his unyielding determination, was 
 most decided. No wonder he went right to the front 
 as a prince and a leader in those difficult times ; for, if 
 ever a man was endowed with all the gifts to make him 
 pre-eminent as a hero in the cause of truth, that man 
 was William Meade. 
 
 The chief result of the Convention was the election 
 of the Eev. John Bracken, D.D., to the episcopate. 
 Whether the choice was a suitable one or not, we are 
 at this date unable to say, as Dr. Bracken resigned at 
 the next convention (May, 1813) and gave the Church 
 no opportunity to judge him. The assembly this time 
 was smaller than it had been the year before, only eight 
 Clergy and nine laymen being present. Bishop Meade 
 says in 1845, " This convention adjourned, and its mem- 
 bers scarce expected ever again to meet for ecclesiastical 
 purposes." The feeling of utter despondency as to the 
 
74 HISTORY OF THE CHUBOH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 Church seems again to have asserted itself. No attempt 
 was made to elect a Bishop to take the place resigned 
 by Dr. Bracken. It looked as though the time for 
 surrender, complete and unconditional, had come. 
 
 But man's extremity is God's opportunity. This 
 feeble convention prepared the way for the gathering 
 next year, when, under the guidance of Divine Provi- 
 dence, a choice was made for Bishop in the person of 
 Dr. Richard Channing Moore. This started the Diocese 
 on a new career, which was the first step in the steady 
 onward march of success in which it has kept ever since. 
 
 This series of years, from 1785 to 1814, was an era 
 of strife, litigation, distress, and feebleness. In the 
 constant fight that was kept up for the plainest rights, 
 and the ceaseless wear and tear of effort to keep the 
 Church alive, what a weary life that of Bishop, Clergy, 
 and devoted laymen must have been ! 
 
 In the series of years which will mark our third 
 epoch, beginning with 1814 and going on to 1829, we 
 find a history having something of the signs of cheer, 
 along with many accompaniments of hardship. There 
 were prejudices far and wide through the Common- 
 wealth, against us, and these had to be endured or over- 
 come. There were scattered communities longing for 
 the Church and her services, but too feeble to maintain 
 them. There was the call heard from almost every 
 part of the Diocese, for ministerial help, and there were 
 neither the men nor the money with which to respond. 
 There were great difficulties ; but, for all that, the Church 
 took a movement forward. A new interest was awak- 
 ened, new desires kindled ; so that it is not surprising 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHUECH IN VIRGINIA. 75 
 
 to us now, as we look back upon those days, and see the 
 tokens of cheer, to hear Bishop Moore say, in his first 
 address to his Convention, — 
 
 "In every parish which I have visited, I have discovered the 
 most animated wish in the people to repair the waste places of our 
 Zion, and to restore the Church of our fathers to its primitive purity 
 and excellence. 
 
 "I have found their minds alive to the truths of religion, and 
 have discovered an attachment to our excellent liturgy exceeding 
 mj' utmost expectations. I have witnessed a sensibility to Divine 
 things, bordering on the spirit of gospel times. I have seen con- 
 gregations, upon the mention of that glory which once irradiated 
 with its beams the Church of Virginia, burst into tears, and, by 
 their holy emotions, perfectly electrify my mind." 
 
 Where there is revival, we expect to see the signs 
 of returning power, of recuperating vigor and energy. 
 The old Diocese was not wanting in such evidences 
 of returning vigor as would justify the ardent hopes of 
 Bishop Moore. Touching upon the most important facts 
 in the years now under notice, we see especial proofs of 
 encouragement in the organizations that were invoked 
 to expedite the building-up of our Church. First, there 
 was in 1816 a Prayer-Book and Tract Society. It was 
 intended to be general at first, — a society under the 
 control of the Convention : next year, however, each 
 parish in the Diocese was urged to form auxiliaries, and 
 to have parish ofiicers as patrons, friends, and helpers. 
 We have the accounts of it going on for some twenty 
 years, when it fell in with, and became part of, the 
 great missionary work of the Diocese. In the year 
 which tells of this society, we find Bishop Moore report- 
 ing seven hundred and thirty confirmations. 
 
76 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 Anottier and far more important society organized in 
 these years was that which is known to us now as the 
 Virginia Education Society. 
 
 If it is true now, it would all the more certainly be 
 true when our Church was struggling as it did about 
 seventy years ago, that not many of those looking to 
 the ministry of the Gospel would be blessed with an 
 abundance of this world's goods. Nor was our Church 
 then so favored as to be able to help worthy and needy 
 candidates for Orders. The Diocese was poor, and was 
 begging for ministers. " In order to meet a twofold 
 necessity, it was recommended in 1818 that such of 
 the Clergy as are settled should receive young men 
 into their families for the purpose of assisting them 
 in their studies ; which young persons, when properly 
 qualified, may be licensed by the Bishop as lay readers, 
 by which means the Clergy would be occasionally enabled 
 to make excursions into distant and vacant parishes 
 without leaving their own charge entirely unprovided 
 for, and would have this further advantage, that these 
 students would join practice with theory." 
 
 Here was the germ of our Education Society. I call 
 it ours, and so it is. But it may seem strange to the 
 readers of our journals, that we nowhere find any men- 
 tion made of its organization in our proceedings. Allu- 
 sions to it are frequent, but no account is given as to 
 when or by whom this noble institution of our Diocese 
 was originated. We must go outside of our official 
 records to learn what was the pressing necessity for 
 relief to the young men who were offering themselves 
 for God's work ; and then, who were the Christian men 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 77 
 
 that proved themselves in such emergency as men of 
 God, who could teach Israel what to do. In the year 
 1818 (the same as that in which there was made to our 
 Convention the recommendation above referred to), there 
 was in the city of Washington a gathering of Clergymen 
 and laymen to take part in the laying of a corner-stone 
 of a church. Upon that occasion, and by the brethren 
 there assembled, the Education Society was formed. It 
 was then, as we perceive, in its beginning, not purely 
 and entirely a Virginia society; still its organization 
 looked to action more especially in Virginia, and subse- 
 quent events caused this Diocese to be altogether the 
 field of its operations. Its work centred here, and 
 hence it became ex necessitate the Virginia Education 
 Society. The testimony given to this society as far 
 back as 1836 was, that it never failed to afford assist- 
 ance to every properly qualified applicant, and has 
 aided more than one-tenth of all the Clergy in this 
 country. In supporting students, it helped to support 
 the seminary. " For many years," says Dr. Packard, 
 "it supported not only its beneficiaries, but, in a great 
 measure, our professors. It is still doing a noble and 
 greatly enlarged work." 
 
 It would seem perfectly natural just here to speak of 
 our seminary, the most valuable of all our institutions, 
 and the one with which the Education Society was and 
 yet is especially connected. 
 
 It comes within the period that we are now consider- 
 ing, and will claim attention. But there is another part 
 of the history of these years which comes in for prior 
 notice, according to the record in our journals. It is 
 
78 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 a record which shows a growth, not of numhers or of 
 resources, but of character ; which evinces a regard for 
 purity, rather than for mere potency. It is a fact well 
 known to every student, and to every observer of the 
 conduct of religious bodies, that they are often inclined 
 to yield to the temptation to aggrandize themselves nu- 
 merically at the expense of principle. There has been 
 in all the ages a disposition to lower the fence so that 
 outsiders may easily get in, and then an over-readiness 
 to keep them in when they ought to be excluded. It 
 is probable that there was, for various reasons, a relaxa- 
 tion of discipline in the years subsequent to the Revolu- 
 tion, which was likely to end in the removal of all 
 marks of distinction between the kingdom of this Avorld 
 and the kingdom of Christ. It was in the year 1818 
 — the same year that saw the birth of the Education 
 Society — that we can see an awakening in our Diocese 
 as to the perils of worldliness, and the duty of Christians 
 to take and to hold the position which should be held 
 by God's peculiar people. It was an awakening which 
 showed the courage, the earnestness, and all the energy 
 of true revival. The Convention adopted a resolution 
 which spoke in trumpet tones against the vices of the 
 times, — horse-racing, gaming, public balls, and theatres. 
 It condemned these as having the effect of staining the 
 purity of Christian character, of giving offence to our 
 pious Christian brethren, and of endangering our own 
 salvation by rushing voluntarily into those temptations 
 against which we implore the protection of our heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 We can judge what must have been the spirit of that 
 
HISTOBY OF THE CMUBGH IN VIRGINIA. 79 
 
 Convention, by reading the ineffectual efforts made by 
 parliamentary tactics to stave off any action upon this 
 subject, and also by reading the long substitute prepared 
 by a distinguished layman, in which the topics vi'ere 
 plainly argued, but argued to no purpose, from a stand- 
 point of compromise. The resolution uttering the voice 
 of the Diocese, solemnly pleading against these modes 
 of worldly conformity, was adopted, and stands as our 
 Church record in those days. The mind of the Diocese 
 was more solemnly expressed upon this subject by the 
 adoption of the nineteenth canon in 1850. At the 
 same time in this series of years that the voice of Clergy 
 and laity was uplifted to make confession of Christ 
 something more than a mere profession, there was a 
 resolution adopted looking to a more aggressive policy 
 upon the part of the Diocese to make its religious power 
 felt. It is only one of the many evidences in Christian 
 history, that, if we purify character, we magnify our 
 efforts ; the more we reach after the spirit of Christ, 
 the more we will imitate the works of Christ. The 
 proposition, as it came before the Convention of 1819, 
 was a very simple, very crude attempt to organize for 
 mission-work in the Diocese. It was a scheme quite 
 sure to be impracticable, as it made no centre of mission 
 effort as we now have, but merely called upon each 
 congregation to form societies. Still it shows how the 
 heart of the Diocese was beating. Thank God for any 
 endeavor, rather than total inaction and indifference ! 
 It struck the keynote of concern for our feeble churches, 
 for our places that were desolate and out of the way, 
 and led gradually on to the organization of our Diocesan 
 
80 HISTORY OF THE CEUROH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 Missionary Society, which will directly come before us 
 for a more particular notice. 
 
 Simply in the observance of chronological order, I 
 must recite here the steps which led to the establishment 
 of our Theological Seminary. As the Diocese under the 
 episcopate of Bishop Moore continued to realize the 
 fulfilment of the glowing prophecies to which from time 
 to time that venerable father in God gave utterance, as 
 the demand for pastors continued to increase, there 
 seemed to be a growing sentiment in the Diocese favor- 
 ing the establishment of a divinity school, to be our 
 own, under our own auspices, and intended especially 
 to supply our own pressing needs. In May, 1820, the 
 Convention adopted resolutions expressing its sense of 
 the importance of a pious and well-educated ministry, 
 also favoring most earnestly the prospect of having a 
 professor of William and Mary College employed for 
 such a purpose. The resolutions further announced the 
 gratifying assurance that liberal oflFers of assistance had 
 been made to students of all denominations who would 
 seek their care. 
 
 Next year the Committee on the State of the Church 
 formally recommended the establishment of a theologi- 
 cal school at Williamsburgh. They further nominated 
 a board of trustees ; recommended that correspondence 
 be opened with the standing committees of the Dioceses 
 of Maryland and North Caxolina, to ascertain whether 
 these Dioceses would not co-operate in the important 
 measure thus projected; and also proposed to appoint 
 Mr. John Nelson, jun., to solicit subscriptions throughout 
 the Diocese. These recommendations were all adopted ; 
 
HISTORY OF THE GHUROH IN VIRGINIA. 81 
 
 and, whilst that with reference to seeking the co-opera- 
 tion of the adjoining Dioceses was acted upon, the result 
 was, that the next year, 1822, the Convention adopted a 
 constitution for the seminary, which after due considera- 
 tion and amendment was named " The Constitution of 
 the Theological School of the Diocese of Virginia." 
 
 Thus our school of the prophets was as an institution 
 formally established, and, by the election of Dr. Keith 
 as instructor, made part of our diocesan machinery. Ap- 
 pointments made in connection with our present council 
 render it altogether unnecessary for me to give any pro- 
 tracted account of our seminary. I merely state, there- 
 fore, that it was in 1824 removed from Williamsburgh to 
 Alexandria, in 1827 from Alexandria to its present 
 location. It has gone on prospering in its gain of 
 friends, in its gathering of funds, and in training and 
 equipping young men for the Gospel ministry. It has 
 been at times straitened for means, but never has it 
 become so much so as to be seriously threatened with 
 embarrassment. At times it suffered losses of funds 
 that were left to it in wills, because of not being incor- 
 porated. This continued up to the year 1845, when it 
 received a charter under an Act incorporating the trus- 
 tees of the Theological Seminary of Virginia and of the 
 High School. 
 
 It is sad to think, where departed friends manifestly 
 vnshed to help on such a work of God, that any sur- 
 vivors would avail themselves of technicalities to keep 
 God's work from that which was bequeathed. Yet our 
 seminary was made to suffer often from this cause. A 
 charter was the great thing needed to protect it. Here. 
 
82 HISTORY OF THE OHUBGH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 too, is another unpleasant part of our history. Any one 
 in these days would think that Protestants of any and 
 every name would have been glad to see the protection 
 of the law throvra around our seminary. Certainly no 
 one would be likely to imagine that Christians would 
 desire to see any thing done or omitted that would give 
 trouble to our Church school ; much less would we expect 
 to see any Christians take an interest in contributing, by 
 their influence and by their speech, to oui- Church's detri- 
 ment. It is a fact, however, that when Bishop Meade, 
 with his friends, tried hard and tried repeatedly to have 
 something done by the State Legislature to save us from 
 losses, the effort was met and thwarted chiefly by a promi- 
 nent divine of a Christian denomination. This had to 
 be endured until 1854, when the Legislature gave the 
 seminary and high school their charter. 
 
 These statements bring us down to years that are be- 
 yond that to which I pointed as the limit of the series 
 now considered ; but it will be easy for us now to return 
 to that time, whereas it could not be easy to disconnect 
 the seminary's history in 1825 from that of thirty years 
 later. In order to insure his support, Bishop Moore 
 had charge of the Monumental Church ; and in 1824 
 asked for a parochial assistant, in order that he might 
 give more time to visiting destitute parts of the Diocese. 
 The Church in Virginia, he felt assured, would find many 
 who would gladly contribute to a fund for such a pm-- 
 pose ; one-half of the expense he agreed to pay himself. 
 
 In 1828 he felt more his need of help, and, calling 
 attention to his age and infirmities, asked the Diocese to 
 allow him the more important aid that would be given by 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHUBGH IN VIRGINIA. 83 
 
 an Assistant Bishop. He said, " It is my desire that a 
 Bishop should be appointed during my life ; and, as such 
 an appointment can now be made with perfect unanimity, 
 it is expedient it should be done. It will give me pleas- 
 ure to unite in labor with the man of your choice. It 
 will render me happy in the hour of my departure, to 
 know the individual to whom I am to resign the arduous 
 duties of the episcopate, to whose care this peaceful, 
 quiet Diocese shall be committed." 
 
 Next year, 1829, his request was granted; and the 
 Convention with remarkable accord elected the Eev. 
 William Meade, D.D., as the Assistant Bishop. 
 
 The action taken by the Convention in connection with 
 the election of Bishop Meade was so important, and dis- 
 similar from any thing done at any other such election in 
 this or (as far as I know) in any other Diocese, that I 
 quote the full text of the resolution : — 
 
 Resolved, That this Convention deem it expedient, considering 
 the age and bodily infirmity of our most venerated Bishop, to pro- 
 ceed to the election of an Assistant Bishop, who is not to be consid- 
 ered as entitled to the succession, but that it shall be the right and 
 duty of the Convention of the Diocese of Virginia, on the demise 
 of our venerated Bishop, to proceed to the election of a principal 
 Bishop as a successor to the said deceased Bishop. 
 
 Subsequent action upon this subject was taken in 
 1830 ; and I will refer to that, though I must now com- 
 plete the survey of the period which ends with the year 
 1829 by a refei'ence to that important event, the organi- 
 zation of our Diocesan Missionary Society. Looking 
 at the journals up to 1829, Ave find in almost every case 
 the Lay delegates outnumbering the Clergy. There 
 
84 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 were more parishes than rectors. Besides the paiishes 
 thus unsupplied, there were the waste places, where the 
 privilege of worship was ardently craved, but the sound 
 of worship seldom heard. Besides localities which were 
 destitute of parish organization, there were parishes hav- 
 ing the form of life, but life too feeble to exert itself. 
 
 These mission-fields were an occasion of sore anxiety. 
 How could they be helped ] In the poverty that was 
 upon the Diocese, what plan could be matured by which 
 the slender resources of the Church could be made 
 available % In 1805 it was proposed that suitable men 
 ' should be selected by the Bishop and the Standing Com- 
 mittee, and that circular-letters be sent to these fields to 
 provide for the travelling expenses of ministers, who 
 would thus be enabled to reach them, and take to them 
 the services of the Church. 
 
 In 1813 action almost exactly the same was taken. 
 In 1819 the parishes were exhorted to form missionary 
 societies. In 1827 the Convention requested the Bishop 
 to lay off the Diocese into districts, and to assign to 
 each district two or more ministers, whose duty it should 
 be to meet in association at their appointed places twice 
 in the year for the purpose of preaching and adminis- 
 tering the ordinances of the Church to the people. 
 
 AU these plans show the necessities of the Church ; 
 they show the spirit of eager desire to relieve the neces- 
 sities : at the same time, the changes of policy show that 
 none as yet adopted would suit the emergencies. The 
 Diocesan Missionary Society, with a central organization 
 radiating its influence to every part of the Diocese, 
 seemed to be what was required ; and from that time to 
 
HISTOBY OF THE CHURCH IN VIBQINIA. 85 
 
 the present it has been the missionary agency, and has 
 controlled the missionary work. 
 
 The name at first was " The Protestant Episcopal 
 Missionary Society of the Diocese of Virginia." In 
 1839 its name was changed to the " Protestant Episco- 
 pal Association for the Promotion of Christianity in 
 Virginia ; " and by that title it was known until 1843, 
 when it was called, as it is to-day, " The Diocesan Mis- 
 sionary Society." In 1844 it was charged with the duty 
 of supplying missionaries with tracts and religious 
 books. Taking now another series of years, beginning 
 with 1830 and ending with 1842, we notice a gratifying 
 progress under the joint supervision of Bishops Moore 
 and Meade. The Convention of 1829, as abeady men- 
 tioned, annexed a restriction to the election of Bishop 
 Meade, whereby he would not be the successor of 
 Bishop Moore to the bishopric of the Diocese unless ap- 
 pointed thereto by the Convention. This action led to 
 some hesitancy on the part of the General Convention in 
 approving the election of Bishop Meade. The election 
 was, however, finally ratified under protest. The House 
 of Bishops expressed their disapproval of the restrictive 
 clause ; but as it was a new case, and as it was their 
 belief beyond all doubt that Bishop Meade would be 
 the successor of Bishop Moore, they would interpose no 
 bar to his consecration. They uttered their determina- 
 tion, however, not to countenance any similar proceed- 
 ing ; and, to give further expression to their views, the 
 General Convention adopted a canon giving the succes- 
 sion in all cases to the Assistant upon the death of the 
 Diocesan. 
 
86 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 In consequence of this action by the General Conven- 
 tion, our Diocesan Convention in 1830 removed the re- 
 striction in the case of Bishop Meade. The Diocesan 
 Missionary Society reported its collections for the year 
 to be $324.72, but had no missionary employed, as none 
 could be found. Their first missionary was reported 
 in 1831. It was the Eev. Mark L. Chevers, who was 
 employed to officiate a part of his time in the counties 
 of York, Warwick, and Elizabeth City. The same year 
 there were reported to the Convention one hundred 
 organized churches and less than fifty Clergy. Interest 
 in this work has, under God, steadily advanced, and 
 especially in the last ten yeai-s. Churches that gathered 
 Sunday after Sunday large congregations and flourish- 
 ing schools were fostered by it. The contributions and 
 the number of missionaries have increased so as to 
 demonstrate the wisdom as weU as the necessity of such 
 an agency. This year it has helped forty-five mission- 
 aries, and has received the largest amount of off'erings 
 ever sent in any year into its treasury. 
 
 It will interest any one to read in detail the action 
 by different conventions respecting the peculiar trials 
 of those times in the way of prevalent usages. They 
 seemed, at least, to consider those trials peculiar ; but 
 there is no new thing under the sun. The human na- 
 ture of Virginians of fifty years ago was just what it is 
 now. Perhaps if those venerable Fathers could look into 
 our town and country congregations now, if they could 
 know, as ministers do at present, the prevalence of 
 drinking-usages with communicants, they would ima- 
 gine, perhaps, that they had done their work in behalf 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 87 
 
 of temperance rather mildly, as it had only seemed to 
 bequeath an aggravation to the ills of the Church of 
 the present day. If they could look into those same 
 communities on Sunday, and see the sparse congrega- 
 tions at the second service, because the people need 
 rest and the recreation of visiting, or if they could see 
 the crowded trains and steamers going oif on cheap 
 excursions, and communicants helping to enlarge the 
 throngs, perhaps they v?ould feel it to be incumbent to 
 publish even more solemn and searching manifestos 
 than were issued by them in 1832 and in 1837. 
 
 The first notice we have of our diocesan paper, the 
 " Southern Churchman," founded by Rev. William Lee, 
 was in 1835, when it was commended to the Diocese. 
 It went through various experiences until it was taken 
 in hand by its present editor in 1854, and was by him 
 made a success. In 1839 the Church in this country 
 and Europe was agitated by what is known as the 
 " controversy on the Oxford tracts " Our Convention, 
 through its Bishop and its Committee on the State of 
 the Church, spoke in plain words upon the important 
 doctrines involved, and asserted the utter hostility of the 
 Church in her standards to the sentiments of the tracts. 
 Some of Bishop Moore's words in 1839 might well be 
 republished as if intended for this generation. As a 
 specimen, I quote the following : — 
 
 " Many subjects present themselves towards which I might be 
 tempted to direct j'our thoughts. One more especially concerns the 
 Church at present, because it is daily assuming a more serious and 
 alarming aspect, and threatens a revival of the worst evils of the 
 Romish system. Under the specious pretence of deference to an- 
 
88 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 tiquity, and respect for primitive models, the foundations of our 
 Protestant Church are undermined by men who dwell within her 
 walls ; and those who sit in the Reformers' seats are traducing the 
 Eeformers. It is under the banner of the Redeemer that we have 
 enlisted. It is under his banner that we have succeeded in our 
 ministry, and that our labors have been blessed. It is by preach- 
 ing the doctrines of the cross that the Church in Virginia has been 
 resuscitated, and that it now holds a conspicuous place in our com- 
 munion . But should the awful period ever arrive when we should 
 be reserved on the doctrine of the atonement, or teach poor, 
 fallen man to trust to his own merits for salvation, the blessing of 
 Almighty God would be withdrawn from us ; ' Ichabod ' would be 
 written on the doors of our sacred temples, and we should be left 
 to grope our way in midnight darkness. Be steadfast, then, my 
 beloved brethren, I beseech you, in the discharge of j'our duties. 
 Suffer not your minds to be influenced by any novel doctrines which 
 may be presented to your view by restless and speculative men. 
 Be immovable, ' always abounding in the work of the Lord, foras- 
 much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.' " 
 
 The Committee on the State of the Church said, " We 
 deem well-timed the effort made by our Bishop in his 
 address, to place the members of our Church on their 
 guard against the influence of error. To ' resist the 
 first beginnings of evU,' to espy temptations at a dis- 
 tance in order the better to guard against them, and 
 give warning of approaching danger, are common duties 
 of God's ministers and people. And he knows little of 
 the weakness and depravity of our nature who thinks 
 either that the orthodoxy of all the members of our 
 Church is proof against heresy, or that the holy wisdom 
 of our people is superior to all the wiles of the arch- 
 adversary." 
 
