FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY By S. D. McCONNELL, D.D. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Seventh Edition, Enlarged. 8vo, Cloth $2.00 A YEAR'S SERMOxNS. i2mo, Cloth '•25 SONS OF GOD. A Series of Sermons. i2mo, Paper, 50 cents. Cloth 1.25 SERMON STUFF. First Series. i2mo. Cloth . i.oo SERMON STUFF. Second Series. i2mo. Cloth i.oo THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher 2 and 3 Bible House, New York OfPH MAR ^-*- 1 HISTORY V^, AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH / 1/ BY S. D. McCONNELL, D.D., D.C.L. RECTOR OF HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y. SEVENTH EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED NEV/ YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER 2 AND 3 Bible House 1897 Copyright, i8go, by Thomas Whittakek Copyright, 1897, by Thomas Whittaker TO MY BOYS ELLICOTT, GUTHRIE, CHRYSTIE " Superficial it must be, but I do not disown tbe charge. Better a superficial book which brings well and strikingly together the known and acknowledged facts, than a dull, boring narrative, pausing at every moment to see farther into a millstone than the nature of the millstone will admit." — Sir Walter Scott, Journal^ Dec. 22, 1825. PKEFACE TO ENLARGED EDITION. In preparing this sketch of the American Church originally, I stopped at the close of the Civil War. Of course that was an arbitrary stopping place. The war was not an ecclesiastical epoch, and its settlement concluded no Church movement. But its date coin- cided with that of the entrance upon the stage of the generation of Churchmen now living. I shrank from the frank expression of opinion of contemporary men and events which I had ventured concerning those the record of whose influence had been made up. Furthermore, the most difficult of all history to write is contemporaneous history. One cannot tell surely what events are important and what are trivial. Time, and time alone, sorts them out and assigns to each its proper significance. Nevertheless, it now seems Avell, or at any rate necessary, to briefly sketch the Church's movement during the last quarter centiir3\ No doubt I have omitted as unimportant, men and things vv^hich others would have dwelt upon, and have laid emphasis upon events which others would have disregarded. All that one can say is that this is the way the history appears to me. If it appears otherwise to another, he has the right to record it in his fashion. S. T>. McCoNNELL. Advent, 1897 CONTENTS. PART FIRST. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE STAGE . • 5 The Indians ; ownership of the soil ; occasion of the immigration ; the Spanish Peace; tlie Act of Uniformity ; its effect to destroy the national quality of the Church. II. THE VIRGINIANS 14 Raleigh's Colony; Gorges' Colony; the Virginia Com- pany; the first Church; English interest in Colonial , ventures; Indian Missions; Pocahontas; first represent- ative Assembly ; laws concerning Religion ; spirit of the laws ; relaxation of manners. III. THE PURITANS 26 Religious parties in England ; not unequal division ; the Churchmen's theory; the "Pilgrims"; the Salem Colony; Puritan theory and practice; the Puritan tem- per; the Puritan laws; planting the Church; John Morton ; the Brown brothers ; the Rev. William Blax- ton; Churchmen in Massachusetts; withdrawal of the Charter ; the Church and the Government ; parish or- ganized in Boston ; Governor Andros ; the Old South ; King's Chapel; the quarrel ended. IV. THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 48 Lord Baltimore; the Maryland Colony; Romanists and religious liberty ; persecution by them impossible ; slow growth of the colony; "bad Catholics"; revoca- tion of the Charter; unworthy Clergy ; the situation in 1770. V. THE DUTCH 59 Seeking the East Indies; ecclesiastical position of the Dutch ; the Dutch as settlers ; religious toleration ; com- ing of the English ; Church establishment; plan for the Episcopate ; Trinity Church. i I X CONTENTij. j CHAPTER PAGE j VI. THE SOUTH RIVER 69 i The Swedes ; their absorption by the English ; George Fox; Quakerism; extravagance and repression; persecu- ; tion; Quakers in New Jersey; William Penn; Penn's Colony; Quakers coming to the Church; George Keith; 1 first Pennsylvania Church; increase and spread. VII. THE CAROLINAS 82 Indians and Welsh; the "noble" Colony; religious ] condition ; Clmrch establishment. ^ VIII. A GENERAL SURVEY 86 j The year 1700; Services; use of the Prayer Book; i social status of the Clergy; Clerical manners; effect of | Puritanism upon the Ministerial office ; conflict with the j Vestries; effect of government support; the Church in ] New England; in the Middle Colonies. j IX. THE "VENERABLE SOCIETY" 96 ] Dr. Bray ; his report upon the Church in the Colonies ; ! the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; instructions to Missionaries; Keith and Talbot; \ conciliating Dissenters; building churches; work of the ; Missionaries. j X. THE COMMISSARIES: MARYLAND . . . .105 Dr. Bray; the Maryland establishment; attempt to reform manners; the Clergy vs. the people; hostile legis- lation ; growth of other churches. XL THE COMMISSARIES: VIRGINIA 112 ! William and Mary College ; opposition to the College ; the College and the Church; decline of discipline; at- tempt at reform ; devoted men in the Church ; growing | spirit of Americanism; the " Parsons' Cause " ; Patrick Henry; the results. i XII. THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS .... 127 ! I President Cutler; the question of Orders; the attrac- i tion of the Church ; President and Professors of Yale ^ enter the Church; Puritan opposition; accessions; Dean i Berkeley. I i XIII. THE "GREAT AWAKENING" 13G ; Jonathan Edwards ; tlie *' Revival " at Northampton; Edwards's theory of "conversion"; "bodily exer- cises"; spread of the movement; the "jerks"; meets Whitefield ; attitude of Churchmen ; the reaction ; effect , upon American religion; the Church's position; how ' affected by the movement. CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER PAGE XIV. THE GERMANS 147 First German immigration; the "Pennsylvania Dutch"; religious character and condition; the Mora- vians ; their influence on Whitefield; intractable material for the Church. XV. THE SCOTCH-IRISH 153 England and Scotland at the Reformation ; Calvinism and Preshyterianism ; Presbytery and Episcopacy ; Episcopal rigor ; emigration to Ireland; emigration to the United States; hostility to the Church; a cordon around her; influence upon the Church. XVI. THE METHODISTS 160 The first American sect ; its origin ; Methodists the first " Ritualists"; the W'esleys in Georgia; Wesley as a parish priest; Wesley and the Moravians; Wesley's "conversion"; desperate state of Religion in England; the Metliodist purpose ; Wliitefield the preacher and Wesley the organizer; Methodism comes to America; still within the Church ; the Methodist '* Bishops "; the loss by separation. XVII. THE EPISCOPATE 173 Two theories of the Church; disadvantage of the Church's theory in the Colonies ; Ordination and Dis- cipline ; early efforts for the Episcopate ; the need of it patent; great opportunities lost; the " S. P. G.'s" plan; the Pennsylvania plan; reasons of the failure; current conception of the Episcopal office ; Colonial opposition; early thought of separation ; legal status of the Colonies ; opposition not unreasonable;^ John Adams's opinion; not possible till after the Revolution ; idea of an " Inde- pendent Episcopal Church"; Dr. White's plan; the popular judgment. XVIII. A SURVEY 190 Spread of the Church in Connecticut ; in New York ; in New Jersey and Pennsylvania ; in the South ; Indian Missions ; sources of gain; lack of Clergy; state of Re- ligion ; influence of Franklin ; coarseness of the age ; social distinctions; Services; Architecture; Confirma- tion ; Clerical support. XIX. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . . . .202 The inevitable conflict; equal division of parties; ex- odus of Tories; lay Churchmen's position ; position of the Clergy ; " patriot " Clergy; " loyalist " Clergy; sufferings of the Clergy; desolation of the Church. XJl CONTENTS. PART SECOND. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER PAGE I. GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS . . . .215 The confusion; treatment of the Tories; popular opinion about the Cliurch ; three motives in reorganization ; the Southern attempt; the Church named; organization in Maryland and Virginia; relation of Church and State settled. II. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN 223 New England Churclimanship ; distrust of loose views ; first Connecticut Convention ; political obstacles ; choosing a Bishop; the programme; the sentiment in England; English Bishops' reluctance; the Scotch and New England Churches; the Nonjurors; the first Bishop. III. THE FEDERAL IDEA 238 Colonial school of statesmanship; Rev. Dr. "White; the Conference at New Brunswick ; fundamental principles ; Constitutional Convention; two proposed policies; State and Church Constitutions; laymen in Church Councils; revising the Prayer Book; the " Proposed Book"; Fourth of July Service; anti-dogmatic spirit; Unitarianism ; the Episcopate; Address to the English Bishops; the Bishops' reply ; Bishops chosen. IV. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES 254 Two Episcopal Churches; obstacles to union; plans to perpetuate the separation ; striving for union; Dr. Parker's scheme ; Convention of 1789 ; Bishop White and the Eng- lish succession; adjusting difficulties; Bishop Seabury's Toryism; adopting a Liturgy; modifying tlie Constitution; consolidation. V. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT 264 The experiment revohitionary ; government by Conven- tion ; relation of the three orders ; powers of a Bishop ; right of Visitation ; encroachment of Standing Committee ; powers of the House of Bishops increased ; discipline of the Laity; control of the Liturgy; Uniformity; Hymns; power of General Convention ; State autonomy ; its gradual abandonment; Tlie Thirty-nine Articles; their origin; their obligation. CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER PAGE VI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW 277 Old men and new times; a dark epoch; French infi- delity; position of the Church; Confirmation; slack ad- ministration; trouhles in New York; election of Hobart; the question of wigs; condition in the South; low estate in Virginia; ]Meade ordained; situation in New England; Bishop Seabury's manner ; Dr. Coke's proposition ; Metho- dists gone bej'ond recall; dawning of better days ; new men at work ; representative men; beginning of Sunday-schools; state of the Church in 1820. VII. WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS 297 The national Church passive ; pioneer Churchmen ; re- ligion in the backwoods; first thought of Missions; two streams of emigration; Bishop Chase; in New Orleaus; pioneer missionary in Ohio; the frontier Bishop; Kenyou College; the Church in Kentucky; Bishop Otey; the Church in Tennessee ; new departure in 1835. VIII. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES 311 Meagre spiritual life; the Evangelicals; their differen- tiate ; conscious experiences ; Simeon's Confessions; their conception of the Church; Low Churchmen; their achieve- ments ; cause of their decline; Thomas Scott ; their leaders in America; High Church revival; the two parties; divis- ion of labor; advance of Churchmanship ; following the emigration ; two Ideals. IX. THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE 324 Emergence of Church Idea; trial of Bishops; agencies at work ; increasing activity; change of manners; corporate religion; the "Oxford Movement"; the "Tractarians"; the Via Media; Newman's purpose; the Via Media in America; American Churchmen ; Anglo-Catholics; a time of strife; perverts and converts; good and evil of the Movement. X. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET . . .342 Falling behind the population; a Church or a Sect; the Memorial; emancipation of the Episcopate; loosening of Rubrics; revival of the Diaconate; Church Lenity; divers opinions; a true bill found; a fatal choice; spirit of Gen- eral Convention ; progress in a narrow path ; the Church in California ; the Church in Oregon ; muttering of coming war. xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XI. IN WAR TIME 360 Division of Cliurclies upon the question of Slavery ; political division furthered thereby; Episcopal Church not divided ; general sentiment in the Church ; the Church faulted ; mutual understanding ; Southern Bishops oppose secession ; Southern idea of the Church and the States ; Secession ; the Church and the Union ; the Church in the Confederacy ; conflict with Federal authorities ; General Butler as a Canonist ; fall of the Confederate Church. XII. THE REUNITED CHURCH 374 Moving toward union ; obstacles in the way ; Arkansas; Bishop Wilmer ; Bishop Polk ; General Convention of 1865; reunion imperilled; Mr. Horace Binney's resolu- tion ; Dr. Kerfoot's plea ; reunion ; disbandment of the Confederate Church ; religious effects of the war ; new forces and new problems ; task of the present generation. XIII. DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL 382 The worth of ritual ; the Church idea ; civic ritual ; the , ritualists' contention ; Bishop Hopkins's book; the Bishops' Declaration ; the Ritual Commission ; things forbidden ; Dr. De Koven's challenge ; the Church's comprehensive- ness ; the end of controversy. XIV. PEACE WITH HONOR 395 Evangelical perplexity ; Bishops' declaration on regen- eration ; the idea of secession ; " Reformed Episco- palians." XV. PRAYER-BOOK REVISION 402 " The Prayer-Book as it is ; " separation of offices; the science of liturgies ; revision begun ; the Book Annexed. XVI. THE CHURCH SEEKING FELLOWSHIP . . .410 Looking to the East ; Italian reform ; Mexico ; contra- dictory reports from Mexico ; Mexican commission ap- pointed ; consecration of Bishop Riley ; the Church unity movement ; the Quadrilateral. XVII. THE NET RESULT 428 INTRODUCTION. For many years I had it in my mind to attempt a History of American Christianity. It has been fre- quently noticed that the Christianity of America possesses characteristics of its own. It is not only different in many regards from that which subsisted in Europe at the time of the settlement of the colonies ; but it is different from that wdiich subsists in any other portion of Christendom now. Christianity here wears a garment of American weaving and American adorn- ment. The religious history of the country is quite as striking as its political ; it has had as many and as marked epochs ; the influences which have shaped it have to be sought for in more numerous and more diverse sources ; and those influences are more actively at work now than are those which produce political changes. With this fact in view I thouo-ht to trace the stream of religious life in the United States to its many and various sources, to estimate the relative size and im- portance of the affluents which have colored it, and maybe to forecast its future course. I found the project to be so difficult that I abandoned it. Contemporary history is the least valuable of all XVI INTRODUCTION. kinds. The relative importance of events and persons cannot be fairly estimated till time has tested them and shown which is great and which is small. The coher- ence of the facts in the religious history of our land cannot yet be seen. The facts themselves are abundant to embarrassment ; but they cannot yet be strung upon any single thread which I have been able to discover. In the political history of the country the unifying fact is the gradual coalescence of a number of independent and rival political organizations into one great whole, bound together by their common interest in a constitu- tionally regulated liberty. But alas ! the ecclesiastical history of the United States has lagged a whole century behind its political. Free and independent churches are coinc^lent in date with free and independent colonies. In Lue State the movement toward unity set in a hundred years ago ; in the Church it is only beginning to show itself. The Church has been content for most of this time with Mexican anarchy. It had been excused or justified by precisely the same arguments which were ufeed in the colonies against the adoption of the federal Constitu- tion: "Liberty is best secured by allowing each to work in its own way ; the danger of attack from with- out is so remote and unlikely that it need not be con- sidered ; the original charters of each are inalienable ; the weak ones will be swallowed up by the strong; mutual jealousies and ancient grudges are too strong and deep-rooted to be overcome ; no principle of federa- INTRODUCTIOX. xvii tion can be proposed which can ever be adopted ; the different colonies can best dwell together as brethren by not coming into too close relations." While this condition of things remains there cannot be written a history of the American Church. That will not be possible until there shall be an American Church. That time will surely come, — when, no man may say. I have undertaken therefore the more modest task to set out the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Its life is continuous from the beginning. It was first on the ground. It is of inter- est to all Churchmen, and, for reasons wliich I hope to make evident, ought to be to all Americans. I shall speak of it habitually as '' the Church " — not as arro- gating for it an exclusive right to that title, but because its legal name is uncouth and clumsy. I shall try to tell the story of what it has accomplished, and to speak candidly of its excellences and its faults. A history should above all things else be true. Glozing of faults and apologizing for wrong deeds is not the part of an honest friend or of an honest man. The Church can afford to have the trutli told even about herself. He who fi]ids it in his way to do this may not be accused of uncovering his mother's nakedness. But in the telling of the story large space will be occupied in examining the religious character and. habits of those among and upon whom the Church has wrought. She has done great things for them, whereof XVMii INTRODUCTION. they are not ashamed to say they are glad, but they have also done much for her. The Episcopal Church has been far more profoundly modified by her environ- ment here than her members realize. Some of her most cherished possessions have come to her from with- out. In many cases she has never known, or has long since forgotten, the name of the giver, but still holds and values the gift. It Avill be our task to notice the reciprocal influence of this Church upon the communi- ties where she has lived, and of those peoples upon her. We will see that she has thriven among Puritans and Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians, Dutch, Germans, and Irish; has taught them all something, and learned something from them all. PART I. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN THE COLONIES. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. PART I. THE CHURCH OF EXGLAXD IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER I. THE STAGE. We will take for the starting-point the year 1600. We will notice in their order the Stage, the Actors, and the Drama. The stage upon which the action begins is the Atlan- tic seaboard, from the Kennebec on the north to the Savannah on the south, and extending backward roughly to the Mississippi. To the north and northwest the French are in possession. Seventy years before this time Cartier had sailed up the St. Lawrence, and anchored his shallop off the Heights of Abraham. Champlain and his little band of hardy adventurers are " seeking the skins of beasts and the souls of men " on the banks of the great lakes. That picturesque movement of French exploration and Jesuit missionary zeal had already set in which carried Marquette to the Illinois, Hennepin to the Falls of St. Anthony, and La Salle to the Brazos. Unfortunate Acadie was in its infancy. G THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. Le Caron, the Franciscan monk, and the Jesuits Jogues, Brehoeuf, and Gamier were getting ready for that career which was to end in martyrdom among the Hurons and Iroquois. On the south and southwest the Spaniards hekl the soiL Forts and churches were on the St. John's and the Gulf, and a bishop with his priests on the Rio Grande. But from Maine to Georgia no white man dwelt. It Avas a virgin field upon which to work out the problems in religion, politics, and social life, which were perplex- ing England. The country was not without inhabit- ants. It was held by the only race of savages who have ever been able to make a stand against the advancing army of civilization. These withstood it, fought it off, broke themselves against it, dammed it back in one locality, only to find it flowing in behind them in another, until they perished in their tracks, or became encysted within set limits among the new people. How many Indians there were three cent- uries ago, it is not possible now to knoAV. The consen- sus of scientific guesswork sets the number at about one million, Avithin the present territory of the United States. They Avere divided roughly into three great groups or clusters. (1) The Algonkins, Avho have left their crabbed polysyllables in the names of Ncav England lakes and rivers. (2) A subdivision of the same great family, of a more euphonious speech and a fiercer savagery, Avhose seat Avas between the Hudson and the Susque- hanna, and stretching Avestward indefinitely to and beyond the Mississippi. (3) The Appalachians, dwell- THE STAGE. 7 ing south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. In their manners they ranged from absolute savagery in the north to semi-barbarism in the south.^ The con- version of these people to Christianity was the first, or, at any rate, the first-named motive for the coming of all the colonies. We shall have to notice again and again the efforts made to carry out this purpose. We will find it to be a record of failures. We will discover also a strange uniformity of feature in the successive failures. In every case the intelligence, apparent self- restraint, dignity, and gravity of the Indian led the missionaries to forecast grea,t successes. The first essay always seemed to justify great hopes. The Indian lis- tened, argued, seemed to be concerned, gave his children to be taught, and led the missionary to report the proba- ble conversion of his whole tribe. But always, just when the project seemed most hopeful, an indiscrimi- nate massacre of missionaries and converts together swept the enterprise out of existence. The experience of all was the same.^ Jesuit, Churchman, Puritan, Moravian, and Presbyterian missions all had the same issue. Their light was put out in blood on the Mo- hawk, the James, the Connecticut, and the Wabash. The "great massacre" is the last chapter in the history of the Indian mission in early days. They were irre- claimable as panthers. With intellectual endowment far beyond that of any other savage race, they were marked by the two qualities of treachery and cruelty to an indescribable degree. To love his enemy and to speak the truth seems to have been to the Indian con- 1 Parkman : Discovery of the Great West, p. 275. a Ibid., p. 26. 8 THE ENGLISH CHURCfl IN THE COLONIES. genitally impossible. In any case, this was true until they became reduced to helplessness two centuries and a half later, by being surrounded and disarmed. This fierce and hateful people roamed over the land in which a Christian church and nation was to grow. They had Ownership of ^^ Ownership in it, in the way we understand the soil. tj^e term. The tribes lived far apart. Each had for its own hunting-grounds the territory from which it was not barred by its rivals. Each looked with jealousy upon all interlopers, but each was prompt to act as an interloper when occasion offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimed by many tribes. It was rare indeed that any tribe had an uncontested title to a tract of land, and where such a title did exist it rested, not on an actual occupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery of weaker rivals.^ It is within the truth to say that the only title of any value either in law or morals which Indians have ever possessed is that given them by the people whom they fought for centuries, to the Reservations where the remnant of them now live. From whence will come settlers hardy enough to occupy this richly furnished, but savage and perilous stao^e? To answer this we must cross the ocean and see o the colonists in their old homes. Within ten years of 1600 two events occurred in England which set in motion the emigration to America. They were : (1) The treaty of peace with the emigra- Spain.^ (2) The revived enforcement of the Acts of " Uniformity " and " Supremacy." The way they operated was as follows : — 1 Roosevelt: Winning of the West, vol. i. p. 88. 2 The Peace was concluded Aug. 18, 1G04. THE STAGE. 9 For three generations England had been at war by sea and by land. The need of the belligerent times had created a class of men whose trade was warfare. " Sea dogs," like Frobisher, Drake, Hawkins, and Hudson with their hardy crews, holding letters of marque from the Protestant Princes of Europe, or com- missions from the Crown, had learned sailing and fight- ing as a craft. Soldiers of fortune like Raleigh, Smith, and Standish had carried their swords to market in every Protestant State in Europe. Each caj)tain with his ship and crew, each swash-buckler with his band of musketeers at his heels, made his own bargain, or hired out his ship and guns to serve in any quarrel which his somewhat tough conscience would allow him to espouse. They were soldiers by profession and training, one might almost say by birth. They had sw^ept around the British Isles chasing the Armada, and had fought against the Spaniard in the Low Countries, and against the Turk on the plains of Hungary. Now, the un- Avonted experience of a peace with their hereditary foe left them without employment. With their crews and their companies they were thrown upon the world to earn a livelihood. There was no place for them in England. The England of 1600 was not the mighty empire of industry and commerce that it is to-day. London was a town smaller in size and with less than half the wealth of Denver or Hartford. Bristol and Plymouth, the places next in importance, were such as Norwich, Conn., or Norfolk, Ya., are to-day. There was .but little commerce ; manufactures were of the rudest, and agriculture the most primitive. "Wolves 10 THE EXGLISII CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. were still dangerous within a clay's ride on horseback of London. Swamps and fens held the places where cities now stand. Wild cattle were still found in the north. The farmer lived in a wattled and clay-covered house. The country was too small 'and too poor to absorb and provide for the multitude of soldiers and sailors out of occupation through the unwonted peace. The sea-dog therefore became an explorer, and the sol- dier of fortune was ready to guard the peaceful colonist. The revival of the " Act of Uniformity " at the same juncture made England an uncomfortable place ActofUni- ^o^' nearly one-half of her population. The formity. ^^^ provided that every congregation of Christian people, in its public worship, must use the Book of Common Prayer according to its rubrics. The Prayer-Book was distasteful to a large proportion of the people, for various reasons. A few opposed it on principle as being Romish. To their minds the Reformation in England had stopped midway to comple- tion. They thought they saw in the authorities, civil and ecclesiastic, a disposition to bring in again the evils of papal times. They had for their ideal the church in Geneva and Frankfort as fashioned by Calvin and Farel. The Prayer-Book imposed upon them by law — a law enforced by fire, stocks, jail, and banishment — seemed to them to be in its very words and structure a league with death and a covenant with hell. Their ob- jection Avas not only an abstract one against the attempt to enforce uniformity in worship), but also against the Prayer-Book which was imposed. They believed its doctrine to be dangerous to souls. This class was not THE STAGE. 11 large, but was active, learned, and filled with a sullen determination. But there was a far larger class who were led by prejudice and by customary usage to the same stand. The Act seemed to them to be, as indeed it was, a taking away of the hereditary right of Eng- lishmen.^ Uniformity of worship had never been known in England. A variety of uses, as York, Sarum, Bangor, and Hereford, had prevailed unques- tioned up to witliin less than half a century of this time. In the early part of Elizabeth's reign there had been little change in the manner of public worship, of the sort which would strike the eye of the common worshipper. But for nearly a generation great confu- sion had existed. In some parishes the service was not distinguishable from the Roman mass, and in others from a Presbyterian meeting. In one parish the Holy Table was set up against the east wall altarwise, and in another set out "like an oyster board" in the aisle. In one parish a celibate priest officiated in cope and chasu- ble, while in the next a married priest held forth in his coat, while his wife wore the embroidered vestments for a petticoat. This state of things became intolera- ble to the authorities of the Church. They essaj^ed to cure it by violence, and failed. But they did more than fail. By the attempt they destroyed the Church Effect to of England as a National Church. For a break up the t}^Q^^al^(;| vears before that time the Church National Church. and the Nation had been one. From that time forward the Church of England ceased to be the Chutch of the English-speaking people. The confusion 1 Anderson : History of the English Church in the Colonies, vol. i. p. 99. 12 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. which was attempted to be cured by the Act of Uni- formity was a grave evil. No man could then see to what greater evils it might grow. The attempt to secure order by force commended itself to wise and good men. It is not necessary to accuse the Church's officers of conscious tyranny. They used what seemed to them the simplest and most efficacious method at hand. Time has shown their fearful blunder. They meant to act as statesmen ; they acted as doctrinaires. The confusion of the time was but the restless exu- berance of the incoming spiritual life to a half-dead Church. In time its excesses would have righted them- selves. The attempt to secure uniformity in worship has only been successful, even within the Church, at those times when its life has been at the lowest. Every outburst of religious vigor has either strained the uni- formity or broken a fragment from the Church. The Puritan, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, and the Methodist have each in their turn been lost to the Church which is their home, by making the house too strait for them. After two hundred and eighty years the assembled Bishops of the whole Pan- Anglican Communion have recorded their judgment that uniformity in discipline and worship is not only not to be compelled, but not to be expected. They declare with a unanimous voice, that with consensus upon the Creed, the Scriptures, the Sacraments administered in our Lord's own words, and the historical Episcopate, the people are to be left to the guidance of the Spirit which Christ has promised to His Church. The lesson has taken long to learn, and the teaching has been most costly. It cost the Church THE STAGE. 13 of England first the good-will, and then the presence, of those who carried away from her enough of devotion and vigor to found a new Nation and alien Churches. Here, then, in 1600, w^ere all the elements waiting from which to create a new AA'orld. A fertile continent waiting to be settled ; a righteous and virile people, ill at ease at home, for colonists ; adventurous captains wdth their ships and crews ready to transport them ; professional soldiers ready at hand to garrison the new colonies, and fight against their savage foes. The flood of immigration approached America like the coming in of the tide. Its first waves touched only the nearest shore, and receded. Many unrecorded bands of adven- turers visited, and quickly left the coast, from New- foundland to Georgia. The story of each is romantic, but not to the purpose here.^ * Bancroft : History of the U. S., vol. i. passim. 14 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER II. THE VIRGINIANS. The first organized attempt to found a colony was made in 1585. Sir Walter Raleigh gathered a company Raleigh's ^^ ^^^^ hundred and fifty peoj^le, largely colony. composed of gentlemen of the sword, secured them an outfit -and the means of transportation, which they used to find a land at Roanoke which they named "Virginia," for the maiden queen. They were not the stuff from which successful colonists are made. They were not set together in families. Only two women were in the colony. Of one of these, the dauo^hter of the Governor, was born Yiro^inia Dare, the first white child in Aniei'ica. Improvidence, brawling, ignorance of husbandry, and wanton quarrels with the natives, soon brought the ill-starred colony to want, destitution, and despair. Their governor. White, strove manfully to save them from the Indians and from them- selves, but in vain. They sat down starving upon the shore, and when at their wits' end, hailed the sight of an English man-of-war on her way liome from the AVest Indies. Her commander consented to bear away Avith liim those who wished to go, and promised to send s]:)eedy succor to those who stayed. The chaplain of tlie ship landed and baptized the little baby girl, Vir- ginia Dare, together with Manteo, the first convert from THE YIRGIXIAXS. 15 the Indians. These were the first-fruits, not only of the Church of England, but of Christianity, in the colonies. Eighty of the company chose to stay, Avhile the rest sailed a^yay to merry England. Those who stayed, in- cluding the two women, were never heard of again. Their promised relief never came, or came so many years later that no living member of the colony was found. Half a century afterward Indians with blue eyes and brown hair were seen along the Potomac, who were su^^posed to have in their veins all that was left of the blood of the Raleigh colony. In 1603 a ship's company spjent the summer in Plymouth Harbor, on the coast of Massachusetts, but made no permanent lodgement. In the spring of 1605 a company landed at the mouth of the Kennebec. While the summer lasted they throve Gorges' ii^ the cabins and little garden patches which colony. ^j^gy planted, but in the long, bleak winter which followed they w^ere reduced to starvation and despair, and returned hungry to England, carrying with them three Indian chieftains. These were taken in charge by a wealthy gentleman and zealous Churchman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. For three years he kept them in his house, teaching them English^ and learning frcm them about their people. Then he organized an expedition at his own charge, and brought it out him- self, landing again at the Kennebec in the summer of 1606. By the time winter came his company had built a fort, a log church, and fifty cabins. This settlement of Churchmen maintained a precr.rious existence for many years; indeed, it never became quite extin- 10 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. guished. But it had for its enemies a cruel climate and a barren soil, and a few years later the relentless enmity of the Massachusetts Puritans. The Church has had there a longer continuous existence than in any other place in America, but it did little more than live. It never became a colony, and hardly an organized church. It served for a century only to keep the lamp of the Church showing a flickering light in the New England. All the " ventures," so far, were without recognition from either Cliurch or State. They wero the enterprises of individuals or companies v/ithout either political status or ecclesiastical authority. It was to Virginia first that the Church and State of England were to be transplanted. Raleigh's ill-fated The Virginia company had never been quite forgotten. Company. Kelief expeditions had been projected, and had come to nothing, until it Avas deemed too late to rescue them. But the memory of the flowery banks and fertile meadows of Albemarle had never quite passed away. London merchants thought of it as a new field for trade. Bishops and clergy thouglit of the Indians as heathen to be saved. Statesmen had it in mind as a place wherein to found new states. All England then dreamed of colonies. A company was formed, with archbishops, peers, merchants, and high officers of state for its members. Captain John Smith, who had come home from fighting the Turk under the walls of Constantinople, was secured as the military commander. The good priest Robert Hunt was commissioned chap- lain. The Crown gave a grant of land from 34° to 45" THE VIRGINIAXS. 17 north latitude, — from the Bay of Fundy to South Caro- lina. Substantial Churchmen, with their wives and chil- dren and goods, offered for colonists. Prayers were said in churches for the safety of the expedition. With the bishop's benediction, the king's favor, and the peo- ple's good-will, they sailed away. Their plan was to take up again Raleigh's abandoned settlement, and they were not without hope of being welcomed by some of his people, who might still be living. But the fleet lost its reckoning, and, instead of making a landfall at Albe- marle, they sailed into Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607. They named their settlement for the king, Jamestovrn. By their charter the Law and the Church of England were made bounden. Their first act, on landing, was to kneel and hear Chaplain Hunt read the prayers and thanksgiving for a safe voyage. It is not our task to trace the civil and industrial prosperity of the colony. Their church was built as soon as their cabins were, and The first ^^ ^^^^7 i^^o^'©^^ i^^^o better houses God's house church. ^y.^g adorned to correspond. Their first sanctu- ary was, the chaplain writes, " a pen of poles with a sail for a roof, and for a pulpit a bar lashed between two con- venient trees." In this rude temple the Holy Communion w^as celebrated for the first time in America, according to the Liturgy of the Church, June 21, 1607. Virginia was marked off from the settlements soon to follow by two things, — it was a royal colony, and a Church one. It was simply a little English parish, bringing its minister, its Prayer-Book, its customs, and its thoudits, to set them down in the midst of an un- occupied land. It set about to reproduce the old home 18 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. life, but it had to gain by bitter experience the knowl- edge of how to win a livelihood, — the knowledge which soon became a second nature to the settlers. They had to learn how to deal with the crafty natives, to coax a rich land to yield its substance, to learn new modes of husbandry, to adjust themselves to a new life. The task was a trying one. Cold, drought, malaria, and hunger brought them to the verge of despair, but through it all good Chaplain Hunt was their stay and comforto If they were in perils oft, they were in prayer oft. At times they despaired. Once they determineil to abandon the enterprise, but, while they were gather- ing to embark, the long-looked-for relief ship hove in sight, bearing supplies and new people. The shed in which the prayers had wont to be said was replaced by a more comfortable bailding, of which the chaplain speaks with grateful pleasantry as '' a homely thing like a barn, set on cratchets, covered with rafters, sods, and brush." A wide-spread and deep interest was created in the settlement among all classes at home. To "have a venture" to the colonies quickly came to be English in- i i tsrast in ven- the fashion. New-comers came out by the score. The population grew apace. Col- lections were taken by the Archbishop's orders in the province of Canterbury for the Church in Virginia. One sent Bibles and Prayer-Books, and another, Com- munion plate. Chaplain Hunt did not long remain the only priest. Others came as they were needed. These first clergy were godly and well-learned men, — differ- 'ing widely from the clerical adventurers who succeeded THE VIRGINIANS. * 19 them a generation later. Good Church people at home promoted schemes for the advantage of their cousins in the Virginias. One society undertook to provide for them wives who should be worthy helpmeets for such men, and sent them over at a hundred pounds of tobacco a head. An official acknowledges in clerkly phrase the arrival of " two shiploads of women in fair condition." Their religious duty to the aborigines was not neg- lected. The good priest Alexander Whittaker gained Indian mis- ^•^^ himself the title of " Apostle to the Ind- sions. ians." Indian children were secured and placed in the homes of the settlers, to be trained in decency and Christianity. Pocahontas, the comely daughter of the unfriendly chief Powhattan, was secured. The newly widowed John Rolf was moved alike by her beauty and her heathenism, and to make her a convert took her to wife. Other missionaries joined Whittaker in his work among the Virginians and in the forest. They reported to the authorities at home that there was ever}^ j^romise of bringing these heathen soon to a knowledge of the Gospel, and asked for still more men. The Indians were friendly, hospitable, and full of interest. But before the missionaries' report reached England the treacherous savages burst into the settlement, with the great massacre of May 22, 1622. Missionaries, con- verts, and frontier settlers were all alike butchered, and the work came to an end. It had run swiftly through all the phases which characterized the projects to Chris- tianize the Indians for two centuries and more. It is of interest to note that Virginia Avas the only 20 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. place where a colony of Church people lived their life in the presence of hostile savages. The Puritans on the banks of the Connecticut, the Moravians in the valley of the Wyoming, the Presbyterians on the Alle- ghany, and the Baptists on the Ilolston and the Tennes- see bore their rifles with them to Church and gathered their corn while listening for the dreaded war-whoop. But, save in the early days of Virginia, this was never the experience of Church of England peo})le. There are no Boones and Crocketts, Robertsons and Clarkes in the annals of the American Church. People of another faith soon passed beyond them and formed a barrier behind which the Churchman was safe from this peril. But as the Churchman was shut off from the danger, so he was shut out from the kindly fellow- feeling Avliich bound together the other peoples who through generations shared a common peril. This lack of sympathy deepened into rooted malevolence when a hundred and fifty years later the British government, to whom the Church was bound, took for allies the un- speakable savages whom the Baptists and Presbyterians had been fighting with for four generations. Virginia soon recovered from the massacre of 1622. The colonist had learned his foe. Their valiant Cap- tain Smith scouted along the frontiers and carried the war into the enemy's country. When he was about to start upon an expedition into the backwoods he received from the authorities orders that " every day the Prayers should be read, with a psalm," at which order being carried out he gravely records that " the salvages were mightily amazed." THE YIRGINIAXS. 21 Meanwhile the colony had grown apace. Two thou- sand immigrants arrived in a single year. Land-hunters pushed up the James, the Chickahominy, and the York. New settlements were planted and new parishes organ- ized. The Church at home was mindful of its duty, and clergy came as fast as they were needed. In 1619, there were enough counties settled to send delegates who organized the first representative as- First repre- ^ . sentative as- scmbly in xA^merica. They met to establish ^^^ ^' self-government on this continent. By a strange irony, while they were in session, a Dutch ship, the " Jesus," brought to Jamestown and sold the first cargo of African slaves.^ With the civil legislation of the Assembly we are not directly concerned. But their acts relating to religion show a vivid picture of the place and time. It w^as enacted ^ that : — Care should be taken by the officers that the people resort to church on the Sabbath Day, the penalty of absence, to be a pound of tobacco, or for a Laws con- cerning re- month's absence fifty pounds ; that all who hgion. ^.^ ^1^^ ground, of what quality soever, pay tithes to the minister; that there be throughout the colony an uniformity of Doctrine and Worship; that jNIinisters and Church Wardens present to the Midsum- mer Assizes a return of official acts, and also the names and offences of all persons of profane and ungodly life, common swearers, drunkards, blasphemers, negiecters of the Sacraments, Sabbath-breakers, adulterers, forni- 1 "Williams : History of Negro Race in America, vol. i. p. 116. 2 Anderson : vol. 1. p. 400. 22 THE ENGLISH CHUllCH IX THE COLONIES. cators, slanderers, and also of all Masters and Mis- tresses who neglect to catechise their children and servants ; that no man shall disparage or speak lightly of a Magistrate or Minister, or be married other than by the Book of Common Prayer; that Ministers shall preach at each of their stations at least once a year ; that they shall visit any one who is dangerously sick ; shall administer the Sacrament at least three times a year ; shall not drink to excess, dice or play cards for money ; that each minister shall have a hundred pounds of tobacco per year, and also the twentieth calf, pig, and kid, these to be kept by the owner till weaned and then rendered by the Church Warden at a time and place publicly fixed ; that if the Church Warden fail to render them the value be collected from him by distress ; that the fee for each marriage shall be two shillings, for christening nothing, for churching one shilling, and for burying one shilling ; that the cost of raising and re- pairing churches shall be assessed upoiT the parishes ; that the members of the Legislature shall attend Divine Service '' upon the th3axle beatinge of a drume " under a fine of two shillings sixpence. The resemblance of these enactments of the Episco- palians of Virginia to those soon to be passed by the Spirit of the P^^i'itan colony of Massachusetts will sug- laws. gegt itself at once. But when the two legis- lations come to be compared, both in matter and in spirit, the difference jvill be still more evident. They both trespass upon what seems to us to be liberty of conscience. But there is an inquisitory particularity THE VIRGIXIAXS. 23 of interference with personal rights, and a savage religi- osity, in the Puritans' laws, which is not present in those of the Churchmen. They approached their task of law- making with radically different tempers and purposes. The Virginians were content when they had made such regulations as they deemed necessary to the well-being of society. The Puritans felt themselves responsible for the present and eternal destiny of the individual. The Churchmen legislated for this life only, and had sufficient understanding to fulfil their task fairly well. The Puritans legislated for the life eternal. It was because they encroached upon the prerogatives of God that they made havoc of men. At first the acts of the Assembly were easily en- forced ; in fact they enforced themselves. They but expressed the wishes of the people in the premises. But with the increase of immigration the character of the population changed. At first it was all of those who were emphatically "for Church and Crown." The wives kindly sent out to the settlers were all Churdi- women. The Archbishop of Canterbury was their patron, and the Bishop of London was a director in the company. But as the country opened up, and the tobacco and fur trade became more lucrative, men of another sort began to come. Men who sat loosely to both Church and Crown came for fortunes, and Puri- tans and Quakers came for broader liberty. These last were not molested. The not very onerous tax needed to support the Establishment, regularly levied, was paid" by them without any evidence of reluctance. A 2i THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. man in Virginia was much more ready to pay his tax to support a Church whose advantages for himself and his chiklren he could have for the asking, than was a man in jMassachusetts to support an Establishment whose spiritual benefactions were denied him until he should first pass a rigorous examination as to his own spiritual state. What men always and everywhere rebel against is the application of a human test to separate the sheep from the goats. In Massachusetts the sheep were marked and goats were branded. In Virginia sheep and goats were both alike shorn for the support of the fold which Avas open to them both. Little by little the Relaxation of ^li^^^h relaxed its laws, and we must say manners. r^jgQ^ j^g manners. Plantation life grew easy and abundant. Theology never throve in it. The clergy began to be planters on their own account, and were content, for the most part, to be good men and good neighbors. Missionary zeal slowly died out. The Dissenters built their meeting-houses undisturbed, some- times aided by the gift of a generous slice of land from the parson's own plantation. Colonel Esmond is a fair type of the Virginia Churchman, who began to be seen half a century earlier than Thackeray places him. The colony grew to be peaceful, prosperous, and safe. Com- placent, with no very exalted ideals either in religion or morals, its general loyalty to Church and Crown remained unchanged. When the Commonwealth came, the Virginians utterly refused to recognize the disestab- lishment of the Church in England, and ignored the Perfect Model of the '^Saints." At the Restoration THE YIRGINIAXS. 25 they pursued the even tenor of a way they had never interrupted. When the eighteenth century opened, the Church was recognized by the law, and, upon the whole, contained the people, of the colony. From it we now turn to look at that rival English people who fii-st became its neighbors in the New World. 26 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES, CHAPTER HI. THE PURITANS. To comprehend the Puritans in New England Ave must first look at them in Old England. The Acts of " Uniformity " and " Supremacy " precipitated the confused ecclesiastical life in England into its three component ingredients, Churchmen, Romanists, and In- dependents. They compelled men to range themselves. It took half a generation for them to find out definitely to which camp each belonged, but it created the neces- sity for an ultimate choice,. however long it might be postponed. The three camps were very unequal in size. The Romanists were few in numbers and utterly discredited in the eyes of the people, in point of their faith and their loyalty. Churchmen and '^ Puritans," however, were not very unequal in weight and numbers. Romanists and Puri- Not unequal ^'^^^^ complained of the same grievances. It division. ^y^s the '' Supremacy " even more than the " Uniformity " which burdened their souls. They might possibly have ])orne the enforced Liturgy, which was less an abomination before it was enforced. This they could have learned to endure, and might liave learned to love. At worst, this only constrained their conduct. But the Supremacy touched their souls. To the Romanist, the Supreme Head of the Church was THE PUEITANS. 27 Christ, and the Pope his vice-gerent. To the Puritan the Supreme Head of the Church was Christ, and He had and could have no vice-gerent. To compel one upon his faith as a Christian to swear allegiance to any secular authority, was not tolerable. Romanist and Puritan alike held that between the Church and the State there could be no compact made as between equals, but that in the organization of society the secu- lar must be subordinate to the spiritual. The Puritan could not find it in his conscience to answer before any civil tribunal for his relioious conduct, much less to swear upon his faith as a C]iristian that he Avould acknoAvledge any mortal man, even though he be King of England, as " Supreme Head of the Church." It was worse than Popery ! It was a doctrine of devils ! It w^as Antichrist ! He would go to jail first ; he would fight ; he would emigrate, and found a society where Antichrist would not be allowed to exalt himself into the seat of God ; a society in which the saints should rule as they had the right to reign. To the Churchman this position was incomprehensi- ble. To his mind, England was simply a nation cora- Churchmen's P^sed of Christian men, in which the Church theory. and the State were not differentiated and could not be. The King as head of the realm was head of the Church, ipso facto. To quarrel with it was like quarrelling with the structure of the human body or the solar system. The man who did so must either be mad or have some sinister motive which he hid behind the plea of a tender conscience. It was as reasonable and natural for King and Parliament to decree a doctrine 28 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. as to levy a tax, to punish a heretic as to imprison a thief, — for were they not both offenders against the common order ? For any man to boggle at avowing his allegiance to the powers ordained by God, was to avow himself a bad citizen, and bad citizens should be made to feel the hand of the law. One little group of men there was who were wise be- yond their time. They saw even then that religious and secular things each had their own sphere. The Pil? rims They perceived that while the Church is " the blessed company of all faithful people," it has its exist- ence in a world filled with all people. They saw that while Christians live in the State they must, perforce, have relations with it. They dreamed of no theocracy where the saints should reign as the chosen of God ; but they did dream of a state where the things that belong to God and the things that belong to Csesar might be mutually apportioned in peace. Under the lead of their good pastor, John Robinson, a priest of the Church of England, and one of the noblest men of his own or any time^ this little band of pilgrims set upon their wanderings in search of their new Canaan. They sought it first in Holland. But after half a gen- eration their hearts turned back to Merrie England. They wished their children to retain their mother tongue. There was not roorii for them and theirs in the dyke-belted Low Countries. To England they could not return. Their thouo-hts roved over the sea to where the English flag was planted on an unpossessed land. The good ship Mayflower carried them away, and in 1620 they landed in Plymouth Bay. But they THE PURITAXS. 29 were men born out of due time. Their little company never grew large. Their pious leader said of them, more truly than he knew, that ^' they kneAV they were pilgrims, and looked not much on the things of earth, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." '' Deeply touched as all must be by the idyllic grace of the story of the Pilgrims, and pleasant as it is to linger over it, yet candor compels us to acknowledge that the true genesis of New England life is not to be traced to Plymouth, and that the Pil- grims had no direct and but little indirect influence in shaping its later development." ^ It was with the Puritan colony who landed in Massa- chusetts Bay in 1629 that the New England life really The Salem hegan. Five ships brought them over, two colony. hundred and fifty strong. The projector of the enterprise was Arthur Lake, the Puritan Bishop of Bath and AYells. He declared that if he Avere not so old he would go out with the colony himself.^ It is interesting to speculate what might have been the de- velopment of Puritan New England if Bishop Lake had come ! But all the colonists were members of the English Church. Tlieir leader was Rev. John White, Vicar of Dorchester. Francis Skelton of Clare Hall, and Francis Higginson of Jesus College, Cambridge, Episcopal Ministers both, were forward in the enter- prise. Why, then, did a company of English Church- men, led by priests, and with a bishop for their patron, leaving home with words of love for their Mother on 1 Bishop Harris: Cliristianity and Civil Society, p. 95. 2 Bancroft: vol i. p. 2:54, lar,t edition. 30 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IX THE COLONIES. their lips, become her sullen and relentless foes ? It is not necessary and would not be true to charge them either with hypocrisy or ingratitude. The logic of events is more potent than the theories of man. The root of the quarrel was partly in the situation and partly in the unconscious temper of the men them- selves. The theory of England was that every subject of the realm was a member of the Church. The relation estab- lished a mutual oblis:ation. It formed the English , . , . , theory of the basis lor protection and control on the one side ; it created the duty of obedience and support on the party of the second part. The King was to be a nursing father to the Church, but a father whose counsels must be heeded under penalty. The leaders of the Church naturally subscribed to the tlieory. They were oflad to believe that Church and State were each necessary to the other, but they made the sad blunder of identifying the State with the Crown. They hailed as almost divine wisdom the apothegm of the " wisest fool in Christendom," when he summed up the whole situation in his famous words, " No bishop, no king." ^ They established the ill-omened conjunction of Episco- pacy and Monarchy. It did not occur to them that the obverse of James Ts aphorism might sometime be deemed true, — No king, no bishop. It seemed to them that they were doing well and wisely by linking Episcopacy to that institution which seemed to the world of their 1 Graham: Colonial History of the United States, vol. i.p. 139. Whitgift (lid not scruple to declare tliat " undoubtedly his Majesty spoke by the special assistance of God's Spirit." THE PUIUTAXS. 31 day the most abiding of all things. But their mistake well-nigh worked ruin to the Church. It led it to form that fatal friendship with the Stuarts which brought Episcopacy into discredit Avith half of England, extin- guislied it in Scotland, and made it impossible for a hun- dred and hfty years in America. This ill-starred alliance remained as a sentiment many a year after it had degen- erated from a mere mistake of judgment to a very inan- ity. There are probably not wanting Churchmen even yet who, in defiance of the facts of history, and with slight regard for the honor of the Ten Commandments, still think and speak of '' the blessed martyr, King Charles." ^ And this in the face of the fact that, Avith the single exception of poor Queen Anne, the Church has never had a whole-hearted friend on the English throne, from the time of James I. until now. Now, when the Puritans left England they uncon- sciously turned their backs to the theory upon which Puritans and ^^^^ Church had taken its stand. Even had their theory, ^^q theory been true, it would have been impossible of application to a people angered for other causes, and farther away from the machinery of govern- ment than now would be a colony on Lake Nyanza. When they landed, and saw the situation, they saw they had expatriated themselves. They had left both Church and State behind. The Episcopate, by becoming the creature of the Crown, had lost its power to follow the Church's children. Had the English Church understood 1 A well-known bishop, still living, tells of a Scotch clergj-man who, while visiting in this country, was asked by him before going to Church, if he'Avould object at all to reading the Prayer for the President. " Hoot, man," was his reply, " dinna I pray for the Hoose o" Hanover?" 32 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. then what both her fathers and her sons have known, the true catholic and independent foundation of the Church, she couhl have adjusted her spiritual machinery to this and all the colonies. But the things which made for her peace were hid from her eyes. The Salem colony saw at once what it took the people of Maryland and Virginia a century to realize, — tliat the Church of Erig- land, holding the theories she did, could never become the Church of the colonies, however deeply she might yearn over her departing children. But this necessity to live their own life, apart from their old relations, was realized by the Puritans quite as much, or more, through their temper than through their understanding. It was easy for them to reach a conclu- sion which, though logical, was entirely in accord with their wishes. The Puritan's temper has been his bane, The Puritan while the Churchman's has been his strong tampsr. deliverer. The former is now only a charac- ter in history, while the latter is a present force, chiefly because, in the long run, moral qualities win over intel- lectual ones. In the long and weary conflict of the Church with dissent, — that conflict precipitated by the Act of Uniformity, patched up by the Toleration Act of 1688, and only ended within the memory of living men, — the strong weapon of the Church has been a certain broad kindliness of spirit. This, in the Puritans, was wanting. Their sour, saturnine, ultra-logical, disputa- tious temper led them, in Massachusetts, almost at once to the betrayal of their principles. They had come to found a State. Their ill-regulated enthusiasm changed their purpose, and they set about to found a Church. THE PUKITAXS. 33 The prodigious rapidity of growth which marks the colony shows that there were multitudes like-minded with them. Immigrants came out by the scores and hundreds. In the tenth year after their landing at Salem, a single fleet of twenty ships brought three thousand at one time. Before the colony was t^yenty years old it had pushed its outposts to the Connecticut, and planted settlements at Windsor and Hartford. They had followed the coast to Saybrook and New Haven, had crossed the Sound to Long Island, and planted a settlement at the mouth of the Housatonic. And all this w^as done in the face of a fierce climate, a sterile soil, ferocious savages, and wild beasts. The grimness of the Nature where they struggled repro- duced itself again in the tempers of the men. The kindly Englishmen of old Boston and Dorchester became the gloomy, rigid religionists of the new towns which bore the old names. By the middle of the century they had founded fifty towns and villages, in each of which the ministers and magistrates were the sterner censors of the religion and manners of their stern people. From the first it had been determined that none but godly members of the Church should possess the rights of citizenship. This accepted principle could not but beget both fanatics and hypocrites. They were domi- nated by the idea that they held the place in the New World Avliich the chosen people of God had held in the old economy. They were to go in and possess the land ; to destroy utterly the old Canaanites ; not to permit a witch to live ; to observe all the commandments and statutes of the Lord to do them. They would liave none 34 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. but Church-members for freemen. They called their children Patience, Faith, Prudence, Deliverance, Thank- ful, and Hold-fast. Their laws present a picture of their lives.^ Roman Catholics and Quakers were to be banished, and upon their return executed ; shipmasters Puritan wcre forbidden to bring in any of that ac- laws. cursed sect or their writings ; it was forbidden to run or walk on the Sabbath Day, except '^ reverently to meeting ;" to sweep the house, to cook, or to shave ; mothers were advised not to kiss their children on the Lord's Day ; adultery, blasphemy, and idolatry were punishable by death; heresy and keeping Christmas Day, by fine and the stocks ; absence from public wor- ship, by fine and whipping ; renouncing Church mem- bership, or questioning the canonicity of any book in the Bible, by fine and banishment ; all gaming was pro- hibited and cards and dice forbidden to be imported ; dancing anywhere, and kissing a woman in the street, '' even in the way of honest salutation," was punished by flogging ; women were forbidden under penalty of im- prisonment to wear clothing beyond their station in life, to cut their hair like a man ; and for speaking ill of the minister, to have their tongues fastened in a split stick. Nor were these decrees empty threats.^ Extracts 1 It is liardly needful to say that the oft-quoted " Blue Lcnos''' are of no historic value. The authorities are, — The Book of General Laws and Liberties ; by authority of the Genoral Court of Massachusetts 1()40; Printed at Cambridge 1(5(50; pp. 3, 8, 9, 2(5, 83, .")5, 38,(59, 74; The same, revised and reprinted by Saml, Green, Cam- bridge 1(572. General Laws and Liberties of Connecticut ; Revised and I'ublislied by order of General Assembly; Hartford 1G72 ; pp. 28, 37, 21. In illustration of these are the Abridgment of Ordinances of New Eng- land ; Neal ; Hutchison ; and Graham: Colonial History of United States. This last has the indorsement of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 2 Graham: Colonial History of United States, vol. i. p. 189. Note. THE PUPJTAXS. 3o from the early records of the Massachusetts courts show that John Weclgewood, for being in the company of drunkards, is ordered to sit in the stocks ; Catherine, the wife of Richard Cornish, was found suspicious of light conduct and admonished to take heed; Thomas Pettit, for suspicion of slander and stubbornness, to be severely whipped; Josiah Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn, to be hereafter called by the name " Josias and not Mr.," as heretofore. A farmer in the New Hampshire settlement barely escaped excommuni- cation, by confession and repentance, for having killed a bear which was tearing ujo his garden on Sunday. One may readily sujDpose that this unnatural manner of religious life would revenge itself. " Religentem esse oportet^ non rellgiosumy The constant checking and repression of the natural life turned men's minds inward upon themselves. The hard mechanical service of rule was more than they could bear. The story of the internal revolts against it has often been told. The Baptists challenged it, and Avere coldly told to go else- where. The Quakers provoked it, and felt the dreadful weight of its hand. We are only concerned to ask, How shall the Church of England find a lodgement in such a society ? There is a feeble little settlement of Church people on the Kennebec, and the rapidly developing colony in ,^. . . Virsrinia, but these have their hands more Planting of ° the Church in than full with their own affairs. If the ng an . Qj^^^^j^ -g ^^ ^^ planted in New England, Old England must do it. No one would have j^rophe- sied in 1640 that two centuries and a half later the 36 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. most rapid growth of the Episcopal Church would be in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Certainly there was nofthing then to indicate it. Wlien Sir Ferdinando Gorges' son Robert brought his little colony to the " Wessagusset " in 1623, an English clergyman was in the company as chaplain. In the late summer, when the colonists' cabins had been buiit and their gardens were growing, the chaplain, with a few companions, went for a visit to their neighbors at Ply- mouth. The first summer voyage of pleasure along the silent coast of Maine was this. The good Plymouth people I'eceived their guests with a hearty welcome. The best they had was set before them. In the intolerable loneliness of the grim solitude, a visitor was a godsend. The talk was upon tlie work in which both settlements were engaged. But the priestly capacity of their guest was silently ignored. As an Englishman and a fellow backw^oodsman they would give him of their best. But wdien the Sunday came he was alloAved to take his seat on the benches while their own pastor held forth. The visit was not greatly prolonged and was never repeated. Even at that early day there were Churclunen in Massachusetts. One of them, John Morton, was a con- spicuous figure in the earliest settlements. John Morton. ^^ . ^ , . , , ,. He had been a rich man and a generous liver in England. The attractive field which the New World offered for adventure and fortune drew him as it did so many of his kind. In 1623 he took up a plantation, including the present town of Quincy. He brought with him thirty servants, stock, utensils, and furniture. AVith his people about him, on the fat land he lived a THE PURITANS. 37 jolly life. Choleric, devout, profane, and generous, he lived in Massachusetts the typical English squire. A tall pole set on the bluff in front of his house bore an English pennant. On Christmas Day abundant roasts of venison and mince pies galore rejoiced his people. Every morning he read prayers before his household, and on Sunday acted as their reader. Sr long as the kindly Pilgrims were his only neighbors, chere was no attempt to interfere with his ways. But when the Puritans came and multiplied, Morton's manners could no longer be tolerated. Presently he had a visit from "that worthy gentle^ian, John Endicott, of Boston," who grimly ordered the flagpole to be cut down and "to look to it there should be better walking." Morton raged and fumed and was roundly fined for " ungodly speech." He certainly did swear. He declared in a letter to a friend, " I found in these parts two sets of people, Christians and heathens, and these last more friendly and full of humanity." He refused to pay his fine, and was clapped in the bilboes. His servants and tenants were sharply brought into Puritan order. The stout old offender himself was packed off to England and warned to stay there. His offences were gravely asserted to be these two : — being " of a gay humor," and using the Book of Common Prayer. To the mind of the Puritan these were capital. One of them was an offence against the eternal fitness of things, and the other against the solemn judgment of the saints. In England jNIorton was foolish enough to write a book about his American neighbors. A copy of it found its way to Boston. It was not pleasant reading for " the worthy 38 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. Mr. Endicott" and his friends. Still more foolishly, Morton ventured to follow his book himself, and came back to gather up the fragments of his estate. He had better have let it go. No sooner had he returned than he was seized and imprisoned. Several years of such discipline broke the old man's spirit and heart both, and he laid him down and died. In the original Puritan comjjany were two brothers. Brown by name, a lawyer and a merchant, who declined The Brown ^o join in the action by which tlie company brothers. separated from the Church. They had been born and reared in 'it, like all th€ others, and saw no reason why they should turn their backs upon it. When they landed, and had built their little cabins in the new town of Salem, they continued to gather their families morning and evening, and read with them the daily prayers. For a while this was coldly permitted by their neighbors. But presently the brothers ven- tured to gather a company together in a place distinct from the public assembly, and there '' sundry times the Book of Common Prayer was read unto such as resorted thither." This that worthy gentleman Mr. Endicott could not endure. He " convented " the brothers be- fore himself and the ministers. Very plain speech ensued. The ministers argued that the enforced use of the Prayer-Book was the very thing they had not been able to abide on the other side of the water, and that it would be the height of folly to allow^ it to creep into a place of honor here. The Browns replied, re- minding them of tlie language they themselves had used only a few weeks before, when they had solemnly THE PURITANS. 39 declared that they had no notion of separating from the Church their motlier, but only to protest against her abuses and corruptions. The Prayer-Book they cer- tainly could not call a corruption, since it had been used till lately by themselves, and was, in substance, either the words of God or of godly men. They accused the ministers openly, and not politely — for thc}^ Avere sturdy Englishmen, these Browns — of being "separatists" and "Anabaptists." The governor and council, however, " finding these two to be of high spirit and their speeches and practices tending to mutiny and faction," — the governor told them that "New England was no place for such as they." The governor was quite right. The New England of that time was no place for any except that peculiar people who had embarked upon their religio-political experiment, nor would it be until that experiment should have been carried out to its necessary failure. The Browns, with their families, were ordered to return to England, which they did within the year, losing their share in the colo- nial venture. While the Salem people were diligently purging their colony of the Church leaven, a Church of England clergyman was quietly living and prospering, William far away from neighbors, where Boston now stands. The Rev. William Blaxton was a quiet, peaceable man, who, wearied with the din of religious controversy at home, had come to America to be at rest. He had taken up a farm, built a comforta- ble house, planted orchards, and made for himself and family a pleasant home, before the Salem people came. 40 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. It was not to exercise liis ministry lie had come, but to escape the strife of tongues. One day in 1630, Winthrop, with a httle band of hind-hunters, haid doAvn their packs and built their fire at Charlestown. Bhxx- ton's servants reported their presence, and the kindly man brought the cold and hungry hunters to his house. They admired his place " as a paradise," being chiefly delighted with his apples, whose fragrance reminded them of home. From his house they Avent morning by morning to their clearings, building their cabins in Cliarlestown, to which they soon removed. New set- tlers flocked in, and the town of Boston grcAV apace. Soon Blaxton was surrounded. His peaceful solitude was gone. A town was built and a community organ- ized around him. He was graciously permitted to become a " freeman ; " but his Episcopal neighbors ]\Iaverick and Walford were denied the same privilege. No attempt was made by Blaxton to hold services of the Church. But gradually and surely he was made to feel that '' New England was no place for such as he." When the town passed an order that only those of the " Established Order " should be counted as freemen, thus taking away his citizenship, he sadly accepted its paltry offer of one hundred and fifty dollars for his property, and moved away. " I left England," he says, " because I misliked my lords the bishops : I leave here because I like still less my lords the brethren." Provi- dence, in Rhode Island, affoi'ded him an asylum, as it had Roger Williams. Tlie effect of his removal was to quicken his own zeal in his oflice. He began at once in his new home to officiate as a minister, and continued to do so until he died, an old man. THE PURITAXS. 41 Blaxton's removal closed the Prayer-Book in Massa- eliusetts for fifty years. The Churchmen \yho were in the colony then, as well as the considerable Churchmen inMassachu- number who came from time to time, con- formed with what grace they could to the " Established Order." They went to the meeting- house, had their children baptized by and received the Sacrament at the hands of the Puritan ministers. It was the easier for them to do so for the reason that the earl}^ Puritan ministers had been in point of fact E^dIs- copally ordained ; and also because the idea of the exclusive validity of Episcopal Orders was not gener- ally entertained at that time by the great majority of Churchmen even in England. By conforming to the Puritan order of things they did violence only to their tastes and habits and not their consciences. But by this time the zeal of the Puritans liad grown into bigotry. They were not content with closing the Praj^er-Book in their own territory. Massachusetts claimed jurisdiction over the Eastern Colony as well. Nothing less than the suppression of the Church there would content them. By vexatious legal proceedings, and by still harder measures, they, to all practical pur- poses, succeeded. By 1680 there was only one Episco- pal clergyman in the whole of New England. Old Father Jordan still lived in Portsmouth, but broken in fortune and in spirit. New England had purged herself of all disturbers of the peace. The Baptists liad been banished to Rhode Island. The Quakers had been whipped and driven into the wilderness. Tlie Churchmen had been harried 42 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. either into conformity or exile. But their success was its own Nemesis. In 1684 their charter was withdrawn. They had sided with Parliament against the Crown. When the Withd 1 d'o^v^^ ^^''"^-^ ^t l^st triumphant the enmities of the char- they had so diligently cultivated returned to plague them. They might no longer be trusted with the powers of government. The American Theocracy, after a gloomy life of sixty years, fell in a day. By the resumption of the charter, Massachusetts.^ including all the territory east of the New York line, became a ''royal" colony.^ Its special privileges were gone. Its territory became again part of the kingdom. The Church of England became established in the eyes of English law. A wide door seemed now to be opened to the Church. But, unfortunately, her champions proved as ready to take the sword as their enemies had been. They had now the secular power on their side. But it was Brit- ish power. It required still another century of failure before the Church could learn that this which she so fondly believed to be her strength was her hopeless weakness. Meanwhile she exploited it. On a May day in 1686 the man-of-war Rose sailed into Boston harbor, bearing the first governor and the Church lean- first incumbent. The ill-starred alliance bhSgov- ^^^t?^^^ ^^^ century of failure. Boston had eminent. five thousand inhabitants, and three meet- ing-houses. The frigate arrived on a Thursday. On Sunday the new clergyman read service and preached • Graham: Colonial History of U.S., vol. i. p. 254. THE PURITANS. 43 in the Town House. The room was small and ill arranged. But it Avas packed, and a great crowd of curious hung about the open door and windows. Mr. Ratcliffe was pronounced on all hands to be "an ex- traordinary tine preacher." Next day a wedding was celebrated, and Avith a ring ! During the w^eek Mr. Ratcliffe formally requested from the Town Council the use of one of the meeting-houses to hold service in. His request was refused, and he was recommended to continue using the Town House. The governor, fol- lowing his instructions, did not interfere. The people of the town, of whom a considerable number had always held in spirit to the Church of their birth, continued to attend the services in the hall. In June they took steps ^ . ^ to organize a parish. A vestry was chosen. Parish organ- o ± j . -> ized in composcd of Ed. Randolph, Captain Lydgett, Messrs. Luscombe, White, Macartie, Clarke, Turferry, Ravenscroft, and Bullivant. The rector's salary was fixed at |!200 a year. They asked for a sliare of the fund raised by taxation in the town, for the support of public worship, and were refused. Every slight and affront which might safely be used was put upon them. Social pressure in its extremest form was brought to bear against any who might forsake the meeting-house for the Church. But the congregation continued to grow until the mean Town House could in no wise accommodate it. They tried to borrow one of the meeting-houses at such times as it was not in use by its own congregation. They were answered that " we cannot, with a good conscience, consent that our meeting-house should be made use of for the Common- Prayer worship." 44 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. Upon the arrival of Andros as governor, the situation took on a new complexion. He was too domineering in Governor temper and too pronounced a Churchman to Andros. carry out effectively the conciliatory policy which the home government was just then experiment- ing with. For six months, in obedience to instruction, he put enough constraint upon himself to keep his official hands off. He went with the other Episcopa- lians to the little Town House and sat upon the hard benches with what dignity and comfort he could. But after six months his ill-disguised impatience broke out. The personal discomfort might have been endured. The hinderance to the growth of the Church, as such, did not disturb him much. But that his Excellency the Governor, the representative of His Royal Majesty, should be stewed week after week in a mean little barn, while the rascally, canting, crop-eared Puritans should be sitting at their ease in comfortable sanctua- ries, — this was not to be borne ! By the governor's order the " Old South Mee ting-House " was appropri- ated to the new parisli for morning service, leaving its own congregation to use it in the afternoon, if they liked. There was no appeal from this order to any human authority. The Puritans therefore changed the venue to a court in which it had always been their peculiarity to believe themselves influential; tliey ap- pointed and kept a day of fasting and prayer, meeting- They also made representations to the gov- ernor whicli led him to partially relax the order. The meeting-house was to be used on alter- nate Sunday mornings by the two congregations. For THE PURITANS. 