LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Section \..). . ^^. ^ (C^utc^ J^ietot^ ^txitB CONSISTING OF A SERIES OF DENOMINATIONAL HISTORIES PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CHURCH HISTORY (Keneraf (S^itore Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D. Bishop John F. Hurst, D. D.,LL. D. Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter, D. D., LL. D. Rev. E. J. Wolf, D. D. Rev. Geo. P. Fisher, D. D., LL. D. Henry C. Vedder, M. A. Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, D. D., LL. D. Volume VII (American C^urc^ ^ietorg A HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY CHARLES C. TIFFANY, D. D. ARCHDEACON OF NEW YORK t^t C^xkiian literature Co. MDCCCXCV Copyright, 1895, By The Christian Literature Company. PREFACE. The Protestant Episcopal Church is the Hneal and legitimate descendant of the Church of England. It represents in the United States of America Christianity as it is received and embodied in the Established Church of Great Britain. In doctrine, discipline, and worship it aims not to depart from its august parent further than local circumstances compel, but it claims to be supreme judge of the force of circumstances, and a supreme law in adapting itself to them. It derived its orders, it accepted its liturgy, it inherited its creeds and articles of religion, from the English Church. Yet, notwithstanding its foreign origin, it is not a foreign church. Its history is coeval with the earliest settlements of the continent, and has kept constant pace with all the varying phases of national development. In common with all the institutions in the land which claim for their permanent features a date an- terior to the discovery of America, and in the same sense, this church came from abroad. Its structural features did not originate in the eighteenth century, when the nation arose, nor in the fifteenth century, when the continent was discovered. They antedated these events nearly two thou- sand years. But while thus transplanted, the church took early and firm root in American soil. It developed a con- stitution and a life essentially American and essentially its own. Its adherents claim that it is peculiarly fitted to become the dominant church of the continent, by reason vi PREFACE. of those special features which distinguish it from other ecclesiastical bodies. They aver that it reflects in its con- stitution more exactly than any other religious corpora- tion the fundamental principles which rule in our national government, and that it secures and expresses in things religious more completely than can be found elsewhere the essential spirit of our national life, " liberty protected by law." " As a nation," says Mr. George William Curtis, in his oration on Mr. Lowell, " we did not invent the great muniments of liberty : trial by jury, the habeas corpus, constitutional restraint, the common school, of all which we were the common heirs with civilized Christendom." So the Episcopal Church did not create episcopacy, nor extemporize a liturgy, nor invent a creed. To apply to the church what Mr. Curtis again says of the state, " the higher spirit of conservatism was its own, and it cherished a reverence for antiquity, a susceptibility to the value of tradition, an instinct for continuity and development, an antipathy to violent rupture — the grace and charm and value of an established order." • Like the American people, who honor their institutions as the heritage of law and culture and liberty out of past ages, so the Episcopal Church prizes its peculiar and dominant features as the issue of a sound historic growth. It claims to preserve, and to have had preserved to it, the essential features of the church of apostolic times in con- tinuous and legitimate succession. It grounds its dogmas on the original documents of the apostolic church contained in the New Testament, which is its final arbiter in all doc- trinal statements. It holds its order of worship to be, in its structural features, identical with the liturgies of the earliest and best ages. Yet, while holding firmly to the past as the vindication of its foundation principles, its aim is, not to present or represent an anachronism or to recon- PREFACE. vii Struct and reissue transient features and forms of life which the past Jias let die, but, to vindicate and apply to the latest life of the latest nation the truths which have proved their essential vitality by their perennial influence. This church believes in its future because it believes in its past, and out of this tried faith comes the confidence of its present. It is a church in the nation ; it would fain be the church of the nation, not as an enforced ecclesiastical establishment, but as the chosen religious home of willing souls, con- vinced of the truths which it proclaims, and intent on the life which it incites. To describe the origin and trace the growth of this church is the object of the present volume. In its com- position the author has had the assistance of friends in the accumulation of material, which it is his pleasure, as it is his duty, to cordially acknowledge. His thanks are espe- cially due to his diocesan, the Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter, D.D., Bishop of New York, for information, otherwise inacces- sible, concerning certain periods and phases of church life and character; to the Rt. Rev. Leighton Coleman, D.D., Bishop of Delaware, for his courteous and ready help in furnishing proof-sheets of his own volume, " The Church in America," which was just issuing from the press as this volume was entering the printer's hands; to the Rt. Rev. T. M. Clark, D.D., Bishop of Rhode Island, for the loan of books from his library and pamphlets of his composition ; to Dean Hoffman, for full access to the library of the Gen- eral Theological Seminary, and to Mr. Bull, its accommo- dating librarian, for many civilities ; to Mr. Edward Tiffany, assistant librarian of the Boston Public Library, for indi- cating and opening its historical treasures ; to Mr. Thomas Whittaker, for the free use of many volumes from his valu- able church bookstore. No. 2 Bible House, New York ; to Mr. Little, librarian of the Astor Library, for cordial assist- viii PREFACE. ance ; and, perchance above all, to the Rev. William Tat- lock, D.D., rector of St. John's Church, Stamford, Conn., for the use of many valuable books from the Lloyd Library; to the Rev. William R. Huntington, D.D., rector of Grace Church, New York, for helpful information con- cerning certain periods of the legislation of the General Convention ; to Professor F. B. Dexter, of Yale University, for his ready and gracious compliance with the request for the fullest information to be found in the college archives concerning the conversion of Rector Cutler; and to the Rev. Ralph H. Baldwin and the Rev. Edward L. Parsons, for invaluable assistance in compiling the Bibliography of the subject. No one who attempts to write concerning the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church can fail to record his sense of the obligation which all historical students owe to the Rt. Rev. William Stevens Perry, D.D., Bishop of Iowa, for his laborious compilation of original material, and many valuable essays on special points of history, collected in the two large volumes of his " History of the American Episcopal Church, 1587— 1883," and in the four huge volumes of the Facsimiles of Manuscripts, wherein almost all valuable documents of the church's history find a place ; and for his condensed records of the proceedings of the General Conventions, to be found in his " Hand- book of the General Conventions, 1 785-1874," and for the fuller record, with historical notes and documents, contained in the three volumes of "A Half-century of the Legisla- tion of the American Church." The value of the office of historiographer of the church is apparent as one scans these volumes, as well as when he studies the " Contribu- tions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States " of the late Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D.D., in the two volumes which shed so much light on the history of the Episcopal PREFACE. ix Church in Virginia and Maryland. Nor can one fail to recognize what flashes of light are thrown on certain phases of this church's history by the broad and brilliant generalizations of the Rev. S. D. McConnell, D.D., in his " History of the American Episcopal Church," which is as full of wisdom as of wit. The " History of the American Church," by Bishop Wilberforce, of Oxford and Winches- ter, is valuable in its account of the colonies, and is re- markable throughout as the production of one who never visited America. His unfamiliarity with our republican in- stitutions, however, makes his account of the constitutional period of less value. Canon Anderson's " History of the Church of England in the Colonies," in three volumes, is more full and instructive than Wilberforce, and the " Digest of the Records of the Venerable S. P. G." is invaluable as a source of information concerning our colonial eccle- siastical history, while "The Colonial Era," by Professor G. P. Fisher, D.D., of Yale University, gives a clear and impartial view of the early political events which so vitally affected the life of the church. For the post-colonial period and the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Bishop White's " Memoirs of the Church" furnish a running comment on the consti- tutional movement by the chief actor in it, which is a treasure-house of information, indispensable to the under- standing of the time ; and the " Life of Bishop Seabury " gives much interesting matter supplementary to Bishop White's volume. For the subsequent history the " Jour- nals " of the General and Diocesan Conventions, together with the many memoirs of the chief actors in it, are the principal sources of information. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface v Bibliography xvi CHAP. I. — Earliest Attempts at English Colonization. — Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Expedition. — Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony. — Expeditions of Pring and Waymouth 3 CHAP. II. — The Virginia Charter and Settlement. — Chaplain Robert Hunt. — Religious Interest in England. — Lord De la Warr's Administration. — Laws of Sir Thomas Dale. — House of Burgesses, 1619. — The Bishop of London's Jurisdiction. — Treatment of Puri- tans in Virginia. — The King Annuls the Colonial Charter. — Mis- sionaries Sent to Virginia. — Proscription of Quakers. — Commissary Blair. — College of William and Mary. — Church Statistics, 1720. — Characteristics of Life in Virginia. — Dissent in Virginia. — Evan- gelistic Labors of Morgan. — Baptists and Methodists. — Effect of the Revolutionary War. — Incorporation of the Church. — First Prot- estant Episcopal Convention. — Deputies Appointed. — Dr. Griffith Elected Bishop 1 1 CHAP. III. — The Colonial Church in Maryland. — Lord Balti- more, Proprietary. — Act of Religious Freedom, 1649. — First Men- tion of English Church, 1676. — English Church Established in Maryland. — Dr. Bray Appointed Commissary. — Maryland Act of Establishment. — Influence of Commissary Bray. — A Minister's Work and Pay. — x'Vlienation from the Church. — The Clergy and the Legislature at Odds. — Value of Maryland Livings. — Effect of the Coming Revolution. — Dr. Jonathan Boucher. — The Church after the Revolution 5^ CHAP. IV. — The Colonial Church in New England, Outside of Connecticut. — John Lyford and Thomas Morton. — Rev. William Blaxton. — First Church at Portsmouth, N. H. — Genesis of the Puritans. — Puritan Rejection of Episcopacy. — Building of King's Chapel. — Mission of Keith and Talbot. — Controversies of John Checkley. — Building of Christ Church, Boston. — Trinity Church, Boston. — Christ Church, Cambridge. — The Narragansett Church. — Church Life in Rhode Island. — St. John's Church, Providence, xii CONTENTS. PAGE R. I. — Church Life in Rhode Island. — St. John's Church, Ports- mouth, N. H. — The Church in New Hampshire. — The Church in Maine. — Church Congregations in Maine 84 CHAP. V. — The Colonial Church in Connecticut. — Introduction of the Church, 1706. — Conversion of the Rector of Yale College. — Address to the Trustees of Yale College. — Rector Cutler's Conver- sion.— Conversion of Johnson. — Opposition to Episcopacy. — Mr. Johnson and Dean Berkeley. — Conversion of Bishop Seabury's Father. — Controversies. — Rev. George Whitefield. — Effect of Whitefield's Preaching. — Causes for Desiring a Bishop. — Johnson Made President of King's College. — Charge of Proselyting. — Effect of the Stamp Act, 1765. — Dr. Chandler's "Appeal to the Public." — Last Efforts before the Revolution. — The Church During the Revolution. — Suspension of Services. — The Church at Close of Revolution 122 CHAP. VI. — The Colonial Church in New York.— Enghsh Con- quest of New York. — Act of 1693 ; Governor Fletcher. — Call of Mr. Vesey to Trinity Church. — The Building of Trinity Church. — Church Life in New York. — The English and Dutch Churches. — The Church in Albany. — Mr. Elias Neau's Work for Negroes. — The Building of St. George's Chapel. — Founding of King's (Colum- bia) College. — St. Paul's Chapel. — New York Clergy During the Revolution. — Dr. Inglis, Rector of Trinity Church. — Rev. Samuel Provoost, Rector of Trinity 162 CHAP. VII. — The Colonial Church in New Jersey. — Keith's and Talbot's Coming. — John Talbot. — Talbot's Alleged Consecra- tion.— Talbot and Urmston. — Talbot's Character and Labors. — Thomas Bradley Chandler. — Church Condition before the Revolu- tion 190 CHAP. VIII.— The Colonial Church in Pennsylvania and Delaware. — Penn and his Settlement. — First Rectors of Christ Church. — Relations to Swedish Churches. — Rev. Richard Welton. —Christ Church, Philadelphia.— St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia. — Drs. Duche and White as Rectors. — St. Paul's Church, Phila-. delphia. — Old Swedes' Church, Wilmington 204 CHAP. IX. — The Colonial Church in the Carolinas. — The Con- stitution of John Locke. — St. Philip's Church, Charleston. — Mis- sionaries Thomas and Le Jean. — St. Michael's Church, Charleston. — Support of the Country Churches. — Commissary Garden and Whitefield. — The Laity in South Carolina. — Missionaries in North Carolina. — Privations and Labors of Missionaries. — The Vestry Act of 1 741. — The Rev. Clement Hall. — Governor Tryon's Influence. — Rev. Edward Jones 222 CHAP. X. — The Colonial Church in Georgia. — Charles Wesley in Georgia. — John Wesley in Georgia. — George Whitefield in Geor- CONTENTS. XIU PAGE gia.— Bethesda Orphan House Founded.— Bethesda College Rule. — Whitefield's Death.— Church Progress Slow and Meager. — Church Exterminated by the Revolution 249 CHAP. XI. — Summary of the Colonial Church and its Les- sons.— Evils of State Patronage. — An American Episcopate Fa- vored.— Individual Requests for Bishops. — Combined Action to Secure Bishops. — Puritan and Presbyterian Objections. — Popular Opposition to Bishops.— Origin of the S. P. G.— Work Accom- plished by the S. P. G. — Dean Berkeley's American Project. — Berkeley's Influence in America 266 CHAP. XII. — Ecclesiastical Action Preliminary to the Forma- tion OF the Protestant Episcopal Church. — Action in Penn- sylvania.— "Case of the Episcopal Churches." — White's Position on Episcopacy. — White's Advocacy of Lay Representation. — White's Early Life and Education. — White's American Spirit. — White's Views. — The Name Protestant Episcopal Church. — Eccle- siastical Action in Maryland. — Dr. William Smith Elected Bishop. ' — Provost William Smith, D.D. — Dr. Smith and the Maryland Episcopate. — Seabury, Bishop Elect of Connecticut. — Seabury Seek- ing Consecration. — Obstacles in Seabury's Way. — The Nonjuring Bishops of Scotland. — Seabury's Application to the Nonjurors. — Seabury's Consecration at Aberdeen. — Bishop Seabury and Charles Wesley 287 CHAP. XIII. — Formation and Adoption of the Constitution AND THB Prayer-book (1784-89). — Meeting in Philadelphia. — Meeting in New York. — Letters to the New York Convention. — Fundamental Constitutional Principles. — Pennsylvania Convention Called. — Convention in South Carolina. — Letters of Parker and Sea- bury.— The First General Convention. — The " Proposed Book." — The Constitution. — The Address to the English Bishops. — Friendly Action of John Adams. — Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost. — Troubles in the General Convention. — Reply to the English Bishops. — Three Bishops Elected. — White and Provoost sail. — Consecration of White and Provoost. — Connecticut Elects a Coadjutor Bishop. — Bishop Seabury's Policy. — Defection of King's Chapel. — General Conven- tion of 1789. — Parker's Proposition Concerning Bass. — Seabury Consents to the Constitution. — New England Joins the Convention. — The Prayer-book. — Omitted Rubrics. — The Communion Office . 327 CHAP. XIV. — A Period of Suspended Animation and Feeble Growth (1789-1811). — Faults of the Church. — Church Decline in Virginia.— The Church in the South.— The Church in the Middle States. — Bishop Benjamin Moore. — Death of Bishop Seabury.^ The Thirty-nine Articles. — Canons Concerning Morals. — The Church and the Methodists. — Dr. Coke and Bishop White. — Dr. Coke and Bishop Seabury. — General Convention of 1808 385 xiv CONTENTS. PAGE CHAP. XV. — From the Consecration of Bishop Hobart to the Death of Bishop White (1811-36). — John Henry Hobart. — Consecration of Hobart. — Hobart's Episcopate. — Death of Bishop Hobart. — The Eastern Diocese. — Bishop Griswold. — Labors of Griswold. — Richard Channing Moore. — Moore Elected Bishop. — Moore's Virginia Episcopate. — His Ecclesiastical Position. — Other Bishops. — Bishop Philander Chase. — Bishop Chase in Illinois. — General Theological Seminary. — Virginia Theological Seminary. — Church Colleges. — Missionary Organization. — Foreign Missions. — Bishop Ravenscroft. — Various Episcopal Consecrations. — Death of Bishop White. — Bishop White's Funeral ■ 410 CHAP. XVI. — From the Death of Bishop White to the End OF the Civil War (1835-65). — Expansion of the Episcopate. — Missionary Organizations. — Church Parties. — The Evangelicals. — Evangelical Theology. — Prominent Low-churchmen. — High- churchmanship. — High-church Theology. — Bishop G. W. Doane. — The Carey Ordination. — General Convention of 1844. — Ecclesias- tical Trials. — Defection of Bishop Ives. — The Memorial Moverflent. — William Augustus Muhlenberg. — Scope of the Memorial. — Bishop Alonzo Potter. — Fate of the Memorial. — Kemper and Breck. — Sepa- ration by the War. — Church in the Confederacy. — Loyal Attitude of the Church. — Bishop J. H. Hopkins. — Reunion 456 CHAP. XVII. — From the Reunion of the Church to the Pres- ent Time (1865-95). — Theological Seminaries. — Collegiate Insti- tutions.— University of the South. — Preparatory Schools. — Do- mestic Missions. — Foreign Missions. — The Mexican Mission. — Foreign Churches. — The Woman's Auxiliary. — Deaconesses. — Cathedrals. — Ritualism. — Controversy Concerning Ritual. — Canon Concerning Ritual. — Reformed Episcopal Church. — American Church Congress. — Broad-churchmen. — Broad-churchmanship. — Edward A. Washburn. — Phillips Brooks.— Parochial .Missions. — Church Temperance Society. — Lambeth Conferences. — Prayer-book Revision. — The Memorial Vindicated. — Declaration Concerning Unity.— The Quadrilateral 5o5 Appendix S^i Index ■• 5^5 HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, C. C. TIFFANY, D.D., Archdeacon of New York. BIBLIOGRAPHY, I. General History. Adams, John, ll'orks. With Life, Notes, etc., by C. F. Adams, lo vols., Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1850-56. Arnold, Samuel Greene, History of the State of Rhode Island and Provi- dence Plantations, idjd-ifgo. 2 vols., New York, 1859, i860. Bancroft, George, History of the United States. 6 vols., New York and London, Macmillan & Co., 1883, 1884. Doyle, J. A., I'he English in America. Vols, i.-iii. London, Long- mans, Green & Co., 1882-87. Fisher, George Park, D.D., LL.D,, I'he Colonial Era. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892. Fiske, John, The Beginnings of A'ew England; or. The Puritan Theocracy in its Relation to Civil atid Religious Liberty. 1894. , The Critical Period of American History. 1889. , The Discovery of America. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. Gambrall, Rev. Theodore C, Studies in the Civil, Social, and Ecclesi- astical History of Early Maryland. (Lectures before the Agricultural College of Maryland.) New York, 1893. Grahame, J., The History of the United States of North America, from the Plantation of the British Colonies till their Revolt and Declaration of In- dependence. 4 vols., London, 1836, Sakluyt, R., The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Dis- co^'cries of the English Nation, etc. Vol. iii., To all Parts of America. 3 vols., London, 1559, 1560. Ijodge, H. C, A Short History of the English Colonies in America. New York, 1 88 1. McMaster, John Bach, A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War. 4 vols.. New York, 1883-95. Macsparran, James, D.D., America Dissected ; being d Full Account of all the American Colonies, published as a Caution to Unsteady People loho may be tempted to leave their own cojtntry. Dublin, 1 753- Palfrey, J. Gorham, History of New England. 5 vols., Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1890. Sabine, Lorenzo, Loyalists of the Atuerican Revolution. With Historical Essay. 2 vols., Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1864. Stevens, William B., D.D., History of Georgia, from its First Discovery by Europeans to ijgS. 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1847-59. Winsor, Justin, A Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 vols., Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884-89. BIBLIOGRAPHY. XVll II. Church History. I. General. Anderson, J. S. M., M.A., The History of the Church of England in the Colonies. 3 vols., 2d ed., London, Rivingtons, 1856. Aycrigg, B., Memorials of the Reformed Episcopal Chtnrh and the Prot- estant Episcopal Church. New York, 1880. Carroll, H. X., LiLi.D., The Religions Forces of the United States. (Vol. i. of "American Church History Series.") New York, Christian Litera- ture Co., 1893. Caswall, Rev. Henry, M.A., America and the American Chnrch. Lon- don, 1851. , American Church and A??ierican Uttion. Church Almanacs : The American Church Almanac and Year-book. 65 vols.. New York, James Pott & Co., 1830-95. The Protestant Episcopal Almanac and Parochial List. 41 vols., New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1854-95. Coit, Thomas Wintlirop, D.D., Puritanism ; or, A Churchman'' s De- fense against its Aspersions. New York, 1845. Coleman, Rt, Rev, Leighton, S.T.D., LL.D., The Church in Amer- ica. ("National Churches Series.") New York, James Pott & Co., 1895. Denison, S. D., History of the Foreign Missiona7y Worh of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1821—jj. New York, 1 871. Facsimiles of Church Documents : Papers issued by the Historical Club of the American Church. Privately printed, 1874-79. Hawkins, Ernest, B.D., Historical N^otices of the Missions of the Church of England in the A'^orth American Colonies, etc., from Documents of the S. P. G. London, 1845. Hawks, Rev. Francis L., Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of America. 2 vols.: i., Virginia; ii., Maryland. New York, 1836-39. and Perry, Rev. W. S., Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. 2 vols., New York, 1862-64. and , Journals of the General Convetttion of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from ij8j to iSjj, in- clusive. Published by order of the General Convention, with illustrative Historical Notes and Appendices, i vol., Philadelphia, 1861. (Never completed. See Perry, "A Half-century of Legislation.") Humphreys, David, D.D. {Secretary, etc). An Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, 1730; reprint. New York, 1853. McConnell, S, D., D.D., History of the American Episcopal Church, from the Planting of the Colonies to the End of the Civil War. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1890. Ifeal, Daniel, M.A., History of the Puritans. 2 vols., New York, 1844. Perry, Rev. George G., M.A., The History of the Chmrh of England. With Appendix containing Sketches of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, by J, A. Spencer. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1879. xviil BIBLIOGRAPHY. Perry, Rt. Rev. William S., D.D., LL.D., A Half-century of Legis- lation : Journals of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Chn7rh in the United States, lyS^-iSjj. With Historical Notes and Docinnents. 3 vols., Claremont, N. H., 1874; Milwaukee, Young Churchman Co. , Handbook of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, giving its History and Constitution, lyS^—iSSo. 2d ed.. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1881 ; 3d ed., Ij8^-i8g2, in preparation. , The History of the American Episcopal Church, ij8j—iSSj. With Monographs. 2 vols., Boston, Osgood & Co., 1885. -, Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church. 4 vols. : i., Virginia; ii., Pennsylvania; iii., Massachusetts; iv., Mary- land and Delaware. Printed for subscribers, Hartford, 1870. Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, Collections of, for the Years iSji—jj. 2 vols.. New York, Stanford & Swords, 1851-53. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Classified Digest of the Records of the, i'joi-i8()2. London, 1893. Special Articles in : McClintock (S^ Strong'' s Cyclopcedia of Biblical, Theological, and Eccle- siastical Literature. New York, Harper & ^Brothers, 1867-81. Supplement, 1891. The Church Cyclopa:dia. Edited by Rev. A. A. Benton, M.A. Philadelphia, M. R. Hamersley & Co., 1885. The Encyclopirdia Britannica. 9th ed.. New York, Charles Scrib- ner's Sons, 1878-89. Sprague, Rev. William B., D.D., Annals of the American Pulpit. 9 vols. : v., Episcopalian. New York, Carters, 1859-69. Stevens, Abel, D.D., Histoty of Methodism. 3 vols.. New York, Hunt & Eaton, 1858, 1859, and 1861. White, Rt. Rev. William, D.D., Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Edited, with Notes and a Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Colonial Church, by the Rev. B. F. de Costa, New York, E. P. Button & Co., 1880. Wilberforce, Samuel {Lord Bishop of Oxford), A History of the Protest- ant Episcopal Church in America. 3d ed., London, 1856. 