 On the 11th of March, 1841, the venerable Bishop 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHUBCH IN VIRGINIA. 89 
 
 Moore entered into his rest. It would be an affecting 
 chapter of the history which tells of the trials of Bishop 
 Meade, if I could stop here to speak as my heart urges 
 me of this beloved and devoted Father in God. His 
 memory will find its place in the proceedings of this 
 Council, and so I will adhere as closely as possible to 
 the record of such facts as it is my duty to present. 
 
 This, however, must be said : his relation to his Dio- 
 cese, and especially to his Clergy, was paternal in its 
 truest, tenderest sense. What a joy it was to his heart 
 to go about in his loving way amongst the churches, and 
 to gather his brethren around him at the close of each 
 convention to speak to them his words of wisdom, and 
 to give them his aflfectionate benediction ! Thank God ! 
 he lived to see the work of the Lord prosper in his 
 hands ; and he could witness the ample response to 
 his prayer, that one eminently fitted would be chosen 
 to tread in his steps, and to accomplish his plans. The 
 strength of Bishop Meade failed very much this year ; 
 and in 1842, at his request for an Assistant Bishop, the 
 Kev. John Johns, D.D., was elected to that office. It 
 was thought by some who were at the Convention, that 
 a surer and more permanent relief would be afforded 
 Bishop Meade if the Diocese should be divided, rather 
 than an Assistant elected. The two questions thus pre- 
 sented appear to have had very careful consideration, 
 and the Convention at last came to the conclusion that 
 it was inexpedient to attempt a division. One of the 
 reasons for their action was the difficulty of fixing upon 
 a line of division which would leave in each of the two 
 Dioceses the requisite number of self-supporting parishes. 
 
90 HISTORY OF THE CHUROH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 The canonical requirements in those days were very 
 diflFerent from what they are now as to the number of 
 pai-ishes and Clergy required in a new Diocese. The 
 division was also declared inexpedient because of the 
 difficulty which would be inevitable in making a proper 
 and equitable division of the funds of the Diocese, and 
 because every effort should be made to keep together a 
 Diocese whose influence upon all our people had been 
 so salutary, and so potent in binding together all the 
 parts of the State. The report embodying these views 
 appears to have had no appreciable opposition when the 
 vote was taken. Bishop Johns was chosen by a lai'ge 
 majority, and shared the work of the Diocese with his 
 Diocesan until Bishop Meade ended his days. The Con- 
 vention of 1842 adopted the resolution which provided 
 for episcopal support by the assessment upon the par- 
 ishes at the rate of one dollar for each communicant. 
 
 In 1845 there was made an effort, and a successful 
 one, to revive the High School. It had suffered misfor- 
 tune, — had for a time been closed, — when it was re- 
 opened by the Rev. Dr. Dalrymple, who made it what 
 the school in Staunton is for the girls of our Church 
 families. 
 
 There are two other movements in the Church under 
 the episcopate of Bishop Meade, which deserve grateful 
 notice and remembrance. One is the plan to make 
 some provision for the disabled Clergy of our Diocese. 
 The journals of the present day can tell what success 
 has attended the effort begun in 1853 to insure material 
 help for those faithful men who had spent theii- strength, 
 and some of whom had spent their substance, in trying 
 
HISTOBT OF THE CHUBCH IN VIRGINIA. 91 
 
 to build up the Church. Whilst the appropriations 
 made are not in such measure as our affection for them 
 would prompt, we may be grateful that they are not 
 left in the time of age or infirmity without some token 
 of tender regard from their Diocese. 
 
 Another movement was the society to make provision 
 for the widows and orphans of the deceased Clergy. 
 We see from time to time in our journals prior to 1858, 
 reports made from this society. In fact, as far back as 
 1792 there are statements in the records which go to 
 show, that, even in those days of distress and adversity, 
 the Diocese was concerned to make provision for the 
 widows and orphans of the Clergy. It was reserved, 
 however, for the late Eev. John Grammer, D.D., of 
 Halifax Court-house, — a minister known to many still 
 in our councils, — to mature a plan which gave promise 
 of a permanent society and of a reliable treasury. The 
 society was organized in the year 1838, and in the results 
 which followed gave evidence of the marvellous sagacity 
 of its organizer. At the end of twenty years, in 1858, 
 at the convention in the town of Winchester, the society, 
 after a full investigation of its affairs, found itself called 
 upon to disband just because of its overrunning pros- 
 perity. Never, perhaps, had money gathered in small 
 contributions increased as had done the annual payments 
 of Clergy to this fund. The society found itself in 1858 
 without the prospect of a beneficiary, and with so much 
 capital that it could return to the Clergy every dollar 
 they had paid from the beginning of their membership, 
 could give them compound interest upon the same for 
 all that time, and then could die, bequeathing to the 
 
92 fflSTOBT OF THE OHUBCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 Diocese the handsome legacy of thu-ty-two thousand dol- 
 lars, to be held as a fund sacred to similar purposes for 
 the widows and orphans of any of our Clergy who might 
 afterward be taken from their families. The interest 
 from as much of that fund as was not lost in the war 
 is still disbursed annually. It now amounts to about 
 twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1860 was the last con- 
 vention prior to the calamitous war between the States. 
 It reported a larger amount than had ever been raised in 
 the Diocese. It arranged for evangelistic work which 
 had been tried the year before with signal encourage- 
 ment. It also initiated carefully elaborated plans for work 
 with the colored people, — work which was not broken 
 up, but was, of course, greatly interfered with, by the hos- 
 tilities which began about one year from the time that 
 the Convention took its action. The clash of arms had 
 really begun before the Convention of 1861 assembled 
 in Richmond. The convention sermon was preached by 
 Bishop Meade. It was the last time he appeared before 
 us as a convention. The proceedings were decidedly 
 tinged by the strong current of feeling which the war had 
 set in motion. The Convention arranged with its sisters 
 of the South for a council of the Dioceses in the Con- 
 federate States. The name "Convention" was dropped, 
 and that of " Council " taken. A General Council was 
 formed, and Virginia remained in this with the Southern 
 churches, until, by the occurrences of 1865 and 1866, 
 the General Council was dissolved. When she renewed 
 her connection with the General Convention of the 
 Church in the United States, Bishop Meade was taken 
 to his rest after a short illness in this city, to which he 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 93 
 
 had come in March, 1862, to take part in the conse- 
 cration of Dr. R. H. "Wilmer as Bishop of Alabama. 
 Having been, under God, privileged to be with him 
 during the last thirty-six hours of his stay upon earth, I 
 would fain speak of the solemnities of the closing hours 
 of this man of God. But that work has been committed 
 to another ; and so I conclude the duty assigned to me 
 by asking you to stand for a moment at the end of this 
 history, and see what, under God, he was permitted to 
 accomplish. He began his ministry when the Church 
 in Virginia was at its lowest ebb, — so low that the 
 General Convention made a record to the effect that its 
 restoration might be considered hopeless. Against the 
 protests of friends who thought it a real sacrifice that 
 such talents as his should be given to the Church, he 
 entered the ministry. Against their more earnest pro- 
 tests that he should not go into the Episcopal Church, 
 and become identified with what they declared emphati- 
 cally was a lost cause, he entered our ministry. 
 
 When we remember how he toiled, how he denied 
 himself, how long he had to wait, and then what the 
 Church in Virginia was before he left us, we thank God 
 that the dear Bishop's own eyes were permitted to see 
 the glorious triumph. In a sermon upon the occasion 
 of the Bishop's death. Dr. Sparrow eloquently recites 
 the points here touched upon, and adds, — 
 
 ' ' And he had his reward : he lived to see the Church in Virginia 
 in great prosiDerity. Never was it so prosperous as at the beginning 
 of our national troubles. The Bishop then saw around him a body 
 of Clergy surpassed by none for efflciency and faithfulness. He saw 
 the congregations committed to their care increp,sing yearly in all 
 
94 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 the fruits of the Spirit. Missionary zeal was spreading on every 
 hand, and substantial aid more and more afforded to the cause. 
 Neither foreign, domestic, nor diocesan missions were overlooked. 
 The Education Society, for the aid of young men preparing for the 
 ministry, was deriving an adequate support from Virginia alone, 
 though helping young men from all the States ; educational insti- 
 tutions for both sexes in connection with the Church were prosper- 
 ing ; and the Theological Seminary was far better provided with 
 every species of accommodation, and better filled with students, than 
 it had ever been before. In the progress of things toward this point 
 of prosperity, it should also be mentioned, there had been very little 
 fluctuation and no ' backsets.' Owing to the consummate prudence 
 of him who took a leading part in all these matters, the progress of 
 the Diocese had been as continuous and unbroken as the advance 
 of the dawn to the broad daj-light." 
 
 We may truly add, he left a Diocese loyal to the truth 
 as our standards set it forth, loyal to all the requirements 
 of the Church. 
 
 I feel it to be a simple yet bounden obligation, as the 
 author of this narrative, to put this statement upon record. 
 So many and so absurd have been the accusations that 
 have been bruited about for years as to the irregularities 
 in this Diocese, that my account would be unfair and 
 incomplete if this part of it should be suppressed. Our 
 Missionary Bishops in the v»fide West, or some of them 
 at least, tell their Clergy to remember that the Prayer- 
 Book vpas made for man, and not man for the Prayer- 
 Book. They urge them to speak the truth boldly and 
 in love as they have opportunity ; to go on in the way of 
 common sense, and not to let themselves or the word of 
 God be bound by impossibilities in the matter of our full 
 liturgical worship. When we remember that almost all 
 of Virginia was missionary ground for many years after 
 
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 95 
 
 1785, it would be strange if our Clergy could always find 
 themselves able to preach the Gospel along with the 
 enjoyment of our service in its integrity. But, despite 
 all their disadvantages, they adhered to that ritual with a 
 fidelity that deserved what was said of them sixty years 
 ago. It was in the Convention of 1825. Bishop Moore 
 had urged the great excellences of the liturgy ; and, fear- 
 ing that the charges against his Diocese which had been 
 scattered broadcast might have some foundation, he 
 aflfectionately addressed his brethren upon the subject. 
 The Committee on the State of the Church, whilst in- 
 dorsing all his eulogium, and seconding his fervent appeal 
 for a close adherence to the prescribed order, said, " At 
 the same time, the Convention feels bound, in duty to 
 the Church in Virginia, to state that but few instances of 
 departure have occurred, and also that there is a growing 
 attachment to the services of the Church throughout the 
 Diocese." 
 
 In closing this necessarily hasty survey of the labors, 
 the trials, and the successes of Bishops Madison, Moore, 
 and Meade, let us chronicle this as the greatest of their 
 successes, that they built up, under God, a Church loyal 
 to the Gospel of Christ, loyal to the Prayer-Book, — a 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. And, with a very slight 
 change in words, let us believe with the venerable senior 
 professor of our seminary in his address at the semi- 
 centennial — 
 
 " Should the time ever come when another spirit than that of 
 Bishop Meade shall be the spirit of this Diocese, when another gos- 
 pel shall be preached here and another theology taught here, when, 
 though the s^'mbols of the Divine Presence are here, that Presence 
 
96 HISTORY OF THE OHUBCH IN VIBOINIA. 
 
 itself shall be withdrawn, . . . then shall voices be heard, as when 
 Jerusalem was destroj'ed, saying sorrowfully', ' Let us depart 
 hence ; ' and the fingers of a man's hand shall come forth, and write 
 upon our pulpits, ' The glory is departed.' " 
 
 But without any such foreboding, and indulging in 
 no vain spirit of prophecy, I would rather close here 
 with the words of Bishop Madison in 1791, — words in 
 such exact sympathy with the opening sermon of this 
 Council : — 
 
 "My brethren, vain will be our endeavors for the prosperity of 
 our Zion, unless they be attended with fervent prayers that God 
 will graciously enable us to perform our duty with zeal, fidelity, 
 and success. Our sufficiency is of God : to Him let us look with 
 our united supplications, that He will look down from heaven, and 
 behold and visit this vine and the vineyard which His right hand 
 hath planted ; that He will shed the dew of His blessing upon the 
 labors of His servants here assembled ; that He will prosper the 
 ministry in their endeavors to revive a just sense of true religion ; 
 that He will dispose the hearts of the people to receive the Word ; 
 and that the fruits of righteousness may abound more and more in 
 every member of this Church, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. Amen." 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OP VIRGINIA. 
 
 BY RT. REV. GEORGE W. PETERKIN, D.D. 
 
 I AM to speak a few words to-night in the interests of 
 the Vii'ginia Seminary. 
 
 The history of that seminary in its general outlines, 
 and the work in its main features, are so well known, 
 that, even if no one else were to speak on the subject, 
 I need not go into many of those details which in them- 
 selves would be interesting and important. It is only 
 about twelve years since the alumni and friends of the 
 seminary met to celebrate its semi-centennial, and I 
 doubt not but that the remembrance of that occasion 
 is still fresh in the minds of many who are here to-night. 
 The addresses of Bishops Johns and Lee, and of Drs. 
 Packard, Andrews, Tyng, Slaughter, and Dalrymple, 
 made on that occasion, have been preserved in suitable 
 form, and furnish to-day a rich storehouse of material 
 for him who would make himself familiar with the 
 history and work of the seminary. 
 
 We learn from those published addresses, that to the 
 Diocese of Virginia belongs the credit of being the first 
 in this country to take steps to provide for the education 
 of its candidates for Orders. 
 
 This was in 1813 ; and the movement culminated ten 
 
98 THEOLOOICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 years later, when, Oct. 15, 1823, the Theological Semi- 
 nary of Virginia was formally opened. 
 
 Associated with its early history are the names of 
 Wilmer, Norris, Addison, McTlvaine, Hawley, Allen, 
 Meade, Lemmon, Johns, Henshaw, Tyng, Mann, Mc- 
 Guire, — names that are not born to die. 
 
 We may say, in general terms, that the history of the 
 seminary runs parallel with that of the history of the 
 Diocese, or at least of the revival of the Church in 
 Virginia. There is between the two not only a coinci- 
 dence in time, but a close and vital connection. The 
 same illustrious men conceived and carried on both 
 works, and with a like spirit and devotion ; and we to- 
 day enjoy the fruits of their manifold labors. 
 
 To what extent the founders of the seminary realized 
 what was to be its influence upon the character and 
 progress of our Church in Virginia, we may not certainly 
 tell ; but, with the records of the past sixty years before 
 us, we can see how great that influence has been in 
 both respects. It has been great not only in extending 
 the Church by furnishing the men to carry her standards 
 everywhere forward, but great also in determining the 
 spirit and character of the Church when it was extended. 
 
 The seminary has been chiefly remarkable for its 
 general prevailing religious atmosphere. This atmos- 
 phere has not been literary or philosophic or scien- 
 tific, but distinctively religious. The spirit of zeal for 
 Christ and the Church has been dominant through all 
 the period of its history. 
 
 To state this a little more explicitly, the seminary has 
 been remarkable for — 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 99 
 
 I. Its evangelical character. I use the word in a 
 natural, not in a narrow or partisan, sense. 
 
 I mean by it, that we have always repudiated the 
 sacerdotal theory of the ministry ; that we have not 
 ventured or desired to urge exclusive claims for our 
 Church, or taught that the validity of the sacraments 
 was dependent on an unbroken tactual succession. 
 
 I mean by this word to convey the idea that Dr. 
 Packard has expressed when he says, substantially, that 
 the doctrine of a complete justification by the sole merits 
 and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ has always held 
 such a high, central, chief, and controlling place in our 
 system, that, like the sun in the zenith, nothing is hid 
 from the heat thereof. 
 
 I mean by it, that, whUe we desire to feel all the 
 inspiration that ought to come to us from the life and 
 example of our Saviour Jesus Christ, yet that we stUl 
 chiefly glory in His cross ; not as the witness of a 
 martyr to the truth, not as an example of sublime 
 self-sacrifice, but rather as the full, perfect, and suffi- 
 cient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of 
 the whole world. 
 
 We have always believed and taught at the Virginia 
 Seminary, that the gospel which St. Paul and the other 
 apostles preached is just what the world needs to-day ; 
 and so we are still satisfied to hold fast by this, although 
 it be to the objectors of our day, as it was to the Jews 
 and Greeks of old, — a stumbling-block and foolish- 
 ness. 
 
 This is our idea of ministering the truth as this 
 Church hath received it; of setting forth the distinctive 
 
100 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 features of this grand old historic Church ; of contend- 
 ing for the faith once delivered. 
 
 II. This seminary has also been remarkable for its 
 missionary spirit ; and this missionary spirit has grown, 
 I believe, out of its evangelical character. The two 
 things go together as cause and effect. 
 
 I suppose that every seminary has its missionary soci- 
 ety, and, however it may have been some years ago, yet 
 that now, at least, others besides our own have their 
 representatives in the foreign fields of the Church ; but 
 I have never heard of any but the Alexandria seminary 
 in which this missionary spirit was so distinctive a mark. 
 With the faculty meetings, it is to be taken as one of 
 those things that have helped to create the atmosphere 
 of the institution. No one could faU to feel the influ- 
 ence in some way. 
 
 About forty men have gone forth from the seminary 
 into the foreign fields of the Church. We cherish their 
 memory with peculiar pride ; and, while we point to 
 their names on our rolls, we pray that we too may not 
 forget that the field is the world. 
 
 III. Again, the seminary has been remarkable for its 
 steady conservatism. 
 
 Amid the many novelties which have so much dis- 
 turbed the peace of the Church, we of the Virginia 
 Seminary have been asking for the old paths, and walk- 
 ing in them ; and we have done so on principle, and 
 as a matter of choice. 
 
 It matters not if some have called us slow ; it matters 
 not if some have suggested doubt as to our attachment 
 and loyalty to our Church, — I say it matters not : for. 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 101 
 
 in the result, " Wisdom is justified of all her children;" 
 and so the events of a few years back showed before all 
 the world how true and loyal were the hearts of our 
 Church-people in Virginia. 
 
 The men of the seminary were not to be driven away 
 or enticed from the Church in which they had been 
 bom and nurtured. With unswerving devotion they 
 stood, and still stand, in the lot where God's providence 
 has placed them, and have, I believe, done a work which 
 is beyond all estimate in influencing the whole Church 
 against extremes either on the right hand or on the 
 left. 
 
 The history and work of the seminary has been along 
 the lines indicated, and, fairly to state the case, presents 
 its strongest claim upon our continued confidence and 
 support. 
 
 I speak with all the greater freedom, because we of 
 West Virginia claim our heritage in the seminary as in 
 the Diocese. Your past is ours also, full of the same 
 associations, hallowed by the same experiences, and 
 adorned with the same illustrious names. Yes, your 
 past is ours also, and we can look back upon it with 
 equal pride to-day ; and we are encouraged for all that 
 is before us, because we feel that the past, at least, is 
 secure. 
 
 We have come here to take part in all the exercises 
 connected with this centennial observance : so we would 
 erect a memoi'ial here in your very midst, to testify that 
 we also who live beyond the distant hills are not of 
 another people or another faith; but that, as we have 
 been, so we would be, one with you in the life-work of 
 our common Church. 
 
102 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 Now, then, the practical bearing of all this that I have 
 said about the seminary lies in this simple application 
 of it : that in the future, as in the past, as is the semi- 
 nary so is the Diocese, or, rather, let me say the two 
 Virginia Dioceses. 
 
 The histories will continue to run parallel ; you could 
 not separate or disconnect them, even if you would. 
 
 Certainly, then, those who had charge of the exercises 
 connected with the centennial of the Diocese did well 
 to provide for special mention of the seminary, its history 
 and work. It could not have been ignored at a time like 
 this. It has been too important a factor in the life of 
 our Church in the Old Dominion, and we look for con- 
 tinued usefulness for it in the years that are to come. 
 
 I must ask your indulgence if I add here what was, 
 perhaps, not at all expected of me, yet what seems to 
 me to have a very close connection with the whole 
 subject. 
 
 I want to remind you of this : that, in many ways, 
 what the seminary is to the Diocese, that the Education 
 Society is to the seminaiy ; not formally or necessarily 
 a part of it, yet so ministering to it, and co-operating 
 with it in all its work, that you can hardly speak of the 
 one without thinking of the other. 
 
 The Education Society of Virginia is one of the 
 instruments — would it be too much to say the chief 
 instrument 1 — by which the seminary has been able to 
 do its work. In all that has been done in the Diocese 
 of Virginia for the last fifty or sixty years, these things 
 have stood together, and mutually supported and 
 strengthened one another. 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 103 
 
 During all these years the history and work of the 
 seminary and the Education Society have been so woven 
 together, that, in telling the storj' of either, you tell the 
 story of both. The same illustrious men have carried 
 on both these institutions, vsdth a like spuit and suc- 
 cess. 
 
 In the objections you sometimes hear raised against 
 both seminaries and education societies, I think that 
 people forget just the place they occupy among the 
 working-forces of the Church. It must be remembered 
 that they are auxiliary to the regular Church machinery ; 
 not controlling, but being controlled. 
 
 They can of themselves do nothing, having no author- 
 ity to commission and send forth ministers. The re- 
 sponsibility of deciding upon the qualifications of 
 candidates for Orders, and of admitting them into the 
 ministry, does not rest upon seminaries and education 
 societies, but rather with the vestries and standing com- 
 mittees, with the Chaplains and the Bishops. 
 
 The ultimate responsibility lies with these ; and, if 
 mistakes are sometimes made, they must bear the blame. 
 
 While, then, the administrators of the seminary and 
 Education Society ought to remember what an influence 
 rightly attaches to their recommendation, and should 
 exercise a most scrupulous care, yet let not others shift 
 upon them a responsibility not properly theirs. 
 