45 some time this arrangement continued. But it worked badly. The Churchmen, when it was their mornincr in possession, grew strongly rubrical, which made the ser- vice so long that the afternoon was half spent before the Puritans could have their turn. When the Puri- tans were in possession they '• had such freedom " in prayer and the expounding of the Word, that no time was left for Evening Prayer. The unseemly speofecle became common Sunday after Sunday of one congrega- tion, shivering in an ill-humor outside, waiting for the one piously chuckling inside to have done and get away. The Church had been placed, as usual, by the governor, in a false position. They had no right to the meeting-house at all, either at law or in equity. In England such a thing as its forcible use would have been impossible, and this the Boston people very well knew. There was nothing for the Church to do but to abandon its claim with Avhat grace it might. They determined to build for themselves. A subscription was started for the purj)Ose, which produced a sufficient amount almost at once. Pity they had not done it six months sooner. For by now the Puritans were so exa:- perated that they refused to sell a foot of ground for any such purpose. Sewall, in his Diary, writes : " Captain Davis spoke to me to-day for land to set a church on. Told him I could not and would not put Mr. Cotton's land to such a use : first, because I would not set up that which the people of New England came over to avoid ; and secondly, the land Avas entailed ! " After repeated failure to make private purchase, the governor came again with heavy hand to the rescue. By pressure and 46 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. thinly disguised threats, he persuaded the council to cede enough of common land for the purpose. On King's ^^ ^^^® "King's Chapel" was built, at a cost Chapel built, of $1,800. With a church of its own, the parish grew more rapidly and more wholesomely. But when the news of the Revolution of 1688 reached New England, and it was learned that the trusty Prot- estant, and, as they believed, Presbyterian, William of Orange, was on the throne, the Puritans thought their innings had come. Without waiting for accurate infor- mation, they clapped Governor Andros into jail, shipped the Episcopal rector off to England, smashed the win- dows of the church, pelted its walls with mud and filth, mobbed and harried the Churclimen within an inch of their lives. For months the poor, dilapidated church stood silent and desolate, bearing scurrilous extempores scribbled on its walls alluding to Jezebel and the Scarlet Whore. But the Puritans presently discovered that they had been premature. They learned that William was not the man they had taken liim to be. With no enthusi- astic love to the Church, — or to anything else, for that matter, — it was now his Church, officially, and must be decently treated. He was as ready to lay his hand upon an ultra-Puritan as an ultra-Papist ; and his liand was not a pleasant one to be touched with angrily. The gloomy Bostonians had the mortification to see the rec- tor come back again, with, as they phrased it, " seven other devils worse than himself." The church was rehabilitated, services recommenced, new books, plate, and paraphernalia of worship brought in, the scattered THE PURITANS. 47 congregation regathered and increased, and the worship of God by the Common Prayer set up, to grow steadily through two centuries, till now the Church in New Eng- land includes in her roll of members the jiame borne by almost every prominent Puritan in the early annals of the colony. While the Church stood with the Crown against the popular will, they hated her with that sus- tained and smouldering hatred of which only Puritans were capable. When that unholy alliance was shaken loose, and the Church had the chance to show what she is in herself, the grandsons of her enemies became her loving children. Thirty years ago a tablet of brass was set in the rebuilt wall of the " Founders' Chapel " of St. Botolph's The quarrel Cliurcli in old Boston, Lincolnshire. It bears ended. j^n inscription to the memory of John Cotton, the Puritan preacher of new Boston, Massachusetts. When the chapel was re-opened the flags of England and America floated together from the tower, in sign that the old quarrel was over and past. Tho Bishop of London, Laud's successor, was present, and the Bishop of Lincoln preached fittingly from the text, " Let us build with you, for we seek God as ye do." ^ 1 Thornton: The Pulpit of the Revolution, p. xxii. 48 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER IV. THE KOMAN CATHOLICS. In the early years of Elizabeth's reign the ambassador of his Most Catholic Majesty of Spain wrote to his master that the royal virgin was, in his judgment, "possessed of a hundred thousand devils." If this were true, it is likely that the task assigned to five legions of them Avas to harry the English Parliament ; the other five Avere occupied Avith the Puritans. When James I succeeded, the Romanists came to believe that a wholesale exor- cism liad been Ava^ought in the kingdom. It Avas true that James Avas more of a Protestant than Elizabeth, so far as theological definitions are concerned. Nothing Avould have pleased the royal theologaster better than a set discussion Avitli the Pope himself ; but he differed radicall}^ from the leonine queen in temper. He Avould argue Avith the Romanists by the week, but he Avould net cut their heads off. By Elizabeth's method argu- ment is quickly ended, by James's it may be oontinued. This being the king's disposition, Avhen George Cal- vert, one of his state officers, became a pervert to LordBaiti- Romanism in 1624, he did not thereby forfeit ^°^^- the royal favor. He Avas made Lord Balti- more in lieu of the honorable offices this step compelled him to relinquish. But he thereby cast his lot with a people Avho had been, upon the Avhole, fairly judged, and THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 49 lay under the popular verdict of bad Christians and untrustworthy Englishmen. For this cause the rights of citizenship had been taken aAvay from them. They held their fortunes and lives by sufferance, and both were often in jeopardy. Calvert made himself inti- mately acquainted with their situation. His connection by marriage with Sir Thomas Arundel, their chief ad- viser, gave him opportunity to know their needs and wishes. He Avas already one of the original members of the Virginia Council. This fact probably suggested his scheme to him. The Puritans had their colony, Avhy should not the Romanists have theirs? They could there escape the social and political disabilities which their fathers had brought upon them, and maybe add a new jewel to the much-battered tiara. In any case, in the New World the priest would not be compelled to disguise himself in Hodge's smock-frock or the livery of a footman, and the people to hear mass with guarded doors, and in deadly fear of the hangman's knife. Thus Maryland, like the other earliest colonies, The Maryland started with a distinctly religious motive. It colony. ^yj^3 iq ]jq r^ refuge and a seed-plot for Eng- lish Roman Catholics. For this purpose, openly avowed, Lord Baltimore received from Charles I a patent for the territory lying between the mouth of the Potomac and the fortieth degree of north latitude, and running westward indefi- nitely.i Before the charter received the imprint of the Great Seal, Baltimore died. Leonard Calvert, his son, took up his father's task. Romish noblemen and gentle- 1 Shea: Catholic Church iu Colonial Days, p. 3i. 50 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. men furnished the outfit, and their humbler followers became the colonists. Two ships, the Ark and the Dov3, bore the company of a hundred people. They were the best equipped and furnished of all the early companies. Tliey sailed from Cowes, November 22, 1633. After a long and stormy voyage, in which they were driven by stress of weather to the Barbadoes and Montserrat, they entered the mouth of the Potomac, which they consecrated to St. Gregory, and rechristened the two capes which clip its mouth Cape St. Gregory and Cape St. Michael. The islands they sailed by, they called St. Clement, St. Catherine, and St. Cecilia. On this last they landed, and the two Jesuits sent by their provin- cial with the expedition. Father Andrew White and Father John Altham, said mass for the company on Annunciation Day, 1634. Thence they moved to the Maryland shore, and unloaded their goods at St. Mary's. " There," says Bancroft, " religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world." This last declaration has been so often made, that in the interest of common justice it should be qualified and supplemented. Tiling's which differ ouGfht Romanists ... ^ i anclrsii- to be distinguished. That Roman Catho- gious 1 er y. ^^^^ should be claimed as the champions of I'cligious liberty in the seventeenth century, seems suffi- ciently grotesque to the student of history.^ The shnple truth in the premises is this : the Calverts did believe and practise so ; the Roman Church did neither the one nor the other. The settlers of Maryland were ' Tliis claim was the burden of tlie addresses at the Roman Catholic Conference at Baltimore in October, 1889. THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. 51 too glad to find safety to think 'of persecution. Not that they would have done so if they could. They should have, ungrudged, their meed of praise ; hut tbey must not have all the praise. It must not he for- gotten that their new home was given them by a Prot- estant king, with the hearty advice and approval of a Protestant council, who in so doing waived their own claims in the interest of their misguided but still loved countrymen. They made the gift with their eyes open. English Romanists were utterly discredited as citizens. It was not alone or chiefly that their religion was abhor- rent. By their own declaration they took tlieir political orders from an enemy Avhom England could not then afford to despise. Romanists in England meant serv- ants of the Papacy and agents of the king of Spain. Despite of this, Protestant Englishmen gave them that peaceful home in Maryland, which had already been brutally refused them by their French co-religionists in Xewfoundland.^ The founders were of those few in their day Avho were Catholics rather than Romanists, and Englishmen before either. Such were the Cal- verts, a noble race with few contemporaries and fewer descendants. They had neither the will nor the power of intolerance. But they laid no claim to toleration as a virtue. They simply recognized existing: Persecution -. by them im- f acts. The first offer of persecution by the possi 8. Maryland colony would have brought such a storm about them as would have swept them into the ocean. Churchmen and Quakers, Baptists and Puritans, would have combined to exterminate the ingrates. 1 Shea: Catholic Church iu Colouial Days, j). 32. 52 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. They Avere glad to leave England, and there is serious reason to believe that they were not altogether sorry to be three thousand miles farther away fi'om Rome. Their chose:i priests vv^ere Jesuits, and the Society of Jesus was not then in favor at Rome. It had already launched upon that policy of adaptability to every circumstance, which made it distrusted and finally led to its suppression by the Pope himself. Domini- cans, Capuchins, and Franciscans were those whom Rome then looked upon with favor. The judgment of the Roman Church was at one with that of the Puiitan upon this question. Cotton Mather spoke for both when he pronounced " toleration — a doctrine of devils." The Calverts and their friends were as far removed from the spirit of their Church as from that of their times. They were never looked upon kindly by their spiritual superiors, and when the last of them returned to England the Romish King, James II, refused to receive him.^ This colony, with its exceptional advantages of equip- ment, soil, and climate, filled up more slowly than any of Slow growth ^^^ compeers. At first the immigrants were of th3 colony, ^f the same faith as the founders. But this supply of men was quickly exhausted. The truth was, there were few of that sort among the English-speak- ing people to draw from. The stream of immigration soon became Protestant. Before a generation had passed, these last were in the majority ; before the end of the century they were ten to one.^ While there 1 Hawks: Ecclesiastical Contributions, vol. ii. p. 56. 2 lb. p. 73; Shea, p. 2G. THE ROMAX CATHOLICS. 58 was no religious establishment, the offices of the prov- ince were all rigidly kept in the hands of Roman Cath- olics, and this even after they had become less than one-tenth of the population. No open obstacle was placed in the way of Protestant worship, but any offi- cial advantage available was lent to that of Rome. Occasional services of the Church of England were held almost from the first, by clergy from Virginia, from New England, and by occasional visitors from England. In a few places services were kept up with regularity for considerable periods, but the record of them in detail is not now extant. In Cromwell's time the Commonwealth sent over a commission to set up the " New Model," and Roman- ists and Churchmen were both suppressed. At the Restoration things returned to the'^same state a3 before. Ten years later the Roman Catholic population had been engulfed.^ The Italian plant in America had withered, and did not revive again, till the stream of Irish immigration poured over it in the middle of this present century. When this condition had been reached, the people of Maryland effected, rightly, the ''Protestant Revolution." A petition to the Crown was offered praying that the offices of the province might be placed in the hands of Protestants, who constituted its people. It was right and just, on the Calverts' own principles, that this should be done. Nor did their descendants and successors strongly oppose it. 1 Shea, p. 75. 54 THE EXGLISII CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. The first clear view of the Church's career there begins in 1675. A Mr. Yeo, of Patuxent, writes to the Archbishop 'of Canterbury, — " The Province of Maryland is in a dej)lorable state for want of an established ministry. Here are ten or . twelve counties, and in them at least twenty thousand souls, and but three Protestant ministers of the Church of England. The Lord's Day is profaned, religion is despised, and all the notorious vices are committed, so that it is become a Sodom of uncleanness and a pest of iniquity." The picture drawn by Mr. Yeo is probably too deeply colored, but there is abundant testimony that that pesti- "BadCath- ^^^^ class had multiplied rapidly which has oiics." since become the bane of the United States. " Bad Catholics " have always been the worst of the population, — while good ones have been as good as any. The only authority which they have been reared to recognize as really binding is the Church. When they or their children break away or lapse from under it, there is nothing to take its place. The intrinsically divine quality of civil government, which has always been one of the underlying beliefs of Protestantism, is unknown by them. In their eagerness to accent the divine nature of the Church, they have emptied every- thing else of its divinity. When they break with it they are left wandering stars. In the present day they form a great proportion of the inmates of jails and peni- tentiaries. In the last years of the seventeenth century they were at large in JMaryland. The Roman Catholic Church had almost completely lost its hold on its own THE EOMAX CATHOLICS. 55 children. It was not for a hundred jesivs later that they were able to support their first bishop. When Madison went to England for consecration, John Car- roll, the Roman Catholic, was liis shipmate on his way to accomplish a similar errand. The lapsed Romanists were mingled with lapsed Churchmen, Quakers destitute of the "inner light," Baptists, and a few Scotch Presbyterians. They were practically all planters. The evil effect of African slavery upon the masters was beginning to show itself. They were overbearing, indolent, and licentious, — the three besetting sins of slave-keejDing people. Dancing, drinking, horse-racing, cock-fighting, were their serious occupations.^ Their charter w^as revoked in 1690, like those of Massachusetts and New York, in pursuance Charter re- ^^ ^he home policy which had determined to voked. bring the colonial territory out of its anoma- lous political status, and restore it to its place as a part of the common possessions of the kingdom. By this act of the Crown, — not the colonists themselves, — the ec- clesiastical balance was overturned. The people came back under English law. By that law the Romanist as such was proscribed. His very existence became trea- son. By the same law the English Church was part of the machinery of the realm. It needed no new statute for either. The existing laws sufiiced. The Church of England was now the established Church of Maryland. Clergy began to come apace, but of a character and qual- ity so indifferent that their j^resence wrought, if possible, 1 T^odge: English Colonies in America, p. 127 et seq. 1 McMaster: Historj^ of People of United States, vol. i. pp 424, 425. 50 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLOXIES. more harm than their previous absence had done. It is evil for a people to have no priests ; it is still worse to liave bad ones. The first Maryland priest we catch sight Unworthy ^^ is of this sort. John Coode, a politician, ministers. ^^ mountebank, a land-surveyor, a Jack-of-all- trades, had been mixed up with all the broils of the colony, was always to be found at his post after the fight, when the spoil was being gathered. He had been most forward in the petition to have the colonial offices turned over to Protestants, and had secured two or three of them for his share. The duties of one of them called him to England. While there he managed to have himself ordained to the ministry. Upon his return he began at once to officiate. It can readily be imagined how much good he did. His character grew from bad to worse. Without giving up either his sacred or secular office he added to them both that of customs officer. At odd times he surveyed a plantation and bowsed all the evening with tlie owner. He was so drunk once during service on Sunday that Governor Nicholson, who was in the congregation, led him out and caned him handsomely, — and was challenged by him for the indignity. He went up and down the colony preaching on Sunday, and lecturing during the week, on ''The Absurdities of Christianity," — a sort of seventeenth-century Ingersoll in spurs and cassock. Finally liis conduct became so intolerable that he was arrested, tried for general misbehavior, and banished from the colony. It must not be supposed that all the priesthood Avere such as this, the first we meet. The earliest missionaries THE RO;>IAX CATHOLICS. o7 had been devout and godly men, and some such still remained. But for the most part they had passed away. Kow that plantation life had grown easy, and a ready fortune was to be gathered, and the people themselves had declined in manners, so many of Coode's sort came that we shall find ministerial unworthiness to be a pain- ful feature of the Church for more than a generation, — indeed, in the Southern colonies, quite up to the Revo- lution. When the year 1700 had been reached, the position of the Church in the province of the Calverts was, roughly, Situation ^^^i^' There were about twenty-two thousand in 1700. inhabitants, nine-tenths of them nominally Protestants, a turbulent and ill-regulated populace. The Church of England was established by law. A poll-tax of forty pounds of tobacco was assessed for its support upon every rate-payer. There were about half a dozen clerg}\ The people were in many places anxious both for more and better ones. They forwarded petitions to the Bishop of London and Canterbuiy fre- quently to this end. A curious fact is that the signers of these petitions constantly called themselves " Protest- ant-Catholics." Did they anticipate by two centuries a true conception of the Church ? Were the two classes so fused together in the common population that they simply described themselves ? The Establishment was most unpopular, even in the eyes of the stanchest Churchmen. The tax of tobacco was evaded, or else paid in an herb of so poor a quality that even Parson Samson raised his gorge at it. 58 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. The ecclesiastical history of the colon.y has been well summed up in the words of a modern writer : " There were three eras of toleration in Marylando That of the proprietaries, which lasted fifty years Under it all believers in Christ were (theoretically) equal before the law, and all support to churches and ministers was voluntary. "That of the Puritans, which lasted six years, and in- cluded all but Romanists, Episcopalians, and heretics. " The Anglican toleration, which lasted eiglity years, had glebes and churches for the Establishment, conniv- ance for Dissenters, penal laws for Catholics, and from all the forty pounds per polir ^ 1 American Commonwealth Series, Maryland, p. 186. THE DUTCH. 59 CHAPTER V. THE DUTCH. The early settlements were established, one after the other, on the banks of Albemarle Sound, Chesapeake, Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware Bays. To the three first and the last the colonists came impelled either entirely or dominantly by religious motives, and all came from England. The New York settlement sprang from religious motives only indirectly. Remotely, the Refor- mation was its occasion. That had divided Europe into two hostile camps. For half a century they strove to settle on the field that quarrel between the Pope and the Augustinian monk, which had failed of adjustment by argument. Slowly the war concentrated itself into the Netherlands, the historic battle-ground of Europe. In that arena Rome broke herself against the indomi- table Dutch. But these could strike, as well as endure. While they stubbornly defended themselves at home, they aimed a blow at their Spanish enemy's remotest border. The English skij)per, Henry Hudson, with a Seeking the sturdy Dutch crew in the ship Half Moon, East Indies, ^yj^g ggj-^^ ^^ ravage the Spanish possessions in the Farther Indies. In September, 1609, they passed inside Sandy Hook, and fancied they might before even- ing drop their anchor in front of Singapore.^ The great 1 Parkman: Discovery of the Great West, p. xxi. 60 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. river they Avere in, and the Straits of Malacca, to their minds, covered the same space upon the map. An un- suspected continent and an unknown ocean Lay between them and their purpose. Their voyage of war became changed perforce to one of discovery and adventure ; for trading with Indians Avould be quite as profitable as fighting with Lascars. Bears and wolverines were plenty on either side of Hudson's River, mink and otter abun- dant along the Sound, and muskrats swarmed about the Haarlem flats. Barter with the natives was easy, and Hudson's crew went home both earlier and richer than they had expected. Their report soon led to other ex- peditions for the same purpose. A fort and a cluster of cabins sprang up on Manhattan Island. In 1619 the United Provinces gained their hard-won independence. Immediately there sprang up among them the same movement of adventure and colonization which had shown itself among the English upon their peace with Spain. The ''Dutch West India Company" was organized. The United Provinces gave it leave to found a state in America. Leave was all they gave it. They warned tlie colonists that they went on their own responsibility, and took their own risk. They must "look to the Provinces for nothing but friendly patronage." In 1625 the advance guard of lliirty families came. For twenty-four dollars they bought Manhattan Island for their own, and began at once to build tlieir town about the block-house of the fur-traders. It is their ecclesiastical future with which we have to do. After two centuries and a half shall have passed THE DUTCH. 61 over, we will find the names borne by these Dutch immigrants in the Church, — Stuy vesants, De position of Pejsters, Livingstons, Schuylers, Bleeckers, and Remsens. By what steps, and througii what influences, have they come ? Tliey came here Presbyterians, but Presbyterians of a very different type, and with other traditions, than those we shall find across the Church's path later on. In their long war with the Papacy their bishops had taken sides against them. When the Episcopate runs away, only the Presbyterate is left. The Dutchmen's theory of the Presbytery came after the fact. In such a case the theory is not held aggressively. Their the- ology was not of the fierce Calvinistic sort. It was broader, more kindly, and more human. The "Church idea " has never been wanting in them or their descend- ants. They had become Presbyterian from necessity, and continued to be so from wont and use rather than from conscience. Five years after their town of New Amsterdam was started, their first minister came out. Th8 Dutch ^"^^ty communicants and more greeted him. as settlers. 'jjjg colony grew rapidly. Soon the island was too strait for them, and they pushed out to search new places. They ascended the Hudson, and followed the ]\Iohawk till its branches interlaced with the Sus- quehanna. Adrian Block passed through the Sound, and left his name on Block Island. Captain May fol- loAved the Jersey coast till he reached the cape which bears his name. They plodded eastward until they con- fronted the Puritans on the Housatonic. This was a significant meeting. It was the old problem in physics 62 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. of an irresistible body meeting an immovable one. It Avas followed by a whole generation of contest, some- times by words, then by threats, and even by blows, Roger Williams came all the way from Providence to arbitrate between them, and gained the ill-will of both. The Dutch had learned religious toleration in a hard school, and had learned their lesson well. In New York alone, of all the colonies, absolute religious Toleration. i ' i c i t-i liberty subsisted irom the start. Jiven in Penn's colony no ''Jew, Turk, Infidel, or heretic " might live. New York gave a home to everything that is human. There the Jew first set foot in America. Lutherans, Puritans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, and Quakers dwelt undisturbed. Even when choleric old Peter Stuyvesant harried the Quakers and Lutherans, it Avas to satisfy a personal grudge, and his conduct was not sustained by the people. Dutch, French, and English were spoken, each by so many that public documents required to be in all three tongues. But this prosperous Dutch colony was occupying British soil, and now their place was wanted. They had come without leave asked, and had been warned by their own government, in advance, not to look to it for help. The mouth of the Hudson was within the Virginia Company's grant. That company had resigned to the Crown what was needed for Massachusetts and Maryland, but not for New Netherlands. It was now wanted for the King's brother, the Duke of York. The Dutch were warned to vacate, but placidly sat still. On the 8th of September, 16G4, the Duke's fleet, with THE DUTCH. 63 Colonel Nichols, dropped anclior off the island. Stout Peter Stujvesant, then governor, stormed in vain. The Dutch would not fight, neither would they run away. They went about their work serenely. Their governor ungraciously capitulated for them, stipulating that " the Dutch shall enjoy liberty of conscience here in divine worship and church discipline." ^ Colonel Nichols landed with his staff and his chap- lain, bringing the English flag and the English Church. . . Their coming did not strikingly change the the English ecclesiastical situation. Colonel Nichols was himself a Churchman, but of a mild type. He made no attempt at propagandism. His own chap- lain read prayers and preached in the little log chapel of Fort James alternately with the Dutch dominie, and, later on, the Roman Catholic priest. For thirty years this indifference continued. The Dutch had their meet- ing-houses; the Huguenots had their chapel; the Bap- tists had theirs ; and the Quakers met from house to house ; but the Church's voice was not heard beyond the garrison's drum-beat. When Governor Andros came the situation changed. His truculent Churchmanship asserted itself here as it liad done in Boston. He found, however, that the Dutch were more difficult to deal with than even the Puritans. They would not actively oppose his projects, much less fly into a religious fury, but their stolid inertia baffled even the domineering governor. He passed away soon to another province, leaving the Church circumscribed as narrowly as it had been before he came, but bearing now tiie burden of popular dislike which he had created. 1 Canitulaticn: Article viii. 64 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. It was not till 1690, after the Dutch Stadtholder had become the English King, that the Church began to grow. The change of dynasty liad its effect. The Dutch in New York no longer deemed themselves for- eigners. The King spoke their tongue far better than he did English. He was a member of their Church as well as an Episcopalian. If their beloved Prince of Orange found it easy to be a Churchman, why should not they do likewise ? Even if they did not become so formally, their feeling toward the Church became greatly modified. The only thing they boggled at was giving up their beloved Dutch tongue. They stood out against this, but in vain. The young people under- stood English, and grew to dislike their fathers' speech. They clamored for English in their services. When the elder people refused to allow it, the younger turned to the Church. In 1692 Governor Fletcher persuaded the Assembly to pass an " Act to make provision for the ministry in Churches- every county." It districted the province tabiishment. i^to parishes, provided for an assessment to sustain public worship, and put it within the governor's right to nominate "a worthy Protestant minister" in each. It is clear that the Assembly used the term " Protestant minister " in its widest sense. They were themselves almost all Dutch Presbyterians. But the governor declared that he was constrained to interpret the Act in accordance with the law of the realm. Wherever that law met the phrase " Protestant minis- ter," it understood by it a minister of the Established Church. If the Assembly meant somethiug else, they THE DUTCH. 65 should have said wliat they meant. They had used the legal phraseology, and by it they had unintentionally established the Church of England in Xew York ! He would nominate none but Churchmen to the parishes, and the tax must be expended for them. It seems at this distance like sharp practice. In Massachusetts it would have brought such a storm about the governor's ears as would have swept him off the coast. But the Dutch do not seem to have very seriously resented it. The truth Avas, it was rather a barren victory for the Church. The Assembly had the machinery for taxation in their own hands, and they would not be likely to set it going under the circumstances. The governor nom- inated a rector or two in Long Island, but no salary was forthcoming, and the appointees could not live in these parishes. But the Act, and the governor's inter- pretation of it, placed the Church legally in possession. It fenced all others out. When the English-speaking Presbyterians, immedi- ately afterward, organized their first society, they found they could not take title to the land where they wished to build their church. But the General Assembly of the (Established) Presbyterian Church of Scotland came to their relief. A committee of that body, a corpora- tion known to the laws of the realm, held their title for them, and they went on with their building. While the Presbyterians were thus trying to start Plan for the their society, and the phlegmatic Dutch were Episcopate, seemingly indifferent to the whole matter, the Rev. Mr. Miller, the chaplain of the fort, elaborated a scheme for the Church's good, Avhich, if it had been 6Q THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. carried out, would have changed the future ecclesiastical history of America. His plan was to have a Bishop sent out. He proposed that the Bishop of London should consecrate a suffragan for New York. There was nothing to hinder. The province was a Crown colony. The Church was now established. The Bisliop of London was its Ordinary. He could not look after it himself. Why not aj^point a suffiagan ? Miller's plan was, as he states, "to use the King's Farm, at present a very ordinary thing, yet will admit of consid- erable improvement," for the Bishop's seat ; that a sub- scription be started to put the farm in order, and to build a Bishop's Church; that the large sums of money now raised in England for missionary j)urposes be ad- ministered by the Bishop of New York ; that " five or six sober young ministers be brought over with Bibles and Prayer-Books and other things convenient for Churches, so that the Bishop with these powers, quali- fications, and supplies, would in a short time, through God's assistance, be able to make great progress in the settlement, and in the correction of vice." The plan was in every wo-y feasible, and is almost the only one of all the plans for the Episcopate which was so. At this time there would have been no difficulty in the way. The Dutch would not have opposed it, and it is hardly too much to say that they would have welcomed it. Twenty-five years later it would have been impossible in any of the colonies. By that time the idea of an ultimate separation from the mother country had found a lodgement. No institution not already here, which might seem to knit the bonds more tightly, would be THE DUTCH. 67 tolerated. In 1695 this was not the case. Loyalty was then universal, and dissent was only in its second gener- ation. It had not gained the strength of prescription. What really did stand in the way of this and every other attempt to secure the Episcopate here was the extensive and minute ignorance which obtained among English Churchmen concerning colonial affairs. The idea of a Bishop in the American wilderness was as grotesque to them as now would be the suggestion of a professor of the higher mathematics among the Zulus. It was not till fift}- years later that Berkeley saw the star of empire westward take its way. And vision as clear as his was just about as common as seers always are. Poor Chaplain Miller's well-digested plan was not even considered. It was not possible a second time for a whole century. Meanwhile the Church people of New York drew together and organized Trinity Parish in 1697. The Trinity Church made all the freeholders of 4:he town Church. electors to choose wardens and vestrymen ; made the Bishop of London rector at a salary of one hundred pounds a year ; the salary was to be raised by assessment upon real estate ; the new church was to be, as the royal representative phrased it, "our sole and only parish church and churchyard in this our said City of New York." The Church was built, and is described as "stand- ing very pleasantly on the banks of Hudson River, and has a large cemetery on each side, and is enclosed in front by a painted paled fence. Its revenue is restricted by Act of Assembly to five hundred pounds, 68 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. but it is possessed of a farm at the north end of the city, which is lately rented, and will in the course of a few years, it is hoped, produce a considerable income." The hope seems to have been well founded. THE SOUTH RIVER. 69 CHAPTER yi. THE SOUTH RIYER. The Hudson was the "North River," the Dela- ware the "South River." To find the colonists for this last, we must cross to the continent as we did for the Hudson. We will bring settlers of a foreign speech, but of a church akin to the English. When the great Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, laid down his life on the field of Lutzen, his great chan- cellor, Oxenstiern, took up his master's task The Swedes. ^ , . , ___. as best he miglit. He cast about to find where his reformed Swedes might be safe from their ancient enemy. Like the other leaders of his time, his thoughts turned to America. Under the chancellor's patronage, Peter Minuit organized his little colony, and landed with them at Wilmington, 1637. They were Lutheran Episcopalians. Sweden had been fortunate enough to come out of the storm of her reformation with her Hierarchy standing ; somewhat damaged, to be sure, but sufficiently secure to gain recognition. The Minister who came with the Swedish colony, and his brethren who followed him, had all been episcopally ordained. They had a history, a liturgy, a church life. When they came in contact with the English Church at Philadelphia and Wilmington, they coalesced with it TO THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. without any questions asked on either hand.^ But they did not meet with friendly Englishmen. Their nearest neis-hbors were the Dutch on the Hudson and in the Jerseys. These were a sturdy, thrifty people, Avho knew good land when they saw it. They had no no- tion of allowing the Swedes to intrude. That they themselves had no rights, did not affect the question. They had possession. Frequent expeditions were sent out from New Amsterdam to drive the Swedes away from the Delaware. These expeditions were badly manaofed, and in fact the old soldiers of Gustavus were more than a match for the fur-traders of the Hudson. They held their own and increased until sturdy Peter Stuyvesant undei'took the task of conquest. But the Dutch victory was short-lived. Hardly had Stuyvesant returned victorious when Colonel Nichols with the Eng- lish fleet appeared in the East River, and the Dutch and Swedes both lost their titles. New Netherlands and New Sweden both passed back without a Absorption byth3Eng- struggle Under the British crown. A few recruits continued to come to the lower counties, but not enough to leave permanently any trace of their speech, their church, or their habits, in the New World. Their few parishes, at Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Chester, passed gradually into the Church of England, and were absorbed. Two or three quaint old churches, always known locally as the "Old Swedes," are all that survive. A hundred and fifty years later the Swedish Episcopacy came in sight ' Perry : History of the American Episcopal Church, vol. 1. p. 2.i^. Perry ; Historical Collections : vol. Pennsylvania, p. 432. THE SOUTH RIVER. 71 again, in connection with the visit of America's first Bishops to England for consecration, but by that time the two churches, once neighbors, and well acquainted, had drifted so far apart that the Swedes' offer of the bishopric was liardly considered.^ The real settlers of the Delaware were preparing in another quarter. In 1640, George Fox, the son of a Leicestershire weaver, was herding sheep for a neighboring farmer. In his solitude he dreamed dreams and saAV visions. It was an age of the fiercest theological controversy. For three generations Englishmen had thought and spoken of hardly any- thing else. All social, political, economical questions w^ere religious ones at bottom. The common people were, and had long been, perplexed and ill at ease. The religious atmosphere was stormy. ^len had lost their leaders. In the old days the yokel had not disturbed himself about his soul. That was the priest's business ; he was paid for it. But now everything Avas changed. The old priests were gone, and the new ones were somewhat puzzling. They would give absolution — at a pinch — but they would not warrant it. They would hear confessions, but the penances they imposed w^ere of a new-fangled kind, involving doctrines and experi- ences which were strange. At church the common man did not know very well how to behave. In one parish he seemed to see the old mass, in another he heard a preacher hold forth in language not clearly intelligible. He heard his neighbors discussing theology continually. Every man had a psalm or a doctrine. 1 Bearclsley : Life of Seabury. 12 THE EXGLISII CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. Salvation was no longer the simple thing it had once seemed to be. It could no longer be bought, delivered, and paid for, as it could in the good old days of the grandfatliers. What the common people craved was a simple, portable evangel ; something which was not mixed up with Spanish marriages, logical tourna- ments, abstruse doctrines, political policies. Who- ever would discover such would be accounted a benefactor. Fox turned his dreamy eyes within, and found God. The Spirit of God bearing witness with his spirit, — that was the substance of religion. To find the trutli, one needs only to commune with his own heart and be still. This "Inner Light " was not only the final but the sole guide which it is safe to follow. It is the simplest of all ideas. It at a single stroke renders superfluous all uhe machinery of the Church. Why turn to doctor or council, to priest or preacher, if one can look within and see the Holy Gbost? He needed not to be in- structed of any man. It was natural tliat Fox's idea should be caught up. Indeed, it was in the air already, and had been for half a century. The Mystics, Mennonites, Ana- Quakerism. baptists. Baptists, and " Fifth Monarchy " men in England had all held by it. But it was Fox's strength that he Get out the idea in its naked simplicity. All before him had entangled it with questions of social freedom, ecclesiastical organization, fantastic ritual, and what not. Fox held it up in its sheer nakedness. The common people seized upon it as hungry men do bread. It swept over England like a craze. The lanes and THE SOUTH RIVER. 73 hedges were filled with the preachers of the New Light. They declared that when the light shone v/ithin them they did "exceedingly fear and quake," — and the ribald dubbed them " Quakers," at their word. At first they were merely religious enthusiasts, but they quickly became something more. One begins by breaking loose from religious ordinances ; it is but a step farther to find one's self beyond the regulations of the State and the family. They became fanatics of a very dangerous sort. All the powers of society were trained upon them to put them down. There seemed good reason for their suppression. Only two generations earlier the Bund- schuh had waded in blood through Germany. The peasants' uprising in Elizabeth's day was not forgot- ten. These Quakers appeared to be setting out on the same path. Those others had also begun by claiming a Divine illumination, and had ended in lust, \:.iolence, and cruelty. The magistrates, the priests, the nobility, and the citizens joined hands for their extermination. Then persecution drove them mad. Under its stress they passed into that riotous phase which it is difficult to associate mentally with the restrained, russet-clad folk whom we know by their name. They Avere impelled by a consuming^ fire. Thev "bore their testi- Extrava- c> ganc3 and mony " up and down the earth. One of repression. ^^^^^^^ bearded the Grand Turk to his face : another tore his cap to rags before Cromwell as a testi- mony against him. They visited Scotland and Ireland, the West India Islands, and the North American Colo- nies ; they were imprisoned by the Inquisitor at Malta ; one brother visited Jerusalem and bore his testimony 74 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. against the superstition of the monks.^ Naked women, smeared with soot and filth, stalked about the streets and into English churches and New England meeting- houses. They throve upon persecution. They fairly broke into gaol and clamored to be hanged. The crim- inal law at the time was brutal at the best. Leprous gaols, in which the prisoner was left to starve, the stocks, the pillory, the lash at the cart's tail, the hangman with his searing iron and quartering knife, stood round about the violator of the law or the disturber of the peace. The Quaker was both, and he looked upon the pains which confronted him, not merely serenely but with exalted joy. What could be done with such men ? „^ , , The law of everv land in Christendom was Efforts to -^ suppress the against them. But these laws could not be enforced effectively without a sustained sav- agery of which Anglo-Saxons have more tlian once shown themselves to be incapable. The attempt was made. Eive thousand of them were in gaol at once.^ They were threatened, mobbed, pelted, ducked, fined, imprisoned, banished, their ears were cropped, they were laid in the stocks, whipped from market town to market town, shut up in mad-houses, and finally hanged. In the end the persecution gradually ceased, and the Quakers' ill-regulated enthusiasm exhausted itself. But by this time they had become a marked people. They had begun by ignoring the constant fact that religion as a spirit cannot subsist disembodied. They had turned 1 Rev. Henry Ferguson: in Church Review, January, 1889. (A most admirahle article upon the Quaker episode in New England.) 2 Rowntree: Quakers, Past and Present, p. 72. THE SOUTH RIVER. 75 their backs upon the sacraments of Christ's appoint- ment, and this violation of a law of Gocl, which is also a law of human nature, revenged itself upon them by compelling them to elevate into sacraments a certain whimsical misuse of pronouns and a fantastic dress. They had also learned self-control. The Spirit no longer possessed them ; they possessed it. They be- came the same self-contained, prudent, negatively good -folk their few surviving descendants still are. They had earned and compelled that curious, half-contempt- uous good-will which is still accorded to them. Like all classes who were uncomfortable in Europe, they began to look to America. In 1673, Fox came Quakers in himself to spy out the land. He made an New Jersey, extended tour of observation from Maine to South Carolina. In every colony, after he left Massa- chusetts, he found people who looked upon him as one sent of God. Some oi them were refug-ees from Eng-land and the Bafbadoes, and some were sporadic. After going up and down the coast, he went home and organized a colony of Friends, whose agents bought for them, for five thousand dollars, the western half of Southern Jersey. In 1675 the ship Griffith brought them out and landed them at Salem. To this new settlement Quakers flocked by scores and hundreds. They were left to organize the colony after their own fashion. Religious liberty was its corner-stone. They would persecute no man, they would not even defend themselves. " There," in Bancroft's words, '' in 1681, met the first legisLative assembly in the world, who said thee and thou to all men, and wore their hats in presence of beggar and VO THE EXGLISII CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. king." Their little colony of Salem remained thriving quietly and developing its own peculiar life until it was brought into touch with the rest of the world by the coming of a larger immigration of the same folk under a leader whose name has become known on two continents. William Penn is one of the most striking and pictur- esque figures in history. His father was a choleric Eng- lish admiral, and his mother a gentle German ' mystic. When their son was a lad of sixteen, a student at Oxford, he chanced to hear the wandering Quaker preacher Loe, and saw the "■ Inner Light." His tutors and spiritual pastors and masters labored in vain to withdraw him from the sect with which he cast in his lot, but the enthusiasm was in his blood from his mother. When they could not prevail, they sent him home to his father. The admiral stormed at him, coaxed him, rea- soned with him, beat him, but the gentle lad stood firm. Then his father sent him abroad, thinking that change of scene would cure him. He furnished him with let- ters to the gayest and most fashionable people, thinking to distract him. Penn went to the Continent a dream- ing Quaker lad, and returned an accomplished Quaker gentleman. He lived long at the French court, and learned manners in the society to which his renowned father's letters gained him admission. He studied at a Swiss university, and learned the theology of Calvin. He lived with the Mennonites on the Rhine, and found them of his spiritual kin. He returned to England a courtier, a theologian, a philosopher, the master of three living languages and two dead ones, a graceful leader THE SOUTH RIVER. 77 of the minuet, the most expert small-swordsman in Europe, and a Quaker still. He inherited his grand- father's great fortune, and won the friendship of the dissolute King. Thenceforth he devoted his life and wealth to the fortunes of his co-religionists, and won thereby, as he richly merited, both fame and wealth. A part of his inheritance was a claim against the Crown for sixteen thousand pounds. It was regarded as the poorest of assets, but Penn was willing to take his pay in that which cost the King nothing but his signature. In quittance of his claim lie secured Pennsylvania. Both parties were well pleased, the King to have his cancelled bond, and Penn to have a new land for his people. In 1681 Penn brought his large and well- equipped colony up the Delaware, passed Salem, where their friends had preceded, them, and began the settlement of Philadelphia. To his great good-fortune, he found his land occupied by Indians of a spirit similar to that of his own people. The Dela- wares had been harried and beaten by their fierce northern neighbors, the Iroquois, till they were in no fighting mood. His own good-will and fair spirit gave them confidence, and led to that honorable treaty under the elm tree on the bank of Shackamaxon Creek. Penn's colony was spared the chapter of privation and want which all the others had passed through. It was strong from the start, and recruits came every month. The " New Light " had been spreading rapidly. There were fifty thousand Quakers in England alone.^ In Wales their meetings w^ere springing up on every hand. 1 Rowntree: Quakerism, Past and Present, p. 72. 78 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. In Germany a multitude of kindred spirits had learned to know Penn.i From all these sources immigrants came pouring in. It was meant to be for all time a Quaker State, but the names of its founders are now to be looked for upon the Ccmmunicants' lists of the Church. The descend ants of Penn and Jennings and Shippen, of the Welsh Evans and Roberts, are now Episcopalians. The sect ceased long ago to be a power in America. It never made any converts in this country. When it had re- ceived the last of the immigrants who had become Quakers over the sea, its growth ceased, and long before that time it had begun to lose. The reason why is plain. Its fundamental tenet was false. This central error had become incased in a setting of customs and forms which has survived with great tenacity, but has had no power of propagation. Why those who freed themselves from Quakerism should, as a rule, have come into the Church, is not at ^ , first sio'ht so plain. It has not been the Quakers com- ^ ing to the forms or the doctrines of the Church which has drawn them, but its spirit. The self- contained righteousness of life, the distrust of enthusi- asm, the decency and propriety which have always been the Church's marks, have constituted the magnet. The Quaker, turned Churchman, has made a marked change outwardly, but it has not been accompanied by any wrench of the inner spirit. For this cause the giudual disintegration of that sect has been a constant source of gain to the Church. It began by a quarrel among 1 (Iraliam: Colonial History of United States, vol. i. p. 548. . THE SOUTH RIVEK. 79 the Quakers themselves. The Salem colony employed a Scotch Presbyterian, George Keith, a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, in the capacity of G3org3 Keith. ^.-^^-^ j.^^^.^gyQ^,^ It was his first acquaintance with the Friends. He became deeply interested in them and their peculiar doctrine and customs. Presently he saw the " Inner Light " himself, and became one of tiiem. He was a valuable recruit. He was, to begin with, an educated man, and they had few such. He was, besides, a born controversialist and pamphleteer. He set their vague thoughts to words. He challenged their oppo- nents to debate, and became their dexterous champion. His pamphlets and tracts were eagerly welcomed, not only by the Jersey Quakers, but by the more important society in Philadelphia. The Philadelphians invited him to come to them, as head master of their school. He quickly became their leading man, their David against the Philistines. But presently there began to be wdiisperings that their champion was not sound in the faith. He began to intimate that, while the " Inner Light " was necessary, it needed something besides itself. The " candle should have a candlestick ; " " the spirit must needs have a body." This heresy struck at the root of Fox's simple system, and the Quaker instinct quickly discovered the fact. A period of controversy within the Society ensued. Keith had many friends and followers, and was far more than a match for his opponents in argument. Finally the " Yearly Meeting " passed a formal condemnation upon him. He issued a Vindication, for the publishing of which William Brad- ford, printer, was sent to jail by tlie Quakers in their 60 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. magisterial capacity. Keith accepted his expulsion, and set up a separate Meeting, where he drew a large follow- ing. An acrimonious controversy followed, which con- vulsed the settlement and arrayed friend against friend.^ While it raged Keith went to England upon private business. While there he took occasion to re-examine the whole question in a broader spirit, and was led to the Church of England, in which he took orders. We shall presently see him return as her first missionary. There was a provision in the terms of Penn's grant to the effect that if ever twenty people in the colony First Pennsyl- should petition therefor, they should have the vania Church, yigi^i to organize a Church of England parish, and apply to the Bishop of London for a minister. In 1695 such a petition was circulated, signed, among others, by several hundred of the " Keithian Quakers," The Quakers raged furiousl}^ against it — (if Quakers can rage furiously), — and the magistrates had the at- torney who drew up the petition arrested, together with several of the signers. Their action was, however, so evidently without law, that nothing beyond annoyance and ill-will came of it. By this time the Quakers had been so overslaughed by other immigration that, taking the whole colony together, they constituted less than one-third the population. Among these others the majority were nominally Church of England people. About this time services of the Church began to be held in Philadelphia. Neither the time nor the place 1 The documents with which the parties assailed one another are, for the most part, preserved in William Bradford's Publications, in the Pennsylvania Historical Society's rooms, and are curious reading. THE SOUTH RIVER. 81 of the first Common-Prayer worship can now be known. The Rev. IVIr. Sewell of Maryland is the first clergyman who comes in sight. He visited Philadelphia from time to time, and held occasional services for the Churcli folk. The original place of worship is described as '" a wooden shed, with a bell swung in the crutch of a tree near by." By 1700 Christ Church had been organized, a brick church costing six hundred pounds had been built, and the Rev. Thomas Clayton, the first incum- bent, had taken charge. The town was still strongly under the domination of Quakerism, but the Keithians were ready to come into the Church. In the first few years of the parish more than five hundred of them Increase and were baptized. The growth was more rapid, spread. however, in the outlying settlements than it was at the centre. Especially did it gain ground among the Welsh, whose seat Avas west of the Schuylkill. In 1700 there were missions planted at Radnor, Concord, Chester, and Perkiomen. These became the nuclei for the scattered Church families in the back settlements, and the Church grew apace in Penn's colony. 82 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES, CHAPTER VII. THE CAUOLINAS. The first chiircli in Soutli Carolina was built the same year that Penn's colony landed on the Delaware. The life of that colony had been feeble and turbulent. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1740 gives a curious but apocryphal account of the planting of the Church among the palmettos. The story is, that on Good Friday, 1660, two ships laden with English adven- turers landed at Port Royal. The company piled their goods on the beach, and the ships which had brought them sailed away home. The adventurers, ignorant alike of woodcraft and husbandry, when a few months had passed, found themselves starving. They were for- tunate in having a brave chaplain, Morgan Jones, a AVelshman. In their extremity he offered, with a few Indians and others, to make the perilous journey in search Welsh. Qf Raleigh's colony on the Roanoke, — of v/hose destruction they were ignorant, — to gain succor for the rest. After many days' journey the little band were taken prisoners by the Tuscaroras. They w^ere bound to the stake, and the savages stood about impa- tient to begin the torture. In his dire extremity Jones returned unconsciously to his mother tongue, and mut- tered his prayers in Welsh. To his amazement, he found that " the salvages did right well understand THE CAROLIXAS. 83 his speech." The captives' bonds were cut and they Avere respited from immediate torture, but detained as captives. Jones continued to teach the Indians in Welsh, and so gained their good-will that he and his companions were set free, and by some means found their way north. In 1680 this same Morgan Jones was officiating at Newtown, L.I.^ The real settlement of the Carolinas was not until 1670. A company had been formed which included the Lord Chancellor, Shaftesbury, Albemarle, Berkeley, The "noble" -Ashley, and Carteret. The colony which colony. t]-^gy ggn^ Q^^t settled at " Charles's town." This was a " Crown Colony," and Imd no religious motive. It was purely commercial. Of course, as being an integral part of the kingdom, the Church wa?, in a certain vague way, established. But in the fierce struggle with nature, which is the first task of a colony, religious differences are not much emphasized, unless the company settling should have been moved by relig- ious motives in their migration. The character of the founders of this colony w^as not such as to lead them to take much interest in such questions. A few men of noble birth, though questionable manners, were among them, but the majority were adventurers and broken men. By the time the colony had reached a popula- tion of five thousand, the Bishop of London sent his Commissary to organize the Church. He reports : " I never repented of anything, my sins excepted, as my 1- This curious belief in the identity of the "Welsh and Indian tongues crops- up repeatedly in the accounts of the early settlements, and at points most remote from each other. 84 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. coming to this place. The people here are the vilest race of men upon the earth. They have neither honor, Religious lionesty, nor religion, — being a perfect cond'tionof hotch-potch made up of bankrupt pirates, the colony. , , , ^ ^ decayed libertines, sectaries, and enthusi- asts of all sorts, who have transported themselves here from Bermudas, Jamaica, Barbadoes, New England, and Pennsylvania, and are the most factious and seditious people in the whole world. Many of those who pre- tend to be Churchmen are strangely crippled in their goings between the Church and Presbytery, and, as they are of large and loose principles, so they live and act accordingly, sometimes going openly with the Dis- senters, as they do now against the Church, and giving incredible trouble to the government and clergy." In the inevitable quarrel between the people and the proprietaries, the Church of England in South Carolina sided against the people, and the Presbyterians with them. This Avill account for '•'• their crippled goings be- tween the Church and Presbytery." The Church gained ground slowly, if at all. At the outbreak of the Revo- lution, nearly a century later, there was only the one parish which had been organized in 1682. It was not until well along in the nineteenth century that substan- tial groAvth began.i At the opening of the eighteenth century there was in Charleston *' a large and stately The estab- cliurch of cyprcss logs, on a brick foun- lishment. dation, surrounded by white palisades," and named St. Philip's. An act of the Colonial Assembly of 1698 named Samuel Marshall its incumbent ; ap- > Graham: Colonial History of U.S., vol. i. p. 339. THE CAROLIXAS. 85 propriated to him and liis successors forever a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, to be raised by assessment ; and ordered that '' a negro man and woman and four cows and calves be purchased at the public charge, for his use." 8G THE EXGLiSU CHUUCU IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER VIIL A GENEKAL SURVEY. We have now seen the sta^e set and the actors appear. With the single exception of Georgia the colonies are now all established. We have seen who their settlers are, whence tliey came, why they came, and how they bore themselves religiously in the early days. We have brought English Churchmen to the James, English Puritans to Massachusetts Bay, Dutch Presbyterians to the Hudson, English Romanists to the Potomac, Swedish Churchmen and English Quakers to the Delaware, and a congeries of English-speaking ad- venturers, under noble patronage, to the Carolinas. We have seen the divei'se problems presented to the Church of England in the presence of peoples so unlike. In one place, its task was to retain its original establisliment ; in another, to gain a foothold in the midst of a hostile community; in another, to march with an equal step among its rivals in a free field. The end of the first century of its life in America will be a fitting place to pause and take a broad survey of its situation, to count its gains and losses, to observe its manner of life, to examine the people among whom it is to do its work in the years to follow, to test its spirit and its methods. A GENERAL SURVEY. 87 The great bulk of the Church m 1700 was m Vir- ginia and ]\Iaryhxnd. Forty of the less than threescore clerp'v scattered from Portsmouth to Charles- Tne year oJ 1700. ton were in these two colonies. There were in tliem two or three comfortable churches, built of im- ported brick. In every settlement was a church of logs, with puncheon floors and clapboard roof. The popula- tion \A'as purely agricultural and widely scattered. To these little log chapels the peo]3le came, on horseback and in canoes, from twenty, thirty, and forty miles away.i They often left their distant plantations on the Saturday and spent the night with their hospitable friends who lived nearer the place of worship. Never more than one service was held on the Sunday. The afternoon was needed for the congregation to return to their far-away homes. Prayer-Books were scarce and costly .2 As late as the middle of the century only two Prayer- editions had been printed in England beside Books. the ponderous folios and quartos for the read- ing-desks. Of the smaller Prayer-Books very few found their wav to the colonies, and were but ill adapted to the worshippers' use, at best. The arrangement of the services in them was so intricate as hardly to be intelli- gible. The Clerk, therefore, was depended upon for all the responses, except in the portions of the service which the people knew by heart. The surplice was rery rarely used. Indeed, it is doubtful if there were then more than two or three in America. In England the ordinary street dress of the clergy 1 King's Handbook of Episcopal Churches, p. 13. 2 Perry: History, vol. i. p. 475. 88 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IX THE COLONIES. was the cassock.^ In America this dress does not seem ever to have come into use. In public the minister Social status officiatcvl in the ordinary dress of a gentleman of th3 ciargy. ^f corresponding standing. His social stand- ing was ver}^ low indeed, independent of his personal character. Macaulay's highly colored picture of the English clergy of that time was fairly true of the Southern colonies. " A Levite," such was the phrase then in use, " might be had for his board and ten pounds a year; might not only perform his own professional functions, be the most patient of butts and listeners, be always ready in fine weather for bowls and in foul for shovel-board, but might also save the expense of a gar- dener or a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots; sometimes he curried the coach horses. He was permitted to dine with the family, but was ex- pected to content himself with the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and carrots, but when the tarts and cheesecakes appeared he quitted the board and stood aloof till he was summoned to re- turn thanks for the repast, from a great part of Avhich he had been excluded. The attorney and the apothe- cary looked down with disdain upon the clergyman, and one of the lessons most earnestly inculcated on every girl of honorable family was to give no encouragement to a lover in Orders." Queen Elizabeth in her time, as head of the Church, had issued a special command that no clergyman should presume to espouse a servant-girl without the consent of her master or mistress. His children were brought up like the children of the peas- i PGrsoiial Recollections of Gilbert Scott, p. 28. A GENERAL SUIIVEY. 89 antry. His boys followed the plough, and his daughters went out to service. Parson Sampson not only taught George and Harry Esmond their letters, but acted as overseer of their mother's negroes. A large proportion of the Southern clergy were adventurers, broken men, valets who had secured ordination from some complai- sant Bishop through the interest of their masters for whom they had done some questionable favor. A con- stant complaint was, also, that they were Scotchmen. Their letters of Orders were often suspicious,^ and their characters still more so. Commissaries Blair of Vir- ginia and Bray of Maryland repeatedly reported to the Bishop of London that the meagre support of the clergy and the slight honor in which they were held prevented them from making honorable marriages and led them into disgraceful connections. A love-letter still sur- vives written by a Maryland clergyman to a planter's daughter, in which he argues at length that inasmuch as his suit was allowable on other grounds, the fact of his being in Orders ought not to be an insuperable barrier.2 They provoked contempt and allowed them- selves to be treated like lackeys. Governor Nicholson led out one who was drunk in the church, and caned him soundly with his own hand ; clapped the hat over the eyes of another; and sent billets-doux to his mis- tress by a third.3 He hectored and browbeat a whole Convocation and drove them to sign an adulatory testi- 1 The Episcopal Church was suppressed in Scotland ; Scotch Orders doubted, and afterward declared null and void by England. Abbey : English Cliurch and its Bishops in the Eighteenth Century, vol. n. p. no, ft seq. - Lodge: History of English Colonies in America, p. 00. '« Ihid., p. CI. 90 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. monial to his own religious devoutness. Commissary Blair writes : " The governor rules us as if we were a Clerical Company of galley slaves, by continual raving manners. r^^^j thundering, cursing and swearing, base, abusive, Billingsgate language, to that degree that it is utterly incredible." ^ One commissary was given the lie in his own house by the governor ; ^ and the wife of another was pulled out of Lady Berkeley's pew by the wrist because her husband had offended its owner by '• preaching a little too home against adultery." ^. There were always present in these colonies some clergy of exemplary life and high character, but neither their example nor their reproofs were able to redeem their brethren. Most of them were planters, and did priestly duty now and then to eke out their income. They hunted, played cards, drank punch and canary, turned marriages, christenings, and funerals alike into revels. One bawled out to his church-warden at the Holy Com- munion, " Here, George, this bread is not lit for a dog." One fought a duel in his graveyard. Another, a power- ful fellow, thrashed his vestrymen one by one, and the following Sunday preached before them from the text, "And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair."* Another dined every Sunday with his chief parisliioner, and was sent home in the evening drunk, tied in his chaise.^ 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Virginia, pp. 125, 491. 2 lb. p. 491. 3 lb. p. 27. 4 Nell. xiii. 29. 5 Cf. ]SIeade: Old Churches and Families of Virginia, pp. 18, 162, 231, 250, 275. A GENERAL SURVEY. 91 In the Northern colonies both the character and the standing of the clergy were very much higher. In these colonies there had never been anything to attract un- worthy men. The duty was hard and ill paid, and only men who had high motives undertook it. In the South the disreputable priest might gain fortune as a tobacco-planter. In the North the conditions of life were harder. There also he was surrounded by a people whose religious life, at least in the early part of the century, was exacting. There was no establishment to sustain him. But, above all, the Puritan conception of the ministerial office had early made itself felt. While the priest in Virginia was content to be a lackey, the Puritan minister in Massachusetts was a petty poten- tate, the chiefest man in the community, the censor of morals, the stern disciplinarian. In the Church the office was Pfenerally looked upon as a profession. EifectofPuri- ^^ ^ ^ / ..,,,. tanism upon Outside it was regarded as a spiritual calling, clerical office, j^^ England the position and accomplishments of the '' superior clergy " were sufficient to keep for the office generally a certain respect. But the mass of tlie clergy were then held in anything but honor. A debt which the Church owes to Puritanism on both sides of the water is the restored reputation of the ministry. The popular mind never distinguishes closely between things which look alike. To it a clergyman is a clergyman, whether Episcopal or Presbyterian hands have been laid upon him. The ministry with which people were most familiar in the colonies was irregular in its commission, but held in high honor. by those among whom it war, exercised. For this reason the 92 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. ministry of the Church, beginning with New England in the seventeenth century, and extending all over the country in the eighteenth, came to share that place in public esteem which has ever since been cheerfully accorded to the sacred office. In Maryland and Virginia the Church of England was established by law. It had privileges and immunities granted to no sect. Marriages could only be celebrated by its clergy. The glebes and perquisites were guar- anteed to its use. Its services and clergy were sup- ported by taxes to be laid and collected by process of law. Their brethren at the North envied their position, and looked to the time when they should be similarly blessed, but the event proved that what was deemed their strength was really their weakness. In Virginia the right of presentation lay in the royal governor, as representing the Bishop of London, but Conflict with the power of induction to the benefice was vestries. with the vestry. Being once inducted, however, the vestry's power over the incumbent was exhausted. They could not remove him from his benefice, and they could not starve him out, for his income was assured by law. From this arose that con- test between the clergy and the vestries, which finally tore th3 Church to pieces. The vestries in many in- stances refused to induct whom the governor had nomi- nated. There was no power able to issue a mandamus. The result Avas that clergymen were hired by them from year to year, and made to dance attendance upon their pleasure. , The position was an ignoble one, and had attractions only for unworthy men. Presently, as the A GENERAL SURVEY. 03 vestries came more and more under the American idea, and the clergy more and more emphatic in their loyalty to the English Church and Crown, the breach widened. By the middle of the century we will find it to be incur- able. Sound Church notions of the relation of priest and people were completely thrown back and obscured by the political situation. When the clergy were only standing out for the inherent rights of their Order, they were placed in a position where* they seemed to be the champions of a foreign j^olitical power. The union of English Church and State here, as always, worked to the Church's ruin. The true Church idea was almost entirely lost to sight by both sides. The same law, for example, which " established " the Church in South Carolina, provided for a board of laymen who could try and remove any minister against whom complaint should be made by a majority of the vestry, together with nine aggrieved parishioners.^ The laity of the middle colonies were of much the same mind, but with- out the legal power to make it effective ; but the differ- ence between the two orders was, in kind, the same as in the South. A meeting of the clergy of New York and Pennsylvania formally resolved thenceforward to do without vestries altogether, but the vestries held their own, and have ever since been an effective part of the Church's machinery. In New York and Massachusetts the Church had also a legal recognition at this date, which seemed to j)l^ce it at an advantage. In so far as the colonies were under tlie English law, after the revocation of the original 1 Perry: History, vol. i. p. 376. 94 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. charters, the Episcopal Church was that one which the law knew here. The Church, in a certain sense, went with the flag. But the question of how far Effect of ^ Tn 1 111 govsrnment English law was modmed or suspended by support. ^1^^ j^^^^ charters and by colonial legisla- tion, was a mooted one.^ Its manner of settlement, so far as the Church was concerned, inclined to either hand in proportion as the population was friendly to her or otherwise. Where it was unfriendly, every claim of pre- rogative by her produced irritation and opposition. lu New England this was frequently the case. For many years the Church had not been allowed at all. When it came in with the new governor on the Rose frigate, it at once attached to itself all the obloquy which the new regime created. Its royal backing saved it alive, but guaranteed for it the ill-will of the community. Never- theless, by 1700 the " King's Chapel " had been built in Boston, its minister settled, and a considerable con- gregation gathered. But it was an exotic in a foreign climate, a garrison surrounded by a hostile people. To the eastward of Massachusetts there was but a sino-le congregation. Gorges's ever faithful settlement Ths Church on the Kemiebcc had, through all the years, in the East, i^g^^ steadfastly to their Church and Prayer- Book. For this they had been beset and harried by the Massachusetts Puritans ; had been kept out of the New England League, and left single-handed to defend them- selves against the common savage enemy ; their com- merce had been destroyed, their minister stripped of property and almost life, and now, an old man, incapa- ble of duty and in poverty, he waited to die. 1 Smith: History of New York. London, 1757, pp. 220-228. A GENERAL SURVEY. 95 To the westward there were a few Church families at the mouth of the Housatonic, and practically no more inthemiddia ^^^^ New York was reached. In that tovni, colonies. ^yi|-ii r^ population of about five thousand. Trinity Church had been built and endowed with a farm in the outskirts, had a minister and a claim to support by taxation. Accessions by immigration and by additions from the Dutch Presbyterians were nu- merous. The people were, upon the Avhole, not ill- disposed toward the Church. The whole province was, as we have seen, divided into parishes, and provision made for the support of the minister ; but outside the capital there were no clerg}^ and, with the exception of a little group in the eastern part of Long Island, no Church people. In Pennsylvania, Christ Church had been built at Philadelphia, and under its faithful rector, Evan Evans, w^as rapidly gaining ground, both in the city from the Quakers, and from the Welsh in the outlying settlements. In a word, at the opening of the eighteenth century, the Church may be said to have been planted in all the colonies. In some places, as we will see, it brought forth much fruit. In others it was choked, and required replanting. 9G THE ENGLISH CHUrvCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER IX. The Church is now lodged in the colonies, not as an organization, but in the shape of isolated congregations, widely separated, a minority in the population, linked to each other only through the Bishop of London, who had a shadowy power of superintendency over them all. In the period which lies between the year 1700 and the War of Independence, the history groups itself about a half-dozen topics. These we will notice in their order. The first is the work of the " Society for Proi^agating the Gospel in Foreigii Parts^ In the closing years of tlie seventeenth century, the Rev. Dr. Bray was the successful rector of a parish in Warwickshire. He comes in sight as the first of the " working clergy." His spirit is distinctly modern. His methods strangely anticijDated those of to-day. He was a '^parish priest." He made himself familiar with the needs of his flock, and was fertile in devising plans for their benefit. Presently, he attracted the notice of his superiors, and was promoted. In his new office, he was oppressed with what he saw of the ignorance and general lack of equipment of the parish clergy. They could not feed their flocks, for they themselves were starving for lack of knoAvledge. Tliose amoiiQf them wlio were best furnished with books THE "VENERABLE SOCIETY." 97 had upon their shelves only the " Pearl of Eloquence, some German system, a few stitched sermons, with an old Geneva Bible and Concordance." Bray became their benefactor. He Avas one of those enthusiasts whose spirit is contagious. He interested his Bishop and other men and women of wealth and liberality, in the formation of a " Society for the Promotion of Chris- tian KnoAvledge." Its first purpose Avas to found parish libraries for the benefit of the clergy and then of the people. B}" his efforts that society Avhich now com- mands the pens of university examiners and tutors, and even of prime ministers, AA^as set upon a strong founda- tion. In addition to its Avork at home it took up the added task to proAdde libraries for the churches in the colonies. Before Bray's death he saw more than forty such furnished to America alone. In 1695, he Avas asked by Compton, Bishop of Lon- don, to A'isit and report upon the condition of the Church in the American Colonies. Compton's succes- sion to the See of London Avas the best thing tliat had yet happened for the colonial churches. His sense of official responsibility for them Avas great. His prede- cessors had looked after their affairs a little, Avhen it Avas couA'cnient, but had not regarded themselves as legally responsible. Indeed, their shadowy jarisdiction Avas only the result of the accident that the then Bishop of London had been a member of the original " Vir- ginia Company." At Compton's instanc3, the Bishop of London Avas formally put in charge of the colonies by, an order in council.^ Regarding them then as a 1 Abbey: Tbe Eiiglisb Churcb and its Bishops in the Eighteenth Ceutuiy, vol. i. p. 82 98 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. part of liis diocese, lie sent Dr. Bray to investigate their situation. After an extended visit of five years, he returned and published his '' Memorial upon the State Dr. Bray's ^^ Religion in America." He reports ^ that "Memorial." [^^ South Carolina the Church was thriving, but at least three more clergy were needed. In North Carolina there were two Church settlements, a hundred miles apart, and no clergyman in either of them. In Maryland the endowment was, as yet, very insufficient, but the people had built churches for themselves. The Pennsylvanians had one Church of England Minister, well esteemed, and wished for more. The Jerseys had as yet none, but he thought there would be reception for six. New York had one ; there was room for at least two more. In Long Island there were nine churches (parishes), but no ministers. In Rhode Island the Quaker neglect for outward teaching had caused great irreligion. There was a church there, and room for at least two ministers. New England was under Independents. But Dr. Bray was not content with merely making his report. He had left his heart in America. He laid the case of the Church there before everybody whom he could reach. He printed pamphlets, wrote letters, con- ferred with the Bishops, appealed to Parliament, and engaged the warm interest of the Queen. Through his tireless exertion there was org^anized in 1701 TheS. p. G. , ^ ,.. . o . r. 1 T^ the first Missionary Society or the Protest- ant world. Its title was '' The Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts." Its charter ran : 1 Ab1)oy : i. p. 84. THE '^VEXEUABLE SOCIETY." 