2. Special Histories. Connecticut, History of the Episcopal Church in, from ibj^ to iSb^. By Rev. E. E. Beardsley, D.D., LL.D. 4th ed., 2 vols.. New York, Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co., 1883. Dutchess County, N'. Y., The Foundins^ofthe Episcopal Church in, i7SS—i8g^. By Rev. H. O. Ladd, M.A. Fishkill, N. Y., 1895. Eastern Diocese, History of. By C. R. Batchelder. Claremont, N. H., 1876. Louisiana, The Diocese of: Some of its History, i8j8—88. Compiled by Rev. H. C. Duncan, M.A. New Orleans, 1888. Maifie, Ecclesiastical History of the State of. By Rev. J. Greenleaf. Ports- mouth, 1821. Alary land. Church Life in Colonial. By Rev. Theodore C. Gambrall, A.M. Baltimore, 1885. , Commernoration of the One Hundredth An7iiversary of the Oiganiza- tion of the Diocese of, Baltimore, May 2g and ^o, i88j. Baltimore, 1883. BIBLIOGRAPHY. xix Maryland, Toleration ; or, Sketches of the Early History of, to the Year j6jo. By Rev. Ethan Allen, D.D. Baltimore, 1855. New E7igland, Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of. By Rt. Rev. George Burgess, D.D. Boston, Dutton & Co., 1862. IVew York, The Centennial Histoiy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of, ijS^-iSS^. Edited by James Grant Wilson. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1886. , The Protestant Episcopal Church in. By Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter. (See " Memorial History of the City of New York, " edited by James Grant Wilson. New York, 1893.) North Carolina, Sketches of Church History in. Wilmington, William L. de Rosset, Jr., 1892. South Carolina, An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, from the First Settlement of the Province to the War of the Revolution. By Frederick Dalcho. Charleston, S. C, A. E. Fuller, 1820. Texas, Historic Records of the Church in the Diocese of, during the Rebellion. New York, Gray & Green, 1865. Vermont, First Centu)y of the Church in. By Rev. A. H. Bailey, D.D. (See "Journal" of the Convention, 1890.) ■, The Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Chtirch in the Diocese of, lygo-iSjs. New York, Pott & Amery, 1870. Virginia, Addresses and Historical Papers before the Centennial Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of. May 20-24, ^^^S- New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1885. , Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of. By Bishop Meade. 2 vols., Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co., 1857. Westchester County, N. Y., History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in, from its Foimdation (i6gj) to i8^j. By Robert Bolton, M.A. New York, Stanford & Swords, 1855. 3. Local Histories. Boston, A History of King's Chapel /«, the First Episcopal Church ifi New England. Co?nprising N'otices of the Introduction of Episcopacy into the Northern Colonies. By F. W. P. Greenwood. Boston, Ticknor & Co., 1833- Bi-ooklyn, N. Y., St. Aftn's Church, f-om 1^84 to 1S4J. Brooklyn, 1845. Burlington, N. J., History of the Church in. By G. M. Hills, D.D. Pub- lished by the Author, Trenton, N. J., 1876. Elizabethtowtt, N. J., History of St. John's Church, from lyoj to the Present Time. By Samuel A. Clark, D.D. Philadelphia, 1857. Jamaica, Long Island, Antiquities of the Parish Church. By Henry Onder- donk, Jr. Jamaica, 1880. Kenyan Book, The. By Rev. Dr. Bodine, ex-President of Kenyon College. King's Handbook of Notable Episcopal Churches in the United States. By G. W. Shinn. Boston, Moses King, 1889. Marietta, O., The History of St. Luke's Church. By Wilson Waters, M.A. Marietta, O., 1884. Narragansett, R. /., History of the Episcopal Church in. By W. Updike. New York, H. M. Onderdonk, 1847. XX BIBLIOGRAPHY. New London, Conn., Annals of St. James's Church for One Hundred and Fifty Years. By Robert A. Hallam, D.D., Rector. Hartford, 1873. New York, History of the Church of Zion and St. Timothy, ijgy-iSg^. By David Clarkson. New York and London, 1894. , Histoty of the Churches in the City of By Jonathan Greenleaf. New York, E. French, 1846. , History of Trinity Parish. By Rev. Morgan Dix, S.T.D. (See " Memorial History of the City of New York," edited by James Grant Wilson. New York, 1893.) , Memorials of St. Thomas'' s Church. Discourses by Rev. W. F. Mor- gan, Rector. New York, 1882. . , Pecollections of St. PauTs Chapel. By Rev. Morgan Dix. New York, Huntington & Son, 1867. -, The Earliest Churches of, and its Vicinity. By G. P. Disosway, M.A. New York, J. G. Gregory, 1865. , Threescore and Ten: The Story of St. Philip'' s Church. A Dis- course by Rev. B. F. de Costa. New York, 1889. Newport, R. I., Annals of Tritiity Church. By G. C. Mason. Newport, R. I., George H. Carr, 1890. Perth Am boy, N. J., Historical N^otices of St. Peter's Church in the City of. By Rev. James Chapman. Elizabethtown, N. J., 1830. Philadelphia, Pa., An Historical Account of, ibgs-1841. By Benjamin Dorr, D.D. New York, 1841. Portland, Me., Sketch of the Protestant Episcopal Church in, from lydj to the Present Time. By Rt. Rev. W. S. Perry. Portland, 1864. Richmond, Fa., History and Reminiscences of the Monumental Church, Rich- viond, frotn 181 4 to iSjS. By George D. Fisher. Richmond, Whittet & Shepperson, 1880. South Carolina, Sketch of the Parish Church of St. Michael in the P)-ovince of. Charleston, S. C, Isaac Hammond, 1887. Wilmington, Del., Record of Holy Trinity (Old Swedes') Church. Edited by Horace Burr. Historical Society of Delaware, 1890. III. Biography. Andrews, Rev. C. W., D.D., Memoir of. By Rev. Cornelius Walker, D.D. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1877. Bedell, Rev. Gregory T., D.D;, Metnoir of By Stephen H. Tyng. Philadelphia, 1836. Bedell, William, D.D., Life of By Rev. H. J. M. Mason, D.D. Lon- don, 1843. Breck, James Lloyd, D.D., The Life of By Charles Breck, D.D. New York, E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1886. Brooks, Phillips: A Sermon. By Arthur Brooks, D.D. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893. Burgess, Rt. Rev, G-eorge, D.D., First Bishop of Maine, Memoir of the Life of. By Rev. Alexander Burgess, D.D. Philadelphia, Clanten, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1869. Chase, Rt. Rev. Carlton, D.D., First Bishop of Ne^u Hampshire, 1844- 70, Memorials of. With a Biographical Sketch. Claremont, N. H. Chase, Rt. Rev. Philander, Reminiscences of 2d ed., Boston, 1848. BIBLIOGRAPHY. XXI Chase, Rt. Rev. Philander, Extracts frotn the Ret7iinisceiices of. Bos- ton, 1874. Clark, Rt. Rev. Thomas M., D.D., Reminiscences, New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1895. Croes, "Risixo^, 0/ Ne^u Jersey, Life of . By John N.Norton. New York, 1859. Croswell, Rev. William, D.D., Memoir of. By his Father, Rev. Harry Croswell, D.D. New York, 1853. Cum.mins, George David, D.D., First Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. By his Wife. New York, Dodd, Mead & Co. Cutler, Beiijam.in C, D.D., Sketch of the Ministry of. By S. H. Tyng, D.D. New York, 1863. Davies, Rev. Thomas Allen, A Biographical Sketch of the, Missionary of the S. P. G. in Several of the Towns of Litchfield County, Conn., ijbi-bb. By a Minister of the Country. New Haven, 1843. Dehon, Rt. Rev. Theodore, D.D., Late Bishop of the Protestant Epis- copal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina, An Essay on the Life of. By C. E. Gadsden, D.D. Charleston, S. C, 1883. Doane, George Washington, D.D., LL.D., Life and Writings of By his Son, William C. Doane. 4 vols., New York and London, D. Apple- ton & Co., i860. Dyer, Rev. Herman, D.D., Records of an Active Life. New York, 1886. Griswold, Rt. Rev. A. V., D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Eastern Diocese, Memoir of the Life of By J. S. Stone, D.D. Philadelphia, Stavely & McCalla, 1844. Hawks, Francis L., D.D., LL.D., Sketch of the Life of By Rev. N. S. Richardson, D.D. New York, 1867. Hobart, Bishop, Early Years of the Late. By Rev. John McVickar, D.D. New York, 1834. , John Henry, D.D., Professional Years of ; being a Sequel to his Early Years. By Rev. John McVickar. New York, 1836. Memoirs of Bishop. (In the " Works of Rt. Rev. J. H. Hobart." Vol. iv., New York, 1833.) By Rev. William Berrian, D.D. Hopkins, John Henry, S.T.D., "Champion of the Cross; " being the Life of, including Extracts and Selections from his Writings. By Rev. Charles F. Sweet. New York, 1894. , Rt. Rev. J. H., Life of. By his Sons. New York, Huntington & Co. Hotchkin, Rev. Samuel F., M.A., Comitry Clergy of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1890. , Early Clergy of Pennsylvania and Delawa7-e. Philadelphia, 1890. Johnson, Samuel, D.D., Life and Correspondence of. By E. Edwards Beardsley. New ed., Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887. Johnson, W. S., LL.D., Life and Times of. By E, E. Beardsley, D.D., LL.D. New York, Hurd & Houghton," 1876. Kerfoot, Rt. Rev. John Burrett, First Bishop of Pittsbtng, Life of By Hall Harrison, M.A. 2 vols.. New York, James Pott & Co., 1886. Kip, Rt. Rev. W. I., The Early Days of 7ny Episcopate. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1892. Lee, Alfred, First Bishop of Delaruare: Biographical Sketch, Memorial Sermon, etc. Philadelphia, 1888. Mcllvaine, Rt. Rev. Charles Petit, D.D., D.C.L., Memoi-ials of Edited by Rev. William Carus, M.A. New York, 1882. XXll BIBLIOGRAPHY. Meade, William, Bishop of Virginia, Memoir of the Life of By Philip Slaighton, D.D. 3d ed., Boston, 1885. , Bt, Rev. William, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Chtirch in the Diocese of Virginia, A Memoir of the Life of By J. Johns, D.D. Baltimore, Innes & Co., 1867. Milnor, James, D.D., Memoir of the Life of By Rev. John S. Stone, D.D. New York, 1848. Moore, Rt. Rev, R. C, D.D., Memoir of the Life of By Rt. Rev. J. P. K. Plenshaw, D.D. Philadelphia, 1842. Morehouse, Frederic Cook, So7ne Americati Churchmen. Milwaukee, 1892. MuMenberg, W. A., The Life and Work of By Anne Ayres. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1880. Muhlenberg, Dr. By W. \V. Newton, D.D. (In " American Religious Leaders Series.") Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1891. Otey, Rt. Rev. James Harvey, D.D., LL.D., First Bishop of Ten- nessee. By Rt. Rev. William M. Green, D.D. New York, 1885. Pinkney, Rt. Rev. William, D.D., LL.D., Fifth Bishop of Maryland, Life of By Orlando Hutton, D.D. \Vashington, 1890. Polk, Leonidas, Bishop and General. By William M. Polk, M.D., LL.D. 2 vols., London and New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1893. Potter, Rt. Rev, Alonzo, D.D., LL.D., Memoirs of the LJfe of. By M. A. de Wolfe Howe, D.D. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott cS: Co., 1871. Provoost, Bishop, Life of. By J. H. Norton. New York, Dutton & Co. Ravenscroft, Bishop, Life of Relics shcm'n at the Seabitry Centenary Meeting in Aberdeen, October, 1S84, by their Oiinier. Aberdeen, J. & J. P. Edmond & Spark, 1884. Seabury, Samuel, D.D., Life and Correspofidence of By E. Edwards Beardsley, D.D., LL.D. — , The Seabnry Centenary: Report of Commemorative Services, with Ser- mon and Addresses, at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-83. New York, James Pott, 1885. The Seabury Cofnmemoration .' Memoir concerning the Commemora- tioti held at St. PauVs Cathedral, L.ondon, the f out-teen th day of A^ov em- ber, 18S4. By George Shea. Cambridge, Mass., the Riverside Press, 1892. Smith, Rev. William, D.D,, Life and Correspondence of. First Pror'ost of 'the College of Philadelphia. By Horace Wemyss Smith. 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1880. Sparrow, Rev. William, D.D., Life and Correspondence of. By Rev. Cornelius Walker, D.D. Philadelphia, Hammond, 1876. Spencer, Jesse A., S.T.D., Memorabilia of Sixty-five Years. Nev,' York, Thomas Whittaker, 1890. Stevens, Rt. Rev. William Bacon, D.D., LL.D,, A Discourse Com- memorative of the Life and Sendees of, February 5, 1888. By M. A. de W. Howe. Reading, Pa., 1888. Turner, Rev. Samuel H., D.D., Autobiography of. New York, A. D. F. Randolph, 1863. Tyng, Rev. Stephen Higginson, D.D,, Record of the Life and IVork a?id History of St. George^ s Church, A\'7o Yorle, to the Close of his Rector- ship. Compiled by Charles R. Tyng. New York, 1890. BIBLIOGRAPHY. XXlll Wesley, Rev. John, M.A., The Life and Times of. By Rev. L. Tyer- man. 3 vols., 6th ed., London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1890. Wesley, John. By I. H. Overton, M.A. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1891. Whipple and Walker, Bishops, " Bearers of the Lamp of Grace.'' By Rev. T. Lloyd Williams, B.A. Comprising Sketches. London, Skef- fington & Son, 1894. White, Rt. Rev. William, D.D., Bishop of Pennsylvania, Life of. By John H. Norton, M.A. New York, 1856. , Memoirs of the Life of By Rev. Bird Wilson, D.D. Philadelphia, 1839. -, The Life and Times of Bishop. By Julius H. Ward. New York, Dodd, Mead cSc Co., i^ Whitefield, Rev. George, The Life, of By Rev. L. Tyerman. 2 vols., London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1890. Whittingham, W. R., Life of Fourth Bishop of Maryland. By W. F. Brand. 2 vols.. New York, E. & J. B. Young cS: Co., 1883. Wilmer, R. H. {Bishop of Alabama^, The Recent Past, from a Southern Standpoint. 2d ed., New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1887. Wilson, Rev, Bird, D.D., LL.D., A Memorial of. By W. White Bron- son, M.A. Philadelphia, 1864. IV. Prayer-book. Butler, Rev. C. M., D.D., History of the Book of Common Prayer, ivith an Explanation of its Offices. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1880. Coxe, Rt. Rev. A. Cleveland, D.D,, Thoughts on the Semiccs. De- signed as an Introduction to the Liturgy, and an Aid to its devout Use. 20th ed., Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co., 1886. Daniel, Evan, M.A,, The Prayer-book : Its History, Language, and Con- tents, nth ed., London, Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co. Garrison, Rev. Joseph H., D.D., The American Prayer-book : Its Prin- ciples, and the Laio of its Use. (Bohlen Lectures, 1887.) Philadelphia, Porter & Coates, 1887. Huntington, W. R,, D.D., D.CL,, A Short Histo7y of the Book of Com- mon Prayer. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1893. McGarvey, William, B.D., Liturgia Americana;: The Book of Common Prayer as Used in the United States of America, etc. Philadeljihia, 1895. Procter, Francis, M.A., A History of the Book of Common Prayer, Amer- ican Edition. With an Introductory Chapter on the History of the American Liturgy, by William Stevens Perry. New York, Pott & Amery, 1868. Seabury, Rt. Rev. Samuel, D.D., Communion Office. Reprinted in F"acsimile, with Historical Sketch and Notes by Rev. Samuel Hart, D.D. New York, 1874. Standard Editions of the American Prayer-book. (See McGarvey, " Liturgiss Americana;.") Stevens, Rev, C. Ellis, LL,D., D.CL. {Editor), The Genesis of the American Prayer-book. New York, James Pott, 1893. Temple, Edward Lowe, The Church in the Prayer-book. Milwaukee, Young Churchman Co., 1893. The Proposed Book. Philadelphia, Hall & Sellers, 1786. xxiv BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Book Annexed. Worcester, 1883. , as Modified by Action of the General Convention of iS8j. New York, 1884. , Report of Committee with. V. Constitution and Canons. Evans, Hugh Davy, Essay on the Episcopate of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Philadelphia, H. Hooker, 1855- Haivks on the Constitutions and Canons. By F. L. Hawks, D.D., LL.D. Out of print. Hoffman, Murray, Ecclesiastical Law in the State of New York. New York, Pott & Amery, 1868. • , Ritual Laiu of the Church, with its Application to Communion and Baptismal Offices. New York, James Pott, 1872. Periy, Rt. Rev. W. S., The Genoa I Ecclesiastical Constitution of the American Church. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1891. Revised Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, adopted by the Joint Committee appointed by the General Convention of i8g2. 1895. Vinton, F., Manual Commentary on the General Cano?i Law of the Protest- ant Episcopal Church in the United States. New York, Dutton & Co., 1870. VI. Miscellaneous. Huntington, W. R., D.D., D.C.L., The Church Idea: An Essay to- ward Unity. New York, Dutton & Co., 1870. , The Peace of the Church. (Bohlen Lectures, 1891.) 2d ed.. New York, Scribners, 1892. Keith, George, A.M., A Journal of Travels from N'e^u Hampshire to Caratuck on the Continent of North America. London, 1 706. , See Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Histo>-ical Society for the year 1 8j I. New York, Stanford & Swords, 1 851. -, See Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Ilistorical Society for the years 18^2 and i8jj. Leonard, Rt. Rev. William Andrew, D.D. {Bishop of Ohio), The Witness of the Atncrican Church to Pure Christianity. Muhlenberg, Rev. William Augustus, D.D., Evangelical Catholic Papers. Compiled by Anne Ayres. ist series. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1875; 2d series. New York, Thomas Whittaker, 1877. Periy, Rt. Rev. William Stevens, D.D., LL.D., The Episcopate in America. New York, The Christian Literature Co., 1895. Potter, Rt. Rev. Alonzo, D.D., The Memorial, with Circular and Ques- tions of the Episcopal Cominission, etc. With an Introduction by the editor. Philadelphia, Butler & Co., 1857. Potter, Rt. Rev. H. C, D.D., Sisterhoods and Deaconesses at Home and Abroad : History of their Gro^vth in the Protestant Episcopal Chtirch, with Rules for Organization. New York, Dutton & Co., 1881. PERIOD I. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE COLONIES (1607-1785). THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. CHAPTER I. EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT ENGLISH COLONIZATION. To plant the Church of England in America formed, from the beginning, an essential part of England's colonial policy. The nation based its right to colonize the West- ern continent on the discoveries in North America of John and Sebastian Cabot, who sailed in 1497-98 under the patent of Henry VH., and skirted the North American coast from Newfoundland to the Chesapeake Bay. It was fully thirty years after these two voyages of the Cabots before America attracted much attention in England, and not until after the Reformation was established was any practical attempt at colonization made. From the very first movement, however, it was as much an object of England to establish Christianity, as she accepted and embodied it in a Reformed Church, as to augment her civil authority as a great Protestant nation. It was fifty-five years after the discoveries of the Cabots that " the first reformed fleet which had English prayers and preaching therein " was dispatched by direction of Edward VI., under command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, to discover a northeastern passage to Cathay. It accom- 3 4 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. i. plished nothing, as the admiral and crew were all frozen to death while wintering in Russian Lapland. This was the only Western expedition of King Edward's reign. During the reactionary rule of Queen Mary all such en- terprise was suspended, and even Calais, the sole foreign possession of the English crown, was lost. It was during the long reign of Elizabeth, the friend of the Reformation and determined enemy of Spain, that the first vigorous attempts were made to plant civilization and the Church of England in America. Under her sway expeditions of discovery and settlement were frequent. We need not dwell on the expedition of Frobisher along the shores of Hudson's Bay in 1578, nor on that of Drake to the Pacific coast in 1579, when he discovered the coast of Oregon and made a landing in California.^ It is true that in both these widely distant regions religious services, in the use of the Book of Common Prayer, were held by the English chaplains of the fleets. These expeditions were not, how- ever, the historic roots of the great aftergrowth of English civil and religious life in the New World. They were transient in their effect, save as they contributed to the spirit of adventure which should come after and achieve permanent results. The first charter granted for the establishment of an English colony on American shores was that which Sir Humphrey Gilbert received from Queen Elizabeth, June II, 1578, which prescribed by letters patent "for the in- 1 The largest cross in the world now stands in Drake's Bay, North America. Three hundred and sixteen years ago the celebrated Sir Francis Drake landed in this bay, and his chaplain, Francis Fletcher by name, preached the very first English sermon ever heard in that region. To com- memorate this event Bishop Nichols, of California, and the late George W. Childs have caused a large stone cross to be erected on the spot, a cliff stand- ing three hundred feet above the sea. The cross is fifty-seven feet high, of blue sandstone; several of the stones in it are larger than the largest stone in the pyramid of Cheops. This splendid monument can be seen far and wide. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. 5 habiting and planting of our people in America." It was ordered that the laws and ordinances of the settlement " be, as near as conveniently may, agreeable to the laws and policy of England, and also that they be not against the true Christian Faith and Religion now professed in the Church of England." This expedition proved fruit- less. A second voyage was undertaken in 1583, and this reached St. Johns, which was taken possession of ; and here a few laws were promulgated for immediate observance, one of which provided that the religion of the colony " in publique exercise should be according to the Church of England." But Sir Humphrey, notwithstanding his colo- nial charter, was destined to make no permanent impres- sion in the Western world. In attempting to explore the coast of the mainland to the southward he was obliged, by the loss of one of his ships, to turn his face toward Eng- land ; and his own ship foundered in a storm. " He was last seen," says the afifecting chronicle of the survivors, "sitting abaft with a book in his hands;" and his last words wafted to his companions were, " We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." So perished the devout and intrepid leader of the first chartered American colony. The year following Sir Humphrey's death (1584) the queen granted a fresh patent to Walter Raleigh, half- brother to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and at that time her own favorite courtier. By this patent she vested in him and his heirs the powers and privileges which had been bestowed on Sir Humphrey. He at once sent out two barks, which reached the coast of North Carolina, and, after spending two months there, returned with two natives whom they had captured, and some general but not accurate information concerning the products of the soil. The account of this voyage made a deep and wide- spread impression. The queen named the country, of 6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. i. which a rude map was prhited, Virginia, in honor of her- self. She made Raleigh a knight, and he obtained from Parliament a bill confirming his patent. He at once pro- ceeded to forward the project of settling a colony in the newly discovered region. He gathered a squadron of seven vessels, put them in command of his cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, and the expedition sailed from Plym- outh April 9, 1585, for Virginia, to found a settlement. The colony included a hundred and eight souls, over whom Ralph Lane was appointed governor ; but it was not a happily constituted company. It was not a group of families, but a gathering of individual adventurers. A number of men of fortune and family went along, among whom one is especially deserving of mention, viz.. Master Hariot, to whom we owe the knowledge of the potato and of tobacco, and who, first of any member of the Church of England, made missionary efforts to convert the native Indians. The majority were of far less desirable quality and character, " bad natures," as Hariot described them, " brawling freebooters, ignorant of husbandry, and indis- posed to peaceful industry, though eager for adventure and covetous of fortune." The hopes of the promoters of the enterprise found a most inadequate fulfillment. Only one year from their arrival the sails of Sir Francis Drake's fleet appeared on the horizon and offered supplies to the colonists; but they suddenly determined to abandon the settlement, and embarked with Drake for England. An- other expedition came the next year (1587), numbering a hundred and fifty, of which John White was the governor, and which included, for the first time, women as well as men. Misfortune attended this attempt at colonization as well as that which had preceded it. It had landed, not, as proposed, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, but on the island of Roanoke, where fifteen of the previous ex- S//<^ WALTER RALEIGH'S ROANOJCE COLONY. 