 In the last fifty years there have been about five 
 hundred Clergy laboring from time to time in Virginia. 
 It would be interesting to know how many of them 
 came from our seminary. At all events, this we can 
 say : that, out of upwards of a hundred and fifty now 
 
104 THEOLOGICAL SEMINABY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 belonging to the Diocese, more than a hundred and 
 twenty came from the seminary ; and that, of the thirty- 
 nine who have been connected with West Vkginia since 
 its separate organization, more than two-thirds were 
 educated at this same school of the prophets. Further, 
 of the thu-ty-six hundred and forty-five Clergy in our 
 whole Church in the United States, upwards of six 
 hundred and twenty are from our seminary. 
 
 These men have made a noble record at home and 
 abroad, in every position of responsibility and trust. 
 They are Bishops in the Church in domestic and for- 
 eign fields, professors in our seminary, parish ministers 
 in town and country and in the isles of the sea. 
 
 In the work they have done and are doing, they 
 speak for their alma mater. To be ignorant of this 
 work, is not to know its history of the past fifty years 
 or of the present times. I shall not attempt to eulo- 
 gize men who need no eulogy beyond thek record, 
 known and read of all men. 
 
 We are here to-day to strengthen each other's hands 
 in the work which God has given us to do, and to renew 
 our devotion to those principles which have ever guided 
 the seminary, and to that spirit which has always ani- 
 mated it in the past. In ourselves we may be nothing, 
 but we believe that the work we do for Christ and the 
 Church shall live after us. And so, while Paul plants 
 and ApoUos waters, we will pray God to give the 
 increase. 
 
 Twelve years ago, on the occasion of the semi-cen- 
 tennial akeady alluded to, Dr. Packard used words I 
 desire to repeat and emphasize to-day. He said, " Let 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 105 
 
 this great era in our seminary life be not only an occa- 
 sion for reviewing the past, but a starting-point for a 
 new era of greater progress." 
 
 And although the income which he then stated as 
 about seven thousand dollars has been increased to 
 about twelve thousand dollars, still we say to-day, as he 
 said twelve years ago, that we need to have our endow- 
 ment increased, for it is not equal to our pressing needs. 
 And yet more emphatically may we say to-day, since 
 we have increased the number of our alumni by at 
 least twelve classes, that now is the time to do this work, 
 as the seminary, with an ever- widening circle of alumni, 
 enters upon a new era with an ever-brightening prospect 
 of wide and healthful influence. 
 
 At the same time it was also said, " We need a new 
 chapel." We thank God to-day that that need has been 
 so well supplied. 
 
 And then I recall those other words, " We need a 
 new library building : the present building is not only 
 full, but has great and irremediable defects." If that 
 was true ten years ago, much more is it true now. It 
 may be that we shall take such words as these as indi- 
 cating what is the next thing for us to do. At all events, 
 there is work for us of to-day, — work for us to do in 
 carrying forward to a stUl higher state of efficiency that 
 great institution which has been left as a sacred trust 
 by those who have gone before. Let us devise liberal 
 things, let us do with our might what our hands find to 
 do, and, by God's blessing upon us, we shall hand down 
 this seminary to those that come after us, stronger and 
 better equipped ia every way to do its work. 
 
106 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIBQINIA. 
 
 May its future be more full of honor and usefulness 
 than its past, and may God ever bless it in maintaining 
 the pure truth of His Word, iu making His way known 
 upon earth, His saving health among all nations ! 
 
THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGinA. 
 
 ADDRESS OF REV. JULIUS E. GRAMMER, D.D., RECTOR 
 OF ST. PETER'S PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
 A GREAT English writer has said, " Far from me and 
 my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct 
 us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which 
 has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That 
 man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not 
 gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety 
 would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona." 
 With equal truth we may say, he is not to be envied 
 whose love for the Church of God, for this Diocese, 
 and the work of the ministry, is not increased by the 
 history of the Virginia Theological Seminary. They 
 who have been nurtured for the ministry of the Gospel 
 as her sons call her their Alma Mater, but she has been 
 a nui'sing and dear mother to the whole Church. What 
 a great company of preachers have gone forth from her 
 halls as the Lord gave the word! What wide fields 
 have been sown and garnered by those who have been 
 nourished by her into the spirit and work of preaching 
 Christ ! 
 
 In all ranks of the Christian ministry, in all climes, 
 and I had almost said among all races, her alumni 
 
108 THEOLOGICAL SEMINAET OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 have heralded the good news. If we could summon 
 before us all who have been enrolled among her stu- 
 dents, what a vast array would appear of men mar- 
 shalled under one banner, in allegiance to one Master, 
 and pledged to the conquest of the world for Christ ! 
 They would equal four times as many Clergymen as 
 are now in this Diocese, and they would constitute one- 
 fifth of the whole number enrolled in this Church in 
 the United States. 
 
 The history of the seminary is identified with a large 
 part of the history of the Dibcese, and, indeed, with 
 that of the whole Church in America. 
 
 When it was founded we were comparatively a feeble 
 folk, both in secular and ecclesiastical life, both as a 
 Church and as a Nation. At that time there was a 
 population of nine millions in this country, and now 
 there are over fifty millions. At that time there were 
 only three hundred and thirty-one Clergymen in all the 
 Church, and now there are over three thousand six 
 hundred and fifty. The number of communicants did 
 not exceed thirty thousand, and now it is estimated to 
 be three hundred and eighty thousand. When the 
 seminary was begun, there had been only twenty Bish- 
 ops consecrated, and of these but ten were living ; now 
 there are sixty-seven. The Clergy in Virginia were but 
 a handful, and widely scattered, and with limited facili- 
 ties for travel. There were in all the land about thirty 
 colleges and universities, and now there are three hun- 
 dred and seventy exclusive of numerous agricultural 
 and mechanical colleges, and special schools of science, 
 law, and medicine ; and nine of these are under Protes- 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINABT OF VIRGINIA. 109 
 
 tant Episcopal influence. At that time there were not 
 more than twelve theological seminaries in the country, 
 and now there are about one hundred and forty-five of 
 known existence, and some others whose continued life 
 is doubtful. Then there were about sixty-one candi- 
 dates for Holy Orders, and at the last General Conven- 
 tion the summaiy amounted to four hundred and oile. 
 Now there are at least sixteen theological seminaries in 
 our Church. Then there were few libraries, and the 
 cost of these excessive : now the press teems with the 
 best productions of the consecrated talent of America, 
 and furnishes reprints of the best authors abroad. 
 
 " Knowledge increases," and all the aids of sacred 
 learning and of a critical study of the Holy Bible are 
 richly supplied to us. 
 
 It is a striking and suggestive fact, that on the roll 
 of the seminary there are as many as seven hundred and 
 fifty-nine names of its alumni. Of these, forty have been 
 missionaries in foreign lands, and eighteen consecrated 
 as Bishops in the Church of God. 
 
 Surely the little seed has grown to be a great tree, 
 and the handful of corn has been made to shake like 
 Lebanon. 
 
 We may well pause to contemplate this work of faith 
 and patient love on which God has set his seal. " We 
 have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told 
 us, what work Thou didst in their days, in the times of 
 old." 
 
 That we may fix in our minds some salient points in 
 this review, it would be well to notice the men who have 
 been identified with the seminary, the work which it has 
 
no THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIBOINIA. 
 
 accomplislied, and the principles which have governed 
 its history and administration. 
 
 I. —THE MEN. 
 
 Their names are well known, and deserve to be had in 
 remembrance. 
 
 The Eev. Dr. Slaughter, whose fervent eloquence and 
 poetic imagination have given unusual attractiveness to 
 the details of the diocesan history, tells us how there 
 were stationed at that time, in Alexandria, Eev. Dr. 
 Wilmer and Rev. Mr. Norris ; in Georgetown, Eev. Mr. 
 Addison and Eev. Mr. Mcllvaine ; in Washington, Eev. 
 Mr. Hawley and Rev. Ethan Allen; in Frederick 
 County, Va., Rev. Mr. Meade; at Hagerstown, Md., 
 Rev. Mr. Lemmon ; at Frederick, Md., Rev. Mr. Johns ; 
 in Baltimore, Rev. Dr. Henshaw ; in Prince George 
 County, Rev. Mr. Tyng; in Charles County, Ya., Rev. 
 Mr. Mann; and in Fredericksburgh, Va., Rev. Mr. 
 McGuire. 
 
 These in then- due order, and in their proportionate 
 strength, and in their fuU opportunity, each helped to 
 found this seminary. They were men whose futiu'e 
 career, in some instances, made them conspicuous for 
 their service to the whole Church ; they were men, for 
 the most part, of zeal and prayer and wisdom. But 
 foremost of them all stands the name of William Meade. 
 On his monument it is recorded that he was " the founder 
 of the Theological Seminary of Virginia." And while 
 he bore many titles, as Doctor, Bishop, and president 
 of learned and benevolent societies, yet no title ever 
 conferred upon him a more pronounced distinction, or 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINABY OF VIBOINIA. Ill 
 
 entitled him to a more lasting gratitude, than that of 
 " founder of the Theological Seminary of Virginia." In 
 his character were blended virtues which made him a 
 marked man. 
 
 He united the intrepidity of a soldier with the devo- 
 tion of a saint. He impressed upon his time and peo- 
 ple and the Church the type of his sturdy and valiant 
 hardihood. Certainly he led in paths of brave endeavor 
 and severe discipline, fie endured hardness as a good 
 soldier of Jesus Christ. He had native eloquence and 
 a strong mind, with well-disciplined power of reasoning. 
 He was keenly alive to the pathos of sacred poetry, 
 and in his heart there glowed a love of God and man 
 which shone through all his deeds. But his chief quali- 
 ties were a stern integrity and a holy zeal, united to 
 extraordinary gifts of administration. 
 
 Exercising himself in keeping a pure record and in 
 the cultivation of simple habits, he set the example of 
 a good leader to his flock and his Diocese. As Alexan- 
 der refused to enjoy luxuries which his soldiers were 
 denied, so did Bishop Meade live as simply as the hum- 
 blest of his Clergy. He saved, that he might give, and 
 gave with a secrecy often known only to God. His 
 benefactions were, relatively to his ability, large ; and, 
 like a father, he pitied and succored the sons of the 
 Church in' their distress. Though the Church in Vir- 
 ginia was so feeble when he entered its ministry, as to 
 provoke the regrets of Judge Marshall that a young 
 man of such promise should link his destinies with so 
 forlorn a hope, yet he lived to see it revived and strong, 
 and was acknowledged as, under God, the chief instru- 
 
112 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 ment in attaining that result. His wise discrimination, 
 his judicious administration, his patient and toilsome 
 labors, entitle him to a place in this Diocese like that 
 of Washington in the Nation. He was the father of 
 the Church here, and eminently of the seminary. His 
 prolific pen has furnished treatises, chai'ges, tracts, and 
 sermons imbued with the spii'it of the Gospel, and well 
 fitted to guide and uphold his growing Diocese. The 
 seminary has attained such a mature strength because 
 the pure milk of the Word and the strong meat of the 
 Gospel were given to her by his hand. Men sought to 
 asperse his churchmanship ; but he exercised an honest 
 and independent judgment, guided by the light of his- 
 tory and of the Bible. He sought to make this sem- 
 inary a school where evangelical truth and apostolic 
 order should be duly cultivated and practised. He 
 lived to taste the sweetness of the fruit of his own 
 planting, and to realize in this great Diocese and this 
 established school of sacred learning the hopes of his 
 life. 
 
 At the side of Bishop Meade, and among the best 
 friends of the seminary, gathered its professors. Dr. 
 Keith was eminent as a preacher and a philologist. 
 He seemed to realize, as another has described him, 
 " the powers of the world to come." The fervor of his 
 piety and his evangelical preaching greatly favored the 
 ministerial efiiciency of his students. His spotless rec- 
 ord and faithful labors are the heritage of the seminary. 
 God honored him in his office, and in the gift of a son 
 of missionary zeal and martyr spirit. 
 
 After giving his life to the cause of missions in China, 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 113 
 
 that son left his entire fortune as a legacy to that cause. 
 On the walls of the seminary chapel is a mural tablet 
 whose simplicity is equalled only by its honest testimony 
 to the great and good man who was, in historic order, 
 the first professor of this institution. 
 
 Professors Wilmer, Norris, and Lippitt should be held 
 in grateful memory for their learning and patient labor 
 in this cause. They were like faithful workmen who 
 put their conscience into every part of the structure, 
 and sought to bring it to a glorious consummation. 
 
 Nor should we forget Bishop Johns, whose relation to 
 the seminary was that both of professor for a season 
 and of vice-president and Bishop for many years. His 
 fame was in all the churches as a man of rare eloquence 
 and fervent oratory. The echoes of his ministry linger 
 in our memory like the chimes of sabbath bells. His 
 memory was wonderfully accurate, and his voice of sil- 
 very sweetness ; and he had a pathos and tenderness, 
 a power and persuasiveness, which drew all hearts after 
 him, and after the Saviour he preached. If Bishop 
 Meade was eminent for administrative gifts, Bishop 
 Johns was equally so for the superiority of his attain- 
 ments, as a preacher. 
 
 With such men as Meade and Johns, we are not 
 surprised that the Diocese and seminary grew, and 
 attracted from far and near those whom God called to 
 preach his Gospel. They were lights that could not be 
 hid, burning and shining in the intensity of zeal and 
 the beauty of consistency; and we rejoiced to see 
 them. 
 
 Among these professors there is one living to-day. 
 
114 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 whose head is frosted with well-nigh fifty years of ser- 
 vice in the chair which he has adorned by his learning 
 and piety. Sharing in the life of the seminary, he has 
 given in this half-century his support, his prayers, and 
 his daily labors, " in season and out of season," to make 
 it what it is. A great procession of students has passed 
 under his review as he has trained them in the knowl- 
 edge of those languages inscribed upon the Cross, and 
 through which the Gospel has been made known under 
 the whole heavens. The Greek and the Hebrew ; the 
 languages of learning and of religion, of philosophy and 
 of poetry ; the most rhythmical and ductile, possibly, of 
 all tongues ; the languages hallowed by prophets and 
 apostles, — are associated in the mind of eveiy student 
 of the Virginia Theological Seminary with the venerable 
 and beloved professor Dr. Joseph Packard. 
 
 His golden-wedding day as a professor, now so near 
 at hand, we trust, may be worthily commemorated in 
 giving the seminary a dowry of as many thousands of 
 dollars as he has given years to her service, and by a 
 lasting token of their gratitude to him from his many 
 hundred students. 
 
 When the learned Dr. Keith was lost to the seminary, 
 it pleased God to raise up a man whose name became 
 a tower of strength to the Church in this Diocese. No 
 worldly possessions could equal the value to this sacred 
 institution of such a character and qualification as dis- 
 tinguished the late Dr. Sparrow. 
 
 With a mind that understood the most difficult prob- 
 lems in ontology, and that held easy converse with 
 the masters of English theology, he spent over thirty 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 115 
 
 years of his life as one of the most illustrious teachers 
 in the whole Church. Never can we forget how his 
 piety rose above the altitude of his intellectual great- 
 ness, like the sun above the Alpine peaks. While 
 students were fascinated and awed by his endowments 
 and greatness, they were captivated by the charm of his 
 humility and gentleness. His own beloved and accom- 
 plished pupil, Professor Walker, has done such justice 
 to his qualities, in his Commencement address of 1874, 
 that it deserves to be vrritten in letters of gold, and given 
 to every student as the model for his imitation. As 
 long as virtue and learning, as intellect consecrated by 
 piety, as gentleness united vsdth heroic devotion to the 
 truth, are held in high esteem, so long will the name 
 of William Sparrow be as a bright particular star in 
 the canopy which overhangs the seminary, studded as 
 it is vsdth such a constellation of great lights. 
 
 And by his side walked, in unbroken friendship, that 
 saintly teacher whose name was typical of his character. 
 James May was the impersonation of a mild and genial 
 nature. His life was fruitful of kindness, hospitalities, 
 and good works ; and his memory redolent of the per- 
 fume of a charity which never failed. His home was the 
 Bethany of the missionaiy ; and with the lovely attrac- 
 tions of his most enthusiastic and godly v^dfe, and the 
 worshipping circle that gathered around his board, it 
 gave one a foretaste of heavenly re-unions. His learn- 
 ing and qualifications for the chair he filled, with 
 so great advantage to the seminaiy, commanded the 
 highest respect of his students ; and his addresses at 
 the faculty meetings, and his sermons in the chapel, 
 
116 THEOLOGICAL SEMINABT OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 impressed all with a sense of his deep experience of 
 personal religion. 
 
 "When such a man, familiar with the skies, 
 Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise ; 
 And once more mingles with us meaner things, 
 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings. — 
 Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
 Which tells us whence his treasures are supplied." 
 
 Well may we rejoice that the mantle of such men 
 has fallen upon worthy successors. The professors, at 
 the seminary, hold with a strong grasp the banners they 
 received from their hands. They walk by the same 
 rule, and mind the same thing. The seminary moves 
 on in the harmony and strength, in the joy and patient 
 service, of former years. May it ever be, as in the past, 
 a nursing mother of sons who shall be true to the 
 heritage of such names and such memories ! 
 
 In connection with those, so noted for learning and 
 piety, there ought to be remembered on this occasion 
 those godly men and women, whose prayers and alms, 
 in behalf of this " school of the prophets," have been 
 their memorial before God. 
 
 Mrs. Sophia Jones of Virginia, and Mr. John Bohlen 
 of Philadelpha, and Rev. William H. C. Robertson, a 
 devoted alumnus, have been the principal benefactors 
 of the library. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, sen., of New York, with 
 many other expressions of a practical generosity to the 
 seminary, contributed the building-fund for St. George's 
 Hall. 
 
 The brothers William and James Aspinwall of New 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIBGINIA. 117 
 
 York, parishioners of Dr. Bedell of Ascension Church, 
 have left in the hall, named after them, the memorial of 
 their Christian devotion. 
 
 " Bohlen Hall " is the benefaction of a layman, whose 
 charities have extended throughout the Church, and 
 even to Africa. 
 
 " Meade Hall," is the lasting testimonial of the love 
 and reverence of the sons of the seminary for their 
 father, in God, the Bishop of the Diocese, for so many 
 years. 
 
 The chapel is the contribution of alumni and friends, 
 in all parts of the country, and particularly of the much- 
 loved and respected Dr. H. Dyer of New York. 
 
 The name of Samuel G. Wyman, of Baltimore, should 
 be mentioned here, as a patron, whose favor was long 
 enjoyed ; and it is to be hoped that a proposed endow- 
 ment of fifty thousand dollars, from his estate, may yet 
 be realized, in view of his generous intent, frustrated 
 only by the sudden and relentless hand of death. 
 
 As the foremost of all givers to our seminary, the 
 name of Mr. Anson Dodge of New York should be 
 gratefully mentioned. His benefactions have exceeded 
 forty thousand dollars. 
 
 But there have been others whose gifts are known 
 not so generally. They have prayed, and labored, and 
 exercised a jealous vigilance, above all price in money. 
 Such a friend has been Mr. Cassius F. Lee. 
 
 Bishop Meade, in one of his addresses, said, — 
 
 " From an early period, to the present time, he has been active- 
 ly engaged, by correspondence, in raising funds for the Education 
 Society, for the various buildings which have been put up ; acting 
 
118 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 as receiver and disburser of the same, as well as making contracts, 
 and superintending the work. Much cave and trouble have de- 
 volved upon him in the performance of these duties ; and to no 
 individual in the Diocese are we indebted for so large a share of 
 labor and anxiety, in our behalf, as to himself, besides the occa- 
 sional advance of moneys, when our funds were low." 
 
 As Bishop Johns writes, in his Life of Bishop Meade, 
 " Cassius F. Lee is, with one consent, considered as 
 eminently ' the seminary's benefactor J " 
 
 Thus God has honored this institution, by gathering 
 around it a band of workers, skilled in teaching, and of 
 fervent piety, and of one heart. There it stands to-day, 
 the monument of a prayer-hearing God. 
 
 Situated over against the Capitol of the nation, it pre- 
 sents a striking contrast in its simplicity and purposes 
 to that stately structure. Near the metropolis of the 
 political and social glory of this Western world, it oifers 
 a beautiful illustration of the quietness, and content- 
 ment, which are given to those who seek God, compared 
 with the restless aspirations of those who are tempted 
 by pleasure, wealth, and power. 
 
 Happy would it be if the principles, and spirit, that 
 govern the Theological Seminary of Virginia, possessed 
 the hearts and minds of all rulers and legislators. 
 Happy, indeed, would we be, if it could be graven upon 
 their memories that " Righteousness exalteth a nation : hut 
 sin is a reproach to any people." Surely we ought to 
 pray that more of the young men, of our land, may be 
 led, from the passionate greed for gold and worldly glory, 
 to seek that substance which is enduring, — that unfading 
 crown, and that ministry which the Holy Ghost blesses 
 and honors. 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIBQINIA. 119 
 
 " The hai-vest truly is great, but the laborers are few: 
 pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He 
 would send forth laborers into His harvest." 
 
 II —THE WORK. 
 
 We turn now to consider the work of the seminary. 
 It has supplied the Diocese with "a great company" 
 of preachers. Like a spring, it has sent out streams of 
 refreshment to all the parishes of Virginia, and, indeed, 
 of many other Dioceses. Like the military and naval 
 academies, which train men for valiant exploits, by sea 
 and by land, and seek to cultivate in them the spirit of 
 a soldier, this seminary has been a training-school for 
 those who would be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
 
 To its influence we may trace that purity of life, that 
 zeal in labors, that accomplishment in sacred learning, 
 that pastoral efficiency and pulpit power, which have 
 distinguished her Clergy. 
 
 And not only in Virginia, but throughout the whole 
 country, we see the sons of this seminary, holding posi- 
 tions of wide influence, and exercising thek ministry, 
 with the tokens of God's richest blessing, to the great 
 comfort of the whole Church. 
 
 The time would fail to mention the names of the 
 Bishops, and Presbyters, here and over all the territory 
 of the Church's large work, who have been nourished 
 by this dear mother of us all, for a holy ministry. We 
 find them in New York, and Boston ; in Ohio and 
 Kentucky ; in California and Iowa ; in Long Island, 
 Pennsylvania, and Maryland, stationed along our coasts, 
 like lights, cheering and refreshing by their example 
 and doctrine. 
 
120 THEOLOGICAL SEMINABT OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 If you cast your eye over the sea, there in distant 
 China and Japan, and in Africa, the brave and devoted 
 sons of this seminary are laboring to preach among the 
 heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ. The roll 
 of honorable names is too long to recite. Conspicuous 
 among them, are those of Boone and Payne ; of Henning 
 and Messenger ; of Hoffman and Holcomb ; and those 
 godly women, Catharine Jones, and Susan Sparrow, 
 whose piety was kindled on that hill, and whose devo- 
 tion to Christ was crowned with such heroic service. 
 