99 " William the Third, King of Great Britain and Ire- land, Defender of the Faith, Greeting : " Whereas we are informed that in many of our plan- tations and colonies beyond the sea, belonging to our Kingdom of England, the provision for ministers is very mean, whereby there is a great lack of the admin- istration of the Word and Sacraments, causing atheism to abound for the want of learned and orthodox minis- ters, and Romish priests and Jesuits are encouraged to proselyte, . . . we therefore empower these, our right trusty subjects ; " — then follow a hundred of the noblest names in England, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the head, constituting the society. Its popularity was great from the outset. One member gave a thou- sand pounds for the work, another nine hundred for teaching the negroes. One gave to it his estate in the Barbadoes to found a college, and another a present of books and maps. Archbishop Tenison left it one thou- sand pounds towards founding two American bishop- rics. The proprietors of Vermont set apart townships for its use. Evelyn enters in his diary that he had promised twenty pounds a year to it.^ The society's actions were marked by good sense, good spirit, and broad-minded charity. Its first act was to circulate an "Address" to all bishops and archdeacons,^ asking them to choose out fit persons for missionaries to the colonies and the Indians. The qualifications to be carefully noted in the persons recommended were : their age, 1 Caswall: American Cliurcli. p. 130. 2 " A collection of Papers printed by order of the S. P. G., London: printed by Joseph Downing in Bartholomew Close, near West Smith- field, 1712." 100 THE ENGLISH CIIUKCH IX THE COLONIES. whether married or single, temper, prudence, learning, zeal, and loyalty to Chiircli and Cro^yn. The officials are solemnly adjured uot to recommend any but fit men, and especially not to use tlie Society for the pur- pose of finding places for men whom they themselves , , ,. wish to be rid of. " Standino^ Instructions " Instructions ^ tomissiona- were issued to the applicants for appoint- ment, that th^y shall not lodge at any public- house in London, but at some bookseller's or such jirivate house ; shall attend constantly the Standing Committee of the Society ; that before embarking they shall wait upon his Grace the Archbishop of Canter- bury for his instructions ; that when embarked they shall demean themselves so as to become remarkable examples of piety and virtue to the ship's company ; that whether they be passengers or chaplains they shall endeavor to prevail with the captain to have morning and evening prayers, daily, with catechising on the Lord's Day ; that during the passage they shall in- struct, exhort, admonish, reprove, with seriousness and prudence, so as may gain them reputation and author- ity ; that Avhen they arrive in the country where they are sent they shall be frequent in private prayers, con- versant with the Holy Scriptures, Prayer-Book, Articles, and Homilies ; be circumspect ; not board or lodge in public-houses ; game not at all ; converse not Avith lewd and profane persons, save to admonisli them ; be frugal ; keep out of debt ; not meddle with politics ; keep away from quarrels ; say the service every day, when practi- cable, and always Avith seriousness and decency ; avoid high-flown sermons ; preach against such vices as they THE '^VEXEKABLE SOCIETY." 101 may see to prevail ; impress the nature and need of Sacraments ; distribute the Society's tracts ; visit their people, — in a word, bear themselves like Christians and gentlemen. For salary they were to have fifty pounds a year, and ten pounds for outfit. Among the many missionaries sent out by the Society, there were, of course, some Avho took to colonial work as a refuge from poverty or scandal,^ but, as a rule, they made an impression at once by their high character and high Churchmanship. On this latter rock some of them split, but the general effect was to distinctly raise both the zeal and the tone of the Church in America.^ Tlieir first missionaries were Keith, the whilom Phila- delphia Quaker, and his friend Patrick Gordon. These . . came out in the sliip Centurion, and on the First mission- ^ ^ aries of the voyage the ship's chaplain, John Talbot, de- termined to join them. Within a few weeks of their landing Gordon died at Jamaica, Long Island. Keith and Talbot, under the Society's instructions, made a tour of observation extending from Boston to Charles- ton. Though they were very pronounced Churchmen, more so than most of the clergy at that time on this side of the water, they followed loyally the Society's desire that they should adopt a conciliating tone with dis- senters everywhere. They were to preach in their meeting-houses whenever opportunity might offer, not to offend their prejudices unnecessarily, and where possible, win them back to the Church. There is every ■ 1 Anderson : English Cliurcli in the Colonies, vol. iii. i3. 149. 2 Abbey : English Church and Bishops, vol. i. p. 91. 102 THE EXGLISri CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. evidence of a widely spread inclination on the part of dissenters in America in the first half of the eisfhteenth Conciliating century to return to the Church of England if dissenters. j-\^q ^yr^y (jould be made easy for them. It showed itself, as we will see later on (in connection with the story of the Episcopate), among Quakers, Lutherans, and Dutch, esj)ecially. The managers of the S. P. G. were men " having understanding of the times what things Israel ought to do." There is good reason to believe that if the Church had been here on the ground with a complete organization, the wise and conciliatory efforts of the Society's missionaries would have suc- ceeded in healing at least some of those breaches in Zion, which have grown wider as the years have gone by. Talbot writes from Philadelphia, September 1, 1703 : ''We have gathered together several hundreds for the Church of England, and, what is more, to build churches for her. There are four or five now going forward in tliis province and the next. That at Burlington is almost finished. Churches are going up amain where there were none before. Tliey are going to build three at Carolina, and three more in these lower counties about New Castle, beside those at Chester and Amboy." The advent of the Society's missionaries gave an im- pulse to the Church's growth all along the line. But she lengfthened her cords faster than she was able to Building strengthen her stakes. A considerable num- churches. j^gj, ^f ^\^q newly built churclies were never occupied at all, or at best for a short while, by the peo- ple for whom they had been erected. Clergy could not THE " VENERABLE SOCIETY." 10-^ be had in sufficient numbers to man them. The mission- aries went upon tlieir way to the southward, and the enthusiasm lagged. The new churches became " stables for the Quakers' horses when they came to meeting or market."! A circumference of enthusiasm followed Keith and Talbot where they journeyed, but for the most part subsided when they had passed on. In Philadelphia and its vicinity huncbeds of Quakers were baptized by them, and in the southern counties they were welcomed in the Independents' meeting- houses, where they preached, and commended the Church to all who heard them. After a visit of two years Keith returned to England, and Talbot settled down as permanent incumbent at Burlington, N. J., where he spent a long and honored life.^ From this time until the War of Independence the history of the Church in America is to be looked for in the records of the Venerable Society. More and more missionaries were sent out by it, and it undertook, in part at least, the support of the native ministry which gradually oTcw up. The letters of these missionaries to the sec- retary, written from the seaboard cities, the backwoods 1 Anderson: iii. p. 238. 2 It has been positively asserted that Talbot, when an old man, upon a visit to England, was consecrated to the Episcopate by the English nonjuring Brshops. Anderson, Hawks, Wilberforce, and Caswall all say so, apparently all following the same original authority, whatever that may be. The Rev. Dr. Hills, in his " History of the Church in Bur- lington," discusses the subject exhaustively, and maintains the same assertion. In vol. i. of Bishop Perry's " History of the American Epis- copal Church " is a Monograph by Rev. Dr. John Fulton in which he re- examines the whole case, and arrives at the conclusion, which seems without doubt to be the truth, that Talbot never received such conse- cration ; and that the tradition itself arose from confounding his name with that of another man. 104 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. settlements, the inland villages, the Indian encamp, ments, and preserved in the Society's archives, consti- tute a vivid picture of the Church's life for seventy years.i 1 Bishop Perry lias, with infinite pains, collected and published in fine folio volnnies the Society's documents relating to the Colonial Church, under the title of " Historical Collections." THE COMMISSARIES: MAIIYLAXD. 105 CHAPTER X. THE COMMISSARIES: MARYLAND. At the same time that the Venerable Society sent out its first missionaries, the Bishop of London commis- sioned Dr. Bray, the promoter of the Society, to repre- sent him in Maryland. He was empowered to assume the reins of the Church in the colony, to exercise disci- pline, to reform manners, to settle disputes, to preserve order, to build up the Church. His salary was fixed at four hundred pounds a year, — a liberal sum for the times, — all of which, together with his own patrimony, he expended on his work. Upon liis arrival in Lord Baltimore's former Roman Catholic province, he found that the Church of England Dr. Bray in Contained, at least nominally, about eighty Maryland. pg^ ^^^^^ ^£ ^j-^g population. The Other twenty per cent embraced the insignificant remnant of Roman- ists, together with Baptists, Quakers, Huguenots, and German Lutherans from the Palatinate. There was a larger proportion of people ecclesiastically unattached than in any other colony save South Carolina. The decadence of Romanism, the negations of Quakerism, and the long lack of organization in the Church, had all conspired to multiply this class. Still, the Church of England was the dominating religious influence. The Commissary at first mistook the temper of the people. 106 THE ENGLISH CHUliClI IX THE COLONIES. Fresh from the Establishment at home, he undertook to introduce the same rejlme here. The disorders in doc- trine and worship were evident. Tlie way to cure them, as it seemed to him, was to secure by force of law the same uniformity in worship and discipline here which the State Church guaranteed in England. He found in Governor Nicholson a man who was of the came mind, ecclesiastically, with himself. He and the Governor persuaded the Provincial Assembly, apparently without difficulty, to pass an " Act of Uniformity," substantially Maryland ^hc same as that which had obtained in Eng- estabiishment. j^nd before the " Act of Toleration " made it tolerable. It provided not only that the Book of Com- mon Prayer should be used in all the parishes of the Establishment, but also that it was ^' to be solemnly read by all and every minister or reader in every church or other place of public worship within this province." ^ A storm of opposition at once arose. The dissenters asked indignantly whether or not they were to be accounted as Englishmen ; whether they were to be denied here in America tliat privilege of worshipping after their own fashion which liad been allowed to their brethren in England for a generation. It was too late to j)i'otest against the Act in the colony, but their agents carried their grievances to the Crown, and, chiefly through the influence of the Quakers, succeeded in having the obnoxious clause vetoed in Privy Council. But the attempt to pass it had been a grave mistake. It failed, to be sure, but it gave the dissenters cause to distrust the Church's spirit. She seemed to them to be 1 Hawks: Contributions, vol. ii. p. 98. Perry: History, vol. 1. p. 143-, THE COMMISSARIES : MARYLAND, 107 moved by a temper of gratuitous intolerance. It was all the more offensive because it was im^jotent. From being only indifferent to her, they passed into bitter enemies. The time came Vvhen they could make their enmity felt. But the law, as it still stood, put the Churchmen in possession. ^ Every minister presented by the governor, appointed, and inducted, received the '' forty per poll," out of which he was to pay the clerk a fixed sum. Justices and magistrates were forbidden to perform the marriage ceremony, which was made the pecuUum of the Churcli of England clerg)^, at a fixed fee of "five shillings sterling and no more." The sheriff of the county w^as bound to collect the tobacco-tax for the minister. The incumbent was made ex officio a member of the vestry. The members of the vestries were bound to attend meetings under penalty. The care and repair of churches was provided for by a special tax, not to exceed ten pounds of tobacco for any one year. The dissenters were to be allowed to conduct worship a they saw fit, provided their places of meeting were certi- fied to and registered at the county court. Having secured the legal status of the Church, the Commissary set about investigating the condition of the clergy and parishes. A Convocation, at- Attempt to f "^ ^ ' rsfom man- tended by fourteen of the clergy summoned, gave him the opportunity to address them with wisdom and earnestness upon their official conduct. A prolonged visitation which he undertook gave him the chance to see their manner of life. He found among them some devout and earnest men, but a still larsrer 1 Perry: History, vol. i. p. 143. 108 THE ENGLISH CIIUIICII IN THE COLONIES. number who had fallen into the easy manners of the time and place, whose professional duties sat lightly upon them, and some whose lives were a scandal, and whose duties were utterly neglected. He began by proceeding against one or two flagrant offenders against morals and decency. He found the task of reform far more difficult than he had anticipated. He had but small real power over the clergy. The Church being ''established," the Missionar}^ Society in England as- sumed that it was able to look after itself, and declined to take any of the clergy upon its pay-rolls. That sharpest kind of discipline, cutting off the offender's salar}^ was therefore not available. Beside that, the clergy held their incumbency by the appointment of the Governor, and he Avas always jealous of any interference with his prerogatives. Moreover, the easy-going habits of the clergy suited the people very well. They were at heart somewhat afraid of the new type of minister which Dr. Bray held up as the model.^ Believing that he could better serve the interest of his province from London than by remaining in it, he went home, and never again returned. For a while he continued to hold his office, but soon resigned it, joining in the re- quest of the clergy of the colony, that another Commis- sary might be sent out ; but until his death in 1734 he never flagged in his zeal. He pressed upon the autliori- ties, without ceasing, the necessity of a resident bishop. He kept the Church at home informed concerning Mary- land, collected money for it, and secured recruits for its ministry. 1 Hawks : Ecclesiastical Contributions, New York, 1839, vol. ii. p. 213. THE COMMISSARIES : MARYLAND. 100 But in the coloii}^ the inevitable conflict between the clergy and the people began to develop itself. The Theirrepress- resuscitation of Church life brought it out. ibie conflict. ^YhUe the clergy were apathetic, especially while they refrained from magnifying their office, it lay latent. But the toning up of the priestly standard, and above all the emphasis put upon the legal establishment, brought out to view the inherent conflict of interest. The history of the Church here, as in Virginia, is simply the story of the long coiitroversy between the clergy, and the people represented by the legislature. Some- times the Governor took one side and sometimes the other, and sometimes the contest was triangular. In this situation healthy Church life was impossible. Dis- cipline could not be maintained. The confusion of rights and powers was hopeless. "Thus the proprietor selected a clergyman in England ; the Bishop of London o-ave hhn a license ; the Governor inducted him ; if he did Avrong the Commissary tried him (if there hap- pened to be a Commissary) ; and, when convicted, no poiver imnished him; for, after induction, even the pro- prietor could not remove him, and the Bishop of London could neither give nor take away the meanest living in the province." ^ Xor w^ere the laws any more able to protect good clergy in their rights than to punish bad ones for their faults. When a new Commissary, Mr. Henderson, landed in 1730, he barely escaped being mobbad.^ A chivalric layman struck him in the face, and the blow was meekly borne ; he struck him a second time, and received such a drubbing from the reverend 1 Hawks: Ecclesiastical Contiibutions. vol. ii. p. 190. 2 lb.: vol. ii. p. 204. 110 THE ENGLISH CHUUCH IN THE COLONIES. man's hands as taught him never to do the like again. ^ Another clergyman took to task a layman who had slandered the cloth generally, and for doing so was challenged to fight a duel. When he declined he was set upon by the layman and beaten within an inch of his life.^ The bi-each between clergy and people grew wider yearly. The Romanists and Presbyterians looked on wdth unconcealed glee. The Church's extremity was their opportunity, which they did not fail to em- brace. The. Churclnnen saw that the only hope of salvation for the distracted Church lay in securing a resident bishop who could assume the reins, and bring order out of the confusion. They represented the case so strongly to the authorities of the mother Church, tliat for the first time, after a century of effort, consent was secured. Gibson, Bishop of London, asked the clergy to select a fit man, send him to England, and he would consecrate him his suffragan for Maryland.^ Whether the Bishop had secured the royal warrant for his proposed action is somewhat doubtful. But in any case it was not put to the test. For when the Marjdand clergy chose Colebatch, one of their number, in obedi- ence to his mandate, the Colonial Legislature issued a writ ne exeat and forbade him to leave the province. The local legislature could not disestablish the Church, but, by a series of sinister acts, they Legislation hostii9tothe made the Establishment worse than useless. Little by little the Church ceased to lean upon it, })ut unfortunately was not able to disentangle itself so as to stand upon a purely religious footing. 1 Hawks: vol. ii. p. 20r>. - lb. p. 'JO(i. " lb. p. 1<»0. THE COMMISSARIES : MARYLAND. Ill Here again, as everywliere, tliey who took the sword perished by the sword. " Had affairs," says Dr. Hawks, " been permitted to proceed to their natural termination without that interruption caused by the American Revolution, the time Avould have come when the singular spectacle would have been seen of the extinction of a church established by law, while no man could have found in the legislation of the country a statute depriving it of its character as an establish- ment. The law that gave it preference would have still stood unrepealed among the early acts of the province ; while the history of its downfall might be traced in the side blows of an indirect legislation.*' ^ Under the circumstances Romanism took a fresh start ; the Presbyterians flocked in from Pennsylvania and Delaware, and from Ulster direct; and the Church of England graduall}^ but surely lost ground and lost character. At the close of the period before us, while devout and godly men like Bray, Henderson, Bouclier, and many others had given themselves to her service, still the Church had fallen far behind in the march of population ; had many unworthy men serving at her altars ; had gained tlie enduring hostility of dissenters ; lost the love of her own children, and waited for the political catastrophe out of whose ruins she was to emerge to a new and better life. 1 Hawks: vol. ii. p. 247. 112 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER XL THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. During all the time that Dr. Bray was the Bishop of London's representative for Maryland, Dr. Blair held The Virginia ^^^^ ^^^^^^® ^^^® ^^^ Virginia. His was by far Commissary, the largest and most important service of all the Commissaries. Beginning the duties of his office in 1685, he continued in it fifty-three years. He was a Scotchman, in Scotch orders, and with a Scotch temper ; shrewd, far-sighted, cautious, and masterful. His Orders and his policy Avere more than once called in question, but they were both more than vindicated in the issue. AVhen he first surveyed his fiekl he found a population loyal to the Church and Crown. Virginia boasted herself as the " ever-faithful colony." Ller people were pleased to say that " Charles II was King in Virginia before he was in England." The Puritan revolution which broke over the Church both at home and in the colonies left this one practically untouched. Her people lived on serenely, preserving their old fashions of life and worship, without much tliouGfht of the saints or their Commonwealth. They still called themselves the servants of the King, and when the Stuart line ended they transferred their loy- alty to AVilliam and Mary. Neither nonjuror nor dis- senter gained influence among them. Dr. Blair, upon THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 113 his arrival, found the most unmixed Episcopal com- munity that has ever existed on this Continent. He found a considerable number of clergy still surviving Avhose standard of life and work was modelled upon that of the saintly Hunt and the apostolic Whittaker. But he found a still larger number who had fallen away from the heroic type of the early days, and had con- formed themselves to the lower manner of life Avliich had then fairly set in. The lack of education, among clergy and people both, struck the Commissary with a special horror. To correct this, he set about a plan which had been intermittently wrous^ht upon William and "^ <• i i Mary Col- almost from the first settlement ot the col- ^^^'' on}^ That was to establish and endow an institution of learning, Avhich should be, first of all, a seminary for educating a ministr}^ and, in addition, a college, a school for the youth of the colonists, and a place where the children of the native Indians could be educated in civilization and Christianity. •' To furnish a seminary of Ministers of the Gospel, educate youth in good manners, and propagate truth among the Indians in these parts," was the way the charter stated it. The establishment of William and Mary College is due chiefly to the tireless, patient, arduous labor of Dr. Blair, its first president. His expectation that the Church people would forward his plans with enthu- siasm for so desirable a purpose was bitterly disap- pointed. He found them for the most part apathetic, and often hostile. Nowhere in the colonies were social distinctions so sharply drawn and so long-lived as in Virginia. The rich and cultured had already begun to 114 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. form a caste, and to draw aAvay from the common people. The sympathies of the clergy were largely with the former. In some cases they were their friends Opposition to '^^^^^ relatives ; in still more, their humble the college, retainers. The rich planters would have none of the new college. They did not need it for themselves, and did not want it for others. They sent their own sons home to be trained, like Madam Esmond's boys, at English schools and universities, and to learn the manners suited to their rank in life. If the sons of the butcher, the baker, and the candle- stick-maker should get a smattering of polite learning, in a cheap way, out in the backwoods, the effect would only be to induce them to forget their place, and the proper distinctions among persons would be lost sight of. The general sentiment of the clergy corresponded. They were not conscious of special defect in themselves in jooint of learning, and could not see why the present con- dition of things should not continue. Qideta non movere! The official opinion in England was the same. It looked upon the colony as a '' plantation," not as the beginning of a State. When the Attorney-General was asked to draw up a charter for the projected college, ho declined to have anything to do with such a piece of folly. When the Commissary pressed the duty upon him, and uro-ed that the colonists also had souls which demanded care, he broke out with, '' Damn their souls ! let them grow tobacco ! " Dr. Blair persisted, however, in spite of clerical apathy, lay hostility, and official reluctance, lie opened the subscription with one hun- dred and fifty pounds from his own meagre salary. He THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 115 secured twenty-five hundred pounds from the mer- chants of London, — the class of Englishmen who were always best informed concerning American affairs. Through the influence of Governor Nicholson a grant of twenty thousand acres of land was secured for an endowment. But when Sir Edmund Andros came into authority, every conceivable obstacle was placed in the Commissarj-'s way. Not only was he personally slighted, but the power of his principal called in question. " Such of the clergy as are most refractory against [the Bishop of London's] authority are upon that account received into favor. It is a common maxim among [the Governor's] friends that we have nothing to do with the Bishop of London, nor no Church power." ^ The Governor gave nothing himself, and dissuaded his friends, not only from subscribing, but from paying what they had already subscribed.^ Squatters were allowed to sit down upon the College grant, and the rightful owners were powerless either to have them put off or to have the land surveyed.'^ The idea was diligently promoted that the setting up of the college meant the setting up of a new tax-rate for its maintenance. Many of the clergy were of the sort who were both unable and unwilling to further the really noble ends which the Commissary had in view ; nor were his manners or methods always the best fitted to commend them. " Your clergy in these parts," writes an intelligent visitor to the P^ishop of Lichfield, the King's almoner, " are of a very ill example. No disci- 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Va. p. 4. 2 lb. p. IS. 3 lb. p. 20. 116 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. pline or canons of the Clmrcli are observed. They are for the most j^art Scotchmen, people indeed so basely educated, and so little acquainted with the excellency of their charge and duty, that tlieir lives and conversa- tions are more fitted to make heathens tlian Christians." ^ He adds that what the people need above all things is a bishop ; that if a right reverend father, of the stamp of Governor Nicholson of Maryland, should come, it '' would make hell tremble ; " that the people are much affronted because the Bishop of London has sent one Dr. Blair, a Scotchman, to represent him, Avhereas there might surely have been found an English clergy- man to fill that office ; and that Dr. Blair and the Gov- ernor were at loggerheads about the matter of the new college. But Dr. Blair persisted, and in 1700 building was begun at Williamsburg, from plans contributed by Sir Christopher Wren. (3nce the college was really in existence, and was found to be an institution in which the people might take pride, they turned toward it with much affection. It became at once, and con- The college and the tinned for some time to be, a centre of influ- ence for the Church. It was influential in raising the tone of both the clergy and the laity. It secured a better educated ministry. For a wliile it had some success in its plans for training the Indian youth. Seventy are reported as having been at one time under its teaching. But the elevation of the ministerial profession, ef- fected largely through the Commissary's educational and disciplinary measures, })rought out here, as the - Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Va. p. 30. THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 117 same causes did in Maryland, the latent conflict between the English Church and the American people. The clergy represented a foreign authority, of which the still loyal Virginians had already begun to feel jealous. As the jealousy deepened, the people and clergy began to grow apart. When Dr. Blair died the people declared they would never receive his successor. Discipline de- Decline of clined, and the clergy became at the same discipline. ^jj^-^g looser in their living, and more strenu- ous in insisting upon the right of support which was theirs by virtue of the Establishment. For many years the dreary story drags on, — the vestries trying to re- duce parish tax-rates by refusing to induct ministers into their livings, the clergy growing sharper in seizing their legal perquisites, and the honest priests and godly people grieving more and more at the deplorable state into which thinpfs had fallen. This last class never ceased their efforts to bring about better things. They addressed the Governor, represented the facts to the Attempt at Bishop of London, petitioned the Assembly, reform. jj^^ to little purpose. One of their best di- gested plans for improvement gives a strange picture of the Church life of the time. It is a " Proposition " sub- mitted to the Assembly in 1724. It ^ sets forth " the bad constitution of this country," especially in the fol- lowing particulars : — • (1) Many parishes are so small that they cannot defray the minister's maintenance. (2) Those parishes that are able are tempted to keep no minister, for, being without him, they keep so much of the parish levy in their own pockets. i Perry : Historical Collections, Virginia, p. 334. 118 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. (3) The livings of this country, " by reason of their meanness, encourage only the lowest sized divines to adventure among us, and by their equality of salary leave the diligent to fare equally with the negligent and blockish." (4) The precarious tenure by which they hold their living, being liable to be ejected by the vestry without any cause assigned, either keeps the better sort of min- isters away, or compels them soon to leave. (5) The want of plantations and mansion-houses, and the extreme difficulty of finding boarding places, specially for married clergy. (6) The abuses put upon them b}^ the sheriff and tax collectors, who either pay their salaries in bad tobacco, or delay paying it till there is no market or freight for it. (7) The want of some effective mode of discipline, which will be able to deal with the scandalous ministers. To cure these evils, it proposes : To consolidate two or three small livings into one decent one ; that whenever a new settlement of a hundred tithables springs up within seven miles of a church, the vestry must ])uild a chapel in it, to Avhich chapel the incumbent must give a portion of liis time ; that the vestry be compelled to pay the amount of the minister's salary into the church fund, whether they '" induct " him or not ; to change the amount of salary from a fixed sum of sixteen thousand pounds ol tobacco, to forty pounds per poll, so that the salary will vary with the population, and, consequently, with the importance of the parish ; that the glebe shall always contain " enough land to employ five or six THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 119 hands, have on it a house witli a brick chimney and glass windows, a shingled roof, have at least one clear story ten foot pitch with two rooms and a closet and kitchen ; " that the glebe be stocked by the parish with four or five negroes under an overseer, and seven or eight milch cows ; that the incumbent shall have the right to appoint the tax collector ; that every minister who brings a license to the colony shall be examined by the Commissary and " certain of the learnedest min- isters;" shall in their presence ''display his talents by a set discourse against Popery, Quakerism, or any other prevailing heresy ; " that any minister who shall be found guilty of fornication, adultery, blasphemy, ridi- culing the Hoi}' Scriptures, or practising against the Thirty-nine Articles, shall be suspended for three years ; that for carsing, swearing, drunkenness, or fighting (except in self-defence), he shall be suspended for one year ; that because drunkenness is one of the most common crimes, and, at the same time, one of the hardest to be proved, the following shall be taken as sufficient proof of the offence ; " sitting an hour or longer in a company wliere they are a-drinking of healths, and taking his cups as they come round ; strik- ing, challenging, threatening to fight, or laying aside his garments for that purpose ; staggering, reeling, vomiting, impertinent or obscene talking, — the proof of these to proceed until the judges are satisfied that the minister's behavior was unbecoming or failing of the gravity of a minister; ^^roi'iVZi'J, that inasmuch as many of the signs be fallible as proofs of drunkenness (for vomiting may happen to a sober person from weak- 120 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. ness of stomach, and reeling from a sudden disease causing giddiness of the head), two or three credible witnesses who were in the company (and not drunk themselves) shall declare upon oath that in their opin- ion drunkenness was the cause of these signs ; " that to each several article of this proposition *' the lawyers shall contrive such good binding clauses and penalties that the law will execute itself." The heroic remedies proposed show how deep-seated and diffused the malady was. But it must not be supi)osed that the Church was dead or its Devoted men in the clergy all scandalous. Godly and well- learned men were serving her altars, and from time to time new churches were being organized by the noble laymen of which Virginia was fruitful even during this period. '' King Carter " built a church at his own expense in the Northern Neck.^ A new church w^as built at Glocester, Avith pulpit '' hung with costly lace and damask, and a fine picture of the Last Judcrment " was set over the altar before which the Wash- ingtons worshipped.^ A dozen others in the colony date from the same period. Washington, Patrick Henry, Harry Lee, John Randolph of Roanoke, and others whose names afterward rang through two continents, were alive, working, scheming, planning, praying in the Church. A Welsh colony of Church of England people moved into Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania, and for a while maintained a vigorous and flourishing life, but were ultimately swept into the rising stream 1 Rev. Philip Slaughter in Perry's Hist. vol. i. p. G28. 2 lb. p. 027. THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 121 of Americanism, caught in the current of the revival- ism Avhich was then sweeping southward like a torrent, and, for the most part, carried away from the Church. A root of bitterness had been planted from which sprung up a pestilent fruit* The next generation found but the ruins of their fathers' altars. Growing spirit of their church walls crumbled and overgrown. An irreconcilable conflict of interests forced the clergy and people apart, and brouglit disaster upon the Church. The evil was inherent in the situation. The real question at issue was but dimly discerned by either party to it. It was the foredoomed struggle which became inevitable when the colonies were planted, and, sooner or later, was fought out in each one of them. The peculiar shape it assumed varied in the several commonwealths, but was in essence the same in all. In Virginia it was settled in its ecclesiastical form before it was opened in its civil shape. It came to an issue in The "Par- ^^^® celebrated " Parsons' Cause." ^ The situa- sons' Cause." tion Avas as follows : The Church of England was established by law and suj)ported by revenue from taxation. The political divisions known in the Northern colonies as townships were here parishes. The vestry was elected by the legally qualified voters. It was in their hands to "induct" to his living the minister nomi- nated by the Governor representing the Bishop of Lon- don. Being once inducted, a salary of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco was due him by law, to be collected 1 For the best account of this important event see Prof. Moses Coit Tyler: Life of Patrick Henry, p. 32, et seq. ■1 Anderson: vol. iii. p. 136. 1 Perry : Historical Collections, Va. 490, et seq. 122 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. by the sheriff. Tobacco was a commodity which fluctu- ated in value from year to year. In the seasons when it was low in the market, the parson pocketed his loss and waited to recoup iiimself next year, when it might be high. The quantity of sixteen thousand pounds was nominated in the bond. In 1763, a series of years in which the tobacco had been very low was followed by a time of very high prices. The parson could put his tobacco on the market and make good what he had lost in the preceding years. But the laity were reluctant to hand over the weed. By withholding it they could fill their own purses, and at the same time squeeze out the clergy against whom their grudge had steadily risen. The only thing to hinder Avas the law. This they found a way to evade, or rather violate. The Assem- bly passed an act to pay the parsons' salaries in Vir- ginia currency, at the rate of twopence halfpenny per pound for the tobacco. In effect, it confiscated their tobacco and compelled them to take for it a price less than one-fourth of that which it would have brought in the market. But the Assembl}^ knew that they were acting ultra vires in passing such a law. It was null and void, without the indorsement of the Crown. This, they knew, it never would receive. They therefore made it operative for a period of ten months from the time it was enacted. This, as they estimated, would cover the time required to take an appeal across the water and return, and in the mean while, for that year, at least, their purpose would have been gained. The clergy asked to be heard in opposition to the act, and were refused. They therefore drew together for consul- THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGINIA. 123 tation as to the ruin which threatened them. They chose a committee of their number who proceeded to England to protest before the Privy Councih The Crown lawyers assured them that the act was of no legal force whatever, and advised them to go back and sue for their salaries. They followed the advice, and the Rev. Thomas Warrington, of Elizabeth City, made up his case as a test. His plea was that the act was inequitable, in that it, without warning and without redress, cut down the salaries from four hundred pounds to one hundred and fifty pounds ; that it was a breach of contract which was perilous to every citizen ; that the act was null and void wanting the royal indorsement. The case for the vestry, against whom his suit was brought, was so bad that no lawyer with a reputation would touch it. When the case was immi- nent, there chanced to be a lawyer without either legal reputation or social standing, himself a Churchman, Patrick ^h.0 was willing to undertake it. His name Henry. ^y^s Patrick Henry. His argument before the jury raised him to celebrity at a bound, showed his wonderful sagacity, and brought into dazzling vividness the Church's position in America. He brushed away all question of either law or technical equity. Ho declared that England had no essential right to tax this country for any purpose ; that the colonies had both the right and the ability to regulate their own affairs, religious as well as civil ; that the only purpose of relio-ion which law can recoo-nize is its function of making good citizens ; that the community Avherein this function is exercised must regulate it ; that the 124 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. clergy by appealing to a foreign state had proven themselves to be at once bad citizens and unworthy ministers. These contentions he made effective, not only, and probably not chiefly, through his overwhelm- ing eloquence, but because he put into words, biting, burning, unforgettable words, the sentiments which were and had long been vaguely in the people's hearts. In any case, through tlie plea of a man him- self a devout communicant of the Church, addressed to a jury composed of hereditary Churchmen, the Church in the person of its clergy was defeated in a case where it had all the law, all the justice, and all the traditions of a hundred and fifty years on its side. The Church appealed to Csesar, — and lost. The appeal was never repeated. The breach was final.^ Ten years later, it was evident to all that the Church could not grow in America until it should be, either by kindly or forcible means, disentangled from the English state. Passing southward from Virginia, the population gradually became more sparse, and clustered about Charleston and Savannah as its chief points The Church , . in other of radiation. ihe Church lite in Ugle- cobnies. thorpe's Georgia settlement will come in sisrht in connection with Whitefield and the Wesleys and the Methodist movement. In North Carolina it remained Aveak throughout the century. The Scotch and later on the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians early made a lodgement in the territory, and became, in connection with the Baptists,^ tlie dominant religious influence. In 1 Tyler: Patrick Henry, p. 77. 2 Benedict: History of the Baptist Denomination in America. Boston, 1820, p. 333. THE COMMISSARIES : VIRGIXIA. 125 South Carolina at the opening of the eighteenth cent- ury, there was one strong parish at Charleston, — the only one in the province. Between that time and the Ke volution it had gained another parish in the same city, had spread to Beaufort, and from there as a second centre, to Goosecreek, Prince George, Santee, through and among the new plantations, and in the new settlements, as they one by one sprang up.^ As early as 1707 the S. P. G. maintained six clorgy in the province and had sent over two thousand volumes of books for gratuitous distribution.^ Two-thirds of the population at the beginning of the century were Dis- senters. This proportion was increased by a stream of immigration from Massachusetts and the Northern colo- nies. The Church of England, on the other hand, was SAvelled by a considerable number of French Huguenots, whose names still survive. An ill-advised and impotent attempt to establish the Church, with rigorous laws against the Dissenters, — an attempt so indefensible that Queen Anne declared the act null and void, and the S. P. G. refused to send any more missionaries till it should be abandoned, — gained the ill-v/ill of the majority of the people. In spite, however, of the inter- nal broils in the colony, of frequent and wasteful Avars with the Indians ; in spite of the demoralizing effect of slavery, which, owing to the rice culture, showed itself more quickly in South Carolina than elsewhere,^ the Church continued to more than hold her own until the 1 J. J. Pringle Smith, in Perry: History, vol. i. p. 638. 2 Graham: Colonial History, vol. i. p. 389. -3 lb. : p. 2r.2. 126 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. great cataclysm. ^ A larger proportion of native-born clergy were probaljly produced in this than in any other coloD}^ save Connecticut. This fact kept the priesthood and people more in touch with each other, and saved the Church there from much of the evil which befell her in Maryland and Virginia. In the Northern group of colonies the Commissary regime was little more than a name. The local churches, for the most part, managed their own affairs. 1 Perry : History, vol. i. p. 394. THE XEW ENGLAND CONVERTS. 127 CHAPTER XII. THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS. In the early years of the last century there lived at Guilford, Conn., a certain Mr. Smithson, whose name President ^^'"^^ been kept from oblivion through a single Cutler. kindly deed of his. He gave a Pra^^er-Book to young Timothy Cutler, a graduate of Harvard, and a candidate for the Puritan ministry. In 1720 the Rev. Dr. Cutler was the honored president of Yale College, and had read his Prayer-Book to good purpose. Re- mote from the Church, unskilled in her wa3^s, holding high office in a society Avhich Avas her hereditary enemy, he had learned to love the Prayer-Book, and to think of the Church kindly. Many of the prayers he committed to memory, and used, consciously and unconsciously, in his conduct of public worship. Their spirit colored all his own effusions, until lie came to be noted for his '' gifts in prayer." ^ He gathered about him a little group of men like-minded with himself, and for several years they quietly and patiently pursued a study of the nature and organization of the Church. Just a century before, this had been the burning question of the age. But at that time the combatants on either liand had not been in a temper to settle it on its merits. With 1 Beardsley: History of the Church in Connecticut, vol. i. p. 3i. 128 THE ENGLISH CIIUIICH IN THE COLONIES. Laud on the one side and the Puritans on the other, Star Chamber writs, broadswords, and pikes had been the weapons. The sparks struck in such collisions are brilliant but not illuminating. The Truth had shrunk away into the background, as she always does to avoid strife. But now the contest had long ago subsided. Episcopacy had won in Old England and Presbytery in the New. The parties to the strife deemed the matter settled because they were out of each other's hearing. President Cutler and his friends were Presbyterians, but students, calm-minded and lovers of truth. A question pressed upon them which is one of the most imperious that can assail any man, and is, at the same The question time, onc for the entertainment of Avhich he of Orders. usually receives little sympathy. To speak for God as His minister is the most awful prerogative that any man can assume. No sober-minded man will offer to do so without the clearest Avarrant. But from Avhere shall he receive tliis warrant ? No man can give it to him of his own authority. He cannot trust to his own inward '' call," for he knows too well the untrustworthiness of human emotions. Whence shall he derive a commission which Avill justify him to him- self in the assumption of so great an office ? An honest search for the answer to tliis question has led into the ministry of this Church a large proportion of her priest- hood. They ask themselves, " By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority ? " The unique honor of being the first of this class in the American Church belongs to President Cutler and the little group of Puritan ministers who gathered THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS. 129 about him. The college library provided the means to solve their doubts. Scant as it was, it fortunately contained the works of Barrow, Tillotson, Burnet, Sherlock, Patrick, and Whitby, masters ^ of definition and argument for the Episcopal theory of the Church. Slowly, and evidently with reluctance, the little band of students Avere forced to the conclusion that their ministerial commissions were defective, not because their acts under them were lacking in power, — a pirate or a guerilla cliieftain may be potent without any com- mission, — but because they were lacking in authority, emanating as they did from an organization which had separated itself from the league of Christian States. " I hoped," says one of them, '' that when I was ordained I had satisfied myself of the validity of Presbyterian ordi- nation under the circumstances. But alas ! I have ever since had growing suspicions that all is not right, and that I am an usurper in the House of God." Of course, this will seem but the vagar}^ of a diseased sentiment, to all who think of the Church as organized by men and deriving its authority from the consent of its members. But he who has a deep sense of the very reality of priestly acts, especially if he have a timid conscience, will understand and sympathize wdtli his perplexity. Gradually the convictions of the little company settled upon the Church of England. It The Church's attracted them, not as a strong political attraction. establishment, — its political entanglement Avas but a stumbling-block to them ; not by the sweet strains of its Liturgy, — that sound had never fallen 1 Beardsley : History of the Church in Connecticut, vol. i. p. 35. 130 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. upon their ears ; not by its formulated dogmas, — these did not seriously differ from those which they held already ; but solely by its power as an Apostolic Church to confer a valid commission upon men to preach the Divine Word and administer the awfid Sacraments. This clear and simple conviction deter- mined their action, and, through them and their spirit- ual successors, went far to fix in that mould in which it is still held, the American Church's way of thinking of the ministry. Few of these men's confreres knew or suspected the direction in which they were moving. At the college commencement Sept. 13, 1722, President Cutler asked the trustees to meet him in the library at the close of the exercises. When all were assembled he read them a statement which acted upon them, and through them, upon New England society, like an electric shock. The statement, signed by himself and six tutors and fellows of the college, stripped to simplicity, was, that the signers were doubtful of or convinced against the validity of Presbyterian ordination, and had deter- mined to apply for Orders in the Church of England. The surprise and consternation were indescribable. It was as though in our day the president and faculty of Princeton should declare for the Pope, or the dean and professors of the General Seminary should avow them- selves Quakers. Lamentation resounded on every hand. A day of fasting and prayer was called to avert the Divine wrath at the strange defection of these leaders in Israel. The converts had offered to make a public statement and defence of their position if it should be THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS. 131 desired. It was desired, and a day for the great debate fixed duriiio" the session of the Connecticut Legfislature. The Governor, Saltonstall, presided with courtesy and fairness, rebuking the railing spirit in which their oppo- nents conducted their armiments. Of course notliinp- came of the debate but to fix each side more firmly in its own opinion. Cutler was " excused " from any further duties in the college. Three of his associates resigned their charges and cast in their lot with him, burning their bridges behind them. Several, more timid or less convinced, retained their connection with the Puritan establishment, but preserving all their lives a friendly attitude toward the Church. Three President ^^ them. Cutler, Brown, and Johnson, pro- Cutler and ceeded at once to* England for ordination. professors en- ter the Their name and fame had gone before them. They were received with a warm welcome. Cutler and Johnson were ordained, but Brown perished of smallpox. A second parish lately organized in Boston called Cutler to be its rector. Johnson went to Stratford, where there had been for many years a little group of Church of England families, became their pastor, and entered upon that long career of use and influence hardly surpassed by any name in the Church's annals. He was invited by Benjamin Franklin to become the head of the newly organized College of Philadelphia, lat«3r known as the University of Penn- sylvania. He declined, and accepted another invitation to the presidency of King's College, afterward Columbia University. The great gain to the American Church by this move- 132 THE ENGLISH CIIUHCII IN THE COLONIES. nient was not that she had added half a dozen able men to her meagre miiiistiy. It was that a new and ahid- B-ff^nninffof ^^^? soui'ce of Supply liad been opened. amov3m3nt. These were but the advanced guard of a ho it of men of similar type who have entered the Church since their time from the same motives. It was the sporadic outbreak in America of the movement which had set in still earlier in England. " At this time there Avas a strong tendency in the Presbyterian type of Puiitanism to conform in England. ... A little reasonableness on the part of the English bishops Avould have swept the entire Presbyterian party of Eng- land into the Established Church." ^ Their influence Avas at once felt in Ncav England, beginniug in Con- necticut. Within a generation the Church under the leadership of a native born ministry had penetrated every toAvn, had effected a lodgement in every Puritan stronghold, had draAvn into her membership large numbers of that sober-minded, self-contained, tenacious people Avho constitute her membership in Ncav England Puritan oppo- to-day. The opposition of the Puritan author- sition. ities Avas pronounced and bitter. It showed itself in a series of petty and vexatious acts of persecu- tion, some of Avliich amounted to gricA^ous Avrongs. But the innate kindliness and cautious fair-mindedness of the Connecticut people constantly interposed to break the blows of Puritan zeal.^ LaAVS Avere made Avhich Avorked in favor of the " Established Order " and against the Church, and remained in force for a hundred and 1 Brig^s: American Presbyterianism, p. 146. a Perry: History, i. '290, cf seq. THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS. 183 fifty years.^ Occasionally they wrought great hard- ship, but, upon the whole, the Church in New Eng- land had less to complain of in the eighteenth century than dissenters had in New York and the Southern colonies. The idea of invoking force of any sort to the aid of doctrine or order was gradually but surely retiring into that evil place from which it had emerged to curse the Church of God. The drift toward the Church in New England received a very substantial impulse by the visit to DfranBerke- America of one of England's great and holy isy- men. In 1729 Dean Berkeley commenced his three years' sojourn at Newport in the interest of his brilliant but fruitless scheme of a great American University. His plan wa3 to establish somewhere a foundation which should be to the colonies what Ox- ford and Cambridge were to Britain. It is his great honor to have been the first of eminent Eno^lishmen to discern the future greatness of the western world. He prayed and strove that it might be built up upon the twin foundations of religion and learning. He was liimself a notable example of both. By dint of his wonderful power of persuading men, and the sweet graciousness of his person, he had extorted from the English minister, Walpole, a grant of tvv^enty thousand pounds for his American University. But to secure the grant was one thing, to secure the money quite another. Walpole intimated to him tliat it would not 1 It was not until 1878 that the parishes in Connecticut were at liberty to organize according to the Church's theory; up to that time they were all cliartered as Congregational " Societies " under a general act. 134 THP] ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. likely be paid unless he should show his earnestness in tliG matter by going himself to America. In pursuance of this advice, he took up his abode at Newport. His reputation as a philosopher, a scholar, and a saint, had preceded him. Learned men in America made pilgrim- ages to meet him, and came away unconsciously biassed in favor of a Church which could produce and retain such a man. The fact that the representatives of roy- alty in the colonies were always Churchmen had had its effect in attracting many to her. Now the fact tliat a prince in the kingdom of letters was one of her sons brought her into reputation in a different quarter. His visitors went to see a pliilosopher and found also a Churchman. The effect of his sojourn was marked in many ways. His friend the painter Smibert followed his fortunes, and from Smibert tlie Americans Copley and West caught their inspiration.^ Wlien he returned to England, despairing of his project, he left his library of one thousand volumes to Yale College and gave his Rhode Island farm to found a post-graduate scholarship in the same university. These gifts were golden bene- factions to the struggling learning of the time. From his foundation at Yale, a stream of great men have gone forth, all more or less influenced by his spirit, and with a kindly feeling towards the Church of their bene- factor. By his gift the immortal writings of Hooker and Chillingworth found a place in the college library and moulded tlie lives of many of the seekers after the Church.2 His advice and counsel fixed in the structure 1 Arnold: Hiotory of Rhode Island, ii. p. 99. 2 Beaidsloy : Life of Sanitiel Johnson, p. 75. THE NEW EXGLAXD CONVERTS. 1^0 of Pennsylvania University and Columbia College, that principle of union in religion and learning which these institutions so long retained.^ As a Christian, a Church- man, and a man, he greatly promoted the success which marked the Church in the Northern colonies through the first half of the eighteenth century. 1 Beardsley: Life of Samuel Johnson, p. 75. 136 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER XIIL THE "GREAT AWAKENING." In 1735 Jonathan Edwards was pastor of the Puritan church of Northampton, Massachusetts.^ Young man Jonathan ^^ ^^^ ^^^^' ^® ^"^^^ already famous. When a Edwards. mere chikl, he knew Greek and Hebrew. When a hid, he pondered deeply upon " fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute." In his beautiful body dwelt the fairest of souls, and the subtlest of understandings. His sweet young wife had also dreamed dreams and seen visions. A pair of mystics, enthusiasts, poets, and theologians, they journeyed hand in hand to his first parish at Northampton. He began his ministry at the time when the lament was heard on every hand that pure religion was perishing from off the face of the earth. The lament was not without cause. A distinct relaxation of religious life had already set in, and was as marked in New England as elsewhere in the colonies. " It began as soon as it was evident that the unique experiment of the Puritan fathers was over, when the theocracy which had inspired such enthusiasm was hastening to its downfall. It was as if God had turned away from favoring an enterprise which had His glory 1 Allen: Life of Jonathan Edwards, pp. 133, 248. 1 Tracy: The Great Awakening, Boston, "[845, passim. THE ''GREAT AWAKENING." 137 in view as its sole object and jnstification." ^ The fierce religionism of the early Puritan life could not be sus- tained. In a century it had burned itself out. A revolt against its hard and exacting spirit had already spread. Only the shell of it remained. The strong, if unlovely, life which had tenanted it was dying. Its remaining energy was wasting itself in theological quarrels barren of permanent result.^ Meanwhile, carelessness of relig- ion and looseness of living were rife. Edwards's deeply religious spirit was profoundly moved b}^ the situation when he came to realize it. Believing, as he did with all his being, in the inborn helplessness of all men to do or think any good thing, in a heaven whose ravishing beauty his poetic eye could see, and a hell whose black- ness and torment were to him a very present fact, his preaching assumed a tone which had not before been heard. His great store of theology furnished him with matter, his poetic instinct enabled him to set it in colors which men could not help but see, his psycho- logic skill qualified him to find a lodgement for his words in the heart and imagination of every hearer. The "Re- Such sermons as his had never been heard. vival " at T^ i • x i • ^ o Northamp- ^^^om preaching to his people once on bun- toa. day, he came to preaching thrice. Then they came in crowds to hear him on a week-day as well. Then he preached every day. Then all business was gradually laid aside, and the people asked, " Brethren, what must I do to be saved?" All human concerns fell into insignificance before the great question in the 1 Allen: p. 53. 2 e. g., the " Half-way Covenant.'' 138 THE EXGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. presence of which the whole community sat down in despair. The peculiar answer which Edwards gave to this question has profoundly affected the religious life of America, shaped the fortunes of the Church, and yet dominates the Christian life of the land. Before his time both Churchman and Puritan had conceived of religion as an outward life. It was obedience to a law or set of laws. It consisted of moral and religious conduct. The two parties had differed j)i^ofoundly and often as to what particular action or class of actions were bounden on a Christian, but they had been at one in the assumption that religion is a question of right living} Edwards taught that it was a question of right feel- ing. His theory has passed into the popular mind and Edwards's is yet dominant. He replied to the eager "^Convef- questionings of his Northampton people that Eion." ^' conversion " is a drama which must per- force be played out consciously in each individual soul. Ito characteristic stages were, firsts a profound and awful sense of sin, guilt, helplessness, fear of God's wrath, dread of dire penalty, an internal agony Avhich might border close upon madness ; second^ a period more or less prolonged of doubtfulness, hope alternated with despair, glimpses of God's mercy only to be obscured by the vapors rising from a corrupt heart; tliird^ a sudden and conscious emergence into a haven of sweet peace, a serene and heavenly frame, a sense ' Roger Williams liad been bauisluHl for teaching that it is an inward experience. THE "GREAT AWAKENING." 139 of pardoned sin and acceptance with God. He and his o-racious wife, chiklren of God from the womb, persuaded themselves that they had passed through this sequence of experiences. He watched over his in- quirers, and led them with infinite skill through its stages, — preserving the while the curious attitude of a scientific observer of the phenomena, — and helped them to find peace for their souls. His peculiar doctrine of salvation possesses singular fascination for the populace. It is capable of being put to an immediate test. It is less burdensome and exact- ing than it is to confront with a definite Christian purpose the complex and contradictory experiences of human life. The revival quickly passed beyond the bounds of the Northampton parish, but by the time it liad done so it " Bodily ex- "^^^^^ taken on another peculiarity even more ercises. " striking. In the spiritual agony through which awakened souls were passing daily, the bodies of some began to show a strange sympathy. Men fell prostrate upon the earth and lay writhing, tliey lost temporarily the power of speech, their limbs moved rhythmically, heaven and hell became visible to their fixed and staring eyes. This new phenomenon for tlie moment stao-Qrered Edwards, but he soon satisfied him- ot> self that it came from God. Why sliould not the body sympathize with the soul ? It was but the outward sign of the inward and invisible grace at work. He at once encouraged and tried to regulate the strange mani- festation. The outbreak of this new phenomenon attracted fresh attention to the movement. It bcQ-an 140 THE EXGLLSII CIirKCII IX THE COLOXIES. to spread. Sober and godly men set themselves against it in vain. Such opposition is always but half- Sprsad of ths hearted, from fear lest haply one be found movemsnt. fighting against God. Deerfield, Springfield, a:ul far-away New Haven were '' awakened." Churciunen and the more conservative Presbyterians stood aloof from tlie movement,^ but the latter, after a long stand against '^ enthusiasm," succumbed. The movement gathered strength and impetus as it spread. Gilbert and Wil- liam Tennent became its leaders in New Jersey. It swept in the Scotch Presbyterians in the back settle- ments of Pennsylvania. It worked down the valleys of Virginia, and drew in the multitudes of lapsed and in- different Churchmen. It climbed the mountains into Tennessee and Kentucky. It found a welcome among the mystical German sects, and touched the mercurial Welsh Churchmen among^ the foot-hills of the Alle^^ha- nies. As it moved on through its seventy years' course its distinctive features became more and more marked. Strangest of all, they ceased to excite surprise, and came to be accepted as the ordinary concomitants of religion. An eye-Avitness narrates^ that ''a hundred and fifty of the congregation were so affected with violent spasmodic contractions of the muscles, The jerks." ^ jerking their heads quickly from side to side, frequently throwing their persons upon the ground, where they floundered like live fish. I have seen all denominations of religion exercised the same way, — gentleman and lady, black and white, young and old, 1 Briggs: American Presbj^teriaii, pp. 251-2. 2 Tracy: Great Awakening, p. 222. THE "GREAT AWAKEXIXG." 141 without exception. I have passed a meeting-house about which the undergrowth liad been cut away, leav- ing a hundred saplings standing breast-high, for the people to hold on to wlien they should have the jerks. I observed that when they had held on by them they had kicked up the earth as a horse does when stamping flies.*' Xot only converts were so seized, but those who came to mock as well as those Avho came to pray. Sometimes it took grotesque and ludicrous forms. Some turned unseemly somersaults in the air ; others leaped and yelled as the devil in departing rended them ; and once a pack of men Avere found barking up a tree where they had '* treed tlie devil." ^ When the movement reached Georgia it came in jjg^^g contact with the Church of England in the Whitefisid. person of George Whitefield. In response to Wesley's cry for aid, Whitefield had come out to Oglethorpe's colony as missionary to the Indians. Few men Avere ever less fitted for that duty. Wis- dom, patience, caution, the qualities Avhich the mis- sionary to the heathen needs, Whitefield had none of. Half-educated, impetuous, self-conscious, ignorant of himself, impatient of law, but with a burning religious zeal, and a power of popular eloquence as great as was ever given to mortal man, he AA^as fitted to become the champion of the '' Great AAvakening." Laying aside all his plans and Avork, and disregarding all authority, he took up the burden of Jonathan EdAvards's prophecy. Bearing Whitefield on its crest, a reflex AA^aA^e of enthusiasm SAvept back nortliAvard, 1 McMaster: History of the People of the United States, vol. ii. p. 580. 142 THE EXGLISII CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. upturning Church order, sweeping some into the king- dom and leaving others stranded at its ebb, until the two prophets met in Edwards's parsonage in little Northampton. WhitefiekFs presence was a stumbling- stone and a rock of offence. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. With but very few exceptions, Attitudoof his brethren had held aloof from or definitely tfth^^'Re'- opposed the movement. Its root principle vivai." seemed to them to be both false and danger- ous. Whitefield assailed them savagely, as his success- ors have often done since, for their bearing toward "this gracious work of God." " Unconverted men;" "with- out vital piety ; " " pagans ; " " dumb dogs that will not bark," were the best words he had for them. He ostentatiously turned his back upon his fellows, and became the hero of the revivalists. The Puritan clergy made much of his zeal, contrasting it with the cold morality of tlie Church to the latter's great discredit. Churchmen either openly defended their position or Th9 raac- w'aited for the reaction which was sure to tion. come. It came even sooner than they had expected. The disorders which arise from the preva- lence of a religion of the emotions divorced from the ordinances of the Church and the sanctions of the con- science soon made themselves seen.^ The " travelling 1 The Rev. Timothy Cutler writes from Boston, September 24, 174,"): "Whitefield has plagued us with a witness, especially his friends ami fol- lowers, wlio themselves are like to be battered to pieces by that batter- iiifj-ram they had provided against our Church here. It would be an endless attempt to describe- that scene of confusion and disturbance occasioned by him,— the division of families, neighborhoods, and towns, the contrariety of husbands and wives, the undutifulness of children and servants, the quarrels among teachers, the disorders of the night, the intermission of labor and business, the neglect of husbandry and of THE "GREAT AWAKEXIXG." . 143 preachgrs " who swarmed in New England brought such confusion into even the '' Established Order " that the Puritan ministers themselves could not endure it. AVhitefield turned away in dudgeon from the gentle rebuke of Edwards for his ill-tempered zeal, returned to England, and exercised his wonderful gifts, held in order by the tight hand of the Countess of Huntingdon. Edwards found the hearts of his own converts and par- ishioners turned against him. They whom he had car- ried through the crisis of their religious experiences refused longer to listen to him. Disappointed and heart-broken, he turned his steps away from his beloved Northampton, to his new home among the savage Indians. gathering the harvest. Our presses are forever teeming with books, and our women with bastards, though regeneration and conversion is the whole cry, Tiie teachers have, many of tliem, left their jiarticulai- cures, and strolled about the country. Som3 have been ordained bj^ tlieni Evanfielizcrs, and had their Armor-hearers and Exhorters ; and in many conventicles and places of rendezvous there has been checkered work, indeed, several preaching, and several exhorting and praying at the same time, the rest crying or laughing, yelping, sprawling, fainting, and this revel maintained in some places many dajs and nights together, without intermission; and then there were the blessed outpourings of the Spirit! " When Mr. Whitefield first arrived here the whole town was alarmed. He made his first visit to church on a Friday, and conversed first with many of our clergy together, belied them, me especially, when he Ind done. Being not invited into our pulpits, the Dissenters were highly pleased, and engrossed him; and immediately the bells rung, and all hands went to lecture; and this show kept on all tlie while he was hero. " After him came one 7V';?i?;(f, a monster ! impudent and noisy, and told them the^^ were all damn'd, damn'd, damn'd; this charmed them, and in the most dreadful winter I ever saw, people Avallowed in tlie snow niglit and day for the benefit of his beastly brayings ; and many ended their days under these fatigues. Both of them carried more money out of these parts than the poor could be thankful for. " All this turned to the growth of the Church in many places, and its reputation universally; and it suffers no otheiwisc than as religion in general does, and that is sadly enough." 144 , THE EXGLISII CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. The effect of the movement upon the religious life of America cannot be over-estimated. It obliterated the old ecclesiastical divisions, and drew a new Effact upon Amsrican re- line of cleavage. It set and fixed the Church ^°^°°' in that position which she still holds in Amer- ican Protestantism. She was thrust by it involuntarily into that place Avhich has proven her stronghold. There have been in this country since the '' Great Awaken- ing," and chiefly as its result, two radically distinct conception3 of Christianity. According to one theory it is primarily an experience, following in the main that which Edwards first fastened upon the popular mind. It appeals to consciousness. It devises machinery to awake the emotions. When they flag it has whips to stimulate them anew. It has the " Pilgrim's Progress " for its hornbook. Christian, the pilgrim, is the type of the truly converted man. It makes little of Sacra- ments. It empties tliem of their grace, and finds their rationale as a system of mnemonics. It distinguishes sharply between religion and morality. It uses faith as a word representing not the thing believed, but only the act of believing. It speaks its mind unconsciously in Moody and Sankey's hymns. For the other theory the Church stands as the best accredited representative. This has for ^ts starting- The Church's poii^^ 1^0^ the adult, but the Christian child, position. j^ assumes it to be a child of God. It leans on Christian nurture. It looks upon the Cliurch as the hospitable home in which all liave a right ; a right not . contingent upon the passage through a conventional experience. It looks upon the Sacraments not as ilia THE "GREAT AWAKENING." 145 marks and badges of a pious life already attained, but as the means of attainment thereto. It makes little of experiences. It is distrustful of spiritual cataclysms. It thinks that religious life to be most healthy which is least self-conscious. It refuses to distinguish between religion and morality, deeming them the same in es- sence. For all this the Church has stood since the middle of the last century. The two contrasted conceptions of personal religion, of course, did not begin at that date. But the effect of the Great Awakening was to bring out their contrast before the popular sense, and to fix the Church's place as the representative of the latter. Her growth has always been most rapid in those com- munities where the rival theory has most completely run its course. But she has not remained Its influence upon the uninfluenced by it. Much of the real re- ligious life which was present in the move- ment passed into her possession. It has saved her from being hard and mechanical. The Evangelical movement whicli came two generations afterwards brought into her ministry men who accepted Edwards's theory wholly, preached it, lived by it, championed it, faulted the Church for not accepting it outright, were as great and as good as any prophets who have ever delivered their message from her pulpits. But as a school they passed away and left the Church in the same attitude in which they found her. The spirit of the Great Awakening speaks in some of the Church's hymns, modifies her practice in deciding upon the fitness of candidates for Confirmation, leads her often to adopt a 146 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. popular phraseology wliicli does not mean the same from her lips. that it does from others; but, upon the \vhole, her ideal of the Christian life has remained unchanged. Here is to be found the secret of her steady growth at the expense of American Protestantism. The Epis- copal Church is the only one which constantly gains from others, and seldom loses to them. They who lose, in their chagrin, often charge her with holding a low and easily attained standard of religious life. This is not the explanation. Her accessions are from those whose religious life is highest and deepest, but whose spiritual experience refuses to fit itself to the mould into which it is attempted to cast it. These, who seek righteousness of life, and are tortured as Edwards's poor people were through their feelings, seek the Church as the home of reasonable religion.^ 1 It would be an interesting study to trace the effect of the Great Awakening upon the negro race in America. There is good reason to believe that their peculiar type of emotional religiousness, divorced from the sanctions of conscience, is due to this movement, which for the first time brought within their jeach a conception of Christianity which fitted itself to their peculiar race temperament. There does not seem to be any evidence of their characteristic type of religion previous to this time. Since then it has dominated them as a people. THE GERMANS. 147 CHAPTER XIV. THE GERMANS. While the Commissaries were reforminor the Church in the south, notable scholars coming to her aid in the east, and the Great Awakening was stirring the re- ligious life of the whole land, the last great wave of pre-Revolutionary immigration broke over the middle colonies. It came from two quarters, Germany and Ireland. It brought in two great populations, one of whom has always remained indifferent and the other oj)posed to Episcopacy. The ceaseless wars which became inevitable on the Continent of Europe when the Reformation motto cujus First German ?'^^^'^i ^j"^^^ religio^ was adojDted, had wrought immigration, incalculable damage in Germany. The con- dition of the common people was deplorable. AVhile the country was prolific of great scholars and leaders of the Reformation, the mass of the people retained much of their mediaeval barbarism. The feudal spirit which made his people patient of the great Frederick's cane, and still keeps the citizens of a mighty empire docile under the personal rule of the Kaiser, made the common folk then helpless to rise out of their low state. Con- tinual wars, changes of rule, changes of faith, bad government, made their lives intolerable.^ Like tlie 1 Seebohm : Era of Protestant Revolution, p. 33. 148 THE EXGLLSH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. unfortunate in all lands they turned their faces to America. In the last years of the seventeenth cent- ury they began to come. The bulk of them came to Penn's colony. Through his German mother and his own sojourn at Creslieim on the Rhine, Penn knew them and they knew him. In 1683 Pastorius brought the first detachment of twenty families, sat down with them six miles from Philadelphia, and pro^ierly named the first German settlement Germantown.^ A few re- cruits followed from time to time, but thirty years later immiOTation came en masse. In 1709 a horrible famine wasted their fatherland. Thousands perished of cold and hunger.2 The heart of the world, Avhich at that time was not easily moved at the sight of suffering, turned toward the poor, dying creatures with compas- sion. Good Queen Anne of England offered to give them lands and homes in America and to help them move. Multitudes took her at her word. Thirty thousand made their way to London to escape starvation through the queen's goodness.^ So many additional hungry mouths threatened to set up a famine there. The brutal populace of the city fell upon them in their poor camp at Blackmoor, beat them, drove them off to beg and starve among the lanes and hedges. Five thousand of them, being Roman Catholics, were sent back to Ger- many. Four thousand were sent to Ireland to settle waste lands about Limerick. The remainder, more than twenty thousand in number, were sent to America. Ten ships brought five thousand of them to New York at one ' Reichel : Moravian History, p. 15. 2 lb. p. 15. 3 lb. p. 16. THE GERMANS. 149 time. They were carried up the Hudson and moved in behind the Dutch, who had lived for half a century on its western bank.^ Their descendants are still found about Scoharie, Schenectady, Palatine Bridge, and west- wdvd to the head-waters of the Susquehanna. But the main stream came up the Delaware. Phil- syivania adelphia was their entrepot. Before the Dutch. middle of the century the immigration had reached and sustained itself for several years at tw^elve thousand annually .^ They moved in behind the Eng- lish and Welsh and sat dow^n upon the rich limestone soil which stretches westward to the Susquehanna. From Pennsylvania they crept southward into Virginia and western Maryland. A smaller, independent stream flowed into North Carolina and farther south.^ At the outbreak of the Revolution they constituted one- third the population of Pennsylvania.* Their religious and social condition was of the very lowest. Ignorant when they left home, their exposure and suffering reduced them still lower. jNIany of them came as '' Redemptioners," that is, persons who had sold them- selves either outright or for a limited number of years to some shipmaster for the amount of their passage money. The advertisement pages of the dingy news- papers of the time are full of notices of rewards for run- away '-Dutch servants." They were harshly treated, and upon the smallest excuse or no excuse at all had their time of servitude lengthened until many became hopeless bond slaves. 1 Smith : History of New York, p. 1.39. 2 Proud: History of Peinisylvania, vol. ii, p. 273. 8 Williaiiison: History of North Carolina, vol. i. p. 184. ■4 Prcud: History of Pennsylvania, vd. ii. p. 273. 