7 pedition had been left, and where now the only traces of them were their bones and their dismantled and deserted habitations. The colonists were disheartened from the outset, and soon became involved in hostilities with the Indians. The governor was persuaded to return home to secure needed supplies. He took about half the colonists with him, but, as a fair evidence of his purpose to speedily return, left behind his daughter and granddaughter. A most interesting episode in the history of this ill-fated colony was the baptism of Manateo, the first Indian con- vert, on August 13, 1587, and, on the following Sunday (August 20th), of Virginia Dare, born two days previously. She was the governor's granddaughter, and the first child born of English parents in America. Thus were admitted to the Christian church the first child and the first convert of a colony soon to disappear from the face of the earth. The needed relief was of necessity delayed until it was too late. In the beginning of the year 1588 the formidable Spanish Armada was gathered and partly afloat. Every maritime exertion of the mother-country had to be put forth to vanquish this gigantic enemy of England's state and church. Until this danger passed, to guard the home was a necessity more imperative than to succor colonists. Thus the settlement at Roanoke remained unsuccored until it had disappeared. It was not until 1590 that White could revisit the colony. All that he found were certain old chests and water-soaked charts and books and a few rusty cannon. Of the colonists themselves there was no trace. They were either destroyed by the Indians or amalgamated with them. White returned to England in utter ignorance of their fate, and without in the least advancing the settlement of the country. In the meantime Sir Walter Raleigh, having already expended forty thousand pounds in his fruitless attempts 8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. i. at colonization, became eager to press his fortunes in South America, which seemed to promise more both in adventure and in profit. Being embarrassed by his large outlay in Virginia and North Carolina, he in 1588-89, while retaining his patent, made over to Sir Thomas Smith and a company of merchants in London all the rights and privi- leges conferred upon him by letters patent of Elizabeth. This company took no steps toward the permanent occupa- tion of the country ; and at the end of the century which had elapsed since Cabot's discovery of North America, no settlement indicative of England's power and prowess was to be found on the Western continent. Sir Walter, how- ever, had created the spirit of colonization and secured the possessions in North America to the English crown. Early in the seventeenth century renewed attempts were made toward American colonization, for which now every- thing was favorable. The year following the accession of King James I. was one of peace, the first in many years. There was a redundancy of population. The laboring class lived most uncomfortably, in mere huts, at home, and there was lack of employment. The conflict with Spain and the wars in the Netherlands had furnished relief by giving occupation to the surplus population. It was a training which developed a spirit of restless adventure; and when expeditions w^ere set on foot for the New World, its mystery, and the promise of betterment, if not of wealth, were a resistless incitement to the spirit of enterprise. In 1602 Captain Bartholomew Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, with no reference to Sir Walter Raleigh or his patent, intending to found a small colony. About May he came upon the coast of Maine. Thence he sailed south- ward, rounded Cape Cod, and built a fortified house on the island of Cuttyhunk, intending to make a permanent EXrEDITIONS OF PJUNG AND WAYMOUTH. g lodgment there ; but the intended colonists fell to wran- gling, and amid general discontent the whole company sailed for home. Sir Walter promptly confiscated . the cargo of sassafras and cedar, concerning the division of which the crew had quarreled, on the plea that the ex- pedition infringed his patent. A settlement was made sufficiently to his advantage to induce him to send out an expedition again ; and Martin Pring, with his express per- mission, took charge of the two vessels — the " Speedwell " and the " Discoverer " — and, sailing, sighted islands on the coast of Maine June 2, 1603. He then bore southward and made harbor at what became subsequently Plymouth, in Massachusetts Bay. Here he remained six weeks, gathering sassafras, and returned home again in October. He thus became acquainted with the land of the Pilgrims seventeen years before the Pilgrims came ; and here the service of the Church of England was celebrated in advance of the Puritans, who on these shores afterward rejected it. In 1605 an expedition, commanded by George Way- mouth, sailed from Dartmouth, which was destined to have an important bearing on the future of New England colonization. He arrived off the coast of Maine in June, and explored the Kennebec River for forty miles. He planted a cross as a mark of discovery and possession, and set sail for England June i6th, carrying with him five savages whom he had kidnapped. The narrative of this voyage which was soon published, describing the coast of Maine as it appeared in summer-time, together with the curiosity aroused by the presence of the Indians, awakened a widespread interest. It attracted the attention of Sir John Popham, Lord Chief-Justice. Sir Fernando Gorges, as royal governor at Plymouth, took the Indians in chaVge, kept three of them in his house for three years, having them instructed in English, and learning from them con- lO PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. i. cerning the islands and harbors of their native country. He thus became an enthusiast concerning settlements in the New World, and a new impulse was given to Western adventure. In the spirit of enthusiasm thus aroused, both Lord Chief-Justice Popham and Sir Fernando Gorges made efforts, by sending several ships to the river Sagadahoc or Kennebec, to accomplish a settlement there. These were captured by the Spaniards; but Pring, commanding an- other ship of Popham's, reached the shore in safety, and made a careful survey of it, in consequence of which plans for a permanent colony were projected. This last expedi- tion, which started in May, 1607, did not accomplish any permanent settlement. It discovered the cross which Waymouth had set up two years before ; and there the company landed, and the preacher of the colony. Sir Richard Seymour, held a solemn service, preached a ser- mon, and offered prayers. This is the first record of a religious service performed by any English or Protestant clergyman within the bounds of New England, which was then and there consecrated to Christian civilization. By reason of the death of Lord Chief-Justice Popham, the patentee, and of Captain George Popham (his brother), the leader of the enterprise, as well as of a fire which destroyed the houses which they built, and by the unexpected in- clemency of the winter climate, the colonists became dis- couraged, and all set sail for England in the ship which came bringing them supplies. The short-lived colony is, however, worthy of note, because the claim of the English to the possession of the territory of New England rests upon this settlement. It is interesting, moreover, as a witness to the performance of the service of the Church of England as the first religious worship in the region afterward to become the land of the Pilgrims. CHAPTER II. THE VIRGINIA CHARTER AND SETTLEMENT. The time for mere individual adventure and private ex- peditions was now over. Experience had proved them too large and costly for single persons to undertake. On April lO, 1606, King James I. granted the first charter of Vir- ginia, on the general plan of the East India Company, which had been organized for purposes of trade in 1599. This charter provided for the establishment of a company, or of one company in two branches, namely, the London Colony and the Plymouth Colony, the former having au- thority to occupy lands between 34° and 41° of north latitude, and the latter to occupy lands between 38° and 45° of north latitude. As is evident, these colonies over- lapped each- other in the region lying between 38° and 41° north latitude, common to them both. Neither colony was permitted to plant a settlement within a hundred miles of a settlement previously planted by the other. Each company was to have a hundred miles of seacoast, half to the north and half to the south of its colony, with the islands for a hundred miles eastward on the coast, and territory on the mainland to the same extent westward. The West was at that time a wholly unknown region as to its extent. In the original charter. Sir Thomas Gates, Richard Hakluyt, Edmund Wingfield, and George Pop- ham (brother of Sir John Popham, the Chief-Justice), with others, were the corporators ; but in the Superior Council II 12 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. n. appointed by the king six months later, Sir John Popham and Fernando Gorges were included. In the set of in- structions issued by the authority of the king as a kind of constitution of the company it was stipulated that the Church of England was to be maintained, and it was en- joined to use all proper means to draw the natives to the true knowledge and love of God. Before the expedition left England for Virginia an ordi- nance was passed, under the sign-manual of the king and the privy seal, which contained the following declaration: " That the said Presidents, Councils, and the Ministers should provide that the Word and service of God be preached, planted, and used, not only in the said Colonies, but also, as much as might be, among the savages border- ing among them, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of England." The expedition thus commissioned in regard to spiritual and ecclesiastical matters sailed from Blackwall December 19, 1606, and reached Virginia April 26, 1607, being four months on the way. It took with it, however, not merely instructions on paper concerning its religious obligations, but a most admirable and godly man as chaplain to carry them out. This first colonial clergyman was Rev. Robert Hunt, one of the petitioners for the charter, and designated by Archbishop Bancroft at the solicitation of Wingfield, who was the first elected president of the colonists, and the celebrated Richard Hakluyt, prebendary of Westmin- ster, one of the original corporators. Of him Captain John Smith, the first historian of Virginia, speaks later as " an honest, religious, and courageous Divine, during whose life our factions were oft qualified, our wants and greatest extremities so comforted, that they seemed easy in com- parison of what we endured after his memorable death." He showed his steadfastness and devotion at the very be- CHAPLAIN ROBERT HUNT. I 3 ginning of the voyage, when, as it is related in Smith's " Virginia," they " by unprosperous winds were kept six weeks in sight of England, all which time Mr. Hunt our preacher was so weake and sicke, that few expected his recovery. Yet although we were but twenty miles from his habitation (the time we were in the Downes) and not- withstanding the stormy weather, nor the scandalous im- putations (of some few, little better than atheists, of the greatest rank among us) suggested against him, all this could never force from him so much as a seeming desire to leaue the busines, but preferred the service of God, in so good a voyage before any affection to contest with his godlesse foes, whose disasterous designs (could they haue prevailed) had even then overthrowne the businesse, so many discontents did then arise, had he not with water of patience and his godly exhortations (but chiefly by his true devoted example) quenched those flames of envie and dis- sension." On the 13th of May the colony landed, and began the settlement of Jamestown, on the north bank of the James River, about thirty-two miles from its mouth. There was erected the first church in Virginia. " I well remember," writes Smith in his " Advertise- ments for the Unexperienced Planters of New England," " wee did hang an awning (which is an old saile) to three or four trees to shaden us from the sunne, our walles were rales of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut plankes : our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees. This was our Churche till wee built a homely thing like a barne, set upon crotchets covered with rafts, sedge and earth ; so was also the walles, that could neither well de- fend wind nor raine. Yet we had daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the Holy Communion, till our minister died. But our prayers daily, with an homily on Sundaies, 14 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. we continued two or three yeares after till more Preachers came." The chaplain was alive to the duties of his calling from the first moment. On June 2ist, five weeks after the landing, the first celebration of the Eucharist took place in the English colonies of America. That was the day preceding Captain Newport's return to England for sup- plies, and the day following Captain Smith's admission, after much turbulent bickering, to membership in the council. Beneath a rude sail upheld by the logs fresh cut from the forest, the first communion was celebrated in Virginia as the sacrament of peace. It was the third Sunday after Trinity, 1607, and the exhortation of the Epistle for that day, " All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility," was certainly apt to the occasion. The history of the Virginia Colony, apart from its bear- ing on the development of the church, lies, of course, be- yond the province of this volume ; but Chaplain Hunt seems to have been always the mainstay of the colony. Captain Smith, who soon came to the front, made him his chief reliance in pacifying quarrels and maintaining the spirit of the colonists. It is recorded that no one ever heard him murmur or repine. He did not survive many years ; but he lived long enough to leave behind him a memory redolent of devotion and sagacity, and an influ- ence which secured for some time a succession of ministers of a like character to his own. When, after repeated disappointments, the colony had begun to excite ridicule in England, a new zeal in its be- half was stirred up by those more especially interested in it. A new charter, greatly enlarged, was issued in May, 1609; and the names of many distinguished personages appear for the first time associated with it. Robert Cecil, RELIGIOUS INTEREST IN ENGLAND. 15 Earl of Salisbury, and Francis Bacon were among them ; as also Abbot, then Bishop of London, and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury ; the Bishops of Lincoln and Worcester, and Bath and Wells ; Sandys, the pupil of Hooker ; and John and Nicholas Ferrar ; and again Hak- luy t, whose interest never flagged. Sermons were preached in the London churches, for the first time, to those about to carry forth the name and character of the Church of Eng- land to the New World. A notable one was that delivered February 21, 1609, by William Crashaw, preacher at the Temple, in the presence of Lord de la Warr and the Vir- ginia council, a few months before the departure of the expedition. At its conclusion he thus addressed the first governor of Virginia: " Thy ancestor many hundred years agoe gained great honour to thy house ; but by this action thou augmentest it : he tooke a King prisoner in the field in his own land ; but by the godly managing of this busi- nesses thou shalt take the Diuell prisoner ?n open field and in his owne kingdome. . . . And thus the glory and honour of thy house is more at the last than at the first. Look not at the gaine, the wealth, the honour, but looke at those high and better ends that concerne the Kingdom of God. Remember thou art a General of Christian men, therefore looke principally to religion. You goe to com- mend it to the heathen: then practice it yourselves; make the name of Christ honourable not hatefull unto them." It is thus evident that the spirit of Christian love animated the hearts of some who were engaged in this colonial enterprise. Many insubordinate and disreputable characters were enlisted in this new company of five hun- dred who went out to reinforce the Virginia Colony ; but the spirit of the company and of the leaders was sober and religious. Lord de la Warr, under the new charter, was the first governor of Virginia ; and by reason of the change 1 6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. in the government, from an aristocracy to an autocracy of one, more specific directions were hereafter sent by the company concerning religion and legislation in its behalf. Master Burke, commended by the Bishop of London as a faithful and zealous minister, " an able and painfull preacher," and a graduate of Oxford, was appointed chap- lain. He started with the expedition under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, which preceded Lord de la Warr; was wrecked with them off the Bermudas, where he ministered faithfully until two ships were built, which carried them to Jamestown in June, i6io. The most of the expedition, consisting of seven vessels, had previously reached that place in August, 1609, and was composed, for the most part, of " poore gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to spoil a commonwealth, than either begin one, or help to maintain one." In the absence of commanding leaders, and in the midst of the dissensions concerning Captain Smith, fliese had added greatly to the misery and confusion of the colony. Before the ships from Bermuda arrived. Captain Smith had departed for England, having been rendered helpless by a distressing wound from the explosion of a powder-flask, and knowing that his commission was to be superseded. When he left, the colony was in good con- dition. There were nearly five hundred men, possessing three ships and seven boats. The harvest was gathered ; there were ten weeks' provisions in store and a sufficient supply of arms, tools, clothing, and cattle. By the time Burke arrived with Gates and Somers, sickness, hunger, and the ravages of the Indians had reduced the number to about sixty. These survivors were living on roots and horse-flesh, and this period was known afterward as " the starving-time." At once, on arriving, Gates summoned the survivors to the dilapidated church ; and Master Burke LORD DE LA WARR'S ADMLNISLRATION. ly led their devotions in a " zealous and sorrowful " prayer. The destitution was so great that Gates resolved to aban- don the settlement and proceed to Newfoundland. On the evening of June 7th the vessels, with all on board, dropped down the river with the tide, " none dropping a tear, because none had enjoyed one day of happiness." The Virginia Colony seemed to be at an end. But the ships of De la Warr were in the offing. Gates, the next morning, while waiting for the tide, descried a boat approaching, which announced the arrival of the ex- pedition. The forlorn remnant of a colony returned to the deserted settlement; and there, a few days later, on Sun- day the loth of June, Lord de la Warr was received by the lieutenant-governor and his destitute companions, drawn up under arms. He was so affected by the melancholy sight that he fell upon his knees and prayed silently in the ^ presence of all the people. When he arose a procession was formed, which marched at once to the church, where a sermon was preached by Master Burke ; and not until the conclusion of divine service did he assume command of the colony. Among the earliest acts of his government were provisions for spreading and preserving the gospel among the colonists. The church was at once handsomely repaired, and daily morning and evening prayer were per- formed within it. On Sundays De la Warr attended in state, accompanied by all the public officers, and a guard in " faire red cloakes," to the number of fifty, on each side and behind him. He was seated in the " Ouier," " in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion on a table before him." He returned home from church attended in the same stately manner. He thus gave the weight of his official position, after the fashion of those days, to the re- ligious concerns of the colony, and publicly and privately set an example of devotion. More than one clergyman 1 8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai'. ii. accompanied him, so that Master Burke was no longer alone. Lord de la Warr's administration was, however, short-lived. His health compelled him to return home after a year's sojourn in Virginia. He had, almost imme- diately after his arrival, petitioned for more clerical aid ; and in " The Table of such as are required in their Plan- tation," issued by the council of the company at home, " foure honest and learned ministers" head the list. Alexander Whitaker, son of the master of St. John's College, Cambridge, was the most eminent of those who followed in the company of Sir Thomas Dale, the successor of Lord de la Warr. He was a man of great energy and earnestness. The fact that Pocahontas was converted and baptized by him has made his name conspicuous ; but his labors, both for the colonists and the natives, gave him a right to the title " Apostle to the Indians," by which he became designated. He left station, wealth, the sure prospect of preferment, and many cultivated friends, of his own free motion, " to help beare the name of God unto the Gentiles." The presence of such a man was a conse- cration to the colony. Glover also, a Cambridge graduate somewhat advanced in years, and in easy circumstances, but animated by the same missionary and martyr spirit as Whitaker, came over in June, 1611, with Sir Thomas Gates, on whom the government now devolved, and who embarked with his wife and daughter and three hundred men, and a large supply of stores and cattle. The temporal circumstances of the colony began to mend. New settle- ments were formed at Henrico, named in honor of Henry, Prince of Wales, and at Bermuda Hundred. The char- acter of the colonists, however, seemed to the company at home to call for more stringent laws. One can with difficulty picture to himself the characteristics of a colony so mixed as that at Jamestown. Its domesticity may be LAIFS OF SIR THOMAS DALE. 1 9 imagined when women were sent over in shiploads for wives to the settlers, and when freebooters, eager for ad- venture and gold, pressed continually in. There was doubtless occasion for rigorous rule, but not excuse for the savage provision of the " Lawes, diuine, morall and martiall," which were promulgated by the home company for the use of Sir Thomas Dale. These laws were in great measure copied from the laws observed in the Low Countries during the wars there, in which Dale had served with distinction. They put the church under martial law, and tended to make it odious. They were administered with great moderation, in fact, were allowed to slumber, by Dale ; but they empowered him to put to death all who spoke against the holy Trinity or the articles of the Christian faith, or who uttered blasphemy or unlawful oaths. To be openly whipped three times was the penalty for behaving irreverently to any preacher or minister of God's Word ; and absence from divine service upon week- days or " the Saboth," if persisted in after fine and whip- ping, brought condemnation for six months to the galleys, or even death. These and other like laws, to the number of thirty-seven, were to be read every " Saboth " publicly in the congregation by the minister, " upon paine of his entertainment checkt for that weeke." To a community of a character to suggest the propriety of such laws the ministrations of religion must have been both arduous and depressing. That they were faithfully executed, even enthusiastically fulfilled, by the devoted men who had undertaken the work is conspicuously evi- dent. The whole tone and scope of Whitaker's " Good Newes from Virginia," published in London in 161 3, dem- onstrate this. He makes this appeal to his countrymen : " Awake, you true-hearted Englishmen, you servants of Jesus Christ, remember that the Plantation is God's, and 20 PKOrESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. the reward your country's." Many circumstances now occurred to strengthen the colony. The conversion and baptism of Pocahontas, daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan, and her marriage to John Rolfe, an English gentleman, with her subsequent visit in 1616 to England, where she died, did much to deepen and extend the in- terest of sober-minded persons in England in the colony. It had a favorable effect for a while upon the relations of the colony with the Indians, resulting in a treaty of peace with Powhatan in 16 14. The systematic cultivation of tobacco, which began about 16 1 2, is attributed to John Rolfe; and it was so lucrative as to soon become the all-controlling occupation of Vir- ginia. It became an element in all its political and relig- ious disturbances, besides greatly increasing its commercial relations, and it was the most direct instigation of African slavery. The third charter, granted in 161 2, introduced a wiser policy respecting the possession of land. ■ Up to this time no land had been held in America as a private pos- session ; but now a certain quantity was allowed to each freeman, a portion of its fruit being received as rent. This proved a great stimulus to agricultural industry. When Argall, who succeeded Gates in 161 7, came out as deputy governor, he found the streets of Jamestown planted with tobacco. Argall did much by his tyranny to retard the colony ; he reinstated the martial code, which Gates had dispensed with ; but after two years he was driven out, and at the coming of Sir George Yeardley (1619) a new era began. Under him the laws of England took the place of Dale's iron code ; and the first representative body of legislators that ever existed in America was now constituted, a year before the arrival of the Pil- grims at Plymouth. The House of Burgesses met in the chancel of the church at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, and HOUSE OF BURGESSES, 1619. 