 " They climbed the steep asceut to heaven 
 Through peril, toil, and pain ; 
 O God ! to us may grace be given 
 To follow in their train ! " 
 
 The seminary has won the confidence and reverent 
 love of the Church, by furnishing these bright examples 
 of the Christian life. 
 
 The pictures, in Prayer Hall, of those missionaries, 
 seem to speak to us, as did the portrait of Henry Mar- 
 tyn, to Charles Simeon, and echo the solemn appeal : 
 " Don't trifle." 
 
 No wonder they were men of such power before God, 
 for they anticipated the day to ask in prayer for that 
 strength and faith which made their lives so fragrant 
 and fruitful. 
 
 It was their example, which moved others to give of 
 their substance to this dear seminary. 
 
 The message of the sainted Hoffman rings upon our 
 ears to-day, as reported to us by Bishop Payne : " Tell 
 them, by the living Crucified One, not to hold back their 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 121 
 
 hands." And, as if to remind us of our high and holy 
 commission, he raised his dying head to utter these 
 memorable words : " Tidings, tidings from the Lord 
 Jesus ! " 
 
 The work of this seminary can never be told. God 
 only has recorded these silent and mighty influences, 
 which have gone forth from it, like a deep and full- 
 flowing river, gladdening all it touched. 
 
 The students of this institution have, for the most 
 part, been true to their commission, and to " the doc- 
 trine of Christ, as this Church hath received the same." 
 No encouragement or sympathy has been found here 
 for those who would efface the Protestant character or 
 title of our Church. The whole tendency of its teach- 
 ing has been to cherish a love for the order, in govern- 
 ment, and purity, in doctrine, which have distinguished 
 this branch of Christ's Church upon earth. The pro- 
 fessors, bishops, and alumni have contributed to this 
 result by essays, sermons, articles in the periodical lit- 
 erature of the Church, as well as by biographies and 
 more extensive publications. Thus they have greatly 
 aided, in protecting the pulpit and the chancel, from all 
 kregularity and error in worship and doctrine ; and, 
 most of all, in seeking to secure the lives of God's min- 
 isters and people from reproach. 
 
 In attempting to count up the results of this work, 
 we would remind you of the parishes and churches, 
 which have been, and are now being, ministered unto 
 by the sons of this seminary. What, above all, deserves 
 to be mentioned is, the constant appeal made here to 
 cultivate a holy life, and those meetings of the faculty, 
 
122 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 when the dignity and responsibility, the duty and the 
 divine aid pledged to the ministry, were so faithfully set 
 forth. 
 
 Surely those good professors were wise master- 
 builders ; and they sought to warn and teach every man 
 that he might not profane the Church by a spirit of 
 merchandise or sacrilegious traffic in sacred things. The 
 ministry was shown to be a calUng from God, for the 
 edification of the Church, and not one of the professions, 
 to be followed in a secular spirit. 
 
 Those solemn and sacred evenings can never be for- 
 gotten, as rich in heavenly influences. 
 
 ' ' How sweet their memory still ! ' ' 
 
 A heart yearning to glorify God, and charged with 
 love to Christ, is to be counted as the highest qualifica- 
 tion for a minister of the Gospel. 
 
 III.— THE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 The principles which have been at the foundation of 
 all this work are those of the Holy Bible. The super- 
 structure is enduring and symmetrical, because it has 
 been fashioned, after the plan of God, as revealed in 
 His Word. The formative power has been that of God's 
 Spirit, and this institution has sought to follow and 
 reflect the mind of God. 
 
 Certain great doctrines have here been distinctively 
 set forth, as giving meaning to the mission and ministry 
 of the seminary. These doctrines are such, as distin- 
 guished the Eeformation in England, Germany, Scot- 
 land, and Switzerland. 
 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 123 
 
 They are Scriptural, as authorized by the Word of 
 God ; they are Protestant, as contrasted with those of the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 The Reformation, in England, had for its basis the 
 great truth that the Bible is the supreme and ultimate 
 authority in matters of faith and morals. That, in Ger- 
 many, established, as the article of a standing or falling 
 Church, our justification before God, by faith only, in 
 the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. That, in Scotland, 
 was for the vindication of the supreme authority of 
 Christ, as King in Zion, and Head over aU things to 
 His Church. That, in Switzerland, was for the clear 
 determination, upon the warrant of the Bible, of the 
 value of the sacraments, as signs and pledges and means 
 of grace, but not as the sources and channels of spir- 
 itual life. Holding these cardinal principles, this sem- 
 inary is identified with the English Church, and with 
 her daughter, the Protestant Episcopal Church in Amer- 
 ica, in seeking to establish and promulge them more 
 and more. 
 
 Her teaching has been Protestant, as refusing to make 
 (as the Roman Church does) tradition of co-ordinate 
 authority with the Bible ; Protestant, as refusing to adore 
 relics, invoke saints, pray for the dead, and accept any 
 mediator between the soul and the holy God but the 
 one mediator, Christ Jesus. 
 
 Besides this, the doctrines taught by this seminary 
 are Evangelical ; and by that, we mean they are distin- 
 guished from a system of sacramental ceremonialism, 
 which professes to work ex opere operato. Evangelical 
 religion sets forward the salvation of all men, by faith 
 
124 THEOLOGICAL 8EMINABT OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 in Christ. It proclaims the sovereign grace of God, by 
 the operation of the Holy Ghost, and in connection with 
 the truth, " as in Jesus." It exalts Jesus as the only 
 priest; the cross as the only altar; and the death of 
 Christ as the only sacrifice. Evangelical religion regards 
 preaching, as the chief office of the ministry ; and depends 
 upon it as ordained of God for the salvation of the 
 believer, and not upon the mechanical application of 
 positive institutions. 
 
 It teaches the fall of man, and his need of a new 
 birth; the sovereignty of Divine grace, and the respon- 
 sibility each one is under, in the exercise of his free 
 agency, to give an account of himself to God. 
 
 This seminary has sought to uphold that system of 
 Protestant, Evangelical religion, which condemns the 
 practice and teaching of priestly absolution and auricular 
 confession of sins. 
 
 It has sought to cultivate a worship free from mere- 
 tricious ritual, and to lead the soul to realize that 
 " God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must wor- 
 ship him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 It is Episcopal, holding with the Ordinal, no more and 
 no less; not exclusive, but historic, in its spirit and 
 practice, as to the order of Church government. 
 
 And at the same time it is Catholic, in that it not only 
 recognizes, but greets and prays for grace to all those, 
 who love our Lord Jesus Christ, in sincerity. It owns 
 the body of Christ, which is the Church, to be " the 
 blessed company of all faithful people." 
 
 Such an institution has the highest and holiest claims 
 upon all, who love the Church and her mission. 
 
THEOLOGICAL 8EMINABT OF YIROINIA. 125 
 
 It needs an increased endowment, and a larger force to 
 cover the field of preparation, required for its students. 
 
 It needs a new library edifice, and a supply of new 
 books. 
 
 The immense progress of the country, in material 
 wealth, involves a- corresponding responsibility. The 
 chief security to the State and the Church is an enlight- 
 ened pulpit and a consecrated ministry. 
 
 The founding of scholarships in England, and the 
 endowment of the Bampton and Boyle lectureships, have 
 contributed to the increase and diffusion of sacred learn- 
 ing. In this country, of late years, large offerings have 
 been made for the generous education of our young 
 men. Paca, Cornell, Peabody, and Hopkins have given 
 their milUons, for secular sciences. What better com- 
 memoration of this centennial year could be made, than 
 to endow this great seminary of our Church ] A few 
 strong institutions deserve the united patronage of the 
 many; a few poorly endowed colleges and seminaries 
 take away the supply which should be given to those 
 which are strong. The Divine plan is, that " to him 
 that hath shall be given ; " and there is a reason for 
 the law of " the survival of the fittest." The Virginia 
 Seminary has become more than historic : it has gained 
 the confidence and the support which the most scrupu- 
 lous discrimination can bestow. 
 
 Worthy of this centennial year of the Diocese of Vir- 
 ginia would it be, to endow the seminary, as a memorial 
 of God's goodness. Such an act would bring down the 
 blessing of God, upon the donors, and yield the richest 
 return, in a living ministry of salvation to dying souls. 
 
126 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 It would help to extend those principles which are the 
 life of the Church, and to promote the glory of God. 
 
 May He send the dew of His grace upon this vine 
 of His own planting, and make it to grow as the corn, 
 and flourish as the lily, and be a joy and a praise in the 
 futiure, as it has been in the past. Amen and Amen. 
 
SKETCH OF OUE FIEST FOUE BISHOPS. 
 
 BY REV. C. I. GIBSON, D.D. 
 
 It is God's own command, that His people should 
 " remember those who once had the rule over them, 
 who spake to them the Word of God, and that we 
 should consider the end of their conversation;" i.e., 
 note carefully the effect of their lives, and " imitate 
 their faith." A most sacred duty is it, therefore, to our 
 God, as well as to the departed rulers of the Church in 
 Virginia, to "keep their memories green;" and a no less 
 sacred duty to ourselves, by a careful study of their 
 manner of life, their walk with God, and method of 
 work for the prosperity of the Church in this Diocese, 
 noting their failures as well as their successes, to 
 strengthen our own faith, and increase our own useful- 
 ness. If it be interesting and profitable to study " God 
 in history," it is surely no less so to mark the workings 
 of his providence and grace in biography. It must he 
 so if the finger of inspiration point us to the lives 
 of our own spiritual rulers and teachers as the field of 
 observation. 
 
 The consecration of the first Bishop of Virginia was 
 an event in the history of the Church in this country of 
 far greater importance than is generally supposed; it 
 
128 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 was a step which became essential to the peace and 
 prosperity of the whole Church. 
 
 The Seabury centennial of last November did not fail 
 to remind us that ours was not the first Bishop that the 
 Church in America received. We recognize the fact, 
 and acknowledge cheerfully that to the Diocese of 
 Connecticut belongs the honor of receiving the first 
 Bishop. But is it not a most significant fact, that eight 
 years was suffered to elapse before Bishop Seabury was 
 called on by the Church to exercise his episcopal powers 
 in aiding to perpetuate the apostolical succession, — a 
 thing then much needed, much desired, by the Church % 
 Is it not a significant fact, also, that — although Bishops 
 White and Provoost had been consecrated in 1187, and 
 thus three Bishops, the number required by ancient 
 canon for a regular c msecration, were now in the coun- 
 try; and although a Bishop-elect from Massachusetts, 
 Dr. Edward Bass, had been recommended to them for 
 consecration in 1789, — it was not until September, 1792, 
 more than five years after the arrival of the two Bishops 
 from England, and eight years after Bishop Seabury's 
 arrival, that the former called upon the latter to unite 
 with them in the consecration of Dr. Thomas John 
 Claggett of Maryland, the first Bishop consecrated on 
 American soil? Hi ow, why this delay? The truth appears 
 from the following facts, which show plainly the great 
 importance to the welfare of the whole Church of that 
 step which gave Virginia her first Bishop. " The time 
 has long since gone by," says Bishop Seabury's excellent 
 biographer, " when there need be any timidity or hesita- 
 tion in speaking freely of those upon whom obloquy 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 129 
 
 was once heaped for conscientiously espousing the cause 
 of the Crown. . . . Dr. Seabury began life as an enthu- 
 siastic royalist, and asserted his political opinions with a 
 sturdiness and ability which, in the heats of the Revolu- 
 tion, put him in great peril and distress." This fact of 
 itself, that Dr. Seabury was a Tory, and one of a most 
 aggressive stamp, is almost enough to explain the pecul- 
 iar state of things which then existed, — the tardiness of 
 the other Bishops and Clergy in receiving him into their 
 ranks, and the difficulties which on every side, both 
 within and without, beset our Church in the first years 
 of its independent existence. But, besides being an 
 outspoken opponent of the Amei'ican Revolution, Bishop 
 Seabury had been chaplain to Col. Faiming's regiment 
 of Tories in the British army, and had served with 
 them through the war. He had left New York for 
 England, to seek consecration, before the city had been 
 evacuated by the British troops ; and it was said he 
 continued after consecration to receive his half-pay as a 
 retired officer, from the British Government. But this 
 was not all. 
 
 The succession from the non-juring Bishops of Scot- 
 land was not at that time officially recognized by the 
 English Church. The laws against them were repealed 
 after Bishop Madison's consecration. It is well known 
 that Bishop Provoost of New York would have nothing 
 to do with the Scotch succession, and pronounced it 
 " irregular." 
 
 The New- York Convention in 1788 had "resolved. 
 That it is highly necessary that measures should be pur- 
 sued to preserve the episcopal succession in the English 
 
130 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 line ; " and while they declared the proposed union with 
 the Diocese and Bishop of Connecticut, then pending, 
 much to be desired, they add the express condition that 
 it must be with " the continuance of the episcopal suc- 
 cession in the English line." Another fact : In the appli- 
 cation to the English Bishops for consecration, Bishop 
 White, who wrote it, declares that he intended to ask 
 for the number of Bishops competent, according to the 
 English rule and practice, to perpetuate the succession ; 
 and he felt himself pledged to them on that point. Our 
 own Diocese applied to Bishops White and Provoost to 
 unite with Bishop Seabury in the consecration of Dr. 
 Griffith, our first Bishop-elect; but they refused, be- 
 cause three Bishops of the English line had not then 
 been obtained. Bishop Madison, after his consecration 
 and return to Virginia, wrote to Bishop White, Dec. 19, 
 1790,— 
 
 "A few days before I left London, the Archbishop requested 
 a particular interview with me. He said he wished to express his 
 hopes, and also to recommend it to our Church, that, in such con- 
 secrations as might take place in America, the persons who had 
 received their powers from the Church of England should be alone 
 concerned. He spoke with great delicacy of Dr. Seabury, but 
 thought it most advisable that the line of Bishops should be handed 
 down from those who had received their commission from the same 
 
 The question excited no little feeling in that day. 
 For instance, in the General Convention of 1786 a 
 motion was ofiFered, " That this Convention will resolve 
 to do no act that shall imply the validity/ of ordinations 
 made hy Dr. Seabury." Three Dioceses voted " aye" to 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 131 
 
 this motion, — New York, New Jersey, and South. Caro- 
 lina. It was lost by a majority of only one Diocese ; 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia voting 
 in the negative. Under such circumstances, is it not 
 evident that another Bishop of English consecration 
 must be given to America, or the union of all its Dio- 
 ceses could never have been effected, nor peace and 
 harmony secured to the Church 1 To the Diocese of 
 Virginia, then, was allotted, by God's kind providence, 
 this glorious privilege of becoming the tightening keystone 
 of the ecclesiastical arch which made strong the Church's 
 foundation in this country. Ought we not, as a Diocese, 
 ever to be devoutly thankful that the first Bishop of 
 Virginia took his place among his brethren with the 
 blessing of the "peacemaker" resting upon him; yea, 
 upon the very office itself which he brought among us ? 
 May the Diocese and its Bishops to the end of time 
 continue to fulfil this their high and gloiious mission to 
 their brethren of the Church in this country, maintain- 
 ing apostolic ORDER as well as apostolic doctrine, and 
 always promoting that unity among brethren so dear to 
 the heart of our Lord ! 
 
 It was not the fault of the Diocese of Virginia, that 
 her first Bishop was not consecrated at the same time 
 with the Bishops of Pennsylvania and of New York. 
 Her Convention of 1786 responded at once to the call 
 for fit persons to be made Bishop, and elected a gentle- 
 man, who, however little known now, was honored by 
 his brethren then, both at home and abroad. The Eev. 
 David Griffith was the first Bishop-elect of Virginia ; 
 and in any sketch of our episcopate, however brief, to 
 
132 SKETCH OF OTJB FIBST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 omit his name would be inexcusable. He was the per- 
 sonal friend and pastor of Gen. Washington; — " a large, 
 stout man," so Mr. Custis describes him, " compact, and 
 rather tall and strong, gentle and gentlemanlike " in his 
 manners, but " firm ; a favorite with the officers of the 
 army ; himself a chaplain to the Third Virginia Regi- 
 ment; an intimate associate with the best and most 
 refined families ; always a welcome guest at Mount Ver- 
 non." Like our own dear Bishop Moore, he was a native 
 of New- York City, and like him had also been a prac- 
 tising physician. Receiving orders from the Bishop of 
 London in 1770, he settled first in New Jersey, a mis- 
 sionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 In 1771 he removed to Leesburg, highly recommended 
 to them by the Governor of Virginia. In 1776 he 
 entered the army, and served as chaplain until the close 
 of the year 1779, when he was chosen Rector of Christ 
 Church, Alexandria, and continued such until his death 
 at Bishop White's house in Philadelphia, the 3d of 
 August, 1789. He was a prominent man in this Dio- 
 cese from its very first formation, and very active in pro- 
 moting the restoration of the Church. Before any steps 
 towards organization, either in the general Church or 
 the Diocese, had been taken, he attended the first meet- 
 ing of the Clergy in New York, October, 1784, at which 
 some principles of ecclesiastical union were adopted, and 
 the first " General Convention" was proposed. In Vir- 
 ginia's first Diocesan Convention he was the leading 
 clerical deputy, chosen for the General Convention of 
 1785, and elected their secretary by that body. In 1786 
 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 133 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, and was made president of 
 the General Convention of that year, having been 
 already chosen to the office of Bishop by his own Dio- 
 cese. But he was never consecrated. Poverty in his 
 own purse, and poverty and indifference combined on 
 the part of the Diocese, prevented his going to England 
 with the other candidates for consecration ; and, after 
 waiting for three years for the Diocese to raise the 
 money to send him, he resigned his appointment. Pity 
 and shame upon our poor, proud Church! Unable'? 
 No ! unwilling to raise a hundred pounds to procure a 
 Bishop ! Some excuse may be given. Our people under 
 the Establishment were never taught to give. Most of 
 the Clergy were scattered, and the people impoverished 
 by the war. Still we must say the delay in obtaining our 
 episcopate must be remembered against ourselves, as a 
 ground of humiliation to the laity, even more than to the 
 Clergy, of the oldest and the largest Church in America. 
 Dr. Griffith, however, was again honored by an elec- 
 tion to the General Convention of 1789; and during 
 its session he died of acute rheumatism. The Conven- 
 tion, by resolution, made all arrangements for his fune- 
 ral, — appointed the senior Clergyman of each Diocese 
 (except Virginia) to act as pall-bearers, the other mem- 
 bers to attend as mourners ; invited the Clergy of all 
 denominations in the city to attend ; Dr. William Smith 
 'to preach the funeral sermon, and Bishop White and 
 Mr. Andrews, Virginia's lay deputy, to walk as chief 
 mourners. " There may have been many men more 
 brilliant than Dr. Griffith," says Dr. Hawks, " but he 
 was practical and active ; and when he died the Church 
 
134 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 lost a useful and a worthy man." Dr. Smith tells us : 
 " In the service of his country in our late contest for 
 liberty and independence, he was near and dear to our 
 illustrious Commander-in-Chief. He was also his neigh- 
 bor, and honored and cherished by him as a pastor and 
 friend." He was a sound and able divine, and " highly 
 estimable among us ; " a true son, and afterwards a 
 father, as Bishop-elect of our Church ; with his voice 
 always, with his pen occasionally, supporting and main- 
 taining her just rights, and yielding his constant and 
 zealous aid in carrying on the great work for which we 
 are assembled. I am sui'e we need not be ashamed of 
 Virginia's first choice for Bishop. 
 
 Still less need we blush for the second ; for him who 
 was favored by God to bring at last to the suffering 
 Church in Virginia that apostolic office which ought to 
 have been given her by the Church of England one 
 hundred and eighty years before. The Rev. James Mad- 
 ison was born near Port Eepublic in Eockingham 
 County, Va., then West Augusta, Aug. 27, 1749. 
 He was second cousin to President Madison, and came 
 of heroic, as well as highly educated, stock. His 
 father, John Madison, was the pioneer of the Western 
 branch of his family, originally founded in Westmore- 
 land. He settled on lands on which he found it neces- 
 sary to build a fort to protect his wife and children from 
 the incursions of the Indians. The Bishop's brother 
 George was colonel in our army during the War of 
 1812, won distinction, and was afterwards Governor of 
 Kentucky. " The annals of the State, of the army, 
 and of the Church," says the accomplished biographer 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 135 
 
 of the President, " have thus all in their turn been illus- 
 trated by the name of Madison." At the age of nine- 
 teen young Madison entered William and Mary College, 
 and soon obtained high distinction both for scientific and 
 classical attainments. He graduated in 1771 at the 
 age of twenty-two, winning the "Botetourt" gold medal, 
 the highest honor in the School of Languages. He 
 began to study law under Chancellor Wythe, and was 
 admitted to practice. But in 1773, after having been 
 elected professor of mathematics in William and Mary, 
 his thoughts were turned to the ministry of the Episco- 
 pal Church; and, in the spring of 1775, he proceeded 
 to England for ordination. It was a standing order of 
 the Board of Visitors of that old coUege in that day, in 
 order to encourage the growth of the ministry, to appro- 
 priate to every student of divinity fifty pounds out of the 
 college funds, to defray the expenses of a trip to Eng- 
 land for ordination. By this means he took orders, and 
 returned at once to the duties of his professorship. 
 In 1777, though only twenty-eight years old, the statute 
 of the board, which required the president to be thu'ty 
 years of age, was suspended in his favor, and he was 
 elected president of the college. This position he held 
 for thirty-five years, until his death. In 1785 the 
 degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him 
 by the University of Pennsylvania. " At all periods of 
 his life," Dr. Hawks tells us, " he was much devoted to 
 scientific studies, and furnished several valuable papers 
 to literary and philosophical publications. His habits 
 were those of a student, mild and benevolent in dispo- 
 sition, with simple yet courteous manners. Pie was 
 
136 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 much esteemed by the circle of his immediate friends." 
 The best picture of him is from the pen of one of his 
 pupils, President Tyler : — 
 
 " He was spare in his form, but approached six feet in height. 
 He possessed not the massive brow so indicative of deep thought 
 and clear mind ; but j'et a single glance impressed you with the 
 idea that you stood in the presence of one whose life had been 
 devoted to study, and who might justly be regarded as rightfully 
 exercising the office of a high priest in the temple of science. His 
 manner to the inmates of the college was kind and parental. His 
 reproof was uttered in the gentlest tones, nothing harsh, nothing 
 morose ; but his chidings wore always the appearance of being 
 uttered more in sorrow than in anger. No one who attended the 
 college while he presided over it hesitated to acknowledge him as 
 a second father. As president he exercised a general superintend- 
 ence over the whole college ; and his attentions were bestowed 
 equally upon ' the grammar boys ' as upon the students of the 
 higher classes." 
 