150 THE EXdLTSII CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. From {I religious point of view they were all classified as " Lutherans." Tlie distinction which the Germans Their reiig- began early to make between Lutherans and terancTcoa- Reformed was not observed by English-speak- dition. iug people in describing them. The various German sects were in popular speech lumped together as Lutherans, that is, Germans who Avere not Romanists. With the exception of the few leaders, and leading German families who were broadly marked off from tlie rank and file of their people, the mass were for the most part indifferent to religion in any form. The few preacliers who at first accompanied their flocks grad- ually found their graves in the western wilds, or if yet living, their influence on new-comei's was very slight. There were thousands, who, educated in Germiiny as Lutherans, but now scattered about in the fore? 'o wilds of America, never saw a church or cared for it. Many were so utterly indifferent to all religion that it becamo proverbial to say of those who cared nothing for God oj His Word, that they belonged to "the Pennsylvania Cliurch." ^ The chronic tendency of German Protest' antism to division made their religious condition worse. They became a congeries of sects, some of them holding a^> their distinguisliing mark the most grotesque and whimsical practice or tenet. The mystical " INIennonite " would not allow the baptism of infants, would not take an oath, refused to bear arms, and wore a peculiar dress. The '* I'unkers " held to the same theological and ethical views, but wore a different dress, and made it a point of faith to wear their beards untouched by blade 1 Spaiigeiiltei-g: Life of Zinzeiulorf, p. 1230. THE GERMANS. 151 or scissors. The '' Siebentagen " observed the seventh day of the week mstead of the first to keep it holy, denounced marriage as a snare of Satan, lived in com- munity, established an order of Protestant monks and nuns, and built for themselves monasteries, the b]-oken walls of which still stand. ^ Anchorites lived solitary lives far in the forest, and hermits made their homes in the rocky caves along the Wissahickon. Besides these, Schwenkf elders and separatists of now forgotten names abounded. Their type may be seen in one sect Avhich still exists, whose distinctive dogma is that men should wear hooks and eyes instead of buttons to fasten their clothes ! The numbers and character of the incoming Germans seriously alarmed the colonial authorities, and, after a prolonged agitation, it was checked and ultimately stopped by the imposition of a tax of forty shillings a head upon all comers. But before this was done the Germans who are now known as " Pennsylvania Dutch" had established themselves in a circle of settlements which surrounded the Church of England at those points where it was strongest. There tliey have remained ever since. They have preserved their original features of character and religious life Avith a tenacity wliicli hardly any other class in America can equal. Simple- minded and coarse in fibre, but strong and peitinacious, they have held their own, and the Church has made but little impress upon them. With the exception of the great and saintly Muhlenbergs, and a few others of kin- dred spirit, their names are absent from her rolls. 1 At Ephrata, Lancaster Co., Penu. 152 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. The Moravian Church came among them at a later date, and has since held in their midst much the same Th= Mora- pl^cc that the Episcopal Church has among vians. the English-speaking Protestants. It, though small in numbers, has probably affected the religious life of America more profoundly, though indirectly, than have the vastly more numerous German Lutheran and Reformed. Bishop Nitschman, in Savannah, became the teacher of the Churchman John Wesley. The Moravian Peter Bohler, as we shall see, gave him that cast of religious life which made him the founder of Methodism. Whitefield was their friend and co-worker. He bought for them five tliousand acres of land at the forks of the Delaware to found a school for negroes, Avhich Avas to be administered by them,^ and then quarrelled Avith them and took the land away. But he retained that bias which his intercourse with Peter Bohler had given him, and, during his restless wanderings uip and down the colonies, was more under the domination of the Moravian than the English Church. 1 Reichel : Moravian History, p. 78. THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 153 CHAPTER XV. THE SCOTCH IRISH. At the period of the Reformation England and Scot- land were two separate nations, as distinct as the United England and States and Canada now are. England had the Refor^^ tlu-ough her whole history resisted, and in mation. the end beat off, the aggressions of the Papacy. Scotland had succumbed almost entirely. When the time came, the Reformation had more to do in Scotland, had to do it by a harder battle, against greater odds, in the face of established authorities, re- ligious and secular, and through a far more bitter experi- ence, than fell to the lot of her neighbor. In England the king and officers of state, the bishops and leading clergy, led the movement. In Scotland all these opposed it. In England Episcopacy emerged from the long struggle intact. In Scotland it went down before the people's determination to reform, which purpose the bishops opposed. The Reformed Church of Scotland never forgot that the bishops had joined hands with the Papal enemy. Wishart and Knox brought into it the Calvinism and Presbyterianism which they had learned at Calvinism • i i and Presby- Basle and 1 rankfort and Geneva m the days terianism. ^^ ^j^^-^. ^^.^^^ rpj^^ ^^^.^^ System of Dogma and Oro^anization struck its roots in the very fabric 154 THE EXGLISH CHURCH I\ THE COLONIES. of the Scottish mind and character. It has lived there a more vigorous and tenacious life than elsewhere in the world. When it had decayed at Geneva it flour- ished at Edinburgh. AVhen it had become loosened and capable of revision there, it is found in its pristine strength at Pittsburg. When the Protestant Revolu- tion had subsided, Episcopacy had been rooted out in Scotland, and the soil Avhere it had grown sown with the salt of Calvinism. When the two crowns were united in that of James I, there began that Presbyterian- ^ ism and long struggle for supremacy between the two piscopacy.- pg^pj^gg whose liistory had been so diverse. The match was not conspicuously unequal. The advan- tage which the more numerous population of England gave her Avas counterbalanced by the profound conviction and fierce tenacity of purpose which marked the Scotch. Tlie stake at issue was the control of the ecclesiastical organization of the United Kingdom. The issue was by no means a foregone conclusion. If the English won when swords and muskets were the weapons, the Scotch knew how to "jouk an' let the jaw go by," and gain llicir end by cautious and patient diplomacy. Once, at least, they succeeded in having the " Solemn League and Covenant " against prelacy sworn to by monarch and jiarliament, and Presbyterianism made the law of the hind. But the southern half of the kingdom steadily outgrew the northern, and in the long run numbers tell. I^iesbyterianism was beaten back beyond the border; Episcopacy crossed in pursuit, by the same path upon which the Covenant had once come southward. The ecclesiastical authority of the realm set about to exter- THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 155 minate Presbyterianism, as it, in its turn, had attacked Episcopacy. In the contest from this time onward the Aveight of suffering fell upon the Scotch. It was a game of ham- Episcopal iiier and anvil, and the English w^ielded the rigor. hammer. In the last quarter of the seven- teenth century the Scotch Presbyterian's life was a burden to him. "Uniformity" acts, ''Test" acts, "Con- venticle " acts, entangled him at every turn. It was a felony to worship otherwise than by the Book of Com- mon Prayer, to conduct family worship) when more than five beside the household were present, to preach with- out permission of the bishop, to boggle at abjuring the Covenant which the Presbyterian held sacred, to absent one^s self from the parish church. All synods, presbyter- ies, and sessions were declared illegal. A new hierarchy was set up, with a renegade Presbyterian at its head. Ignorant and godless priests were set in charge of the churches.^ The laws were enforced by sequestrations, fines, the gaol, the stocks, boot, thumbscrews, pillory, and the gallows. But all in vain. The stern stuff of which Scotch Presbyterianism was made finally pre- vailed, and the Presbytery became established north of the Tweed. Meanwhile many to whom life had become intoler- able sought refuge in Ireland, then a sort of Xo-man's- Em'gration In^i^d. A sheriff's writ could hardly cross to Ireland. ^]^g Channel, and the moss troopers were not there to harry them. They were welcomed as thrifty tenants upon the large, half-waste tracts held by Eng- 1 Buvnet: History of His Own Time. i. p. 229. 156 THE ENGLLSII (IIUIK'H IX THE COLONIES. lish land-owners. But as tlie civilization of the island increased, its whilom obscurity ceased to shelter them. The same contest of argument and arms between the bishops and the Presbyterians, which had wasted Scot- land, sprang up in Ireland. The bitterest theological controversies, diversified by passages at arms, occupied a whole generation. Finally it embittered the relations between land-owning Churchmen and the Presbyterian tenantry. The " Antrim Evictions " left thousands of tliem without home or shelter. In two years thirty thousand emigrated to America.^ They found many of their kin already here. The prisoners taken at Dunbar and Bothwell Brig fifty years before had been sold as slaves to the plantations.^ Scotch noblemen and gen- tlemen had bought large lands for their fellow-religion- ists in South Carolina. There were settlements of them Emigration ^^^ Virginia and Maryland. But at the open- to America. jj-,g ^f ^]jq eighteenth century they began to come in like a flood. Boston, Philadelphia, and Charles- ton were the principal places of entry. Of these, Phila- delphia was the favorite. Whole congregations came, bringing their ministers with them. " In the first half of the century, Down, Antrim, Armagh, and Derry were emptied." ^ In 1740 the immigration had reached twelve thousand a year to Philadelphia alone.^ They halted but a little at the seaboard, bat passed at once through the coast settlements, and took possession of the frontier. In the fertile valley of the Mohawk, the rich, rolling • Craigliead: Scotch and Irish Seeds in American Soil, p. 274. 2 Ihid., p. 2()(;. 3 Fronde: History of Irehand, vol. i. ]) 129. * lioiliro,: Ili.story of the Prc-hytc lian C'hurch, p. 51. THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 157 land of the Susqueliaiiiia, the long, trough-like valleys which lie among the eastern ranges of the Alleghanies, in the uplands of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, they established their homes. They were a profoundly religious people. With a spirit like, and yet unlike, the Puritan settlers of New England, they have left their impress indelibly upon American religion. The upper- Hostility to i^^ost feeling in their minds, when they came, the Church, ^yr^g hatred of Episcopacy, whether in its Romish or its Eno-lish Q-uise. Their fathers had chal- lenged it to mortal combat a century before, and in their own time the battle had gone against them. In the early years of the last century there were Scotch Pres- byterians living here whose ears had been cut off by " Kirke's lambs ; " whose fathers had been hung before their eyes for attending conventicles; who had worn the boot and thumbkins while Leslie stood by and jeered ; who had been hunted away from their burning homes by that polished gentleman and stanch Churchman, John Graham, of Claverhouse ; ministers who had been browbeaten by Irish bishops, and denied sympathy even by the gentle Jeremy Taylor,^ had been turned out of their livings, fined, imprisoned, their ministerial office derided, the children of the marriages they celebrated pronounced bastards. A deep and sullen hatred of the Church which they regarded as the author of their wrongs was part of the furniture which they brought here with them. They were not likely to consider that they themselves were animated by a similar spirit, and, the opportunity being given, w^ould have reversed the 1 Craighead: p. 225. 158 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. parts in tlie tragedy. In point of fact, the opportunity had not been given, and so things were as they were. The sober judgment of the world is now made up that the Church lost far more than she won by the methods then adopted. The fair-minded and candid Hallam well says, '' It was very possible tliat Episcopacy was of divine institution, but for this institution houses had been burned and fields laid waste, the gospel had been preached in the fields, and its ministers shot at their prayers. It was a religion of the boot and thumbscrew, which a good man must be very cold-blooded indeed if he did not hate and reject from the hands which offered it. For, after all, it is much more certain that God abhors cruelty and persecution than it is that He has set up bishops to have a superiority over presbyters." ^ At the end of the period now before us,^ the A cordon round the Scotch-Irish had established a cordon in the rear of the Church, whose seat was on the seaboard, reaching from Londonderry in New Hamp- shire, and following the foot-hills of the Alleghanies, to Georgia. They gave the religious tone to the life which Avas preparing to start with leaps and bounds across the mighty West. They made the first inroads into the wilderness "over the mountains." They planted in the new settlements the seed of hostility, or, at the best, dislike of the Church and her ways. They repaid with interest the grudge they owed her for her part in their fathers' quarrel. But at the same time they became, unwittingly, her 1 Constitutional History, vol. iii. p. 435. 2 From 1700 to the War of Independence. THE SCOTCH-IEISH. 159 bulwark against the savage Indians and the Kon::i:i Catholic French. In the long and bloodj^ French wai'j they bore the brunt. Behind the rampart they formed, the Church pursued her course in peace. AVhen she had grown strong enough, in the next century, she moved out side by side with her ancient enemies, whose hostility had then abated, to possess the land of the West. For a while the Presbyterians stood sturdily with the Church against the enthusiasm of the "Great Awakening-," and for the hig^h Church and Sacramenta- rian ideas they had brought with them.i but in the end they succumbed to its influence. ^ From them Influencs upon the rather than from the Puritans have come, for example, the popular judgment as to the proper observance of the Lord's Day, and the attitude of the individual Christian towards amusements and recreations. These notions have, in turn, unconsciously and unavoidably affected the practice of Church people in these reg-ards.^ The Church has caug-ht from them also a certain seriousness of religious life and careful- ness of personal conduct, for which she owes a debt. On the other hand, this debt has been more than repaid by the company of recruits which they have constantly furnished to her membership. Bishops, priests, and laymen, the roll of whose names would fill a book, have come to the Episcopal Church from conviction of her better ways, who have never lost their kind good-will to their old Presbyterian home. 1 The definitions of tlie Sacraments in the " Confession of Faith" are such as would satisfy the very highest Churchman. - Briggs : American Presbyterianism, pp. 249, 250, 252. 3 Canon XIV., 1789. loO THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER XVI. THE METHODISTS. We come now to notice the first of American born sects. Heretofore the successive waves of immigration which we have traced, each carried its own type of re- ligion, and threw it down as a deposit. These suc- cessive deposits constitute the primary ecclesiastical stratification of American life. Methodism shows itself not as an additional stratum, but as a great geological '' fault " or break. As a sect it was organized and begfan its independent life here. Its growth The first & i fe _ American and spread has probably been more rapid ^^* * than that of any religious organization within the Christian era. It Avas launched from the deck of the Church of England. In its first stages its growth Avas from those who had always called themselves the Church's members. It was built, equipped, and manned by the Church's officers and crew. When it parted from her it bore away a multitude of her company. Methodism began its course in America at precisely that juncture when Episcopacy was at its lowest point, both in efficiency and in the good-will of the people ; at the time when the Church's hands were tied most rigidly by the bonds which bound her to the English state. While she was fettered and impotent, Methodism came, " a system energetic, migratory, itinerant, extem- THE METHODISTS. 161 pore, like the population itself," ^ fitted itself at once to the new condition of things, and started immediately upon its extraordinary growth. What, then, was Methodism ? What is it ? How has it affected the Church in America? To answer the first of these questions, as in the case of Quakerism, the life and spirit of its founder must be examined. In 1729 thoughtful men in England were seriously alarmed at what seemed likely to prove a permanent eclipse of faith.^ It appeared as though the power of evil were about to triumph. The light of the Reformation, as they looked back upon it, seemed to them to have been only the flaring up of the torch before going out into darkness. Here and there the godly men who saw the evil of the day drew to- gether in little groups to plan and pray for better things. Tliese little societies vv^ere jeered at as " Holy Clubs," '' Sacramentarians," the " righteous." ^ Such a club existed at Oxford. Half a dozen fellows and undergraduates composed it. Its leading spirits were Charles and John Wesley, two clergymen of the Church of England. The purpose of the th3 first ^^ club was the revival of spiritual life in the Cliurch. To this end they observed with the utmost punctiliousness all the Church's rules and precepts. They were all Ritualists.* They were cir- 1 Stevens: History of American Methodism, p. 22. 2 C'lurchman's Life of Wesley, p. 14. 3 II). p. 15. 4 "The Oxford ISrethodists,. up to the time of their areneral dispersion, were al- Church of England Ritualists." Tyerman: The Oxford Meth- odists, r,. 5. 162 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. cumspect in life, studious, charitable, earnest-minded. Every morning and evening they spent an hour in private prayer. They communicated at Christ Church once a week. Every Wednesday and Friday they fasted till three o'clock.^ They believed and taught the Ileal Presence in the Holy Eucharist ; used the mixed chalice ; the eastward position ; held to apostolic suc- cession ; baptism by immersion ; prayers for the dead ; and something which looked like invocation of Saints. They dreamed of a revival of the primitive Church as it was in the days of the fathers. For their punctilious- ness they were dubbed "■ Methodists." The masterful character of John Wesley quickly came to dominate the others. Except for his connection with this Church revival it would probably have been forgotten long ago. The ecclesiasticism of it left its impress upon one side of Wesley's character which it retained ail his life ; but his following attached itself to him upon another side, which Avas later to be developed. When Oglethorjjc had marshalled his motley col- ony for Georgia, he secured Charles Wesley for its Th9Wesieys chaplain. His brother John determined to in Georgia. go along as a missionary to the Indians in the neighborhood of the new plantation. He was com- missioned by the S. P. G. for the work. The expedi- tion to which he was attached landed at Savannah in 1736. The work among the Indians was quickly found to be impracticable, and no serious effort seems to have })een made to pursue it. In its default,- Wesley became the minister in charge of Christ Church, Savannah. • Tyerman: The Oxford Methodists, pp. vi, 66. THE METHODISTS. 163 There he began at once to carry into practice his pro- nounced ideas of church order and discipline. He multiplied services ; emphasized the fast and feast days of the Church ; refused to allow parents to stand, and insisted that none but communicants could be sponsors ; insisted upon baptism by immersion as being the primitive mode ; repelled from the Holy Commun- ion all who had not been baptized by an episcopally ordained minister ; insisted upon making priestly inqui- sition into the lives of all who offered to come to the Lord's Table. No place more ill adapted to his rubrical rigor could have been found than the Georgia colony was. He quickly estranged his people by his malapropos zeal. From estrangement, the feeling against him soon passed into active hostility. This was carried to its summit by Wesley's folly in con- nection with a young woman of his parish. He be- came enamoured of a Miss Hopke, declared his love, Avas kindly received, and believed that Miss Hopke had promised to marry him. She, however, JohnWeslay ^ , -^ ' ' and Miss thought differently, and married another °^ "■ maji. Wesley, instead of pocketing his chagrin like a man, chose to bear himself in the matter like a priest. If he was not the young lady's husband, he was at any rate her spiritual pastor and m?tster. In this latter capacity he determined to discipline her for the affront which she had put upon him as a man. He excommunicated her for the double-dealing which he alleged and believed she had been guilty of in the affair. His conduct in the premises was more than the Savan- nah people, already irritated against him, could endure. 164 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IX THE COLONIES. Miss Hopke's uncle, Mr. Causten, a ricli and prominent citizen, and a hot-tempered and vindictive man, took up lier quarrel, and led the popular anger against Wesley. The storm was too fierce to stand against. Wesley was compelled to flee. In company with a single friend, he escaped through the swamps, lost his way, lay down exhausted, was resuscitated by the exhibition of a piece of gingerbread which his friend had fortunately carried with him, made his way, more dead than alive, to Beaufort, and sailed away to England. On his way out to Georgia there had chanced to be a little band of Moravians on the same ship with him. Wesley had been deeply impressed with the Wesley and '^ ... the Mora- manner and spirit of their religious life. They had seemed to possess a secret of spiritual peace which he had not. They invited him, if ever he should have the opportunity, to visit the home of their Church at Hernhutt. When he went back to England, having failed to do his work among the Indians, and more than failed with the Savannah whites, disappointed and discredited, he made the intended visit. He found the Moravians to be of his spiritual kin. They recommended him to the friend- ship of one of their own members, Peter Bohler, then living in London. The mystical, Moravian idea that the religious life is in its essence the consciousness of God's presence in the soul, was not unfamiliar to Wesley. He had striven to realize this communion through Sacraments and observances while he belonged to the '' Holy Club." His intimate association with that nonjuring Churchman, William Law, had fixed the THE METHODISTS. 165 same idea deeper in his mind.^ But through his inter- course with Bohler ^ he was led to that great experience which is the key not onl}^ to Wesley's work and char- acter, but also to that great fabric which he builded. ^ , . He records that on the 24th of May, 1738, Wesley s *^ ' ' "conver- while reading Luther's Introduction to the Romans, he was suddenly " converted." He had been for more than a dozen years a priest and preacher, a missionary and a pastor, but, according to the judgment which he ever afterward adhered to, he had never been a Christian. The absolute necessity of con- scious '^ conversion " became from that time the centre of his system. " By it," he says, " I mean an inward impression of the soul whereby the Spirit of God imme- diately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God." ^ He was not the first who believed and taught the same thing, but he was the first who had the power of sustained enthusiasm, the faculty of man- aging men, the genius for organization, which were able to build up about this central tenet a mighty ecclesias- tical empire. The condition of society which he confronted was one which would have appalled a man not sustained by a Desperate profound belief in God's presence with him. rJiigion^^ At the middle of the eighteenth century, England. England touched, probably, the lowest moral and religious point in her history. During more than a century she had been steadily drained of her most 1 Tyerman: Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 88. 2 Stevens: History of American Methodism, p. 27. 8 lb. p. 192. 166 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IN THE COLONIES. vigorous life. The Pui'itan emigration had carried away tens of thousands of her children whose religion, if hard and gloomy, was at any rate real. The deporta- tion of the Quakers had emptied England of enthu- siasm. The old Elizabethan Churchmanship was with- drawn into the secluded haunts of the nonjurors. The most virile and wholesome of her children had long since g-one to the New World. AVhat was left was inert, conventional, weak, helpless, like a depleted system, to resist the inroads of miasma. The miasma had already risen in the form of the cold and Deism. barren deism which then possessed the pop- ular mind. Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Hume, and Tyndal were the teachers who had the public ear. The sordid, debauching reign of the Georges had been established, and its results had begun to show. The moralities, the very decencies of life, Avere forgotten. Blasphemy became the mark of a gentleman.^ To " swear like a lord " was the height of the commoner's ambition. New and strange oaths showed a fertile wit. Gambling was tlie serious business of the court, and the unconcealed recreation of the people. Hogarth shows the fine gentleman meditating suicide after being ruined at play, and the street gamins playing at chuck- farthing on the flat tombstones of St. Paul's Church- yard. Gin was invented, and the street-signs announced unblushingly, that the passer-by could get " drunk for a penny, drunk, with clean straw, for two- Lubricity. I J •> pence." The lubricity of the age matclied its frivolit3^ Most of its literature is now, happily, un- 1 Hore: Eighteen Centuries of the Church in England, p. 455. THE METHODISTS. 167 readable. Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne have not been able even by their genius to rescue it from its dirt. In a literature where Tom Jones, Peregrine Pickle, Kod- erick Random, and Tristram Shandy are the best, what must the worst be ? IVIontesquieu says of the Englisli of that day, '' They have no religion." The age's own judgment of itself appears in the proposal of a parlia- mentary bill, offered half in jest and wholly in earnest, " that the word not should be struck out Avhere it occurs in the Commandments, and inserted in the Creeds ! " Church abuses kept pace with civil ones. A few rich and favored clergy monopolized the livings, and left the Ecciesiasti- i^^^ss of the clcrgy to eke out a miserable cai abuses. livelihood by questionable services to godless patrons,^ or as " Fleet parsons." ^ The clergy w^ere held in popular contempt, and were content to be so.^ A mitre was schemed for, bribed for, begged for, without sense of shame.* When obtained it was prized for the earthly honor it brought, and not for the duty it entailed. Bishops visited their dioceses when it comported with their more serious duties at court. A Welsh bishop who held his see for years never saw it in his life. Confirmations, infrequently held, brought together the young people from miles around for a debauch. Thack- eray violates no probabilities when he presents the Bishop of Bath and Wells bowing and smirking in the 1 Abbey and Overton: Church of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. IG. 2 lb. ii. p. 19. 3 lb. ii. p. 20. 4 lb. ii. p. 26. 168 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. pump-room before the painted, patched, and powdered old Duchess of Yarmouth, the king's mistress.^ What was not probable in a church in which the man who " wept over a dead donkey and left his own mother to starve," received preferment for his " Sentimental Trav- eller"? The Church in that century had great men, great scholars, great bishops, but they pursued their work and lived their lives apart from the people. War- burton, Wake, Bull, Butler, Waterland, and Sherlock have left their mark upon the generations since, but failed to redeem the one in which they lived.^ This was the England which the newly converted Wesley and his co-worker Whitefield confronted. What could be done with it? How could it be brought to a sense of God and to righteousness of life ? The purpose they set before themselves was a simple one. It was not to introduce any machinery of moral The Method- education or scheme of reformation, but to ists' purpose. \)i-ing each individual soul into conscious intercourse with God. No project was ever conceived which appeared more Quixotic. But they set about the task, and measurably accomplished it. They began with the most unpromising. They preached to the Whitefield the drunkards, swearers, and harlots of Drury prsacher and L^^j^g ^q ^\^q brutalized tiu-miners of Corn- V/esley the ' organizGi'. wall, to the keelmen at Newcastle, to the begrimed colliers in Kingswood and Staffordshire. About Whitefield especially the people crowded by the thousand. Five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand people in ' The Virginians. 2 Abbey and Overton: vol. ii. ji. 54. THE METHODISTS. 169 a single congregation listened to liis marvellous voice. He preached all afternoon, and the people refused to disperse when darkness fell. A friend ''held a torch beside him, so that he could see his Bible, and he preached all night; when day broke, ten thousand people were standing and kneeling about him." The '* converted " were quickly numbered by the thousand. Charles Wesley, the sweet singer, set their deep emo- tions to hymns. John Wesley, the born organizer and administrator, gathered together the isolated individuals, set them in " classes," set over each class a "leader," selected earnest and fluent men, and sent them out to travel over " circuits," as Wickliff had done centuries before with his '* poor preachers." He at once became the head and centre of the movement, and remained so till it broke cut of his hands in America. It spread in his own lifetime to Scotland, Ireland, the West Indies, France, and to America. Why did not the Church, to which all the ^Methodist leaders belonged, take it up and thank God for it ? This question has been often asked. The answer is to be found in its central principle of conscious conversion. Xo bishop or priest could join in the Methodist move- ment without either openly declaring that he had had the emotional experience demanded as a condition pre- cedent, — a dsclaration which the majority of Christian men cannot honestly make, — or else openly confessing that he had till that time been outside of the very king- dom of God, — a confession which still fewer w^ll admit.^ ^ The whole attitude of the Church towards Methodism is set out with most admirable candor and intelligence by Abbey: English Church and Bishops in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. pp. 2S8-291. ITO THE ENGLISH CHUllCH IX THE COLONIES. The movement readied America in 1767. In that year the first Methodist society was collected in New Came to York.^ The " Great Awakening," which was America. ^^q^^ at its greatest activity, liad prepared the Avay for it. Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley were at one as to the natnre of personal religion ; bnt Edwards was a philosopher, while Wesley was pre-eminently an org-anizer and a man of affairs. His Methodist machin- o ery took up and monlded the converts of the Edwards movement. But Methodism had a relation to Episcopacy which the " Great Awakening " had not. Whitefield, who represented Wesley here, was a priest of the Church. Those whom he baptized were made thereby mem- bers of the Church of England. The Methodist societies used the Book of Common Prayer Methodists . ' still within in their services, and their people all looked the Church, ^^^j^^ Church for the administration of the Sacraments.^ Up to this point Methodism was simply a society within the Church. If the Church here had been organized, and possessed bishops who could have ordained ministers fast enough to keep pace with the rapidly multiplying Methodist societies, they w^ould in all probability have remained within her boundaries. Wesley besought Lowth, Bishop of London, to ordain at least two priests who could administer the Sacraments to American Methodists. It is doubtful if any single action of a bishop has ever been more fruitful for evil tlian his refusal. At the opening of the Revolutionary 1 McMaster: Histoiy of tlie People of United States, vol. 1. p. 5G. 2 Stevens: History of American Methodism, p. 75. THE METHODISTS. 171 War the Wesleyans had increased to " more than eighty travelling preachers, many local preachers, hundreds of class leaders and exhorters, thousands of members, and •ten thousands of regular hearers/' ^ These all consid- ered themselves to be within the Church, and were so considered both by Wesley and the clergy here.^ But the great spreading branch grew too heavy to be sustained by the slender stem of the American Church. When Wesley despaired of securing clergy from the Bishop of London, in whose jurisdiction the American Methodists The Method- were, he sent Coke and Asbury to take over- ist " bishops." sight of them as " superintendents." When they came they saw the situation more clearly than their patriarch could see it from beyond the sea. He had constructed a Frankenstein machine, which he was not able single-handed to control. The superin- tendents were not restrained by the same high Church- manship which Wesley had always retained side by side with his enthusiasm. They assumed the functions and titles of bishops, organized the scattered societies into the compact empire which Methodism still is, cut the strained ligature which bound it to the Church, started the new sect upon its independent way, and made a new rent in the garment of the Lord. They led out of the Church in America probably one hundred thousand souls. Wesley sat at home and sent out adjurations and anathemas after his recreant super- intendents, but it was too late. Their action was irretrievable. By his laying the whole vveight of the 1 Stevens : p. 181. 2 lb. p. 75. 172 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. Christian system upon a single point, he had destroyed the "proportion of the Faith." The portion of the Church Avhich depended from that point broke away by its own weight. The loss has been unspeakable to both sections. The Church in America lost the most active part of its mem- The loss by bership at the very time when it was about separation, to need them most. Methodism lost the balanced order, the ethical strenuousness, the broad liberality and wholesome reasonableness, which have through good and evil been the possession of the Church. THE EPISCOPATE. 173 CHAPTER XVII. THE EPISCOPATE. Strictly speaking, the Episcopal Church was not present in America as an organized body until after the Revolutionary War. Previous to that time, accord- ing to the generally accepted definition, there Avas here only the material out of which it was afterward to be constructed. Two fundamentally dilfei'ent theories concerning the nature of the Church are now extant. The first is the one which is generally entertained in the United States. To a large majority of persons it Two theories seems SO palpably true and reasonable that oftha Church, ji-g opposite appears grotesque. It is that a church, like a state, is built up from below. The mate- rials from which it is constructed are separate individ- uals, who have given in their adhesion to Jesus Christ by an avowed act of faith. Having established their Christianity as individuals, each independentl}^ of the other, they draw together because they are like-minded, and band themselves into a society which becomes a Church. It is open to them to constitute this society in whatever fashion they see fit. The Holy Scriptures are conceived to be silent upon the whole question of organization, presumably Avith the intention of leaving men free to foUoAv their own judgments here. The 174 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. whole power of ecclesiastical government rests upon tlie consent of the governed. It is a question of votes. By a consensus of opinion and action such a society may make such regulations as it chooses ; may be monarchical, republican, or absolute ; may ordain such and such kinds of officers as it may determine ; may call its officers by any name and may assign to them any duties it will ; and may remove and depose them at pleasure. The individuals may construct such an ecclesiastical machine as they think will be most effi- cient, and then may reasonably expect that the Holy Spirit will lodge in it as its motive power. This is the popular notion and the one generally accepted by Prot- estantism. The other theory is 'that the Church is organized from the summit downward ; that the authority which per- tains to it, and the grace which flows through it, are things which do not depend upon the votes of its units ; that men do not establish their Christianity as isolated souls, but that the Church is concerned even in the original transaction by the individual.^ They who hold to this theory conceive that the essential features of the Church's structure have been long since settled. Whether they might not be changed under the stress of an absolute necessity, is a question they do not seri- ously ask. They wait for such a demonstrable neces- sity to appear, and assert that it never yet has appeared. They declare that "it is evident to all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors, tliat from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Churph, — Bishops, Priests, ' " It [the Holy Spirit] was given corporately, so that they who received it realized at once a unity which preceded any individual action of their ,nvii."— T.ux MuTidi. Now York : E. & J. B. Youncr & Co., 1890, p. 873. THE EPISCOPATE. 175 and Deacons." ^ "While tliey do not assert that this aiTanorement is the result of a cate^forical command of God, still they hold it to be of so potent obligation that it may not be changed except for weightier reasons than have ever yet appeared. This conception of the Churcli is of the essence of Episcopacy. Overwhelmed as it is by popular vote in the United States, it still is the belief held and acted upon by five-sixths of the Christian world. Its acceptance by the members of the English Church in colonial times, put them at an incalculable disadvan- Prao-ticai dis- ^i^gc as compared with their fellow-colonists, advantage of ^p]^g Church was here, as Richard complained th3 Church s \ ^ theory. that he had been sent into the world, '' scarce half made up.'' An Episcopal Church without a Bishop is as a body without a head. The scattered parishes were as the beads of a rosary in which the string is cut, leaving the cross, which should be pendent, to fall helpless upon the ground. At the first settlement of the country the then Bishop of London had chanced to be a stockholder and a member of council in the ''Virginia Company." This fact gave him a vague, advisory oversight of its affairs. His successors for nearly a century followed his example until it became a pre- scriptive right of that see. Bishop Compton in 1703 had it confirmed to him and liis successors by an " Order in Council." ^ But the supervision which the Bishop of London could give to churches farther away than the heart of Australia now is, Avas Avorth but little, ' Prayer-Book: Preface to Ordinal. 2 Abbey: English Church and its Bishops, vol. i, p. 82. 176 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. No order could be guaranteed. Discipline could not be maintained. Confirmation was a physical impossibility. But it was in regard to ordination that the evil of the situation made itself most keenly felt. Other churches Avere here with their complete equi])mento Ordination ., . ^ ^ ^ . and disci- When a siifficient number of Presbyterians found themselves living together in a remote settlement, they chose a man for pastor, and at the most he need not leave the colony to find a Presbytery in session who could lay hands on him. If they were Baptists or Independents they chose a man, and either invited two or three neighboring ministers to join with them, or, in default of that, ordained him themselves. When a Quaker meeting grew too large it swarmed like a hive of bees, and the younger swarm set up for itself. The Roman Catholics and the Churchmen Avere help- less. For a hundred and seventy-five years the Church in America Avas a Japliet in search of a father. The chapter noAV before us is the story of the long, Aveari- some, pitiful, despairing effort to obtain that office Avithout Avhich the Church could not live. As early as 1688 Archbishop Laud had a plan ^ to send out a bishop to New England who might keep as tioflit a hand over the Puritans there as he Early efforts ^ to obtain the Av^as doing over their brethren at home. But the triumph of Parliament, the overthrow of the king, and the loss of his own head prevented liis carrying it into effect. During the CommouAA^ealth, of course, nothing could be expected in the colonies from a Church that Avas at its last gasp at home. 1 Hawkins: Historical Notices, London, 1845, p. 370. THE EPISCOPATE. 177 After the Restoration the Lord Chancellor Clarendon ^ undertook a similar project in Virginia, but a change of ministry and the indifference of the dissolute king brought it to naught. Tenison and Seeker, Archbishops of Canterbury, and Compton, Bishop of London, labored often and vaiuly to secure the same end. From this side of the water the cry for a bishop was never silent. We have already noticed the scheme pro- posed by Cliaplain Miller at the time of the English capture of New York. So far as any difficulty from this side was concerned, his plan was entirely feasible. It was to set aside " the king's farm " in New York, for the support of a suffragan of the Bishop of London, who should liave jurisdiction in all America. So soon as the first hardships of settlement were past and the Church really began to grow, the need became imperative. When Keith and Talbot, the first missionaries of the S. P. G., had completed the tour of investigation which Th9needofit their instructions made their dut}^ they re- patent, ported that the primary need was bishops. Talbot writes to the Society, in 1702,^ " I don't doubt that some good man with one hundred pounds a year would do the Church more service than with a coach and six a hundred years hence." Two years later lie wrote to his friend Keith, " Mr. John Lillingston de- signs, it seems, to go to England next year. He seems to be the fittest person that America affords for the 1 Hawkins : Historical Notices, p. 376. 2 MSS. Letters, vol. xi. p. 335. 178 THE ENGLISH CliUKCII IX THE COLONIES. office of a suffragan. Several of the clergy, both of tlii.^ province and of Maryland, liave said tliey would p:i3' their tenths to him as the vice-gerent of my Lord of London, whereby the I^ishop of America miglit have as honorable provision as some in Europe." In a letter to the secretary of the S. P. G., he speaks with great plainness, urging sharply that when the Apostles heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and Jolm that they might receive the Holy Ghost, not standing upon any question of salary ; that when they heard the Word was preached at Antioch they sent there Paul and Barnabas ; that when Paul did only dream that a man wanted him in INLace- donia, he went all so fast; — "but here we have been calling these so many years, and you will not hear, or will not ansAvei', which is the same thing." He does not undertake to prophesy, but there is such a thing as the kingdom " being taken away from them who will not use it, and given to them who will ! " A convocation of fourteen clergymen at Burlington, N. J., in 1705, signed a petition to the Archbishop, Grsatoppor- representing that many Lutheran and Inde- tunities lost, pendent Ministers were ready to conform if a Bishop were liere to ordain them.^ Li 1709 the officers of the S. P. G. presented a memo- rial to Queen Anne begging that a colonial bishopric might be endowed out of the proceeds of the lands ceded by the Council of Utrecht,^ but the death of the queen put an end to the project. 1 MSS. Letters, vol. xi. p. 335. 2 Abbey: Enj;lish Church and Bishops, vol. i. p. 87. Beardsley: Life of Johnson, p. 15. THE EPISCOPATE. 179 The same year, Governor Xicliolson of Maiyland wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury that " unless bish- op.s can be had, the Church will surely decline." In 1715, the S. P. G. laid before George I. a well- digested scheme for the same purpose. It was proposed The s. P. G.'s ^^^^^ ^o^^^' bishops should be consecrated, one plan. £^j, Barbadoes, one for Jamaica, one to have his seat at Burlington, N. J., and another at Williams- burg, Va. The Northern Diocese was to include all the settlements east of the Delaware, extending to New- foundland ; the Southern Diocese having all west of the Delaware, and reaching to the Spanish possessions. They represented that the college at Williamsburg would provide a place for the one, and that they had purchased, for six hundred pounds, a house and grounds at Burlington for the other. Just then the Scotch re- bellion broke out, and the High Church clergy showed so much sympathy for the Stuart line that the King and his minister, AValpole, would hear nothing further about the Churcli's affairs.^ With a lingering hope in the ultimate fulfilment of the plan. Bishop Tenison left one thousand pounds in his will for the American part of it. In 17(55 a still more promising plan was devised on this side of the sea. In southern Pennsylvania ThePennsyi- there Avere rich manors which had been re- vaniapian. served for the Duke of York. They were not occupied by anybody who could show good title. In the Delaware River were also sundry islands, occu- pied in part by squatters, but which Avere not included in Penn's grant. These together Avould provide ample 1 AISS. Letters, vol. x. p. 28. 180 THE ENGLISH CIIUUCII IX THE COLONIES. endowment for a bishopric, and their resumption for that purpose would disturb no equities.^ Nothing came of it. Nothing came of the petition in which the clergy of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York all joined.- Nothing came of the ap})eals of Cutler and Johnson, and the Commissaries, and hfty others who pleaded for the Episcopate. They represented with truth that for the lack of it the Church was falling into disorder and dis- grace ; that dissenting ministers in plenty were ready to conform, but were not willing to cross the sea for ordination ; that of those who had crossed, one-fourth, by actual count, had been lost at sea, captured by pirates, shipwrecked, or died of smallpox in England. But their prayers, joined with those of the officers of the S. P. G., of Tenison, Compton, and Seeker, had been fruitless, — and why? Why was an action appar- ently so easily done, so desired by the parties concerned, and so essential to the Church's welfare, persistently refused ? The fundamental reason was that same entanglement of Church with State which had nearly choked out all Reasons of Spiritual life. The Church of England, par- the failure. alyzed by this fatal alliance, had lost the power not only to act but even to think for herself. But even if she had had the power to do her duty to her far-away children, she, for the most part, had neither the knowl- edge nor the good-will requisite. Britisli ignorance of American affairs is even now a standing jest. That 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa. p. 373. 2 Smith: Life of Dr. William Smith, vol. i. p. 270. THE EPISCOPATE. 181 density which cannot perceive an American witticism, which looks for buffalo about the suburbs of Xew York and wild Indians in the streets of Chicago, two hundred years ago was still more hopeless. The English piqued themselves upon their ignorance and indifference. xV few bishops and agents of the S. P. G., and the vulgar merchants of the City, were fairly well informed ; but, as a rule, the people gave no thought to the plantations. Especially were they indifferent to matters pertaining to the Church.^ That sense cf personal responsibility for the progress of the body,~ which marks the member- ship of a voluntary Church, is not to be expected in an Establishment. In it it is the business of the official class to make plans and execute them. Could English- men have realized at all the mighty destiny of the then neglected colonies, they w^ould, of course, have acted differently towards them ; but tliis sort of knowledge is too much to expect of any generation. As the feeling then was, the suggestion of a bishop for the colonies seemed to the ordinary mind the most grotesque of Th3 current incongruities. It was as though a serious ths Epi'copa^ proposal had been made to send a sword of office. state to the King of the Cannibal Islands, or a coach and six to Prester John. The current con- ceptions of what a bishop was, and what a '' planta- tion " was, were two notions which would not fit together. A bishop was a dignitar}^ a peer, a being of exalted state, as much for show as for use, but indis- pensable to the right constitution of things, — in P^ng- land. The modern idea of an Apostolic Bishop was not 1 White: Memoirs, New York, 1880, p. 75. 182 THE ENGLISH CHUKCH IX THE COLONIES. tliiiikable. Such a creature had not been seen for so many centuries that his memory had faded out. They were not capable of imagining a bishop who had no connection with the State, no artificial dignity, simply an Apostolic man, going about like Selwyn or Clia^e, in the humblest guise, without state or ceremonial or guaranteed livelihood even, mindful of his work for Christ and His Church. The officer which the Ameri- can Church asked was an official which the English Churchmen could not then picture to themselves. To this difficulty of the understanding, the moral darkness of the eighteenth century added a difficulty of spirit. The great men of the Church were writing books ; the little men were scheming for preferment ; the mass was careless of the whole matter.^ Besides this there was the long-continued feeling of distrust of Churchmen, entertained by the civil power.^ To the secular official's way of thinking, there were too many bishops already. '' Priestcraft " was one of the cries of the day. No action would be permitted, if politicians could help it, which would even seem to be in the interest of the sacordotal order. The^e \vere the obstacles in the mother country, — ignorance, indifference, prejudice, political entangle- ments, and secular iealousies. By the tim3 Fearoftha • ., 4^ i • office in th3 they wcre m the way ot bemg overcome, coiomgs. ^ dangerous opposition to Episcopacy had developed in the colonies them^elves.-^ 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Mass. p. 075. 1 Abbey and Overton: English Church in Eighteenth Century, vol. i pp. 39, 40. 2 Abbey: English Church and its Bishops, vol. i. pp. 35, 3(5. 3 Baird : Ueligiou in America, u. 182. THE EPISCOPATE. 183 The idea of an ultimate separation from England, or, rather, of securing a home rule for the colonies, began to be entertained at a much earlier date than is generally supposed.! Indeed it was present to some thought of minds from the very first. It was openly separation, charged against the colonies, during the long contests over their charters, that their purpose was to break away entirely from English authority. It cannot be said that this was their purpose in the way of being before their minds in the shape of a definite design ; but it was in the form of a dream which many loved to entertain. In truth the war for independence became a future certainty the day the first permanent settle- ment was made. The necessity was in the situation. Some saw it early ; some saw it clearly ; but all felt it instinctively. Out of this instinct arose the strenuous opposition which the great body of colonists showed to the introduction of the Episcopate. It commenced to manifest itself as soon as the dream of ultimate separa- tion began to be clearly defined, and continued until separation became a fact, when it suddenly ceased. The ground of the opposition was twofold, political and ecclesiastical. In form tlie long controversy was a discussion concerning the right and scriptural organiza- tion of the Church ; but in spirit it was a political contest. '' The whole body of the Puritans were deter- mined to resist the introduction of bishops into America. Thev feared lest these might use all the authority of 1 Sabine: Loyalists of tlie American Revolution, vol. i. p. 65. ^ Abbej^: Englisli Church and Bishops, vol. i. p. 88. 1 Caswall: The American Clmrcli and the American Union, p. 73. 184 THE ENGLISH CHUliCH IN THE COLONIES. the Crown to destroy Puritaiiisin and establish Prel- acy." ^ The j)i'iinary objection to bishops was that they were officers of the Crown ; opposition to them as being officials unknown to Scripture and the primitive Church was an after-thought. No question was discussed in colonial times which so seriously enlisted the inter- est of the people as did this one. The controversy raged intermittently for seventy years. Checkly, Johnson, Beach, Apthorp, and Chandler maintained the Church's side.^ They Avere answered by Dick- inson, Mayliew, Chauncey, and a hundred others, from the Dissenters' standpoint. Pamphlets, broadsides, let- ters, newspaper skits, " Questions Stated," " Replies to Questions Stated," and "Answers to Replies to Questions Stated," kept the printers busy for years. It is much the custom for Church writers to assume that the opposition to the Episcopate was but the out- come of the wanton and gratuitous enmity of those who hated the Church. Both charity and fact con- demn this assumption. The situation being what it then was, there was good and substantial ground for opposition. The fundamental political question which was opened when the origiual charters were withdrawn, TIi3l3gal , ^ , ctatusofthe and which remained open till the Revolu- tion, was : What is the legal status of the colonies ? ^ Were they an integral part of the kingdom ? 1 Briggs: American Presbyterianism, p. 143. 2 White : Memoirs, p. 73. 3 Smitli: History of New York, pp. 220-228. 3 Sabine: Loyalists of tlie Revolution, vol. i. p. 24. 3 McMaster: History of the United States, vol. i. p. 33. THE EPISCOPATE. 185 Or did their charters give them an autonomy? These two contentions were the opposite poles of the dispute. If the former were the true principle, then English law and custom were of obligation at every point where they w^ere not estopped by the distinct 2^rovision of a charter. Now the Church Establishment was part and parcel of the English law. It was seriously contended that it was ipso facto established here also ; " thau the constitutional laws of the mother country, antecedent to the legislatures of our own, are binding upon us ; and therefore at the planting of the colony the English religious Establishment innnediately took place ; sec- ondly^ that the Act which established the Episcopal Church in South Britain, previous to the union of Eng- land and Scotland, extended to and equally affected all the colonies." ^ If this contention of Churchmen were Avell founded, then bishops, if they came here at all, would come with the whole power of English law behind them. No matter what assurances they might give that they had only spiritual purposes in view, they would still be invested with secular powers which they could not renounce if they wanted to; and human nature being what it is, they could not be trusted to confine themselves to spiritual weapons Avhile they would have such potent secular ones ready to hand. John Adams's " ^^ Parliament can tax us," says John opinion. Adams, "they can establish the Church of England with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies, and tithes, and prohibit all other Churches as conventi- cles and schism shops." ^ Adams was clearly right ; at 1 Smith: History of New York, p. 220. '^ John Adams: Works, vol. x. p. 287. 186 THE ENGLISH CllUrvCII IX THE COLONIES. any rate he expressed the honest belief of the great majority on both sides of the question. Dr. Chandler's sincerity is not to be questioned when he asserted that " the bishops proposed were to have no temporal power, no maintenance from the colonies, to be confined to the exercise of their spiritual functions only." ^ This was all ver}^ well, but Avho was to guarantee that the bishops, if they came, would take the same view of the case? And if they should take a different view, what, upon the Tory theory of the political status, w\as to liinder them from carrying it out to the discomfiture of dissenters ? The Episcopal advocates Fear of the • i i i Episcopate themselvcs let out unconsciously that the well founded. ^.^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^.^^^ .^^ ^^^.^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ .^^^ ^j^^ meek and apostolic creature described. Every scheme proposed began with a ''sufficient provision for his dignified maintenance." The power which he would be to allay political disaffection, is constantly dwelt upon in the letters of the Venerable Society's mis- sionaries.2 " I'he King is thoroughly sensible that the Episcopalians are his best friends." ^ The clergy here were careful to sustain this conviction of the King. The people generally knew this to be tlie case. They feared, and under the circumstances had reason to fear, the consequences which might flow from allowing the Church to set up her powerful machinery here in its entirety. This apprehension was not confined to dis- senters or even Church laymen. In 1771, only twelve out of the one hundred clergy in Virginia joined in ^ Boai-dsloy: Life of Soabnry, p. 73, 2 Perry: Historical Collections, pasA'im. 3 Abhov: Eiiulisli (Minrcli and IJisliops, vol. i. p. 3G4. THE EPISCOPATE. 187 a petition to the Crown for an American bishop. A larger convention than the one which adopted the measure rejected it, and four of them sent their pro- test against it to the Virginia House of Burgesses, — ahnost all of which were Churchmen, — and received the formal thanks of the House for their patriotic action.^ FcAV clergy indeed sympathized with these four, but the significant thing is that there were any such. The truth would seem to be, that in the face of the dissenting opposition, the support which the opposition Bishops im- received from the dissenters and the colonial ^t'eftliV'" agents in England, the indifference of the Revolution. American laity, the apathy of the English clergy, and the impotence of the bishops who moved in the matter, there was no time, from the opening of the eighteenth century till the close of the Revolution, when it would have been possible to have a bishop consecrated for America.^ This was the judgment to which the clergy them- selves reluctantly came.^ Some among them despaired entirely. Some began to turn their thoughts elsewhere — to the Swedish or Moravian Church. Not a few of the clergy in the Middle and Southern colonies entertained the idea of an " Independent Episcopal Church." Dr. id^^aofan Smith wrote to the Bishop of London in "indspend- 1776, ''The rest are a mixed sort, cliiefly for ent Church-" an Independent Church of England — a strange sort of church indeed ! But tlie notion gains too much ground here even among the clergy. I believe 1 White : Memoirs, i?. 76. 2 White: Memoirs, p. 75. 8 Smith: LiTe of Dr. Smith, vol. i. p. 387. 188 THE EXGLTSH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. your lordship will perceive something of this sort not altogether pleasing if the resolves of a majority of the last Jersey Convention come before you, against commis- saries, and preferring thereto a kind of presbyterian or synodical self-delegated government by conventions." ^ This idea was developed by Dr. White of Philadelphia, in 1 782, in his celebrated pamphlet, " The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered." ^ Dr. White did not Dr v/hite's speak for himself alone, by any means, when plan. \iQ 23roposed his plan. His scheme assumed that the hope of obtaining the Episcopate from Eng- land had been demonstrated to be impossible, and had been abandoned. In that case there seemed to him to remain but the alternatives of permanent anarchy, or such an organization as could be made out of the mate- rials present. He proposed that (a) the clergy and lay delegates from the parishes, in definite districts to be defined, should combine in an organization which might be called a Diocese or a Synod or what not; (5) that these organizations should, at the outset, record tlieir attachment to Episcopacy, and their determination to secure it when God should open the way thereto ; (tc. THE EPISCOPATE. 189 The ijopular judgment concerning the matter was fairly stated by Benjamin Franklin, who expressed his The popular amazement that devout and learned men who judgment. were fully qualified to instruct and pray for their neighbors should hesitate to do so without taking the pains to cross the sea for the purpose of securing " the permission of a cross old gentleman at Canterbury." ^ But whatever might be the theories held as to the succedaneums proposed, the fact was patent that the question of the Episcopate was involved in the deeper question of the legal position of the colonies, and that that question could only be decided by the stern arbi- trament of the sword. 1 McMaster: History of the United States, vol. 1. p. 232. 190 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER XVIII. A SURVEY. It is not easy to reproduce a picture of a past time, but it will be of interest to pause here to take a Ijroad view of the condition of the Colonial Cliurch at the period immediately preceding the War of Independence. It had then extended from the chief towns and settle- ments on the seaboard, where it had first gained a lodge- Spread of the inent, to the new places of the second rank. Church. ^^ ^]^Q opening of the century it had been found only at such places as Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelpliia, Charleston, and on the Virginia coast. Now there were parishes at Falmouth and Casco, besides the old one at Portsmouth ; at Salem, Dedham, Marblehead, in Massachusetts; at Bristol, R. I., and New-England towns of a similar class. When New Hampshire, with its territorial appendage Vermont, had a Cliurchman for its governor at the middle of the cent- ury, it was determined to endow the Church from its public lands. A half-section in each townsliip in Ver- mont was set apart for this purpose, but the j^eople from whom the surveyors were taken being hostile, the sec- tions were located in swamps, on mountain tops, and in the bottoms of lakes, so that but little else came of it than came of all similar attempts ; tliat is, the ill-will A SURVEY. 191 of the people and small gain to the Church.^ In Con- necticnt alone can it be said that striking snccess had In Conn-cti- h3en achieved. The drift toward the Church c^t. f,f England, which b^gan with the President of Yale College and his colleagues, had steadily spread. The people came in in large numbers.^ There was to be found there a native-born clergy, of a far higher char- acter and education, and with more intelligent and pro- nounced views concerning the Church, than was the rule elsewhere. Even after the war, during which the Church had been torn to pieces and hundreds had moved away, there were still to be found twenty clergy and forty thousand Church people in that colony .^ In it there had never been any of those impotent attempts at legal coercion which the Church essayed elsewhere. There was no bad blood, no memories of legal violence. There was a fair parish at'the Dutch town of Albany, little churches at Rye, Jamaica, Hempstead, and on Staten Island,"^ beside the strong and grow- in N3W York. . 1 • A- A- 1 T 4-V 4- mg Church m Aew i ork. In tiiat province the Episcopalians A\'ere reckoned at about one-fifteenth of the population.^ Burlington, N. J., was one of the centres of Church life, and the seat of one of New Jersey and Pennsyi- the proposed bishopries. In Pennsylvania vania. missions had pushed as far west as Lancaster, and even Carlisle, with the nucleus of a parish on the Juniata. In the South there had been' a distinct retra 1 Caswall : American Church and American Union, p. 73. 2 Beardsley: History of tlie Cliurch in Connecticut, vol. i. passim. 3 Beardsley : Life of Seabury, p. 137. 4 Smith: History of Xew York. 4 Briggs: American Presbyter ianism, p. 109. 5 Smith: History of Xew York, p. 218. 192 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. gression.^ Even in faithful old Virginia dissenters were two to one. 2 The results of the fatal breach between Condition in clergy and people had already appeared there, the South. Keligious indifference prevailed everywhere; churches were falling into neglect and ruin ; many of the clergy had withdrawn ; still more could have done so to advantage ; the few faithful men Avho remained lamented and despaired.^ Further south the condi- tion was scarcely better. There were two churches in Charleston, — an increase of one in eighty years, — and six meeting-houses."^ But the clergy of South Carolina were, as a rule, zealous men, and had the great advan- tage of being able generally to take the side of their people against England.^ All the parishes from Maine to Georgia belonged to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. Except in Virginia and Maryland the clergy Avere practically all missionaries of the " British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." The conversion of the native Indians, which had been so prominent in the early plans of the Church, had D-cayofind- '"^li^^^^^t entirely failed and been abandoned, ian Missions, jj^ i\^q South, where the promise for this work had once been best, it had gradually died away aj negro slavery became more and more firmly established. The low estimate of the intrinsic value of a human being, which slavery unconsciously creates, had operated to 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. pp. 141-143. * Lodge : History of the Colouies, p. 57. 3 lb. p. 58. 4 lb. p. 170. C' lb. p. 17(J. A SURVEY. 193 put an end to missionary work among savages. In the North a struggling mission was still maintained among the Mohawks,! but it, too, was soon to be swept away by the imminent war. Speaking broadly, there cannot be said to have been any permanent Avork of any church effected among the Indians until they had become so surrounded and hemmed in by the white population that their restless savagery was to a degree restrained. The success was earliest and most marked among those tribes which were already partly civilized and fixed in their habitat when the whites first saw them.^ At the period before us they had only just laid down the tomaliawk and butcher-knife, which they had carried for so long at the instigation of the French, and Avere about to take them up again in the pay of the English. By the colonists they were feared and loathed as monsters compounded of wolf and fiend. The Church growth was very unequal in different localities. The accession from Quakers in Pennsyl- Sources of ^'^ni^^ which had set in at a very early period, &^^°- still continued. The reports of the mission- aries in the outlying counties constantly record the baptism of these people and their children. The rapid growth in Connecticut has been already noticed. In New York and New Jersey the great gain was from the Dutch. The hereditary enmities which separated other Presbyterians from the Church did not operate among them. There had been differenjes, of course, but there was no deep-seated rancor on either hand. They deeply 1 Perry: History, vol. i. p. 3:!3. 2 Parkman: Discovery of the Great AVest, p. '275. 2 Liggiiis: Value and Success of Foieign Missions, p. 157. 194 THE ENGLISH ClIUKCIl IX THE COLONIES. sympathized with the Church in one important })tirticu- hxr; they also felt bound to cross the sea for ordination. ^ When a schism was effected among themselves upon this question, and an ''American Dutch Church" was From the ^^^ ^U^'^ many of the dissatisfied on either Dutch. i^,^jj(^[ (3^^^^g to the English Church. But the most active cause was the stolid tenacity with which they held on to tlie Dutch tongue in their public wor- ship, long after their children and youth had ceased to be at home in it. Tliese became restive and came numerously to the Church, where they could hear Eng- lish spoken. When the elders did bring themselves to give up their Dutch, it was too late ; their children had become Episcopalians.^ In Philadelphia the Dutch congregation offered to come over in a body if the Bishop of London would ordain their minister. The Lutheran Coetus in Pennsylvania made the same proposition, and the Swedish Commissary offered to lead the movement, and to conduct the negotiations between the two Churches, in both of which his own ministry Avas recognized.^ Had there been a bishop resident there is every reason to believe that a perma- nent coalescence might have been effected between both 1 Gunn: Memoirs of Dr. Livingston, New York, 18211, jip. 92, 93. 2 lb. p. 94. ^ A Mr. Livingston, a member of tbe Dutch Cliurch, writes in 1770: " Had tliis been done thirty yenrs ago tlie Dutch Congregation would liave been mucli more immerous than it is now. The greatest part of the Episo()))al Church consists of the accessions they have had from the Dutch Church." And he adds tliat though Dutch was his own mother tongue, lie could not understand a sermon half so well in it as he could in English; and as for his children, " there was not one that understood a sentence in Dutch." Memoirs of Dr. Livingston, p. 108, 4 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa., pp. oG7, .39().432. A SURVEY. 195 these bodies and this Church, as coukl also have been done with the ]Methodists ten years Later. The constant comphiint of the time was that there were not enough clergy to go in and possess the places Lack of which offered. Young men thought twice clergy. before they ventured upon the dangers of shipwreck and smallpox, as Avell as the great expense, which were involved in a journey to England for ordi- nation. ^ With the meagre means at her hand the Churcli had done much in the way of education, but at the date before us was being left behind in this race by the other churches. The institutions now known as Columbia College and the University of Pennsylvania had both been established under Church auspices, and in- both instances had for their primary object to increase the ministry .2 They had clergymen for their organizers and first presidents, but as the political issue grew more clearly pronounced they passed more and more out from under Episcopal influence. The Church life was affected, as it always is. by the prevailing moral habits of the age. Public and private statsofre- ^lorals never reached so low an ebb in the hgion. colonies as they did in the mother country ; but still they were low enough. The Deism and its attendant loosening of moral sanctions, wdiich domi- nated the popular life of England, affected America also. Tom Paine, the most effective writer on the Colonial side of the political issue, gained in that way 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa., p. ioi passinu ' Pern: History, vol. i. cli. xxxiii. 196 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. the popularity wliicli made his cheap and taking infi- delity spread among the people. It never ran into that superfluity of naughtiness which forms so strange a chapter in the history of modern England, but rather produced a low standard of righteousness, and a sordid manner of life. The typical man of his time was Benjamin Franklin. He had been longer known and exercised more influ- ence in every department of life than any Influenc3 of . * • tt xi i i Benjamin Other man m America. Upon the moral and Franklin. religious side this influence was wholly bad. His autobiography showed that the gross offences of his own early life Avere repented of, not because they had been sinful, but because they had been fool- ish. They were to be avoided by other young men, not because they were hateful to God and left stains upon the soul, but because they hindered earthly suc- cess. The mean and cautious maxims of Poor Richard "passed into the daily speech of the people, were quoted in sermons, were printed on the title-pages of pamphlets, and used as matter by the newspaper moral- ists of the day, and continued to be read with avidity even down to tlie Revolution." ^ They contain no high or noble motive. They are all the maxims of a selfish man, and all such as might be kept with ease by an impure man. They tended to dry up the springs of religion. As the thoughts of a man who was ratlier non-religious than irreligious, they fairly reflect the spirit of a non-religious age. Franklin was the repre- sentative man of his generation. Unquestionably great 1 McMaster: Life of Benjamin Franklin, p. ll."^. A SURVEY. 197 in science, in statesmanship, in diplomacy and affairs, he was utterly incaj)able of understanding things which the world has always deemed of prime importance. Nominally a Churchman, he poked fun at those who sought the Ej^iscopate. A man of letters, he produced a paraphrase of the Book of Job which he considered to be better English than King James's translation,^ and made a Prayer-Book ^ which could only be of use to such as had no sense of devotion. But his age was like him, and he had largely made it so, in iU lack of spiritual earnestness. It is difficult now to conceive how coarse and cruel life in America was a century ago. " Redemptioners " 1 KIXG JAMES'S. Verse 6. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before tlieLord, and Satan came also amongst them. 7. And the Lord said unto Satan, "Wlience comest thou? Tlien Satan answered the Lord and said, From go- ing to and ho in the earth and from walking up and down in it. 8. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upriglit man, one thatfeareth God and escheweth evil? 9. And Satan answered the Lord and said, Doth Job fear God for naught ? 3 Beardsley: Life of FRANKLIN. Verse 0. And it being levee day in Heaven, all God's no- bility came to court to present themselves before him ; and Satan also appeared in the circle, as one of the ministry. 7. And God said unto Satan You have been some time ab- sent ; where were you? And Satan answered, I have been at my country seat, and in differ- ent places visiting my friends. 8. And God said. Well, what think you of Lord Job ? You see he is my best friend, a per- fectly honest man, full of re- spect for me, and avoiding everything that might offend me. 9. And Satan answered, Does your majesty imagine that his good conduct is the effect of personal attachment and affec- tion? — McMaster: Benjamin Franklin, p. 87. Seabury, p. 243. 198 THE ENGLISH CHURCH TX THE COLONIES. and apprentices Avent half clad, slept in garrets, ate cold meat in the kitchen, and were acquainted with Coarseness ^^^® cudgel. The man who was unfortunate of the age. enough to owe a few dollars was sent to a gaol so vile that it cannot here be even described. Pj-ison- ers for debt and for crime were herded together as re- gardless of sex as if they had been so many beasts. Even in Connecticut, convicts were confined in an underground cave, reeking with filth, chained by the neck to iron bars. In Massachusetts ten crimes, and in Delaware twenty, were punishable by death. The whole machinery of reform and the administration of charity with which the Church is identified now, was wanting. Soldiers and sailors Avere flogged half to death for petty offences. The stocks, the pillory, and the Avhipping-post stood in the public square, and their victims Avere pelted by the rabble. A public hanging Avould draw a croAvd from miles around. Women Avho liad been convicted of larceny Avere carted doAvn Broad- Avay to the Avhipping-post, and received thirty -nine lashes each.i Xhe year the Revolutionary AVar began, tAvo men Avere burned at the stake at Poughkeepsie, for arson .2 Within thirty years of the same date, men had been burned, hung alive in chains, and broken on the Avheel, in Ncav York.^ Education was general among the better classes in the North, but in the South it Avas neither possessed nor desired. There, but fcAV gentle- men Avere able to Avrite an intelligent letter,^ and the common people could neither read nor Avrite at all. ' Lodge: History of English Colonies, p. 324. 2 lb. p. 324. 3 lb. p. 322. 4 lb. p. 75. A SURVEY. 199 Social distinctions were sharply drawn. Rights of precedence were as strenuously insisted upon as at the Social dis- French Court. The - quality " were clearly tinctions marked off from the common folk. In the drawn?" Xew England meeting-houses it was still the custom to '' dignify the congregation." Grave and dis- creet persons assigned pews to the families according to their standing and position. While this was not done formally in the parishes of the Church of England, it still was substantially. In point of fact, the Church was confined to the aristocracy either of education or of posi- tion. In New England it was tlie former, in the other colonies the latter.^ It contained the frequenters of the provincial governor's mimic court, the county fami- lies in Virginia and Maryland, the collectors of the ports, the great merchants, the judges and lawyers, the refined, cultivated, and fashionable. The church buildings — where they possessed any architectural style at all— were of the petty elaborate- . ,.., , ness of Sir Christopher Wren. Himself the Arcnitect- ^ i j? ure. son of a clergyman and the grandson o± a bishop, he had set his mark upon church architecture, which it retained in America long after it had been out- grown in England. In a collected group of his English parish churches, one can see whence came the New- England meeting-house and the colonial church.^ The services were what would now be deemed intol- erably bare, cold, and lifeless. The surplice was rarely used. There were probably not above a score in America. 1 Perry: Histoiy, vol. i. p. i46. Geo. C. Mason, architect: in Lippincott's Magazine, Nov. 1885. 200 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. The " gown and bands " Avas the usual vestment. The ^' clerk," from his stall below the reading-desk, made Church ^^^® responses, and announced the liymns,i ssrvices. ^yith the formula " Let us sing to the praise and glory of God." The congregation sat while sing- ing ; 2 when the custom of standing was introduced in 1814, it was considered a portentous ritual innovation, requiring action by the House of Bishops.^ At the Prayers it was not the custom for any but communi- cants to kneel,* the others sitting in a respectful atti- tude. The Holy Communion was celebrated quarterl}^ or, in a very few places, monthly ; and the proportion of communicants to the congregation was very small. Confirmation, of course, could not be had, and the Confirma- nature and purpose of the rite had well-nigh tio"- been forgotten. Bishop White was never con- firmed at all,^ and it is doubtful if Bishop Seabury was.^ 1 Ayres : Life of Dr. JMuhlenberg, pp. 4<5, 47. 2 White: Memoirs, p. 30. 3 Perry: Half-CenUiry of Legislation, p. 424. 4 Ayres: Life of Dr. Muhlenberg, p. 25. 5 Dr. Muhlenberg says: " We recollect distinctly Bishop White telling us that he had never been con finned, and his adding, moreover, that the English bishops were not in the practice of confirming those who came over from this country for ordination." Ayres: Life of Dr. Muhlenberg, p. 50. 6 Dr. Beardsley, whose opinion must always carry weight, insists strenuously that Bishop Seabury must have been confirmed, becauso of the stress he always laid upon the rite after he became a bishop himself. This a priori argument, however, hardly overcomes the facts: flrsf, tluit there is no record of or allusion to his confirmation; and second, that the bishop who ordained him was the most unlikely of all to insist upon a neglected ordinance. " Thomas of Lincoln is spoken of as a worthy man, but too fond of the company of people of rank, and sadly forgetful of his promises. He squinted terribly, and was very deaf; but his never-failing humor and facetiousness made him an amusing companion. George II. delighted in liis society, and brought l»im over, with promises of promoticm, from his chaplaincy in Hamburg." Abbey: English Church and its Bishops, vol. ii. p. 75. A SURVEY. 201 A favorite mode of raising tlie money to build churches was b}^ lotteries, which were conducted under State control.! The clergy were never spoken of as '' priests," but always as clergymen or ministers, and, if the order was meant to be designated, as Presbyters or Deacons. Their stipends were, for the most part, painfully meagre. Probably there were not more than five which reached one hundred and fifty pounds a year. The minister at Lancaster, Pa., complains that he cannot possibly support himself and family of eleven persons on less than one hundred pounds annually .