21 was duly opened with prayer by Master Burke. It exer- cised judicial as well as legislative authority. It confirmed the authority of the Church of England in the colony, and made laws concerning religious observances, such as at- tendance at church twice on Sunday, which was compul- sory. It was provided that the clergy should have in each borough a glebe of one hundred acres, and receive from the profits of each parish a standing revenue of two hundred pounds. The dues of the minister were paid mostly in tobacco; and in 1621—22 it was enacted that each clergy- man should have fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco and sixteen barrels of corn. If this could not be raised, " the minister was to be content with less." At the time of this first establishment of the Church of England in Virginia by the action of the House of Burgesses there were only five clergymen in the colony, and two of these were in dea- con's orders. The state undertook the matter of ecclesi- astical discipline, and passed numerous laws regulating the conduct and duties of both clergy and laity. Negligent clergy were answerable to the governor and Council of Estate ; and before proceeding to excommunicate any lay- man, the clergy were to present their opinions to the governor. Special directions were given for preaching, catechising, and administration of the sacraments ; and special punishments were decreed for idleness, gaming, and swearing. The passion for display in even so primi- tive a community is evidenced by the provision that the rate for public contributions was to be assessed in the church on the apparel of the men and women, for the ex- press purpose of restraining immoderate excess in dress. The interests of education were not neglected. Meas- ures were passed looking to the foundation of a college, and specific directions were given that from the children of the natives " the most towardly boyes in witt and graces 22 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. of nature be fitted for the college intended for them," that they might be missionaries to their own people. The college was intended for the English as well as the Indians. In response to an address to the archbishops, fifteen hun- dred pounds was received for the college ; and the com- pany instructed Yeardley to plant a university at Henrico, and allotted ten thousand acres of land for its endowment. Further sums were also received ; one, a bequest of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, Sr., a merchant of London, of three hun- dred pounds, " to be paid when there shall be three of the Infidels' children placed in it;" also twenty-four pounds, " to be distributed to three discreet and godly men in the colony which shall honestly bring up three of the Infidels' children in the Christian Religion and some good course to live by." Bishop King, of London, collected and paid a thousand pounds to the Henrico college. The sum of five hundred pounds was forwarded to the treasurer. Sir Edwin Sandys (son of the Archbishop of York and pupil of Richard Hooker), for the education of Indian children from seven years of age until twelve, after which they were to be taught some trade until they were twenty-one, when they were to be admitted to equal privileges with the native English of Virginia. Numerous gifts of commun- ion plate and linen, of Bibles and Prayer-books, were sent out for the use of the college and church ; and Thomas Bargrave, a clergyman, gave his library to it. Rev. Mr. Copeland, chaplain of an East-Indiaman, a little later col- lected a sum for the establishment of a public free pre- paratory school, for which the company allotted a thou- sand acres of land for the support of a master and usher. Mr. George Thorp, " an exemplary man, of good parts and well bred," accepted the headship of the college from a desire to help on the conversion of the Indians. The extension of the colony up the James River for a THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S JURISDICTION. 23 hundred and forty miles, and the division of this territory into eleven boroughs, scattered the population, so that the five clergymen, who might have been sufficient for the colony had it remained concentrated in Jamestown and its immediate vicinity, were unable to reach with their spir- itual ministrations so scattered a flock. The Virginia council, therefore, applied to the Bishop of London to assist them in providing " pious, learned, and painful min- isters." The bishop was forthwith chosen a member of the king's council for Virginia; and, as the result of Bishop King's personal and official interest and love, the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of London was henceforth con- tinuously recognized in America during the whole period of its colonial history, though no special measures were at this time, or ever, adopted to formally incorporate Virginia, or any American colony, within the diocese of London. The population of the colony was now reinforced by the importation of women for wives, and also of boys and girls for apprentices and servants. Ninety young women of good repute were shipped to Virginia at the expense of the company, and these were followed later by a band of sixty. Convicts, also, to the number of a hundred, were sent as laborers by the arbitrary mandate of the king. This tyrannical act of James, as Smith, the his- torian of the colony, wrote, " hath laid one of the finest countries of America under just scandal of being a mere hell upon earth, another Siberia, and only fit for the recep- tion of malefactors and the vilest of the people." In this same year (1620) negro slavery was introduced into the colony, not by the company, but by the private cupidity of some of the settlers in Jamestown, who purchased twenty negroes from a Dutch ship which had put in there for the purposes of trade. Such was the composition of the community which the 24 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. church was set to leaven with Christian truth and practice. It is not strange that out of such moral and social chaos order and propriety could not be speedily evolved. In 1 62 1 Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Yeardley as gov- ernor, and he came out bringing a written constitution of government. In certain articles of instruction which he bore the first recommendation was : " To take into especial regard the service of Almighty God and the observance of his Divine laws and that the people should be trained in true religion and virtue. And since their endeavours for the Establishment of the honour and rights of the church and ministry had not yet taken due effect, they were re- quired to employ their utmost care to advance all things appertaining to the Order and Administration of Divine Service according to the form and discipline of the Church of England. . . . They were to use all probable means of bringing over the natives to a love of civility and to the knowledge of God and his true religion; to draw the best disposed among the Indians to commune and labour with our people, for a convenient reward, that thereby being reconciled to a civil way of life, and brought to a sense of God and religion, they might afterwards become instru- ments in the general conversion of their countrymen." The written constitution brought over by Wyatt was a spur to the progress of the colony. It provided that, while the governor and council were to be appointed by the company, the acts of the Assembly and the orders of the company must each receive the sanction of the other. It confirm.ed the right of trial by jury ; and, in fine, the form of government hereafter to be established generally in the American colonies was enacted by it. Fifty patents for new settlements were issued in 1621 ; and in that and the two years preceding more than thirty-five hundred emigrants had arrived in Virginia. A few Puritans were rREATMEKT OF PURITANS IN VIRGINIA. 25 among' them, who received kind treatment; for, while the letter of the colonial law in ecclesiastical matters was the echo of the despotic courts in England, the church being assuredly established in the colonies as at home, the spirit of the administration was mild and equitable. This treat- ment of Puritans by churchmen has been contrasted with the treatment of churchmen by Puritans in New England. Jefferson, indeed, affirms that, with the exception of capital executions, the same intolerant spirit prevailed in Virginia as in Boston and Salem. But what may have been true fifty years later, under exceptional circumstances, is re- jected by the calmer spirit of Bancroft as true of this period.^ And, pleasant as is the recognition of the spirit of tolerance in Virginia at this time, it must be confessed that, backed by a powerful government and hierarchy in England, they had far less to fear from the presence of Puritans than Puritans, proscribed at home, might not unnaturally apprehend from the presence of churchmen among them. The colony was filled with hope, which begat tolerance, and, invigorated by immigration, seemed fairly set forward in the way of prosperity. These fair prospects, however, were soon to be blasted by an untow- ard and totally unexpected massacre by the Indians. The natives had given no sign ; but for several years some thirty Indians had been maturing a conspiracy for the extirpa- tion of the whites. On March 22, 1622, they fell upon the colonists and slaughtered* without distinction of age or sex, three hundred and forty-seven persons. As a result, many plantations were abandoned. Of eighty, only eight remained ; and out of four thousand inhabitants, only about two thousand were left. Thorp, who had devoted himself to the interests of the Indians, was among their victims. A spirit of unrelenting severity was not unnaturally 1 Bancroft, " United States," vol. i., pp. 156-196. 26 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai>. ii. engendered in the minds of the colonists by this massacre. Previous to it the general sentiment had been kindly, but not without exception. A year before the massacre, Rev. Jonas Stockham, in a letter written to Whitaker to be for- warded to the council, had declared that " Mars and Mi- nerva " must go hand in hand to effect any good among the Indians, and that " till their Priests and Ancients have their throats cut there is no hope to bring them to conversion." This exceptional opinion now became general. Smith, in his " Virginia," says the massacre " caused them all to be- lieve the opinion of Master Stockham." The thought of civilizing the Indians was deemed chimerical ; the purpose to assist them was denounced as enthusiastic. After all the appointments and endowments, neither the college at Henrico nor the Indian school at Charles City was pro- ceeded with. Years elapsed before the attempt to estab- lish a college was renewed. Indian missions had received their death-blow. ^ The colony slowly recovered from the great disaster. Among the thirty- five laws passed two years after it, the first seven were devoted to the interests of the church, providing for the erection of houses of worship, and setting apart of burial-grounds; also for uni- formity of faith and worship with the English Church; enforcing attendance at public worship, enjoining respect- ful treatment and the payment of a settled stipend to the colonial clergy, and prescribing a yearly fast on the anni- versary of the massacre ; but no mention was made of re- ligious exertions for the natives. The adoption of these laws was the last act of legislation which affected the church under the government of the company. On June 1 6, 1624, the charter was annulled by a judicial decree, and Virginia passed under the immediate control of the king. The decree was brought about by James I. because he 1 Hawks, " Virginia," p. 41. THE KING ANNULS THE COLONIAL CHARTER. 27 thought it Hkely to please Spain (to a princess of which country he wished to marry Prince Charles), and also be- cause he was offended at the resistance to his attempts to coerce the action of the company, who had failed to ap- point all his nominees to office. Every misfortune of the colony served as an argument for abrogating its charter; and a special ground of accusation was lack of missionary zeal for the conversion and education of the Indians. This change of government produced no direct altera- tion in religious matters. The previous laws continued in force. The decisions of the High Court of Commissioners at home were acknowledged as authoritative, but distance relaxed their practical severity. The church slowly gath- ered strength, and, being considered a branch of the Estab- lishment at home, claimed the protection of the same laws. Thus when, in 1628, Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, visited Virginia, the Assembly voted to require of him to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. Sir John Henry became governor in 1629, and then mildness in the administration of ecclesiastical laws ceased. During the previous years of the colony's existence no record is found of any severity inflicted for nonobservance of the ordi- nances of the church ; but nov/ an act was passed, at Henry's instigation, enjoining, under severe penalties, strict conformity to the canons of the church. The harsh enactments of this period are not so much an evidence that religion was at a low ebb as that the severity now become the fashion in England was deemed to be an acceptable offering to the authorities there. The punishments inflicted were at first for practical, not doctrinal offenses ; not for holding a different faith, but for not living up to that which all received. This, however, soon changed. Fresh laws were enacted for the expulsion of Puritans, and threats were issued against all who showed sympathy with them. 28 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. This was done while there were no Puritans in the colony " to prevent the infection from reaching this country." ^ In general, Henry's tyranny was so intolerable that the As- sembly (1635) thrust him out of the government, in which, however, he was reinstated by the king ; and the church being under the Assembly, and the Assembly being now abjectly subject to the governor, the church was the chief sufferer. Her vital energies sank rapidly under the baneful influences which oppressed her. The appeal of the colonists for ministers, for whose support they themselves began to provide, met with a lamentable response. " Very few of good conversation would adventure thither, yet many came such as wore black coats and could babble in a Pulpit, roare in a tavern, exact from the Parishioners, and rather by their dissoluteness destroy than feed their flocks. The country was loath to be wholly without teachers, and would there- fore rather retain these than be destitute, yet endeavours were made for better in their places, which were obtained, and these wolves in sheep's clothing were questioned, silenced and some forced to^ depart the country." 2 The absence of spiritual control kept the ministers under secular authority. They were liable to be tried for spirit- ual offenses by the judges of the courts. Their bishop was in England, and no ecclesiastical officer was delegated by him to exercise authority in his name. Archbishop Laud, whose authority was now paramount and direct in colonial ecclesiastical affairs, at one time entertained the project of sending out a bishop to New England to keep down the Puritans; but in Virginia, where the services of the epis- copal office were required, and would have been gratefully received, its institution was never thought of. His home policy of " vigor and rigor " animated the administration 1 Henning, " Virginia Statutes," p. 223. 2 " Leah and Rachel," a pamphlet by John Hammond (1656). MISSIONARIES SENT TO VIRGINIA. 29 of the colony, and it provoked reaction. Up to Henry's arrival (1629) the colonists were content to remain in the bosom of the church in which they had been reared. Now, as a consequence of the exasperation of his rule, arj appeal, signed by seventy-one persons, was made, in th(| first year of his successor's (Sir William Berkeley) adminisj tration, to the General Court of Massachusetts, " to send ministers of the gospel into that region, that its inhabitants might be privileged with the preaching and ordinances of Jesus Christ." 1 In consequence, three persons went out as Congregational missionaries to the Church of England in Virginia. An act of the legislature of the same year cut short their stay. All non-Episcopal ministers were by it forbidden to officiate in the colony. Yet, as Governor Winthrop says, " Though the State did silence the minis- ters because they would not conform to the order of Eng- land, yet the people resorted to private houses to hear them."^ But the attachment of Virginia to the Church of England was overwhelming and conscientious, though, even among devoted churchmen, tyranny provoked such symptoms of revolt. When the revolution came, and the Commonwealth was established in England, Virginia was loyal. She was the last colony to submit to the Parliament. Sir William Berkeley had come over as governor in 1642, instructed to keep out innovations in religion; and when, after the execution of Charles I., he resolved not to sur- render to the Parliament without a struggle, he was backed by large numbers of Cavaliers, who had drifted during the political troubles of England into Virginia, whose popula- tion was now computed at twenty thousand. When at last obliged to capitulate, he succeeded in securing terms liberal for the time. It was stipulated that, in regard to church 1 Emerson, " Historical .Sketch of the First Church in Boston," p. 75. 2 Savage, " Winthrop " ; Hubbard, " History of New England." 30 PROTESTANr EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. affairs, the use of the Book of Common Prayer should be permitted for one year ensuing, " provided that those parts which relate to Kingship and government be not used publiquely;" also "the continuance of ministers and the payment of their dues to be left as they were, for the year ensuing." It is probable that a further use of the Prayer- book was connived at ; for, while " no formal injunction of obedience to the doctrine and discipline of the English Church occurs in any records of the Grand Assembly dur- ing the Commonwealth, all matters relating to the minis- ters and parochial affairs were left to the discretion of the people. In the exercise of their discretion, the majority of the people were anxious to retain, and it is believed did retain, the teaching of the Church of England." ^ As a result of the political disturbance there was an in- crease of unconcern about religion. Many places became destitute of ministers ; for the people ceased to pay their customary dues, and religious instruction was neglected. At the time of the Restoration, of the fifty parishes into which the colony was now divided, the greater number were without glebe, parsonage, church, and minister; in- deed, there were not more than ten ministers left in the colony. The colonial legislature acted promptly on the instructions given to Sir William Berkeley on his reappoint- ment as royal governor, and provision was made " for the building and due furnishing of churches, for the canonical performance of the liturgy, for the ministration of God's Word, for a due observance of the Sunday, for the baptism and Christian education of the young." At the same time the spirit of proscription rife in England was reproduced in the colony in these very enactments. By them any Quaker attending " an unlawful assembly or conventicle " must pay a fine of two hundred pounds of tobacco for each offense ; 1 Anderson, " Colonial Church," vol. ii., p. 22. PROSCRIPTION OF QUAKERS. 3 I and should he refuse to take his child to be baptized by a lawful minister within the county, he should be amerced two thousand pounds of tobacco. No Quakers were hanged, as in New England ; but the proscription of them by Cromwell during the Commonwealth, and the dread of them subsequently (which led Charles II. to write to the colony of Massachusetts, " We cannot be understood to wish that any indulgence be granted to those persons commonly called Quakers "), engendered a kindred spirit in Virginia, and gave rise to a decree which exacted a penalty of a hundred pounds from the commander of any vessel which should bring a Quaker into the colony ; and or- dered that all Quakers who might arrive should at once be imprisoned until they had given security to depart; that if they returned a third time they were to be tried as felons ; and that no person was to entertain Quakers, or permit any of their assemblies to be held in or near his house, upon pain of paying a hundred pounds. That there was political motive mingled with this religious proscription is true ; and it is also true that the early Quakers were very different from their more peaceable descendants. But the principle of religious toleration was also wholly absent. When James II. ascended the throne the dread of popery added a new element to the ecclesiastical situation. The rumor of a plot between the Indians and the few papists in the colony excited a great commotion ; and, loyal as Virginia had been to the Stuarts, the accession of William and Mary gave great relief and was heartily welcomed. In the meantime, after Berkeley had been reinsfated by the royal commission of Charles II., the control in eccle- siastical matters had been put in the hands of twelve ves- trymen in each parish, who were to fill their own vacancies. This had a great influence on the state of the church; for the taxes for the support of the church and of the poor 32 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. were assessed each year by the vestry ; and the parishes, because they paid the minister, claimed the right of pres- entation, and could exercise it despite the governor, since they could refuse to pay the salary. The vestries, indeed, not unfrequently avoided presentation altogether by hiring ministers from year to year. Thus the clergy were made subservient to the will of those who supported them. There were many good men among them ; but the system was such that the character of many neither commanded nor deserved respect. In the report of Berkeley in 167 1 to the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, on the condition of the colony, wherein he reported a population of forty thou- sand, including two thousand negro slaves and six thousand 'white servants, he speaks thus of the church: "There are forty-eight parishes, and the ministers well paid. The clergy by my consent would be better if they would pray oftener and preach less. But of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us. But I thank God there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years." The governor doubtless voiced the pre- vailing sentiment of the community ; and that sentiment was not stimulating to earnestness and devotion. The number of parishes was often twice as great as the number of the clergy. Morgan Godwin, who had been a student at Christ Church, Oxford, and an ordained minister in Vir- ginia, and afterward a missionary in the Barbadoes, attests in a letter to Berkeley that " two-thirds of the preachers are made up of leaden lay-priests of the Vesteries ordina- tion [evidently lay readers] and are both the grief and shame of the rightly ordained clergy there. Nothing of this ever reaches your Excellencies ear," he adds, " these hungry patrons knowing better how to make benefit by their vices." He describes the parishes as extending, some of them, sixty or seventy miles in length, and lying COMMISSARY BLAIR. 33 void for many years to save charges. Jamestown, he dis- tinctly states, had been left, with short intervals, in this destitute condition for twenty years. " All things," he adds, " concerning the church and religion were left to the mercy of the people. And, last of all, to propagate Chris- tianity among the heathen, whether natives or slaves brought from other parts, although (as must piously be supposed) it were the only end of God's discovering these countries to us, yet is that lookt upon by our new race of Christians, so idle and ridiculous, so utterly needless and unnecessary, that no man can forfeit his judgment more than by any proposal looking or tending that way." This melancholy state of things was not permitted to exist without some effort to remedy it. In a pamphlet en- titled " Virginia's Cure," by one who declares himself to have been an eye-witness for two years of the things which he describes, the state of affairs in the colony was brought to the notice of the Bishops of London and Winchester. After stating many of the evils we have already noticed, he appeals for the presence of a bishop in order to coun- teract them. There-seems to have been a serious attempt to grant this appeal. The nomination of the Rev. Alexander Murray to that office was, according to Anderson, actually declared at one period of Clarendon's administration ; but the matter proceeded no further. However, in 1689, the Rev. James Blair, a Scotchman, whom Compton, Bishop of London, persuaded to go as a missionary to Virginia in 1685, was appointed commissary of the bishop, the first commissary duly commissioned for any of the colonies. He had authority, as representative of the bishop, to make visitations throughout the territory assigned to him. He could inspect churches, deliver charges, and in some meas- ure administer discipline ; but his appointment was a very imperfect rernedy for the existing evils. Confirmation and 34 FROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. ordination were still left in abeyance, and thorough disci- pline was impossible. Dr. Blair, however, magnified his office. He was a practical man, of clear mind and indefati- gable perseverance ; and, being sincerely religious, his ser- vices proved invaluable to the church in Virginia. He at once perceived that the colony must educate its own clergy in order to secure men apt to the situation ; and so he at once set about the revival of the project for the erection of a college, originally suggested in 1662. Receiving author- ity from the provincial legislature to present to William and Mary the petition for a charter to found the college, he went to England for that purpose. The queen was favor- able, and the king gave two thousand pounds due to the crown from Virginia. The merchants of London had al- ready given twenty-five hundred pounds, and Blair himself contributed, from a sum presented to him by the Grand Assembly. The institution, according to Dr. Blair, never received the benefit of one half of what was thus given. He met with discouragements and difficulties at every step. When he urged Seymour, the attorney-general, to prepare the required charter, begging him to consider that the people in Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people in England, the answer was, " Souls! Damn your souls! Make tobacco." But the charter was signed February 8, 1692-93. It stipulated that the college should be called by the name of "William and Mary"; and in the autumn of the same year the General Assem- bly passed an act for the erection of the building on the ground between the York and James rivers, afterward chosen as the site of the city of Williamsburg. The pro- ceeds of a tax on tobacco and a donation of twenty thou- sand acres of choice land, and certain dues imposed on skins and furs, were appropriated for the support of the institution, The privilege of returning a burgess to the COLLEGE OF WLLLLAM AND MARY. 35 General Assembly was also conferred on the college ; and Blair was appointed its first president. The building was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1705, and was with much labor rebuilt. The college eventually became a source of great usefulness, though for seventy years it* rarely had more than twenty students at one time. It; could not at once supply the want of clergymen, which was a principal object of its establishment. In the regu- lation of ecclesiastical aff'airs arising from this want the commissary was often brought into collision and disagree- ment with the civil authorities, especially with Governors Andros and Nicholson. The church, however, sufi"ered no lasting disadvantage from these dissensions, which were in part occasioned by Blair's own lack of gentleness and for- bearance. Whatever his infirmities, they were the faults of a man eminently in earnest ; and it is written of him that, " with the single exception of Dr. Bray, the commissary of Maryland, there was no clergyman of the Establishment, ever sent to this country during its colonial existence, to whom the church in the southern part of the continent was more deeply indebted." -^ When he died, at the advanced age of eighty-eight, he had been in orders sixty-four years, commissary for Virginia fifty-three years, college presi- dent forty-nine years, and for fifty years a member of the king's council. It was in the year after Dr. Blair's appointment as com- missary (1690) that a new feature was introduced into the ecclesiastical life of the colony in the sending of a number of Huguenot refugees by King William to Virginia, fol- lowed in 1699 by another body of six hundred, with their clergy, under Philippe de Richebourg. In i 700 the As- sembly of Virginia passed an act making these French refugees a distinct parish by themselves, and exempted 1 F. L. Hawks, D.D., "Virginia," p. 75. 