 A curious illustration of this spirit of kindness is 
 given us in the pages of a book of " Travels " written 
 by a young Irishman, Isaac Weld, a connection of the 
 poet Tennyson, who, about the year 1795 or 1796, called 
 at Williamsburg, and took dinner with the president. 
 He says, — 
 
 "The Bishop of Virginia is president of the college, and has 
 apartments in the buildings. Half a dozen or more of the stu- 
 dents, the eldest about twelve years of age, dined at his table one 
 day while I was there. Some were without shoes or stockings, 
 others without coats. During the dinner they constantly rose to 
 help themselves at the sideboard. A couple of dishes of salted 
 meat and some oyster soup formed the above dinner. I only men- 
 tion this, as it may convey some idea of American colleges and 
 American dignitaries." 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 137 
 
 The temper of this wild young Irishman was evi- 
 dently very cynical and very objectionable. He after- 
 wards expressed regret at the publication of his book ; 
 but to us his reckless criticism throws a flash of light 
 upon Bishop Madison's private life, nowhere else to be 
 found, and confirms President Tyler's account of him, 
 that his parental care was bestowed equally upon the 
 shoeless grammar boys as upon the students of the 
 higher classes. 
 
 As a preacher Bishop Madison was very popular 
 among the educated classes, and as a reader remark- 
 ably attractive to all. " Nothing could exceed," says 
 Mr. Tyler, "the impressiveness of his reading, or the 
 clearness and distinctness of his enunciation. The 
 deep tones of his voice, and its silvery cadence, were 
 incomparably fine. It has been my fortune to hear our 
 first and most distinguished orators, as well in our pub- 
 lic assemblies as in the pulpit ; but I recollect nothing 
 to equal the voice of Bishop Madison. No word was 
 mouthed, no sentence imperfectly uttered ; but all was 
 clear and distinct, and fell in full harmony on the ear. 
 In the pulpit he was regarded as eminently eloquent. 
 His style was copious and Ciceronian, and his manner 
 strikingly impressive. His discourses were not so much 
 of a doctrinal as a moral cast. He addressed himself 
 to the moral sense, and enforced the importance of 
 observing the high moral duties." The Bishop's first 
 address to his Convention, in the spring of 1791, shows 
 how heavily upon his heart lay the responsibilities of 
 his high ofl&ce, and with what good sense and piety 
 he began his endeavors to fulfil them. He exhorts 
 
138 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 the Clergy, first, with great earnestness, to renew their 
 vows of consecration, and to increase their zeal in their 
 holy work. He fearlessly charges upon them much of 
 the spiritual deadness, and defection from the Church, 
 which was then prevailing. In the most practical and 
 pointed way, he suggests improvements in their ser- 
 mons, both as to matter and to manner. As to matter, 
 they must, as ambassadors for Christ, make their con- 
 stant aim the salvation of souls. They must preach to 
 the wants of the poor as well as of the better educated. 
 They must make known the Gospel of Christ and the 
 manner of our redemption. As to manner of delivery, 
 they must cease the dry reading of sermons, do without 
 manuscript as much as possible, and throw more warmth 
 and genuine feeling into both reading and preaching. 
 Could any advice be better ] Then he recommends the 
 exercise of discipline upon themselves frst, and then 
 upon the laity ; more frequent communions in their own 
 parishes, and associations with their brethren in each 
 other's parishes; the writing and circulation of tracts, 
 both controversial and devotional. Admirable in spirit 
 and in the wisdom of the suggestions ! 
 
 From Bishop Madison's Convention addresses we gain 
 perhaps the best view of the deplorable condition of our 
 Church in his day ; for the Bishop's vision was keen, 
 his views were evangelical, and his standard was high. 
 He was possessed also with a true Churchly spirit of 
 liberality to other bodies of Christians. " His heart was 
 intensely fixed on uniting, if possible, all sincere Chris- 
 tians." " There is no one," he says, " but must cordially 
 wish for such a union, provided it did not require a sac- 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 139 
 
 rifice of those points which are deemed essentials by our 
 Church : from them we have no power to retreat. But 
 in such matters as are subject to human alteration, if, 
 by a candid discussion, they could be found capable of 
 being so modified as to remove the objections of any 
 sect of Christians, and thereby effect a union, we should 
 surely have reason to rejoice, not only in the event, but 
 also in being the first to set an example to Christians, 
 which it is the duty of all to follow, and in convincing 
 them that there is infinitely more religion in not contend- 
 ing than in those things about which they contend." All 
 honor to our first Bishop for these noble sentiments ! To 
 his praise, too, let it be recorded, that he was the first 
 man to bring to the notice of the Church, in the General 
 Convention of 1792, "a plan of union among all sin- 
 cere Christians." Our present Standing Committee on 
 Unity is a tardy outgrowth of the motion made in the 
 House of Bishops by the First Bishop of Virginia. But 
 with all his earnestness and talents. Bishop Madison did 
 but little to support our falling Church. His emphatic 
 protests against the sins of the Church and of the age 
 did comparatively nothing towards removing them. 
 Down, downward to the very " dust of death," went 
 our poor Church, undermined by a fashionable infidel- 
 ity, fostered by friendship with France, and admiration 
 of Mr. Jefferson and his principles ; stunned by the 
 fatal blows which levelled the Establishment, and de- 
 prived our Clergy of their salaries ; sneered at as " the 
 British Church" and "the pet child of monarchy;" 
 and all her life-blood exhausted by the exodus of the 
 Methodists, and the untiring efforts of every other 
 
140 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 body of Christians around her to draw away disciples 
 after them. One single instance may serve as an ex- 
 ample. In Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County, there were 
 three churches under the ministry of the Rev. Dev- 
 ereux Jarratt, a noble preacher of a genuine Gospel. 
 On sacramental occasions, he tells us, the number of 
 communicants in the year 1773 often reached nine hun- 
 dred or a thousand. After the Methodists separated 
 themselves, and formed a Church of their own, he says, 
 " Where hundreds used to attend my sermons, I can 
 now scarcely get forty hearers." Then " genuine reli- 
 gion, the religion of love, flourished : " now " com- 
 municants have decreased tenfold, and love and har- 
 mony are gone." Still, at the rallying call of her first 
 Bishop, there was a slight revival of spiritual life. The 
 zeal and piety of the laity had not become entii-ely ex- 
 tinct. The Bishop found, on his visitation, congregations 
 in general numerous, and attentive to our forms of wor- 
 ship, and the Clergy, though wanting a decent mainte- 
 nance, for the most part exemplary and diligent in the 
 discharge of their duties. In five parishes of the tide- 
 water section, upwards of six hundred were confirmed ; 
 and the aspect of affairs was beginning to be cheering. 
 But what could a Bishop, however zealous and accom- 
 plished, do for the prosperity of the Church, tied down 
 as Bishop Madison was to the college in Williamsburg, 
 and to its exacting duties 1 The spiritual ancestors of 
 our Bishops, the blessed Apostles, were, in their unlim- 
 ited sphere of jurisdiction, almost always the pioneers 
 of the glorious Gospel which they bore around to the 
 ends of the earth to ever^ creature; and they appointed 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 141 
 
 elders in the churches they themselves had gathered. 
 When diocesan episcopacy began in Timothy at Ephe- 
 sus, and Titus at Crete, and James at Jerusalem, and 
 the angels of the seven churches, the law of their 
 ministry was still, " Do the work of an evangelist." 
 How, then, could the life of a dying Church be, by any 
 possibility, kept in her by a chief officer who was en- 
 gaged in secular duties nine months of the year, and 
 made his visitations only in a three-months' vacation 1 
 Dr. Hawks weU says, " The times called for uncommon 
 activity in the episcopal office." " Obliged by canon 
 to visit each church in his Diocese at least once in three 
 years, there is not one of the American Bishops not 
 enfeebled by age or disease, who does not aim to do 
 more than this. Many of them pay an annual visit to 
 each parish, and this course is felt by them to be essen- 
 tial to the growth and prosperity of the Church. If in 
 these times such diligence be necessary, it is obvious 
 that le.ss would not suffice when the Church was seek- 
 ing to recover from a blow which had well nigh de- 
 stroyed her." 
 
 Fettered as he was, however. Bishop Madison con- 
 tinued to meet and address his annual conventions, and 
 to aid them wdth his pen in their fruitless struggles 
 against the spoiling hand of the Legislature, which now, 
 under Mr. Jefferson's lead, was about to confiscate her 
 property, and at last successfully accomplished it by the 
 Glebe Act of 1802. Bishop Madison maintained on 
 principles of law the rights of the Church. His views 
 were sustained by four of Virginia's ablest jurists, — 
 Bushrod Washington, Edmund Randolph, John Wick- 
 
142 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 ham, and George Keith Taylor, — and, at a later day, by 
 the Supreme Court of Appeals. But the great Head of 
 the Church, Himself, as if to cut loose His people from 
 all earthly dependence, refused to permit the decision 
 to be pronounced in her favor. Judge Pendleton died 
 only the night before he was to have rendered it, with 
 the decision in his pocket. The court was then equally 
 divided. To this day the Church remains defrauded of 
 her rights. Meantime, the long-continued contest for 
 these rights was slowly but surely destroying the feeble 
 spiritual life which had been revived in the Church by 
 the Bishop's first efforts. Discord and contention pro- 
 duced their usual consequences, spiritual declension and 
 decay. The bitterness and wrath, the malice and the 
 evil speaking, grieved away the Holy Spirit of God. 
 In 1799 the Bishop thus addressed his convention: — 
 
 " Ah, brethren ! is it not a melancholy truth that your temples 
 are the just emblems of j-our regard for religion? You see them 
 almost everywhere tottering to their base. Shall ruin seize them? 
 Shall these venerable fabrics perish, and leave not a trace of public 
 worship among us ? Is not even the appearance of religion almost 
 laid aside, nay scoflfed at, by the great bulk of society? Do not 
 our days of public worship manifest this truth? Does not the 
 entire neglect of parents in the religious instruction of their children 
 manifest this truth ? Does not the rapid growth of immorality in 
 general, of profaneness and impiety ; do not the beginnings of pro- 
 digious crimes ; does not that party rage, which, not content with 
 blasting by slander's envenomed breath the well-earned fame of 
 honesty and worth, but tiger-like, thirsts even for the blood of fellow- 
 citizens, — do not all these effects demonstrate that religion no longer 
 dwells among usf " 
 
 From 1799 onward, until 1812, the time of the 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 143 
 
 Bishop's death, things grew no better, but rather worse. 
 The General Convention of 1811 at New Haven became 
 hopeless. " They fear," said the House of Deputies to 
 the Bishops, " that the Church in Virginia is so depressed 
 that there is danger of her total ruin." And the voice of 
 Bishop Madison was only an echo and re-echo of the same 
 painful sound. Shut up as he was in his pleasant prison- 
 house in WUliamsburg, it continued to utter, like the 
 prophet Jeremiah, only notes of lamentation and woe, 
 imtU at last, hopeless of doing good, it was hushed in 
 silence, March 6, 1812. In 1805, on the plea of bodUy 
 infirmities, he asked for an assistant, — " the first instance," 
 says Dr. Hawks, " in the history of the American Epis- 
 copal Church, in which mention is made of Assistant 
 Bishops ; " but the Virginia Convention postponed action, 
 and never met again until after his death. Evidently 
 a vast deal more was needed for the Church's revival, 
 besides eloquent preaching and piety and learning, 
 and unquestioned regularity of orders. Even inspired 
 apostles could not build up the early Church, until per- 
 secution had swept over it, and they themselves had 
 sufi"ered pains of martydom, and become indued with 
 special power from on high. And what a power is 
 given from on high to tribulation! Our Virginia 
 Church seemed to need repeated blows from the chas- 
 tening hand of her God. Loss of property was not 
 enough. That seemed only to u-ritate. The removal 
 of her teachers. That was only too readily assented to. 
 At last, a tremendous judgment from Heaven — the 
 burning of the Kichmond Theatre, with the Governor 
 of the State, and more than seventy of Virginia's best 
 
144 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 people — seemed to awaken and to bring to their knees 
 a lukewarm Church. In these " perilous times " of " the 
 last days," when human life has become so cheap, it is 
 very hard to form a true conception of the deep and wide- 
 spread influence of that appalling disaster. Through- 
 out the whole country it was talked of and dwelt upon 
 in parlor and in pulpit. In the parishes of England, it 
 furnished the theme of many a solemn admonition. 
 The great " Dresser of the Vineyard " was Himself at 
 work, digging about the roots and pruning the branches 
 of the vine which His own right hand had planted. 
 There, oh the ashes of that old theatre, stands now, in 
 its meek, solemn majesty, the " Monumental Church," 
 most fitly named, — the spontaneous offering to their 
 chastening Lord of an afflicted and repenting people ! 
 
 In 1814 God sent in mercy to his suffering Church, 
 still in tears all over the State, another Bishop, an 
 apostle Barnabas, indued indeed with " singular gifts 
 of the Holy Ghost," and with grace to use them always 
 to God's honor and glory. " He was a good man, full 
 of the Holy Ghost and of faith ; and much people were 
 added unto the Lord." Seven Clergymen and seventeen 
 laymen formed the Convention that elected Bishop Moore. 
 He was chosen by twenty-three votes out of the twenty- 
 four; the other vote having been cast for Richmond's 
 favorite, " good old Parson Buchanan." That it was 
 indeed the blessed Spirit who gave the men of this 
 Convention " a right judgment," is evident from the 
 results that soon began to follow. Richard Channing 
 Moore, the second Bishop of Virginia, was born in the 
 city of New York, Aug. 21, 1762. His father was 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 145 
 
 Thomas Moore ; and his grandfather, the Hon. John 
 Moore, one of the King's council for the province, a 
 lineal descendant of Sir John Moore of Berkshire, 
 knighted by Charles I. The Bishop's mother, who, 
 under God's blessing, formed his religious character, 
 was Elizabeth Channing, " a lady of highly respectable 
 family of New-York City, of the finest disposition and 
 accomplishments, and of devoted piety." She, like 
 Hannah, dedicated her son to the service of her Lord ; 
 and the history of his childhood shows how thickly 
 sown were the seeds of personal holiness, and of that 
 reverent familiarity with holy things which seemed to 
 foretell his consecration to the ministry. He was a boy- 
 preacher, with a decided taste for elocution and a talent 
 for public speaking. His mother was one of a band of 
 pious ladies belonging to Trinity Church, who, encour- 
 aged by Dr. Ogilvie. one of Trinity's assistants, a man 
 of fervent zeal, met at each other's houses every week 
 for social worship and religious improvement, always 
 closing them with a collection. Mrs. Moore frequently 
 took her little boy with her. Who is there here of the 
 old Monumental congregation that may not remember 
 how our dear old Bishop perpetuated these teachings of 
 his childhood in the week-day lectures, which he used 
 to announce from his pulpit to be held " at the residence 
 of Mistress Elsie Williams" or of " old Mistress Hayes " \ 
 Who can say that many of the cold parishes of these 
 days might not be revived by the use of just such teach- 
 ings, ''from house to house" as this genuine successor of 
 the apostles adopted] But the bright promise of the 
 Bishop's childhood was not at once realized. He grew 
 
146 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 up in the gay circles of fashionable life in New York, 
 only to adopt its irreligious habits and some of its posi- 
 tive vices. He entered upon the medical profession, not 
 the ministry, and practised on Long Island and in the 
 city. He married at the age of twenty-two, still an 
 unchanged man, of quick temper and a too ungoverned 
 tongue. Once, in the presence of his wife, he gave way 
 to the senseless sin of profanity ; and the bitter tears of 
 this pious wife, and her fervent prayers for him on that 
 occasion, seem to have been the means first employed to 
 show him his guUt and vileness. Like Bishop Eavens- 
 croft of North Carolina, whose experience was very simi- 
 lar, — nay, like the chief of the apostles, — sin must be 
 permitted to " revive " powerfully, and show its hideous 
 life in his soul, before pride and self-suflB.ciency could 
 begin to die. About this time, also, another incident 
 occurred. He went one day into a barber-shop to have 
 his hair dressed : he carelessly opened a Bible on the 
 table, and his eye caught the words, " Saul, Saul, why 
 persecutest thou me ] " The sentence proved a call 
 from the Lord Jesus indeed. It rang in his ears. It 
 lingered in his memory. It brought him at last to say, 
 with sincere contrition, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me 
 to dof He obeyed the call, and, having finished a 
 preparatory course of study, was ordained Deacon in 
 old St. George's Church, July, 1787. by Bishop Provoost, 
 who, just five months before, had been consecrated in 
 England. It was the first ordination that had ever 
 taken place in New York, and there were but six 
 Clergymen there to welcome the new Bishop. In Sep- 
 tember of the same year, and in the same church, he 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIBST FOUB BISHOPS. 147 
 
 was admitted to the Order of Priesthood. From that 
 time onward to the hour of his death in Lynchburg, 
 November 1841, the blessing of a God of love seemed to 
 rest with peculiar power upon his labors as a pastor, as 
 a preacher, and as a prelate. 
 
 At Eye, Westchester County, where he staid two years, 
 he strengthened the Church, and built a new house 
 of worship. On Staten Island, where he staid twenty 
 years, his ministry was most signally favored by the 
 presence of the Holy Spirit. It was in this parish that 
 occurred that well-known event in his ministerial history, 
 which, alas ! brethren, is not paralleled in many of ours. 
 He had been preaching at one of his usual stations in 
 the afternoon ; and, the ordinary closing devotions being 
 ended, he pronounced the benediction. But not a per- 
 son moved to retire. All seated themselves in the atti- 
 tude of fixed and solemn attention. A member of the 
 Church arose, and said, " Dr. Moore, the people are not 
 disposed to go home : please give us another sermon." 
 At the close of that, the like scene was repeated. And 
 the services were continued until, at the close of a third 
 sermon, the preacher was obliged to say, " My beloved 
 people, you must now disperse ; for, although I delight 
 to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation, my strength is 
 exhausted, and I can say no more." It was the begin- 
 ning of a glorious revival of religion, and during that 
 year more than a hundred communicants were added to 
 the Church. From Staten Island he removed to St. 
 Stephen's Church, New- York City ; and his five years' 
 ministi7 there increased the communion from twenty 
 to four hundred. What were the fruits of his labors 
 
148 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 among us in the twenty-seven years God gave him to 
 Virginia ] The Clergy increased from eight or ten to 
 ninety-five. In the first year of his episcopate he ad- 
 mitted three persons to the ministry, and enrolled four 
 candidates. The communicants increased from three or 
 four hundred to nearly four thousand. But figures can- 
 not express the amount of life and vigor which had 
 been given to the whole Diocese ; the hopefulness and 
 activity infused into both Clergy and laity ; that "Joy 
 of the Lord which is our strength," in which our Diocese 
 at that time abounded. When Bishop Moore was taken 
 from us, the Church in Virginia was growing rapidly; she 
 seemed " aUve unto God," and her daily prayer seemed 
 to be visibly answered. Her " Bishops and other Clergy, 
 and the congregations committed to their charge," were 
 having poured upon them " the healthful spirit of God's 
 grace," the " continual dew of His blessing." It was this 
 that made our old Virginia Conventions so delightful 
 and so profitable. The spirit of those conventions was 
 Bishop Moore's own spirit, — eminently social, yet re- 
 strained from any thing like levity by an abiding sense 
 of the Divine presence, with a tenderness of heart and a 
 fervency of spirit in His worship, drawn from the attrac- 
 tive purifying power of our crucified Saviour, who on 
 such occasions was always " lifted up" before the people 
 conspicuously by a band of Clergy, who, like their 
 Bishop, seemed to feel that thetf themselves had " received 
 mercyT Our Barnabas was indeed endued with gifts 
 which peculiarly fitted him for the work God gave him, 
 to raise our fallen Church. No other man could have done 
 as well. He had such a peculiar skill in exhortation. 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 149 
 
 He was so pre-eminently " a son of consolation." Then 
 his personal appearance was so attractive. " His snow- 
 white locks," says one who saw him often, "which hung 
 in thick profusion over his shoulders ; his face, broad and 
 full ; his eye, so expressive of benevolence and charity ; 
 and his lips, evermore wreathed with a smile such as 
 a kind father wears towards his children, — added to a 
 walk and a deportment which bespoke to the beholder 
 the man of God, — made an impression upon one, not 
 easily to be forgotten." His voice was sweet, clear, and 
 flexible ; his enunciation very distinct ; and his delivery, 
 without the least affectation, remarkably impressive. 
 In the General Convention of 1808, in Baltimore, he 
 was a deputy from New York, and chairman of a com- 
 mittee of the House to propose additional hymns to 
 our then very scanty stock. When he read the report, 
 one hymn after another was adopted without discussion, 
 until at last an opponent of the measure arose, and said, 
 " I object to the hymns being read by that gentleman ; 
 for we are so fascinated by his style of reading that we 
 shall without hesitation adopt them all." That persua- 
 sive voice was peculiarly effective in his exhortations. 
 When " stirred up," as he expressed it, by any of his 
 brother ministers, in an effort to " win souls " to the 
 Saviour, the full flow of his sympathetic nature, and the 
 warmth of his loving heart, made him a preacher of un- 
 common power. His pastoral gifts were no less remark- 
 able. With a good deal of dignity, he was eminently 
 sociable and cheerful, looking always on the bright side 
 of things ; with admirable prudence and common-sense ; 
 the tenderest comforter in a sick-room and in affliction : 
 
150 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 there was not a home or a church in all the Diocese that 
 was not purified and refreshed by a visit from him, nor a 
 child whom he met that did not wish to see him again. 
 It was by these annual visitations chiefly, that the life of 
 the Diocese was restored. If he had only been loosed 
 from his parochial ties, how much more might he not 
 have effected ! " Wherever he went," says Dr. Hawks, 
 " he diffused a portion of that zeal which inspired his 
 own labors ; and in those labors no one could be more 
 abundant. He traversed his Diocese from north to 
 south ; and, crossing the mountains more than once, his 
 presence was both seen and felt eastward of the Blue 
 Ridge. He was compelled to be a missionary, or see his 
 Diocese go backward." Must not that be always the 
 case 1 Is not the Bishop's office that of the chief mis- 
 sionary of his Diocese 1 Has not the Church in Virginia 
 always grown in proportion as our Bishops have thrown 
 themselves amoiig their people ? Thus our good Bishop 
 Moore labored on cheerfully, untiringly, up to the last 
 moment of his life, Nov. 11, 1841, when at the house 
 of one of his dear sons of the Clergy, the Rev. Thomas 
 Atkinson, afterwards Bishop of North Carolina, in the 
 eightieth year of his age, he gently breathed his last. 
 When told by his host he could not live, " Well, sir," he 
 answered, " I trust all things are arranged with me for 
 both worlds." When asked what message he had for 
 his family, " Nothing but love," he said, ^^for his dear chil- 
 dren." Brethren, we of the Diocese are his children. 
 The last breath wafted to us all from his lips, let us 
 remember it, brethren of the ministry, " Nothing but 
 love ! " 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISMOPS. 151 
 
 But Bishop Moore was not the only instrument, by any 
 means, our Good Shepherd employed to recall his scat- 
 tered sheep, and to restore his flock in this old Diocese. 
 In the convention that called him, there were some 
 four or five active and earnest young prophets and 
 teachers, who, like those at Antioch, often fasted and 
 prayed before the Lord, concerning the interests of his 
 Church ; and to them God the Spirit often spoke. 
 