^ To take away from such ill-paid clergy, in part, at least, their cruel anxiety for the future of their families, a society had been formed in 1769, called, in the long- winded fashion of the time, " The Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Children of Clergymen in the Communion of the Church of England in America." ^ At the outbreak of the war the society already pos- sessed a fund of nearly fifteen thousand pounds. When the war had ended, this society became the meeting- place of the scattered parishes, and the rally ing-point for the disorganized Church. 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa. pp. 374, 376. 3 Per^y ^History, vol. i. p. (U7, where an excellent sketch of this noble charity is given by the late John William Wallace, LL.D. 202 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. CHAPTER XIX. THE AVAR OF INDEPENDENCE. In 1765 the treaty which slnit the French out of North America was signed by EngLand and France. "Well," said the French minister as he signed it, "so we are gone ; England will go next." His prophecy was quite correct. It had been fear of the French and their savage allies on the western frontier that kept the colonies from bringing their differences with England to a settlement long ago. Now that danger was gone. Before that they had two foes to consider, now they had but one. The questions at issue were fundamental. Theinsvita- ^^^^® ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ Revolution, like that of the bie conflict. Great Rebellion, was one of the inevitables. The social, the political, and, above all, the commercial interests of the two countries, were radically opposed. Absolute submission, peaceable separation, or fight, were the only alternatives. Men shut tlieir eyes to the situ- ation, and sought diligently for some fourth course, but there w^as none. In ten years from the French peace the issue was made up. Virginia and Massachusetts, the two oldest colonies, where the seeds of strife had had longest time to grow and ripen, led the American side. Though the issue seems simple now, in the light of its result, it did not seem so then. The popu- THE WAR OF IXDEPEXDENCE. 203 lace divided itself roughly into three classes. First, the great mass of the people, who were inert, apathetic, dreaded the possible calamity of war, and hoped that somebody would hit upon a waj^ of adjusting the diffi- culties peaceably. Second, the small party of ultra " Tories," Avho could not conceive of opposition to the powers that be, and looked for relief from the clemency of the king. Third, the small party of patriots who looked forward to, and through, the coming struggle, and burned to have the question settled, by peaceable measures if possible, by war if need be. But in such cases events move rapidly, and j^recipi- tate popular judgment. As men's passions grew more Equal division ^^^^ move engaged, these two parties made of parties. forays upon the passive mass, and bore away recruits into either camp. When the two ultimate parties were finally made up they were nearly equally balanced, and remained so until the fortunes of war weakened the Tory side. Even in Massachusetts a majority were at first opposed to the war. The bill which gave it sanc- tion was twice defeated b}^ the Legislature before it was finally passed. In Connecticut the opposition was still more numerous.^ In New York the jDarties were so equallv divided that when the Provincial Congress chanced to receive notices upon the same day, in 1775, that General Washington was about to cross the Hud- son on his way to the headquarters at Cambridge, and that General Tryon had arrived in the harbor and was about to disembark, they ordered the colonel command- ing the militia so to dispose of his forces that he could ^ Sabiiie: Loj-alists in the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 27. 204 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IX THE COLONIES. receive " either tlie General or Governor Tryon, which- ever should first arrive, and wait upon tliem both as well as circumstances would allow." ^ In the far South the situation was the same. Tlie South Carolina patriots and Tories were equally matched in numbers, and drifted into a savage erimity against each other, which was marked throughout the Avar by atrocities in which each side outdid the other.^ In the early years of the war, as many as forty thousand Tories enlisted in the king's forces.^ But a far larger number, unable to stem the Exodus of popular current, and finding tlieir lives in the Tori3s. colonies intolerable, left the country. They went back to England, emigrated to Canada, to Nova Scotia, to the Barbadoes, and to the Spanish settlements. Eleven hundred left Boston in a single day.* They in- cluded all classes of people, — members of the council, merchants, clergymen, farmers, mechanics, traders. The mother and sister of Gouverneur Morris took the Tory side, and left the country. Ten thousand left New York alone at the time of its evacuation. Those wlio remained were roughly handled. They became the target of all popular abuse, were lampooned, defrauded of their debts, mo])bed, shot at from thickets, tarred and feathered, smothered in smoke-houses like flitches of bacon, had their cattle killed and their houses burned, — and, where tliey had the opportunity, retaliated in kind. The significant thing to us is that, as a I'ule, they were Episcopalians. The Presbyterians and Baptists in the * Sparks: Life of Wasliington. 2 Sabine: Loyalists, vol. i. p. 42. 2 lioosevelt: Winning of the West, vol. ii. ch. ix. 3 Sabine: Loyalists, vol. i. p. 71. 4 lb., vol. i. p. 25. THE WAR OF IXDEPEXDEXCE. 205 Southern, and, with but few exceptions,^ the Puritans in the Eastern colonies, threw themselves Avith enthusi- aun into the quarrel, on the American side.^ The posi- tion of the Churchmen was perplexing. They liay Church- man's posi- were more closely bound to l^ngland than ^'°^' were their dissenting fellow-citizens. A large proportion of the laity, and almost the whole of the clergy, remained steadfast in their allegiance to the Crown until the end. But the situations of the laity and the clergy were not the same. The layman was attached to the English Church only on its spiritual, and not its secular side. The clergyman was bound by a double bond. Laymen who^e political beliefs led them that way could at the same time say their prayers from the Prayer-Book and fight against the king. They violated no sanction of conscience or previous obligation in so doing. From this class came an extraordinary propor- tion of the leaders of the Revolution. "Washington and Patrick Henry were devout communicants. Franklin was £ Churchman, so far as he had any religion at all. The Morrises, Livingston, Sterling, Jay, Richard Henry Lee, Madison, ]\Iorgan, the Pendletons, and the Pinck- neys, are but examples of the men whom the Clmrch contributed to the American side. But the position of the clergy was vastly different. Situation of ^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^^ place, a large proportion were the clergy. English by birth and education. Nearly all, except in Virginia and Maryland, were missionaries of the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- 1 Like Dr. Byles, for example. 2 Baird: Religion in America, p. 215. 206 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. eign Parts/' Their livx^ihood was at stake. At any sign of '' disloyalty" tlieir stipends would be cut off,^ and starvation would confront them. But, above all, each one, at his ordination, had definitely sworn perpetual allegiance to the king. This oath was the insuperable difficulty. It was recorded with the Bishop of London, and also in their own consciences. A very small class, insignificant in number but great in character and influ- ence, believed themselves to have been absolved by the authority of circumstances. They reasoned with them- selves that the ordination oath of allegiance to the king was but the historic declaration tliat priests must be obedient and docile citizens ; that it did not mean liter- ally to King George, but to the "powers that be," for which the king there stood; that when those powers were transferred, by forces with which they had nothing to do, to another rule under which they found themselves living, their allegiance was due to the new authority. They argued that tlie situation here was the same that had been in England at the Revolution of 1688. The great mass of the bishops and clergy had then trans- ferred their allegiance from the de jure to the de facto king. Why should they not make a similar transfer of obedience to the Republic ? Being thus convinced, sturdy Dr. Muhlenberg accepted Patriot ^^^^ captain's commission, donned his new clergy. uniform, put on his gown over it, preached an earnest sermon to his thronged congregation upon the duty of the hour; then laid liis gown over the reading- 1 Perry: Historical Collectiors. vol. Mass. pp. 602; 609. 1 White: Memoirs, p. l.'J. THE WAR OF IXDEPENDEXCE. 207 desk, marched out of church, stood at the door with a recruiting sergeant's roll in hand, and enlisted a whole battalion of Continental troops on the spot.^ Dr. White of Philadelphia became Chaplain of the Continental Congress, and never deviated from the patriotic choice he had made. Dr. Provoost of New York was so un- compromising a patriot that he could not bring himself, in after days, to forgive the Tory Bishop Seabury. But this sentiment was confined almost entirely to the clergy of the middle colonies. It found its formal expression in a letter to the Bishop of London in 1775, in which the clergy declare that '' the people will feel and judge for themselves in matters affecting their own civil hap- piness ; and were we capable of any attempt which might have the appearance of drawing them to what they think would be a slavish resignation of their' rights, it would be destructive of ourselves, as well as the Church of which we are ministers. It is but justice to our supe- riors, and your Lordship in particular, to declare that our consciences would not permit us to injure the rights of this country, in which we are to leave our families." ^ But the majority of the clergy could not look at the case after this fashion. They could not lift the oljliga- . ,. tion of the ordination oath off their consciences Loyalist clergy. even if they had wished, — and they did not wish. They were quite ready to join in any respectful address to Great Britain for a redress of ths colonial 1 Ayres: Life of Dr. jNIuhlenbers, p. 4- 2 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa. p. 472. 2 The signers were Richard Peters, William Smith, Jacob Duche, Thomas Coombe, William Stringer, and William White. 208 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. grievances, but in tlieir hearts they did not regard these grievances as being so very intolerable, after all. They looked at the situation with English eyes. They fondly hoped for, and ui'ged, some amicable settlement of the contest. If no such settlement could be reached, then the same authority which taught them to fear God also bade them to "honor the king." Seabury and Inglis could not quiet their consciences by what they thought the shallow casuistry of White and Provoost. Above all things, they prayed to be delivered from being com- pelled to choose sides in the issue now joined. But this could not be. Congress appointed July 20, 1775, for a da}^ of fasting and prayer, and called upon all Christians to assemble at their accustomed places of worship. The Church clergy were forced into a corner. To disregard the proclamation entirely would openly fix them in the opposition. To publicly pray for the success of the king and royal arms would be too much to venture. Pray against them they could not. But they must call the cono-reofation too^etlier and have a service of some sort. Some said they were entirely ready to do so, for surely never were times when fasting and prayer were more needsd. All but four of the clergy in the country, of whom Dr. Seabury was one, opened their churches.^ Bat their real sentiments came out in their sermons. The burden of them was compromise. If that could not be done, then, it was intimated rather than said, submis- sion would be the duty. The popular indignation Avas profound. Laymen declared that the clergy did not voice the real feeling 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa. p. 479. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 209 of Churchmen. Newspapers reviled them as Tories, traitors, and British emissaries. " No more passive obedience," was chalked upon the church-doors.^ One minister writes to England: "It is urged as a just cause of complaint against one of the militia captains, that he had lugged his company to church on a fast day, to hear that old wretch ^meaning me 1} preach, who was always an enemy to the present measures." ^ The Episcopal clergy stood condemned in the eyes of the party who were to carry through the War for Inde- Sufferings of pendence and build the Republic. The sen- the clergy. tence was harshly carried into execution. The Connecticut clergy assembled at New Haven and determined to suspend all public services, and wait for better times.^ Those of New York retired to the seclusion of private life, exiled themselves to Nova Scotia, or moved within the British lines. Dr. Seabury became chaplain to a regiment of British infantry. The Church in Virginia was formally disestablished by the colonial government.* But neither seclusion, insig- nificance, nor high character was able to save the clerg}' from the fury of the populace. Their churches v/ere wrecked, defiled, and burned. Their property was con- fiscated. Their cattle were killed. They were hooted, pelted, arrested, imprisoned, ducked in the pond, shot at, starved, and banished. The baneful old alliance of the Church with the State here produced its inevitable result. The Church, which in itself was not disliked 1 Perry: Historical Collections, vol. Pa. p. 481. 2 lb.: vol. Pa. p. 481. 3 Beardsley : History of the Church in Conn., vol. i. p. 318. ^ Baird: Religion in America, p. 220. 210 THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES. by Americans, was wrecked because its fortunes were bound to a State which they hated. ^ 1 The following partial list, compiled chiefly from Sabine's " Loyal- ists in the Revolution," will give an idea of the way the Church was devastated during the war : — Rev. Mr. Adams, York, Pa.; soussd three times in a pond and warned to leave. Rev. H. Addison, Md.; banished, estate confiscated, of value of thirty thousand pounds. Rev. John Agnew, Suffolk, Va. ; banished. Rev. John Andrews, Master Episcopal Academy, Conn. ; banished. Rev. East Apthorp, Cambridge, Mass.; banished. Rev. Dr. Auclimiity, Hector Trinity Church, New York; church, rec- tory, and school burned; loss twenty thousand pounds. Rev. Ephraim Avery, Rye; cattle killed, banished. Rev. Luke Babcock, Phillipsburg, N.Y. ; cattle killed; robbed, died. Rev. Jacob Bailey, Dresden, Md. ; robbed, starved, banished. Rev. Thomas Barton, York, Pa.; imprisoned two years, died. Rev. Daniel Batewell, York, Pa.; imprisoned, died. Rev. Abraham Beach, John Beach, Conn.; harried, shot at, cattle killed. Rev. John Beardsley, Conn.; robbed, banished. Rev. George Bissett, Newport, R.I. ; church wrecked, banished. Rev. Jonathan Beach, Annapolis, Md. ; imprisoned two years. Rev. John Bowie, Md. ; imprisoned two years. Rev. John Brunskill, Va. ; driven away. Rev. John Bulhnan, Charleston; banished. Rev. Mather Byles, Cambridge; banished. Rev. Henry Carver, King's Chapel, Boston; banished. Rev. William Clark, Dedham ; imprisoned, banished. Rev. Richard Clark, Charleston; banished. Rev. Samuel Cook, Shrewsbury, N.J.; driven away. Rev. Thomas Coombe. Philadelphia; imprisoned, banished. Rev. Mr. Cooper, Charleston; driven away by his parishioners. Rev. Jacob Dache, Philadelphia; first chaplain of Congress, turned Tory, banislied. Rev. Edward Edmonston, Baltimore; fled. Rev. John Eversfield, Md. ; tried, discharged as " too old to do any hurt." Rev. Samuel Fayerwcather, R.I.; "silenced." Rev. Nathaniel Fisher, Salem, Mass. ; imprisoned, banished. Rev. John Graves, Providence; " silenced." Rev. Matthew Graves, New London, Conn. ; driven away by his own people. Rev. Charles Inglis, Rector Trinity Church, New York; warned not to read prayers for the king; persisted in doing so; an infantry company entered church during service, with beat of drum, to overawe him; THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 211 but he read the prayers; compelled to flee; his property coufiscated; became first Bishop of Nova Scotia. Rev. Thomas Joiinson, Charlotte Co., Va.; " with a great bowl of grog in liis hands drank success to the British arms;" banished. R3V. Jeremiah Learning, Stratford, Conn.; his portrait nailed to the sign-post, head downward; imprisoned; left to suffer from cold and nakedness; contracted hip disease; lamed for life. Rev. William McGilchrist, Salem, Mass.; " silenced." Rev. Alexander McCrae, Littleton, Va, ; mobbed, whipped, threatened with deatli; but persisted and stayed. Rev. Mr. Micklejohu, N.C. ; banished. Rev. Richard Moseley, Litchfield, Conn.; banished. Rev. Harry Monroe, Albany ; banished to Canada. Rev. Samuel Peters, Hebron, Conn.; mobbed, stripped, banished. Rev. Jonathan Adell, N.J. ; arrested, escaped. Rev. Joseph Reed, Nevvbern; ejected by his people. Rev. Wiuwood Sergeant, Cambridge, Mass.; banished. Rev. John Scott, Everston, Mass.; arrested, banished. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., Westchester, N.Y. ; threatened, shot at. imprisoned, took refuge in British lines; made maps of Long Island for the British army, accepted British chaplaincy. Rev. John Stuart, missionary to the Mohawks; arrested, chapel defiled, a bottle of rum emptied over the altar, banished. Rev. Epenetus Townsend, North Salem, N.Y,; arrested, banished, drowned at sea. Rev. John Troutbeck, King's Chapel, Boston; banished, captured by pirates. Rev. Roger Viets, Simsbury, Conn.; fined twenty pounds, imprisoned, banished. Rev. William Walters, Trinity Church, Boston; banished, property of seven thousand pounds confiscated. Rev. John Weeks, Marblehead, Mass. ; banished, died of poverty and exposure. Rev. Isaac Wilkins, D.D., Westchester, N.Y.; banished, his writingf dressed in tar and buzzard's feathers, and burned. Rev. John Wingate, Orajige Co., Va. ; books burned. Rev, Edward Winslow, Quincy, Mass.; banished. Rev. John Wiswall, Falmouth, Va. ; banished. PART IT. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. PART 11. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. GATHERING UP THE FRAGiVIENTS. When the verdict of the trial by war was reached and the independence of the Colonies recognized by The desoia- ti'eaty, the English Chnrch in America ceased tion. to exist. As a Chnrch which was content to regard itself as a department of the English state, it conld have no being where that state was not. Its fragments lay scattered from Portsmouth to Savannah. The ligature which had fastened these parishes together and tied them to the see of London was now cut, and they fell asunder like so many beads when the string is broken. They had all been v^'asted by war, and many had perished during the last ten years from sheer neg- lect. Their members, being generally loyalists, had been proscribed during the conflict, and were now under a political and social ban. They had hoped that England would guarantee their rights in the stipu- lations of the treaty. They found to their horror that she had abandoned them in the most cold-blooded man- 216 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. ner.^ 'i^hey had been robbed, outraged, their property confiscated, and their persons roughly handled, and now they not only found that they had no redress, but that they were again confronted with a new peril. During the war the colonists' hands had been fall with the foreign enemy. Now that he had withdrawn, they Trsatment of pi'oposed to make a finish of the wretches who Tones. ]^r^^ given him aid and comfort. General Greene, Hamilton, Jay, Patrick Henry, Gadsden, and Marion championed their cause in vain.^ In spite of their arguments that it would be unjust and impolitic now to proscribe men for opinions which twenty years ago had been held by everybody,^ the passions of the populace ran so high that they set about deliberately to extirpate the hated Tories. They were denounced as monsters who had put themselves beyond the pale of mercy or even justice. Then set in a period of per- sonal violence, social persecution, and legal repression, which is not a j)leasant page in American history.* The leading patriots, men who liad given their best counsel and their best blood for the American cause, tried in vain to stem the tide. They were themselves Hwcpt under by it, and some of them well-nigh ruined. Some of the Toiies indeed had no right to liope for any- thing. The score against them for their deeds in the troubled times Avas so long and ugly that all Avho boie the same party name with them were taxed to ])ay it. Many abandoned everything and fled from the storm. 1 McMuster: History of the United States, vol. i. p. 101). ^ Sabine: Loj'alists, vol. 1. p. 89. 3 General Greene. •i MoMastPr: vol. i. i)p, 109-130. GATHERIXG UP THE FRAGMENTS. 217 They embarked in the British men-of-war and were car- ried back to Enofland. Numbers moved to Florida and the Spanish possessions.^ Still more went to Nova Scotia and the Bermudas. In this final emigration the weakened Church was still further depleted. It was left without reputation, without money, without men. The hostility to it as a Church, however. Popular '^ opinion of the rapidly subsided. The fear and hatred with which it had been so long regarded as a pos- sible source of political danger, disappeared almost at once upon the achievement of independence.^ As a religious sect, it was conceived to be practically defunct. It was regarded as a " piece of heavy baggage which the British had left behind them when they evacuated New York and Boston." ^ Now, what shall be done with the thrice broken frag- ments of the Colonial Church of England ? What liands shall gather them up and put them together? Upon what principles shall the new Church to be formed from them he organized ? The first sign of movement among the broken mem- bers of the bod}^ showed itself in Maryland. There had always been a marked difference in temper, habits, and mode of life, among the Eastern, Middle, and Southern colonies. This difference was even more plainly marked Three mo- in ccclesiastical things. It became most sig- ?ir!.!!L«°' niticant in the reconstruction period now be- ing reorgan- ^ ization. fg^g ^^g^ jj-^ each section a different motive and purpose dominated the men who set about to rebuild the Church. 1 McMaster : History of the United States, vol. 1. p. 111. 2 Beardsley: Life of Se^fbury, pp. 91, 93. 5 An expression of Bishop "Williams, of Connecticut. 218 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUPvCH. Ill Virginia and JMaryland the uppermost thought was to save the endowments of which the Churcli of England had stood possessed before the war. To res cue and hokl these, an organization must be created which could have a standing before the law in the new government. In New England the dominant purpose was to save the Church's ideal ; to guarantee its apostolic order ; to establish in its completeness that primitive doctrine and discipline for the sake of which many of its clergy had come out of Presbyterianism at great cost. In the Middle colonies the leaders set clearly before themselves the task to organize a National Church, an Episcopal foundation which would be to all its members what the federal government then in process of con- struction would be to its citizens. Of the three ideas Dr. Smith of Maryland, Dr. Seabury of Connecticut, and Dr. White of Pennsylvania, became the several champions. The first failed, partly through the faults of its leader, and still more because the thing aimed at was impracticable : the other two succeeded, and the combination of their plans produced the Church sub- stantially as it has continued to be. The question which first pressed in Virginia and Maryland was a practical one. Who now should ad- The South- minister upon the Colonial Church's estate ? em attempt. ^p}^e property was a valuable one. It con- sisted not only of churches, glebes, parsonages, and landed endowments, but also of the right to the pro- ceeds of taxation for religious objects. Who was its owner? It was contended on the one hand that the GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS. 219 property had been created by the state ; that the state, while the state was England, had only held the prop- erty in trust for the public religious weal ; that a new state was now substituted for the old one ; that the new one was seized of all the power and right in the prem- ises which the old one had possessed. But it was agreed on all hands that in the new state there should be no religious establishment. What, then, should it do with the Church property which it found on its hands ? Should it resume it and secularize it ? — retain it as a trust for the benefit of all religious denominations? — turn it over in fee simple to the representatives of the Colonial Episcopal Church? If the latter, who was its representative? The Bishop of London? — that was absurd on the face of it. The various parishes ? — they were not independent legal corporations, but only sub- divisions of an empire which was now extinct. In any case the question of how to dispose of the proceeds of taxation would still remain. The Churchmen's feeling was that the property was theirs absolutely ; they would not agree that the state had simply held it in trust for them ; they insisted that it had been a gift outright. But the practical difficulty could not be evaded. There was no organized Churcli on the ground which could take it over, even if it were offered. Maryland had indeed, after the Declaration of Independence, '• secured to the Clmrch of England all the glebes, churches, chapels, and other property owned by her," ^ but the question now was, who represents the Church of England 9 2 1 Hawks: Ecclesiastical Contributions, vol. Md. p. 288. 2 Hawks: Eoolcsiastioal Contributions, vol. Va. r- 224 et seq. 220 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. One of the most sagacious men of his age, the Rev. Dr. William Smith, previously rector of the Philadel- phia College, and now President of Washington College, lived in Maryland. He foresaw, while the war was raging, that this question would iiave to be met, and that upon its right answer would depend the Church's temporal fortunes in that State. In 1780 he called a conference of clergy and laymen to consider the matter. His purpose was to organize the disjecta membra into fi body corporate which could have a local habitation and a name. He gave it the name himself.^ He called it The Church ^^^ '' Protestant Episcopal Church." This named. name, which still obtains, does not seem to have been the result of any special thought or delibera- tion, but was adopted unconsciously as the title which best expressed the fact. They could not have called it '^ the Church " in any exclusive sense, for their inten- tion was to approach the Legislature which had just declared that it was not the Church in that sense. Tlicy could not call it '' the American Church," for there was no American Church. To call it '' the Cath- olic Church " would have been in the face of a common usage which had already given that title to another body. But, in common with all the Churchmen of their time, they assumed that they were Protestant ; — Episcopacy was their differentiate. They combined the two facts and gave the Church its present name. The result of the conference was to recommend that the action already taken by the State, allovvdng each 1 Smith: Life of Dr. William Smith, vol. ii. p. 39. Of. Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 5. GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS. 221 denomination to receive the benefits accruing from taxa- tion, should be accepted ; and that, in addition, the Protestant Episcopal parishes should be allowed " to lay rates on pews," or otherwise to increase their revenue.^ This was while the war still dragged its length along, and the Legislature took no action upon their recom- mendation. When peace had come. Dr. Smith induced Governor Paca, his old pupil at the Philadelphia Col- lege, to bring the matter forward in his message. At the same time, in conjunction with another minister, he asked leave to call a formal conference.^ This conven- Orffanization ^^^^^' ^^'^^ich met at Annapolis, in 1783, con- in Maryland, tained eighteen clergymen. It called itself the Protestant Episcopal Church in tliat State. It de- clared itself to be the learal and actual successor of the Church of England there ; that therefore all glebes, lands, and property belonging to its predecessor now belonged to it by law ; that it would be at once its right and its duty to modify the liturgy and customs of the old Church so as to fit the changed political circum- stances ; that in doing so it must not be thought to destroy its identity ; that in order to hold its trusts and discharge its duties it must now proceed forthwith to effect a complete organization ; that the prime thing needed for the complete equipment of an Episcopal Church was a bishop. The Rev. Dr. William Smith was elected to fill that office, Avhen, and as soon as, he could procure consecration. Dr. Smith's testimonials of 1 Smith : Life, vol. ii. p. 93. - lb. vol. ii. p. 93. 222 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. fitness for this office were signed by the eighteen clergy- present, and afterward by the few others in the State who were detained away.^ Virginia, in the process of organization, followed much the same lines.^ In both States the feeling and action were the outcome of their previous habits of Church life. The}^ approached the task upon the side whicli first presented itself. That was the secular side. Ecclesiastical issues of great importance were bound up with it, but these were not at first so clearly seen as in both the other groups of colonies. But to them fell the weisrhty task of settling the relation of Relation of ^ / , . ., . , Church and the Church to the civil power m the new State. Republic. Before it was finally determined, the Church was shorn of much of her former preroga- tives, and lost much property which was equitably hers. But here, as always, the children bore their parents' faults. To disentangle Church and State in the colo- nies where they had been united for a century and a half, was a task so arduous that it would have been too much to expect it to have been done without errors, and even injustices. But, upon the whob, it was effected with a fair amount of equity. 1 Smith: Life of Dr. Wm. Smith, vol. ii. p. 100. 2 Hawks: Contributions, vol. Va. p. 179, et seq. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 223 CHAPTER II. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. In New England the controlling motive was ecclesi- astical. The Church Idea had been far better wrought out there than elsewhere. Two influences New England Churchman- had been at work for fifty years, to elevate ^^^^* the tone of Churchmanship. The ''New England converts," led by President Cutler and re- cruited constantly by men of a like way of thinking, had all come to the Episcopal Church from strenuous conviction. They had studied her history. They knew her claims. They had forfeited much Avhich they held dear when they transferred their allegiance to her. They had been called upon again and again to give a reason for their faith. No slight reason would suffice. Their challengers were men who knew how to w^eigh proofs and to test assumptions. They lived among a people who dearly loved an argument. To hold their own they must know clearly what they believed, and why they believed it. This had compelled them to work out the theory of the Church, and to free it from all subordinate considerations. Naturally they became pronounced Churchmen. In this position they were sustained by the disposi- tion of the Society for the Promotion of the Gospel in 224 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Foreign Parts, by wliicli society most of them were supix)rted. The "Venerable Society's" position in this regard had been emphatic from its organization. The New Enghmd clergy were agents much to its liking. In tlie other colonies Episcopacy was often regarded as just a part of the existing order (>f things. It was accepted without much thought either way. It was as good a mode of Church organization as an- other, in some points better, but, still, not a thing of life and death value. Its history was venerable ; its endowments were valuable ; its manners were good ; its followers were worthy men ; it was a present fact ; but its p-round and essential reason were not much studied. Beside that, the shocks and disturbances of revolu- tion had brought people into the way of thinking all things capable of change. What institution could have been imagined more unchangeable and established by longer prescription than monarchy ? But monarchy had been abandoned as an outworn and useless piece of lumber. Why not Episcopacy also ? The Churchmen of New England were very appre- hensive of this latter feeling. What else, they asked, „, . ,. would account for the action of the Bur- Their dis- trust of the lington Convocation, which entertained the of other proposition of an Independent Episcopal Churchmen. Qj-^^j.^^^ 9 What but this could explain the pestilent plan which Dr. White had just wrought out in his awful pamphlet?^ Their own convictions had not been disturbed by the Revolution. Their sympa- thies had not gone with it. They were Tories. They 1 Beardslcy : Scabury, \). 07. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 225 accepted its results as a providential dispensation which they could not gainsay, but they had no part or lot in its spirit of change. They had never had any endow- ments to seduce them from the pure, spiritual concep- tion of the Church, or to distract them now from their clear purpose of securing the primitive Faith and Apos- tolic Order for which they had already suffered. Their strength was mainly in Connecticut. When the war was over, there were in that State forty Episco- pal congregations, fourteen clerg3% and a Church popu- lation of about forty thousand.^ Unlike the other States, Connecticut had not fallen foul of the Tories when vic- tory settled on the American side.^ They were allowed to repair their broken fortunes unmolested, in Avhatever way offered, but when they learned what their fellows in New York and Massachusetts were suffering they walked in fear and trembling. Word was quietly passed about among the clerg\^ to attend a meeting to consider the state of affairs. Ten of the fourteen met at Woodburv, a little First Con- , . , ' necticut straggling village among the hills of Litch- field County. Their meeting was kept a pro- found secret.^ They were very doubtful as to how their plans would be regarded by the populace. Ten years before, an attempt to secure the Episcopate would have raised a howl ; there was reason to believe that it would be still more strongly resented now that the Presbyte- 1 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, p. 137. 1 Beardsley: History of Church in Connecticut, vol. i. p. 346. 2 ib,^ vol. i. p. ,"53. ' Beardsley: Life of Seahury, p. 78. * Beardsley: History of Church in Connecticut, vol. i. p. 346. 226 THE PROTESTANT EriSCOPAL CHURCH. rians were in position to formulate their objections in the shape of law. Nor were the clergy sure of their own The political l^^Jii^eii. These were not taken into council, obstacles. Tliose of them who were loyalists were in sufficient peril already. It would require all their cir- cumspection to come out of it unscathed. To exacerbate the situation by a revival of the Episcopate seemed very madness. But the clergy were both courageous and clear- minded. They saw distinctly that the life of the Church was at stake. I£ anything effective were to be done to secure it, it must be done at once. There was serious risk in what they proposed to do. The temper of the new State towards Episcopacy had not been tested, and, judging by the past, the worst might be looked for. They would therefore not involve the laymen in the project at all ; they would proceed at their own proper peril. If they succeeded in building the Church, well and good ; if not, they would fail like honest men and conscientious Churchmen. There are no records extant of their proceedings at this conference at Woodbury. No minutes were kept, no roll of the members' names has come down. In truth, it was hardly a convention in any sense. Every man present had had his mind made up, long before, what was to be done. There was only one thing to do, that was to secure a bishop. The meet- ing was only to determine whom they should select to undertake that duty. It was no question of preferment, nor were there many available men to choose from. Whoever he might be must, of course, be a man whose life and learning would be respectable ; but they could all meet that requirement. The difficulty was to find a THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 227 man who could accept it. It would mean for him, in all probability, personal unpopularity among his neigh- bors at home, a costly and dangerous voyage over the sea for consecration, infinite labor to meet and overcome the prejudices of the authorities in the English Church, and, in all likelihood, permanent expatriation. Their choice fell finally upon two men, either of whom would be suitable, but neither of whom was present. Choosing the ^^^ey were the Rev. Drs. Jeremiah Leaming first bishop. ^j^(^[ Samuel Seabury. They were both in New York, but belonged in Connecticut by birth and service. Dr. Leaming was an old man. He had been rector of the church at Norwalk, but had been driven away, with loss of goods and friends. When he was in- formed of the action of his Connecticut brethren, he at once declined the office. He was too infirm to bear the voyage, and, at his age, he could not face the probability of makinor for himself a new home outside of the State. Dr. Seabury accepted. He was a Connecticut man by birth, and was now fifty -four years of age, in the vigor of his life. He was the son of one of the ''New Eng- land converts " from Puritanism, and, like all that stock, Dr Seabury's ''^ ^^g^^ Churchman. He had studied medi- career. ^ine at Edinburgh, been ordained in England, had served as a missionary in Long Island and New Jersey. At the beginning of the war he was rector of the parish at Westchester, N. Y. He had been a pro- nounced and active Tory from the beginning. With his friends Inglis and Chandler, he had conducted a lit- erary bureau advocating the British side of the contest. He was generally believed to have written the biting 228 THE PllOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. letters of Wilkiiis, signed by "A Westchester Farmer." He had published some very " Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Congress at Philadelphia." ^ He had b^en seized by the Continental authorities and impris- oned, had escaped and taken refuge in the British lines on Long Island. While there he had used his topo- graphical knowledge of the surrounding country to make maps for the military operations of his protectors ; had been mustered into the British regular service as chaplain of an infantry regiment ; and Avas now, after his retirement, receiving English half-pa}^ His personal character and devotion in his priestly office were well known to those who chose him bishop, and were, in point of fact, beyond all question. Both ecclesiastically and politically he was in every way grateful to them. He represented their spirit and their situation more fairly than any other man who could have been chosen. At the time they selected him they outlined the plan of procedure he was to follow .'-^ He was to go to Eng- Th^ c ti- -^'^^^^^ '^^^^^ ^^y before the bishops his credentials, cut plan. submitting to them tlie facts which, in the judgment of the Connecticut people, made the appoint- ment of an American bishop an immediate and imperative necessity. He was to leave no stone unturned to secure from them his consecration. In case he should fail of this, he was to go to Scotland and endeavor to secure consecration at the hands of the Nonjuring Episcopal College there. If he should succeed in either place he was to return to Connecticut, — if he would be allowed 1 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, p. oO. •^ lb., p. 104 THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 229 to do so. Upon this point there was much doubt. The status of the loyalists had not yet been determined. The treaty was still pending. Its terms might ensure restitution for their losses and security for the future, or it might do the opposite. That remained to be seen. Then tliere Avas no certainty that all the States would take the same action upon this subject. It might prove to be possible for a Tor}' bishop to live in one section, and be outlawed in another. In view of these contin- gencies he was, if consecrated, to return to Connecticut if that course should be open ; if that should be closed, then to hx his seat in some other State. If all should be barred against him, then he was to make his habita- tion across the border in Nova Scotia. There he could be reached by candidates for ordination Avithout the bur- den of crossing the sea, and from there he could look out and superintend the Church's growth in New England, while he and it would wait for better times. The scheme had the indorsement of Sir Guy Carleton, and Dr. Seabury sailed away to England in the re- turning flag-ship of Admiral Digbv ^ to carry it into effect. Upon his arrival lie found the prospect of success very Thesentimsnt small indeed. Tlie bishops, however they in England, niight Sympathize Avith the colonial Church, Avere chagrined at the defeat of the British power. LoAvth, the great Bishop of London, had flatly refused to lay his hands upon an}- man Avho Avas going back to America to preach,^ even though he had been assured 1 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, i p. To, 9G. 2 McMaster: History of the United States, vol. i. p. 230. 230 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL rHURCII. that Parliament would not demur at his omitting the oaths. ^ To the current conception of the nature of the Episcopal office, it seemed even more absurd to give it to the petty States than it would have been to give it to the colonies, where it could at least have had the moral support of the English kingdom. The bishops Avere stolid, impracticable, hopeless. While they treated Seabury with consideration, and a few of them mani- fested a curious interest in American affairs, they were incapable of appreciating, as the Americans did, the kind of an Episcopate which was desired. They were con- cerned about the '' dignity" of the office. There was no suitable provision for the proper support ^ of Dr. Sea- bury, so that he might live in a style which a bishop ought to maintain. The office would fall into contempt.^ Moreover, their hands were tied. The law required that a bishop, at his consecration, must swear allegiance to the Crown. They shook their heads when it was suggested that the king in council might waive that requirement. That seemed sufficient to a few, but to most it appeared that an Act of Parliament English ^ ^ , bishops' <^iily could give exemption. Beside that, they feared that if they should overcome all diffi- culties and consecrate an American bishop, it would be construed as aji unfriendly act by the new States, who 1 Abbey: English Church and its Bishops, vol. ii. p. 186. 2 Beardsley: Life of Seabuiy, p. 111. 3 Tliis idea was slow to disappear. After the middle of the present century, wlien Bishop Wilberforce had fixed, by his example, the modern Standard, an old don complained that— "I remember when a bishop never came into Oxford without a coach and six. But what does Sam do ? Just mounts his lioise, without even a gioom behind him, and rides away to a visitation before breakfast! " THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 231 had now taken their place in the family of nations. England had had trouble enough with America ; why should they provoke her further? Her opinion had always been pronounced against this action, and the bishops could not see that the ground of the opposition had dropped out when the Church became innocuous on its political side. In addition to all this, they were by no means satis- fied that Connecticut would receive Bishop Seabury if he should be consecrated. If this should turn out to be the case, they would have on their hands a churchless bishop, who would be an awkward personage to dispose of. This last difficulty was met by showing the declara- tion of all the leading members of the Connecticut Legislature, to the effect that there would be no political objection whatever to receiving the new bishop, but that, on the contrary, there were so many Episcopalians in the State that it would be for the public good to give them a head. After interminable delay, an Act of Parliament was introduced to allow a dispensation from the oaths, in the case of bishops consecrated for foreign countries. The bishops gave a tardy assent, but the preliminary requirements were endless. When a whole year had passed. Dr. Seabury was at the end of his patience and of his money. He Avas a poor man. He had been living for a year in London at his own expense, and there seemed to be no more prospect than when he had first come. He therefore turned his back upon England and her impotent, State-bound Church, and went to Scotland. 232 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. The influence upon the American Church of Sea- bury's Scotch connection has been so far-reaching that The Scotch it is necessary here to suspend the story long Enffiani enough to trace its origin. In Scotland there churches. were two Episcopal Churches, neither of which recognized the other.^ At the Revolution of 1688, when the Stuarts were depoited, and William of Orange came to the throne, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians in Scotland were not unequally divided.^ William offered the support of the government to the Episcopalians, but they would have nothing to do with him. They declared their unalterable loyalty to the Stuart line. When the bishops to a man, and most of the clergy and people, turned their backs upon his offer, he gave his patronage to the Presbyterians. Presby- tery was established, and Episcopacy was proscribed. The " Non- ^^^^ bishops and clergy who refused to take jurors." William's oath — and hence were called non- jurors — were deprived and their places filled by Pres- byferians. Those of the clergy who did take the oath were protected, but placed under the sharp oversight of the Presbyterian General Assembly. Then succeeded a dreadful century for Scotch Episcopalians. Even though it cannot be denied that they had brought the evils on themselves by their factious attachment to the wretched Stuarts, still, their stubborn fixity of purpose in folloAV- ing their twisted consciences must excite admiration. Their marked feature was their Jacobitism. Attach- ment to their royal line was with them a religious cult. 1 Abbey: English Cluirch and Bishops, vol. ii. pp. 170-187. 2 Grub: Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 316. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN. 233 James Stuart was the " anointed of the Lord." After him they turned to poor " Prince Chairhe," and took him to their hearts. When Charles Edward, the debauclied '• Chevalier,'' died, in 178S, their last idol was broken, but they continued even then to offer a sentimental devotion before an empty throne. In the risings of 1715 and 1745, the Episcopalians were the head and front. After the last, the English government proceeded deliberately to extirpate them as a brood of inveterate treason-hatchers. After Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland, by the King's command, burned cxcry chapel in his path. Scotch orders were declared null and void.^ It was made a penal offence for more than five nonjurors to assemble for worship. They were driven into holes and corners. The well-disposed clergy and men in English orders were introduced as far as possible. These latter were regarded by the no?v jurors as intruders, and they in turn called the others traitors. The Scotch Episcopalians were detested equally by Scotch Presbyterians and English Church- men. It was an open question w^hether the Churches in the two kingdoms were even in communion.^ Whether they were or not, they certainly were not in sympatlTy^ The Scotch were all Jacobites and all High Churchmen, and in these respects had few i:i England like them. Two Liturgies had been in use in Scotland for a century and a half. In Edinburgh and the south the English was adopted ; but at Aberdeen 1 This was the ground of the constant complaint made by the Church- men of Virginia and Maryland, at that date, that the clergy who came over to them were " Scotchmen." 2 Grub: Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 370. 234 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. and the north the Liturgy in use was substantially the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. In its sacramental teaching it was far more emphatic than the English book. After a long and earnest controversy, this Lit- urgy, in a revised form, was adopted for general use in Scotland in 1764. By that time the repressive laws had been allowed quietly to become relaxed so that the nonjuring remnant, which had its existence mainly about Aberdeen and the Northern Highlands, could meet without molestation. It was to the bishops of this obscure and broken body that Dr. Seabury turned when he despaired of English consecration. He found in them men of his own spiritual kin. They welcomed him as a man after their own heart. Bishop John Skinner possessed a sort of private chapel, made by throwing together the upper rooms of his modest house in Aberdeen. In that chapel Dr. Seabury was consecrated bishop, November 14, 1784. His consecrators Avere Robert Kilgour, Arthur Petrie, and John Skinner. They and their Church had a strange similarity to him and his. Both Churches had, through their political situation, been driven to emphasize strongly the divine side of Episcopacy. They both had their homes in the midst of a hostile Presbyte- rian community. They had each been trained to recog- nize a king who was hateful to their fellow-citizens. The people in both cases had learned to live their religious lives apart from the people among whom they dwelt. They were not readily touched by the spirit of their time and place. Their spirit Ava:^,, at it, best, serene, assured, self-contained. But it liad, and has, THE NEW ENGLAND FLAN. U^O its besetting sins. The Churchmen of the nonjuring, Seabuiy type have been often found to be impractica- ble, narrow, prejudiced, governed in their actions by inherited sentiments rather than by present facts. But they brought to the building of the American Church its clearly defined architecture. This principle was guaranteed, as far as was possible to do, by the Concor- dat agreed to by Seabury and the Scotch Episcopal College.^ This secured the principle of national auton- omy by the pledge that the American Church would hold no fellowship with the intruding Episcopal organi- zation in Scotland. It insured Catholic doctrine by the pledge that Seabury would use his endeavor to have the Scotch Communion Office given place in the Ameri- can Liturgy, — a pledge which he was able to redeem. Thus, after the labors of one hundred and seventy- five years, there Avas, Avhen Bishop Seabury returned, an Episcopal Church in America. He became rector of the parish at New London. He called a convocation of the Connecticut clergy, dis- played his certificates of consecration, received their pledge of canonical obedience, avowed the principles which would control his work, and began the Church's share in the task of making and keeping a new nation Christian. 1 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, p. 150. 23G THE PKOTESTANT EPlSCOrAL CHUFtCH. CHAPTER III. THE FEDERAL IDEA. Philadelphia Avas the American College of States- manship. As the meeting-place of the Continental Colonial Congress, and, for the most part, the seat of statesnfan" government, it brought together that re- ship, markable group of men who may truthfully be called the builders of the nation. It was the meet- ing-place of Franklin, Washington, Jay, Madison, Jef- ferson, Hamilton, Randolph, and Morris. These men were at once students and teachers. They differed widely among themselves as to the exact appearance which the ncAV nation would present when established, but upon one thing they all agreed, — America wa3 a nation. She had and must have an independent life of her own. Beside that, they saw clearly that the vari- ous sections of the country were so intimately bound together that their interests must be in common. The lonof-drawn debates throusfh which the Federal Consti- tution was fashioned, and the popular tumults amidst which it got itself adopted, all ended by fixing upon the public mind the firm conviction which the leading Fed- eralists had held from the beginning, that the nation is one, and must be l)ound together in a common govern^ ment. Tlie Rev. William Wliite, rector of Christ Church, THE FEDERAL IDEA. 237 Philadelphia, had spent his whole life in close acquaint- ance with these statesmen. He approached the problem E3V Dr ^^ ^^^^ American Church in the same s^^irit "^^i^s- that they did the American State. None of his contemporaries surpassed and few equalled him in sagacity. When the war ended he was thirty-five years old. He Avas well born, well bred, and Avell educated,^ both in this country and abroad. In England he was a friend of Dr. Johnson ; had him for his guest at his inn ; chatted with him while he watched him at work on his lexicon ; supped with him at Kensington ; and wrote him when he came back to Philadelphia.^ He was on familiar terms with Goldsmith, visited him, praised his work, and condoled with him that so clever a man should have to harness his genius to a cart to earn his daily bread.^ He was ordained in England ; became Assistant, and soon after Rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia i was chosen Chaplain of Con- gress ; and, when the war ended, was next after Frank- lin, the leading citizen of the State. While Dr. Smith, of Maryland, was engrossed with tlie small economies of a struggling college, and Dr. Seabury was observing the petty routine of an infantry barracks. Dr. White was unconsciously learning the statecraft which guided the founders of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He took the first step by calling together a few friends at his own house ^ to talk over the situation. 1 White: Memoirs, Introduction of Dr. DaCosta, p. liii 1 Norton : Life of Bishop White, p. 10. 1 Wilson: Life of Bisliop Wliite. 2 Norton: Life of Bishop White, p. 21. 3 lb., p. 21. * White: Memoirs, p. 93. 238 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. No plan of procedure was proposed, but the men pres- ent were found to be of the same mind witli him. In May of 1T84, there was a meeting in New Bruns- wick, N. J., of the managers of the " Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of Clergy- The confer- , • ^ i ^ • i encsatNew men. 1 his society had been organized Brunswick. ^^^,gj-^^y je-dYS before, and at the outbreak of the war had held considerable funds. Its board was made up of members from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, acting conjointly. They had had no meeting for more than seven years. Now they came together to re-organize. When their business was transacted, they fell to discussing the general condi- tion of the Church. Some prominent laymen who chanced to be at the same place were called in to assist. Duriug the discussion they learned /or ^Ae^rs^ time 2 of the action which Connecticut had taken. So secretly had the New England people carried forward their project that the Churchmen of the Middle colonies were in ignorance of it, though Dr. Seabury, the bishop- elect, had already been in England for nearly a year ! In point of fact, the people of the two sections dis- trusted each other equally. In the East they feared the Platitudinarian ism" of the South; in the South they dreaded the " ecclesiasticism " of the East. Can this difference be a permanent affair of latitude ? The result of the informal discussion at Brunswick was to issue a call for a conference of Churclimen from all the States, to be held at New York, in October of the same year. Delegations came to this meeting from i Wliite: ;Mciuoiis, p. 84. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 289 Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- land, Virginia, and Connecticut. The Connecticut del- egation stated at the outset, however, tliat they were not at liberty to take any formal part in the delib- erations while they were awaiting the result of Dr. Seabury's journey to England. The others present proceeded to formulate some general and fundamental principles of organization to be recommended for adop- Fundamentai ^^^^^ ^7 ^^^^ churches in the several States.^ principles. Those principles contemplated : («) A Fed- eral, Constitutional Church; (6) the several States to be its units ; (c) its governing body to include both clergy and laymen ; (c?) the maintenance of continuity with the Church of England, making such changes in worship and discipline only as the changed political 1 The leading mind in formulating these principles was Dr. White. As finally adopted by the united Church, they were substantially the same that he submitted to the first little group of clergy at his own house in Philadelphia. The form in which they were submitted to the States for action was as follows: — First, That there be a General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of Amerira. Second, That the Episcopal Church in each State send Deputies to the Convention, consisting of Clergy and Laitj'. Third, That associated congregations, in two or more States, may send Deputies jointly. Fourth, That the said Church shall maintain the doctrines of the Gospel as now held by the Church of Enr/land, and shall adhere to the Liturgy of the said Church, as far as shall be consistent with the Ameri- can Revolution, and the Constitution of the respective States. Fifth, That in every State where there shall be a Bishop duly conse- crated and settled, he shall be considered as a member of the Convention ex officio. Sixth, That the Clergy and Laity assembled in Convention, shall deliberate in one body, but shall vote separately, and the concurrence of both shall be necessary to give validity to every measure. Seventh, That no i)owers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical gov- ernment, except such as cannot conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Laity in their respective congregations. 240 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. situation might render necessary ; (e) to confer no powers upon the general body save such as could not conveniently be exercised by the several local churches. The few clergy in Massachusetts and to the eastward were not present, but held a conference of their own, at which they adopted substantially the same fundamental principles. The conference had no power to do more than recom- mend to the churches such principles or actions as seemed to its members desirable. But there was no prince or parliament to summon a council, so this con- ference ventured to do so. They issued a call sum- Constitutionai nioning the churches in the several States to Convention, send delegates to a Constitutional Conven- tion to be held at Philadelphia on St. Michael's Day, September, 1785. New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina responded with representatives. Connecticut declined ; Massachusetts sent a letter. When the Con- vention met, two conflicting plans of procedure Avere confronted. Tlie ecclesiastical idea of New England and the federal idea of the Middle colonies Avere now face to face.^ The former insisted that nothing could be done un- le;^>s they began the business at the right end. The Two possible ^^'^^ thing necessary is to secure bishops ; policies. nothing binding can be enacted by the Church until the Church is present ; the Church is not present and cannot be until its chief officers are on the ground ; anything wliich such conventions as tliis may 1 White: Memoirs, p. 109. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 241 do will be but as the arrangements which children might make in a household while the father is abroad ; Avhen he comes he may set them all aside ; the bishop is the source of authority ; in his absence there is no authority.^ The other side urged in reply, that if the father has his rights and powers the chikb-en also have theirs ; in this case the children are quite grown up and capable ; their action, within its proper sphere, is legitimate and will be valid. In addition, the practical difficulties in the way of the other scheme Avere insurmountable. Wlio could determine what number of clergy or par- ishes should have the right to choose a bii^hop? Shall it be the clergy of a State? But by Avhat authority is a political territory made a boundary for the Church's action ? What is to hinder any group of half a dozen clei'gy anywhere to combine and choose a bishop ? The outcome would be confusion worse confounded. Half a dozen '^ bishoprics '' might spring up in the same State. And even if they should be confined to a single one for each State, what assurance could be given that they would come into federation ? Unless some constitution and law could be agreed upon in advance, onl}- anarchy could be looked for. Guided by this view, the Convention proceeded to its momentous task without New England. The constitu- tion of the Episcopal Church they then elaborated is a document worthy of profound attention. If the Pres- byterians may claim to have produced the spirit and 1 White: Memoirs, p. 112. 1 Beardsley : Life of Bishop Seabiiry, p. '_'3-i. 242 THE PROTESTANT EriSCOPAL CHURCH. form of the Declaration of Independence,^ Churchmen may claim Avith a better right to have laid down the lines of the National Constitution. The truth is that in both cases a striking coincidence is all. The state and . „ , ^_^, ^ . • , e- ,- Church Con- constitution of the Church m point ot time stitutions. pj.gge(jp(i that of the nation. But they were the handiwork of the same men, and the result of the same set of circumstances. Dr. White and Dr. Smith had been fellow-students in statecraft with those mighty men who built and launched the ship of State. Their opportunity to put their principles in form came when they applied them to the Church's constitution.^ In its salient features it anticipated that other one which was given to the American people five years later. It contemplated : (a) a national organization ; {^b) the States to be its component units ; (c) its gov- erning body to be composed of two orders, clergy and laity ; ^ (t?) each State to retain in its own hand a sov- ereign authority, and to conduct its own affairs. On its political side these v/ere its cardinal features. In addition it provided for things ecclesiastical and doc- trinal. There was to be : * («) a Triennial Convention; (J) bishops when obtained were to be ex-officio members of the convention ; (c) persons were to be admitted to Orders upon subscription generally to the Holy I "The Mecldeiiburg Declaration," Craighead: Scotch and Irish Seeds, p. oil. 1 Briggs: American Presbyterianisra. p. 349. 2 It was drauglited by Dr. White. White: Memoirs, p. 93. 3 Bishop Seabury's contention that the bishops should constitute a still third house disarranged the scheme as it lay in Bishop White's mind. The balance was restored again by merging mto one house the first two proposed. 4 Journal of Convention of 1785. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 243 Scriptures, and a pledge of canonical obedience to the ecclesiastical authorities ; (cZ) the English Prayer-Book was to be the basis of the Lituigy, but to be modified so as to bring it into agreement with the new political arrangements. The provision in its fundamental law for the admis- sion of the laity into the Church's governing body as an independent estate deserves particular re- Ch^ciT ^° mark. It proposed an arrangement which had councils. j^^^ i^ggj^ • j^ operation for fifteen centuries, — probably for sixteen. It Avas a return to the practice of the most primitive period. Those who were under the domination of the ecclesiastical ideas which had been current at least since Constantine's time, like Bishop Seabury and his fellow-prelates in England, stumbled. at it. It was true that kings and princes had for cent- uries had a potential voice in causes ecclesiastic, but this had not been in their capacity as laymen, but as "ministers ordained of God." The plan proposed Avas radically different, and it had no contemporary illustra- tion. The churches then in existence which were or- ganized after the Independent fashion Avere based upon the theory which they still maintain, — that there is no genuine distinction between priests and laymen. To their vicAv they are both alike, and equally, " kings and priests unto God." In the Presbyterian scheme the elders, who at first glance might be taken for laymen, were not so, but were ordained men. For the scheme proposed by the Church, which has as an organizing prin- ciple the doctrine of the Ministry, there was no example extant, and it had no imitators for many a year. It is 244 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. the key to a proper uiiderstaiidiiig of the Church's legis- lation since its adoption. Its radical defect, in the form first proposed, was that it provided no proper place for the intrinsic differences of power and right among the orders of the ^Ministry. It shut the Episcopate out from its proper place. Bishop Seabury became the champion of his order. Fortunately, in the issue his candid, though determined spirit, together with Dr. White's sagacity and incomparable diplomacy, effected that coalescence of the two views which is the Church's present posses- sion. But before the consummation was reached much was to be done. The Convention proceeded to the second item of its age7ida. The English Prayer-Book had been in use ever since the planting of the colonies. The somewhat supersti- R°visinffthe ^i^^s reverence for it, however, Avhich, half a Prayer-Book, century later, came to regard it as incapable of being changed, did not then generally prevail. Some changes in it were imperative. It was English, and the Church was American. It must either be made catho- lic, so as to be of universal fitness, or the political por- tions of it must be made American also. The Convention approached the revision of it with a light-heartedness siunewhat startling to those who are familiar with the arduous labors of later years in the same line. The first purpose entertained was to change only its political portions, but, the task being once entered upon, the op- portunity to make other desired alterations seemed too good to ]je thrown away. A committee of one clergy- man and one layman from each State represented was THE FEDERAL IDEA. 245 appointed to submit to the Convention a schedule of changes deemed desirable.^ After three days' work of the committee, they reported the revised book. The Convention spent four days in considering the proposed changes, by whicli time they had taken action upon all that related to political things. There they rested, and referred the other propositions back to the committee, to b3 acted upon by them after adjournment. There was a lack of clearness in the instructions, which left the committee in doubt as to whether they Ave re to com- plete the revision and publish the book, or whether they were to report their work to the next Convention for approval. They acted upon the former opinion, com- pleted their task, and published that edition of the The "Pro- Common Prayer known as the ''Proposed posed Book." Book." The work was done chiefly by Dr. Smitli of ^Maryland and Dr. White of Pennsylvania, having before them the opinions which the other mem- bers of the committee had expressed generally before the}^ departed to their far-away homes. The changes from the English Prayer-Book may be grouped conveniently into five categories. The exam- ples, by no means exhaustive, here set forth under each, will give a conception of the " Proposed Book's " peculiarities. (1) Political : — Prayers for the king's majesty, for the princes, royal family, and for the High Court of Parliament, were stricken out, and in their stead were placed the prayers for the President and for the Congress. The observation of the 5th November, the 30th Janu- 1 Convention Journal, 1785. 246 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. ary, the 29th May, and the 25th October was omitted, and instead thereof a service was inserted for the 4th July, " being the Anniversary of Independence." (2) Changes in the Interest of Taste : — Such as, "didst humble thyself to be boiii of a virgin," for " didst not abhor the virgin's womb ; " omitting the plain-spoken and objectionable statement of the pur- pose of matrimony from the exhortation in the Mar- riage Service ; omitting the " Commination, or denoun- cing of God's anger and judgment against sinners ; " numerous verbal changes of phrases which were deemed inept or inelegant. (3) Anti-Sacerdotal Changes : — For example, substi- tuting " A Declaration to be made by the Minister concerning the Forgiveness of Sins," for "The Absolu- tion or Remission of Sins to be pronounced by the Priest ; " omitting the sign of the cross in Baptism ; omitting the phrase " regenerate " in the post-baptismal exhortation ; changing in the Catechism the definition of tlie effect of Baptism from " made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven," to " made a member of the Christian Church ; " omitting " unbaptized " from the limitations of use in the Burial Service.^ (4) Changes in the Interest of Liberty : — The selec- tions of Psalms to be used to be left to the discretion of the Minister ; and likewise the Scripture Lessons. (5) Dogmatic Changes : — The Athanasian and the Nicene Creeds were omitted ; the " descent into hell " 1 The animus of the clianjfes under this head is evident from the fact that the book was long afterward reprinted for use by the followers of Bishop Cummins. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 247 was left out of the Apostles' Creed ; the Gloria Patri was omitted after the versicles, after each separate psalm, and generally its use reduced to a minimum ; the phrase "damnation" in the Communion Warning was altered into " condemnation ; " the words " as our hope is this our brother doth," were dropped from the Burial Service, — and the like. Two of the categories deserve special consideration. The Introduction of the Office for the Fourth of July • was a source of much uneasiness. The large Service for . . ^ , , , Fourth of majority of the clergy and people were ^* Tories. It was asking a good deal to expect them to adopt the frame of thankfulness which the service postulates. It was much as though the Confed- erate States' Churchmen, after the Civil War, should have been required to return thanks for the surrender at Appomattox. It was introduced against the strenu- ous opposition of Dr. White and such unquestionable patriots as he.^ But, as is so likely to be the case, the class of men whom General Grant graphically de- scribed as those " who did not get warmed up until the fight was over," prevailed to have it introduced, and the Tory members of the Convention allowed it to pass in silence. In after years it might Avell have found a place among the Offices, but at the time it could but be a stumbling-block. When adopted. Dr. White, who had striven against it, was almost the only man Avho used it.^ Oiilj ii^ two or three places outside of Phila- delphia was it ever heard. 1 White : Memoirs, p. 117. 2 lb., p. 119. 248 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. The other list is that of dogmatic changes. A glance at them Avill show that the revisers either doubted the Anti-doff- truth or questioned the form of statement matic spirit, of certain doctrines which were and are gen- eralty held to be of prime importance. Foremost among them is the dogma of the Trinity. Their treatment of it leads to the inquiry whether they were at all, and, if so, to what (extent, under the influence of the Unitarian movement then beginning to attract attention in America? As has been pointed out, the Deistical infidelity so rife in England and so prolific of evil in the English life of the eighteenth century, never reached the same extent in this country, but yet it made itself felt. About 1760 the negative Deism began to take on the positive form of what has since been called Unitarian- ism, under the lead of Lardner and Priestly.^ In the colonies it retained its negative form, and in that shape spread widely. The scepticism of Hume and Gibbon dominated many educated men. It was especially preva- lent in the Middle and Southern colonies.^ In Boston and its neighborhood it put on the dogmatic dress of Unitarianism. In that shape it came sharply in contact Unitarian- with the Church. The minister in charge of ism. King's Chapel, Mr. Freeman, a man who had not yet been ordained in any wise, was a pronounced Unitarian. The majority of the congregation agreed with him. They found the English Prayer-Book un- suited to their use, and revised it so as to eliminate the 1 Abbey: Enj^lish Cliuvcb and Bishops, vol. ii. p. 129. * Sabine: Loyalists, vol. i. p. 141. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 249 doctrine of tlie Trinity. King's Chapel still called itself a parish of the Episcopal Church. When Bisliop Seabury returned with his office, he was asked to oidain Freeman. He emphatically declined. Bishop Provoost of NcAv York was afterwards solicited to do the same. He neither complied nor refused, but referred the matter to the Convention for advice and consent. The advice was adverse.^ But the King's Chapel people declared that they were justitied in hoping that Bishop Provoost would comply, on account of what they knew to be his own sentiment as well as that of some of his brethren in Pennsylvania and the South.^ ^l^^y said that he had proposed in the Convention at Philadelphia to omit the Invocations to the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity, from the Litany .^ Such a proposition had been made in the Convention * by another person, and there is reason to believe that it expressed a prevalent feeling, not in favor of Unitarianism, but against the attempt to dogmatize upon the great mysteries of religion.^ This seems to be the key to the final action of the Cliurch in both directions. They cast out the Athanasian Creed, not because they disbelieved it, but because they dis- liked it as an impotent attempt to state what cannot be 1 History of Unitarianism: fourth edition. Boston, 1815, p. 13. 2 lb., p. 13. 3 Rev. Dr. DaCosta, in editing the memoirs of Bishop White, flatly denies the trutli of this statement, and refers to Wilson's Life of Bishop White for its refutation (p. 325). The correspondence of Bishop White there printed does not seem to furnish the refutation. The categorical assertion of Mr. Belsham appears, in the ab.sence of both evidence and probability to the contrary, to be correct. 4 White: Memoirs, p. 116. 5 Bishop White says: " I am no friend to these metaphysical distinc- tions which have perplexed the present subject and discredited Divine trnth." Wilson: Life of Bishop White, p. 325. 250 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. stated. On the other liand, they woukl not ordain Mr. Freeman even to retain the King's Chapel congregation, becanse they equally disliked the dogmatic spirit of Unitarianism. This seeming lack of certitude, want of definiteness in doctrine, this repugnance to nice defini- tions, was altogether distasteful to the New England Church.^ For this, in some places, as well as for the very opposite reason in others, the Proposed Book was received by the Church generally with scant favor. The best proof of this was that it would not sell.^ Even when Dr. White had packages of them sent North and South, and advertised assiduously, they still stood on the booksellers' shelves. New England would not touch it. New Jersey flatly rejected it. Maryland wanted the Nicene Creed put back, and South Ctirolina wanted still more left out. Pennsylvania and Virginia proposed still further amendments. The parishes gen- erally kept on using the English Book, to which they were accustomed, the officiating minister making such changes as he found necessary. Having formulated a Constitution and taken the action which they believed would settle a Liturgy, the The Epis- Convocation proceeded to consider the Epis- copate, copate. In this also, their purpose of a National Church controlled. They had no mind to send one of their number abroad for consecration, as Bishop Seabury had gone, accredited only by a little group of unknown clergymen. Whoever went should 1 Bishop Seabury's Second Charge. 1 Beardsley : Life of Seabury, i>. 267. 1 Perry: Hist., vol. ii, p. 119. 2 Beardsley: Seabury, p. .309. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 251 go with a backing and authority wliich would compel a speedy answer for or against their request. Indeed the leaders among them had determined not to go at all without an assurance in advance that they would gain their object.^ To secure this they drew up an Address to the Archbishops and Bishops of Eng^land. Address to ; , ^ , . * the English In it they set forth tlie situation in which IS ops. ^j^^ Episcopal Churches had been left by the result of the War for Independence ; acknowledge the benefits they had received from the Mother Church in former days; declare their intention not to approach the English State in any wise ; and ask the Bishops purely in their spiritual capacity to consecrate such fit men as the Convention representing the American Episcopal Church may send. They intimate plainly that if any legal obstacles should be in the way of the Bishops acting in the matter, it must be their own concern to have them removed. With the Address were sent certificates from the Executives of New York, Pennsjdvania, Maryland, and Virginia, to the effect that there was no political obsta- cle on this side of the ocean, and that the Church, when its organization should have been completed by bisliops, would be allowed entire liberty to live unmolested.^ The whole was intrusted to John Adams, the Ameri- can ambassador in England. Though anything but a Churchman himself, he performed tlie duty required of 1 "White: Memoirs, p. 139. *' They who went had all alons: made up their minds not to go until the way should be opened by previous negotiation." 2 White: Memoirs, p. 22. 252 THE TKOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. him with interest and zeal.^ He laid the Address and accompanying certificates before the Archbishop in such a way as to secure immediate and j)ractical attention. Meanwhile the Convention adjourned to wait a reply. A\'hen it came it was not very satisfactory. Upon the The Bishops' ge^ei^al question, the Bishops answered, that reply. they were ready and willing to consecrate, but that there were some things which needed to first be cleared up. Queer stories had come to them about this Philadelphia Convention. It was reported that they had thrown overboard all the Church's Creeds, or, at least, liad reduced them to a point wliere they could hardly be seen ; that they had torn the Prayer-Book all to shreds ; that they had adopted a Constitution which gave laymen an unheard-of power in the Church, even to the extent of making it possible for them to pass judgment on bishops ; while to the bishops themselves no real power was given. These matters needed expla- nation. Until further information should be received they could take no action. If a satisfactory explana- tion could be given, or if the obnoxious arrangements should be modified, they stood ready to consecrate. Upon receipt of this reply the Convention was hastily summoned to meet at Wilmington in October, 1786. The meeting Avas short and effective. They prepared an answer, saying that the Bishops had misapprehended the position given to the laity in the new Constitutioji ; 1 " Tliere is no part of my life on which I look back with more satis- faction than the part I took, hold, daring, and hazardous as it was to me and mine, in tlie introduction of Episcopacy in America." — John Adams, in Letter to Bishop White. Wilson: Life of Bishop White, p. 325. THE FEDERAL IDEA. 253 that the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, unmu- tilated, would be retained ; that the English Prayer-Book should remain as the standard until it should be replaced by a National Convention with unquestioned power. Then they called the roll of States to know^ if any had chosen men for bishops. New York responded Bishops with the name of Dr. Provoost ; Pennsyl- chosen. ^.