36 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. them from the payment of all taxes for seven years. They had their own minister, and worshiped after their own manner. This parish of King William, in the county of Henrico, formed an admirable addition to the society of Virginia. Many of the descendants of these Huguenots have been distinguished in the history of the State. A similar act of kindness was shown in 1 7 1 3 to a small body of German emigrants, settlers above the falls of the Rap- pahannock, a frontier of civilization, whom it was a matter of interest to the colony to protect. Like the French, they were formed into a separate parish of St. George, with power to employ their own minister on their own terms, and were exempted from all ordinary taxes for ten years. Thus these two religious communities, differing each in its own way from the Establishment, were fostered by it. At this same period laws were enacted for the suppres- sion of vice and the restraint of blasphemy, which indicate a state of irreligion and immorality which the rulers might well seek to assuage by the introduction of the nobler ele- ments of these foreign communities. However inadequate this civil regulation of religious offenses may seem in com- parison with the discipline of a fully equipped church, it shows a determination of the government to assist the community in the light of religious obligation. Of this evidence is again given by the appropriation in 1718 of a thousand pounds for the education and maintenance of poor native children. Sir Alexander Spotswood went in person among the neighboring tribes of Indians, and pre- vailed upon them to send their children to be educated. He obtained native pupils from a distance of more than four hundred miles, and at his own expense established and supported a preparatory school on the frontiers, that Indian lads might be fitted for admission into the college without being far removed from their parents. CHURCH STATISTICS, 1720. 37 At this time (1720) we get a more accurate knowledge of the condition of the church than formerly. The whole number of counties in Virginia was twenty-nine, and there were forty-four parishes. These parishes, however, were of very unequal size. Some were very small, and some sixty miles long. In each parish there was a church, built of stone, brick, or wood, which was enlarged from time to time and sufficiently furnished for the decent performance of divine service. In the larger parishes there were one or more chapels of ease, so that the places of worship num- bered about seventy. Every parish, moreover, possessed a dwelling-house for the minister, and some of them glebes of two hundred and fifty acres. More than half the churches of the Establishment were supplied with clergy- men ; and where there was no minister, services were per- formed by a lay reader. To outward appearance the condition of the church seemed prosperous ; but, although a hundred and fifteen years had elapsed since the first clergyman landed in Virginia, the state of religion was low. There is evidence that some, both of the clergy and laity, were sincerely and deeply religious; but worthy and con- sistent Christians did not form a large class of the popula- tion. The cause is to be found largely in the manner of the appointment of the clergy and the absence of proper ecclesiastical control when once they came ; and then in the consequent action of the laity, and their power, through the vestries, of silencing or starving a too faithful incum- bent. The Bishop of London was the ultimate source of a clergyman's commission ; but, with every disposition on his part to send only deserving clergymen into the colony, he was liable to be grossly deceived, and he had not a promising class to select from. Inferior powers and limited attainments were considered sufficient for a missionary to Virginia; and persons were often recommended because 38 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. it was deemed advisable to get them away from England. When one arrived, the precarious tenure of the living tended to beget a time-serving spirit or an indifference to an earnest discharge of his duties. Where unworthiness was manifest there could not be an efficient ecclesiastical censure. Far removed from his diocesan, and standing in little awe of a commissary whose powers were limited, an unworthy man might offend morals and yet remain in the church, a reproach to her ministry. The frequent disputes between pastors and people were due generally to the harassing uncertainty concerning support. The power of vestries in this regard was compulsory, and was wielded often most oppressively ; so that faithfulness would be visited by stoppage of supplies and dismissal at the end of a year. Vacancies, occasioned by death, remained unfilled ; the election of a successor being refused in order to escape the payment of the stipend. Thus, though the church was nominally under the protection of the state, it experienced the evils of an alliance without reaping its advantages. Without a bishop, without a native clergy, its ecclesiastical constitution was too feeble to give it a vigorous life and discipline ; and the practice of punishing the spiritual offenses of the laity by temporal penalties begot great de- fiance and hatred among the population. In consequence, irregularities of various kinds in the use of the liturgy crept in, " every minister being a kind of Independent in his own parish." ^ In the spiritual decline of the colony the first endow- ments of the college were lost through the feebleness and indolence which prevailed. Jones describes it as being for a long time " a college without a chapel, without a scholar- ship, without a statute ; having a library without books, a president without a fixed salary, a burgess without cer- 1 Jones, " Present State of Virginia" (London, 1724). CHARACTERISTICS OF LIFE IN VIRGINIA. 39 tainty of electors." Owing to the difficulty, expense, and danger of sending the children of the wealthy to England for their education, many were allowed to grow up with most imperfect training. The smallpox was at that period such a scourge as to greatly limit the number of applicants, both for orders and for education, to the mother-country. There was, in consequence, a great dearth of literary cul- ture ; and society, formed amid the influences of a plenti- ful provision for physical wants, was without a correspond- ing intellectual stimulus. The chmate was charming, the scenery beautiful, the soil fertile, the needs of subsistence easily procured ; but there was no city life, and none of the mental friction which comes of its busy intercourse. The planters lived by themselves on large estates. The culti- vation of tobacco was the absorbing occupation. In ex- change for this commodity, shipped directly in his own vessel, from his own port on the river or bay, the planter could receive at his own door everything which he re- quired which he could not raise. He imported his common household utensils ; and such repairs as he needed were done by his own hands on his own estate. The develop- ment of an aristocratic class was inevitable ; a class char- acterized by a love of social intercourse and a liberal hos- pitality combined with high-bred courtesy, but unmarked by an enlarged intellectual cultivation. The commoner people formed a class by themselves. As merchants they were petty, if prosperous, and as mechanics less intelli- gent and progressive than they would have been had there been more general demand for their labor and more competition. While the chief towns, as Jamestown and Williamsburg, remained petty villages, there could be no vigorous development of an influential industrial class apart from the plantations, and there the institution of slavery served to generate an atmosphere unfavorable to 40 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. the existence of self-reliant and self-assertive workmen. Though the first slaves had been introduced as early as 1620, it was not until 1650 that, under the stimulus of the tobacco-culture, their number began to rapidly increase. Their presence served to place a stigma on the white popu- lation who were forced to labor with their hands. The laws regulating the colony in 1662 enacted that children should follow the condition of the mother, and thus mulatto chil- dren were slaves; and in 1667 the Virginia Assembly or- dained that conversion and baptism should not set the slave free; for it had been a long-cherished idea that a heathen, but not a Christian, could be reduced to servitude. Thus the law intended to extend religious privileges to the slaves, and give them the benefit of Christian sacraments and teaching, tended also to perpetuate and extend the institution. When, in 1756, the population had reached 293,000, the negroes amounted to 120,000. It was under circumstances such as these that the church had to perform its task; imperfectly organized, for the most part poorly served, and hampered by the fetters of the state, rather than made independent by its support. It is not strange that it did not perform it well. When, then, in i 740, Whitefield paid a visit to Virginia, the field was white for the harvest of his earnest enthusiasm. He was still looked upon as a clergyman of the Church of England, and the aged commissary cordially received him. By Blair's invitation he preached at Williamsburg and other towns of the province. He greatly stirred the people, and manifested the same power over the hearts and consciences of men here as everywhere. This visit stirred in many quarters a more earnest Christian zeal and life; but, while it in a degree affected the Establishment, it chiefly tended to build up dissenting communions, which from this time on became powerful. DISSENT IN VIRGINIA. 4 1 A number of Scotch and Irish Presbyterians had for some years been gradually gathering in the outlying districts of eastern Virginia; and in 1740 and 1743 Samuel Morris, a man of unusual earnestness and devotion, held meetings for • them in his house, reading passages to them from Luther's " Commentary on the Galatians," the " Pilgrim's Progress," and Whitefield's sermons. This incidental gathering be- came a movement, as the interest increased and the at- tendants multiplied. The attention of the Presbytery of New Castle in Delaware was called to it, and Robinson and Roan were sent to visit the people, and introduced among them the Confession of Faith. Samuel Davies, afterward president of Princeton College, New Jersey, was the most distinguished of those who organized and extended the operations of these assemblies. He was at this time a young man, of great talents and devoted piety. By his marked ability he won for them, against the opposition of Peyton Randolph, the attorney-general, the liberty of cele- brating without molestation their religious services. On his arrival he complied with the laws of the colony concerning dissenters. He obtained a license for each meeting-house, taking the oaths of fidelity to the government, and subscrib- ing to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, with certain enumerated exceptions ; such as the Thirty- fourth, " concerning traditions of the church ;" the Thirty- fifth, " of the homilies;" the Thirty-sixth, "of the conse- cration of bishops and ministers;" and so much of the Twentieth as declares " the church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and is of authority in matters of faith." He thus obtained licenses for four meeting-houses, to which three more were soon added. He divided his labors among these seven, some of which were forty miles distant from one another. In three years he had gathered large congre- gations and enrolled three hundred communicants. The 42 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. impression he made was a lasting one, and introduced an earnest religious dissent as a permanent element into the life of Virginia, which from that time greatly influenced the Establishment ; for which reason it has been dwelt upon. Of course it met with strong opposition. The governor protested, claiming that the Toleration Act of the first year of William and Mary did not extend to Virginia. Davies argued that, in that case, the Act of Uniformity did not. The verdict of the court of Williamsburg was in his favor, and it was afterward confirmed by the opinion of the attorney-general of England. Dissent, needless but for the apathy of the Establishment and the neglect of her oflficers, became thus legitimate and powerful. Efforts for the quickening and extension of the Epis- copal Church in the western part of the State were at this same period put forth by an earnest layman. Morgan Morgan, a native of Wales, emigrated to Virginia from Pennsylvania, and in 1 740 erected the first Episcopal church in the valley of Virginia. It is supposed to still exist in the "Mill Creek Church" of the parish of Win- chester. Morgan was one of those thoroughly earnest Christians unremitting in his efforts to carry religion home to the hearts and lives of men. He never intrenched on the province of the clergyman, though often no clergy- man could be had ; but what a layman might do he de- votedly did. He visited the sick and dying; he pressed home the truths of the gospel on his neighbors ; he raised his family in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. His son, who bore his name, officiated when only sixteen as lay reader in the church which his father had erected. A clergyman could seldom be had ; but the public wor- ship of God was not neglected on that account. The younger Morgan, like the elder, was instant in season and out of season, doing what a layman lawfully might do. He EVANGELISTIC LABORS OF MORGAN. 43 ministered often in vacant churches where there was no clergyman, and, being in easy circumstances, determined to devote himself exclusively to keeping alive and quick- ening piety in the church of his fathers. As was written of him, " In a dark day, when desolation and death seemed brooding over her interests, he commenced a career of active exertion, and by efforts of the most disinterested nature revived the attachment of her friends and kept her from descending to the dust. Even when encumbered with the weight of years his labors were continued, and were fruitful. A welcome visitor everywhere, beloved by rich and poor, he gathered large and attentive audiences, and ministered faithfully to their souls. It is grateful to recognize so earnest a spirit among the laity amid the spir- itual dearth of the clergy. It is a striking instance of the power of the church to promote its true life when once the spirit of life animates its members and ministers." A cause which alienated, to a vast extent, the aflfections of the people from the church lay not merely in the spirit- ual supineness of the ministry, but chiefly in a determined effort on their part to defend themselves from the exactions of the laity in regard to their stipends. These were pay- able, by the law of 1696, in tobacco ; and whatever afifected the price of this commodity affected the living of the clergy. In 1755 and 1758 there was a great scarcity in the tobacco crop, and prices rose accordingly. A relief act was in each of these years passed, allowing parishioners to pay their dues to the clergy at the old price of tobacco; that is, at two thirds less than its present market price. The clergy appealed, through their commissary, to the Bishop of London and the Board of Trade at home, and finally to the king ; and they appealed successfully. The act of 1758 was declared null and void. The clergy, through one of their number, brought the question to an issue in the pro- 44 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. vincial courts, and the court decided in their favor. This judgment was most unwelcome to the general public; but the only point which remained for the jury to determine was the amount of damages sustained by the plaintiff. The defendants would not give up. They secured Patrick Henry who had even then a considerable reputation for courage and eloquence, to argue their case in the ensuing term. So great was the interest excited that, when the case came on, multitudes unable to gain admission to the court-room clambered up the windows to see and hear what they could. Henry denounced as intolerable the decision of the council at home, and declared that the king, by whose authority such decision was enforced, was not a father of his people, but a tyrant. The jury, as well as the audience, were spellbound by the magic power of the advocate. The verdict of a penny damages proclaimed the greatness of his victory. He was carried in triumph from the court-room to receive the plaudits of the exulting mul- titudes without. The adverse influence excited against the whole church of Virginia by these proceedings was pro- digious. The clergy as a body never recovered from the blow. They made no appeal against the verdict, and deemed all further resistance to be vain. Though the cause of the clergy would now be generally deemed just, no time could have been more inauspicious than this for directing public attention to the subject of their claim. The low state of morals, both of the clergy and laity, had caused a corresponding reaction in the com- munity against them. Various forms of dissent were be- coming popular and prevalent. The Baptists were rapidly increasing, and their bitterness toward the church was extreme. It was not unnatural that it should be so. No dissenters in Virginia experienced, for a time, harsher treat- ment than the Baptists. They were beaten and imprisoned. BAPTISTS AND METHODISTS. 45 This persecution created for them hosts of friends. Crowds would gather around their prisons to hear them preach from the grated windows. Men began to suspect that the Estab- lished Church was proving a burden instead of a blessing. The disastrous issue of the parsons' cause gave fresh hope and courage to the assailants of the church. The followers of Wesley, also, began to appear in considerable numbers in Virginia. Though they claimed still to be a portion of the English Church, the fervor of their piety and the en- thusiasm of their methods tended to create a distinction between them and the lethargic clergy of the Establish- ment. Some of them, however, it quickened. Jarratt, who had become spiritually moved by them, crossed the ocean and received ordination from the Bishop of Chester. On his return, shortly after the decision of the parsons' cause, he entered upon his labors in the colony. He excited the scorn of the formalists by the earnestness of his preaching ; but amid all opposition he continued steadfast, multiplying his labors, never weary in his work for souls, and with hope unshaken for a better state of things. He clung with strong affection to his church in the mid.st of her humilia- tion. While others despised and forsook her, he renewed the expression of his belief in the truth of her doctrine and apostolic order and the edifying spirit of her worship. To him, and such as he, the first workings of the renewed energy of the church in Virginia are to be traced. The political aspect of affairs was also now tending to the disadvantage of the Establishment. Since the eccle- siastical and civil institutions of the mother-country were regarded as inseparable, in losing affection for the king, men lost affection for the church. " No king, no bishop!" seemed to them to be the consistent cry. When, then, the clergy of New York, in 1771, sought their cooperation in their efforts to obtain the presence of a bishop in America, 46 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. they failed. But few of the Virginia clergy could be in- duced to come together to consider the question. Not more than twelve appeared in council. After at first re- jecting the proposal, they finally voted to address the king, asking for the appointment of a bishop in America. Soon after, four of them entered a formal protest, asserting that the establishment of an American episcopate would weaken the connection between the mother-country and the colo- nies, and might occasion such disturbances as would en- danger the existence of the British empire in America. For this protest these clergymen received the thanks of the House of Burgesses, although many of the members of this House were members of the Established Church. The Rev^ Jonathan Boucher and others denounced in severe terms the protest of the four clergymen and the approval of it by the House of Burgesses. Thus at the dawn of the Revolution the church was in a most lamentable con- dition. Without were fightings and within were fears. At the beginning of hostilities, perhaps two thirds of the clergy and a portion of the laity were loyalists. Many distinguished clergymen, however, such as Jarratt and Madison, afterward Bishop of Virginia, also Messrs. Griffith, Davis, Bracken, Belmaine, and Buchanan, were earnest patriots. Some clergymen entered the ranks of the army and became distinguished officers, such as Muhlenberg and Thruston. Many of the laity, with Washington at their head, and including Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the Declaration of Independence, his brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the signers, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, with the families of the Nelsons, the Meades, the Mercers, the Harrisons and Randolphs, and many others, were strong and influential patriots. \\\ the autumn after the Declaration of Independence a contest arose for the destruction of the temporal possessions EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 47 of the church in Virginia. Petitions poured into the State convention from the various religious sects of Virginia, as well as from the irreligious, praying for the abolition of church establishments. The members of the church and the Methodists alike joined in the counter-petition, but from this time all laws were repealed which declared the church to be the dominant teacher in the colony. All dissenters, also, were exempt from contributing to the support of the church. The glebes and the churches and chapels already built were retained for their congregations ; but ultimately, after the Revolution, the legislature decreed that all glebe- lands in Virginia should be sold for the benefit of the public. During the war the sufferings of the loyalist clergy were, of course, many and grievous. The prohibition to pray for the king was enforced upon them, some yielding and sorne refusing to yield. Political animosity and eccle- siastical hatred alike marked them out for victims. The church itself became desolated. Whereas at the begin-! ning of the war Virginia contained ninety-five parishes, al hundred and sixty-four churches and chapels, and ninety-' one clergymen, at its conclusion twenty-three parishes were entirely extinguished, and of those remaining thirty-four were withou-t any clerical ministration. Only twenty-eight of the clergy survived ; and of these not more than fifteen had been able to remain steadfast at their posts. The churches and chapels in almost every parish had fallen into ruin. They had during the war often been used as barracks or stables. The service-books and the commun- ion-plate disappeared, and fonts were used for watering- troughs. When the war was ended, sorely smitten by poverty, and burdened with the prejudices excited by its connection with England, the church had to set to work to repair its property and reestablish its spiritual rule. Pri- 48 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. vate enterprise without some legal assistance seemed wholly inadequate to the purpose. Accordingly, in i 784, a number of petitions were presented to the legislature, praying that, " as all persons enjoy the benefit of religion, all might be required to contribute to the expense of sup- porting some form of worship or other." The Protestant Episcopal Church, as the former Church of England now called itself, set forth that their church labored under many inconveniences and restraints by the operation of sundry laws in force, and prayed that all acts which directed modes of faith and worship mi^it be repealed ; that the \-estry laws might be amended ; that the churches, glebe-lands, dona- tions, and all other property heretofore belonging to the Established Church might be forever secured to them by law ; and, above all, that an act might be passed to incor- porate the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, and to enable its members to regulate all their spiritual concerns, and constitute such canons for their government and good order as were suited to their religious principles. There were petitions of an opposite character, which prayed that no step might be taken in aid of religion, but that it might be left to its own superior and successful influence. The united clergy of the Presbyterian Church protested against incorporating religious societies. A resolution, however, was passed, by a majority of nearly one third of the House, that acts ought to pass for the incorporation of all societies of the Christian religion which might ajjply for the same. Patrick Henry was a strong advocate of this measure, and was charged, by reason of it, with advocating the reestablishment of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The same day on which this resolution was adopted leave was given to introduce a bill for the incorporation of the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Mr. Henry was one INCORPORATION OF THE CHURCH. 