 There were the Aarons and the Hurs, who, at their 
 Bishop's side, helped him to hold forth before the faint- 
 ing eyes of our struggling hosts " the rod of God;" and 
 upon their strong arms it was his delight to lean. The 
 Revs. William H. Wilmer, Oliver Norris, John Dunn, 
 and William Meade were his most efficient co-labor- 
 ers in the cause which lay nearest to all their hearts, — 
 the revival of true religion in the Church of this old Dio- 
 cese. The three first mentioned finished their course 
 before their beloved leader. It was upon the last one of 
 the four, the Eev. William Meade, that the chief weight 
 of his important and burdensome office was made to rest 
 twelve years before Bishop Moore's release ; and finally, 
 in 1841, he succeeded to all its responsibilities. 
 
 The key of spiritual government could not have been 
 laid on broader or better shoulders, nor could the high 
 office of leader in the dispensation of the Gospel have 
 been committed to a more faithful messenger of the Lord 
 of hosts. In everi/ inch of him a man, of commanding 
 presence, and with talents to command, if the army or 
 the navy had been his choice, he would have sureli/ made 
 his mark and won success. But the fervent prayers of a 
 mother whom he dearly loved, and honored as well as 
 
152 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 loved, were answered by his choice being directed, at 
 the age of eighteen, to the sacred ministry, instead of to 
 the bar, to which his thoughts at first were turned. 
 
 He was born in the county of Frederick (now Clarke), 
 Virginia, Nov. 16, 1789, the fifth child of Col. Richard 
 Kidder Meade and Mary Grymes, whose first husband 
 was William Randolph of Chatsworth. About seven- 
 teen years old, he was sent to Princeton instead of 
 to William and Mary College ; for at that time (1806) 
 " the College of William and Mary," he tells us, " was re- 
 garded as the hotbed of infidelity and of the wild poli- 
 tics of France. Strong as was the Virginia feeling in 
 favor of the ' alma mater ' of their parents, the Northern 
 colleges were filled with the sons of Virginia's best 
 men." He graduated at Princeton, the valedictorian of 
 a class of more than forty, and through the influence 
 of a much-loved cousin, Mrs. Custis of Arlington, de- 
 termined to pursue his studies in divinity under the 
 care of Rev. Walter Addison of Georgetown. It was 
 while reading under Mr. Addison's direction, and chiefly 
 through the instrumentality of two books, — Soame 
 Jenyns on " The Internal Evidence of Christianity," and 
 Wilberforce's " Practical View," — that he received 
 those strong views of evangelical truth, which colored all 
 his preaching, and governed him in all his future work. 
 He says, himself, " The first clear, satisfactory, and de- 
 lightful view of the necessity and reasonableness of a 
 propitiation for sin by our blessed Lord was presented to 
 my mind " at that time. " I shall never forget the time 
 or the instrument, or the happy effect, and how I rose 
 up again and again, from my bed, to give thanks to God 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 153 
 
 for it." In the summer of 1809 he returned to Prince- 
 ton to complete his theological preparation ; but, while 
 there, he was taken with a dangerous illness, which 
 stopped his studies, and he returned to his mountain 
 home. A few months after, having no rules of a theo- 
 logical seminary, nor the fear of a dean and faculty, be- 
 fore his eyes, and just in his twentieth year, he happily 
 married a near cousin to whom he had been for some time 
 engaged. It is but right to say, however, in his book on 
 the " Pastoral Office " he decidedly discourages young 
 candidates for the ministry from following his example. 
 Pursuing, then, the labors of his farm and his studies 
 together for about a year longer, he was admitted to 
 Deacon's orders by Bishop Madison, in the old church 
 in Williamsburg, on the morning of Feb. 24, 1811. It 
 was a bright Sunday morning. Two ladies and fifteen 
 gentlemen formed the congregation, most of them his 
 own relatives. One citizen was filling his ice-house, 
 and companies of students with their dogs and guns 
 were going to spend the day in hunting. Such was the 
 religious condition of our Church in the old Colonial 
 capital ! Soon after he was ordained Deacon, he took 
 charge of Christ Church, Alexandria, and some time 
 next year was admitted to the Order of Priesthood by 
 Bishop Claggett of Maryland. From the beginning of 
 his ministry, his stand among the Virginia Clergy be- 
 came a conspicuous one. He was connected by blood 
 or marriage with many of the first families of the State ; 
 and the very fact of his taking orders in the Episcopal 
 Church, so low was its condition then, awakened a large 
 amount of surprise at his boldness, as well as of warm 
 
154 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 interest in his success. It was some years after his or- 
 dination that Judge Marshall told him, while giving 
 him some money for the Seminary, " it was a hopeless 
 undertaking, and that it was almost unkind to induce 
 young Virginians to enter the Episcopal ministry, the 
 Church being too far gone ever to be revived." But 
 like the prophet Isaiah, in Israel's darkest days, to the 
 soul of this young Virginian had been given a vision 
 of the High and Lofty One, whose " train filled the 
 temple," whose grace is omnipotent, and whose glory 
 shall fill the whole earth. He heard His voice, "Whom 
 shall I send ? Who will go for us ? " His soul, like the 
 prophet, answered " Woe is me! I am a man of unclean 
 lips ; " but " here I am, send me." And he who " touched 
 Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire " certainly gave to this 
 young man of God a message to His people in the Dio- 
 cese, which he most faithfully delivered. It was a mes- 
 sage oftentimes of warning, sometimes of sharp rebuke, 
 but always solemn, always searching, and always the 
 saving Gospel of our crucified Lord, quickening the soul 
 by its life-giving precepts and its rebukes and chasten- 
 ings as well as by its comforting doctrines and precious 
 promises. " Whenever he preached," says his accom- 
 plished biographer, " a crowd gathered to admire, if 
 nothing more, his manner of reading prayers and the 
 eloquence of his sermons, — not the eloquence formed 
 by art of oratory, but flowing from a heart pervaded by 
 intense interest in his message and for his hearers, and 
 which the peasant and the philosopher could alike appre- 
 ciate and enjoy." " As a minister of the Gospel he was 
 highly gifted. His youthful appearance at the first, the 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 155 
 
 manly presence into which this matured, his sound and 
 vigorous and well-balanced intellect, his naturally brave 
 and feeling heart, were very important contributions for 
 efficiency in his sacred office. And when to these are 
 added a voice singularly sonorous and sweet, and a man- 
 ner very earnest and persuasive, it is unnecessary to 
 say he was capable of the very highest order of elo- 
 quence." 
 
 To this let me add, his manner of reading the service 
 was profoundly reverent and fervent. He prayed, not 
 read the prayers. His sermons were highly practical 
 and faithfully pointed. Their spiritual teachings came 
 from his own deep religious experience. His theology 
 was not drawn from books or " Bodies of Divinity." 
 He confesses to a very scanty theological training. But 
 it came from something far better. It came from his 
 own warm heart, and his admirable common-sense, de- 
 voutly studying God's Word, and kept fresh and fervent 
 by habits of constant devotion. He was early taught by 
 his mother to realize the presence and the eye of God 
 ever with him. Bishop Madison had recommended to 
 him the " Sacra Privata," and other writings of Bishop 
 Wilson. And his own book of " Family Prayers " shows 
 to what a large extent he had imbibed the devout spirit 
 of the old Bishop of Sodor and Man. His religion was 
 therefore eminently of a spiritual type. While he con- 
 stantly enforced the duties of the Christian life, he never 
 failed to show both the motive and the power from 
 which all actions must proceed to render them accept- 
 able. He never would avow himself to be what is called 
 a Calvinist, but no man ever valued more highly " the 
 
156 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 doctrines of grace ; " and Ms associations and his sympa- 
 thies were all with the writers and the men of that class. 
 Yet his mind was averse to speculation ; and whatever 
 tended, as he thought, to mere theorizings about holy 
 truths, he had no fancy or toleration for. But when the 
 controversy about the Oxford Tracts arose, and he 
 thought the vital doctrines of oui* Protestant faith were 
 threatened, he did not hesitate to say " the truth was 
 safer in the hands of men of the Augustinian and Cal- 
 vinistic schools than among their opponents." So dear 
 to him, as a Christian, were those truths which form 
 a large part of the fabric of that system of theology ! 
 No preacher ever proclaimed with more sincere feel- 
 ing than Bishop Meade the corruption of human nature, 
 nor dwelt upon it oftener. The older he grew, the 
 more earnestly he sought to humble the sinner, and 
 exalt the saving grace and power of the Divine Re- 
 deemer. Who that heard it can ever forget that re- 
 markable Convention sermon of 1861, " Few and evil 
 have been the days of the years of my life " ] No one 
 but a man of the truest humility could ever have preached 
 that sermon. So much about himself, and yet so evi- 
 dently only to exalt the Lord and Saviour at whose feet 
 he was willivg to show himself ashamed and humbled! 
 Such preaching as Bishop Meade's could not faU. to tell ; 
 and, while it built up Christians in their holy faith, it 
 also roused into more decided hostility the worldly 
 minded, the formal, and the self-indulgent. One of the 
 earliest and most important works which Bishop Meade 
 accomplished for this Diocese was the creation of our 
 Theological Seminary. As far back as 1815, at the 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIBST FOUR BISHOPS. 157 
 
 suggestion of Dr. John Augustine Smith, then president 
 of William and Mary College, the Convention of the 
 Diocese had considered a plan to establish a theological 
 professorship in the college. Trustees of a fund to 
 support the professorship were appointed, ten thousand 
 dollars were raised, and the Rev. Dr. Keith occupied 
 the position for two years. One student only presented 
 himself, and the attempt was abandoned. About the 
 time the Educational Society was formed, in 1818, 
 frequent consultations were held at the house of Dr. 
 Thomas Henderson of Georgetown, between himself, 
 Francis S. Key, and the Revs. Messrs. Hawley, Wilmer, 
 and Meade. The result was the establishment in Alex- 
 andria, in 1823, of the Theological Seminary under Dr. 
 Keith, assisted by Messrs. Wilmer and Norris. To build 
 up this institution, from that time onward Bishop Meade 
 gave all the energies of his mind and body, and much of 
 his " estate." " To him, more than to any one person in 
 the Diocese, the Seminary owes its existence." Bishop 
 Moore thus spoke of him to the Convention of 1828. 
 Most appropriately, therefore, is inscribed upon that 
 monument- which whitens our Seminary Hill, " The 
 founder and the liberal patron of the Theological Sem- 
 inary of Virginia." The episcopate of Bishop Meade 
 is marked most conspicuously, perhaps, by the introduc- 
 tion, both among ministers and people, of stricter views 
 of discipline. Trained in his own early youth to strict 
 obedience to parental authority, and to great plainness 
 of dress and manners ; cultivating as a matter of prin- 
 ciple, in all his habits of life, economy and simplicity ; 
 always maintaining that discipline was a mark of the 
 
158 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 true Church, — he boldly set himself, first as a parish 
 minister and then as a Bishop, to correct that dangerous 
 laxity in manners and morals, to which God's people at 
 all times and in all places, while in contact with a sedu- 
 cing world, are fearfully liable ; and from which the 
 Church in Virginia, just emerging from the overflowing 
 of infidelity and irreligion, was greatly suffering. To 
 counteract the Church's worldliness, he sought to bring 
 her members up to the high standard of their own form- 
 ularies. No man ever loved the Episcopal Church, in 
 all its distinctive features, more warmly and sincerely 
 than Bishop Meade. Some one asked him to influence, 
 by his advice, a young member of the Episcopal Church 
 to join the church of the gentleman she was about to 
 marry. He replied, " I have never advised any of my 
 young people to leave their own church. I cannot do it." 
 Soon after he finished his book on the " Old Churches and 
 Families in Virginia," he said, " I hope it will make some 
 of the children of the old families that have left us, desire 
 to come back." He loved our dear old Church, especially, 
 because of the thorough spirituality of all her forms and 
 teachings, their strict conformity to God's word, their 
 peculiar fitness to promote a rich growth in grace and 
 in the knowledge of our adorable Redeemer. To the 
 teachings of our Church he was always turning the 
 attention of the Clergy and laity, thereby to render 
 discipline less necessary. Look at his many Pastoral 
 Addresses to Parents and Sponsors ; his Tracts on Con- 
 firmation, declared by Dr. Seabury, the Bishop's grand- 
 son, to be worthy of St. Chrysostom ; his " Baptismal 
 Vows and Worldly Amusements," — in all these, em- 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 159 
 
 phatically setting forth this truth, that, to be a good Epis- 
 copalian, the member of the Church must keep himself 
 " unspotted from the world." May his faithful warnings 
 never be forgotten ! 
 
 In his relations to the Church at large, Bishop Meade's 
 position ought to be noticed. No one of our Bishops 
 had as much to do with the affairs of the Church out 
 of our own Diocese, or impressed as strongly his charac- 
 ter upon the mind and conscience of the whole American 
 Church. He was sent to the General Convention as 
 early as 1820, and in 1827 was voted for as assistant to 
 Bishop White by Dr. Bedell and a large minority of 
 the Clergy of Pennsylvania. Elected in 1829 Assistant 
 Bishop of this Diocese, he seemed never to forget that 
 he was still a Bishop of the Church of God, to exert his 
 influence wherever it could be used for truth and purity. 
 In the legislation of the General Convention, therefore, 
 he always took a warm interest ; and his strong, active 
 mind, good judgment, honesty, and earnest piety soon gave 
 him a leading position among those who agreed with 
 his views, and commanded the respect, even if they did 
 not in every case silence the bitter tongues, of those 
 who differed from him. Bishop Alonzo Potter was once 
 asked, " Who is the ruling spirit in the House of 
 Bishops 1 " He said, " There is a man who lies on the 
 sofa from ill health, who often seems half asleep ; but 
 let any question of moment come uj), and he is wide 
 awake, and wields an influence which no other man in 
 the House of Bishops comes near." As a reformer of 
 the morals of the general Church, he certainly stands 
 conspicuous. Like John the Baptist, he " constantly 
 
160 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 spoke the truth, boldly rebuked vice, and patiently 
 suffered for the truth's sake." But for Bishop Meade, 
 it may be safely said the Episcopal Church in this coun- 
 try would never have been purified, as she certainly has 
 been, at least in the ranks of her Clergy, by the well- 
 known "trials" of 1844 and 1845, and of 1851. Two 
 years and a half before his death, the General Con- 
 vention was held, for the first time in the history of the 
 Church, south of the Potomac, in this city and in this 
 church ; and the voice of Virginia, up to the Revolu- 
 tion the strongest part of the Church, seemed then for 
 the first time to be allowed to have something of its 
 proper weight and influence. The Diocese at that time 
 numbered a hundred and thirteen Clergy and seventy- 
 eight hundred communicants. 
 
 When the war separated the States, and the General 
 Council of the Confederate Dioceses was formed, in 1861, 
 Bishop Meade took his place among them as the senior 
 Bishop, and presided at their deliberations. The last 
 official act of his life was here at this chancel to lay his 
 trembling hands, in consecration to the episcopate of 
 Alabama, upon the head of the son of his early friend 
 and co-laborer in Virginia, Dr. William H. Wilmer. 
 He died a few days after, March 14, 1862, at the house 
 of a valued friend, Mr. John L. Bacon, when the skies 
 were darkening all around us with the heavy clouds of 
 war It was my privilege to stand at his bedside until 
 he became unconscious, and to witness his last interview 
 with Gen. Lee. It was eminently characteristic of the 
 men. Visitors had been forbidden by the doctors ; but, 
 when the general was announced as having called, the 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIBST FOUR BISHOPS. 161 
 
 Bishop roused himself, and said, " I must see him for a 
 few minutes." The general was brought in by Bishop 
 Johns ; and, grasping warmly the extended hand, he 
 said, " Bishop, how do you feel ? " — "I am almost gone, 
 but I wanted to see you once more." He then made 
 inquiries about the members of his family, — Mrs. Lee by 
 name, the daughter of his much-loved cousin of Arling- 
 ton, — and put several earnest, eager questions about 
 public affairs and the state of the army, showing the 
 liveliest interest in the success of our cause, to all which 
 the general returned brief but satisfactory answers. 
 He then said, " God bless you ! God bless you, Robert, 
 and fit you for your high and responsible position. I 
 can't call you ' general,' I've heard you your catechism 
 so often." — "Yes, Bishop," said the general as he 
 stooped over him, and pressed his hand tenderly (and 
 I think I saw a tear drop), " very often." Again our 
 dying Bishop shook his hand warmly, and said, " Heaven 
 bless you ! Heaven bless you, and give you wisdom for 
 your important and arduous duties." The general then 
 slowly withdrew. Not one word said for effect ! not a 
 thing done that was not entirely consistent with the 
 simplicity and majesty of perfect truthfulness ! 
 
 An hour or two afterwards I took his hand, which 
 was shaking with every throb of his heart, and asked 
 him if he suffered much. " Yes," he said, " I suffer a 
 good deal ; but I have a blessed Redeemer." He died, as 
 he had always lived, very near to his lord. 
 
 For more than twenty years before his death, even 
 before Bishop Moore was taken, Bishop Meade's vigor- 
 ous frame had begun to give way under the heavy duties 
 
162 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 imposed upon him by this large Diocese. In the spring 
 of 1842 he asked for an assistant; and so evident was 
 the necessity, the Convention promptly responded by 
 the election of the Rev. John Johns, D.D., Rector of 
 Christ Church, Baltimore. On the strong and tender 
 arm of this beloved brother the Bishop leaned for nearly 
 twenty years, with manifest relief and gratification. 
 
 Bishop Johns was born in Newcastle, Del., July 30, 
 1796. On his father's side he was of Welsh extraction. 
 His ancestor, Richard Johns, a native of Bristol, Eng., 
 emigrated to Maryland, and settled in Calvert County. 
 In 1671, through George Fox's influence, he joined the 
 Society of Friends, and became a minister among them, 
 and a man of much influence for good in the province. 
 The Bishop's father, the Hon. Kensey Johns, Chan- 
 cellor of the Supreme Court of Delaware, whose ven- 
 erable form we saw at the consecration of his son in the 
 Monumental Church, October, 1842, was born at West 
 River, Md., June 14, 1759. He was a member of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, and rendered efficient ser- 
 vice in both Diocesan and General Conventions. He 
 married, about 1783, Ann Van Dyke, daughter of Nicho- 
 las Van Dyke, delegate from Delaware to the Conti- 
 nental Congress, and president of the Commonwealth. 
 Of their three sons and three daughters, the Bishop 
 was the second son. It is remarkable how often in the 
 chronicles of the kings, both of Israel and of Judah, 
 we meet with the short sentence attached to the person 
 named, " His mother's name was " so and so. Is it not 
 to tell us how much the son's character is formed hy the 
 mother? It was certainly so with Bishop Moore and 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUB BISHOPS. 163 
 
 Bishop Meade. No less so with Bishop Johns. His 
 mother's devoted piety, and firm adherence to high 
 religious principle both for herself and her children, 
 saved her family from falling into those dreadful social 
 sins of Sunday visiting, card-playing, drinking, and the- 
 atrical amusements, which surrounded the Bishop in his 
 early youth. In 1812 he entered Princeton College, 
 and during his four-years' course there, in a season of 
 religious awakening, became a communicant. In New- 
 castle, Judge Johns's family had been accustomed to 
 attend the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches alter- 
 nately. Each of the ministers had a country parish, 
 and they so arranged that they never officiated in the 
 town the same part of the day on Sunday. The same 
 congregation went in the morning to one church, in 
 the afternoon to the other. As a natural result, in the 
 judge's family, some of the children became Presbyte- 
 rians and others Episcopalians ; and the Bishop's mind 
 remained for some time undecided as to the Church in 
 which he should minister. 
 
 It was by the advice of one of his father's intimate 
 friends, who afterwards became an eminent Presbyterian 
 minister, — Dr. James P. Wilson, — his decision was at 
 last made for the Episcopal Church. At Princeton was 
 formed that friendship for Dr. Charles Hodge, which 
 continued to increase in strength and tenderness for 
 sixty-four years, and which, beautiful in itself, minis- 
 tered greatly to his comfort to his dying day. Strange 
 to say, our Bishop's decision for the Episcopal Church 
 seems to have given to the Presbyterian Church one of 
 her most valuable and honored ministers. Dr. Hodge 
 
164 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 himself tells us how : " This decision of Bishop Johns, 
 although neither of us at the time knew any thing 
 about it, determined my whole course in life. When Dr. 
 Archibald Alexander was appointed professor in the 
 seminary at Princeton, he had under his care the de- 
 partments of didactic, polemic, and pastoral theology, 
 together with instruction in Hebrew. He soon found 
 this was too burdensome, and therefore determined to 
 select some young man on whom he might devolve the 
 Hebrew department. He selected Johns. When he 
 decided to enter the Episcopal Church, he took up with 
 me." 
 
 Thus it is, God uses every one of us, unconsciously, to 
 influence others. Bishop Johns's habits and career as 
 a student are well worthy of notice and of imitation. 
 There was a great deal of enthusiasm in his nature, 
 well guarded, however, with a large amount of caution. 
 In youth he was full of fun and frolic, bright in intellect 
 and genial in disposition, passionately fond of hunting, 
 and a fine shot. All this vivacity of natural tempera- 
 ment, and love of excelling, he threw into his studies ; 
 and the result was what Dr. Hodge tells us, " Johns 
 was always first, — first everywhere, fii'st inevery thing. 
 His success was largely owing to his determination 
 always to do his best. He was always thoroughly pre- 
 pared for every exercise in the college and in the semi- 
 nary. When in the seminary, he would be able, day 
 after day, to give what ' Turretin,' our text-book, calls 
 • the state of the question^ — stating that the question is 
 not this or that, until every foreign element is elimi- 
 nated, and then the precise point in hand is laid down 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 165 
 
 vpith unmistakable precision. Then follows, in distinct 
 paragraphs, the argument in its support. Then come 
 the answers to objections. Dr. Alexander was accus- 
 tomed to give us from twenty to forty quarto pages m 
 Latin to read for a recitation. When we came to recite, 
 the professor would place the book before him, and say, 
 ' What is the state of the question 1 ' ' What is the 
 first argument 1 ' Then, ' What is the first objection, 
 and its answer 1 ' Dr. Johns would be able, day after 
 day, to give ' the state of the question,' all the arguments 
 in its support in their order, all the ' objections ' and the 
 'answers' to them, through the whole thii'ty or forty 
 pages, without the professor saying a word to him." 
 