^j^ia ^y[^\^ tli^t of D^^ White ; Virginia with Dr. Griffith. Maryland had chosen the celebrated Dr. Smith three years before. Distinguished above all the clergy of his time, a statesman, a theologian, a man of affairs, a Doctor of Divinity of Dublin and Aberdeen, the leader in the Southern Church, and the oft-chosen President of the Convention, he had grave defects of character, which led the Convention to pa?s him by in silence. ^ His politi- cal career had been open to serious criticism. He had an uncertain temper. He had determined enemies. His personal habits exposed him to criticism, even in a bibulous age. Dr. Griffith found himself to be too poor to make the journey to England, and the Church in Virginia failed to provide liim with the means to pay his expenses.^ Drs. White and Provoost w^ent their way to London, and were consecrated bishops in Lambeth Chapel, Feb- ruary 4, 1787. The next day they turned their faces homeward, and entered New York Harbor Easter Sun- day, 1787, while the bells of Trinity were calling the people to church. 1 Smith : Life of Dr. Smith, vol. ii. pp. 450-466. 2 Convention Journal of Va., 1787, May 10. 254 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER IV. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. When Dr. Provoost returned to his work in Trinity Church, New York, and Dr. White to Christ Church, Philadelphia, commissioned to do the office and work of bishops, their presence completed the organization of a second Episcopal Church in America. Bishop Seabury had been at Avork in Connecticut for eighteen months. Khode Island had placed herself under his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Massachusetts and New Hampshire had asked for his episcopal oversight. Thus the New England Church had been built up around the ecclesiastical idea which animated the ten clergymen at Woodbury. The Federal idea had prevailed in the other States, but had stopped in its eastward prop-ress at the Housatonic. Can The two ^ ^ Episcopal the two Cliurches, so diverse in sentiment, traditions, and ideals, ever coalesce ? The future of American Episcopacy is involved in the issue. Union seemed to be impossible. Their principles were antagonistic in essentials, and, what is far more potent in affecting action, their passions were deeply moved. In the East they were Tories ; in the South they were Whigs. It Avas a time when political feeling was running higher than it has ever since done, with the THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. 255 single exception of the period immediately preceding the Civil War.^ A band of well-known gentlemen of position and standing had just vowed to murder Alex- ander Hamilton for only demanding common humanity in the treatment of Tories. ^ The laymen in the South Obstacles to could not forget that Bishop Seahury had union. been a British partisan, a British chaplain, and that his name was still borne on the rolls of the British army, in which he was yet receiving the pay of a retired officer, — a place Avhich he kept till the day of his death.^ Bishop Provoost entertained against him an implacable hostility, which he took no pains to conceal. He introduced into the convention of 1786 a resolution declaring Seabury's bishopric invalid,* in which he expressed the general sentiment of the New York clergy. The New England people, on their part, were dis- trustful of the Avhole spirit of the Federal Church. They did not believe its leaders to be sound in the faith ; and were sure of their unsoundness in Church- manship. The place given to lajanen in the Church's government by the new constitution seemed to them a subversion of ecclesiastical order and Catholic custom. Tlie proposed Prayer-Book was abhorrent to them. It was a monstrosity. It emptied the Sacraments of all meaning, overturned ancient and venerable use, and trampled upon traditions. In doctrine the antagonism • McMaster: History of the United States, vol. i. p. 128. 2 IMorse: Life of Hamilton, vol. i. p. 149. 3 Tevvy: History, vol. ii. p. 120. 8 Norton : Life of Bishop Provcost, p. 134. 4 White : Memoirs, p. 161. 256 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. seemed to be still greater. The Convention had ruth< lessly thrown out the two chief symbols of the Faith, and mutilated the third. To be sure, they had restored the Nicene Creed, but the motive under which they replaced it was, if possible, worse than the one Avhich had led to its omission. The Convention, in their view, were so unmindful of the awful prescription of the Creed that they were ready to strike it out for a caprice, and to restore it to gain the end they sought in England. What reason was there to believe that such Churchmen would ever become comfortable yokefellows with the sons of the New England converts, and the spiritual brethren of the Nonjurors? A federated Episcopacy was an idle and dangerous dream. So convinced were the Connecticut clergy of this, and so angered were they by the tone of their neighbors, that they set about to complete their own Plans to per- petuate the structure and make it permanently independ- ent. They had one bishop ; to be completely equipped, they would need two more. The ancient and wise custom of assuring against hasty consecration by requiring at least three bishops to join in every such act was recognized by both churclies. The Connecticut clergy chose Dr. Jarvis to go to Scotland to the Non- jurors, as Dr. Seabury had done.^ This would provide two. For the third they moved the clergy of Massa- chusetts to choose Dr. Parker of Boston, who, if chosen, might pursue the same course. In that event a New England hierarchy would be established in affiliation with the Scotch Church. Its high Churchmanship and 1 Perry; History, vol. ii. p. 77. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. 257 its soundness in the traditional faith would be guaran- teed in advance. Fortunately the scheme failed, and America was spared the pragmatic Church which would thus have risen. Closely related as it would have been with the impracticable Nonjurors, and out of sympathy with the political movement of Amjrican life, it would have survived as a standing warning against Episco- pacy. But the danger of such an attempt being made was ver}^ real. Through Bishops Seabury and White it strivinfffor ^^^^ averted. Seabury's clear grasp of the unity. nature of the Episcopal office led him to see that the solidarity of the Episcopate in a national Church must be maintained. Other bishops were now present in America, and, let the estrangement from them and theirs be what it might, the fact must be recognized. He was quite alive to the political dislike in which he and his were held. He was still more alive to the laxity of the Federal Convention in doctrine and dis- cipline ; but he also saw the imperative need of union. Putting aside all personal considerations, he wrote to the newly made bishops a letter of greeting and God- speed. He offered them his brotherly hand. He as- sured them of his sympathy in their hope for a united Church ; that he would work with them to that end : that he would be glad to meet with them as bishops at any time and place to consult of the matter ; and in- vited them to be present at the Convocation to meet at Stamford in the coming Whitsuntide. Up to this time his difficulty had been that theie was no power in the Federal Church with which he could negotiate. Now there was : and to this power he offered his memo- 258 THE rKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. randuni. liisliop Piovoost could hardly bring himself even to make a courteous reply to the proffer of the Tory ex- chaplain. But Bishop White was quick to seize such an opportunity to further the federation. He replied that union was the prime object in his mind, as it had alwajvs been ; that if the changes in the Prayer- l^ook were the obstacle, he himself would be the first man to have them modified ; but, he states frankly, if the Connecticut people insist that the constitution be changed so as to lodge all power in the Episcopate, and to dislodge the lay order from practical share in Church government, then negotiation Avill be hopeless ; in that case the most which could be hoped for would be that the Scotch -American and English -American Churches might live side by side as friendly neighbors.^ This letter seems to mark the lowest point of Bishop White's hopefulness. What with Bishop Provoost's savage Whig- gery, the Virginia laymen's partisan feeling, and the quiet reluctance of the Connecticut clergy, the task seemed hopeless. As the Eastern clergy had sought for Dr. Parker of Boston to fill up the nonjuring triad, so Bishop White now sought for him to complete the English comple- ment. Dr. Griffith was still detained in Virginia by his poverty. Dr. Smith of Maryland, the other bishop-elect, was not improving either in temper or reputation, and, in any case, a quiet determination not to accept him is evident at every point.^ So he also sought the Boston rector for the third, partly on account of his high charac- 1 Bishop White's letter, quoted by Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 80. 2 Perry; History, vol. ii. p. 79. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. 250 tar, and partly as a strategic move to detach from Con- necticut the State whicli was likely to be her first ally. But the astute Parker had a project of his own. He had no notion of going for consecration to either London Dr Parker's *^^' Aberdeen ; indeed, he did not want the schema. office at all. But he did Avant the unity of the Church. To effect this he cooked a plan Avhich put all the bishops in a corner. Through his management the few clergy in Massachusetts and New Hampshii'e, who had no great need or any wish for a bishop, decided to choose Dr. Bass of NcAvburyport for that office, and to send a formal request to all three Bishops now in the States to unite in his consecration. This, he thought, they could not. with any face, refuse to do. But if they should do it, then mutual recognition and practical unity would be an accomplished fact. Organic unity would come as a result. AVhile the situation stood thus the time came for the Convention to meet at Philadelphia in July, 1789. The Convsntion presentation of the request of the ^Massachu- of 1789. setts people for the consecration of Dr. Bass brought up the whole question of the relation of the Churches. Could Connecticut and the Federal Bishops unite in this act? If not, why not? The issue was now, thanks to Dr. Parker, squarely before the Churcli, and must be disposed of. Bishop Seabuiy, though not present, was known to be willing to act. It was not thought that Bishop Provoost, also absent, would stand out against any agreement which might be reached. But the difficulty now was with Bishop White. ^ He 1 White : IMemoiis, p. 28. 260 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. would be only too glad, personally, to join in the conse- cration, but lie felt that a tacit promise had been given to the English Bishops that no such action would be Bishop taken in this country till the full comple- Whiteand ^ent of three in their line should be present. the English ^ ^ ^ succession. It was true that no such explicit promise had been given, but then the Act of Parliament under Avhich he and Provoost had been consecrated provided for three bishops, and it had only been through the accident of Dr. Griffith's detention that this had not been done. Besides this, and still more weighty, was tlie fact that the Scotch nonjuring Church, from which Seabury derived his Episcopate, Avas not recognized by the English Church.^ Bishop White questioned whether two bishops of that line here ought to venture officially to do what the whole English Church would not do at home. The result of the deliberation Avas the ado2:»tion of a set of resolutions, which, it was believed, would har- monize all conflicting interests. They are a model of Christian temper and sagacity. The first resolution declares it to be the sense of the Convention that there subsists now in the United States " a complete order of bishops, derived as well under the English as the Scots line of Episcopacy."^ This recog- nized the validity of Dr. Seabury 's consecration in the independent judgment of the American Episcopal Church. The second expands the first, and applies it : — these ' Wliite: Memoirs, p. 163. 1 Gruh: Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 370. 3 White : Memoirs, p. 39G. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. 201 three Bishops have all the power which belongs to the office in respect of discipline, limited only by such canons as the entire Church may fix. The third declares that these powers should be exer- cised in the interest of the Church in any State whicli may need and require their use. ThQ fourtli explicitly requests Bishops Provoost and White to join with Bishop Seabury in the consecration of Dr. Bass. The fifth takes account of the difficulty in the way, and promises to address the English Bishops to have it removed, in case it should really exist, of which there is reason to doubt. This settled one of the points of disagreement. Two others still remained. The Constitution already adopted Adjusting ^^^ ^^* ^^^'^ ^^ ^^^^ Episcopate a separate and differences, independent authority, and did give the laity an integral place in the Church's government. This the Connecticut people opposed. In the second place, the Prayer-Book, as it had been changed, was obnoxious to them. The Convention now reconsidered both these actions so far as to leave them open to be rediscussed and acted upon hj the united Church, in case the Connecticut people should come in. Having done so much and notified Connecticut of its action, it took a recess till the following September, to await the result. When September came. Bishop Sea- bury came also. The whole Episcopal Church in the United States being now represented, the disputed articles in the Constitution were brought before it. Upon the general principle of admitting the laity to a 262 TIIE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. place in the government, the Convention stood firm. They, however, modified somewhat the application of it, and safeguarded it against the possibilities of evil which IMshop Seabury apprehended. In the matter of the place of tlie Episcopate in the government, Bishop Seabury's Toryism was like to have wrecked the whole enter]:>rise. The laymen Bishop Sea- -^ . . "^ bury'sTory- could not get ovcr tbat British half-pay of his. This hateful fact bulked so before their eyes that they could not see the ecclesiastical question at issue. Fortunately Bishop White, the well-known patriot, w^as able to take them aside and show them that "ecclesiastical bodies needed not to be over-righteous, or more so than civil bodies, on such a point ; " ^ that tliis was a dead issue ; that the half-pay was for services rendered long ago, and did not prevent him now being a good citizen of Connecticut ; that he might even be returned to Congress from that State, and, if so, could take his seat with the half-pay in his pocket. The Bishop was able to persuade the Whig gentlemen to keep silence. The Constitution was changed to the extent of constituting the Bishops a separate House, only providing that a four-fifths vote of the other House might override their action. With this, Connecticut was fain to be content. In the matter of a Liturgy, the Proposed Book found Adopting a ^^^ ^^'^® ^^ ^'^J '^ good word for it. It was re- Liturgy, solved that the point of departure should be the English Prayer-Book in common use ; that it sliould be revised so as to bring it into harmony with the politi- ' White: Memoirs, p. KJB. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES. 263 cal status. These changes were made with care and caution. The Fourth of July service departed into obscurity with the book which contained it. An Office for the Visitation of Prisoners, from the Irish Prayer-Book ; the Tlianksgiving Day Service from the Proposed J^>ook ; and a Form of Family Prayer were all adopted. The Convention would not accept the Athanasian Creed on an}^ terms, though Bishop Seabury strenuously urged it. But it accepted at his hands the Prayers of Consecration from the Scotch •Book. These things being done, the Connecticut people form- allv gave in their adhesion ; the two rival Churches ceased to strive ; and there became one Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, 264 THE TKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUPvCH. CHAPTER V. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. The United States and the Protestant Episcopal Church were organized the same year and largely by the same hands. In both cases a Federal Government* took the place previously occupied by a congress of independent States. The constitutional history of the Republic in the century Avliich has succeeded has attracted many pens. A brief sketch of the Church's structural development becomes of interest. In the experiment tlien begun, the State had an infin- itely easier task than the Church. For a century and a half the States had been accustomed to self-government, to a large degree. Indeed, this was one of the political inheritances of the race. The town-meeting then, or even now, differs little from the folk-gatherings of the Germanic peoples two thousand years ago. In the political life the result of the Revolution did little more than transfer the rule from King and Parliament to President and Congress ; it did not seriously change the subordinate machineiy of government in the States, counties, and towns. To adjust the new Federal Con- stitution to the old political life was, therefore, not a difficult task, once men's passions had subsided. In the Church, on tlie other hand, the new order of STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 265 things was revolutionary to an extent hard to conceive. It broke at a single stroke the traditions which had controlled Episcopacy for more than a thou- The expert- rr^i ^,i i i mentrevoiu- sand years. The Church, nowhere more tionary. ^^^^^^ .^^ England, had been accustomed to associate Episcopacy with Monarchy. Churchmen them- selves were under the domination of this idea. For more than two centuries the coyige cVellre of the king liad been taken as authority in the choice of a bishop. Convocation had been silent for so many years that men had nearl}' forgotten its existence. Even when it did possess life it was not a popular body, deriving its authority from the people, but an agent whose powers, at the last analysis, were inherent in the State. In the long struggle between King and Parliament the people had gained the right, and ever since exercised the habit, of self-government in secular things ; but in the same struggle the Church had stood by the King, and, in consequence, remained bound by the ancient fetters. So long had this continued that Churchmen had not only lost the habit, but also the wish, for independent action. The familiar forms of procedure whereby the people registered their votes, and made known their will in political things, were not the wont of the Church. From government by bishops, themselves the creat- ures of the king, to government by a convention made up of popularly selected bishops, priests, and Government byconven- laymen, IS a tremendous leap. VV hen the convention is composed of men who had been born and reared and had their habits fixed under another ecclesiastical system, the wonder at its success 266 THE rilOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. becomes still greater. It took long to disentangle this primitive Church revived from the traditions of the monarchical period. Reactionaries even yet dream of the time Avhen Charles First was king. The immediate task before the newly federated Cliurch was to adjust the mutual relations of bishops, clero-y, and laity. Each order had an inde- Relationof , . . , ,t the three pendent voice m tiie management. How °^ °^^' could they PvCt harmoniously ? The introduc- tion of the laity into the place assigned to them was a momentous step. I'he ecclesiastical mind of New Eng- land was opposed to it entirely. Connecticut only came into the federal association upon the formal assurance that lay representation was but a privilege allowed to any State, Avhich it might Avaive without suffering any diminution of its own strength in representation. ^ They accepted it as a privilege of doubtful wisdom, but sent lay delegates in 1792. Even after a century has elapsed they still exclude laymen from the Standing (Committee. Upon tlie whole, however, this most revo- lutionary of the changes introduced became soonest accepted and fixed in a well-defined function. There was far more confusion as to the rights and powers of bishops. In the colonial days the absence of The powers discipline was constantly deplored. It was of bishops, absent because no bishop was present. A iunmlacrmn of it a})peared in the person of the Bishop 1 **The Cliurch in each State shall be entitled to a representation of clergy or laity or both. In case the Church of any State should neclect or decline to appoint these deputies of either order, or if it sliould be tlieir rule to appoint only out of one order, the Church in such State sliall nevertheless be considered to be duly represented ... by either order." (Letter of Federal Convention to Bishoi) Seabury.) STKUCTUKAL DEVELorMENT. 1(> < of London's Commissary ; but what power he pos- sessed was recognized to be but delegated by his principal, in whom it inhered. Now that a bishop was on the ground, Avhat rights and powers are his ? How far may they be modified or restrained in action by the co-ordinate powers of clergy and laity in convention ? In one form or other, this question has been before the American Church for a centur3\ The general drift has been toward that undue limitation of their inherent powers which Bishop Seabury feared. Their unquali- fied power of '' visitation '' Avas at first conceded.^ It Avas not only their right but their dut}^ to make inquisi- tion of the working of every minister in his cure ; " to examine the state of his church and inspect the behav- ior of the clerg3^"' The minister and church-wardens are charged to give their bishop the information he asks.^ The Diocesan Convention has long since as- sumed this power. It is to it that such reports are now "VisHa- made, for information only, and not as a tion." possible ground of discipline. The bishop's power of initiation in the exercise of clerical discipline, the power which by right and immemorial custom has always inhered in his office, has been almost, if not entirely, taken from him and lodged elsewhere.^ Tlie party offending is not now to be summoned by the bishop to give an account, but j^resented for trial, if any of his brethren volunteer this service, before a court from Avliich the bishop is for the most part excluded.'' In the matter 1 Canon iii. 1789. 2 Canon xi. 1789. 3 Gen. Con. Canons, Title II. 4 Diocese of Pennsylvania. Canon xvii. 268 THE PKO TEST ANT EPISCOPAL CHUPtCH. of ordination, the distinguishing function of the Epis- co])ate, the same gradual process of restriction has oc- curred. 'J'he duty to select fit persons, and to pass upon their qualifications for the ministry, has always, hy ancient usage, been lodged in the hands of the bishop in liis capacity of chief pastor. Before the federation, Bishop Seabury exercised this power without question. ^ It was the same authority which had warranted the English bishops in ordaining him and the hundreds of others who had crossed the sea for that end in colonial times. There the bisliop had not been hindered in his right to beget spiritual children. The convention at once set limits to episcopal discretion here. It pre- cluded the bishop from laying hands on any man, unless he had reached a certain age, and had a field of work guaranteed ; but this was only putting an old custom into the form of a law. Within these limits Encroach- ment by it left the bishop free to act. It provided ingCom-" ^^1' ^^^"^ ^^^ agent in the Standing Committee mittee. whose duty it would be to examine for Mm the candidates' fitness, but recognized his original power by the provision that "every candidate for Holy Orders sliall be recommended according to . . . tlie requisites of the bisliop to whom he applies." ^ But as time went on, the Standing Committee ceased to act as the bishop's agent,*^ and came to be regarded as hav- ing an independent authority of its own in the premises. Then a still more radical departure from its original 1 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, p. 213. ' Canon vi. 1789. 8 It was first called the " Bislioi)s' Council of Advice.* STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 269 function insensibly took place, and the Standing Com- mittee came to be thought of as representing the clergy and laity ! It is usually so regarded now. From being the bishop's creature, it has become the Diocesan Con- vention's representative. In this capacity a mixed body of clergymen and laymen now divides with the bishop the power of selecting fit persons for the ministry, and leaves him the power to ordain only such persons as it may think worthy.^ While the powder of bishops in their individual capac- ity has been steadily circumscribed, so that of the Power of House of Bishops has been extended. The Bisho^ s^in- ^^'^^ provision was to give them only a seat creased. ex officio among the other clergy. With this Bishop Seabury would in no wise be content. Then they were constituted a separate House with power to originate measures, but without an absolute negative upon the other House. The clergy and laity could pass any measure over their heads by a four-fifths vote, or through the bishops' failure to negative it within a limited period of two days.^ Twenty years later both these restrictions upon independent action were re- moved, and the House of Bishops received the power wliich has often stood the Church in good stead.^ 1 Gen. Con. Canons, Title I. Canons 1-8. Among the "Fundamental liiglits and Liberties " laid down in the Convention of 1783, as the basis of federation, is tbe following: " Tlie clergy shall be deemed adequate judges of the ministerial commission and authority, and of the literary, moral, and religiotts qualifications and abilities of persons to be nominated to the different orders of the minis- try; but the approving and receiving such persons to any particular cure, duty, or parish, when so nominated, set apart, consecrated, and ordained, is in the people who are to support them, and to have the benefit of their ministry.' White: ^lemoirs, p. 94. ■^ Constitution, 1781). STxPii. ('. .. .T,.-.-,..-l. 1,S08. 270 THE riiOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. This same tendency toward legal rather than personal authority shows itself also in the provision for the godly Discipline of discipline of the laity. Virginia objected to the laity. the *' Proposed Book " because it gave to the priest the power to repel unworthy persons from the Holy Communion. The sense of the united Church was so nuich the other way, however, that it not only allowed this power to the priests, but extended the lati- tude within which the book restricted it. The English rubric required the priest in such a cause to report the case to the Ordinary wdthin fourteen days at the farthest. The American only required him to do so as soon as conveniently may be. The English rule required the bishop to institute an inquiry into the facts of every such case as soon as reported to him. The American says he need not do so unless the repelled person asks for such a trial in writing, within a fixed term, after which his case shall go by default. In such a cause the bishop, the priest, and the person repelled were the only parties. The bishop was at liberty '' to proceed according to such principles of law and equity " as he might, and his judgment was final. But, as the spirit of government by convention gained sway, the personal authority of both Ijishop and priest was circumscribed. Tlie Convention provided for a r=egular process of trial for a repelled communicant, either by its own canons, or by such as the Diocesan Conventions might adopt.^ Diocesan Conventions drew the restrictions still closer, and, in some cases, set up mixed courts of clergy and laymen for such cases.'-^ 1 Canon xlii. IHo'J. 2 Penn:i. (';ni(in xviii. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 271 The wliole legal history of the Church, in fact, is but a record of the successive assumptions of power by the General Convention. From the outset the Liturgy was taken under its con- trol. During the whole colonial period there had been Control of gi'sat laxity in the use of the Prayer-Book. the Liturgy. 3^^ few people possessed copies of it, and in public worship the '* clerk '' spoke for all the congrega- tion. Beside that, there had been no power present to enforce uniformity. But the practice of the two hun- dred yeai-s since the English Church had avowed her settled purpose to bring all her members into one uni- form mode of worship had produced its effect. The possibility of variety of use in the same National Church had ceased to be thought of. The Convention at once assumed unquestioned control in the matter, and set before itself uniformity as an end. In the early reports upon the " State of the Church," one item always records the extent to which this had been attained in each State.^ The success was finally abso- Tendencyto ^^^^^- From Maine to California uniformity uniformity, ^yr^^ exacted. When that had been achieved there came a reaction which threatened revolution. Kitual violations of law began to show themselves everywhere. They were quite as much rebellions against mechanical routine, as the outcome of strange doctrine. The next phase of the history is that long- drawn effort in which the Convention is now engaged, to stamp out the wide-spread insurrection against its law of ritual uniformit\'. Its sway in this regard was only 1 (Tdieial Con. Journal, 181iO. 272 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CKURCH. achieved b}' persistent effort through half a century ; a second half-ceiitury may see it overthrown or abdicated Over Hymns as well aj Piayers, the Convention stretched out its hand. It early assumed the power to say what might be sung, and what might not. At a later date it set forth tunes as well, and with the same right. Nor has the assumption been generally questioned. Its power to authorize certain selections from religious poetry has been re- garded as carrying witli it the power to exclude all others. It has not hesitated to take cognizance of the per sonal actions of individual clergymen, and to instruct them to keep away from one another's field of work, It has taken notice of the daily life of the laity, and prescribed rules for their personal conduct.^ The original Act of Association stipulated : '' That no powers be delegated to a general ecclesias 'deal go v> ernment, except such as cannot be conven- Powers of ^ GensraiCon- iently exercised by the clergy and laity i:^ vention. ,i . ,. x- 55 t j. their respective congregations. in a cent ury the same " general ecclesiastical government '' luu gathered into its hands all authority. It would be dif- ficult to say what it might not legally do. In tho absence of any supreme ecclesiastical court to interpret tlie Constitution with authority, any local power to withstand its mandates, any authority to enforce tho 1 "All persons within this Church shall celebrate and keep the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday, in hearing tlie Word of God read and taught, in private and public prayer, in other exercises of devotion, and in acts of charity, using all godly and sober conversation." Cau-jn xlii. 1832. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 278 terms of the original compact, there woiikl seem to be no limit set to the Convention's power exce^it its own will.i The parties to the original federation were the Churches in the several States. In the early ^^ears of g^^^.g the history these are uniformly thought and autonomy. spoken of as possessing independent lives. The old ideal of National Churches was always present to the minds of the founders, but their thought of nationality attached itself to the independent State rather than to the federated Union. In fact, that federation was not yet accomplished, and there wa.'i grave reason to doubt if ever it would be. Virginia or Connecticut Avere far more substantial realities than was the United States. This way of thinking survived until a generation grew up under the flag of the Federal Union. Then it Avas seen that while State lines might be convenient boundaries for ecclesiastical dioceses, there was no necessary relation between the two things. The quality of nationality could not be claimed for an individual State to the extent which Avould war- rant the inhabitants of it acting as a National Church. This quality had insensibl}' transferred itself to the Federal Union. When this fact came to be recognized, there was no principle to hinder the division of a State into convenient dioceses, or the grouping of several States into one ecclesiastical district.^ But Avhen this was done, and New York had been divided, the accepted 1 Dr. Francis Wluirton, in Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 400. - •' Address to the Clergy and Laity of the P. E. Church residing in the Western Part of the State of >'e\v York," 1835, p. 20. 274 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. principle of representation at once became indefensible. State antonomy had disappeared. The idea of diocesan Gradually autonomy had not yet emerged. The States abandoned, j^r^j j^.^j ^^^ equal representation in conven- tion allowed them from the first. But this was not from any idea of diocesan equality, but from the thought of each being a National Church. That prin- ciple being abandoned, an equal representation, regard- less of numbers or strength, became at once inequitable. But the method had become intrenched in custom, and acquired the authority of prescription, and so it sur- vived. It became only a question of time, however, as to when the Church should recognize the change in the fact, and bring her practice to conform thereto. The same lust of legislation which led the Convention to regulate prayer, praise, and conduct, led it also to enact by law a detailed system of doctrine. In the sixteenth century the Church of England had been coerced by the doctrinal spirit of the age to set forth a detailed body of divinity in her The Articles, . , . . . and their Tliiity-yiine Articles. The action was foreign to her genius. But the Romanists had their Tridentine formularies; the Lutherans their Augsburg Confession ; the Calvinists the Westminster Confession, and the Church of England was driven by the ZeiUjetHt to become '' like unto the nations." The adoption of such a detailed system of theology was contrary to her history and traditions. The Confession remained in her body like a foreign substance, irritating, until it became encysted and forgotten. When the American Church was organized it had a chance to rectify STRUCTUIIAL DEVELOPMENT. 275 the error. A wish widely prevailed to omit the Articles altogether. Their importance was deemed so subsidiary that they were set aside until all else was settled. Then the question came up, Shall this Church formulate a body of doctrine ? Shall it exact subscription thereto? In 1799 the question was brought forward concerning the Articles. These had not been bound up with the Prayer-Books which had been used in America for more than a generation. They had been thought of as standing upon the same ground that the Homilies did, and were little, if at all, known by the people.^ The Convention went into Committee of the Whole upon the subject. When it rose the chairman reported the following, which they had agreed upon. : ^' Resolved, That the articles of our faith and religion as founded on the Holy Scriptures are sufficiently declared in our Creeds and our Liturgy as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, established for the use of. this Church, and that further articles do not appear necessary." Unfortunately, the House saw fit to vote against the resolution 2 which it had just agreed to in committee. The Bishops were in favor of adopting the Articles. Two years later, some political modifications having been made, they were adopted as a whole. They were Their bind- oi'dered to be bound up with the Prayer-Book ing force. [^^ j^H future editions. No formal subscrip- tion to them Avas prescribed. There they have stood since. What binding force upon belief they may 1 Letter from a Churcliman to His Friend in New Haven, 1808, p. 29. 3 Con. Journal, June 14, 1TD9. 276 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL ClIUUCTI. cany, each decides for himself. They are a section of sixteeiith-ceiituiy thought transferred to the nine- teenth. They have never exercised any appreciable influence upon the life or belief of this Churcli. Like all contemporary Confessions, they have largely ceased to be intelligible. They are a water-mark of a previous tide. The current of the Church has flowed on un- mindful of them. The last revision of the Prayer-Book provides for their being bound up next its cover ; the' next will probably bind them outside. FKOM TUE OLD TO THE NEW. 277 CHAPTER VI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. Between 1790 and the close of the War of 1812, a profound change occurred in America. It was the passage from colonial to modern life. The Revolution had made it necessary and cleared the way for it. The Federal Constitution had fixed the lines of its ultimate development. The Protestant Episcopal Church Avas equipped to keep step with it. But the mature men of 1790 had been reared in a social, religious, and commer- cial environment as different from that into which their sons emerged when they took the management of affairs, as could well be imagined. The fathers, both in Church and State, had been wise builders. But they were as little at home in the house which they had erected as is the plain and successful man of business in the splen- did mansion which he builds for his children after he has made his fortune. The Revolutioiiar}^ men were Change of ^^^ ^^^ ^^ adjust themselves easil}^ to the new manners. regime. That compelled the abandonment of old customs, and prejudices still more close-clinging than custom. Wigs Avere laid aside. The sword, here- tofore the badge of a gentleman, ceased to be carried. Distinctions of social rank were beginning to fade, to the great disturbance of them of the ancien regime. 278 THE PliOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. The formal manners of the colonial period were passing away, and the sharp, business-like intercourse of mod- ern times was coming in.i Tlie bishops and statesmen who were to the fore at the beginning of the period were men of the old school. Those whom we shall see at its end were modern men. The change from the old order to the new led through an unhappy and turbulent epoch. In it^ turmoils the men of clear vision, saga- cious mind, and strong liand, who had fought a battle Old men and ♦'^R'T^i^^st odds, cemented the State, founded a new times. Nation, and organized a Cluirch, one by one dropped out of sight. It seemed as though the titanic task they had accomplished had drained their energies. One of the most brilliant epochs in the history of the American people is followed closely by one of the dark- est. The body politic and the body ecclesiastic seemed exhausted after the strain of the great effort for inde- pendence. Disorders of all sorts broke out in the depleted system. Virulent party strife racked it with pains. Federalist and anti-Federalist assailed each other with a rancor unknown in modern politics. No name was so great and no character so high as to bring its owner safety. Washington was called a '• fool by nature," and Franklin a '' fool by old age." Scurrilous pamphlets, abounding in personalities, pasquinades, and libellous newspaper articles were the least objectionable of the weapons used.^ When these were not violent enough, clubs and smallswords took their places. Botli parties agreed in attacking what they thought tlie 1 Jolinson: History of the U.S., p. 167. 1 M'Master: History of the U.S., vol. i. ch. 5. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 279 shameful extravagance of Congressmen. States wran- gled about the ownership of the public lands, and while they argued, land-jobbers stole them.^ Debate ran fierce and high about slavery. The smallpox devastated New A dark England, and the yellow-fever threatened to epoch. depopulate Philadelphia and New York. A shameful panic seized the people. Ties of nature and of affection were disregarded, and each man thought only of himself. The horrid selfishness of fear demor- alized the populace. The Indians broke out against the frontiersmen on the Ohio and the Maumee. Harmer and St. Clair were beaten by their savage enemies, and it looked as though the movement westward would be stayed at the Ohio. Algerine pirates seized upon the ships of the new nation and sold their crews into a hopeless slavery. Speculation ran rife. Even city councils took to gambling. Drunkenness threatened to debauch the nation. In the Western settlements whiskey was the only currency used. A tax on its manufacture raised an insurrection which it required the national resources to suppress. In 1810 there were fourteen thousand distilleries in the country, producing two and a half gallons of raw spirits annually for every person in the population, a rate never since reached.^ The subsiding aniuiosity against England and all things English v/as fanned into a new flame by the terms of the British Treaty and the hateful Tory claims.^ " M'Fingal," a satire upon the Tories, after the manner 1 Hawks: Ecclesiastical Contributions, vol. Va.. Appendix, p. 81. 2 Schouler: History of the U.S., vol. li. 3 lb., vol. i. pp. 456, 459. 280 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL C'HUPtCH. of "Hudibras," was in every hand and npon every tongue.^ It was the period dominated by Frencli infidelity. The service rendered the Americans by Lafayette and Fr-nsh infi- ^^^'^ compatriots during the war had Avon the d9iity. people's heart. France seemed to promise a sister republic. Previous to the reaction caused by the atrocities of the French Revolution, French manners wei-e all the rage. Talleyrand, the apostate Bishop of Autun, De Noailles, Rochefoucauld, Louis Philippe himself, were honored guests. The tri-colored cockade was the favorite decoration. The shallow atheism wdiich led the French to abolish God by decree was widespread here. Jefferson Avas its scarcely disguised apostle. Tom Paine became its champion. His "Age of Reason," published in 1794, had a circulation and an influence hardly equalled by any single book since.^ Its succinct, portable, and specious, even if shallow, arguments commended it to the thousands who were already under the influence of the same spirit from Avliich it emanated, and Avere delighted to find argu- ments placed in their mouths. Especially in the South and West did this prevail. The days of Christianity Avere thought to be numbered, and a reign of " Rea- son " Avas at hand. Like the Ingersollism of a later date, it Avas Avelcomed by the half educated, who Avished the freedom from moral restraints Avhich it 1 Trumbull: " M'Fiugal,'" now only remembeved by its surviving couplet, — " No ro<::u(> f'or felt tlie halter draw, With jj;oo;l opinion of tiie l:i\v." 2 Ilildreth : History of tbe U.S., vol. ii. p. 4G4. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 281 carried Avith it. When Jefferson was chosen President, it seemed to have triumphed utterly. Presidents have been elected since who have sat loosely to the Christian faith, but not before or since Jefferson who have been voted for on that ground.^ It was a period prolific of sects. Specially in the West and South a brood of them was born. The sober Presbyterianism which the Scotch-Irish had lately car- ried into Tennessee and Kentucky was overwhelmed by the wave of revivalism which reached its height in this period.- Upon its ruins arose a growth of extravagant churches, so called, destined afterward to fill the valley of the Ohio. What could the newly organized Church do in such an age ? The devastation of Avar, the fury of political Position of Strife, the revived animosity to England and the Church, r^i\ things English, t!ie craze of French infi- delity, the unsettling of fixed habits, the loosening of creeds, the Aveakening of reverence, all Avrought against her groAvth. By the happy union of the Ncav England and tlie Federal ideas in the ecclesiastical constitution, signed by all the States in 1789, the Church had escaped the peril of permanent schism, not to say of anarchy. Upon tlie death of poor Dr. Griffith, Virginia chose Dr. Madison, who Avent to England for consecration, and thus completed the Englisli line. Both lines com- bined in consecrating Dr. Claggett Bishop of Mary- ' Centennial Council, Ya., p. 139. 1 Cliass: lleniiniscences, vol. i. p. 108. 2 Roosevelt: AA'inning of the AA^'est, vol. i. p. 133. 2 Hiltlreth: History of the U.S., vol. ii. p. 4G3. 282 THE PKOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. land. South Carolina, which had only entered the Federal Church on the condition that no bishop should be sent to lier, came to a better mind three years later, and elected Dr. Robert Smith. Massachusetts, the Eastern Diocese, and New Jersey followed. To complete the organization Avas thenceforth an easy task. Tlie real problem was how to set tlie enginery of the Church into efficient motion. For a brief period it seemed as though success would be immediate. Multi- tudes flocked to Confirmation. Bishop Seabury con- Numbers firmed two hundred and fifty at one time ^ confirmed. ^^ Stratford, and nearly twice as many at Waterbury. At Bishop Provoost's first Confirmation at Trinity Church, over three hundred presented them- selves. They included children of fourteen, and totter- ing old men and women, who went from the chancel to their pews muttering their Ninic Dhnittis. Two venerable ladies were led up by their colored slaves, who stood humbl}^ by until the rite was over.^ Bishop Madison, at his first and only visitation to the tide-water section of his State, confirmed six liundred in five par- ishes.^ Bat when the novelty of the rite, now for the first time made possible, had worn away, it became very generally neglected. Bishop White does not seem to have deemed Confirmation more essential for tlie people tlian he had deemed it for himself. He had never been confirmed at all. He rarely made visita- tions outside of Philadelphia and tlie towns close by.^ 1 Beardsley: History of the Chiircli in Connecticut, vol. i. p. 430. ^ Norton: Life of Bishop Provoost, p. l.'')2. 3 Centennial Council, Va., p. 140. * Rev. Dr. J. H. Hopkins, in The Churchman, April 22, 1884. FROM THE OLD TO THE XEW. 283 He never crossed the mountains but once. The many Church people who had made their liomes in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky Avere entirely neglected.^ A convocation of clergy assembled in 1801 at Washington, Pa., coming from these dis- siackad- tricts, wrotc to Bishop White, asking that ministration, somethino- mio^ht be done to organize the Church in the West, but, after waiting eighteen months for an answer, were told that nothing could be done. Bishop White does not give any account at all of his Episcopal work until 1809. During the twenty years which succeed, his visitations averaged only six par- ishes per annum. In the twelve parishes beyond the Alleghanies, Confirmation Avas never seen but once in his long Episcopate. Indeed he protests in set terms against " the supposition in the minds of many, that a bishop shoidd always be engaged in visitations." ^ He declares that it is contrar}^ to the usage of dio- cesan bishops in all ages ; that a bishop's time is '' as much due to his own family as are any of his services to the Church ; " that it is inconsistent with a learned Epis- copacy ; that it would be oppressive upon an aged and infirm bishop. The bishops Avere all rectors of parishes,^ and regarded the Avork of their Episcopal office but little, except in the single function of ordination. Bishop Madison, after his first visitation, paid no further attention to his diocese, but occupied him^self entirely ' Rev. Dr. J. H. Hopkins, in The Churchman, April 22, 18S4. - White: Alemoirs, p. 467. 3 Virginia, from fear tliat the bisliop might come to be considered dif- ferent from the other clergy, passed a canon compelling him to be rector of a parish. 3 Hawks: Contributions, vol. Va., p. 214. 284 THE PllOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. with his duties as President of William and Mary Col- lege.^ The first Bishop of South Carolina never con- firmed at all.2 After his death, no successor Avas chosen f'jr eleven years. Bisliop Provoost resigned in 1801, and busied himself with making a new translation of Tasso, and the study of hotau}^.^ During this time he entirely neglected the services of the Church and the Holy Comminiion.^ The convention of his diocese met irregularly. During three successive years it did not meet at all.^ The coadjutor, Bishop Moore, proceeded in the same easy fashion, commending the Church, however, as Provoost did not, by his own gentle piety. In 1811 he was stricken with paralj^sis. Dr. Hobart was there- upon chosen the third Bishop of New York, all tlu'ee Troubles in ^^ whom were living at the same time. The New York. situation caused great searchings of heart. The interest, however, did not revolve about the prob- lem of the Church's progress, but of her internal ar- rangement. We first catch a glimpse here of the party spirit destined later to convulse the Church, and see an exhibition of that pettiness which has always been her besetting sin. The " Lov/ Churchmen " were bitterly opposed to Dr. Hobart's election. Bishop Provoost, to the general amazement, laid down his lexicons, closed liis herbariums, and came out to head the opposition. He declared that his resignation ten years earlier had not been irrevocable. He proposed now to assume the 1 Norton: Life of Bisliop Provoost, p. 174. 2 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 180, note. 3 Spraijue: Annals, vol. v. p. 244. * Perry: History, vol. i. p. 190. ^ Norton : Life of Bishop Provoost, p. 168. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 285 administration himself, and would not require the serv- ices of the bishop-elect. His contention was so pre- posterous that the House of Bishops would not hear of it, and even his own convention would not allow it. Dr. Hobart must ba consecrated. But when the day fixed for the ceremony arrived, the deplorable weakness of the Church appeared. There were six bishops in the United States. Three were necessary to consecrate another. Bishop Provoost Avas broken in health, and his naturally infirm temper was weakened by the trans- action of which this ceremony formed the conclusion. It was very doubtful if he either could or Avould be present. Bishop Madison of Virginia was so indifferent to the whole affair that he did not think of leaving his college duties for such a purpose. Bishop Claggett of Maryland was taken ill on his way Xorth, and obliged to turn back. Only Bishops White of Pennsylvania and Jarvis of Connecticut were available. It looked as though another journey must be made to England for consecration. Tliat would indeed have been easier than to secure the attendance of three American bishops at one time and place. Finally Bishop Provoost consented to join in the consecration if his health would allow him to go to .the church. The other bishops then agreed that if he sliould be unal^le, the service might be held in his bed-chamber. Fortunately he found the strength and the will to attend at Trinity Cliurch. But upon The question ^^^^ arrival a great difficulty arose. He had ofwigs. adorned his head with a wig, and the other bishops wore only their hair. It was solemnly dis- cussed whether or not so important a function could be 286 THE PRDTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. performed wigless.^ Dr. Duche offered to lend Bishop White his for the occasion. But Bishop Jarvis, in that case, would be singular. Bishop White adduced the high example of Archbishop Tillotson, whose portrait shows him wigless. This illustrious precedent was deemed satisfactory for the two, while Bishop Provoost should uphold ancient usage in his Episcopal headdress. The question being settled, the services proceeded, and the three surviving men of the old order laid their hands upon Bishop Hobart, the first of modern Churchmen Throughout the South and the frontier the condition of things was no better. Between Virginia and South Carolina lay a broad belt of settlements State of ^ things in the where parishes had once been, and where many Church families were scattered yet. Among the population which was pouring over the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee there were hundreds of Ej^iscopalians from Maryland and Virginia. These were all as sheep without a shep- herd, and were, for the most part, lost finally to the Church.2 In the two old States where the Church had been established, destruction was abroad. The loss of the State support, upon which they had become accus- tomed to lean, left them broken in fortune and in spirit. In Maryland, [)arty strife added the last touch to the dark picture. When Bishop Claggett grew infirm, and Dr. Kemp was chosen for his assistant, a secession took place, under the lead of Rev. Daniel DashielL of Balti- ' Norton: Life of Bishop Provoost, p. 17(>. - Id.; Life of Bishoi» Cla.2;2;ptt, p. 110. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 287 more, and an " Evangelical Episcopal Church " set up.^ The abortive schism never effected more than to harass the already wearied Church. The dawn of a better day was even then visible. But it was in old Virginia where the gloom was deepest. The Church had been in control there for two Low estate centuries, until within a generation. But m Virginia. ^}^r^^ generation had turned away from her in indifference or in anger. During the war, her laymen, the Washingtons, Henrys, Lees, Pendletons, had taken the patriotic side, while the clergy had clung to Eng- land and to their glebes. When the new order of things came in, the Church's power was foredoomed. In the judgment of the people it had been misused, and they meant to take it away entirely. The laymen stood by impassive, or joined in the spoliation. In 1802 the blow fell, and the Churcirs property was swept away at a stroke. Glebes and churches were sold for a song.^ The proceeds, whicli, it had been enacted by the Legis- lature, should be '' used for any public purpose not religious," were embezzled by the sheriff's officers. Guzzling planters toped from stolen chalices and passed the cheese about in patens. A marble font became a horse-trough. Communion plate, the gift of the good Queen Anne, adorned the sideboards of officers of State and country gentlemen. Tlie clergy in large numbers laid down their spiritual callings. At the outbreak of Uie war they had numbered ninety. At its close, only ' Hawks: Contributions, vol. Md., p. 422. - lb., vol. Va., p. 224 et S3q. 2 Centennial Council, Virginia, p. 70. 288 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. twenty-eight could be counted. After the spoliation they lost all heart. No convention Avas held from 1806 to 1812. Then only thirteen could be assembled. When they adjourned it was with no expectation of ever meet- ing again. 1 '' i'hey fear," said the House of Deputies to the Bishop, ''the Church in Virginia is so depressed that there is danger of her utter ruin." The people had alread}' gone from her. The Rev. Devereux Jarratt declares that before the Revolution he had often nine hundred or a thousand communicants ; now, since the Methodists liave done their work, he can scarcely find forty hearers. When William jNIeade was ordained deacon at Wil- liamsburg, in 1811, two ladies and fifteen gentlemen, Meade or- ^lost of them liis relatives, formed the con- dained. gregation. The citizens were filling their ice-houses, and the students, wdtli their dogs and guns, had gone hunting. The church was dilapidated and the windows broken. There were grave suspicions tliat tlie Bishop himself had renounced the Christian faith.^ The literary society of the college had lately discussed : First, Whether there be a God? Secondly, Whether the Christian religion had been injurious or beneficial to mankind? Infidelity was then rife in the State, and the College of William and IMary was regarded as the hotbed of French politics and religion. "- 1 can truh' say," says Bishop Meade, '' that then, and for some years after, in every educated young man whom I met, I expected to find a sceptic, if not an unbeliever." No ^ Centennial Council, Virginia, p. 143. ^ Meade: Old Chiirches, vol. i. pp. 29-30. FROM THE OLD TO THE XEW. 289 minister had been ordained for 3'ears save one unworthy fellow, and it was a passing wonder to the people that a young man of good family, an educated man, a gradu- ate of Princeton, should enter the ministry of the Episcopal Church ! ^ In Connecticut, indeed throughout New England, the Church maintained its own, but made scant progress. Bishop Seabury took his office seriously. He The Church . . in New was strong in the thing, but lacked grace in ung an . ^^^ manner. ^' I, Samuel, by Divine permis- sion Bishop of Connecticut, . . . issue this injunction^ hereby authorizing and requiring you, and every one of you, the Presbyters and Deacons of the Church above mentioned, to make the following alterations in the Liturgy and Offices of the Church." ^ This was his style toward tho-se \\\\o recognized his authority. In an "Address to Ministers and Congregations of the Pres- byterian and Independent persuasions in the United States of America," he charges them to return to the fold. This could only be done by '" relin- Bishop Sea- bury's quishiug those errors which they, through prejudice, had imbibed." This sort of treacle catches few flies. On the other hand, his clear and emphatic presentation of the position of the Church had its effect upon a people who have always been moved by argument rather than by feeling. But even in New England a new hostility had arisen. The old charo^e of lack of spiritual earnestness had been revived.'^ A con- 1 Peny: History, vol. ii. p. 143. 2 Beai^sley : Life of Seabury, p. 386. 3 Character and Principles of the Protestant Episcopal Church Vin- dicated: New Haven, 1816. 290 THE PROTE.STAXT EPISCOl'AL CHURCH. certed attempt, in which the Puritan clergy joined, to damage her prospects and reputation, had been system- atically undertaken.^ It seems unfortunate that it should have fallen to the bisliops of this period to meet and pass upon one of the Dr Coke's most momentous questions which liave ever proposition, l^een brought before that house. This was a proposition from Dr. Coke, the first of the Methodist superintendents. He had been set apart by Wesley in 1784, and liad himself commissioned Mr. Asbury in America to complete the organization of that numer- ous body, then members of the Episcopal Church. After some years of work and experience. Coke, still a clergyman of the Church, wrote to the new-made Bishops Seabury and White, offering a plan of reunion. He proposed that he and Mr. Asbury should be conse- crated " as bishops of the Methodist Society in the United States (or by any other title, if that be not proper), on the supposition of the union of the two churches, under proper mutual stipulation." Bishop Seabury never answered his letter at all.^ Bishop White replied in his usual courteous style. Bishop Madison of Virginia, who knew better than any of the others Avho and what the Methodists were, and what their needs were, was anxious that the matter should be accomplished, but the other bishops were untouched. Bishop Seabury did not want it, and Bishop White did not believe it possible.^ i'l^ey dismissed the project 1 Letter from a Churclnnan to bis Friend in New Haven, 1808. 2 Beardsley: Life of Seabury, p. 40L 3 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 12(5. FROM THE OLD TO THE XE\Y. 291 with a general declaration that the Church was always desirous of unity, was ready to alter or modify anything save essentials to this end, and recommended to the sev- eral States to propose such conferences with Christians of other denominations as tliey might think most prudent. At first sight it would seem as though the Church had lost the opportunity of the century through the incapacity of the old bishops to comprehend gone beyond the new condition of things. Could they have foreseen the mighty ecclesiastical em- pire to which American Methodism was destined to grow, they would doubtless have laid aside all else, and striven to avert its final separation from its mother. The severance has been fruitful of evil to both mother and child. But it is doubtful if they could have suc- ceeded. It was even then too late. Had the Bishop of London hearkened to Wesley's earnest prayer a dozen years before, and ordained men to look after the thou- sands of ]Methoclists who were then members of the Bishop's own flock, the division would probably have been averted. But he had refused, and the mischief was done. Wesley's action in sending out superintend- ents had been well and wisely done. It wa3 the action of a High Churchman ^ and an earnest man. There waj no bishop here then, and, so far as men could see, no likelihood of any. Meanwhile '* the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed." That the superintendents should take upon themselves the office of bishop, whether they assumed its title or not, was inevitable. No chagrin of Wesley could change the course of events. ' He had, 1 Stevens; History oi Mi thoilism, Appendix. 292 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. with ail honest purpose, built an engine which he could not control ; but the first American bishops were not the men to either control or direct it. Their great work was done. It had been to organize American Episco- pacy. That they had done well and wisely. To bring it into right relation with the other component parts of American Christianity was to be the duty of their descendants a century later. As the chaotic period now before us draws to its end, signs of new vigor in the Church begin to appear. A Dawnino- of a generation of men born and reared under the better day. ^^^^y qy(\qy r^rc now comiug upou the stage. The field is being prepared by a hundred unthought-of agencies. The unpopular war with England in 1812 has ended, and a better understanding exists than did wdien it began. Cliurchmen had fought on the Ameri- can side, and had won their comrades' good-will. Napo- leon's duplicity has disgusted the people with the French influence. The Cumberland Road has been built from the Potomac to the Ohio and beyond. Canals have been opened up to carry emigrants and goods. The vast region east of the Mississippi has been purchased. Wayne has broken and scattered the Indians. Settlers' cabins have begun to dot the prairies. Lewis and Clark have toiled up the jNIissouri, and paddled down the Columbia. Fulton's new steamboat has carried wonder- ing passengers up the Hudson, and its sister craft has been built on the Ohio. Manufactories have crossed the Alleo'hanies. The cotton o-in has started new life in the South. A highway has been cast up. The old life has gone. The modern America has come. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 293 With it have come new men. Bishop Hobart is im- pressing the true spirit of the American Church upon New men at New York and Connecticut. Meade is gath- work. ering up the scattered and broken forces in Virginia. Empie and Judd are hiying foundations in North Carolina. The sagacious Parker is adjusting the Church to the new life in Massachusetts. The outlying provinces to the northward have been gathered into the Eastern Diocese, and Bishop Griswold is doing apos- tolic work there. That adventurous missionary and builder, Philander Chase, has organized a congregation at New Orleans, and has come home to prepare for his strange career in the Ohio valle}^ An Episco^Dal Acad- emy has been founded in Philadelphia, and another in Connecticut. The Virginia Churchmen are moving to establish a theological seminary. ^ The ''Advancement Society " is beginning its work among the frontiersmen. A similar society in New York is sustaining a mission among the Oneidas and Mohawks. Bishop Hobart confirms eighty-nine Indians at one visitation, and ninety-seven at another.^ His scheme for a theological seminary at New York is about to be realized through the generous gift of a layman, Jacob Sherred. Tract societies, Bible societies, Prayer-Book societies, have Eepresenta- been founded, and a Church newspaper is tivemen. started.^ Dr. Hobart puts forth his "Com- panion for the Altar," and defends Church order in the Albany Centinel against the Dutch Reformed Dr. Linn 1 Centennial Council, Va., p. 79. 2 Norton: Life of Bishop Hobart, pp. 56, 83. 3 lb., p. 43. 294 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. and the Presbyterian Samuel Miller. In his '' Apology for Apostolic Order" he gained an lionorable place for the theory of Episcopacy in the controversial world. Cliurchmen were coming to the front in American liter- ature, as they had a generation before in statesmanship, and as they were even now in law. Chief Justice Mar- shall and Chancellor Kent stood foremost in their pro- fession. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving, Cooper, and Kichard Henry Dana brought a new and broader life to American letters. The Bishops of the new regime make diligent and regular visitations. In some States an Episcopal Fund lias been begun, and the Bishop is, in part at least, set free from the engrossing cares of a parish. The multi- farious machineries for parochial work are not yet thought of. The Sunday-school is seen in Beginning of i ' • * • • Sunday- the proccss of its evolution. As yet it is upon trial, and is more a secular than a relig- ions device. h\ an Anniversary Address in 1817,^ Bishop Hobart offers a lengthy defence of the plan to teach a modicum of Church doctrine, as distinguished from the " non-sectarian " instruction then in use. The report of the society before which he speaks sliows that up to that time there had been published for the Sunday-schools in the city 8,000 alphabet cards ; 2,000 spelling-books ; 740 primers ; 167 Prayer-books ; that several women over sixty had learned to spell quite well ; that twelve classes of colored children had learned to read in words of one syllable ; tliat, in the February before, Gr?ice Church had started a school in 1 Anniversary of the New York Sunday-scliool Society, 1818, FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. 295 which fourteen gentlemen had come forward as teach- ers, and they had opened with twenty scholars ; that the society hopes soon to issue 2,000 Scripture Lessons, being Bislioj^ Gastrell's " Christian Institutes, a Com- pleat System of the Doctrines and Precepts of the Gospel, in a Connected Series of Scripture Texts ; " that tliey have collected eight hundred dollars, of which two hundred dollars has been paid as salaries to super- intendents, and for desks, while the balance is on hand ; that they venture to think the success for the year a convincing argument in favor of the new institution.^ The. General Convention Journal for 1820 gives a comprehensive view of the state of the Church. It re- ports that in Maine, " where for many years state of the f , , -, . „ . , Church in it was depressed and almost extmct, it " has 1820 now assumed a flourishing aspect ; " that in New Hampshire there are nine churches ; in Massachu- setts it is flourishing, the Canons and Rubrics are gen- erally observed, a large and elegant new church is nearly completed in Boston, and " a few small congre- gations have been collected in other towns ; " in Ver- mont three new churches have been built, some new congregations have been gathered, and a suit has been entered to secure the demesnes ; the Church in Rhode Island is flourishing, and " there is a decided ^aud in- creasing attachment to the peculiarities of our Com- munion ; " '^ in Connecticut no material change has taken place ; " in New York the growth has been phe- nomenal, — twenty -four priests ordained and fourteen deacons, and thirty-six clergy liave undertaken work in 1 New York Sunday-school Society, Report for 1818. 296 THE PKOTE^TAXT EPlSCOrAL CIIUKCII. the State within the hist three years ; in New Jersey the " Church continues slowly to improve," eight Con- firmations have been held in the last three years ; in Pennsylvania it "is increasing as rapidly as, when all circumstances are considered, we have any reason to expect;" in Delaware "the state of affairs is certainly improving ; " in Maryland is every sign of a new life, and it is recorded as noteworthy that the Bishop has visited nearly every church within the last three years ; in Virginia the improvement has been greater still, there are now fifty clergy, and " the conduct of the communicants is more consistent ; " in North Carolina the communicants have grown from fifty to more than three hundred ; in South Carolina there are signs of a new life ; from the remote region of Ohio little informa- tion has come, but several congregations are known to have been gathered, one at Dayton and one at Miami, at the least.^ 1 Gen. Con. Journal, 1820. WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS. 297 CHAPTER VII. WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS. *' The Report of the Committee on the State of the Church" for 1820 shows that it was then organized in all the original States. There were not yet bisliops in all, but the scattered congregations in each had drawn together. In one instance, several separate States had confederated into a temporary diocese, with the expec- tation that some time the federation would be loosed by mutual action, and each independent unit of it would set up for itself. The idea of propagandism was but faintly, if at all, present in the mind of the Church. The State idea still controlled.^ The functions of the national body were conceived to be discharged when it had provided and set forth the terms and conditions upon which any new State might come in. Churcfin"^ When any should be ready it would volun- a-ctive. ^gg^, ^^ come. Each was thought of as an in- dependent ecclesiastical empire. That had been the un- derlying principle of the original federation. The idea of the central organism going forth to plant new soil, culti- vate the tender shoots, and gather the harvest into the common garner, had hardly begun to be entertained. It was true that the Church's conscience had been dumbly uneasy in presence of the situation for a long time, but 1 White : Memoirs, pp. 464-4(57. 298 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. no way to correct it was evident. For more than a gen- eration there had been Church families " over the mount- ains," ministered to fitfully by itinerant priests, and often crying out for succor. But with the theory which the Church had accej)ted about her own relation to the States, she was im;)Otent.i She must wait until the feeble folk in any-political division should grow strong enough, draw together of their own motion, organize themselves into a State Church, choose a bishop, and ask for admis- sion. Meanwhile they must be left to themselves, not un- pitied, but unaided. The Rev. Joseph Doddridge, who itinerated in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1811, says ^ that large portions of that great region, Pioneer " hicluding Kentucky and Eastern Ohio, had Churchmen, been settled originally by Church people from Maryland, Carolina, and Virginia. When they crossed the mountains they left their Church be- hind them. In their old homes they had enjoyed its privileges, as they had those of sun and soil, without much thought or appreciation. But now that it was lacking, they missed it sadly. They could not fall in with the crude religionism which prevailed in the back- woods. Their children were either becoming indiffer- ent, or being carried away by the rude excitements of Methodism. The indefatigable '' circuit-rider," with Wesley's tracts stuffing his saddle-bags, was riding from week's end to week's end under the shadow of the ancient forests, stopping at every clearing to leave a tract and a word of exhortation ; frequenting the " log- 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 240. 2 lb., p. 238. WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS. 299 rollings," "house-raisings," '' huskings," and "scutch- ing-frolics," seeking a chance to preach ; unmindful Methodists ^^ hent ov cold. Swollen rivers or gloomy andPresby- swamps, of ribald jests or coarse opposition, tsrians in the back- sustained by the fire of a glowing enthusiasm to '' save souls from Hell-fire." ^ The Pres- byterians were building their log-churches and cabin schoolhouses, organizing Presbyteries, and fixing the religious life of the region for three generations to come. 2 The Churchman was left to one side, unheeded. The Methodist pronounced him destitute of " vital piety ; " the Presbyterian called him a superstitious moralist ; his own National Church left him to live or die as might be. The half-dozen clergy wandering through tills widespread region of poverty and religious confusion met together and begged the Church to come and look after her children. Bat they begged in vain. Doddridge declares that he had no expectation of even being buried as a Churchman when he should die. He affirms, in a letter to Bishop Hobart in 1816, that if the Church had used her opportunity, there might then have been '^ four or five bishops in this country, surrounded by a numerous and respectable body of clergy, instead of having our very name connected with a fallen Church." 3 These facts had been before the Church, and had dis- turbed its conscience and heart as early as 1792. Then 1 Eggleston : The Circuit Rider. ' The Hoosier Schoolmaster. 2 Smith: Old Redstone. 2 lb. : History of Western Pennsylvania. 8 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 26. 800 J HE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. the Convention had passed a resolution urging each parish to take an annual collection for the help of the Church people in the western country, thought of and had appointed the Bishop and Standing C'ommittee of Pennsylvania a committee to administer the fund, and to send missionaries when and Avhere they might see fit.^ So little came of it, and so little was expected to come of it, that Bishop White, in his resume of the Convention's acts, does not so much as allude to it.^ Sixteen years later a committee of three })ishops, three clergy, and three laymen was appointed to consider the situation, and granted the power to send a bishop into the new States and Territories, if they should think it advisable. ^ In 1811 the committee report that they had not been able to see their way to take any action. Bishop White suggests, in that con- nection, that if a bishop should be appointed in that region, he w^ould hope to be relieved by him of the care of his own parishes which lay beyond the AUeghanies ! It would not be fair to say that this long neglect of the regions beyond the pale was wholly the result of indifference, or to say that nothing was done. Some- thing was effected, but at an infinite cost of time and opportunity. Even before the National Church became alive to its corporate responsibility, and before tlie notion of State autonomy Avas laid aside, three new States had been carved out of the national domain, and the churches within them had organized themselves 1 Gen. Con. Journal, 1702. 2 White : Memoirs, Convention of 1792. 3 Gen. Cou. Journal, 1808. WAITING FOR V0LUNTP:EKS. 301 and come into the federation. These were Ohio, Ken- tucky, and Tennessee. The missionary history of these is to be found by following the lives of two remarkable men. Two streams of emigration flowed westward. The first, from the meagre soil of New England, followed its own belt of latitude and settled in the Two streams ofemigra- basin of Lake Erie, and upon the interlacing tributaries of the Cuyahoga, the Muskingum, and the Maumee. New York reabsorbed her own emi- grants within the jNlohawk valley and her own broad lacustrine domain. The second and fuller tide flowed from the old Middle colonies into the Ohio valley proper, and southwestward toward the Gulf. The first of these carried Philander Chase ; the second, James Harvey Otey. Chase Avas of pure New England, Puritan stock, born on the bank of the upper Connecticut, reared hardly in Bishop ^ Vermont farmhouse, and graduated at Dart- Chase, mouth College.^ When in college in 1794, he, like Dr. Cutler had done at Yale, seventy years ear- lier, found, by chance, a Prayer-Book.^ His study of it brought him to the Church. The young convert w^ent home, upon his graduation, and convinced his father's house. He was ordained, and became at once the indomitable, eager, restless missionary and front- iersman which he remained until his life's end. Prol> ably no man in the American Church has laid so many foundations. He tried his 'prentice hand in the new 1 Bishop Chase: Rerainisceuces, second edition, vol. i. p. 7. 2 lb., vol. i. p. 1(3. 802 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. settlement on Lake George, and organized a parish there.^ Among the stumps and (;a])ins at Utica he laid down another ; another in the presence of the wonder- ing Indians at Canandaigua ; another at Paris ; another at Auburn. But his restless spirit soon bore him farther afield. He returned down the Hudson, and sailed away In New ^^^ ^^^^ far-off mouth of the Mississippi. The Orleans. u Protestant Church " of New Orleans had already a loose organization. Chase drew its bands closer, persuaded it to come Avithin the Protestant Epis- copal Church, and became its rector.^ His tireless labor, and his excursions far and wide through the swamps and bayous to the outlying settlements, brought him to death's door with a fever, from which he was recovered by a plentiful exhibition of " fixed air." ^ When he brought his shattered body North, he was con- tent to be a parish priest at Hartford only until, with returning strength, returned his "Western fever." In 1817 he started for the distant " Western Reserve." In midwinter, on liorseback, and in a sliackly pung, he crossed Connecticut and New York, bidding God-speed to the .churches he had gathered years before. Pioneer mis- sionaryin stopped to rest at the half-dozen cabins of Buffalo, intrusted himself and liis horse upon the ice of Lake Erie, was near being drowned moie than once by the ice breaking through, and found liis jour- ney's end at Salem, Ohio.^ '^ There was not an Episco- palian in the place." Nothing daunted, when Sunday 1 Bishop Chase: Reminiscences, vol. ii. it. 28. 2 lb., vol i. p. 54. 8 lb., vol. i. p. 98. 4 lb., vol. i p. 127. WAITING FOR VOLUXTEERS. 303 came, he announced who he was and why he had come, gathered the people together, read prayers, telling the people how and when to respond, and delivered his message. The people " were much pleased with the prayers." There were already two clergy in the State, remote from him and from each other. For a year he went about from hamlet to hamlet, from clearing to clearing, gathered the Church people of whom he heard from time to time, established new posts, put him- self in communication wdth the other missionaries, and in 1818, five clergy, constituting the wdiole force in the State, together with half a dozen laymen, met, organized a diocese, and elected Chase bishop. He was conse- crated in Philadelphia, February 11, 1819. Then he plodded back on horseback, nearly freezing by the way, through York, McConnellsburg, Greensburg, and Pitts- burg to Ohio, and began liis life's work as bishop and backwoodsman. The frontiersmen were either indiffer- ent or hostile to the Church. Indeed, Episcopalians formed a small proportion of the emigrants to the West. In the previous history of the country, the Church, as has been seen, had its strength mainly among the wealthy, official, aristocratic classes. These did not go West. It was the farmers, yeomanry, and mechanics who sought better fortune beyond the mountains. These Avere, for the most part, ignorant of the Church's ways and spirit. Few men have ever known so well as The frontier ^ishop Chase liow to win them. Once vvhen bishop. \^Q i^ad appointed a service at a certain time at a distant place, he found, upon his arrival, that the hos- tile denominations had intentionally fixed a '* Union Pro- 304 THE r]U)Tj:sTAXT episcopal church. tracted Meeting," at the same time and place. When he came in it was in full blast. Fortunately he found on the outskirts of the crowd a Presbyterian gentleman, who did not at all approve of the tactics which his minister had used in lixing this meeting. By him tli^ Bishop sent, courteously asking the Presbyterian, Con- gregational, and Methodist ministers present to come to him. When they came, sullen and pugnacious, he said, '' I have come here by appointment to hold a service ; I beg you will join with me in conducting it and making it profitable." Without waiting for a reply, he marched to the platform, with them at his heels, and announced: " Neighbors, I hold in one hand a Bible, in the other a Prayer-Book. The one teaches us how to live, the other how to pray. I know you are familiar with the one, I doubt if you are with the other. I have brought some dozens of copies with me. With the aid of these, my good brethren, I will try to lead you in the service. If any of you, through the depravity of the natural heart, are averse to being ' taught how to pray,' you need the teaching all the more on that very account. Without co7ifessio7i there is, as you know, no remission of sins. We will therefore confess our sins to Almighty God, all in the same voice. You will observe that no man can say ' Our Father ' until he has confessed his faults ; we will now say ' Our Father who art in heaven.' Tlie proper attitude when we pray is upon our knees, as did Solomon, Daniel, Stephen, and Paul. After their example, I enjoin upon you all to fall upon your knees." And so the service proceeded, " the response from the great congregation being as the voice of m;inv waters." WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS. 805 Did any good result from it? He "hopes so indeed; but nmcli of the good was lost for want of shepherds to gather in the lambs." ^ As a man who knew his people, lived and loved their life, he travelled hither and thithc:-, and laid the foundation of the Church in Ohio. The Kenvon monument to his name is Ken3'on College. College. He saw very early that the Church, to bo suc- cessful among the people, must be home-bred. There was no place or way to train up a ministry ; he would make one. When his plan was mature, he took the unheard-of step of going to England for the money needed. No such bishop had been seen thei-e for a thousand years. His rugged simplicity awoke atten- tion, and he became the rage. With the friendship of great men and noble ladies, with his pockets full of money, he came home and planted his seminary and college.