49 of the committee appointed to bring in the bill. The bill provided that the minister and vestry of each parish should be a body corporate, allowed to acquire and use property, provided the income did not exceed eight hundred pounds per annum. They had power to make their own regula- tions for the management of their temporal concerns ; and the 'vestry had the ordering of the payment of all moneys of the church. If in any parish tliere were no minister or vestrymen left, any two members of the Protestant Epis- copal Church were authorized to call together all Episco- palians resident within that parish, who could elect, by a majority of votes, twelve discreet men, members of the church, who, when elected, should constitute a vestry. Vestrymen, when elected, before entering on their duties, were required to subscribe a declaration to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Protestant Episco- pal Church. They then appointed from their own number two churchwardens, and could supply any vacancies oc- curring among themselves until the succeeding triennial election. All former laws made for the government of the church or clergy during the colonial existence of the State were repealed, and the church was authorized to regulate all her religious concerns and make such rules as she saw fit for orderly and good government. The Convention was to be composed of all ministers of the church ex officio and of two laymen from each parish, to be chosen by their re- spective vestries. Forty persons were necessary to consti- tute a Convention ; and it was provided that no law should be made whereby clergymen might be received into or re- moved from a cure contrary to the consent of a majority of the vestry. The jealousy of the clergy manifest in these regulations was a heritage of the sad experience of the past. No complaint was made by the clergy against these pro- visions. The passage of the resolution was hailed with 50 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. thankfulness, and a better day seemed about to dawn upon the temporal interests of the church. About this time the church received a blow from the final separation of the. Methodists from it. Mr. Wesley, owing to the representations made to him of the great destitution of religious services among the colonists, proceeded, after much hesitation and with some misgivings, to ordain presbyters for America, and to set apart Dr. Coke as superintendent. He gave the following reasons for his action : " For many years I have been importuned to ex- ercise the right of ordaining part of our traveling preach- ers ; but I have still refused, because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the national church to which I belong. But the case is widely different between England and North America. Here there are many bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In America there are none, neither any parish minister; so that for some hundred miles together there is none either to baptize or administer the Lord's Supper. Here, there- fore, my scruples are at end, and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and invade no man's right by appointing and sending laborers into the harvest. If any one will point out a more rational and Scriptural way of feeding and guiding these poor sheep in the wilderness, I will gladly embrace it. At present I cannot see any better method than that I have taken." In consequence of this action of Mr. Wesley the Methodists throughout the country became an organized, independent ecclesiastical body, and were not in any way identified with the Epis- copal Church. Moreover, in the very year in which the Episcopal Church was incorporated, a memorial was pre- sented to the legislature by the Presbyterians, complaining of the special privileges which the church was said to obtain by its act of incorporation. FIRST PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION. 5 I The Baptists also joined in opposing it; and by the ad- vocacy of Mr. Jefferson an act was passed, by the legislature of I 785, entitled " An Act for establishing Religious Free- dom." This act decrees that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or minis- try whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. Such was the state of opinion and the condition of affairs when the first Convention of the Protestant Epis- copal Church of Virginia was held after the Revolution. On the i8th of May, 1785, thirty-six clergymen and seventy- one laymen assembled in the city of Richmond, and were organized by the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Madison, president of William and Mary College, as presiding officer. The Rev. Robert Andrews was made secretary. The first resolution adopted by the House, sitting as a committee of the whole, on the state of the church was " that an address be prepared to the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, representing the condition of the church, and exhorting them to unite in its support." In this document it is stated that since the year 1776 the church had been without regular government ; that her ministers had received but little compensation for their services, and that their numbers had been diminished by death and other causes, and that as yet there was no re- course in themselves for a succession of ministers ; that their churches stood in need of repair, and that there was no fund to accomplish it. Voluntary subscriptions by the several vestries were recommended to furnish a competent 52 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. support for the incumbents of their respective parishes. The chief evil recognized by the Convention was want of proper autliority competent to achninister discipHne to the clergy. A standing committee, composed of clergy and laity, was instructed to consider the proper steps to ob- tain the consecration of a bishop, and to provide means for his support. Until the meeting of the next Con\'ention rules were adopted for the order, government, and discipline of the church. The country was divided into districts, and a clergyman of each district was appointed as visitor to effect such discipline as was possible. Pluralities and acts of restraint were strictly prohibited ; the use of the surplice and gown, preaching once at least on every Lord's day, catechising children, administering the eucharist at stated periods, and visiting the sick, were positively enjoined. It was resolved also that, for the present, the liturgy of the Church of England should be used, with such alterations only as had been rendered necessary by the American Revolution. The attention of the Convention was also called to a communication sent to it from the governor of Virginia, which had been communicated to the governor by our minister (John Adams) at the court of St. James, concerning the willingness of the church in Denmark to administer episcopal ordination to the American candi- dates for orders. The church declined to take any steps founded on this communication. The prevalent feeling was that the consecration of American bishops and the obtain- ing of holy orders for presbyters were not to be sought out of England until all prospect of obtaining them there should seem hopeless. Steps had already been taken by clergymen of the States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, assembled by appointment in New Brunswick, N. J., May 13, 1784, for the general organization of the church in the United States. DEPUTIES APPOINTED. 53 At a meeting held on the 6th of the succeeding October, in New York, the Rev. Dr. Griffith attended as a delegate from Virginia. This purely voluntary assemblage proposed certain principles of ecclesiastical union, to be submitted to the churches of the several States. The Virginia Con- vention, after expressing a willingness to unite in the changed ecclesiastical constitution with the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the other States of America, accepted with some criticism the articles pro- posed as the basis of union. They elected deputies to the proposed Convention in Philadelphia, and gave them general instructions as to the course they were to follow. These deputies were the Rev. Dr. Griffith, the Rev. Mr. Mc- Croskey, with John Page and William Lee, Esquires, lay- men. Their instructions urged the deputies to liberality and moderation in procuring uniformity in doctrine and worship, advocated simplicity of creed, and desired only the retention of the Apostles' Creed. They deprecated any but the most cautious changes in the liturgy, and desired that utility might be the test of such ceremonies as might be retained. After instructing the deputies to communi- cate to the General Convention the proposition concerning Danish ordination, a standing committee was appointed, to which was confided the power of calling a Convention. The impulse given to the church under this new organi- zation seems to have roused still further the animosity of its opponents. The Presbyterians and Baptists now circulated memorials to the legislature, asking not merely for a repeal of the law incorporating the church, but also that the property of the church might be disposed of for the bene- fit of the public. At the next Convention of the church, in May, i 786, a petition to the legislature was prepared, to counteract the effect of the hostile memorials of the Baptists and Presbyterians ; but it was of no avail. In 54 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ii. January, 1787, the act for incorporating the Episcopal Church was repealed. In May, 1787, the third Conven- tion of the church assembled, but not, as before, under an act of incorporation. It was held that the effect of the repeal of that act returned the powers of the government and discipline of the church to the members at large. The members of the church in the several parishes had, there- fore, been invited to elect two deputies from each parish, with full powers to form and establish such regulations for government, discipline, and worship as they might deem best ; and to provide means for the care and proper use of such property as remained to the church. The diminished number of those who thus came together showed that the church had become disheartened by the persevering hostil- ity of its opponents, and that many looked upon a further contest as hopeless. Its enemies had not as yet succeeded in procuring a distribution of its property. They left it in the condition in which it stood at the close of the Revolu- tion, with this change, however : that, having now assumed an organized form, it could better distinguish between its friends and its foes. Previous to this time the Convention of the church which was held in Richmond May 24, 1 786, had received the report of the representatives to the General Convention, and a journal of the proceedings of that body was also presented. The proposed constitution of the church met with a ready adoption. Objections were raised to the Proposed Book and its obligatory use, but the Prayer- book finally adopted was received, and the Virginia church came into union with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. As the General Convention had recommended the election of a suitable person to be pre- sented to the English prelates for consecration as Bishop of Virginia, such an election was held ; and the Rev. Dr. Grif- DR. GRIFFITH ELECTED BISHOP. 55 fith was chosen by a large majority. He was never conse- crated, because, by reason of his own poverty and that of his church, means were not forthcoming to pay the ex- penses of a journey to England. He was a man of high character, and would have nobly filled the position to which he was thus called. Two deputies were appointed to attend the next Gen- eral Convention. The Rev. Dr. Griffith was one of them. Until episcopal supervision could be had, the State was divided by this Convention into twenty-four districts, and a visitor was appointed for each of them. The powers of the standing committee were defined, and during the re- cess of Conventions it was to take care generally of the interests of the church. On the 20th of June, i 786, the delegates from Virginia, Dr. Griffith and the Hon. Cyrus Griffin, appeared in Phil- adelphia in the General Convention ; and Dr. Griffith was made its president. With this act we may fitly terminate the history of the church of Virginia as an independent organization. CHAPTER III. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN MARYLAND. The fortunes of the Church of England in Maryland were not unlike those which befell the church in Virginia. The social characteristics of the two colonies were simi- lar. The soil and climate were alike. Tobacco was the chief agricultural product of both, and its culture influenced to a marked degree the social habits of the community, while its fluctuations in value constituted the chief influ- ence on their fortunes. In consequence of this absorbing interest in one product of the soil, commerce was depressed, and plantations took the place of towns, causing the popu- lation to be scattered, and strongly influencing the man- ners of the people and their modes of life. As in Virginia, slavery flourished, and convicts were imported for laborers, who, on the termination of their sentences, were apt to become an idle and dangerous element in the community. There was a distinct aristocratic class, though the distinc- tion between planters and small farmers was not so marked as in the neighboring colony. There were more varieties of religious association, however. This, in the beginning, arose in great measure from the proprietary rule, which was a marked distinction of the colony. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who in 1623 had ac- quired a palatinate in the southeastern part of Newfound- land, finding that climate too severe for a colony, embarked 56 LORD BALTIMORE, PROPRIETARY. t^'j for Virginia. Having, however, become a Roman Catholic in 1625, he declined to take the oath of supremacy, and returned to England. Here he obtained a territory after- ward named Maryland, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria ; but dying before the charter passed the seal, the grant was made to his son, Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, in 1632. The charter, which was modeled on that of Avalon in Newfoundland, while Calvert was still a Protestant, made Lord Baltimore and his heirs proprietaries of the territory, which was to be a palatinate (like that of Durham in England), so that his prerogatives were almost regal. There was a formal and nominal acknowledgment of the fief in the annual payment of two Indian arrows and a fifth of all gold and silver which might be discovered ; but the proprietary was to own the land, levy taxes, consti- tute courts, confer titles, and exercise, under a lax system of feudation, sovereign powers, both civil and military. In regard to religion the charter gave the proprietary the patronage and advowsons of churches, and empowered him to erect churches, chapels, and oratories, which he might cause to be consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England. He was not, however, prevented from exer- cising full toleration to all religious bodies, and it was understood that Roman Catholics were not to be molested in the use of their customary rites of worship. Of course any attempt on the part of a Roman Catholic holding his patent from the crown of England to proscribe Protestants would have endangered and doubtless destroyed the col- ony ; and the system of toleration which he adopted may have been defensive of himself and his co-religionists. Though politic, Cahert was of a lenient disposition, as his father had been before him. While he aimed to pro- vide a safe asylum for adherents of his own creed, he was mainly concerned to build up a lucrative and flourishing 58 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. colony, whatever might be the creed of its inhabitants. From the beginning a majority of the settlers were Protestants, and their proportion in the colony constantly increased. Already, before the founding of St. Mary's by the Pilgrims of Maryland, Virginia churchmen were living on the Isle of Kent, opposite the present site of Annapolis, at the mouth of the Chester River, and had the ministra- tions of a clergyman, though there was no church. Clay- bourne of Virginia, who had planted the settlement as a depot for fur- traders, and who professed to be a Protestant, but who, it has been said, " could be a churchman, Puritan, Cavalier, or Roundhead with equal ease and equal sincer- ity," disputed the rights of Calvert's company, when it came, to its possession. He was, however, finally dis- possessed. Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, never visited the ter- ritory of which he had obtained the patent ; but Leonard Calvert, his brother, came as his representative early in 1634, with about twenty gentlemen and two or three hun- dred laborers, accompanied by two Jesuit priests. They founded the town of St. Mary's, on the site of an Indian town on the Chesapeake, which they purchased from the friendly inhabitants, who were about to emigrate from it. Here the Protestant members of the community erected a chapel, and held religious services according to the usage of the Church of England as well as they could without a clergyman. The Puritan exiles from Virginia were en- couraged to plant themselves on the banks of the Severn, and even those of Massachusetts were approached with friendly invitation. For Lord Baltimore, though remaining in England, prescribed from 1636 onward for his governors the following oath : " I will not by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in ACT OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, 1649. 59 respect of religion : I will make no difference of persons in conferring offices, favors, or rewards, for or in' respect of religion ; but merely as they shall be found faithful and well deserving, and endued with moral virtues and abilities : my aim shall be public unity, and if any person or officer shall molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, on account of his religion, I will protect the person molested, and punish the offender." Such an anticipation of freedom of conscience and civil- service reform reflects the highest credit on both the heart and intelligence of Calvert. He had not learned it from the English Church, which his father had left ; nor from the Roman Church, which he had joined ; nor from the Puritans of Massachusetts, who deemed it as " a doctrine of devils." It was the outcome of his own convictions and kindly nature, and placed him distinctly among the benefac- tors of mankind. In 1648 Leonard Calvert, after the death of his brother Cecilius, gave a commission as governor to William Storer, a Protestant, subject to the condition of the oath that " none who accepted the fundamental doctrines of Christianity should be molested on account of their religion." A special oath was, moreover, required that Roman Catholics should be protected against interference with their belief and worship. Then, in 1649, the notable Act of Religious Freedom was passed by the Assembly, by which liberty of conscience in matters of religion was guaranteed by the governing body to all Christians, with the exception of disbelievers in the doctrine of the Trinity. This act of the Maryland legislature declared " that the enforcement of the conscience had been of dangerous con- sequence in those countries wherein it had been practiced, and therefore that no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in respect of their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief or 6o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. exercise of any other religion against their consent ; so that they be not unfaithful to the proprietary, or conspire against the civil government ; that persons molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets should pay treble damages to the party aggrieved, and twenty shillings to the pro- prietary ; that those reproaching any with opprobrious names of religious distinction should forfeit ten shillings to the persons injured; that any one speaking reproachfully against the Blessed Virgin or the apostles should forfeit five pounds ; but blasphemy against God should be punished with death." By this action of the Maryland government, the direct outcome of the spirit of its founder, " relig- ious liberty," to use the language of Mr. Bancroft, " ob- tained its only home in the wide world." Let no one withhold the meed of grateful admiration because the real author was a member of the Roman branch of the Catholic Church. He was in advance of that church and all others. His praise should be in all the churches which enjoy the heritage of liberty and peace. The first enactment against religious liberty in Maryland came from men who had fled there from persecution, and was aimed at those who had afforded them an asylum. It occurred in 1654, during the period of the Commonwealth in England. Under the instigation of Clayborne, who had disputed the right of Maryland to the Isle of Kent, Storer, the Protestant governor appointed by Calvert, was deposed, and the regulation of affairs was handed over to a Puritan Council of Six, with Captain Fuller as their leader. These at once withdrew the legal protection of the Roman Cath- olics. The legislature convened by them passed " An Act Concerning Religion," which declared that " none who professed and exercised the popish (commonly called the Roman Catholic) religion could be protected in this prov- ince, etc., but to be restrained from the exercise thereof. FIRST MENTION OF ENGLISH CHURCH, 1676. 6 1 That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship, or dis- cipHne pubhcly held forth, should not be restrained from, but protected in the profession of the faith and exercise of > their religion, etc., provided such liberty was //ot extcndedX to popery or prelacy.'" This state of affairs, however, was reversed, and legal protection was again accorded to Roman Catholics at the Restoration, by Philip Calvert, whom Charles II. appointed governor after he had as- cended the throne. Henceforth all political affairs re- mained tranquil in the colony until the English Revolution of 1688, when the proprietary rule was finally abolished. During all this period there is little orno mention of the English Church. It first emerged into notice in 1676, in a letter written to the Archbishop of Canterbury by a Rev. Mr. Yeo, of Patuxet, in which he declared that " the province of Maryland is in a deplorable condition for want of an established ministry. Here are ten or twelve counties,, and in them at least twenty thousand souls, and but thred Protestant ministers of the Church of England. The priests are provided for, and the Quakers take care of those that are speakers; but no care is taken to build up churches in the Protestant religion. The Lord's day is profaned ; re- ligion is despised; and all notorious vices are committed." Mr. Yeo proceeds " to beg that your lordship would be pleased to solicit him [Lord Baltimore] for some estab- lished support of a Protestant ministry." No law for the support of the Protestant clergy was passed by reason of this letter, for Lord Baltimore, when appealed to, showed the Act of 1649, which allowed equal privilege to all Chris- tian bodies alike, and also informed the committee who waited upon him that the four ministers of the Church of England then in the province were in possession of planta- tions which afforded them a decent support. From this 62 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. time on there was a growth of hostihty to the Church of Rome. The number of clergymen of the English Church grew apace ; but they were of a quality which made them mal- contents in politics and pernicious to the church. Such a one was John Wood, who, beginning as a politician and ending as a parson, was a fomenter of strifes and a receiver of spoils. He was not only immoral, but also an unbe- liever; lectured on " The Absurdities of Christianity," and challenged Governor Nicholson to fight a duel because the governor had caned him for being drunk while conducting service on a Sunday. He was a violent instance of a com- plaint only too general in Maryland and other Southern colonies up to the time of the Revolution. The " no popery " cry was now rife in England by reason of the im- posture of Titus Gates ; and a lax and lawless clergy and their followers could easily excite apprehension in the gov- ernment at home. Thus it came to pass under Charles H. that Lord Baltimore was ordered " to put all the offices into the hands of the Protestants." James H., though of the same religion as Baltimore, looked upon the chartered liberties of the colonies with more aversion than Charles, and, being instigated by Father Petre, a Jesuit whose order Baltimore had offended, issued in 1687 the writ of quo zvarranto. Its execution was only prevented by the flight of the monarch from his kingdom. When the news of the revolution reached Maryland, it became ablaze with insurrection, which resulted in what is called the "Protestant Revolution." The loss of all records from 1688 to 1692 makes it impossibfe to trace the steps by which the result was accomplished ; but while in the former year the people dwelt quietly and happily under the government of the proprietary, in the latter year that ENGLISH CHURCH ESTABLISHED IN MARYLAND. 63 government was at an end and the colony was ruled by the officers of the crown. No serious opposition seems to have been made to this change. It is recorded that at this time " there were thirty Protestants to one papist in the province." ^ Resistance may have seemed hopeless, and the Roman Catholics themselves may have well feared the political policy, which, while it favored their religion, aimed a blow at their colonial rights. King William, mindful of Lord Baltimore's opposition to his accession, sanctioned the revolution which displaced him, and established for Maryland a royal government, with Sir Lionel Copley at its head. He arrived early in 1692, and the new order of things was ushered in by which the Church of England became in law the established church of Maryland. Thus, not by the colonists, but by the crown, Protestant ascendency came in. One of the first acts of the Assembly convened by Copley was " An Act for the Service of Almighty God and the Establishment of the Protestant Religion." The counties were laid out in parishes. A tax of forty pounds of tobacco per poll was laid for the benefit of the church, in the support of a ministry and the building and repairing of churches. The vestries were made bodies corporate to hold property, and were given power to fill all vacancies. For the thirty-one parishes into which the ten counties were divided there seem to have been but three ministers. Encouragement was there- fore held out to induce clergymen to emigrate, and it would appear that a motley company of damaged reputations responded to the call. The population now numbered twenty-five thousand. It was much scattered, and the parishes were large in extent, being sometimes from 1 Chalmers, " Annals," p. 376, note 24. 