 With such a thorough foundation, no wonder he took 
 a high stand as a preacher. From the very Jirst, this 
 seems to have been his aim, — to excel as a preacher. 
 The text of his first sermon, delivered in the afternoon 
 of his ordination by Bishop White in St. Peter's, Phila- 
 delphia, June 10, 1819, was indicative of his purpose, 
 and prophetic of his success. It was our Saviour's text, 
 that of His first recorded sermon. " The Spirit of the 
 Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to 
 preach the Gospel to the poor," etc. Did he not, to the 
 end of his life, try to fulfil his divine mission among us 
 in the same Scriptural strain, just as his Saviour would 
 lead him by the hand and suggest to him the topic and 
 the words, with the " good tidings to the meek, deliver- 
 ance to the captive, sight to the blind, liberty to the 
 bruised, and acceptance with God," ever upon his lips 1 
 He never forgot his " Turretin," nor the systematic 
 training it gave him. Still it was " the glorious Gospel 
 
166 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 of the blessed God," which formed his theme through 
 the whole of his ministry. At the risk of the charge 
 of " sameness " in his discourses, he would continue to 
 preach Christ and Him crucified, to all classes of 
 hearers. Not for want of other matter. He chose to 
 know nothing among men but that one theme. His 
 mind was exceedingly quick and well furnished, and to 
 the end of his days he was very careful in the prepara- 
 tion of his sermons. At first he memorized them. He 
 would take his text on Monday morning, and by 
 Wednesday evening the sermon was written : the rest 
 of the week, he was committing it to memory. But 
 he soon laid aside this method for a better one. He 
 would impress upon his memory the thoughts of his 
 sermon, arranging them methodically as he intended 
 to utter them ; helping his memory by copious notes, but 
 never bring inff them into the pulpit. 
 
 His natural gifts, moreover, were of an uncommon 
 kind, — not merely the tenacious memory : his voice 
 was weU toned as well as well trained, his delivery 
 exceedingly animated, and his gestures graceful. His 
 readiness of utterance was most remarkable, and his 
 choice of language exceedingly happy. One instance 
 of his readiness of utterance came under my own ob- 
 servation. Just before the war, he was to confirm for 
 me at Nottoway Court-house, then a mission station. 
 He arrived in a freight-train, late and very tired. He 
 assigned to me the service and the sermon, promising to 
 make an address after sermon. I took my text, pro- 
 ceeded, and closed my sermon, and, turning to the 
 Bishop, discovered to my dismay, — what the congrega- 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 167 
 
 tion fortunately had not discovered, — that he was pro- 
 foundly asleep. The sound of my voice ceasing waked 
 him up. He started to his feet; and, with only a 
 moment's hesitation, he delivered one of the most 
 appropriate and useful addresses I ever heard from him, 
 exactly fitting into the sermon, and producing an excel- 
 lent eflfect. He told me afterwards he had heard only 
 the text. His first parochial charge was in Frederick- 
 town, Md. It is interesting to know, that, as early as 
 1819, the acquaintance and the friendship of our two 
 Princeton Bishops began. In " The Fredericktown 
 Herald" of Aug. 7, 1819, the following notice was 
 printed : " The Eev. John Johns and the Rev. William 
 Meade are expected in town to-morrow, when the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church will be opened for Divine 
 service." There was only seven years' difference in 
 their ages. In Fredericktown, Bishop Johns remained 
 nine years, with God's rich blessing upon his ministry. 
 There, too, he married, Nov. 20, 1820. While there, 
 he was called to St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia. He 
 asked advice of Dr. Alexander upon the matter, and 
 received in reply from that wise Christian minister words 
 which all of us Clergy, especially the younger ones, 
 would do well to remember : " Do not think the amount 
 of your usefulness depends upon the size of your congrega- 
 tion." During his ministry in Fredericktown, a young 
 man who had been educated in the Church of Rome, and 
 was then a student of law in Chief- Justice Taney's office, 
 was one evening playing at billiards with a friend : they 
 determined from curiosity to go and hear the new 
 Episcopal minister, whose reputation was already rising. 
 
168 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 God blessed that single sermon ; and the next morning 
 found the young law-student in that minister's study, 
 asking what he should do to be saved. The final result 
 was the entrance into our ministry of the Rev. John 
 Thompson Brooke, one of our most distinguished and 
 useful Clergymen. In 1829 Dr. Johns was called to 
 Christ Church, Baltimore. There, also, his ministry was 
 greatly blessed; and, when in 1842 he was elected 
 Assistant Bishop of this Diocese, the congregation was 
 one of the largest in Baltimore. His standing in that 
 Diocese is shown by the fact that he was the prominent 
 candidate for Bishop of the Low-Church party, during 
 the memorable contest of 1840. In fulfilling his duties 
 as Bishop Meade's assistant, he soon acquired through- 
 out the bounds of this Diocese that popularity as a 
 preacher he had always won elsewhere ; and, instead of 
 waning, it rather increased, as the experience of years 
 and his own growth in grace made him more fervent 
 in spirit and more anxious for the salvation of souls. 
 Dr. Packard tells us, in his bright sketch of him, — 
 
 "Bishop Johns gloried in the cross of Christ. On the fifty- 
 fifth anniversary of his ordination, he preached in the chapel of 
 the Theological Seminary ; and after expressing his gratitude to 
 God, that He had called him by His grace to the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation, and granted him so long a continuance in it, he earnestly 
 and affectionately exhorted his young brethren never to be weary 
 in the service of Lord and Master. He was a laborious preacher, 
 and labored to the last. It was no uncommon thing for him to 
 preach twice a day for a fortnight together." 
 
 The Bishop's residence, after his consecration, was in 
 Richmond ; and during the winter and spring months, 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 169 
 
 before the season of his visitations began, he spared 
 not himself. This congregation of St. Paul's, at least 
 its older members, can bear witness how cordially he 
 resumed the pastor's labors, and how faithfully he 
 performed them, during the constrained absence one 
 winter of their beloved and over-worked Rector (Dr. 
 Norwood). In 1849 it was thought best that he should 
 remove to Williamsbui-g, and do what he could, as 
 president of the college, to revive its declining life. 
 He assumed the position, and threw himself, with his 
 accustomed zeal, into its duties. His daughter writes 
 of that period, " Five happy years spent in the refined 
 society, siuTounded with the literary atmosphere, and 
 pleasant associations with the professors, was most con- 
 genial to my father. His consideration and thought for 
 the students still bear fruit in the lives and examples 
 of many." Bishop Meade's testimony is stUl more em- 
 phatic : " During the five years of his continuance, not- 
 withstanding the arduous labors of his episcopal oflice, 
 he so diligently and wisely conducted the management 
 of the college as to produce a regular increase of the 
 number of the students, until they had nearly reached 
 the maximum of former times ; established a better dis- 
 cipline than perhaps ever before had prevailed in the 
 institution ; and attracted more students of divinity to 
 its lectures than had ever been seen there in the memory 
 of any now living." It seems, then, that in teaching, as 
 well as in preaching. Bishop Johns was in his element. 
 In September, 1854, the Bishop removed to his own 
 sweet home on the Seminary HUl at " Malvern," and 
 soon began to identify himself with the interests of the 
 
170 SEETGH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 seminary, and to exert a marked influence over the 
 successive generations of students thence passing into 
 the ministry. The rude shock of war dislodged him 
 from his quiet resting-place ; and when the Federal 
 troops invaded Alexandria, in 1861, he became, for the 
 four dark years of our contest, a " refugee," enduring 
 all dangers and discomforts with a quiet and even a 
 cheerful spirit. With Bishop Meade, and many other 
 patriots both in Church and State, he had disapproved of 
 and prayed against the war. But, when forced out of 
 the Union by the Government's resort to arms, he, with 
 our elder Bishop, cast in his lot heartily with the South 
 and the Southern Dioceses, and prepared to suffer. It 
 was during the conflict that our elder Bisliop, like Elijah, 
 was translated, almost in a chariot of fire, not long 
 before the battle of Seven Pines ; and upon Elisha's 
 shoulders rested the duties and responsibilities of keep- 
 ing up the spiritual life of our poor shattered Diocese. 
 During those eventful years, without a home, with many 
 discomforts, he ceased not to teach and to preach, and, 
 as he had opportunity, to do good unto all men. He 
 offered the prayer at the inauguration of President Davis ; 
 and he preached the Gospel of peace to the soldiers in 
 the camp, and to many of the regiments just on the eve 
 of battle. The journals of 1863 and 1864 show how 
 busy he was in supplying the Confederate army, person- 
 ally and officially, with the ministrations of the Gospel. 
 Gen. Jackson, just before his death, sent him a spe- 
 cial request to send, if possible, forty faithful ministers 
 to supply that number of vacant chaplaincies in the 
 army of the Kappahannock. Gen. Lee added his ear- 
 
SKETCH OF OUB FIBST FOUB BISHOPS. 171 
 
 nest request, and the Bishop appealed to the council. 
 By a solemn resolution the Hishop was asked to call 
 upon the ministers then without parishes, to render 
 religious services to the army for such a time and at 
 such a place as he might designate ; and the whole 
 Clergy of the council, in a body, offered themselves for 
 the work. Another war reminiscence is worth recalling. 
 It illustrates his character, and his position in those try- 
 ing days. Early in 1864 a letter reached him by flag 
 of truce, from Dr. Addison of Wheeling, then a part 
 of his Diocese, asking him to permit some Bishop to 
 administer for him the rite of confirmation to the 
 many candidates there awaiting that important ordi- 
 nance, promising in the selection "to conform as closely 
 as practicable to his known wishes on the subject." To 
 this the Bishop replied courteously and affectionately ; 
 firmly declining, however, to give the permission asked, 
 but offering with all readiness to go himself, on his 
 parole of honor, to perform the service, if the Federal 
 authorities would give him a safe-conduct. The " safe- 
 conduct " was never given ; but, when the war was over, 
 the Bishop returned irom his visitation to that part of 
 his Diocese, much gratified by the courtesy and kindness 
 with which he had been everywhere received. In the 
 steps taken towards the re-union of our Dioceses in the 
 fall of 1865, Bishop Johns was by no means slow to 
 move. Having been invited, by a circular from the 
 then presiding Bishop of the Northern Dioceses 
 (Bishop Hopkins), to resume our representation in the 
 General Convention of 1865, Bishop Johns advised 
 the Diocesan Council to take action in response to the 
 
172 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 invitation, plainly showing his own desire for immediate 
 re-union. In this important matter, however, the Bishop 
 was in advance of his Diocese. The committee to whom 
 the matter was referred decHned to recommend such 
 action until sanctioned by the General Council of the 
 Confederated Dioceses, to whom we felt ourselves 
 pledged. The Church in Virginia was not represented 
 in the General Convention of 1865. 
 
 Alone now in the office of the episcopate, Bishop 
 Johns began the toilsome work of rebuilding the wasted 
 parishes, and cheering the many darkened homes and 
 broken hearts of his Clergy and people. Though blessed 
 with an uncommon degree of health and vigor, he soon 
 began to feel the incessant labor too great for one who 
 had already attained his " threescore years and ten." 
 In the spring of 1867 he intimated his need of an assist- 
 ant. A majority of the committee to whom were referred 
 the subjects of an assistant, and the division of the 
 Diocese, were in favor of giving the Bishop relief by a 
 division ; but, as the need seemed pressing, they yielded 
 their own wishes to his wants. His request was granted 
 by the election of the Rev. Francis M. Whittle of St. 
 Paul's Church, LouisvUle, Ky. And, in the consecration 
 of this our fifth Bishop of Virginia, the Church in the 
 United States gave to the Diocese of Virginia the first 
 visible sign and seal of her willingness to accept the prof- 
 fered hand of reconciliation. On the 30th of April, 
 1868, our present Diocesan received his consecration 
 at the hands of Bishop Johns himself, assisted by his 
 brethren of Delaware and Ohio. "Thus," says Bishop 
 Johns, " after an unprecedented and unreasonable delay 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIBST FOUR BISHOPS. 173 
 
 of twelve months, your right as a Diocese has been rec- 
 ognized, and your devout desire happily accomphshed." 
 And so it has happened a second time in the history 
 of our Church, the Episcopate of Virginia became, by 
 God's good providence, the keystone to make strong the 
 foundation-arch of the Church prosperity in this coun- 
 try, by completing the union of the Dioceses. Mark that, 
 ye brethren who desire Diocesan independence ! Twice, 
 in her history, has God made the Episcopate of Vir- 
 ginia to become the seal of the union of all the Dio- 
 ceses, — first, when the Union was formed ; next, when, 
 broken by war, it was again cemented. Eight years 
 longer after this was our Bishop spared to us, fulfilling 
 more than thirty-three years of a most useful and hon- 
 ored episcopate. The Psalmist's description was true of 
 him : he " shall bring forth fruit in old age ; " " his leaf 
 also shall not wither." His love to God and to his 
 fellow-man seemed to increase as he grew older. His 
 mind and heart enlarged and softened. His influence 
 in the House of Bishops was year by year more dis- 
 tinctly felt and acknowledged. His opening sermon at 
 the General Convention of 1871, "The love of Christ 
 constraineth us," touched a chord in every true Christian's 
 heart, and largely promoted the spirit of harmony and 
 charity and missionary zeal which marked the proceed- 
 ings of that body. Dean Howson, who was present, said 
 of that sermon, " I could not help thinking of the Apos- 
 tle Paul during the concluding words of that most effec- 
 tive, most serious sermon, which we had the advantage 
 of listening to, from the Bishop, who was the preacher 
 yesterday. I felt that he had concentrated in that ser- 
 
174 SKETCH OF OUB FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 mon the main spirit of St. Paul's life and character. And 
 it seemed to me, as he spoke (evidently showing the 
 traces of long experience and hard work), that there was 
 a persuasiveness in his language and his manner of 
 speaking which was extremely like what must have been 
 witnessed and heard by those who listened to the great 
 apostle. The impression at the close of that sermon was 
 simply this : that I never before had fully understood 
 the depth and breadth of those words, ' I believe in the 
 Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.'" It 
 was at this convention, also, our Bishop showed his un- 
 abated vigor of mind, and his skill in the command of 
 language, as well as his increasing influence among 
 the Bishops, by the important part he took in framing 
 the " Declaration of the House of Bishops " on the use 
 of the word " regenerate " in the baptismal service. 
 He told me it cost him a night's sleep to fix upon that 
 single word " determine " in the sentence, " We declare, 
 that, in our opinion, the word ' regenerate ' is not there 
 so used as to determine that a moral change in the subject 
 of baptism is wrought by that sacrament." 
 
 Consulting next morning with Bishop Mcllvaine and 
 Bishop Whittingham, the two extremes that were to be 
 reconciled, to his delight he found the expression satis- 
 factory to them both ; and the Declaration was adopted 
 almost unanimously. On the 19th of February, 1876, 
 the Bishop preached his last sermon. Soon after came a 
 slight attack of paralysis, and he felt and said his work 
 was done. His dying hours moved slowly to their end, 
 but they witnessed only unmurmuring patience and 
 abounding peace ; sometimes seasons of unmeasured 
 
SKETCH OF OUR FIBST FOUB BISHOPS. 175 
 
 comfort and joy, yes, of exulting triumph. " I would 
 not raise a finger to dictate. It is all well. If the Lord 
 had ordered it, I would willingly have labored on in this 
 service. I loved my work, but God has ordered it other- 
 wise. If He raises me up, I would strive to preach 
 Christ with more zeal, and His love more impressively. I 
 have preached it all my life ; and, if I were to get up 
 to-morrow, I could preach nothing better than that." That 
 expressive couplet was often upon his lips, — 
 
 " I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all ; 
 But Jesus Christ is my all in all." 
 
 " That's enough ; that is the Gospel. The sting of 
 death is taken away. Victory ! Victory ! " On the last 
 Sunday of his life he prayed for all his Clergy and peo- 
 ple : " O God, send down Thy Holy Spirit upon Thy 
 Church and Thy ministers ! May they proclaim Thy 
 Gospel with power, to the salvation of souls ! God bless 
 my Church, my ministers, my people [opening his arms, 
 as if he would embrace them all], and fold them in 
 the arms of the Everlasting Covenant." Often he would 
 pray aloud for " humility ; " for " grace to bear and be 
 benefited by the trial ; " to be " kept from the Tempter's 
 power." As he grew weaker, he whispered, " Guide 
 me, wash me, clothe me, help me, under the shadow of Thy 
 wings." And must he not have felt it to be a special 
 favor vouchsafed his departing soul, that, in his last con- 
 scious moments, he was permitted to hear the voice of 
 his own youngest son, one of our Clergy, commending 
 his father's spirit into the hands of his faithful Creator 
 and most merciful Saviour, humbly beseeching Him that 
 it might he precious in His sight ? 
 
176 SKETCH OF OUR FIRST FOUR BISHOPS. 
 
 And now, what final lessons does the remembrance of 
 our rulers impress upon us 1 Shall we glory in men f 
 God forbid ! " Your glorying is not good." " Who, then, 
 is even Paul, and who is Apollos," but ministers by whom 
 ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? To 
 Him be all the glory, who " holds the stars in His right 
 hand." "We bless His holy name for the good ex- 
 amples of these " our spiritual rulers, who have spoken 
 to us the Word of God. Let us see to it that we ^^ follow 
 their faith." Let our Church in Virginia, which has 
 hitherto gained all her little strength from looking only 
 to a crucified Saviour, never, never turn away her eye from 
 Him. He " walketh," too, " among the golden candle- 
 sticks." He " knows our works." Let us try always to 
 realize His presence, to do His works, and to enjoy the 
 light of His countenance. Brethren of the Clergy, let 
 us follow our Bishops, as they have followed their Sav- 
 iour. Let us always preach, " not ourselves, but Christ 
 Jesus our Lord," simply, fervently, experimentally. Like 
 Bishop Madison, let us protest earnestly against the 
 floods of infidelity, irreligion, and lukewarmness now rising 
 around us everywhere, and try to rouse ourselves and 
 others to more zeal and godliness. Like Bishop Moore, 
 let us preach more fervently and continually the love of 
 our divine Redeemer, and the unsearchable riches of His 
 grace. Like Bishop Meade, ever studying to " show 
 ourselves approved unto God," not man, and keeping 
 ourselves " unspotted from the world." Like Bishop 
 Johns, ready to every good word and work, proclaiming 
 the Saviour's all-sufficient grace, and counting the blessed 
 work itself its own " exceeding great reward." 
 
CENTEMIAL SERMON. 
 
 PREACHED BY REV. O. A. KINSOLVING, D.D., BY REQUEST 
 OF THE CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE OF THE DIOCESE 
 OF VIRGINIA, IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, RICHMOND, 
 MAY 24, 1885. 
 
 " Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. 
 Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the 
 generation following." — Ps. xlviii. 12, 13. 
 
 One hundred years ago the venerable building in 
 which we are assembled to-day to continue our com- 
 memoration of the completion of the first century in the 
 history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Dio- 
 cese of Virginia occupied the same ground on which it 
 now stands. It was even then reverenced among the 
 old sanctuaries in which the fathers of past generations 
 had worshipped God, and was hallowed by historic asso- 
 ciations both of a secular and religious character. It 
 was here in this the oldest place of worship in the new 
 capital of the new Commonwealth, this beautiful city 
 upon the hiUs, during the Colonial days when the 
 Church in Vii'ginia was still under the jurisdiction of the 
 Bishop of London, its connection with the mother Church 
 of England not as yet having been severed, that devout 
 Episcopalians were gathered together from Sunday to 
 Sunday to worship the God of their fathers, with the 
 
178 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 same holy oiRces, and in the same form of sound words 
 in which we worship Him to-day. It was here, within 
 these walls of an old Colonial Episcopal church, that in 
 1775^ — ten years before the re-organization of the 
 Church the centennial anniversary of' which we now 
 commemorate, — a political convention was held, before 
 which the great orator of the American Revolution — him- 
 self an Episcopalian, the son of an Episcopalian, and the 
 nephew of an Episcopal Clergyman — made that wonder- 
 ful speech which accomplished such important results 
 in establishing civil and religious liberty in this Com- 
 monwealth and in this country. It was here, too, that 
 in 1788 another convention was held to ratify the Fed- 
 eral Constitution, which body was composed of men of as 
 splendid talents and noble characters as any country in 
 any times has produced, among whom the leading spirits 
 were Episcopalians who had been taught to reverence 
 God's sanctuary even though gathered under its roof in 
 the transaction of secular business. These and other 
 incidents in its early history, with the added fact, which 
 connects it so closely with the services which we are 
 now celebrating, that it is a centennial church, aye, 
 almost a bi-centennial church, being much more than a 
 hundred years old, dating its erection back to 1 7'40 ; and 
 having been standing here so long on this old hill over- 
 looking the ancient river that flows at its base, " going 
 on forever," it has witnessed the growth of the city, as 
 it has extended its limits into the surrounding country 
 dotted over with churches lifting their spires heaven- 
 ward, among which a goodly number may be recog- 
 nized as the prosperous daughters of this venerable 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 179 
 
 mother ; and then as this ancient building has stood 
 here " embosomed among these trees " as they have 
 cast their shadows upon " the mansions of the dead," 
 and for a whole century has been looking out from these 
 quiet shades abroad over the great Diocese of Virginia 
 as it has gone on from prospering to prosper, growing 
 up, like all important influences in our world, from 
 small beginnings, being composed first of the gathered 
 fragments of what remained of the Church after the Rev- 
 olution, then repairing the old waste places, with their 
 ruined churches and sequestrated glebes, and, worse 
 than all, their alienated people, winning them back to 
 the faith of their fathers, reviving the spirit of piety 
 throughout her borders, and causing even those not of 
 her fold to say, " We now wish you good luck in the 
 name of the Lord," — I say, as this old Church of St. 
 John's has stood here through a century, connecting the 
 present with the past, — the resprt of antiquarians, 
 the subject of civil as well as ecclesiastical tradition, 
 the silent yet eloquent witness of the growth of the 
 Church in Virginia, — if all those hallowing associa- 
 tions do not make this a sacred and a classic spot, then 
 I know not where, on this continent at least, we can go 
 to find one. 
 
 It seemed meet and right in our walk about our Zion 
 during these happy memorial services, that we should 
 remember as we draw nigh hither to-day, that " the 
 place whereon we stand is holy ground," not only conse- 
 crated long years ago to God's service, but venerated 
 because of the sacred memories of the past which clus- 
 ter around it. 
 