^ He built his brain and heart in it. But with its growth and success came a conflict between himself and his subordinates as to its management. Finally, after what seemed to him an unworthy and ungrateful thwarting of his wishes in the matter, he turned his back upon the noble institution which stood in the broad demesne that he had wrested from the Avilderness, mounted his horse, and rode away into the back"^oods of Michigan. His real work was among the primitive frontiersmen. But in Kenyon College and Jubilee College he laid foundations upon which other men ought long ago to have built strong towers for educa- tion and the Church. They were earliest on the ground. 1 Reminiscences, vol. ii.p. 201. 2 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 170, 306 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Tliey possessed the good-will and respect of the peoplvi among whom they Ave re planted. But they have been overshadowed long since by the institutions of other f.iiths. Bishop Chase had done his Avork. Through liiin the Church in Ohio had been gathered, and re- ceived, not Avithout questioning and hesitation, into the Federation A\diich Avaited yet for such State Churches as might volunteer to come. Kentucky had already come. Among its very earliest settlers had been a clergyman of the Church. The first Church in ^^ enter its borders had l^een Episcopalians Kentucky. from Virginia. But they Avere early overrun by the stream of Scotch-Irish Avhich poured over the Blue Ridge after the Revolution. These carried Avith them the antipathy to the Church Avhich their fathers had brought across the ocean Avith them. It had not been lessened by the Revolution and the Indian Avars. The " Episcopal Church " Avas linked in their minds with Tories, and Avith the British officers Avhom some of them had seen among the Indians Avhen, in their OAvn early life, they had been carried as prisoners to Detroit. They had learned their letters from a primer on the title-page of Avhich Avas a cut of John Rogers at the stake, surrounded by his Avife and children. The pict- ure, Avith its moral, Avas as deeply fixed in their preju- dices as Avas the alphabet in their memories.^ The memory of the early missionary, murdered by the Indians, had faded out of the land.^ But in 1794, a prominent Presbyterian minister, the first president of 1 Roosevelt: AVinning of the West, vol. i. p. 309. 2 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 198. WAITING FOR VOLUXTEERS. 307 Transylvania University, had come into the Church, been ordained, and ministered to the scattered people. A few years later a popular Methodist preacher had followed his example. But in the main the country was given over to the revivalism which came in during the last years of the '' Great Awakening." ^ From time to time, at long intervals, adventurous clergy found their way among the uncouth backwoodsmen. In the larger towns a permanent lodgement was slowly effected^ In 1829 the clergy of the region and lay representa- tives from Lexington, Louisville, and Danville met and organized the Church in Kentucky. Three parishes, with four ministers, composed its strength. They elected Benjamin Bosworth Smith to be their bishop, and another State was admitted to the federation. James Harvey Otey was a gaunt, raw-boned, six-foot- three son of a Virginia farmer, the grandson of a Revo- lutionary soldier, born under the shadow of Bishop Otey. ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^ ^y^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ graduated at the -^ University of North Carolina " he intrusted his life and fortune to the stream which was bearing the enterprise and vigor of his day to the West and South. The wares at his disposal were such as he had accumu- lated while at college. He moved to Franklin, Tenn., and became the pioneer school-teacher.^ When thus employed he came in contact with one of the few pass- ing priests, and was baptized. He went to North Caro- lina, and was ordained by Bishop Ravenscroft, the man 1 Tracy: The Great Awakening. 1 Roosevelt: vol. i. p. 309. 2 Green: Life of Bishop Otey, p. 7. 308 THE PROTESTANT EPlSCOPxVL CHURCH. he loved above all others. When he returned to his school there was no Episcopal congregation in the State, and no other clergyman of his Church within two hundred miles of him.^ His office was despised by the people among whom he lived, and his Church was lield in contempt.2 C'uriosity drew the people to " hear the Episcopal minister pray, and liis wife jaw back at him '' in the responses.^ When they had come, however, Otey's splendid character and deep earnestness retained them. He was a man of the backwoodsmen's own sort. Once when he was asleep in a rude tavern, a local gambler waked him roughly and demanded his bed as his own. When the sleepy man demurred the gambler threatened to throw him out of the window. Then the sturdy priest thrust from under the cover a brawny arm, worthy of the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, and said : " Before you try to throw me out of the window, please feel that." * His stalwart Christian manliness and sweet devotion made him and his Church respected. He was tireless and successful in laboring for its growth. In 1829, he, with two other clergymen, met in Nash- Church in ^^^^6' ^^^^^ organized the Protestant Episcopal Tennessee. Churcli of Tennessee. When their number grew to five, they chose Otey bishop, and a new State was admitted to the federal Church. The churches in Mississippi put themselves under Bishop Otey's care. Like Chase in Ohio, he dreamed of a theological 1 Green : Life of Bishop Otey, p. 42. '^ lb., p. 50: '* I knew and felt at the time that I was looked upon with contempt, if not despised, by the great mass of the people." a lb., p. m. 4 lb., p. 84. WAITING Foil VOLUNTEERS. 309 school. He was a teacher by uistinct and habit. He labored for years to establish Christian education. He left his impress upon the public schools of his own State and Mississippi. He founded a school for girls, and another for boys. But his own dream did not come true for many a year, when it was realized in the University of the South. In the first five years of his Episcopate the clergy of his diocese increased from five to twenty-one. 1 But a whole generation had meanwhile been lost to the Church. To overtake the movement of population in the great West had already become well-nigh impossible. Unless the National Church should abandon its preconception of autonomous State Churches it never would be possible. As to the government of the churches already within the federation, the notion of State independence was already slowly disappearing. A movement toward centraliza- tion had long since set in unobserved. Powers were even now exercised by the General Convention without question, which had at first been assumed without ques- tion to belong to the States. The time had now come for the National Church to become a Propaganda. In 1835 it abandoned its impotent attitude of Ths new ^ ^ ^ departure waiting for churclics to come, and resolved to move out and build them. The General Convention, in that year, formally declared that every baptized member was ipso facto a missionary ; consti- tuted a Board of Managers who should represent the whole people ; and provided for the sending missionary bishops in advance of any call for them. 1 Green : Life of Bishop Otey, p. 42. 310 THE Pll()TE.STANT EPISCOrAL CHURCH. i The action was revolutionary. Through it, Episco- j pacy passed from the idea of a Federation of constituent j State Churches to that of a National Church with com- : ponent dioceses. It was not by accident that the ques- ] tion of the division of one of the original States into two or more dioceses arose at the same convention. Both actions sprang from the same source. The con- ception of the Church's structure had changed. ^ While the old theory obtained, its enthusiasm could not find expression. So long as it remained in the calm, cautious, constructive mood, that theory would suffice ; but if ever its heart should be deeply stirred, it would change its way of thinking. That access of zeal had already come, and the old bottles could not contain the i new wine. ; J 1 White : Memoirs, p. 465. | NEW SPIKITUAL FORCES. 311 CHAPTER VIII. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. The preaching of the Evangelical leaders " awaked the Church of England from its philosophical pride and lethargy." ^ The sleep had been so profound that it had looked like death. The repulsive picture of English church and social life in the last century need not ao-ain be drawn. In America tliino-s had never been o o so bad. The decencies of life had alwa3's been main- tained here. But in the first years of the century the religious tone had been very low indeed. The Church Meagre spir- ^^^ largely caught the spirit of the age. Those ituaiiife. ^,\\\o reorganized it were men whose religious habits had been fixed under the old conditions. A very few were men of marked devotion, but, as a rule, they were content with a very low spiritual life, and entirely' indifferent to doctrine.'-^ Tlie clergy hardly took their ofhce seriously, and the hiity feared "enthusiasm" so much that they were content witli less than earnestness. Virginia rejected the '' Propo.:ed Book" because its rubric gave the minister the power to repel an evil liver from the Holy Communion. Maryland chose Dr. Smith its bishop, well knowing his questionable habits ; and the 1 Merivale: Four Lectures, Loudon, 1870. ^ Ryle: Christian Leadeis in the Egliteenth Century, 2 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 18vS. ol-2 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Geiieial Convention, with the same knowledge, elected him its president. Bishop Provoost lived for years in neglect of the offices of the Chnrch, and Bishop jMadison was currently believed to be an infidel. The ecclesiastical precision of Bishop Seabury and the Con- necticut clergy made them earnest to preserve the Cliurch's purity in doctrine and discipline rather than the vigor of its life. A spiritual motive force was needed to carry the new Church into and through its Titanic task of ministering to the needs of a new nation. Such a force had begun to show itself in England in the darkest days of the last century, and was destined in the first quarter of the present one to dominate the A me rican C hurch . The " Holy Club," which Wesley joined at Oxford, was only one of many similar groups of earnest-minded men Avho prayed for light in the midst of abounding gloom. The group to which Wesley belonged pursued its own course. He and his following started upon a ])ath which led them outside the Church of England. But the great majority, his peers in zeal and wisdom, remained within. Wesley's path and theirs ran parallel a little way, but soon diverged. Methodists and Evan- gelicals had quite as many points of difference as of likeness. 1 I'bey were different stocks from the same Th- Evan- I'oot. The Evangelical fathers could not {jeiicais. march with Wesley.- He turned from tliem Avith impatience when they refused to break awa}' from the old order.^ His methods were equally distasteful ^ Abbey a':(l Overton: Churcli of England in the Eigliteenth Cent- ury, vol. ii. p. 1()8. ■^ II)., voi. ii. p. 190. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 313 to them. The hypercritical Hervey and the learned, decorous Romaine were men of an altogether different tj^pe from Ingham, the Yorkshire evangelist, and As- bury, the itinerant revivalist. ^ It Avas Venn, the faith- ful parish priest and writer of the robust " Complete Duty of Man," Scott, the staid rector of Olney, ^lilner, the Church historian, Simeon, the missionary, and such a? these Avho were the fathers of the Evangelicals. Their influence was dominant in the English Church when this century opened. They lifted it? sodden body from the mire of the Georgian era, set its feet upon a rock, and established its goings. They had their pecul- iar cant, as all religious parties have, but they secured an attention which other language would hardly have com- pelled. A mode of presenting Christianity which could compel the assent of human beings so far unlike as Dr. Johnson and Hannah More must needs be potent. The two salient features of the school were its con- Their differ- ceptious of the personal Christian life, and of entiate. the function of the Church. As to the first of these, it laid emphasis upon Conversion, Like Roger Williams and Jonathan Edwards, like the iNIoravians and AVesley, it conceived the starting-point to be a con- scious experience. Their system had for its background the Augustinian dogma of total depravity. John New- ton, the converted slave-trader, was its type. The good priest Thomas Scott, already of saintly life, must needs be '' converted " after years of a useful ministry ,2 1 Tyennan: Oxford Methodists, p. 332. - Seely: Later Evanoelical Fathers, p. IGO. 2 Petitions were publicly offered in the " Prayer Meetings" of certain Philadelphia parishes for the "conversion" of Bishop White when he was already a i>atriarc'.i I 314 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. When Simeon gained a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, and confronted the legal duty of receiving the Lord's Supper, he shrinks away in terror. He buys the old " Whole Duty of Man," and makes himself ill Conscious" with reading, fasting, and praying. He experience, u sought to lay his sins on the sacred head of Jesus, and on the Wednesday bagan to have a hope of mercy ; on Thursday that hope increased ; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong ; on the Sunday morning peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul." ^ This is typical. Milner expands the individual expe- rience and traces it in his history of the Church. Heretofore, he contends, men have written the story of the Church a3 they would the annals of an empire. He will distinguish between the real and nominal Christians, leave the latter to one side, and trace the Church through the former.^ But the exploitation of the personal experience did not blind them to the use of the Church. Scott main- tained the weekly Communion at a time when it was generally neglected.^ Simeon " had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Saviour at the Loixl's table." But he brings his previous experience into the closest relation with it. When the priest gave him a piece left over of the consecrated bread, after the service, ^^ I put it into my mouth, covered my face Avith my hand, and prayed. The clergyman, seeing it, smiled at me ; but I thought tJiat if he li.ad felt such a load taken off 1 Secly: Later Evangelical Fathers, p. 238. 2 Abbey and Overton: Enj^lish Church in Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 210. 3 Seely: Later Evangelical Fathers, p. IGS, NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 315 Us soul as I had, he would not deem my praises superfluous." The place assigned by them to personal experience, of course, gave the Evangelicals a peculiar relation to Christians outside their own or any church. The^r theory ^y^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^y. ^^ testify to his own con- Church, scions connection with Christ must needs be accepted as a brother. No one might go behind the man's own testimony, — unless, indeed, his life should grossly discredit it. This led them to relations with other churches, which induced those who claim for the Church an original jurisdiction in the religious life to distrust their purpose. Simeon, when he goes to Scot- land, has Presbyterians for his friends, and joins with them in the Sacrament without hesitation.^ But he at once turns to his brethren in the Church and explains. He holds that an English clergyman may preach in the Established Church of Scotland, in which his king must worship, if there. Besides that, he declares with ear- nestness, that after every such experience he '' returns to the use of the Liturgy perfectly astonished at the vast superiority of our own mode of worship." ^ The men of this school, both in England and America, were always emphatic in protesting their loyalty to the Church. They must be allowed to have known their ^^^ own minds, and to have spoken sincerely. Cjurchmen. But they did not always get themselves be- lieved. They gave their allegiance to the Church from use and wont, from conviction of her better ways and 1 Seely: Later Evangelical Fathers, p. 265. 2 lb., p. 2(i4. 31(3 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. inetliods. But it was with them an act of choice. In the background of their minds was always the feeling that they might innocently have chosen otherwise. The peo- ple, with that rough accuracy which belongs to popular judgment, called them low Churchmen. Their Church- manship was a matter of their own election, and not of obligation. 1 The high Churchman distrusted them, not because of their present conduct, but from fear of the latent mischief which might any day spring from their reservation of the possibility of choice. To his mind, it was not a region where a choice was allowable. In an age when the spiritual life of the Church was Avell-nigh extinct, only such men could revive it. They believed wdth all their souls in the awful doom which awaited every unconverted man. They believed that every man might be aroused and set to work out the tragedy of salvation in his own conscious life. This gave to the words of earnest men, as it needs must, a l)athos and entreaty which told. Two generations later the Evangelical School, as such, had practically disap- peared. By that time the Church, which it had waked into life, had been taken by the hand by other leaders, and led in another direction. They looked after her sadly, for they loved her. They felt that she had been beguiled away from their safer guardianship. But the truth was that their decadence, when it came, Gauss of ' ' thsirds- was not due so much to the triumph of a rival ecclesiasticism, as to the fact that a far deeper change had taken place in the mind of the relig- ious world. The Evangelicals had been Calvinists. 1 Jolins: Life of Bishop M<^adp, p. UO. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 317 When the people ceased to believe the Augustinian an- thropology, the motive to which they had appealed had gone 1 Their preaching, which had so deeply stirred a generation which had believed itself to be "totally de- praved," failed to move a generation which had come into a truer way of thinking about itself. Salvation had come to be thought of less as a rescue from impend- ing doom, and more as an education in righteousness. The dread of future torment became less easy to awake. The "larger hope" embodied itself at first in a crude universalism. A tol-dimnt church sprang up with this belief for its foundation and title, and for a while grew strong. But what truth was in it diffused itself through the Christian world, and Universalism declined. A truer estimate of man's complex nature began to obtain. This fundamental change of view coincided in point of time with the fresh presentation of the Church as an author- itative teacher and guide. When this had come about, men turned awav from the Evangelicals. In the first quarter of the century, they throve apace ; in the sec- ond, they encountered a rival too strong for them ; in the third, they began to decline. In 1885, the period at which the Church adjusted her machinery of propagandism, their vigor was at its best. The tracts and leaflets of Bishop Porteus, himself a Virginian, had been eagerly read by Vir- ScoT' ginians. Thomas Scott, the rector of Aston Sanford, Bucks, to eke out his meagre salary, had writ- ten the famous Commentary from which so many mill- ions have received their theology. It had a circulation 1 The Churchman: vol. v. p. 850. 318 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. hardly paralleled in literary history. Before his death, in 1821, the English edition had reached twelve thou- sand copies, and the American more than twenty-five thousand.! The " Great Awakening " and the Method- ist movement had prepared the way for Evangelical work. Rev. Joseph Pilmore, once a Wesley an preacher, had taught it in Philadelphia.^ Dr. Percy, one time a chaplain of Lad}^ Huntingdon, had proclaimed it in Leaders in South Carolina. William Duke, a Method- America, ig^ while the Methodists remained in the Church, had preached it in Maryland. Bishop Griswold commended it by his deep piety in New England, out- side of Connecticut. But the great apostle was Bishop Meade of Virginia. It was the motive power of his own earnestly religious life.^ For years, almost single- handed, he had labored, and successfully, to revive the old Virginia Church. Now he was the Evangelical champion in the National Church. The founding of the Virginia Seminary gave their distinctive doctrines a home. In Dr. Wilmer, its chief teacher, they found a fit and winning expositor.^ Hopkins, Boyd, Bull, and Be- dell in Pennsylvania ; Milnor and Channing Moore in New York ; Mcllvaine in Brooklyn ; Tyng, Bristed, and Crocker in New England, all poured their evangelical fervor into the Church's life.^ The striking success of Chase in Ohio, in spite of the sustained opposition of Bishop Hobart, had given it eclat. It was at its best in mind and heart. » Abbey and Overton : Church of England in the Eigliteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 200. 2 Perry : History, vol. ii. p. 192. ' Johns: Life of Bishop Meade, p. 255. (Dr. Sparrow's Sermon.) * Memoirs of Dr. Tyiig, p. TO. * Perry : Hi.-tory, vol. ii. p. 193. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 319 But, meanwhile, a stream of renewed life had set in from another quarter. The hard and narrow Church- H^gh-Church manship of the Tory school had been taken revival. ^^p by Bishop Hobart of New^ York and his followers. Their broader spirit and deeper devotion made it more humane. Bishop Seabury's task had been to stand out for the organizing principle of the Church. But his eye, from being so long and so persistently fixed upon a single point, had lost the power of looking afield. By the political circumstance in which he and his had been set, they had been isolated from contempo- rary life. Bishop Hobart was as uncompromising a Churchman as Seabury, but he was a man of his time. He brought the Episcopal Church into harmony with the spirit of modern life. In the report upon the state of the Church for 1820, the State upon which he had left his impress shows more life and work than all the rest together.! One hundred and eighteen organized churches, twenty-four deacons, and fourteen priests ordained, fifteen hundred persons confirmed, a flourish- ing mission among the Oneida Indians, Bible societies, Prayer-Book societies, Sunday-school unions and the foundation for a theological seminary, show the pres- ence of a new force. Being set in charge of Connect- icut temporarily, he carried there, also, the same broad sympathy, tireless energy, ready adaptability, — the ele- ments which the Church of Bishop Seabury needed. His conception of the Church colored the stream of emigration which flowed steadily westward following the latitude of his own State. 1 Gen. Con. Journal, 1820. 320 THE PKOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Away to the south, a man of more fiery zeal, but holdhig fast to the same idea of Episcopacy,^ revived the work in North Carolina. Bishop Ravenscroft left his mark on the Church in the South and Southwest.^ Otey, the pioneer bishop of that great region, who had sat at his feet and loved him as a father, caught his spirit and passed it on to liis own successor. There had now emerged in the Church two broadly distinguished types of thought and life. With the The two death of Bishop White, in 1836, the last sur- parties. vivor of the old '' opportunist '' school passed away. The future now for a generation lay between Evangelicals and High Churchmen. The line of cleav- age did not run sharply through the mass. The two contrasted principles mingled in varying proportions in individuals. The same man might, and often did, embrace them both. He held to the conscious religious life with the Evangelical, and dreamed of ecclesiastical empire with the High Churchman. Indeed, in all the controversies of the period, each makes a point of assert- ing that he held to the principles of the other, — modified and corrected by his own. But two spirits strove within the Church. When action was necessary, part}^ lines were drawn. When the High Churchmen took up the Sunday-school Union, the Evangelicals, disturbed at Bishop Hobart's Catechism, and scandalized by the muti- lation of Mrs. Sherwood's books, started an Evangelical Knowledge Society as an offset.^ When this grew influ- 1 Norton: Life of Bishop Ilaveiiscroft, p. 95. - Jolins: Life of Bisliop Meade, p. 192. 2 Tlie Cliurchman, March 17, 1832. 2 Johns: Life of Bishop Meade, p. 225. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 321 ential, the other side set up the Churchman's Library.^ They worked and planned together to organize the new machinery of missions ; but when the Evangelicals began to suspect that they had been outmanoeuvred, they set up a rival volunteer society .^ Their enthusi- Division of ^^^ ^^^^ already found a vent in foreign mis- labor, sions. Through their beloved Simeon and Henry Martyn, the religious world had been stirred with pity for heathenesse. This was the field into which the Evangelical could move far more readily than could the pronounced High Churchman. The purpose which he set before himself, to awaken individual souls and lead them one by one to establish relations with God, required little machinery. All that was needed was to find a godl}^ man who should go and *•' tell them the story of the Cross." In 1822 a mission to Africa was determined upon, but no ship could be found to carry out Ephraim Bacon and his wife. In 1834 the Rev. Henry Lockwood sailed to China, where this Church has now twenty-two native clergy. With the single exception of the abortive attempt in Turkey, all the foreign mission enterprises were manned from the Virginia Seminar3^•^ A tacit understanding had been reached that this should be the field of the Evangeli- cals, while the High Churchmen should exploit the home field.* There does not seem to have been any conscious strategy in this arrangement, but it acted directly in the interest of High Churchmanship, which 1 Johns : Life of Bishop Meade, p. 230. 2 lb., p. 200. 3 lb., p. 197. 4 Perry; History, vol. ii. p. 194. 322 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. for a long time steadily gained ground. While its opponents' energy was directed elsewhere, it moved northwest and southwest, crossed the Mis- Churchman- sissippi, and has since been dominant. The ^^^^' Low Churchmen's expectation that they should secure at least one of the two new missionary bishoprics was disappointed.^ The Church's forces moved out, under the new leaders, to win the mighty West. To trace in detail the steps by which they covered the prairies, Followingf theemigra- climbed the Rocky Mountains, and went ^^°^' with the gold-hunters to the Pacific, would require a volume. The roll of the missionaries' names would fill a book. The Church simply followed the emigrant, often lagging far behind him, but keeping him in sight while her strength would hold out. When he had built his cabin, she sought him out in it. When the great cities sprang up in the wilderness, she entered into them and built her house. When the savage Ind- ian was restrained, and fixed to a permanent abode, she did her share to make him human and Christian. She met a various welcome for her proffered gifts. Peoples who knew neither her nor her fathers founded new communities, and she could not speak their speech or win their friendship. Other churches entered the new field beside her, before her, and behind her. She often failed where they succeeded. She often succeeded after their success had changed to failure. It may fairly be said of her that she has striven with an honest heart 1 Johns: Life of Bishop Meade, p. 200. 1 Meade: Old Churches, p. 379. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES. 323 to do her share in makmg and keeping the new America Christian. In the long, strenuous task, she has more and more sharply emphasized her churchly aspect. When Chase reached the new land of Ohio, in 1817, it seemed natural for him to begin his work at '' Cove- nant Creek " by calling together his neigh- bors for the preaching of the Word, and the Prayers. When Breck and his companions laid down their packs under an elm-tree in Minnesota, in 1850, it seemed equally natural and fitting to them to " erect a rustic cross, build a rude altar of rough stones, and begin their work by the celebration of the Eucharistic Feast." THE PKOTESrANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER IX. THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE." Between 1835 and the War of the Rebellion, the Church adjusted its manner of life to its changed con- ception of its constitution. When it had determined to send missionary bishops to the unappropriated West, it abandoned the attitude of a federation waiting for new units to propose themselves for membership. For the future it intended to act as a National Church. When it divided one of the old integers, and made a second diocese in New York, the old conception of State churches became no longer possible. ''The change was fundamental. The analogy be- tween ' States ' and ' dioceses ' Avas thereby broken down. Not only did the idea of diocesan sovereignty thus receive a serious shock, but in proportion to tlie weakening of the dioceses by subdivision was the power of the General Church increased." ^ The change was made, so far as can be seen, without a dissenting voice. It only recorded a change which had already occurred in people's way of thinking. The Church was becom- ing less an abstraction and more an entity. From many directions influences were converging to bring out this idea into distinct consciousness. The nation was be- 1 Dr. Fi-ancis Wharton, iu Ferry: History, vol. ii. p. lOL THE CATHOLIC REXAISSANCE. 325 coming consolidated, and the Church centralized. One of the capital powers originally reserved to the States was assumed by the General Church, without chal- lenge, when it provided for the trial and deposition of a diocesan bishop.^ Possibly the grotesque result of a diocesan trial, just had, may have influenced this chancre. The Bishop of Kentucky had been presented „.jq^ under an accusation of falsehood. There bishops. were three charges against him, of one hun- dred and ninety-eight specifications.^ The astounding verdict of the court chosen b}^ the diocese had been: ''Guilty : but without the least criminality I " ^ Under the changed law the Bishop of Pennsylvania was tried and suspended for drunkenness. His brother, the Bishop of New York, was tried and suspended for lasciviousness. The Bishop of New Jersey was three times presented, and twice brought before a court, but without trial, upon charges affecting his integrity. All these trials, which at the time occupied the general attention, served to fix the popular mind upon the General Church, which was the party prosecuting. It came to be looked to as the sole source of authority in matters of discipline. It was but a step to thinking likewise of its authority in doctrine and life. The religion of Church people was unconsciously taking a deeper ecclesiastical tinge. The Church was becoming mo;:e sharply differentiated, not only from the world, but from the current forms of American Christianity. 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 278. 2 The Churchman, vol. vii. No. 38. 3 " Sentence of tlie Court in tlie CJ,S3 of the Diocese of Kentucky I'S. t;..e Rofht Rev. B. P.. Smith." 326 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Prayer-Book societies were actively sustained in Penn- sylvania and New York. Their purpose was not solely to teach men how to pray. A second purpose, which soon stepped up beside the primary one, was to propa- jrate the Church. Tract societies which had this for their avowed object began to be popular.^ '^ Nova An- glicana '' wrote long articles against the Puritans. Dr. Th Ch rch Mulileuberg's broad, catholic spirit began to iisa. make itself felt upon his pupils. The elder Bishop Doane and Dr. Croswell struck the same note in their hymns and sonnets that Keble did in his '- Christian Year." ^ Professor Doane of Trinity Col- lege was the first to welcome Keble in America. He Imd anticipated his motive. Dr. Coxe soon carried the theme to its highest note and sweetest harmony, in his '^ Christian Ballads/' Professor Whittingham at the General Seminary marshalled the facts of Church his- tory to the same end. Bishop Hopkins, the keenest of controversialists, wrote the " Primitive Creed " and the ''Primitive Church." Dr. Francis L. Hawks gathered up the Church record of colonial times. Bishop Onder- donk carried on a pamphlet war with Presbyterians iibout tlie divine right of Episcopacy.^ Books of sac- ramental devotion began to come in. Bishop Gris- wold's and Bishop Meade's Family Prayers continued to sell, but Bishop Hobart's "Companion for the Altar" outsold them both.* The great Temperance enthusiasm which was agitating the world, preaching ^ The Chiircliman : vol. v. p. 835. 2 Rev. Julius H. Ward, in Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 615. 8 The Churchman, vol. v. p. 81G. * lb., vqI. v., advertisements, passim. THE CATHOLIC REXAISSAXCE. 327 total abstinence as a duty and denouncing the use of fer- mented wine at the Holy Communion, called public at- tention to the Church's different way of dealing with this and kindred subjects. ^ A new collection of Hymns, chiefly the selection ^ of Dr. Muhlenberg and Bishop Onderdonk, had now been long enough in use to infuse Increasing ^ more distinctive churchly sentiment among activity. the people. Church schools were springing up on every hand. Dr. Muhlenberg was fixing the type of them at Flushing Institute. Bristol College advertised that it was so full that no more students could be accommodated.^ Parish machinery for Church w^ork was set up every- where, — female sewing societies, missionary societies, aid societies, benevolent societies, — until an English Church paper ridicules the movement by declaring that a church in Boston had started a " Ladies' Anti- young-man-standing-at-the-church-door Society." * The Bishop of New York issued a plea for free churches in the interest of church extension, and his plea was opposed from Philadelphia on the ground that not propagation but edification was the pressing need.^ The attention of the whole Church was kept fixed by the General Missionary Society upon the needs of the West. It cries out with shame that while the town of St. Louis is ready and anxious to have a minister, there is not one in the whole State of Missouri;^ that there is 1 The Churchman, vol. ii. p. 903. 2 Ayres : Life of Dr. Muhlenberg, p. 84. 3 The Churchman, vol. v. p. 835. 4 lb., vol. V. p. 858. 5 lb., vol. vi. pp. 1070, 117-t. 6 lb., vol. v. p. 898. 328 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CIIUUCH. but one in the State of Mississippi. It announces with enthusiasm that a strong parish has been organized in Mobile and another hopeful one in Memphis ; and that the Rev. Mr. Salmon has just started from Western New York, with a little company of fifteen families, to found a Church colony in Texas. ^ Four-legged Communion tables were going out, and solid oaken ones were coming in. In a few churches Change of stone altars began to appear. The black manners. academic gown began to give place to the white priestly robe as the dress of the officiating minis- ter. The surplice, which had been split down the front a century before, so that it might be put on with- out deranging the befioured wigs, was now sewed up again, and on its breast began to show some churchly emblem. Memorials began to come up to have its use made obligatory.^ Bishop Hobart criticises the Vir- ginians for their neglect of ornaments, and Bishop Meade defends them. He urges that de minimis 71071 curat lex ; that Bishop Hobart himself sometimes dis- pensed not only with his robes but with his gown as well ; that he had the high example of the Archbishop of Canterbury for ordaining deacons in their every-day dress ; and that Bishop Moore had never worn any uniform, save when performing distinctively episcopal acts.^ Both the criticism and the defence show the drift. The emergence of the idea of corporate religion as dis- tinguished from individual salvation directed attention 1 The Cliuvclunan: vol. vi. p. 104G. 2 Johns: Life of Bishop Meade, p. 240. 8 lb., i)p. 240. 24L THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE. 329 both to the ministry and to the machinery of the Churcli. Nor was this drift toward corporate action Corporate ^" religion confined to the Episcopal Church, religion. j^ ^^^^^ moving in the Christian world. The Methodists were gathering their scattered forces into an ecclesiastical empire,^ and lamenting the decadence of the personal enthusiasm which had marked the men of the previous generation. In 1832 a General Synod had taken up into itself the particular synods of the Reformed Church.^ Ten years earlier the Reformed Presbyterians had organized their Presbyteries into a General Synod.^ The question of constitutional right, which in 1837 split it asunder, Avas agitating the Presby- terian General Assembly.'* The last step in the cen- tralization of the Roman Church was coming within the range of practical politics, in the dogma of Papal Infal- libility. The old churches of Sir Christopher Wren were being replaced by a higher ecclesiastical archi- tecture. The current of religious feeling was setting steadily away from the sharp individualism of Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and the Great Awakening, and the Evangelicals, toward the thought of solldartty among those who are being saved. The set was already evident, when the '' Oxfoid The "Oxford Movement" came. It changed the cunent Movement." i^^to a flood. Its effect upon Church life has been so enormous that it should be traced from its origin. 1 Stevens: History of Methodism, pp. 520, 582. ■2 Manual of the Refoi incd Cliurcli in America, third edition, p. 73. 3 Schaff-Herzop; Encyclopaedia, p. 1908. 4 Scba.l-IIerzog, p. 1;;08. 330 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. In 1825 the Church of England was dominated by a devout but meagre Calvinism. Its political life was tossed and threatened by the wave of liberalism which had broken over France a generation earlier. Many sagacious men feared that forces Avere moving in society which were hostile to religion itself. They believed that the current mode of presenting Christianity could not prevail against them. They believed the Church to be in special danger. They had no confidence in its recognized champions. All sorts of Church ''Reforms", were afloat. One proposed the abolition of cluirch rates. Another offered to expel the bishops from Par- liament. Another proposed entire separation of Church and State. Another offered to unite all sects Avith the Church by act of Parliament, and give them the use of church buildings conjointly. ^ A Roman Catholic Re- lief Bill and a Reform Bill Avere pending. In 1833 ten Irish bishoprics Avere suppressed. The same year a little group of men met in the Common Room of Oriel College, Oxford, to form an " Association for vindicat- ing the Rights of the Church and restoring the Knowl- edge of Sound Principles." ^ The company were bound together only by the bond of a common purpose. That Avas declared in the title The "Tract- ^^ ^^^^ association. To reach their end each arians." j^^^^j^ yyr^^ fpgg ^q Avalk in his own road. Some gave their adhesion to the association after it was founded ; some never formally joined it at all. Their names have become knoAvn the Avorld over : — Froude, 1 Stephens: Life of Dean Hook, p. lOG, et seq, 2 lb., p. 107. THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE. 331 Keble, Palmer, Rose, Pusey, and, greatest of all, New- man. Their object was to restore the Church s true doctrine They held that, at present at least, emphasis .vas laid upon doubtful or untenable dogmas wlule the abiding truths, the truths which belonged to the Church pre-eminently, had been allowed to fall into obscurity. These last were the ones, they maintained, about which must be fought the battle against infidelity. 1 hey set about to re-state them, in a series of "Tracts for the Times " What the doctrines were may be seen trom the titles of the Tracts. They were ^^i^ as these : Thoughts on the Ministerial Commission; The Catholic Church; Archbishop Ussher on Prayers for the Dead; On Baptismal Regeneration ; On Apostolical Succes- sion ■ On the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist; On Purgatory; On Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge ; On Fasting ; On Holy Baptism.! The Tracts were for the most part from Newmans pen^ When they first began to appear, they were hailed with welcome by the men who, throughout the kingdom, were dissatisfied with the existent life. But they presently became disturbing. The fear arose that if the English Church should be rehabilitated by these men, her children would not be able to recognize her in her new dress. This apprehension became a certainty when Newman put out Tract No. XC. In it he sus- tained the thesis that the teachings of the Thirty-nine Articles, "though the offspring of an uncatholic age^ are, to say the least, not uncatholic, and may be sub- 1 Tracts for the Times : G vols. , KivinRtons, 1834. 2 Stepl.ens: Life of Dean Hook, p. 111. 332 THE niOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. scribed to by those who aim at being catholic in heart and doctrine." ^ What he meant by " catholic " became evident from the text. It meant something which plain men could not distinguish from Ivomish. This had been steadfastly denied by the Traetarians. The ria '^'l^sy had maintained tliat there was a Via Media. Media, a middle path, between Rome and Protestantism, — that this middle term was Catholicity. But to the Tractarians this middle ground could not be satisfactory. They sought a position for the Church from which it could beat back the forces of liberalism. They found that Liberalism and Protestantism were the same in essence. The heart of each Avas private judgment as against authority. Newman came to see this before his fellows did. His quarrel was not with the current doctrine or practice of the Church, but with what he conceived to be a fatal tendency in society Newman's itself. " My battle was with Liberalism. purpose. i3y Liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic spirit and its development. It is scarcely now a party ; it is the educated lay world. It is notliing else than that deep, plausible skepticism which is the develop- ment of human reason as practically exercised by the natural man." ^ His Avas a profound distrust of the spirit of the age. Against the incoming of this spirit he could see no barrier which he thought to be sufficient. He appealed therefore from the world to the Church, and from the Church of the present to the Church of the past, 1 Introdnclioii to Tract No. XC. 2 Ai)<)lo!,na: New York, Catholic Publishing House, p. 285. THE CATHOLIC EENAISSANCE. 333 Under his leadership a company of choice spirits set out upon a voyage of di.-^covery through the centuries in search of a churcli which woukl be true enough to teach men, and strong enougli to govern them. A deep interest had hxtely been awakened in the middle ages by the romances of Sir Walter Scott.^ The wizard had cast a glamour over the pre-Reformation Church. With a profound disbelief in present inspiration, the Tracta- rians adventured hopefully to find a pure and perfect church at some point in the past. It is a common belief that a wish to reform glaring abuses then existent in the Church was a co-operative motive. There is little evidence of the exists Tractarians not reform- ence of such abuses, and none of any attempt to reform them. It was not a beautiful age, but the Church in England and America seems to have been discharging her practical duties relatively as well as in any age.^ The leaders of the " Oxford Move- ment " did not burden tliemselves with reform of evil manners. They had a different aim. Men could only be safe in thought and conduct when led by a visible Divine Authority. No trustworthy authority was ex- tant; they would find one in a restored and recon- structed Church. They gathered the materials for such a church painfully from various places and dates, and put them together in an ideal which they called a 1 Fisher: History of Christian Church, p. 630. 2 Mozley: Reminiscences, eh. li. 2 Newman's account of his own religious life, Apologia: p. 56, "... Thomas Scott, to wliom, humanly speaking, I owe my soul." 2 Froude : Short Studies, Scribners, 1883, p 156. 2 Dean Hook: Life, pp. ««), 103. 2 Beardsley : History of the Church in Connecticut, vol. ii. p. 244. 33 i THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Via Media between liberalism and papalism, between Protestantism and Romanism as tliey then were. This ideal was abandoned with scorn by its constructors, who went away by opposite roads, Newman and his friends to Rome, Fronde and his friends to infidelity, Hook and his friends to the work they had been doing before the movement began. Before his departure Newman made a present of his Via Media : " Whether the ideas of the coming age upon religion be true or false, they will be real. In the present day mistiness is the mother of wisdom. A man who can set down half a dozen general propositions, which escape from destroying one another only by being diluted into truisms ; who can hold the balance between opposite sides so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam ; who never enunciates a truth with- out guarding himself against being supposed to exclude its contradictory ; who holds that Scripture is the only authority, yet that the Church is to be deferred to ; that faith only justifies, yet that it does not justify without Avorks ; that grace does not depend on the sacraments, yet is not given without them ; that bishops are a divine ordinance, yet those who have them not are in the same religious condition as those who have ; — this state of things cannot go on if men are to read and think. They -cannot go on forever standing on one leg, or sitting without a chair, or walking with their feet tied, or grazing like Tityrus' stags in the air. They will take one view or other, but it will be a consistent view. r"l 1 Apologia, p. 144. THE CATHOLIC REXAISSAXCE. 335 Those who fell heir to this contemptuous gift brought it to America. *Upon its arrival here it Media in found, iu rough, three classes of Church- menca. j^-^en, at whose hands it received a various reception.^ There were, first, the Evangelicals, who had drawn their inspiration from the same pietistic revival whicli had originally revolted the Tractarians. These turned away from it with anger and contempt. To their minds the very principle of authority was abhorrent, and of all authorities, ecclesiastical was the w^orst. There were, second, the Laudian, non-juring, Seabury type, who gave it a guarded and cautious welcome. Its seeming reverence for antiquity appeared to them to be a desirable re-enforcement to their spirit of conservatism. But this class was small in numbers and in influence. The men who had once belonged to it had been suc- ceeded by men of Hobart's school. Their vigorous Americanism, and their absorption in practical work, prevented the mass of High Churchmen from becoming either doctrinaires or ritualists. In the tJiird place were the distinct^ American Churchmen. The principle of Authority, in the Ox- ford sense, was not grateful to them ; but they were accustomed to a legally regulated liberty. This clas3 embraced a large proportion of the clergy and most of American ^^^® laity. They had been accustomed to Churchmen, think and speak of themselves as Protestants. They possessed to a marked degree that broad, prac- tical, clear-sighted wisdom which had belonged to the 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 192-4. 336 THE PUOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. first generation of English reformers. They differed Avidely from their contemporary English Churchmen. There was hardly any class there to whicli they corre- sponded. They had not been reared upon Evangeli- calism ; but no more were they Anglo-Catholics. They called themselves Episcopalians. It was rather the Church's present life than its past history which at- tracted and held them. Antiquity did not, to their minds, carry obligation with it. They compared the Church with the other forms which Christianity pre- sented here in America, and it commended itself to their judgments and consciences. They neither hailed nor feared the Oxford Movement for themselves, but they were often disturbed by the phenomena which it produced in the Church which they loved. Chiefly they feared that if it prevailed it would set the Church in hopeless antagonism to their Protestant neighbors. For, while they did not declaim against the Pope, and thought it ill-bred to call Rome the scarlet whore, they did not shut their eyes to the fact that they were more akin to Protestantism than they were to her. But from all of these groups the movement drew recruits. It drew as with a magnet a certain type of men. They who loved symmetry of doctrine so much that they could hold to a system in spite of the contra- dictory facts of human life ; they who distrusted them- selves and shrank from the labor of ordering their own religious conduct; they whose imagination was kindled by the thought of a visible, holy, dominant, spiritual mistress, — these were attracted by that method of liv- ing whose rationale had been stated in Dean Hook's THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE. 337 sermon before the Queen, " Hear the Church." ^ This principle being accepted, an importance and a value were attributed to the rules, rituals, ordinances, and offices of the Church, which these did not have before. They became obligatory, not only or chiefly because they were intrinsically fit or excellent, but because they were of authority. Possessing such wisdom and power, the '' Church " should, through her ordinances and officials, touch each soul at every point and moment of its earthly history. That no objective fact does now, or ever has, corre- sponded to this ideal of the " Church," did not disturb Anglo- those who were under the domination of the Catholics. idea. They chose from one century of the past one feature, and another from another, and com- bined them into their simulacrum. They were not in love, after all, with any outward mistress, but with an inward habit of prostration. Nor did the fact that Newman had declared the position indefensible, and abandoned it, disturb them. They were not logicians. They had not been drawn to their position by argu- ment, nor would they be driven from it by a syllogism. Their instinct was wiser than their acts. The vitality of the movement lay in the fact that it was an honestly meant attempt to bring the Church of England out of its isolation, and into harmony with the Christian life of the ages. But they who joined in it became so engrossed with the task of re-establishing connection with the past that they fell out of sympathy with the Christian life of the present. They adopted an offen- 1 Stephens: Life of Dean Hook, p. 251. 338 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. sive cant. Terms so old that they had become new and strange found the phxce of honor in their vocabulary. The very term "catholic " upon their lips misled. Their whole speech was strange. Their peculiar distribution of emphasis among doctrines ; their manner of conduct- ing services ; the way in which they set forth the Tim° of Church's attitude to the Christian world, — strife. a,ll these raised a storm of strife which lasted half a century. Bishops charged against them ; ^ and bishops came to their rescue.^ Bishop Mcllvaine con- troverted the new views in his '' Oxford Theology." Dr. Sparrow dissected them in his class-room at the Virginia Seminary. Dr. John S. Stone, in his " Chris- tian Sacraments," said the final word for the Evangeli- cal side. The Evangelical Knowledge Society was founded as a counteracting propaganda. On the other side Dr. Hugh Davey Evans spoke the most potent words in " The True Catholic." Dr. Kip sent forth the '^ Double Witness of the Church." Dr. Wainwright defended the position that " There cannot be a Church without a Bishop." ^ In all this the good providence, which had been work- ing fifty years to cement the loose federation into a com- pact whole, became evident. A generation earlier, the same strain would have rent the Church in pieces. Had the State autonomy, which once existed, still survived, the bond of union would have snapped. In 1844, the ' Beardsley: History of Clmrch in Connecticut, vol. ii. p. 329. 1 Johns: Life of ]Mshop Meade, p. 258. 1 Green : Life of Bishop Otey, p. GG. 2 Perry: History, voL ii. p. 269. 8 Julius H. Ward, in Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 619. THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE. 339 matter was brought formally before the General Con- vention.i The Church was asked to speak her mind upon " the serious errors in doctrine which have within a few years been introduced and extensively promul- gated by means of tracts, the press, and the pulpit." After days of debate, with resolutions, amendments, amendments to amendments, substitutes and divisions, the Convention dismissed the subject w4th the declara- tion, in effect, that the Church's formularies show her doctrine clearly enough for any one to comprehend who wants to comprehend; and that ''the Church is not responsible for the errors of individuals, whether they be members of this Church or not." ^ Whether the things in dispute were really " errors " in doctrine remained undecided. It remains undecided yet. But it seemed clear to most that their introduc- tion imported grave danger to the Church. It was feared that they would make of her a training-school for Rome. For some years, that seemed likely. For two centuries the Roman Church had been a feeble and insignificant factor in American life. With the deca- dence of Lord Baltimore's colony in the seventeenth century, it had well-nigh gone out. But its hierarchy had now been established for more than sixty years. During these years it had grown so slowly that it had attracted little attention. But when the tide of Irish immigration set in in 1848, Romanism began to flourish. Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism came in together. Many feared that there was a relationship 1 Gen. Con. Journal, 1844. 2 lb. 340 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. between them. It began to seem so.^ In England, as a direct consequence of the revived ecclesiasticism, such Converts gi'cat names as Newman, Manning, Oakley, and perverts. Faber, Wilbei'force, Palmer, and Ward passed from the Church's rolls to the lists of Rome. In America, Bishop Ives of North Carolina, and a group of men of lesser station but greater character, followed in the same path. But the general apostacy for which man}' looked did not occur. The facts seemed to point to a different outcome, as the event has shown. The sum total of the losses to the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain up to 1888, including clergy and laity, men and women, falls below two thousand. That is to say, an average of thirty-five persons per year have left the Church of England for Rome during the last sixty years. One large parish church would hold them all, living and dead. The loss from the American Church has been much less, both absolutely and in proportion. Nor is it speaking beyond bounds to say that for every one thus lost, five have come from Rome to the Church. The defection was greatest at its beginning, both in numbers and still more in quality. Since then it has steadily fallen off.^ How much of the revived ecclesiasticism which marks the century is to be referred to the Oxford Movement, and 1 Brand: Life of Bishop Wliittins^liam, vol. ii. p. 353, et seq. 2 Quarterly Review, No. 331, p. 31, et seq. 2 Cf. Our Losses, a letter to the Rev. J. A. Canon Wenham, by Rev. G. Bampfleld. Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy in England and Scotland: by W. Maziere Brady. Converts to Rome: W. Gordon Gorman. The Present State of the Church in England : by Lord Bray. The Catholic Directory: London, 1888. 'IHE CATHOLIC llENAISSANCE. 341 how much to the influences at work antecedently and outside of it, cannot be known. Nor can the goal to which it tends be clearly seen as yet. The Good and ^ -^ evil of the process had not run its course within the period of this book. It has not done so yet. But it affected the Protestant Episcopal Church pro- foundly, both for good and ill. On the one hand, it recalled men from the selfish pursuit of salvation as iso- lated individuals, and warned tliem that even in religion " no man liveth unto himself alone." It brouofht into clear view the obscured truth of the community of the saints, semper^ ubique, et ah omnibus. It imported a new reverence into divine worship and uncovered the meaning of Christ's Sacraments. On the other hand, it segregated the Church Catholic too sharply from the common moral life of humanity. It placed the Episcopal Church in a false attitude towards its contemporaries. It produced a timid, eccle- siastical temper. It tempted men to say, '' Master, we saw one casting out devils, and we forbade him because he followeth not with us." A century earlier, in Penn- sylvania and Delaware, the Swedish clergy entered the Church without question asked on either side. While the Tractarians were students of divinity, the High Church- man Bishop Ravenscroft of North Carolina did not hesi- tate to join with the Moravian Bishop Benade in the Holy Eucharist.i Without any change of law, this hospitable attitude was lost. The loss was great to all concerned. Meanwhile the Church proceeded on her way sadly distracted with the strife of tongues. 1 Norton: Life of Bishop Ravenscroft, p. 126. 342 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER X. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. When the catholic nature of the Church came to be more clearly seen, it became evident that the Protest^ ant Episcopal Church did not adequately represent the ideal. The isolation in the Christian world, which had been its fortune for three hundred years, had affected it in mind and structure. It was organized and equipped as a sect, and to do a sect's work. Its awakened sense of catholicity required a broader outlook. It must establish relations with society. Noblesse oblige. But the common people of America were indifferent or antipathetic. The same movement which had brought the Church to a better understanding of herself had operated to turn the people from her. The ratio of growth was steadily declining.^ The population was advancing with gigantic strides. The Church crept tardily after. The people neither under- Failing be- -^ r f hind the stood uor cared for her. The more her chih popu a ion. jj,gj-^ loved and believed in her, the more they grieved. The people would not weep to her mourning or dance to her piping. The fault could not be lack of zeal, for no class of men could be found more earnest or tireless than her ministers. Twenty 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 382. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 343 years before, the Church liad formally declared that all her children ^yere missionaries by virtue of their bap- tism. It had undertaken in its organized capacity to win the nation. Who could be more zealous than Polk, more faithful than Whittingham, more apostolic than Kemper, more saintly than Otey, or wiser than De Lancey? But still the Church's growth was not com- mensurate either with her own character or with the energy expended. The controversialists on either hand were not seriously disturbed. Their thoughts were engrossed. But a class of men, inspired with a deep feeling of the Church's real work in the nation, pon- dered the matter deeply. Two men — the greatest the American Church has yet produced — saw the situa- tion more clearly than their fellows. Dr. Muhlenberg A Church or perccivcd it as a seer ; Bishop Alonzo Potter a sect? ga^^ [I r^g a statesman. The Church's theory was catholic ; her methods were denominational. The head and the hands were not in harmony, and the heart was torn between them. Wise men had discovered the evil and tried to find a cure. The JVeiv York Review (1837-1842) had tried to bring the Church into touch with the thought of the time. Dr. Muhlenberg, in the Evangelical Catholic^ had set out her place in Christian society with a wealth of thought and charm of spirit never since equalled. His voice had not been noticed in the din of controversy, but he had spoken tlie thought of the best and wisest men in the Church. When the General Convention met in 1853, tlie following Memorial was laid before the House of Bishops : — 344 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Eight Eeverexd Fathers : — The undersigned, pres- byters of the Church of wliich you have the oversight, Th9 Memo- venture to approach your venerable body with a rial. sentiment which their estimate of your office in rehition to the times does not permit them to withhohl. In so doing they liave confidence in your readiness to appreciate their motives and their aims. The actual posture of our Church, with reference to the great moral and social necessities of the day, presents to the minds of the undersigned a subject of grave and anxious thought. Did they suppose that this was confined to them- selves they would not feel warranted in submitting it to your attention; but they believe it to be participated in by many of their brethren, who may not have seen the expediency of declaring their views, or at least a mature season for such a course. The divided and distracted state of our American Prot- estant Christianity ; the new and subtle forms of unbelief, adapting themselves with fatal success to the spirit of the age ; the consolidated forces of Eomanism, bearing with renewed skill and activity against the Protestant faith : and, as more or less the consequence of these, the utter ignorance of the Gospel among so large a portion of the lower classes of our population, making a heathen world in our midst ; are among the considerations which induce your memorialists to present the inquiry whetlier the period has not arrived for the adoption of measures, to meet these exigencies of the times, more comprehensive than any yet provided for by our present ecclesiastical system ; In other words, whether the Protestant Episcopal Church, with only her present canonical means and appliances, her fixed and invariable modes of public worship, her tradi- tional customs and usages, is competent to the work of A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 345 preaching and dispensing the Gospel to all sorts and con- ditions of men, and so, adequate to do the work of the Lord in this land and in this age ? This question, your peti- tioners for their own part, and in consonance with many thoughtful minds among us, believe must be answered in the negative. Their memorial proceeds on the assumption that our Church, confined to the exercises of her present system, is not sufficient to the great purposes above men- tioned ; that a wider door must be opened for the admission to the Gospel ministry than that through which her candi- dates for holy orders are now obliged to enter. Besides such candidates among her own members, it is believed that men can be found among the other bodies of Christians around us, who would gladly receive ordination at your hands, could they obtain it without that entire surrender, which would now be required of them, of all the liberty in public worship to which they have been accustomed ; men, who could not bring themselves to conform in all particu- lars to our prescriptions and customs, but yet sound in the faith, and who, having the gifts of preachers and pastors, Avould be able ministers of the New Testament. With deference it is asked, ought such an accession to your means in executing your high commission, "Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," be refused, for the sake of conformity in matters recognized in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer as unessen- tials ? Dare we pray the Lord of harvests to send forth laborers into the harvest, while we reject all laborers but those of one peculiar type ? The extension of orders to the class of men contemplated (with whatever safeguards, not infringing on evangelical freedom, which your wisdom might deem expedient), appears to your petitioners to be a subject supremely w^orthy of your deliberations. 346 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. In addition to tlie prospect of the immediate good which wouhl thus be opened, an important step would be taken towards the effecting of a Church unity in the Protestant Christendom of our hind. To become a central bond of union among Christians, who, though differing in name, yet hold to the one Faith, the one Lord, the one Baptism ; and, who need only such a bond to be drawn together in closer and more primitive fellowship, is here believed to be the peculiar province and high privilege of your vener- able body as a college of Catholic and Apostolic Bishops as such. This leads your petitioners to declare the ultimate design of their memorial ; which is to submit the practicability, under your auspices, of some ecclesiastical system, broader and more comprehensive than that which you now admin- ister, surrounding and including the Protestant Episcopal Church as it now is, leaving that church untouched, identi- cal with that church in all its great principles, yet provid- ing for as much freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship, as is compatible with the essential faith and order of the Gospel. To define and act upon such a system, it is be- lieved, must sooner or later be the work of an American Catholic Episcopate. In justice to themselves, on this occasion, your memo- rialists beg leave to remark that, although aware that the foregoing views are not conhned to their own small number, they have no reason to suppose that any other parties con- template a public expression of them, like the present. Having therefore undertaken it, they trust that they have not laid themselves open to the charge of unwarrantable intrusion. They find their warrant in the prayer now offered up by all congregations, "that the comfortable Gospel of Christ may be truly preached, truly received, A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 347 and truly followed in all places, to the breaking down the kingdom of Sin, Satan, and Death." Convinced that, for the attainment of these blessed ends, there must be some greater concert of action among Protestant Christians than any which yet exists, and believing that with you, Right Raverend Fathers, it rests to take the first measures tend- ing thereto, we could do no less than humbly submit this memorial to such consideration as in your wisdom you may see fit to give it. Assuring you, Right Reverend Fathers, of our dutiful veneration and esteem. We are, most respectfully. Your Brethren and Servants in the Gospel of Christ : W. A. MUHLEXBERG, C. F. CrUSE, Philip Berry, Edwix Harwood, G. T. Bedell, Hexry Gregory, Alex. H. Vixtox, J\r. A. De Wolfe Howe, S. H. TURXER, S. R. JOHXSOX, C. W. AxDREws. F. E. Lawrexce, and others. Concurring in the main purport of the memorial, but not able to subscribe to all its details, the following names were subscribed : JoHx Hexry Hobart, A. Clevelaxd Coxe, E. Y. Higbee, Fraxcis Vixtox, Isaac G. Hubbard, and others. What the Memorialists proposed was at once simple and revolutionary. They meant, in good faith, to put the catholic theory of the Church to the experimentuni crucis. " The great catholic idea of the Church may be 348 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. fully developed by more thoroughly adapting it to all the wants of the country and the times." ^ Their object- ive point Avas the emancipation of the Episcopate.^ Their action had other aims as well, but this tion of was the chief. The Episcopate was the dif- bishops. ferentiate of the Church in America. In Rome it was in subjection to the Pope. In England it Avas fettered by the State. Here it was tied by conven- tional rules, so that it was powerless to act beyond the borders of the Protestant Episcopal sect, and even within them was checked at every turn. Protestants mio-ht stretch out their hands for it in vain. It must be refused unless they would consent to take with it all the peculiarities of the sect which possessed it. This, the Memorialists maintained, Avas uncatholic. They saAV, farther, that if the Episcopate should continue to be deprived of its original powers, and reduced to an office of petty routine, it Avould soon come to be filled by petty men. Tliey believed that to claim for the office a divine grace, and then to bind it into helpless- ness from fear of the human infirmities of the men Avho filled it, Avas but solemn trifling. In the second place, they asserted that the Liturgy ,3 Avhich they themselves delighted in, Avas a stumbling- Loosenin of ^^^ck to thousands, Avho, but for it, Avould rubrics. accept the essentials of the Church ; that the principle of compulsory uniformity upon Avhich the Church was acting, Avas not only uncatholic but foolish ; 1 Resolution of Rhode Island Diocese, 1856. 2 Evangelical Catholic Papers, p. 181. 3 lb., p. 1G3, et seq. A PLACE WHERE TWO W^AYS MEET. 349 that the Prayer-Book was constructed for the use of well-ordered and well-trained parishes, whereas the Church's work would be, for many a day to come, among those whose customs and prejudices rendered it ungrateful to them; that as -good wine needs no bush," the Liturgy might be trusted to make its own way into general use by its own intrinsic CKcellence. A third purpose was to restore a disused force by reviving the lower order of the ministry. There were then but thirty-seven deacons in the Church; fhTmaco- there should, and might readily have been, °^^'- five thousand. The ministry was practically closed against all applicants save a small class of men, with peculiar qualifications, hard to attain, and not guaranteeing efficiency when attained. The various sections of the broad vineyard demanded laborers of various sorts. The masses of the people could not be touched but by men from among themselves. A dea- con's work required character rather than education,^ and tent-makers might yet work with their own hands, not being chargeable to any man, and still be apostolic. Above all, they lamented that the door was barred against the ministers of the Protestant wo.ld. One of these could enter only -by painful steps and slow." While waiting the long period of probation, —a proba- tion not required of a Roman priest of far inferior char- acter, — he became separated from his own people, so that he must come alone and a stranger. The ultimate object toward which all their aims » Howe: Memoirs of Bishop Alonzo Potter, p. 186. 350 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. pointed was the Unity of Protestant Chris tendom.^ The Protestant Episcopal Church, standing as the repre- Church sentative of Catholicity in America, had her ""i'^y- task assigned by God. She was to keep open communication with the past. She was to be the tertium quid to produce union in the present. But to do this hist she must move freely among the broken mass. This, the Memorialists contended, she could not do under her present self-imposed limitations. The Memorial was received by tlie Convention with the consideration which the names of its signers could not but secure. It was referred to a committee com- posed of Bishops Otey, Doane, Alonzo Potter, Burgess, Williams, and Wainwright.^ They were instructed to report to the next Convention. Bishop Alonzo Pot- ter took charge of the measure, became its advocate, counsellor, and historian.^ It at once arrested the attention of the whole Church. For several }'ears little else was thought or spoken of. Especially among the younger clergy and laymen did it commend itself.^ Diocesan conventions discussed it, and passed resolu- tious for or against its proposals.'^ Church newspapers advocated or denounced it. Sermons, pamphlets, maga- zine articles, and books were written about it. The committee which had it in charge circulated a list of questions concerning it, to which they solicited replies. 1 Evanj^elical Catholic Papers, p. 322. 2 Memorial Papers: with an introduction by Right Rev. Alonz« Potter, Philadelphia, 1857, p. 36. '■^ Memorial Papers. 4 lb., p. vii. s Green: Life of Bishop Otey, p. 60. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 351 These questions show that the members of the commit- tee either but dimly appreciated its import, or else did not care to consider the fundamental problems at issue. They relate for the most part to details of subordinate importance.^ The replies they received are directed some to one and some to another of the queries, and some to the principles involved.^ Bishop Doane of Xew Jersey, in his reply, falls foul of Sunday-schools, as being destructive of home training of children, advocates parish schools Avherein opinions. the youth of the country may be taught in the spirit of the Church ; and recommends that schools of theology be multiplied and localized in various sec- tions of the country, so that the ministry may be more in touch with the people whom it is called to serve. Bishop Potter of Pennsylvania alone goes to the root of the matter. He advises : to leave to each diocese the power to fix the terms of admission to its own ministry, a, best knowing its own needs ; to receive Protestant ministers whenever they are ready and fit to come, the diocesan authorities passing upon each case as it arises ; to exploit the plan of an unlearned diaconate as pro- posed in 1853, allowing each diocese to receive its own, and not compelling any other diocese to accept them for duty ; leave congregations which are ready to re- ceive an episcopally ordained minister to use the Liturgy or not as they see fit, — as Bishop Kemper liad so wisely done with the Swedish and Norwegian 1 Memorial Papers, pp. 37^0. - The substance of the answers is in all cases condensed from the papers edited and published by Bishop Potter as Memorial Papers. 352 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Lutherans in Wisconsin ; abandon the idea of enforced uniformity in worship, as uncatholic and disastrous wherever it has been attempted. Bishop Burgess of Maine recommends to revise the Liturg}^ so as to make it more fit, and, having done so, exact its use ; when it has been used in any case, allow supplementary extemporary prayers. Bishop Williams of Connecticut advises district visit- ing ; that missionary priests are indeed needed, but must be chosen according to a universal standard, and sent under diocesan control. As to unlearned deacons, he doubts, but if there should be such, they must with- draw from secular employment. He had " prepared some further remarks on the general subject of Chris- tian unity, designed to show that restraints, doctrinal and other, under which we are placed, are not mere accidents, and indications of sectarianism, taken up at will, but things rendered necessary by the abnormal condition of Christendom, and forming part and parcel of our true Catholicity," — but omits them for lack of space. Bishop Meade of Virginia believes that the services are too long; that the minister should be allowed to select the psalms ; that there should be liberty to omit the term " regenerate " in baptism. Bishop Polk replies that among the people of tlie Southwest the Liturgy is a distinct hindrance ; that it is too long, and the rubrics too rigid ; that it should be left more to the discretion of the minister ; that many of his people cannot read at all ; that a learned and an unlearned ministry are both needed. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 353 Bishop Freeman was opposed to the whole agitation ; " would never consent to touch in the minutest par- ticular the integrity of the Liturgy ; " would allow no "relaxation whatever in the conditions of admitting other ministers; — they do not want to come any way." Bishop Upfold denies the premises ; the Church has, all things considered, grown wonderfully ; would not consent to touch the Liturgy ; would make the terms of admission for other ministers harder than they are. Bishop Scott denies the premises ; would allow no relaxation even if they were true. Dr. Bowman thinks the memorialists should be con- tent with the unlearned diaconate. Dr. Coxe recommends a primer where the Liturgy cannot be used ; and calls attention to the Moravian Church as a factor in the problem of unity. Dr. Craik thinks that the door towards Protestantism is too wide open already ; better that some within were shut outside. Dr. Francis Vinton believes that the whole jurisdic- tion in the province of ordination should be left with the bishop, to whom it inherently belongs; that the General Convention had acted ultra vires in its legisla- tion upon the matter ; that the bishop should ordain fit men, and then be only too glad to have them serve Presbyterian or other congregations if they had the chance, without any question of the use of the Liturgy. A Presbyterian divine says the safety of the sects (sz>) depends upon the continued rigidity of the Church ; if that should be abandoned, their existence would be endangered. 354 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. A Congregational divine indorses the position of the memorialists as being in the general interest of American Christianity. A Baptist divine asserts that if the Church could but find a way to reach the masses she could effect more than all others. A German Reformed divine states that they also are preparing a Liturgy, and would gladly draw nearer to the Church. A Methodist divine answers that the Church possesses those things which are abiding, and the Methodists those which are discretionary ; that each might help the other. The Committee, having thus gathered opinions from those whom they thought best qualified to speak, and having listened to the discussion which for three years had filled the air, reported to the General Convention of A true bill 1B56, that the statements of the Memorialists found. were true ; that " the Church is by no means keeping pace with the population ; " that 'the " growth in the last half- century furnishes matter of deep humili- ation and shame ; " that the Litu^rgy is not suited to all the work required of it; that both diocesan conven- tions and representative men agree as to the facts of the case; that there is a wide-spread desire for a more efficient policy. In the way of cure, they recommend extemporaneous preaching ; lay work ; sisterhoods ; more frequent serv- ices ; a more hospitable bearing toward other churches ; a formal declaration by the House of Bishops that Morning Prayer, Litany, and Holy Communion are A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 355 distinct services, and need not be said together; a standing committee of five bishops to receive proposals concerning Christian unity ; to allow diocesan bishops the power to set forth services for special occasions. The recommendations wei'e all adopted, — and the situation remained unchanged. The action failed to touch the issue. Dr. Muhlenberg wrote, '' It is the genius of Catholicity now knocking at the Church's doors. Let her refuse to open. Let her, if she will, make them faster still, with new bolts and bars, and then take her rest, to dream a wilder dream than any of the Memorial : of becoming the Catholic Church of these United States."