64 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. twenty to thirty miles in length ; so that attendance on public worship was difficult, and parochial visiting, even to a faithful pastor, infrequent and almost impossible. Legal recognition or quasi-Establishment could do little for the spiritual welfare of a people under such conditions as these. When Sir Francis Nicholson came in place of Copley as governor, which he did in 1694, the church received a new impulse from his energy and generosity. He could not, however, deepen its spiritual character. Active and arbitrary, a devoted supporter of the power of church and state, he ruled with diligence, but not always with wisdom. He could make himself popular with the people by his manner, and yet act tyrannically when his passions were excited. With his ardent temperament he threw himself into the cause of the church. He wrote in her behalf to arouse the interest of others, and gave liberally from his own resources. He is said to have contributed more to the erection of Episcopal churches than all the other colonial governors combined. Thirty houses of worship in various parts of the country owed their e}«stence in great part to him. He found three church clergymen, six Roman priests, and a number of itinerant nonconforming Prot- estant preachers in the colony on his arrival. Several clergymen, however, accompanied him. He at once set to work to make the Establishment a reality, applying the arrears of what had been collected under the law of the Establishment, and now in the hands of the sheriffs and vestrymen, to the erection of churches in the parishes, and soon settled eight clergymen in them.i He at once began the erection of a brick church in Annapolis, which town was now made the capital of the colony, instead of St. Mary's. Roman Catholics and Quakers were both aroused to opposition by his energy ; but he was more than a match 1 Hawks, " Ecclesiastical Contributions," vol. ii. DR. BRAY APPOINTED COMMISSARY. 65 for them. They together opposed the " forty per poll law." This law was sustained, but it gave a very sparse support to the clergy. The planters paid their tax with poor tobacco, not worth a fourth part as much as the qual- ity which they reserved for themselves ; so that, while the law contemplated a living worth a hundred pounds, twenty- five was often as much as the clergyman received. It was of this tax that the Rev. James McSparran wrote his sar- castic description in his " America Dissected " : "A com- petent pension in a cheap country, were not physic dearer than food, and the demands for it (especially about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes) more frequent than the eatables." ^ The clergy were also disquieted by the fear of the re- establishment of Roman Catholic ascendency, occasioned by the large immigration of Irish and the rumor that Lord Baltimore would be reinstated as governor. They therefore besought the Bishop of Lincoln to send out a commissary empowered to redress the wrongs of the church. This movement was supported by the governor and Assembly, who petitioned the king to annex the judicial to the eccle- siastical function of the commissary whom the Bishop of Lincoln should appoint. This was a movement of the greatest wisdom, and it resulted in the appointment of Dr. Thomas Bray, a man of noble and devoted character, who was drawn to the work by the denials and sacrifices which it involved, and who accepted the appointment with alacrity. Awake to the necessity of securing clergymen of character and intelligence for his missionaries, he spent four years before going out to his field of labor in' securing parochial libraries for his clergy; and during his life he established [ thirty-nine of them in the colonies, some containing over a \ thousand volumes. He was indefatigable, also, in search- l " History of the Narragansett Church/' Appendix, p. 493. 66 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. ing for faithful men to take with him, and was able to in- I crease the number of clergymen in Maryland to sixteen. 'To accomplish these ends he labored incessantly, and in them expended almost his whole earnings, refusing to ac- cept his salary until he should depart for his post.^ He was, in fact, a very apostle of zeal and devotion, and, like an apostle, met opposition and rebuff on every hand. It was during this period of delay, but not of inaction, that he proposed and started the movement which resulted in the inauguration of two of the most influential societies of the English Church, namely, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for Propagating the [Gospel in Foreign Parts. The debt of the church in America to the latter is so .immense that it may well hold in grateful remembrance the name of its chief founder, while it recalls the fact that the province in which he labored received less aid from the society he inaugurated than almost any of the American colonies. This result was due to the fact that the church, being by law established in Maryland, was supposed capable of taking care of itself. This Establishment and the troubles arising from it was the immediate occasion for the departure of Dr. Bray for America. The new law of 1696, which superseded all the previous enactments of 1692, 1694, and 1695, had aroused the vio- lent opposition of the Roman Catholics and the Quakers, and, chiefly by the management of the latter, had been annulled by Parliament in 1699. It was deemed expedient by the churchmen of Maryland that the commissary should now come out, and by his presence influence the Assem- bly to pass such an act as would secure the king's approval. Accordingly, on December 20, 1699, Dr. Bray sailed, him- self defraying the expenses of his voyage by disposing of his effects and by resort to his credit. He arrived March MARYLAND ACT OF ESTABLISHMENT. 67 12, 1700, and at once set about the work in hand. Gov- ernor Nicholson welcomed him warmly, and, being of one mind in regard to the wisdom of an Establishment, they succeeded in securing the passage, by the unanimous vote of the Assembly, of a law of Establishment as stringent as the English law before the Act of Toleration. It is true that four fifths of the population were now classed as of the English Church, and that the other fifth was largely divided in sentiment and conviction, a good proportion of it being unattached to any religious body, and indifTerent. But all the dissenters became one in opposition to a bill which re- quired " every minister or reader in every church or other place of public worship within this province " to use the Book of Common Prayer as established by the English Church. It was the firm opposition to this law which finally deprived the colony of the benefit of the com- missary's presence. Fearing its rejection by Parliament, the governor and churchmen of Maryland urged him to return to England to secure official approval of it. After, therefore, only a brief stay in America, Dr. Bray left for England, never to return to the colony, but also never to cease to labor for its welfare. In the meantime, before his departure was contemplated, and immediately after the Act of Establishment was passed by the Assembly, the commissary summoned all the clergy to a convocation, which was held in Annapolis May 23, 1700. Fourteen out of the seventeen clergymen came together, to whom he gave an earnest and solemn charge concerning both doctrine and discipline. In regard to the latter things had come to such a pass that " it was recommended that im- mediately upon the arrival of any ship in the waters of Maryland the nearest clergyman should make inquiry whether any minister was on board, and, if so, what his demeanor had been upon the voyage." This was with the 68 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. view of excluding any clergyman from settlement in any parish if he had been of evil report. At this same con- vocation Dr. Bray began the. first missionary efifort in any of the colonies by trying to raise funds for a missionary to the Quakers in the neighboring province of Pennsylvania, encouraged to the undertaking by the conversion to the church of sundry Quakers in Maryland. The attempt came to little, but it showed the spirit of the man. After this convocation the commissary made a vfsitation of his field of labor. He found some faithful ministers, but more indifferent and lethargic ones. He summoned some to trial, and endeavored to suppress scandalous living. The powers of the commissary in matters of discipline were, however, small. The governor, who appointed the in- cumbents, was jealous of interference with his preroga- tives ; and the easy-going people were more at ease with an easy-going parson than with one of the strict and devout type of the commissary. When Dr. Bray left for England after his brief sojourn in Maryland, he had simply given an impulse to a better life of the church, without having been able to rectify many of the abuses which he deplored. On his arrival at home he found the opponents of the colony's Act of Establish- ment very active and aggressive ; and the act as passed was disapproved by the attorney-general. Dr. Bray succeeded in having another bill drawn, which, while establishing the church, extended to Protestant dissenters and Quakers the English Act of Toleration. This was finally approved by Parliament and the colonial authorities, and received the royal assent in i 702. The act provided for the support of ministers of the Establishment by imposing the tax of forty pounds per poll of tobacco, which the sheriffs were directed to collect ; and the manner of appointing vestries was de- cided, together with other matters of ecclesiastical regula- INFLUENCE OF COMMISSARY BRAY. 69 tion. The most signal injustice was done by the act to the Roman Catholics, to whom the benefit of the Act of Toleration was not extended. And so, in the language of Dr. Hawks, " Maryland presented the picture of a province, founded for the sake of freedorri of religious opinion by the toil and treasure of Roman Catholics, in which, of all who called themselves Christians, none save Roman Catholics were denied toleration." 1 Such legislation is the sarcasm of history, and in the end it failed to prosper those in whose interests it was enacted. During the controversy over this matter, and to further the cause of the colony, the commissary printed a memo- rial which had the effect of arousing public interest. In it he stated that forty missionaries were wanted at once, and declared that the refuse of the clergy in England would not do for American missionaries. They must be young, strong enough to endure privation, learned, able to controvert the endless variety of religious opinions rife among the colonists, and have a true missionary spirit, and ardent zeal for God's glory and the salvation of men's souls. To obtain such men he proposed that each bishop should select some of his own clergy qualified and willing to go, and that each parish of the diocese be asked to contribute fifty pounds annually for the support of each missionary from that diocese. This trumpet-blast aroused the church. The plan failed ; but the result was the estab- lishment at last of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Such noble work can one devoted spirit accomplish ! But he not only aroused others. Until the day of his death, in 1734, he never ceased to work for the church in Maryland, to contribute to its support, and to seek missionaries for it. He never returned to it, but he did more than all others to forward the interests of religion 1 Hawks, " Ecclesiastical Contributions," vol. ii., p. 117. 70 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. within its communion. Having ample experience of the lamentable results arising from the lack of ecclesiastical authority in the colonial church, he published a memorial on the necessity of an ecclesiastical superior in Maryland, and proposed a plan for his support. He was not responsi- ble for the miscarriage of this scheme, which was frustrated by others. He sought to empower three of the most repu- table of the Maryland clergy to act as his representatives in holding visitations and forwarding his purposes, to which plans, however, the clergy would not submit. Upon receiving intelligence that a most profligate clergy- man whom he had driven into Virginia had, during his absence, returned and secured one of the best parishes, possessing one of the largest parochial libraries, he urged the Bishop of London to send another commissary at once ; and, as this unworthy minister had been presented and inducted by the governor. Dr. Bray sought to have the induction transferred to the commissary, who otherwise could have no control over the incumbent. With the criminal folly or indifference of the times, the plan was never adopted. The church was looked upon in England too exclusively as an appendage of the state to lead it to strengthen the ecclesiastical and lessen the political au- thority over it. Colonel Seymour, who succeeded to the position of governor, at this time declared he would have no commissary, and he kept his word. He not only sought to keep his own church in abject submission to himself, but had laws of excessive rigor passed in regard to Roman Catholics, whose priests were permitted to officiate only in private families, and were strictly forbidden to keep school or act in any way as instructors. Under these circumstances the immoralities of some of the clergy became so glaring that the legislature proceeded to establish an ecclesiastical court. Their spiritual court, A MINISTER'S WORK AND PAY. 7 1 which was to superintend the conduct of the clergy, was to consist of the governor and three laymen, and these were to have the power of suspension from the ministry. The measure was passed by the House of legislature, and only failed to become a law by the veto of the governor, who was a very Gallio in these matters. It roused the clergy to make a remonstrance to the Bishop of London ; but the movement came to nothing. The scandals in the church went on. The burden falling on the faithful clergy was made the heavier by the neglect of the unfaithful. One of these faithful ones wrote thus to his bishop : " For four years I have served the whole county of Somerset, consisting of four parishes, so that six congregations are suppHed by me. I must travel two hundred miles a month (on horseback), besides my charge in my own parish, which has a church and chapel, and is thirty miles long and six- teen to eighteen wide. I have received by my ministry and perquisites, since October last, but a poor ten shil- lings." Dissent flourished under this state of things, as was no wonder; and frequent disputes naturally occurred between incumbents and their vestries, so that the progress of ecclesiastical affairs was from bad to worse. Such was the result of the absence of all proper government and the presence of placemen eager for spoils, instead of priests eager for souls. The predominant idea of a state church at home threw its baleful shadow over the spiritual estate of the colonies. There was but a form of godli- ness, which denied the power thereof. " The Roman Catholics and dissenters looked with contempt upon an Establishment so profligate in some of its members that even the laity sought to purify it, and yet so weak in its discipline that neither clergy nor laity could purge it of offenders." ^ 1 Maryland MSS. ; from archives at Fulham. 72 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. When Governor Hart succeeded Seymour in 1714, a movement was made for the betterment of the anomalous condition of affairs ; and, though the request of both the clergy and the governor for a bishop was denied, two com- missioners were appointed, one for the eastern and one for the western shore of Maryland. The two commissioners, Rev. Christopher Wilkinson and Rev. Jacob Henderson, were both residents of Maryland, and both men of excel- lent character and acquirements. Wilkinson, who took the eastern shore, was less forcible than Henderson ; but he kept better out of trouble, for he lived peaceably, while Henderson had many quarrels, and, by reason of a more dictatorial disposition, was at times quite out of harmony with the governor and others in authority. Wilkinson convened the seven clergymen of his district at once, and discovered an attempt of the landed proprietors, who were jealous and distrustful of commissioners, to starve out the incumbents by dividing the parishes until the tobacco tax would be insufficient for a clergyman's support. The tem- per of the legislature rendered the execution of this plan quite possible ; so that the clergy petitioned the Bishop of London to intercede with Lord Guilford, the guardian of Lord Baltimore (who, though under age, was now pro- prietary, by reason of his father's conversion to Protest- antism), to instruct the governor for the time being to pass no law relative to ecclesiastical matters without first allowing the commissioners or some of the clergy a hearing on the subject. The petition is significant in its disclosure of the alienation of the gentry from the church on account of the temporalities included — an alienation which a little later took the form of positive opposition. Commissary Henderson, also, undertook a visitation on the western shore, but in a manner more energetic than discreet. Twelve clergymen and churchwardens from ALIENATION FROM THE CHURCH. 73 thirteen parishes assembled at Annapolis. The commis- sary, with a commendable zeal, but with a lack of knowl- edge which was not commendable, took a high hand in calling the gentry to account for their morals, and in de- manding the licenses and letters of orders from the clergy. His method alienated both the clergy and laity, and re- sulted in an estrangement between the commissioner and the governor which was lasting. The clergy, however, came to terms ; and the commissioner, regaining their con- fidence, labored diligently for the church, with some meas- ure of success. This exhibition of official importance, how- ever, strengthened a prejudice already existing against any exercise of ecclesiastical power in the province by the Bishop of London, either directl];^ or through a com- missary. All who were conscious that such power might well call them to account took this occasion to awaken in the minds of the people a fear of a danger to their freedom from the introduction of ecclesiastical courts. An attempt, however, was made by the governor, who was always friendly with Commissary Wilkinson, to have the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, as exercised by his commissaries, acknowledged by a formal act of the legislature. He contrived to put the whole body of the clergy between himself and the odium sure to follow from such an act, by making the clergy petition for it. It was rejected by the lower House; and the effect of the attempt to pass it was to further alienate the people and the gentry from the church, which from this time was re- garded as a menace to colonial freedom. Harmony was restored by Hart's removal in 1720, when Charles Calvert assumed the government under authority from the pro- prietary. Calvert's father had become a Protestant, and he had been bred as one ; and after his coming the church was more favored by legislation than heretofore. 74 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. The province now contained (i 720) thirty-eight parishes in its twelve counties, fifteen on the eastern shore and twenty-three on the western shore of the Chesapeake. A commissary on each shore visited the churches once in three years. Tlie clergy were assembled annually to con- sult on the discharge of their ministerial functions ; but the commissaries ceased to require the churchwardens to make presentment of offenders, because the failure of the attempt to get legislative recognition of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London had convinced the people that the episcopal authority in Maryland had no well-founded claim. Thus discipline languished ; for if the commissary tried an ofTender, there was no one to punish him if con- victed. In fact, the church suffered from the fact of its establishment. It had no discipline of its own, and the ecclesiastical powers in England would not exercise at that distance disciplinary authority. There were now about ten or eleven thousand church families in the province, and some three thousand com- municants, such as they were. Notwithstanding the size of the parishes, some being nine and some seventy miles long, the sacrament was administered once in two months in most churches, and sometimes oftener, and the children were catechised in every parish at some part of the year. A clergyman's stipend was about fifty pounds, which was paid in tobacco. A premature effort was at this time made to introduce a common-school system into the province, the masters in which were required to be members of the Church of Eng- land, of pious and exemplary life, " and capable of teaching well the grammar, good writing, and mathematics, if such can conveniently be got." One of the clergy was to be placed at the head of each board of visitors. The sparse- ness of the population, scattered over the immense parishes, THE CLERGY AND THE LEGISLATURE AT ODDS. 75 prevented the success of the scheme. To have considered it, however, was a cheering sign of hfe. And now came on a long controversy between the clergy and the legislature, which, on various pretexts, attempted to divide the parishes and diminish the revenues. The Assembly took the ground that all the revenues of the church were completely within its power, and might be diminished without any invasion of the church's rights. Governor Calvert wrote the Bishop of London that the profligacy of the clergy afforded now little just cause of complaint ; that the majority were orderly and exemplary, and all were attached to the home government. But the antagonism had become too deep-rooted to be suppressed. The opponents of the church found a most persistent and virulent leader in one Thomas Bordsley, who seems to have cherished his hatred of the clergy on political rather than on religious grounds. He introduced a bill to estab- lish a court for the trial of clergymen, and thus to bring them under lay rule. The governor refused his assent. Many better men than Bordsley now joined with him, aggrieved by the imposition on them of inducted clergy- men who were a disgrace to the church, and whom they could not get rid of. They saw no remedy but to legis- late against the clergy. There was this measure of legal palliation for the movement : that the church had not been established under the proprietary rule, which was now in force, but during the interregnum, under William and Mary, while Maryland was a royal province. Under the royal government the Bishop of London had some, though insufficient, powers ; but under the proprietary system all control was in effect destroyed, because the proprietor, under his charter, had authority to interfere with even the restricted powers of the bishop. The jurisdiction of a bishop or his commissary amounted to nothing while the 76 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. governor had the sole right of induction, and while induc- tion gave the incumbent a life-tenure on the temporalities of the parish, no matter what his conduct might be. Under these conditions the ecclesiastical authority could not pre- vent bad men getting in, could not proscribe them while in, and could not get them out when once in. Both parties appealed vehemently to the powers in Eng- land, and the clergy earnestly implored that a bishop might be sent to them. Their previous lethargy and dread of ecclesiastical oversight now told against them. The state of public opinion had become such that the people would not tolerate the presence of a bishop, lest he should strengthen the hated institution. In response to the ap- peal of the clergy the Bishop of London, whether with or without the royal assent is not known, invited the Rev. Mr. Colebatch, an excellent and devout clergyman of Mary- land, to come to England and receive consecration as bishop, and return to Maryland as his suffragan. The public, however, was roused to intense opposition ; a writ of lie exeat was issued, and Mr. Colebatch's departure was prohibited by the court. The attack on the income of the clergy was kept up in various forms, now by diminishing the quantity of tobacco, now by substituting grain or other produce for part of the amount, now by fixing a money value on the amount, which virtually reduced a clergyman's salary to thirty pounds. Commissary Henderson was secretly sent to England to see what he could do ; and finally Lord Balti- more, the proprietor, disapproved the act commuting and diminishing the payments to be made to the clergy, and sent his instructions to his governor in Maryland not to consent to any act the object of which was to diminish the revenues of the clergy, as they had been fixed by the law for the establishment of religion. When Commissary VALUE OF MARYLAND LLVLNGS. J J Henderson returned, after this measure of success, his op- ponents threatened to mob him. He, however, admin- istered such a sound thrashing to one who personahy at- tacked him that his person was thereafter safe. He had been appointed commissary of both the eastern and west- ern shores of Maryland during his visit to England, and he held visitations in each. But he found his powers of discipline negatived by the law of induction, and could not maintain the purity of the church as he desired. In the meantime the governor, in defiance of the instruc- tions of the lord proprietor, on hearing of his decision, con- vened an Assembly, and renewed the warfare on the church in another way. The whole province was agitated by the dispute. Distinguished lawyers took it up as well as prominent divines; and at last Lord Baltimore gave his assent to the law allowing the payment of the forty per poll tax in grain, and the legislature was triumphant over the church. When, in 1731, Samuel Ogle succeeded Leonard, the proprietor's brother, as governor, he showed himself friendly to the clergy, and strove to bring about a better under- standing between them and the laity. Lord Baltimore, too, coming over to see to the dispute with the Penn settlement about the boundary question, which involved the possession of Delaware, exerted a pacifying influence. But the old trouble of want of discipline remained; and Commissary Henderson at last ceased to claim or exercise any rights as commissary, and left matters to drift as well as they might. While, however, the spiritual condition of the church was deplorable, nowhere else in America were the livings so valuable. There were now thirty-six par- ishes in the province, and the incomes would average two hundred pounds per annum. Notwithstanding the law of 1730, reenacted in 1747, diminishing the amount of the 78 PROTESl^ANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. tobacco tax for clerical support, the improved condition of the country and the increase of inhabitants had more than compensated the loss ; and yet all the controversies of the clergy had turned on this point of their living. Nothing spiritual or intellectual, no problems of theology or ques- tions of efficient administration, had awakened their interest. The voice was the clamor for gain, the utterance of the worldliness of their hearts. " No wonder," writes Dr. Hawks, " that such a bastard Establishment as that of Maryland was odious to so many of the people ; we think their dislike is evidence of their virtue." And no wonder that the Methodists, who now came in, swept the country ; no wonder that the enthusiasm of the New Lights and other itinerant preachers found a hearty, if ignorant, re- sponse ; no wonder that Quakers and Presbyterians from Pennsylvania gathered large numbers into their respective folds. The Roman Catholic population was now increased by many French emigrants from Nova Scotia, and the first Roman church was erected in Baltimore about 1755. In 1 760 the German Lutherans built themseh-es a small church in that city, which was only a village in reality. In 1763, notwithstanding all unfavorable circumstances, the Episcopal Church had so increased in Baltimore that a chapel of ease was erected for the parish of St. Paul's, whose first church was begun in i 732 and finished in i 744. It was in the year 1763 that the legislature reduced the salaries of the clergy one fourth ; and the murmurings and bickerings which the act occasioned, while ineffectual, in- creased the irritation of the quarrel between the people and the Established Church. The state of affairs was such that but for the interruption of the American Revolution, according to Dr. Hawks, " the time would have come when the singular spectacle would have been presented of the EFFECT OF THE COMING REVOLUTION. 