180 CENTENNIAL SEBMON. 
 
 Our service to-day is a memorial service. If any one 
 should ask, "What mean ye by such a service? " then 
 the obvious answer is, that it is to call to mind God's 
 mercies, and His gracious dealings with that branch of 
 His Church in which our lot is cast, in order to awaken 
 our devout gratitude to Him from whom all blessings 
 flow, and to kindle afresh our faith and love and zeal 
 in His service, that in our Church relations, as well as 
 " in all our works begun, continued, and ended in God, 
 we may glorify Plis name." 
 
 Yes, brethren, this is obviously the one grand object 
 of such a memorial celebration as that in which we now 
 participate. It is to glorify God, and not man : it is to 
 " remember the days of old, the years of the right hand 
 of the Most High, to meditate also of all His work, and 
 to talk of His doings." As we gather here in this an- 
 cient sanctuary, as we have gathered in another church 
 from day to day, to let our thoughts go back for a hun- 
 dred years and to take in at a glance the history of the 
 Episcopal Church in Virginia during that period, is it 
 now, or has it been, only to magnify ourselves or our 
 own work, or the work of the noble men whom God 
 raised up and employed as instruments in the resuscita- 
 tion and building-up of this Church in Virginia I I am 
 sure this is not the spirit or object of this glorious occa- 
 sion. It is rather to fix our thoughts, in humble thank- 
 fulness, on God's wisdom and loving-kindness in having 
 preserved and blessed this Church with such a goodly 
 measure of prosperity that the words of the prophet 
 seem to describe it most appropriately, " a little one 
 has become a thousand;" for a small band, assem- 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 181 
 
 bled in this city a hundred years ago to organize a 
 Diocese out of the ruins of the Colonial Church, has 
 become a strong organization, "• in which Christ is faith- 
 fully preached, and the sacraments duly administered 
 according to Christ's ordinance," and which has about 
 it the elements of spiritual gro^vth, of strength, stability, 
 and perpetuity, for which we are not unduly elated or 
 boastful, but humbly thankful, and ready " with one 
 heart and one mouth to glorify God, even the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 When we review the position which the Episcopal 
 Church occupied at the time when the first iefforts were 
 made towards its re-organization, not only in Virginia, 
 but throughout the United States ; when we see it emer- 
 ging from that fiery ordeal through which it had passed 
 during the war of the Revolution, which was not mere- 
 ly depressing in its influence but consuming, — enough 
 indeed to have extinguished it forever if it had been the 
 work of man only; when we observe its attitude and 
 environment at that time, and then follow it on in its 
 progress down to the present, we shall be ready to say, 
 " Lo, what hath God wrought ! " and we shall see what 
 cause we have to think of His loving-kindness on this 
 auspicious occasion, " in the midst of His temple." 
 
 On the eighteenth day of May, 1785, the first Con- 
 vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia 
 assembled in this city to begin the work of re-organi- 
 zation, when there were present thirty-six Clergymen and 
 seventy-one laymen, — a goodly number, it would seem, 
 of both orders, considering the times in which they 
 met, and the circumstances by which they were sur- 
 
182 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 rounded. It is right hard for us now to take in the 
 situation then. These surviving Church-people were 
 encompassed vsdth difficulties on every hand ; chief 
 among which was the fact that the Church in Virginia, 
 as in all the Colonies, had never been under any real 
 episcopal supervision. It had been under the care of a 
 non-resident Bishop, with the broad Atlantic ocean roll- 
 ing between him and his distant spiritual jurisdiction, 
 which left it in the anomalous position of an Episcopal 
 Church without a Bishop to visit its congregations, to 
 ordain its ministers or to confirm its members. And 
 now, after the disruption between the two countries, the 
 Episcopal Church in Virginia was cut ofi" even from the 
 imperfect supervision which it had formerly received, 
 and its people were indeed " as sheep having no shep- 
 herd," — a disorganized and scattered flock, which would 
 have perished in the wilderness but for the tender, 
 watchful care of the great Shepherd and Bishop of 
 souls, who is never so near, never so gracious, never so 
 watchful over His Church as when it is passing through 
 some trying crisis in its history. So depressed were the 
 members of that primary Convention of the post-Eevo- 
 lutionary days that they issued an address earnestly ap- 
 pealing to those who still cherished any love for the old 
 Church, which was now disestablished and severed for- 
 ever from all civil and political complications, to unite 
 and co-operate fervently in the work of its revival. In 
 plaintive words they asked, " Of what is this Church 
 now possessed? Nothing but the glebes and your 
 affections." And even those glebes were destined soon 
 to be taken away. Already had that Church encount- 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 183 
 
 ered the strongest opposition. This was to be expected 
 as entirely natural in the minds of a people, many of 
 whom, from ignorance or prejudice, were unable to 
 separate its Scriptural authority and teaching from the 
 oppressions of the civil government with which it had 
 been so closely connected, and whose yoke had so 
 recently been thrown off. It was associated in the 
 minds of vast numbers of people with the political 
 institutions under which the Colonies had groaned ; and 
 being thus identified, most unjustly, with the wrongs 
 they had suffered, they were alienated from it, and 
 looked with suspicion upon any efforts that were made 
 to rehabilitate it. No wonder, then, that, in the subse- 
 quent meetings of the Diocesan Convention for several 
 successive years, the number of members gradually 
 diminished, until at last the fear was expressed that the 
 Episcopal Church in Virginia would be entirely extin- 
 guished. But happily " God's ways are not as our 
 ways " either in His dealings with churches or individ- 
 uals ; for he often converts the most untoward events 
 into sources of prosperity, making darkness light before 
 Him, causing the thickest clouds that lower over us to 
 pour out the most refreshing showers, making " even 
 the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of 
 wrath He restraineth." Was it not thus in the revival 
 of the Episcopal Church in Virginia'? Did not the 
 causes of its decline after the Revolution become the 
 sources of its purity and strength and progress after- 
 wards ? The fact that its property was in great 
 measure destroyed or alienated resulted in immeasur- 
 able good by overcoming the old prejudices, by infusing 
 
184 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 into the minds of people a just appreciation of her 
 Scriptural foundation, and, more than all, by develop- 
 ing in her ministers and members that one leading 
 apostolic grace of " striving together for the faith of the 
 Gospel." 
 
 In September of the same year (1785) the first Gen- 
 eral Convention vi^as held in the city of Philadelphia, 
 which was attended by delegates from Virginia, and at 
 which the incipient steps were taken towards a general 
 re-organization of the Church, and the alteration and 
 adaptation of the Liturgy to its changed condition. This 
 work being done, the Prayer-Book as it is was ulti- 
 mately adopted, with such alterations as were necessaiy 
 in the altered circumstances of the Church, and as 
 seemed good to the wisdom of the wise men who were 
 its representatives in that important crisis. In the 
 adoption of this book, which has now been in use 
 for a century and is very dear to the hearts of all 
 true Episcopalians, the work of the English Reforma- 
 tion was fully indorsed, the doctrine, discipline, and 
 worship of the mother Church established in all essen- 
 tial parts, with the same articles of faith, the same litur- 
 gical forms, and the same offices of administration of the 
 sacraments and other ordinances of Christianity, which 
 had been in use since the Reformation, and many of 
 which had come down as a sacred heritage of the 
 Church from a remote antiquity. 
 
 Need we be reminded to-day, as we are engaged in 
 this solemn ceremony of " walking about our Zion, and 
 going round about her " to examine her foundation, and 
 to trace her history, " tell her towers, and mark well 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 185 
 
 her bulwarks," that we find this Church of which we 
 are members to be not only an historic Church, connected 
 with the past, and tracing her form of government and 
 religious worship and observances as well as her doc- 
 trines back to apostolic or primitive times, but a Church 
 " built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone " I 
 
 Antiquity, no doubt, does lend its charm to every 
 thing pertaining to the permanent welfare of society 
 and to all its institutions both human and divine ; 
 for whatever has long existed and still exists, having 
 been tried, tested, and sanctioned by the experience of 
 the past as well as of the present, is, for the most part, 
 highly valued, and is appreciated all the more for being 
 old. There is that in human nature, when it is not 
 perverted or biassed by some undue influence, to rev- 
 erence what is old, and to surround the past with sacred 
 associations. And when an ancient lineage can be 
 traced and a noble ancestry claimed for any institu- 
 tion, it gives weight to its claims, and adds to its merits 
 the traditional sanction and recommendation of past 
 generations. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten, that while some things 
 are better other things are all the worse for being old. 
 Sin is as old as the history of man ; and yet it does not 
 lose any of its sinfulness or gain any additional claims 
 upon mankind because of the antiquity of its origin. 
 Error, which is only akin to sin, may be very old, and 
 in some of its varied forms may trace its lineage back 
 to the very beginning ; especially may some forms of 
 religious error run back to the apostles' times : and yet 
 
186 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 it is not more tolerable or lovely or attractive, but all 
 the more to be dreaded and scrutinized and opposed 
 because of its antiquity. There is a tendency in human 
 nature to undervalue old truth and to cling tenaciously to 
 old error. Truth, like its Author, is always the same, and 
 changes not ; but to some minds it may become antiquated 
 or old-fashioned, and ill suited to the times or to the 
 progress of modern ideas ; v^hile error being itself the 
 outgrowth of the human mind, the human perversion 
 of divine truth, appeals more directly to the nature in 
 which it originated, and roots itself there more firmly 
 and ineradicably. It is the same principle, developed 
 in a different channel, that makes people dissatisfied with 
 old usages as well as with old doctrines in religion, and 
 to prefer something that is new and modern ; while the 
 old errors are continually assuming new forms, and thus 
 winning their way in the world through blind predilec- 
 tions for change. But, thank God, amid all the changes 
 through which this Church of ours has passed, it has 
 never been moved from its chief corner-stone, that one 
 and only foundation on which it is built, which is the 
 Rock of ages. "The Church's one foundation is Jesus 
 Christ the Lord." We find Christ prominent every- 
 where in this Chiu-ch, in her standards, in her offices, 
 in her forms of worship, in every collect which is offered 
 through Jesus Christ. He is the one central figure, to 
 which they all point, like the needle to the pole, with 
 magnetic attraction ; and let the mind of the student 
 or devout worshipper vibrate as it may for a time 
 between different theories, yet under this teaching, un- 
 biassed by human glosses or forced interpretations, it is 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 187 
 
 sure to settle down to its equilibrium, being firmly fixed 
 upon Christ. If He had not been put here where He 
 is, which is just where the Bible places Him, as " the 
 elect corner stone," " the one foundation laid in Zion," 
 then what would be the value of our Church system, 
 or of our claims to antiquity, apostolicity, or primitive 
 order ] Suppose this system of doctrine and polity had 
 been covered up with human inventions and innovations, 
 so that Christ had been made to occupy an inferior 
 position, or had been hidden from our view so that we 
 could not without difficulty find access to Him, then of 
 what use would it be to us to be told that these dogmas 
 or usages have come down to us from the olden times, 
 and have been sanctioned by long experience and cus- 
 tom 1 We do not glory in a Church that rests upon any 
 other foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ 
 the Lord ; nor do we mean by our service to-day to 
 rejoice in our ecclesiastical organization only because 
 of its antiquity. While we trace its lineage back, not 
 through a hundred years only, nor through the two pre- 
 ceding centuries that connect it with the Reformation, 
 but farther back still to the beginning, so far, indeed, 
 as the " diligent reading of Holy Scripture and ancient 
 authors make it evident : " still we do not celebrate its 
 antiquity only, but we meet together to express our 
 thankfulness that amid the " sundry and manifold 
 changes " through which this Church has passed, it has 
 not been moved from its foundation, nor has that foun- 
 dation been buried out of sight by a superstructure of 
 human theories or unauthorized additions, but stands 
 where it stood at the beginning, — with Christ the 
 
188 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 first, Christ the middle, and Christ the end of all her 
 doctrine, of all her works, of all her worship, and of 
 all her hope. 
 
 In the train of thought suggested by the text as suit- 
 able for our reflections on such an occasion as this, next 
 to the foundation on which our Zion rests is that we 
 " tell the towers thereof, and mark well her bulwarks, 
 and consider her palaces ; " which, without any strained 
 interpretation, obviously means that we observe the su- 
 perstructure that has been built upon that foundation. 
 And if we find it according to God's will, " ordered in 
 all things and sure," being in full strength for the work 
 that is to be accomplished, then we should be thankful, 
 and do our utmost to use and preserve without damage 
 our heritage as we have received it, which can only be 
 done by keeping its towers manned with watchmen who 
 will be true to their high calling ; to preserve her bul- 
 warks as we found them, strongly fortified with " the 
 truth as it is in Jesus," and guarded at every point 
 against error in every form ; to let her palaces be adorned 
 and beautified, not merely with outward symbols of 
 architecture or ornaments of aesthetic taste or elaborate 
 material decorations, but fitted for the holy uses for 
 which all temples of religion ought to be erected, which 
 is for the solemn worship of Almighty God, the exposi- 
 tion of His word by His appointed ministers, and the 
 due celebration of the two sacraments which Christ hath 
 ordained in His Church, and all other ordinances of His 
 house. 
 
 We of the Episcopal Church in Virginia have reason 
 to keep in affectionate and reverent remembrance the 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 189 
 
 line of Bishops who have been called to preside over 
 this Diocese and under God have been the instruments 
 of restoring, preserving, and transmitting to us this 
 Church, as a depository of " the faith as it was once 
 delivered to the saints," as re-embodied by the Fathers 
 of the English Reformation and handed down by them 
 to the generations following. We have been already 
 reminded of the part that has been done by the wise, 
 faithful, vigilant overseers of the flock who have suc- 
 cessively watched over the Church in Virginia with true 
 apostolic care and zeal, doing their utmost to keep away 
 from it " aU erroneous and strange doctrine ; " which is 
 doubtless the true secret of the conservatism of the Epis- 
 copal Church in Vu-ginia. Nowhere in our broad land 
 can there be found a more sound, healthy, conservative 
 influence exerted by the Episcopal Church than is to 
 be found in Virginia. The Church here has been kept 
 steadfast in its adherence to the teaching of the Prayer- 
 Book as it is, without yielding on the one hand or on 
 the other to the spirit of change that is sweeping by. 
 There has been maintained here a spirit of toleration 
 for every thing except positive, esseiitial error ; and a 
 proper latitude has been allowed for all differences of 
 opinion that do not touch the foundations of faith, 
 without running into latitudinarianism. Its system of 
 worship has been strictly that laid down in the Prayer- 
 Book, and its loyalty to the standards to which it has 
 subscribed has never been justly impeached. This, 
 doubtless, has been due in great measure to the wise 
 administration of the faithful men whom God has set 
 over it to guide its destinies. At the same time these 
 
190 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 faithful chief pastors have been sustained by a body of 
 Clergy of " like precious faith with themselves." 
 
 There were some admirable men among the earlier 
 Colonial Clergy, such as the apostolic Whittaker and 
 Hunt, and many others who labored faithfully in those 
 trying days of the Church ; and their mantle seems to 
 have fallen on the Clergy of modern Virginia, who have 
 proved themselves to be a band of earnest, zealous, 
 devoted co-laborers in the cause of Christ and His 
 Church. Nor can we fail to mention that tower of 
 strength to this Diocese, which has been also a subject 
 of distinct consideration at this Centennial CouncU: I 
 mean that admirable school of the prophets, that nursing 
 mother of the Church in Virginia, which stands on the 
 hill near Alexandria, — our beloved Theological Seminary. 
 It is there that our young men, candidates for the min- 
 istry, go to learn the art of spiritual warfare, and thus to 
 be equipped and prepared to stand on the watch-towers 
 of Zion to " watch for souls as those that must give 
 account," that they may bring them to Christ to be 
 enlisted " under His banner to fight manfully against 
 sin, the world, and the great Adversary of man." 
 
 These are the towers which we are to tell to-day. 
 And who will not join in thanksgiving for the past, and 
 earnest prayer for the future that God will ever watch 
 over this branch of His Church, which His own hand 
 has planted in this Dibcese ; that He will this day send 
 a Pentecostal blessing upon our present Bishops and 
 Clergy and people ; and that He will continue to give it 
 faithful men to stand upon its towers, and " make it a 
 praise in our land"? 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 191 
 
 Not only are we here to-day to " tell the towers," 
 but to '^ mark well the bulwarks of our Zion," which 
 are manifestly those things which are connected with 
 her government, her doctrine, her discipline, and her 
 worship, which constitute her strength ; not because 
 they have originated in the wisdom of man, but because 
 they are Scriptural, — in strict accordance with the 
 teaching and spirit of the New Testament. It is all- 
 important for us to remember that the strength of our 
 Church consists not in any thing that is human, and 
 therefore transient, changeable, and liable to decay, but 
 rather in those great fundamental truths which consti- 
 tute the essence of Christianity because they are the 
 substance of what Christ the divine Founder of the 
 faith taught as the basis of human salvation. These 
 truths we hold to be as clearly and definitely set forth in 
 the Thirty-nine Articles, the Creeds and Offices of this 
 Church, as in any formularies in any branch of the Chris- 
 tian Church in any age since the Apostles' times. Not 
 only are the principles of the doctrine of Christ here 
 stated explicitly in the form of dogma, but the life and 
 character of Christ as He lived here on earth, as God 
 manifest in the flesh ahd yet as a man among men, is 
 held up Advidly and continuously before the mind's eye ; 
 and even the spirit and mind of Christ are so infused 
 into the whole system, that we are never allowed to get 
 far away from Him, but are taught to regard Him, as 
 long as we adhere to the true animus of these standards, 
 as our " all in all," the " strength of our hearts, and 
 our portion forever." 
 
 Let it never be forgotten that the bulwarks of our 
 
192 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 Church are not mere human inventions or variable 
 dogmas or partial systems of truth, but " the truth as 
 it is in Jesus " or as Jesus taught it, — the saving, 
 sanctifying truth, which unites the soul to Him as the 
 one Saviour and the one Sanctifier of men by His Holy 
 Spirit who has now come to preside over the dispensa- 
 sation, " the Author and the Finisher of our faith." 
 
 Then once more, in considering her palaces, I trust 
 no one will regard the interpretation as forced or un- 
 natural, when we apply the phraseology, very much 
 according to its original application, to the churches or 
 places of worship belonging to our Zion. Just as the 
 bulwarks of Jerusalem were not her material walls, but 
 God's presence, God's truth, God's power, and God's pro- 
 tection, so her palaces were the buildings of the temple 
 and the ordinances of worship " whither the tribes 
 went up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of 
 Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord." Do 
 we not find a lesson here that teaches us to reverence 
 God's sanctuaries, to love the gates of Zion more than 
 all the dwellings of Jacob, and to desire earnestly that- 
 these gates of Zion may be multiplied and opened wide 
 for the entrance not only of devout worshippers but of 
 all who are still aliens from the commonwealth of Israel 
 and strangers to the covenant of promise, without God 
 and without hope, who may be induced to come into the 
 house of prayer and find it the gate of heaven 1 
 
 Our thoughts naturally recur here to the old churches 
 of the Diocese, many of which were buUt at an early 
 period of our Colonial history. There is a sort of pious 
 romance that gathers around these old temples, impart- 
 
CENTENNIAL SEBMON. 193 
 
 ing a pensive pleasure in thinking of or revisiting these 
 former palaces of our Zion. Some by neglect have 
 fallen into decay and ruin ; some have been destroyed by 
 the ruthless hand of desecration ; while others, including 
 some of the oldest places of worship in Vu-ginia, are still 
 used as they have been from the beginning in the wor- 
 ship of the same God, " with whom there is no variable- 
 ness," and in the same devotional words that were long 
 ago used by the pious dead who sleep together, pastors 
 and people, around and near the altars where they once 
 ministered and worshipped and heard together "the 
 word of the truth of the Gospel." WhUe many of those 
 old sanctuaries , have been disused or deserted or de- 
 stroyed, others have arisen in their places more favor- 
 ably located, and better suited for the use of the present 
 congregations ; so that we may now look abroad with 
 thankfulness over our Diocese studded with churches, — 
 too few still for the needs of the people, — in which 
 the God of our fathers is now " worshipped in spirit 
 and in truth." 
 
 It is indeed a source of gratification and encourage- 
 ment that since the close of the late war there have 
 been more churches built in the Diocese than within 
 the same period during the preceding years of its 
 history. Surely this is, or ought to be, a matter of joy 
 and of praise and of thanksgiving to our God who has 
 done so much for us in the past, giving us the light of 
 His countenance and the help of His gracious presence. 
 We may stUl pray for the peace and prosperity of 
 these parishes and churches of our Zion, that "the 
 comfortable Gospel of Christ may be everywhere truly 
 
194 CENTENNIAL SERMON. 
 
 preached, truly received, and truly followed to the 
 breaking-down of the kingdom of sin, Satan, and death, 
 and the establishment of the kingdom of the Redeemer." 
 And now having enumerated and dwelt sufficiently, I 
 trust, upon these several subjects which appeal to-day 
 so pointedly and so eloquently to our religious grati- 
 tude, what remains to be done but that we love and 
 cherish and keep this heritage which we have received, 
 unblemished by any erroneous or strange doctrines or 
 practices, and untarnished by the spirit of worldliness 
 and vanity, letting " not the foot of pride come nigh to 
 hurt it, nor the hand of the ungodly to cast it down," and 
 then transmit the blessings which have been so richly 
 bestowed upon us " to the generation following " 1 It 
 is indeed a sacred inheritance which has been committed 
 into our hands to be used for our own benefit and for 
 the advancement of God's glory in our own day, and to 
 be so used that it may be handed down to posterity, 
 to our children and children's children, with its substance 
 unchanged, its strength unimpaired, its true leauty which 
 is holiness undiminished and undimmed even by the 
 lapse of centuries. Tell it to the generation following, 
 transmit this truth to posterity, and let it be known that 
 the God whom our fathers worshipped is the God 
 whom we worship and glorify as one God, world without 
 end ; and that this God will be their God for ever and 
 ever ; that He keepeth covenant with them that are His, 
 and will transmit the blessings of that covenant from 
 parents to children, and from age to age unto a thou- 
 sand generations of them that love and fear and serve 
 Him. Has He not been the guide of His people in all 
 
CENTENNIAL SERMON. 195 
 
 ages ? Has He not " brought them by a way which 
 they knew not, and led them in paths that they have 
 not known " ? And is He not leading and guiding them 
 stiin Has He not watched over this Church of ours 
 thi-ough all its perUs and vicissitudes, guidiag it through 
 its perplexities, and guarding it against its dangers, and 
 preserving it with wonderful love and wisdom and care, 
 even in the darkest periods of its existence 1 And shall 
 we not trust Him stiU, and so use the heritage which 
 has been committed unto us, that we may transmit it as 
 a sacred deposit to them that come after us 1 
 

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