^ Twenty years later. Dr. Washburn declared that " had the Memorial prevailed, we should have been spared the two worst misfortunes which have since befallen us. The conscientious men of ritualistic type, instead of defying law for chasubles and candles, would have thrown their devotion into noble work; and the conscientious men who have only added another Re- formed Episcopal fragment to the atoms floating in A fatal Christian space would have remained con- choics. tent with just freedom." 2 The Church had the choice set before her to be Catholic or to be sec- tarian. She chose the latter. She exalted her customs above her principles. The choice threw her back more than a generation. ]\Ien being what they are, no other choice could well have been expected. The Lower House had already 1 Evangelical Catholic Papers, p. 325. 2 A^TCs: Life of Dr. Muhlenberg, p. 273. 356 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. begun to think of itself as the Church. It was jealous, of Episcopal prerogative, and out of touch with the people. While the Church remained a federation of States neither of these mistakes was possible. Each del- egation then instinctively sought to know and do the will of its own people. That allegiance had been insen- sibly withdrawn from the local church and given to the general body. The people of the dioceses had come to be the constituencies ; but the representation had not yet been apportioned to their numbers. The General Convention grew remote. The time came when its deliverances were little heeded. It came to have a life of its own, apart from the common life of the Church. It feared anything which might derange that life. A catholic policy would surely have done so. Spirit of , , . . . , •; General Con- Party leaders m it feared what might prove to be an opponent's advantage. Men were not willing to intrust others with a lil^erty which they would have welcomed for themselves. Timidity, mis- called conservatism, shrank from change. As always, men whose vision is acute within a narrow range re- fused to trust the sight of others who were able to see the end. The Church acquiesced in the decision, as it would have done in its opposite. But the opportunity had been lost. The Church had not been able to see the things which belonged to her peace. The canon allowing an unlearned diaconate was passed ; but it proved an empty gain.^ It was an in- strument which would not operate in the machinery of wliich it formed a part. It was discredited from the ' Howe: Memoirs of Bishop Alonzo Potter, p. 186. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET. 357 start. Some bishops would not use it when they could; others could not when they would. Its necessity was presently obscured by the makeshift of " licensed lay readers," — as if any license were needed for a layman to do his ordinary duty. It remained for another generation of men, spiritual sons of the Memorialists, to take up again the work of Liturgical revision and Christian Unity. Dr. Muhlen- berg retired to his schools, his hospitals, his free church. Bishop Potter took up again his labor of organizing the religious life, leading the thought, and caring for the poor of his great diocese.. Their associates stood in their own lots, exemplifying catholicity in life and work. The Church held on her narrow way. Within the limits she had fixed for herself, her life was active, and, judged by her own standard, successful. The general religious movement of the land went on its course, little affected by her. But she was not unmindful of the spiritual needs of her own children, either in the old States or in the far West. The same Convention which received the Memorial sent two bishops to the Pacific Coast. California was then four months' iourney from New York. Progress in ^ ... a narrow Population was pouring into it from all four ^^ ' quarters of the globe. Long lines of '^ prairie schooners" were winding their tedious way across tlie plains of Kansas and Nebraska, through the passes of the Rock}^ Mountains, and down the slopes of the Sierras, carrying the seekers after gold. Another stream w\as struggling through the swamps and miasmas of "the IstJimus," and still another battling its stormy path 358 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. "around the Horn," to the same El Dorado. Its rough, turbulent, picturesque life was at its height. Among Church in ^^^^ earliest comers were clergy of the Church. California. ^jjg j|gy, D^^ Yq^ Mehr was among the " forty-niners." He gathered a little congregation, and lield services in a rude San Francisco shanty. Things moved rapidly there. In 1850 the first "Convention of the Church in California " was held in San Francisco, and six clergy were present. It did not regard itself as a part of the Church in the United States. It was an independent organization, and looked at first to the Greek Church for the Episcopate.^ It was far nearer, geographically, to the Greek Church in Alaska than to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the States. But when three years more had passed, the swift changes of population which marked the time and place had left the Church almost extinct. Some of the clergy were sick, some dead, some moved away, and some smitten with the " gold fever." In 1853 the General Conven- tion chose the Rev. Dr. Kip as bishop, and sent him to build the Protestant Episcopal Church in California. In 1851 the Board of Missions sent the Rev. William Richmond to Oregon. When he arrived, he found St. Church in Michael Fackler, a faithful priest from Mis- Oregon, souri, living and working in Willamette Val- ley. In 1853, three clergy and seven laymen met at Oregon City and organized the Church in Oregon. The same year, the General Convention chose the Rev. Dr. Thomas Fielding Scott to be its bishop. Iowa, Texas, Minnesota, and Arkansas were, a few 1 Bishop K\p, in Perry: History ;, vol. ii. p. 314. A PLACE AVHEIIE TWO WAYS MEET. 359 years later, detached from the great Missionary Juris- dictions, and placed under bishops of their own. But the thought and energy of the time were being more and more withdrawn from the affairs of the Church, and absorbed in the condition of the nation. The mutterings of the coming storm of war Avere already heard. It was possible that the American Church might soon be broken up together with the nation in which it dwelt. 360 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER XL IN WAR TIME. The same institution whose presence in America ultimately caused secession had long before caused ecclesiastical divisions. The '' great seces- Churches sion " in 1845 had split the Methodist Church upon slavery. .^^ ^^^^^^ q^^^ ^^ .^^ bishops had been found to be " an owner of slaves, by marriage." ^ He was required to purge himself of his fault or lay down his office. The Southern delegates stood by him, and the Methodist Church South was organized. Ill 1857 the ''New School Presbyterian Church" took similar ground in an expression of opinion upon the Fugitive Slave Law, whereupon several Southern presbyteries Avithdrew from their connection, and became the nucleus around which the Southern Pres- byterian Church was built in 1861.^ Among the Baptists, and all denominations of Con- gregational type, there had been, of course, no formal separation, for there had never been any organic union, but their formal " fellowship " had long stopped at Mason and Dixon's line. The Church of Rome had never divided upon the question for quite a different reason. Her unity has ' Stevens: American Methodism, pp. 525-6. 2 Schaff-Herzog EncycL, p. 1908. IN WAR TIME. 361 nothing to do with the unity of national life, but is centred in a foreign potentate. But all American churches, except the Protestant Episcopal, had ranged themselves toward the same question of negro slavery, which was working to a settlement in the national life. These foregone ecclesiastical divisions had much to do with making political separation possible. ^ They had familiarized people's minds with the idea. Tliey had withdrawn members of the same spiritual family so far away from each other that mutual understanding became impossible. In the Episcopal Church this was not the case. Its members North and South were in more friendly rela- tion, and had a better comprehension of each Churdf not other's thought upon the fundamental ques- divided. ^.^^^^ ^^^^j^ 1^^^ ^j^g members of any other organization, religious or secular. The Church had never called slave-holding a sin. It had never made it a matter of discipline. It saw more clearly than did the divided denominations what were the real difficul- ties involved in its settlement. At the organization of the Church, its. members felt about the matter as did the great mass of the Christian people of their time. Slavery was then common to all the colonies. It was accepted as part of the constitution of things. Its prac^ tical evils were evident to many, but in itself it was generally accepted to bs warranted by Scripture and ancient custom. But a sentiment against it was even then rising. The social and political ills attached to the institution were becoming apparent. There was an 1 Jolms: Life of Bishop Meade, pp. 492, 494. 362 THE PKOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. instinct that it was antagonistic to the fundamental conception of American political life. This sentiment gained ground slowly, but surelj', in the Northern States. As it spread it produced gradual emancipation. But tliis had taken effect so recently in many Northern States that the old way ol regarding slavery, in theory, had not been changed. It had been seen to be practicably un- desirable, but not morally indefensible. The great mass of Northern people did not think themselves General sen- r. i ,.,,.. timent of the to be partakers or other mens sms by iivmg in a government which permitted it w^ithin its borders. They did not forget that they had lately shared the sin, if it were one. So late as 1850 there Avere still slaves in New York, New Jersey, and Penn- sylvania.^ In 1860 there were still living in the prime of life colored men who had been born bondsmen in the Northern States. But for a generation the relation of the general government toward slavery had been the burning question. It had engaged men's thoughts and emotions far more deeply than any issue that has con- fronted them, before or since. The Church Avas blamed for her attitude. Some of her own children thought and spoke of her with shame. They begged her to bear her testimony against tliis " sum of all villanies ; " to break out of this " league with death and covenant The Church ^^^^^^ hell." The great Bishop Wilberforce blamed. exclaims with horror that '' the Spirit of Missions, edited with the sanction of the Church, and under the eye of the Bishop of New York, proposes to 1 Williams: History of the Negro Race in America, vol. ii. p. 99, This history, written by a negro, a member of the Ohio Legislature, is valuable in many regards. IX WAR TIMI-. 363 endow a mission school in Louisiana with a plantation to be worked by slaves." ^ Churchmen offered no pro- test when the Bishop of Georgia proposed to maintain the ^' Montpelier Institute " by slave labor, or when the Bishop of South Carolina denounced the "malignant philanthropy of abolition." With the Abolitionists as a party, the Church had but. little sympathy. The intem- perance of their denunciations, their incapacity to under- stand the facts, their close affiliation with infidelity ,2 all offended her. Church people held rather with President Lincoln. They saw the evils of the institution, and looked for its abolition, but they saw also how closely it was interwoven with the structure of society, and Avere not ready for heroic surgery .^ The Church preserved the same policy toward slavery that she has always done toward intemperance and poverty. They are evils to be eradicated by strengthening the constitutional life, rather than by the exhibition of specifics. The manner of life in the South was more familiar to her than it was to any other religious body. There ^ , had been no separation or cessation of inter- Mutual com- ^ ,^ ^ prehension, course. Every three years the representa- tives of all the dioceses sat together for weeks in Geneial Convention. The bishops, North and South, were in constant correspondence, Meade with MTlvame, 1 Wilberforoe: History of the American Church, p. 427. ^ The writer has but seldom referred to Bishop Wilberforces History It is not of sreat value. It bears the mark of the haste witli which it was prepared, and the scantiness of the authorities at its authors com- mand. See Life of Bishop Wilberforce, p. 87. 2 Ca'^wall: American Church and Union, p. 278. 3 Nicolav and Hav: Life of Abraham Lincoln, in loc. 3 Raymond : Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 7oy. 364 THE PROFESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Whittiiigliam with Hopkins.^ The Bishops of Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, and Lonisiana liad kept the promise mutually given long before that they would pray for each other by name every Sunday morning.^ Each section was fully aware of the others' sentiments. Northern Churchmen had often heard the Bishop of Virginia say, and in general they agreed with him, that slaveiy was never to his taste ; but that he had no conscientious scruples as to its lawfulness.^ '-I'liey knew that he had, like many others, emancipated slaves himself, only to fuid the poor creatures helpless vagabonds in the midst of a slave-holding commu- nity.* Indeed, manumission of individuals was a very doubtful kindness. When that sturdy Vermonter, Bishop Chase, went to live in New Orleans, he was compelled to purchase his negro Jack, because he could not obtain a servant in any other way. But having ended his residence there, he was at his wit's end to know what to do with Jack.^ Northern Churchmen knew that their brethren in the South were not alto- gether unmindful of the religious welfare of their slaves. They knew that in South Carolina there were a hundred and fifty congregations of negroes for a hundred of whites ; ^ that the Bishop of Virginia had preached his Convention Sermon upon the duty owed by the whites to negroes ; that thousands of them were regular and faithful communicants. 1 Johns : Life of Bishop Meade, p. 492. 2 lb., p. 237. 8 lb., p. 47G. 4 Caswall : American Church and Union, p. 276. 5 Chase: Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 75. 6 Cas\vall: p. 273. IN WAR TIME. 365 All these things did not change their opinion of slavery. It was bad, only bad, and that continually. But this mutual understanding and sympathy kept the Church together while the Union lasted, and brought it together again as soon as that was restored. In 1860 it became evident that a slave-holding people and a free people would not live in the same house, Couthern ^^^ when secession was fii^st proposed it was bishops op- strenuously resisted by the leading: Southern pose seces- " . sion. bishops. The Bishop of Virginia used his great influence against it.^ The Bishop of Maryland was still more outspoken, and remained steadfast to the Union through all.^ In its defence he sacrificed the love of lifelong friends, and nearl}^ broke his heart. Otey of Tennessee wrote to Bishop Polk, " It is God alone that can still the madness of the people. To what quarter shall we look when such men as you and Elliott deliberately favor secession ? What can we expect, other than violence among the masses, when the fathers of the land openly avow their determination to destroy the work which their fathers established at the expense of their blood ? " ^ But when secession became a political fact, the Southern Churchmen maintained that it carried with it ecclesiastical separation. They contended tliat they had no choice. When the States in which they lived went out of the Union, they bore the Church with them 1 Johns: Life of Bishop Meade, p. 402. "You see that I atn almost in despair. I am told that our clergy in Charleston preach in favor of disunion. I fear some of our bishops consent, or why have I heard of no remonstrance? " 2 Brand: Life of Bishop Whittingham, vol. ii. pp. 11, 20. 3 (Ireen : Life of Bishop Otey, p. . '* As if an abyss liad suddenly yawned between the two sections." 2 Jolins: Life of Bisliop Meade, pp. lOH, 504. IN WAR TIME. 367 All their previous habits of thought made the way easy for them.^ When the General Convention met in New York in 1862, the chasm had opened between the two sections, and war was ah^eady raging. The Southern Secession. ^^^^^^^^^ ...gre absent. What should the Church do in this new exigency? Once, long before, the delegates from a geographical section had been absent. A belt of yellow fever had cut off New England from the other States. At that time, the Church had accepted the physical explana- tion, and proceeded without the absent brethren. The same thing was done now. The Convention tacitly adopted the same theory which had controlled the action of the Southern dioceses. There was a physical obstacle in the way of their coming. But every day the roll of all the States was called.^ The delegates might come and take their seats if they would or could. The possibiUty of any diocese being voluntarily absent was icruored. By the next triennial Convention they had re- turned. The General Convention continued to act as the representative of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The Nation did not acknowledge that any States had gone ; no more did the Church. But it was confronted with the question of what was its duty to the Nation in this its hour of Indthe'''^''^ need. The deliverance of a body so influ- ^"'°°- ential as the Episcopal Church would carry weight, and was anxiously looked for. It was given without hesitation in favor of the Union. A committee » Green: Life of Bishop Otey, p. 121. •■2 General (^.onvontion Jmu-nal, 1862. THE rPvOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. of nine was appointed to prepare a fitting declaration.^ When reported and adopted, after long and earnest dis- cussion, it set forth : That obedience to civil authority is a Christian's duty and a Churchman's habit; that while the Convention had no hard words for its breth- ren in the South, it could not be blind to the fact that they were " in open and armed resistance to regularly constituted government ; " that as individual citizens the members of the Convention will not be found wanting in word or deed to aid the country in its struofo-le : that as the council of a Church which hath ever renounced all political action, they can only pray that the National Government may be successful in this its rightful endeavor. A lay deputy from Maryland opposed the action, on the ground that a Church council may not concern itself in any way with political questions. The Presiding Bishop, Hopkins of Vermont, took the same position, and refused to read the Pastoral Letter which expressed the same general sentiment of patriotism.^ These ob- jections were brushed aside. The issue was felt to be moral rather than political. Ecclesiastical precisians could not be heard upon it. The whole weight of the Church's influence, which was not small, was given to the Union side throughout the struggle. In the very darkest hour, when it became almost a matter of life or death to change the drift of English sympathy from the Southern to the Northern side. Bishop MTlvaine was one of the ambassadors at large to the English people, 1 General Convention Journal, 18f)2. 2 Brand: Life of Bishop AVhittingliam, vol. ii. p. 32. IN WAR TIME. 369 chosen and informally accredited by President Lincoln. Together with Thurlow Weed, Henry Ward Beecher, and Archbishop Hughes, he went to England. He had enter- tained the Prince of Wales while visiting this country, and was well known among that class who most needed to be set right upon the true nature of the conflict. Few men effected more for the Union cause than did the Bishop of Ohio by this embassage.^ Meanwhile the absent dioceses had organized the Church in the Confederate States.^ Its leaders were Polk, the Bishop of Louisiana, and Elliott, the Bishop of Georgia. The Bishop of Virginia v/as The Church . ^ . i , in the Con- with them now in sympathy, but he wa.s old e eracy. ^^_^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ j^^ March of 1861 Polk and Elliott met at Sewannee, Tenn., on business connected with the University of the South. By that time South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisi- ana, and Texas had seceded. The Church in each w^as an ecclesiastical fragment, floating in space. They were only more fortunate than the colonists had been at the close of the Revolution, in that they had diocesan or- ganizations and bishops. Some one must volunteer to lead them if they were to confederate. Polk and Elliott took up the task. They addressed a circular letter, ask- ing each seceded diocese to send delegates to a con- ference to be held at Montgomery, Ala., in July. In response to their call thirty delegates came. Four bishops were present, Elliott of Georgia, Green of ' Dyer: Records of an Active Life. p. 280. - The material for this sketch of the Church in the Confederate States is chietiy taken from a monograph of that title by the Rev. Dr. John Fulton in Perry's History of the American Church, vol. ii. pp. 561-592. 370 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Mississippi, Rutledge of Florida, and Davis of South Carolina. Cobbs of Alabama had just died; Otey of Tennessee was ill ; Meade of Virginia was old and infirm ; Atkinson of North Carolina did not respond ; Gregg of Texas was cut off by the blockade ; Polk had entered the Confederate Army. Six dioceses were rep- resented by clergy or laymen. All three orders sat in one House. There were no rules, in the nature of the case. The Convention was not a Church, but the material out of which one might be framed. They agreed that it was '' necessary and expedient " that the dioceses of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the seceded States should form among themselves an inde- pendent organization. It was urged that the eyes of the Confederacy were upon them, and that they owed the new government the moral support which they could give it by acting as if they expected it to be abiding. An ecclesiastical reason also pressed. Alabama was without a bishop. If it should elect a man to that office, as was likely, who would take order for his consecration? The situation was difficult. The Convention w^as not large enough or representative enough to go forward to a complete organization ; it was too large and too conspicuous to go back and leave nothing done. They therefore took a recess until the following October, appointing a committee, of three of each order, to prepare a constitution and canons mean- while. When October came, all the States in the Con- federacy were represented save Texas, and all the bishops present except General Polk. Then they went forward and adopted the constitution and canons, sul> IN" WAR TIME. 371 stantially the same as those they had been familiar with in the general Church, thus perfecting the Church in the Confederacy. The name of '' Reformed Catholic " was proposed for the new organization, but failed of adoption. Following the guidance of existing facts, as the Conference in Maryland had done eighty years before, they called it the '' Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America." The Prayer- Book was changed by substituting Confederate States for United States throughout.^ Arkansas, then a Mis- sionary Jurisdiction of the old Church, was admitted as a diocese in the new one. Shortly afterward Alabama elected Dr. R. H. Wilmer to be its bishop. This com- pelled the new Church to discharge the functions of a General Council. The consent of the several standing committees was secured, and the senior bishop in the Confederacy took order for his consecration. In all respects the new organization proceeded to act as a national Church. But in the daily life of its members it encountered grave difficulties. Apart from the hardships and priva- Confederate tions which arose from their territory being Church and ^^^^ g^^^ ^f ^^r, their liturgical worship Federal au- . , thorities. brought them constantly nito conflict with the Federal miUtary authorities. Their Liturgy put into their mouths words of prayer for the Confederacy instead of for the United States and its President. Its 1 Dr. Fulton calls attention to the curious fact that in the only edition of this Prayer-Book ever published (by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London), the words United States remained by an oversight in the Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea. So that aboard the " Alabama " (if the company prayed at all) they must pray, " That we may be a safeguard to the United States of America, and a security for such as pass on the seas on their lawful occasions " 1 372 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. use put them at a disadvantage as compared with the other Christian people in the Confederacy. The Romish Liturgy, being in a language not understanded of the people, and recognizing no ruler but the Pope, could be used in the United States or in the Confederacy or in the planet Jupiter with equal fitness. Non-Liturgical clergymen could avoid words of constructive treason by any periphrases they chose. If their petitions were only intelligible by God, they need not offend any earthly authority. But Churchmen were in an evil case. If they held public worship at all, they must offend. To use the prayers for the rulers or to omit them was equally dangerous. In 1862 General Butler issued an order that *' the omission, in the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New Orleans, of the Prayers for the President of the United States, would be regarded as evidence of hostility to the Gov- ernment of the United States." In a lens^thy General ° '^ Butler as a correspondence which ensued, tlie general un- dertook to show the clergy what the Canon Law required in the premises. His canonical knowl- edge was equal to his military skill. But the discussion was terminated by the forcible closure of the churches. The rectors were arrested and sent North as military prisoners, but upon their arrival at New York were at once set at liberty. Similar conflicts were constantly occurring as the Federal forces gained control of more and more territory. Dr. Wingfield of Portsmouth, Va., was condemned to the chain-gang for a similar offence. Dr. Smith of Alexandria was arrested in his chancel for refusing to use the Prayer for the President of the IN WAR TIME. 373 United States at the command of a military officer who was present.^ General Woods inhibited the Bishop and all the clergy of Alabama. For a time, the churches in that State were closed, and armed guards stationed at the doors to keep them from being opened.^ The Bishop was followed to his retreat by an officer instructed to see that he should pray for the President of the United States. One of his clergy consented to use the prayer for the President, but " under protest I " ^ A letter from the Bishop to President Lincoln produced an immediate revocation of the obnoxious order. Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. The Church in the South had set itself in antagonism to the United States by the very fact of its existence. Its raison d'etre was the assumption that certain States had actually withdrawn from the Union. From the North- ern point of view, they not only had not gone Confederate out, but by attempting to do so they had committed a flagrant offence. The Church became particeps criminis in the offence. Its Liturgy made it impossible for it to evade the consequences of its original act of organization. The only final justifica- tion of revolution is success. In this case success was wanting. In its absence, all concerned in the attempt bore their share of the awful cost of failure. None bore it with a better grace or a more patient dignity than the short-lived Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confed- erate States. 1 Slaughter: Memorial of the Rev. George Archibald Smith, p. 41. 2 Wilmer: The Recent Past, p. 146. 3 The Bishop, very properly, wonders what would be the precise effect of such a prayer ? 374 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER XII. THE REUNITED CHURCH. In the spring of 1865 the Confederacy ceased to be. With its dissolution the reason for the Southern Church passed away. Tiieir contention from the first had been that, being cut off from the United States by no act of their own, the dioceses in the seceded States simply conformed to existing facts in organizing a new church. Now, on their own principles, their Church's place was gone. Their Prayer-Book was obsolete. There was no longer any '' President of the Confederate States " to pray for if they had wished it. But it was not so clear that they had been borne back involunta- rily into the Protestant Episcopal Church by the reflux of the tide. They might not be willing to resume their long vacant places ; the Church might not be willing to receive them. They had gone out because a political chasm separated the two sections. That gulf Moving .1 • 1 1 1 toward was now closcd, but not until it had been reunion. ^^^^ ^^-^^^ human blood. Fortunately old friendships still held. The Presiding Bishop, Hopkins of Vermont, and Bishop Elliott of Georgia, the leader in the Southern Church, were more than brethren. Their old affection for each other was unbroken. Elliott clearly discerned the situation. " We appealed," he said, ''to the God of battles, and He has given II in THE REUNITED CHURCH. 375 decision against us. We accept the result as the work, not of man, but of God." ^ In this temper he was ready to work for peace and unity. But all were not of his mind. Chagrin, humiliation, apprehension, and anger were common among his people. The unhappy " recon- struction " period had set in. Military governors were still in occupation of the late seceded States. Bishop Hopkins, with the knowledge and consent of his breth- ren, sent a circular letter to all the Southern Bishops, assuring them of a welcome if they would take their places in the approaching General Convention in Octo- ber. Bishop Wilmer of Alabama expressed the senti- ment both of his own State and Mississippi ^ when he replied that it was by no means clear as yet that the Southern dioceses might not retain their separate posi- Obstacies in ^^^^^ ' ^^^^^ would depend upon circumstances the way. pQ^ jq^ determined ; ^ that they could not come back as supplicants for pardon ; that human pas- sions were facts which must be taken account of ; that the best men in the South were yet under the ban as traitors ; that their representative man might yet be hanged ; that all would depend upon the spirit shown by the General Convention itself when it should meet; that they could abide the result of the war, but could not yet join in Te Deuma over their own defeat. Apart from the sore temper on the one hand, and the triumphant one on the other, there were grave difficul- ties to be adjusted. The Bisliop of Alabama had been 1 Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 339. 2 Wilmer: The Recent Past, p. 1G6. 3 lb., p. 155. 8TG THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CIIUP.CH. elected aiicl consecrated outside of the Church's rules. Arkansas had been taken from the missionary jurisdic- tion of the Southwest, and erected into a diocese. Worst of all, Bishop Polk of Louisiana had broken Catholic rule and violated Christian sentiment by tak- ing arms. But his name was dear in the IS op . gQ^|-]-j^ ^ graduate of West Point, he had been almost forced into command at a time when com- petent leaders were hard to find. He had assumed the duty most reluctantly.^ But he was urged on every hand. Even the old Bishop of Virginia had called to his mind, wdien he hesitated, that " the conduct of Pliinehas was so praiseworthy that the inspired David says it was accounted to him for righteousness through all posterities for evermore ; and did not Samuel, the minister of God from his infancy, lead forth the hosts of Israel to battle, and with his own hand slay the king of Amalek ? " ^ He had taken up the sword against his will, and sought in vain to be allowed to lay it down.^ At Pine Mountain he had fallen, and his blood had discolored the Prayer-Book in his pocket, and half washed out of it the names, written by his own hand, of his three friends, Johnson, Hood, and Hardee.^ Any suggestion of censure upon the conduct of the dead could not be borne. All these things made the Southern people hesitate. They needed not to have done so. When the General Convention met at Philadelphia in October, 1865, the ' Fulton, in Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 581. 2 Green: Life of Bishop Otey, p. 96. 3 lb., p. 100. 4 Fulton, in Perry: History, vol. ii. p. 583. THE REUNITED CHURCH. 377 clerk of the House of Deputies began with -Alabama" in calUng the roll of dioceses. The roll had never been changed. Alabama and the other Confed- vlTno'f"" erate^States had only been absent from one ^°^^- meeting, and their names had never been re- moved. To the g^eneral gratification of all, two South- ern bishops, Atkinson of North Carolina, and Lay of Arkansas, were present at the opening service. They came, doubting both their right and their welcome.i They were hospitably entreated and constrained to take their places. The Convention acted on the dreaded questions with good-sense and generosity. It was re- solved that the Bishop of Alabama should be received upon signing the ordinary declaration of conformity .2 No quesUon was raised about the regularity of his con- secration. The case of Arkansas had settled itself. Its short life as a diocese had been destroyed by the ravages of war. The Church within it was practically extinct. Bishop Lay had been all the while, in spite of himself, the missionary bishop of the Southwest. In that capacity his place was still open. The career of Bishop Polk was not referred to. He was dead. But the harmony came near being destroyed by an un- expected means. The House of Bishops proposed a thanksgiving service for "the restoration of peace and » nion t^^e re-establishment of the National Govern- imperiUsd. nient over the whole land." The Bishop of North Carolina protested that his people could not say that. They acquiesced in the result of the war, and 1 Harrison: Life of Bishop Kerfoot, vol. ii. p. 391. 2 General Convention Journal, 1865. 378 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. would accommodate themselves to it like good citizens ; but they were not thankful. They had prayed that the issue might have been different. They were ready to " return thanks for peace to the country, and unity to the Church; " but that was a different matter. Bishop Stevens of Pennsylvania moved to substitute the South- ern man's words for the ones in the resolution offered. His motion was carried by sixteen to seven. ^ When the amended resolution was offered in the House of Deputies, Horace Binney of Pennsylvania moved to restore the original phrase ofivinof thanks Horace & i & & Binney's " for the rc-establishment of the National Government over the whole land," and to add to it " and for the removal of the great occasion of national dissension and estrangement to which our late troubles were due " (referring to slavery ).2 A storm of discussion at once arose, both within and without the Convention. The secular press of the country took up the matter; declared that the loyalty of the Church itself was upon trial ; that it dare not refuse to pass Mr. Binney's patriotic resolution ; that too much tenderness had already been shown to '' unreconstructed rebels." Dr. Kerfoot, President of Trinity College, came to the rescue.^ He liad been, all through the war, a Union man in a place where his loyalty had cost him sometliing. His college in Maryland had been well-nigh destroyed. He had tended the wounded at Antietam and South Mountain, battles fought at his very door. He luid 1 Pen-y: History, vol. ii. p. 502. '^ General Convention Journal, 18U5. « Harrison: Life of P>isliop Kerfoot, vol. ii. p. 393, et seq. THE REUNITED CHURCH. 379 been seized a prisoner by General Early's order. His goods had been destroyed by the Confederate soldiery. He, if any one, had the right to speak. His own loyalty was beyond all question. He begged the Convention Dr. Kerfoot's ^0 remember that it had itself invited and plea. urged the Southern delegates to come ; that the place to celebrate the triumph of the Northern arms was outside of the Church ; that not only the present but the future peace of the Church was at stake ; that if the Church should be led by its passions now, future unity would be impossible ; that " their thanksgiving for unity and peace should ascend to the throne of God in such a form that all could honestly join in it." His wise and earnest argument prevailed. By a vote of twenty dioceses to six, Mr. Binney's amendment was defeated,^ and the House of Bishops' more generous terms were carried. This action settled the Reunion. question of reunion. The Southern Church met once more at Augusta, closed out its affairs decfently, and was no more. The Protestant Episcopal Church in its integrity entered upon its modern life in an undivided nation. The generation now living had come upon the stage. Jiut the war had done far more than to settle a political dispute. It had profoundly changed the conditions of American life. It introduced four millions of manu- mitted slaves to a new social, political, religious exist- ence. The old methods of the Church for them were no longer applicable. The awful problem pressed to find 1 General Convention Journal, 1865. 1 Brand: Life of Bishop Whittiugham. vol ii. p. 74. 380 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL (TlUliCII. new and efficient ones. The war liacl done much to break up sectarian isohition. When young men who had been taught in their country homes that Religious effects of the Komanisni was pure abonnnation, had been war. gently nursed by Sisters of Charity in the military hospital, their prejudices were greatly shaken. When Churchmen had their wounds bound up and heard extemporaneous prayers offered at their side by Meth- odist and Presbyterian chaplains and Christian Com- mission agents, they changed their thought about the validity of a ministry which bore such fruits. When these in turn heard Churchmen openly recite the Creed and say their prayers, they were arrested and impressed. The end of the war was followed by a period of restless moving to and fro. Soldiers had learned to travel. They brought back with them to their quiet homes a broader habit of mind and a quickened consciousness of national life. Tliey brought a wider thought to the congregations where they worshipped. A ferment was working in every province of life. It could be seen in commerce, art, and social habit. Religion felt it also. The Church was in the presence of a new set of facts and forces. To understand them would require of her judgment and a sound mind, the spirit of wisdom and ghostly strength. The Doctrine of Evolution, just coming into notice, was to change her whole Avay of New forces regarding life and man. The teaching of and new Robertson, Maurice, and the author of " Ecce problems. Homo, ' with the new method in History and Criticism, was to become a solvent of many of her ac- cepted dogmas. The revived movement of population THE REUNITED CHURCH. 381 westward was to tax her missionary spirit to its utmost. Her great work among the Indians in the Northwest, abeady begun, was to be carried to completion. She was to plant a church in Hayti, and to aid and foster one in Mexico. The wisdom and energy needed to adjust herself to the changed conditions of life was to be drawn off for a period into the long, dreary, barren- contest over Ritual. The amazing spectacle of grave and learned theologians and jurists endeavoring to per- form modistes' and dancing masters' i work was to be displayed before the astonished eyes of an earnest gener- ation which had just fought a mighty war over ques- tions of the first rank. Bishop Cummins and his following of restless spirits were to add a superfluous sect to the divisions of Christendom. The Church Congress was to give outlet to surcharged thought, and "to bring men to a better knowledge of each other's spirit. The "Church Idea" was to be infused into American Protestantism. The task of the memorial- ists was to be taken up again, and the Liturgy revised to fit the exigencies of common life. The idea of a mechanical uniformity was to be unconsciously for- saken. The Episcopate was to break from its tram- mels, and proclaim to the divided Christian world the Church's hope and plan for Unity. 1 A committee of five bishops, among the greatest in learning and chararter, deliberated and reported concerning the washing of the priest's hands, bowings, genuflections, reverences, bowing down upon or ki^sinc^ the holy table; a surplice reaching to the ankles for choristers; a surpHce not reaching below the ankle for priests ; stoles, bands, black gowns, and university caps. General Convention Journal, 1871. 882 THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUECH. CHAPTEE XIII. DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL. While statesmen and ]:)oliticians were busy over the problem of "Reconstruction," ecclesiastics and Church conventions were busy Avith the " Ritual Controversy." This term, which we use as convenient because it has been so generally applied to the question at issue, is, indeed, misleading. It is inconceivable that devout and earnest Christians and Churchmen should liave thought worth while to argue, denounce, struggle, manoeuvre, and pray for or against a little more or less of elaborate form in the conduct of the public worship of God. The contestants on both sides were always careful to declare that they regarded ''Ritual," in itself considered, as of ver}^ subordinate moment. What, then, Avas at issue? What saved a controversy which was waged so furiously for a decade, and which divides men's opinions to-day, fmm being laughed off the stage? Men do not long continue to be inter- ested in paltry things. Should the Christian Minister be called a priest or a presbyter? Should the Holy Table be called a table or an altar ? Should the offici- The worth of ating Minister wear a surplice or a black ritual. gown? Should candles be permitted to burn by daylight on or about the altar? Should flowers be allowed in the chancel or about the font? Should DOCTRI]S^E AI^D CEREMOXIAL. 383 anthems be sung or said ? These things, in themselves, are allowed to be of no more consequence than the color of a cockade. But, then, the color of a cockade has more than once in the world's history sufficed to in- flame a nation. The rival hues of the red and the white rose have served to keep a kingdom at war for genera- tions. What was at issue in the Ritual Controversy ? At bottom it was a local phase of that division which is as old as the history of Eeligion between the Prophet and the Priest. The Sons of Levi and the Sons of the Prophets have ever had a different thought concerning God'S Avays with men. Only under the pressure of a common peril from the outside do Iddo the Seer and Jeshua the son of Johzadek work together for the build- ing of God's house. For more than two centuries the Protestant doctrine of '' Justification by Faith alone " had remained unchallenged in the Church of England. Ev^en the Xon-jurorc, and the American Churchman of the Seabury and Hobart type, had affirmed it as strenuously as had the Evangelicals. Their reverence for the Sacraments and for the Church's w^ays was due rather to their love of order and prescription than to any belief that salv^ation was attained through sacro- sanct observances. But a generation had now grown up Avithin the in- fluence of the Catholic Revival. The very essence of the Oxford Movement Avas that it claimed for the Church as a divine institution a necessary place and function in the salvation of the individual. The Church, it asserted, is not a society into which men come after they haA'e become Christians, and in Avhich they 384 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. remain because they are Christians, but is the divinely ordained instrument by which men are made Chris- The Church tians, and its sacraments and ordinances are idea. h^q means by which their spiritual life is ke])t from perishing. To those thus persuaded every- thing connected with the Church takes on a nevf value and signilicance. It is not enough for them that public service shall be conducted decently and with decorum. The high and dry propriety in a Connecticut parish church was little less offensive than the pietistic free- dom of an Ohio prayer meeting. What they desired Avas that in everything connected with the Church its su])ernatural quality should be manifest. The peculiarity of architecture, the bearing of the wor- shippers, the dress of the officiant, the arrangement of furniture, lights, flowers, incense, music, gesture, tone, all these should conform to and show forth the central thought of the Church as the peculiar dwelling place of God on earth. Ritual was the attempt to express this. Few Avere clear-sighted enough to discern ])recisely Avhat was desired or what was threatened, but still fewer were uninfluenced by the movement going forward. The movement also fell in and marched with a far Avider change which had begun to show itself in every department of life among the ])eople. During the Civil War more than three millions of men had learned to wear uniform and to keep step. Civil and military display had grown familiar. Insignia of rank, badges of office, rhythm of procession, flags and banners as symbols of organization, things from which the repub- lican prejudice of (:wf(3 hellnni days had turned away, DOCTRIiS^E AND CEREMONIAL. 385 had now come in. Civil and military ritual are closely related to ecclesiastic. Agitation for cap and gown set in in colleges and universities. Uniforms began to be worn in bovs' schools, and by the employees Civic ritual. ^ .^ -^ ., ' , .. or railways and steamboats, and, a little later on, by the employees of great private firms. A sug- gestion of similar customs tAventy years earlier would have been met Avith ridicule or indignation. The fact was that the whole nation was growling ritualistic. It was too much to expect, even if one wished it, that the Church should remain uninfluenced. But the movement within the Church was opposed with a bitterness and intensity of zeal which it is, happily, difficult to realize now. Evangelicals op])osed it because it sprang from a conception of the Church and a rationale of Sacraments which was, to their minds, radically false and practically perilous. High Anglicans withstood it because it disturbed the conven- tional order of the Ecclesiastical household. Conser- vative Churchmen withstood it because it introduced novelties, and to not a few minds novel truth is no less obnoxious than novel error. Romanists flouted it as a clumsy aping of manners which were to them, being to the manner born, fit and reasonable. Protestants pointed to it with a real or affected horror, and saw in it Episcopacy marching to its logical end. AYits jested at it; theologians argued against it; canonists thun- dered at it; bishops charged anent it; foolish priests made it ridiculous by their extravagances; and, mean- while, ritualism steadily advanced.^ No euvironment * Church Journal, 1867, p. 140, 386 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. was safe. It spread in Kew York; it invaded Penn- sylvania; it appeared in Yermont; it broke out spo- radically in Ohio; even the dry air of Connecticut was not fat?l to it. No controversy in the whole history of the American Church has caused such an intensity of feeling. For a thne it seemed as if no refuge could be found anywhere from the strife of tongues. Brotherly kindness and even Christian Charity seemed to have disappeared. There is little to choose between the methods and temper of its advocates and opponents. The former were filled with the new wine of revived ecclesiasticism, and the latter Avere alarmed at the break- ing up of old customs and dismayed at the presence, in the air, of a spirit which they did not comprehend. The contention of the so-called ritualists was, from the . first, that they were acting within the law of ists' conten- the Church when introducing those acts and tion. methods Avhich were denounced as innova- tions. Such a contention appeared simply preposterous to old-fashioned Churchmen. When the ritualist Avent farther and accused them of being themselves habitual laAv-breakers, they honestly thought that inidsummer madness could go no farther. There were two ques- tions concerning acts of ritual: Were they in themselves fitting and desirable? Were they permissible by the law of the Church? The ritualists labored to prove the first; their opponents labored to disprov^e the sec- ond. At first it seemed hardly Avorth Avhile to dis- prove it. Could any sane man believe that these things Avere legal in the American Church — lights on the altar, alb, chasuble, dalmatic, and such like, and of DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL. 887 variegated colors; bowings and crossings, the burning of incense, the chrism in Confirjiiation, the inixed chalice and wafer bread ? In 1866 the venerable Dr. Hopkins, Bisho]) of Yermont, and Presiding Bishop, was moved to take up his parable concerning the mat- ter. In October of that year he issued his book, '• The Law of Ritual,'' which in three months ran through Bishop Hop- three editions. Bishop IIo[)kins Avas a law- kins's book, yer and a theologian, a man of unquestioned candor and courage, and of exceptional personal char- acter. That he was something of a doctrinaire was rather an ad\^antage than otherwise in enabling him to pass judgment on a burning question in a time of excitement. The effect of his book upon the Church at large was much that of Balaam's prophesying upon the Moabites. "For Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and behokl thou hast blessed them altogether." He had conceded the whole case. The law of the Church being what it was — that is, the Canon Law of the Church of England, except upon such points as that la^v had been specifically set aside or modified — all the disputed points were lawful. If the situation w^ere as the presiding bishop declared it to be, the opponents of ritualism w^ere left but two things to do.^ They might either organize the public * " The appearance of the Bishop of Vermont's little book is a serious thin^, as it opens the door for experiments which are not unlikely to be made in respectable churches, if not in some of the most important seats of the C:hurch's diirnity and strength 1 ''—Letter to a Bishop, Arthur Cleavcland Coxe. 18(36. 388 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. opinion of the Church so strongly against the incom- ing movement as to stop it and turn it back; or they might have the hiw of the Church so changed as to put an end to it by penalties. They essayed to do both in turn. In October, ISGO, the House of Bishops met in New York for certain sj^ecial business. The question of Ritualism was discussed at length, and a Committee Avas appointed to propose a Declaration upon the sub- ject. The moving spirit, and the Secretary of the Committee, was the Bishop of Western New York. It seems to have been hoped by the Bishops that a formal expression of opinion by them could be weighty enough to stop a movement which they disapproved, but which each in his own diocese was not bold enough to con- front officially. This hope, to which that House has fondly clung at many junctures, failed here as always. Their hesitation betrayed itself in the very tenor of The Bishops' ^^^ Declaration. In its preamble they dis- Deciaration. avowed official character for their action. " Whereas, at a meeting of the House of Bishops held in the month of October the subject of ritualism was brought to the notice of the House and considered with great unanimity, and Whereas, on account of the absence of a number of the Right Rev. members of the House, and the fact that the House was not sitting as a coordinate branch of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, it was re- garded as inexpedient to proceed to any formal action, and Whereas, it was nevertheless regarded as highly DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL. 389 desirable that an expression of opinion on the part of the Episcopate of this Church should be given in respect to ritualistic innovatioas; Therefore the undersigned Bishops, reserving each for himself his right as Ordi- nary of his own Diocese ... do unite in the fol- lowing Declaration. ' ' ^ The Declaration, which is lengthy, consists of an argument, a conclusion, and an instance. The argu- ment is that every national Church has the power to decree finall}^, and without reference to any other national Church, everything which pertains to its own Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship; that this Church has done so, with the result that the ceremonies, rites, and worship thus established, ordained, and set forth in the Book of Common Prayer are the sole law of this Church. The conclusion, rather hinted at than ex- pressed, is that no rite, fashion, ceremony, or position not specifically commanded by rubric is lawful. The instances noted of such illegal innovations are : " The use of incense, and the burning of lights in the order of the Holy Communion ; reverences to the Hol}^ Table or to the Elements placed thereon; the adoption of clerical habits hitherto unknown." Finally, as a tub to a whale, was appended the notification that, "we * The signers were Smith of Kentuclvv, Mellvaine and Bedell of Ohio, Kemper of Wisconsin, MeCoskrey of Michigan, Lee of Delaware, Johns of Virginia, Eastburn of Massachusetts, Chase of New Hampshire, Upfold of Indiana, Payne of Africa, Williams of Connecticut, Davis of South Caro- lina, Kip of California, Lee of Iowa, Clark of Rhode Island, Whipple of Minnesota, Talbot of Indiana, Wilmer of Alabama, Vail of Kansas, Coxa of Western New York, Clarkson of Nebraska, Randall of Colorado, Ker- foot of Pittsburg, Williams of Cliina, Cumins of Kentucky, Arniitage of Wisconsin. 890 THE PROTERTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. iiK'lLule ill these censures all departures from the laws, rubrics and settled order of the Church by defect as well as by excess of observance.'' It was presently seen that the Declaration was but a hrutum fulmeii. Its premises were not historically defensible ; its con- clusion was inconsequential; its instances were badly chosen. In any case the people against whom it was addressed were neither in the mood nor of the temper to be influenced by the unsolicited advice of a score of individual Bishops, some of whom they regarded as indoctus^ some as time-serving, and some as malignant. If Ritualism could be stayed it could only be by ex- press statute in that case made and provided. Advice, counsel, remonstrance were of no avail. Still less where it was evident to all that the counsellors were almost without exception men Avho had themselves been carried more or less from their old positions, and, having fetched up at various points of advance, demanded that ev^ery one else should stand at the precise point where he had come to rest. In the General Convention of 1868 a Committee of five Bishops ^ was appointed to consider and report to The Ritual ^he next Convention ''Whether any addi- Commission. tional provision for Uniformity by canon or otherwise is practicable and expedient." When the next General Convention met in Baltimore in 1871, this committee reported to the House of Bishops that in their judgment such legislation was not only practicable and expedient, but was imperatively and immediately neces- sary. '' Unless something is done, and done soon, in the ' Bishops Lee of Delaware, Williams, Clark, Odenhoimer, Kerfoot. DOCTRINE AXD CEREMONIAL. 391 interest of uniformity the div^ersities of use now obtain- ing bid fair to equal if they do not exceed those which at the period of the Anglican Reformation were re- garded as an evil to be removed. They occasion con- fusion, trouble and perplexity, among our people, and these evils must increase as their causes are multiplied. " They recommend, therefore,^ that the following things shall be expressly prohibited by canon: the use of incense ; a crucifix in any part of the C/hurch ; carrying a cross in procession in the Church; the use of orna- Thingsfor- mental lights on the altar; the elevation of bidden. the elements in the Holy Communion; the mixed chalice; ablutions of the priest's hands or of the vessels in the presence of the congregation; bow- ings, crossings, genuflections, reverences; bowing down before or kissing the Holy Table; celebration of the Holy Communion by bishop or priest alone ; choral ser- vice without the consent of the vestry or contrarv to the prohibition of the Bishop; the wearing of a sur- plice which does not reach down to the ankles by any chorister. They recommend, farther, that canonical provision be made touching the dress of ministers offi- ciating in the congregation, to the effect that the only lawful, official dress shall be, for the bishop, the present episcopal robes, for all ministers a white surplice, a black or white stole, a black cassock not reaching below the ankles, a black gown, and bands, and that when expediency or health demands it, the university cap may be used. When the report was presented the House of Bishops resolved that, "in view of the gravity of the ' Gen. Con. Journal, 1871, p. 599. 892 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. subject," they were not prepared to :.ct upon it with- out it being first considered by a joint Committee of the two houses, and asked that a Committee of the House of Deputies shoukl be appointed by ballot for that pur- pose.^ The Joint Committee thus asked for was cre- ated, with Bishop Whittingham of Maryland at the head of the Bishops, and Dr. Mead of Connecticut at the head of the Deputies. During a debate which extended over two Aveeks the specific list of " innova- tions " which the Committee of Bishops had advised to be prohibited dropped out of sight. Their original recommendations were definitely brought to a vote in the House of Deputies, under the leadership of Dr. Mead of Connecticut and Dr. Good\vin of Pennsylva- nia, and Avere defeated hy a small but sufficient major- ity. Their defeat was due to the memorable words spoken at the last moment of the debate by the Rev. James de Koven of Wisconsin. His utterance simply made any repressive canon about ritual impossible with- out rending the Church. It had been falsely assumed all along that the question at issue was one of ceremo- Dr. de Koven's ^i^^? whereas, in fact, it was one of doctrine, challenge. ^ ' ^1^^ objection which I have to this canon or any other like it," said Dr. de Koven, "is that it bears upon (disputed) doctrine, and seems to settle it in one direction. Now, questions of doctrine should not be settled by any canon which does not bear directly upon doctrine. If people teach false doctrine they should be tried and punished according to that canon. I wish now to give any in this house the opportunity ' Gen. Con. Journal, 1871, p. 267. DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL. 393 to present me for false doctrine if he wishes, and in order to do so I will use language which I will explain presently. I believe in ' the real actual presence of our Lord under the form of Bread and Wine upon our altars. I myself adore, and if necessary or my duty, teach m}^ people to adore Christ present in the elements under the form of bread and wine.' I use these words because they are a bald statement of the Real Presence. But I use them for another reason; they are adjudi- cated words. They are words which, used by a divine of the Church of England, have been tried in the highest ecclesiastical court of England, and hav^e been decided by that court to come within the limits of the truth allowed in the Church of England. Sir Eobert Philemore has decided that if he should pronounce these words wrong he should be passing judgement, he should be passing sentence, upon a long roll of illus- trious divines who have adorned our universities and fought the good fight of our Church, from Eidley to Keble, from the divine whom the cross at Oxford com- memorates to the divine in whose honor that University has just finished her last College." There was nothing more to be said. If holding and teaching the doctrine was unlawful, then common man- liness and honor demanded the presentment of Dr. de Koven, and those who agreed with him, for heresy. If the doctrine was permissible, then the ceremonial that symbolized it was, a fortiori^ permissible. The question at issue was the comprehensiveness of the Church. Was it broad enough to contain within it the priest and the prophet ? At that time the priest asked 39J: THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. only for staiuliiig ground and living room, lie did not dream of controlling the organization or of denouncing the prophet for looseness of doctrine. He The Church's . ^ comprehen- won liis victory because he had the logic on his side, and, what was of more con- sequence, he saved the Church from herself. The House of Bishops and the champions of Protes- tantism in the lower house were let down easy by the practically unanimous adoption of a vague resolution that, "This Convention hereby expresses its decided condemnation of all ceremonies, observances and prac- tices which are fitted to express a doctrine foreign to the authorized standards of the Church." The ritual controversy was ended. A new lot of pamphlets and editorial articles were harvested and added to the pile of the same sort^ of literature which previous years had produced, and have been forgotten altogether. Ceremonial which had its root in sentimentalism or aesthetics died a natural death. The sense of humor among Americans is too strong to allow that sort of folly to endure. But the Church had vindicated once The end of again her comprehensiveness. There is a controversy, pj^ce within her for those who hold to the sacramental theory of the Ministry and the supernat- ural theory of the Sacraments. They are at liberty to teach and to symbolize their belief, provided they do not denounce or try to ]:)roscribe their more immerous brethren who do not agree with them. ' I have not lhourtce. THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 and 3 Bible House NEW YORK SONS OF GOD. By S. D. McCONNELL, D.I) , Rector of St. Stephen's Church, Philadelphia. One Volume, 12nio, Cloth, Price $1.50. The F. W. Robertson of America. "To open a volume of sermons by an unknown author is a lottery in which we oftener than otherwise draw a blank. 'I'he pleasure is enhanced by its very uncommonness when, on the other hand, we encounter on every page the thoughts of a live thinker and a live m^n. This has been our good fortune in looking through Ihe vlume entitled, ' Sons of God,' by Dr. McConnell, of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. Under Dr. McConuell's guidance we traverse the region of religious thought to find at every step noble prospects opening, and to become constantly aware of subtle harmonies obtaining between the truth he is handling and all other truth in the universe. Of all American preachers he most reminds U9 of our own Robertson of Brighton. There is the same sure insight piercing into the core of Ihe matter, and presenting its conclusions in terse sentences which quiver with meaninii'. His sermon on ' Christ's Working Theory of Life ' is incomparable as a vindication of the Christian ethic as against the sneer of its being sentimental and impracticable. We imagine this is Dr. McConnell's first introduction to the public on this side the Atlantic, but he ought to secure a wide and deeply appreciative circle of readers." — The Christian Wo? Id, London. " These discourses might well serve as a model for the young minister." — Christian Literature. "A dish of strong, juicy meat for men, well cooked and well served ; but the weak and the theologically dyspeptic had better beware of it," — Boston Literary World. '•These sermons can.ot fail to help those who desire to love God with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind." — Standard of the Cross. "We admire his vigor, and his noble conception of human lifs and destiny," — I'he Churchman. "This is a clever volume of sermons, vigorous and abounding- in illustrations."— The Mock. " These sermons are striking, powerful, eloquent." (London) Church Review. THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher. 2 and 3 BIBLE HOUSE. NEW YORK. Buried Cities and Bilile Countries By GEORGE ST. CLAIR, F.G.S. Member of the Society of Biblical Archseology ; Member of the Anthropological Institute, i-.nd ten years Lecturer for the Palestine Exploration Fund 8vj, 3'/8 pages, with Maps and Illustrations. Price, ^2.00 *'As a lecturer for the Palestine Exploration Fund, Mr. George St. Clair has had special opportunity and occasion to get correct information, and his book has the great recommendation of being trustworthy in its statements of recent discoveries." — l^ie Nation. " We desire to call the attention of all Bible students to a book whose usefulness can hardly be overstated. The title is ' Buried Cities and Bible Countries,' by George St. Clair, F.G.S. Some notion of its character and value may be gained by mention of points of ihe account. The Rosotta Stone and its bearing on the solution of Egyptian hiero- glyphics, the discovery of the mummies of Seti I., Rameses II., and Manephta I., who were Pharoahs of the Israelite bondage ; the relation of the Tellel-Amarna inscription ; the early history ot the Semites. Biblical sites in Egypt; the route of Exodus; the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah ; results of the Palestine explorations in Jerusalem and else- where, as throwing light upon, not the Old Testament alone, but the Gospels also ; the excavations on the sites of Nineveh and Babylon. These are some of the topics which are treated In a vigorous and trust- worthy fashion. To each section is appended a set of references to the best authorities ; excellent illustrations and maps enrich the pages. We find it clear as well as carefully condensed ; in short, a very valuable book, surprisingly complete for its size, since in some three hundred and eighty pages it gives the gist of many large and costly volumes.' — The Christian Union. " It would be difficult to overstate the value of this book as a brief resume of the rich results of recent explorations in Bible lands. The references to authorities are full and accurate, and the maps are very fine." — Public Opinion. " Mr. St. Clair has given us in this book a carefully and conscientiously written volume on a subject of the deepest interest to all Biblical readers. His connection with the Palestine Exploration Fund has enabled him to know thoroughly all about the subject on which he writes, and he has evidently determined to bring forth nothing for which he cannot give good and convincing authority." — The Churchman. " Mr. St. Clair has given us an interesting, readable, and also an accurate book, which will prove of great interest to all Bible students as well as to archxologists." — Biblia. " A score or more of illustrations assist the text, which may be i:)ro- nounced one of the most judicious and accurate popular presentations thus far made of the results of excavation in Bible lands." — Boston Literary World. THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher 2 and 3 Bible House, NEW YORK OR, CHURCH DOCTRINE FOR THE PEOPLE, By REV. A. W. SNYDER. t2?no, Cloth bindings $i.oo. Paper covers^ 50 Cents. '' It is just what we want." — Bishop Whitehead {Pitts- burgh). '' It is an indispensable aid in parish work." — Rev. C. IV, Leffingiuell, D.D. "The author has gathered into a volume twenty-six essays on just those topics and questions pertaining to Church faith and worship on which a multitude of people, both without and within our congregations need to be instructed. The statements are always clear, concise, direct and per- suasive. There is nothing extravagant, overwrought, fan- tastic or bitter. Many of the essays would make excellent chapters for lay-reading." — Rt. Rev. F. D. Himtington, D.D. " It will do good. It has the rare merit of lucidity." — The Rev. S. D. McConncll, D.D. '' I think it will have a large sale. I hope it will." — Bishop Breiver {Montana). " I am glad to see Mr. Snyder's tracts in book form, and predict for them a wide circulation and increased usefulness as so published." — Bishop Neeley {Maine). BISHOP THOMPSON'S NEW BOOK. THE WORLD AND THE MAN. Being the Baldwin Lectures for 1890, delivered at Ann Arbor, Mich., by the Right Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson, D.D., LL.D. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. Just Out. BY THE SAME AUTHOR: THE WORLD AND THE LOGOS. The Bedell Lectures for 1885. Square i2mo, cloth, $1.00. "Asa superb piece ot dialectic, as a capital example of good fighting, this little book will be a real enjoyment." — The Churchman. "They deal with the Darwinian theory of evolution, and the unbeliever in that doctrine will read the volume with a glow of satisfaction and a feeling that the common-sense side of the question — from his point of view — was never before so clearly and convincingly put." — Boston Transcript. THE WORLD AND THE KINGDOM. The Paddock Lectures for 1888. i2mo, cloth, 75 cents. '"The World and the Kingdom' is a remarkable little volume of addresses by the Bishop of Mississippi. Dr. Thompson's vigorous and eloquent book will, it is to be hoped, attract many readers outside the limited circle of divinity students. Briefly put, these discourses are based on ' development, the law of the Spiritual Kingdom,' and the uniformity that governs both natural and spiritual processes. The thesis is not new, of course, for much has been written upon it, especially by writers 'concerned about the reconciling of religion and science.' But Dr. Thompson's interpretation of man's position in the world leads to conclusions altogether different from those arrived at in the popular literature to which he refers. RIan is not engaged in a mere brutal struggle for existence but in a struggle for mastery. In the physical world the envi- ronment is accepted, by man it is disdained. He is not content to adapt himself to the environment, but in conquering it by continuous development towards more com- plex environments forever spurred onward and forever discontent with victory. While apparently ' a product of the world like all the rest,' his life is yet a perpetual conflict with the forces that produced him. Science and knowledge do nothing to allay the Faust fever of his spirit, his irrepressible aspirations, his 'blank misgivings,' nor do they explain his post-cognitions of what Marvel] calls ' the happy-garden state, and that imperial palace whence he came.' These, says Dr. Thompson, are primal questions of humanity and not to be charmed into silence by any knowledge of matter and its phenomena. You may apply the principle of heredity here and find the key to the perplexity. These intimations of another state are reminiscences inherited. Almost all peoples have some such faith or tradition, however shadowy, and what is common to all must have a common origin. "We have but touched upon one or two salient points of the Bishop's argument. The full force and significance of his stimulating book will, we are confident, interest all sorts and conditions of readers." — Saturday Review, THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 AND 3 Bible House, New York. PROF. T. K. CHEYHE'S WORKS. The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter, in the Light of Old Testament Criticism and the History of Religions. With an Introduction and Appendixes. Eight Lectures Preached before the University of Oxford in the Year 1889. 8vo, cloth, $4.00. "The Oriel Professor at Oxford (Dr. Cheyne) is an earnest, conscientious and industrious critic. His Bampton Lectures are the outcome of twenty years' study and research. He asks to be considered not a 'fledgeling,' but a critic of fully adequate experience, not a ' Germanizer.' but an honest English worker in Biblical exegesis. He settles on the principles of the ' higher criticism' numerous disputed questions in regard to the Book of Psalms." — N. V. Times. The Book of Psalms; or, the Praises of Israel. A new Translation, with Commentary. 8vo, cloth, $3.00. " We not only welcome this volume by the Canon of Rochester as a delight to scholars, but p.lso commend it to all devout laymen and students who, believing the Bible to be the Word of God, may yet have to complain of having it expounded, and the Gospel preached, in seventeenth century phrase, and with the traditionalist's fear of the dreadful nineteenth century knowledge that is so rapidly cracking the rind of authorized opinions." — The Critic. The Prophecies of Isaiah. A new Translation, with Com- mentary and Appendixes. Revised. Two volumes in one. 8vo, cloth, $4.00. " Mr. Cheyne's work is in many respects one of the most noteworthy of our day. . . He has been a devout and careful student of Isaiah for some twenty years past." —N. Y. Times. " We rejoice that a Commentary which must be marked 'indispensable,' is thus put within the reach of a larger number of those who love the great prophet." — Andover Review. "Tbe qualities of Mr. Cheyne's Commentary would make it a good book in any language, or almost in any condition of Biblical learning. It is perspicuous without being superficial, and terse without the omission of anything of importance." — Acade^ny. Job and Solomon ; or, the Wisdom of the Old Testament. 8vo, cloth, $2.50. "This is certainly one of the most fascinating and delightfully readable works in Biblical criticism that has come under our eye for a long time. If Robertson Smith or Welhausen had a style like that of Cheyne the rapidly advancing science (or art) of Biblical criticism would soon be amazingly popular." — The Critic. The Hallowing of Criticism. Nine Sermons on Elijah, Preached in Rochester Cathedral. i2mo, cloth, red edge, $2.00. THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher, 2 and 3 Bible House, New York. ii Christ and Modern Unbelief." By Rev. RANDOLPH H. McKIM, 0.0., Rector of Epiphany Church, Washington, D. C. 12mo, in cloth, i^rice, 51.00. CONTENTS: LECTURE I. The Citadel and its Defence. II. The Theistic Foundation. III. The Unique Personality of Christ. IV. The Plan and the Teaching of Christ. V. The Work of Christ. VI. Miracles. VII. Theories of the Resurrection. From RT. REV. THOS. F. GAILOR, D.D., Assistant Bishop of Tennessee. "At first I said to myself 'Is there any need for another book on this subject?' Bu: when I read it I was delighted. You have really supplied a felt need and I have recommended the book to my students, as a fresh, clear and able presentation in convenient form of the modern problem — with very admirable survey of the Christian argument." From MR. JAMES L. HOUGH TELING, President of the Council of St. Andrew's Brotherhood. " I have this moment finished the perusal of your book ' Christ and Modern Unbelief.' I write to thank you with all my heart. I thank you first in my own behalf. I have been confused alike by the assaults of foes and the defences of friends. , . . You have met my difficul- ties squarely and have disavowed arguments which have seemed to me untenable. I deem your argument conclusive. It is so to me at any rate, and I believe the book will be of great use." From REV. EDWARD WHITE, M.A., author of "Life in Christ." " I don't know where I have seen the things requisite to be said in the present distress, better put, or in a briefer and more logical form." THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 & 3 Bible House, oth St. and Fourth Ave., New York. AUBREY L, MOORE'S WRITINGS. "With preachers like Phillips Brooks and M. Bersier the late Rev. Aubrey L. Moore was not unworthy to take rank, though his strength lay, perhaps, in delicacy of spiritual perception rather than in the more ordinary and popular forms of pulpit eloquence." — The London Times. I. Sermons Preached in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. By the late Rev. Aubrey L. Moore. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. Just Out II. The Message of the Gospfl. By the late Rev. Aubrey L. Moore. i2rao, cloth, 75 cents. This volume contains three addresses on the Message of the Gospel; two on Vocation ; and six sermons before the University of Oxford on the following topics : " The Veil of Moses," " The (jod of Philosophy and the God of Religion," " The Claim to Authority," " The Power of Christ on Moral Life," " The Presence of God in the Christian and the Church," " Decision for God." " In bulk this is a small book, but like a jewel casket, small itself, its contents are of great price." — The Churchman. III. Some Aspects of Sin : Three Courses of Lent Sermons. By the late Rev. Aubrey L. Moore. i2mo, cloth, 75 cents. IV. Science and the Faith. Essays of Apologetic Subjects With an Introduction. Second Edition. i2mo, cloth, $1.50, THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher, 2 and 3 Bible House, New York. Standard Books of Illustration. A DICTIONARY OF SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS, QUOTATIONS AND SELECTED PASSAGES. From the Best Writers, Ancient and iNIodern, for the use of Ministers and others. Compiled and Analytically Arranged by Henry Southgate. 447 pages, double column, with thorough indexes of authors and subjects, 8vo, cloth, $2.00. TOOLS FOR TEACHERS. A Collection of Anecdotes, Illustrations, Legends, etc., for Teachers of Sunday-schools, Bible Classes and Boys' Brigades. Compiled and Arranged by Willi AM MoODlE. Small quarto, 488 pages, cloth, $2.00. This book is not intended as a repertory of stories gathered together for their own sake. It is meant to be a practical manual and storehouse for teachers of Sunday- Schools, Bible Classes and Boys' Brigades, and generally, for all who have to do with the moral and religious training of the young. THE CYCLOP/tDIA OF NATURE TEACHINGS. Being a Selec- tion of Facts, Observations, Suggestions, Illustrations, Examples and Illustrative Hints taken from all departments of Inanimate Nature, with a copious index of subjects, and also one of Bible texts. With an Introduction by Hugh Macmillan, LL.D. 8vo, cloth, $2.50. CLASSIFIED GEMS OF THOUGHT. From the Great Writers and Preachers of all Ages ; in convenient form for use as a Dictionary of Ready Reference on Religious Subjects. By Rev. F. B. Proc- tor, M.A. With a Preface by Henry Wace, D.D., Principal of King's College, London. 816 pages, quarto, cloth, red edges. $3.00. One of the most valuable, and the cheapest book of its class in the market. THE DICTIONARY OF ANECDOTE, Incident, Illustrative Fact. Selected and arranged for the Pulpit and Platform by the Rev. Walter Baxendale, with Index and Cross References and Texts. Illustrated. 690 pages, thick royal 8vo, cloth, $4.00. "This is a great book. He has here gathered fresh, pointed and varied illus- irations for the pulpit and platform. We are surprised at the comprehensiveness of subjects and the fullness of ..leatment. There are some six hundred topics. The paper is good and the type clear. We predict for this book a generous sale. "—ZtV«' J Herald. THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher, 2 and 3 Bible House, - - New York. TOOLS FOR TEACHERS. A Collection of Anecdotes, Illustrations, Legends, etc., for Teachers of Sunday-schools, Bible Classes and Boys' Brigades. Compiled and Arranged by William Moodie. Small quarto, 488 pages, cloth, $2.00. "The selections are grouped under thirty-three well-chosen heads, and they are made on a basis of * point and naturalness,' which are rare virtues in a book of illustrations. A wide and excellent range of sources has been drawn upon in compiling this volume, and a high standard has been maintained throughout. You will seek in vain for the common-place, but real gems will greet you at every point. Two elaborate indexes open up the contents — ^cne of persons, the other of subjects." — Sunday School Times, "The best book of its kind that ever came to our hands. From beginning to end each single excerpt it contains is one of value to every preacher as well as teacher, and will help to point and brighten discourse of whatever theme or sort. The collection is not stuffed ; there isn't a poor thing in it. The work of classification is admirably done ; and the indexical parts are of the most elaborated convenience for men who prepare hurriedly to speak." — The Living Church. ** Many an anxious teacher is at his wits' end to know how he shall illustrate to-morrow's lesson so as to interest and impress ; and many a speaker desiring to give his auditors something of value to take away with them, will here find welcome help." — Public Opinion. ** To find an apt illustration or anecdote is at times a difficult task. This volume is a veritable storehouse of illustrative material of all kinds decidedly above the average for naturalness and for usefulness. The arrangement of the topics illustrated is sensible, and while old friends are present they are in company with a multitude of new faces that makes the volume very attractive and valuable for practical uses." — iV, Y, Observer, *^ Sent postpaid on receipt of price. THOMAS WHITTAKER, PUBLISHER, 2 and 3 Bible House, NEW YORK.