79 extinction of a church estabHshed by law, while no man could have found in the legislation of the country a statute expressly depriving it of its character as an establishment. Its downfall might have been traced in the side issues of an indirect legislation that from time to time assailed it." ^ When the clergy, in response to the appeal of the Epis- copalians of the North, joined in a concerted action for an American episcopate, the governor informed them " that the livings in Maryland were all donations, or subject to the visitation and regulation of the patron alone, and there- fore they stood in no need of episcopal supervision." This was the last meeting of the clergy for concerted action, Governor Eden, by command of the proprietor, issuing a mandate that they should convene no more. As the time of the Revolution approached, political sen- timent mingled with and intensified the hostility of the people to the Established Church. In 1770 the act of 1763, regulating the income of the clergy, expired. The legislature, by the disagreement of the two Houses, failed to reenact it. It had regulated the fees of all State officers ; and Governor Eden, in the absence of legislation, resolved to regulate them by proclamation. In 1771 the Lower House denounced the proclamation as illegal, and asserted the right of taxation to be in the Assembly alone. The excitement was universal and intense, and in the end the people triumphed. As regards the church, when the act of 1763 lapsed, through failure to reenact it, the old act of 1702, by which the church was established, became the only statute regulating the assessment for the clergy. It increased the salaries of the clergy one fourth, for it re- stored the " forty per poll " tax of tobacco, in place of the "thirty per poll," as enacted by the law of 1763. The clergy were prompt to assert their claim ; the people as 1 Hawks, " Ecclesiastical Contributions," vol. ii., p. 247. 8o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. hi. prompt to resist it. The ground taken by the latter was this : that as the Assembly which passed the act met under writs of election issued in the name of King William, and assembled only on the i6th of March, while the king, un- known to them, had died on March 8th, their authority ceased with the king's life ; and that the act for the estab- lishment of the Church of England in Maryland, though acted upon for seventy years, had never been law. The conflict, therefore, for the church assumed the char- acter of an issue of life and death. On the part of the people the conflict wore the aspect of a contention for national rights. The principle which had all along been developing in colonial legislation, " no representation, no taxation," was applied to this" burning question. It was settled onl}^ by the Revolution, now fast approaching; but the contest was violent, and drew forth distinguished com- batants on both sides. The most prominent advocate for the church's rights on the part of the clergy was Rev. Jonathan Boucher. He was a man of both scholarship and character, and was a vigorous and eloquent writer. Born in England, he had come to America before i 761, in which year he was nominated as rector of Hanover parish in Virginia before he was in orders. He went to England and was ordained in 1762, and in 1768 was appointed by Governor Eden rector of St. Anne's in Annapolis, upon which he removed from Virginia to Maryland. He now preached a series of sermons to enforce the Christian duty of a citizen, and exerted all his powers to secure a just and equitable recognition of the church. He was, however, a decided loyalist, and was ejected from the parish of St. Anne's in Prince George's County, which he held, in 1775. He went to England and never returned ; but he never lost his interest in America or the church implanted there. He afterward published the sermons preached in Maryland DR. JONATHAN LWUCHEK. 8 1 before the war, and dedicated them to General Washing- ton in a preface which contained a warm eulogium upon his character. This was acknowledged by Washington in terms which conveyed his high estimation of 'the author. Boucher was also a warm friend of Seabury and White, and corresponded regularly with the former. He is an illustration of some of the worthy men who stood by the church and adorned her ministry when the faults of both clergy and laity had made her very name unpalatable to the masses. The essays of Boucher during the controversy on the Vestry Act were very able ; and his calm tone of discussion, together with his fair consideration of both sides of the case, caused them to be regarded as just and forcible. But the spirit of- the people, stirred with the sentiments of the coming Revolution, was not greatly- in- fluenced by them. Lawsuits abounded, and the claims of the clergy were often rejected by the courts. In 1773 the question on the Vestry Act was compromised. An act was passed fixing the poll-tax for the clergy at thirty pounds of tobacco, but with the express provision that the act should have no influence in deciding the validity of the law of 1702. Before any legal decision had been given the Revolution removed the question beyond the jurisdiction of the courts. That Revolution occupied all minds to the exclusion of church affairs. It left the church desolate when it was over. When it began there were forty-four parishes in Maryland, twenty on the eastern and twenty - four on the western shore. In every one was an in- cumbent. The livings in some instances were very valu- able. Some few were worth a thousand pounds. Even after the " thirty per poll " tax had been substituted for the " forty per poll " there were but three livings under a hundred pounds' annual income, and the others usually ranged from this up to five hundred pounds. 82 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, hi. When the Revolution set in, about two thirds of the clergy were royalists and one third stood for the patriots. The line of cleavage did not run on the line of faithful and unfaithful ministers. When Governor Eden was requested to leave, which he did in i 776, the authorities of Maryland prescribed a form of prayer for the new instead of the old government, which a majority of the incumbents could not conscientiously use. These must pay a treble tax or leave the country. Most of them left, and a large number of churches were closed. Nor was this opposition to the Revolution confined to the clergy of the Establishment. The Quakers, being non-combatants, left the province. The Methodists, being a special sect of the Establishment, shared in the odium cast upon it. Mr. Asbury, the chief representative of Mr. Wesley, and a man of truly apostolic fervor and devo- tion, was apprehended and fined, and had to live two years in retirement in Delaware. Fines and imprisonments were not uncommon for preachers of all kinds who declined to take the oath of allegiance to the United States ; but tow- ard the end of the war, when they were found not to be politically active, their preaching was acquiesced in. The war left the church in Maryland prostrate, but not in so forlorn a condition as that of some other colonies. Eighteen or twenty clergymen remained, and the churches were not so generally demolished or dilapidated as in Virginia, which had been the scene of greater and more frequent conflict. The " Declaration of Rights," issued in November, 1776, had secured to the Church of England all the glebes, churches, chapels, and other property then owned by her; and subsequently, in 1779, the legislature passed an act to establish select vestries, and vested in them as trustees all the property that belonged to those parishes while they were a part of the Church of England. This THE CHURCH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 83 Declaration also affirmed that all persons professing the Christian religion were equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty. It had, however, prohibited all general assessments by vestries for the support of minis- ters, but reserved for the legislature the right to impose, at its discretion, " a common and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion in general," allowing each taxpayer to designate the denomination to whose support his con- tribution should be applied. In accordance with this pro- vision a number of vestries in 1 782 gave notice of their purpose to petition the legislature to make a general pro- vision for the support of Christianity. The movement, however, was premature, and was not consummated. In the anomalous condition of the Episcopal Church, dis- established virtually, and without any governing power, even of the State, an attempt was actually made during the war, by the legislature, to organize it by appointing or- dainers to the ministry. The movement was frustrated chiefly by Rev. Samuel Keene, who hastened to Annapolis, and by his exertions gave it its quietus. We here end the account of the colonial church in Mary- land, as its subsequent history forms part of the efi"ort for its resuscitation as an independent American ecclesiastical organization. CHAPTER IV. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND, OUTSIDE OF CONNECTICUT. Strictly speaking, there is no history of the Episcopal Church in New England before the beginning of the eigh- teenth century, and scarcely any before the middle of that century. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was essentially its founder, so far as its temporalities were concerned, and that society was in- corporated in 1 701. Previous to the exertions of this society, individual Episcopal clergymen were found in the Puritan colonies, and isolated, feeble, and unsuccessful attempts were made from time to time to establish church settlements. They all gave way before the overwhelm- ing tide of Puritan emigration. One characteristic of all the New England Puritan settlements, which distinguished them essentially from those of the colony in Virginia, was that their inhabitants dwelt together in towns. The climate and the soil tended to produce this result, but equally the absorbing interest of the people in religion and the nature of their ecclesiastical system. The town was an organiza- tion for united worship as well as for the conduct of secular affairs.^ This centralization of interests discouraged even individual dissent, and made it especially obnoxious. The earliest of these settlements made their landing at Plymouth December 21, 1620. Though they were Sepa- 1 Fisher, " Colonial Era," p. 99. 84 JOHN LYFORD AND THOMAS MORTON. 85 ratists, and not merely nonconforming members of the Church of England, as were the Puritans who followed, they had from time to time individual churchmen resident among them. The Rev. John Lyford, a minister of the Establishment, came over in 1624, sent by merchants of the New England Company. He does not seem to have been a very stable, or at times a very reputable, character, and, as Bradford expresses it, " will goe minister the sacra- ments by his Episcopal calling." 1 There was no disposi- tion to countenance a schism in the colony, and Lyford was banished. Nevertheless Plymouth Colony in general avoided harsh measures in dealing with theological mal- contents, and even served as an asylum for persons whose tenets and practices made them uncomfortable in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The rapid growth of this colony is shown in the fact that twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrims it con- tained eight towns and a population of twenty-five hun- dred; and thirty years after that, in 1671, there were fifty towns and eight thousand people ; and in this large com- munity there was no trace of Episcopal institutions or influence. In 1622 Thomas Morton came over with thirty follow- ers and established himself at Passonagesset, a hill in the present town of Quincy. He led the life of a burly Eng- lish squire, sportsmanlike and free ; erected May-poles and celebrated Christmas with feasting and jollity, and main- tained the character of a stout churchman more addicted to the feasts than the fasts of the church. His mode of life was a social scandal, and was exceedingly obnoxious to the general sentiment of the early settlers. Plymouth suffered it, but not the colony of Massachusetts Bay, after they became established. Endicott of Salem caused 1 Bradford, " Plymouth Plantation." 86 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. his May-pole to be cut down, and rebuked the revelers for their profaneness. There was no spirit of religious devotion in this little company, and that in itself was a sufficient stigma. Morton, indeed, read prayers before his household, and conducted services on Sunday as a lay reader; but as these acts of religious decorum were ac- companied by a life of laxity and worldliness, in the eyes of these colonists they only added to his offenses ; so that to use the Prayer-book and to be of a gay humor were the principal articles of his condemnation. He was arrested by Captain Miles Standish, and sent to winter on the Isle of Shoals. His own account of his neighbors is : "I found two sorts of people, the one Christians, the other infidels. These I found most full of humanity and more friendly than the others." He made his way to England, and wrote a little book styled " New English Canaan," which on his return did not smooth matters for him. He was doubtless severely treated by those to whom his manners were wholly repugnant. He was imprisoned for a year, fined a hundred pounds, and then set at liberty. His property having been destroyed, he wandered from the community, sought refuge in the royal province of Maine, and died two years after at Agamenticus. He left no good impression for the church. In 1623 Rev. William Morell came over with Robert Gorges, son of Sir Fernando, but saw no opportunity to exercise his ministry. He returned to England within a year, and left no mark behind him. Rev. William Blax- ton, graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1625 occupied the present site of Boston. He was then not thirty years old, and had probably come as an assistant to Morell, who was the ecclesiastical head of Robert Gorges's expedition in 1623. Besides Blaxton, Thomas Walford was settled at Charlestown and Samuel Maverick at East REV. WILLIAM BLAXTON. ^7 Boston. Thus in 1629 the region of modern Boston had individual members of the Church of England present in its several parts. Maverick, indeed, was a strong church- man ; but Blaxton does not seem to have been so strong, judging from his own expression when, on declining to become a member of the Puritan church, he said, " I have come from England because I did not like the lord bishops ; but I cannot join with you because I would not be under the lord brethren." He welcomed Winthrop when he came over from Charlestown and settled on the present site of Boston, and he seems to have lived in very tolera- ble harmony with the authorities and people of the colony. As these grew more and more numerous the spirit of the recluse bade him to move away from them. His land and orchards were sold to the authorities for a hundred and fifty dollars ; and he moved into Rhode Island, living, as was said of him, " near to Master Williams, but far from his opinions." His removal seems to have quickened his ecclesiastical zeal, for he is reported to have officiated not unfrequently in Providence. In March, 1628, the council of New England made a grant of land to John Endicott and others. After cross- ing the ocean with a small company of about fifty or sixty persons, he took the place of Conant as head of the settle- ment at Naumkeag, which then received the name of Salem, as a memorial for the pacifying of the diff'erences between Conant's people and the newcomers. Nothing was said in this grant on the subject of religious liberty, and the authorities were allowed to send home persons disaff"ected with their government. In the spring of 1629 Endicott's settlement was reinforced by over four hundred fresh emigrants, a part of whom settled at Charlestown. Here the first Congregational church was formed, after the Sep- aratists' model. Among the newcomers, two brothers, 88 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. John and Samuel Brown, members of the council, did not approve this ecclesiastical action, and proposed to hold meetings by themselves, using the Book of Common Prayer. It was, however, not intended to establish a colony where divers forms of faith and modes of worship should subsist side by side. The founders had no idea of admitting the principle of toleration ; and these two brothers were sent back to England, on the return of the vessels, the same year. "It may be," says Gardiner, "that the rulers of the little community were wise in their resolution. Their own religious liberty would have been in danger if a population had grown up around them ready to offer a helping hand to any repressive measures of the home gov- ernment. . . . The intellectual perception of the value of toleration had not yet dawned upon the world. The prob- lem, as it presented itself to the men of that generation, was not whether they were to tolerate others, but whether they were to give to others the opportunity of being in- tolerant to themselves. Each party looked upon the other as something to be repressed and extirpated. The Puritan demanded exact conformity with his doctrine ; Laud de- manded exact conformity with his practice. Each party regarded itself as standing on the defensive." ^ It is clear that Episcopal churchmen could stand but a poor chance for the exercise of their religious convictions in communities constituted as were the early colonies in New England. Thus, when Thomas Lechford, a lawyer who supported the cause of Mr. Prynne against the bishops, came to reside in Boston between the years 1638 and 1641, he was distrusted by men of influence and authority be- cause of his views in ecclesiastical matters. He maintained the divine right of Episcopacy in a manuscript treatise which Dudley, the deputy governor, declared erroneous 1 Gardiner, " History of England," vol. vii., pp. 156, 158. FIRST CHURCH AT PORTSMOUTH, N. H. 89 and dangerous, and suggested to Winthrop that "instead of putinge it to the presse, as hee desireth, it may rather be putt into the fire, as I desire." Lechford himself owned that he meddled too much with controversies concerning matters of church government and the Hke, and he found it expedient to return to England. It was in 1622 that Gorges, in connection with John Mason, obtained a grant of territory between the Merri- mac and Kennebec rivers, extending to the river of Canada which they called Laconia. Settlements were made at Portsmouth and Dover ; and Conant, Lyford, and Oldham, who had become discontented at Plymouth, joined them, and constituted here a church settlement. There was a clergyman of the church connected with these early settlements in New Hampshire, and a chapel and parson- age existed in Portsmouth in 1640. Mason, a devout and earnest churchman, had sent over communion-plate and service-books, but the parsonage house and chapel had been erected as a free gift by the inhabitants. Mr. Rich- ard Gibson was the first parson in the parsonage. The settlements passed under the authority of Massachusetts in 1 64 1. Mr. Gibson wrote an open letter, opposing the title of Massachusetts to these parts. He was brought to book for this conduct, and, acknowledging his fault, was discharged without fine or punishment, on condition of his departing from the country in a few days. He was a good scholar and highly esteemed as a gospel minister, and had probably come as early as 1636, at which time Sir Fernando Gorges, by authority of a royal grant, organized the first government within the limits of the present State of Maine. This grant provided for the establishment of the Church of England, and gave to the patentee the nomination of the ministers of all churches and chapels which might be built in the province. Gibson was succeeded by the go PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. Rev. Robert Jordan, so far as the work in Maine was con- cerned. The church interest in New Hampshire had now faded out; but Jordan labored earnestly and with success at Scarboro, at Casco (now Portland), and at Saco. Maine was considered distinctively Episcopalian, and was in- tended as a rival to her Puritan neighbors. In 1652 Massachusetts claimed Maine as within the scope of the great charter of the Bay Company. The claim was sus- tained, the religious liberty of the Episcopalians being left unharmed. The preponderant influence, however, was against them. Jordan married the only daughter of John Winter, and through her inheritance became one of the wealthiest men of the colony. He used his influence and station to resist the encroachments of Massachusetts. He lived in Falmouth thirty-one years, preaching and admin- istering the sacraments according to the usage of the Church of England, except when silenced by the Puritan authori- ties of Massachusetts. He was at times imprisoned for baptizing children and using the marriage service. Exas- perated at such treatment, and impatient of the Puritan rule, he became bitter in his speech against the magistrates and ministers of Massachusetts Bay. This temper, together with his wealth, moderated his zeal in his profession, and he is said to have become greatly absorbed in secular afi'airs. After his house had been destroyed by the Indians he took refuge in Great Island (now New Castle), near Ports- mouth, N. H. Here he died, in his sixty-eighth year, in 1679. After his death there is no record of any Episcopal clergyman in Maine until 1756, and with him ended for years the church's possession of the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire. At the time of Jordan's death he was the only Episcopal minister in all New England. The whole subject of the treatment of other religious GENESIS OF THE PURITANS. 9 1 bodies by the Puritans, especially of the members of the English Church, finds its explanation in the circumstances out of which their special movement arose. Before the Reformation the religious sympathies of men had been divorced, by reason of the corruption of those in author- ity, from that external organization which had been framed especially to foster them.^ Outward institutions, which were intended to be signs and means of Christ's presence to the soul, were put in the place of Him ; and the organ- ization intended to quicken and direct men's souls was changed into a set of lifeless observances. When, through the influence of Wycliffe, men learned that they had souls for which they must themselves care, they began to feel the need of personal religion. At the outbreak of the Ref- ormation this ferment for individual reformation spread through the nation. The need of support and sympathy, for which the church, as the communion of saints, provides, was forgotten in the first fever-heat which waited upon the discovery of individual responsibility and personal salvation. The party in the Reformed English Church who especially emphasized individual religion became known as Puritans. " The Puritan founders of Massachu- setts had at home belonged to the Established Church. Their ministers were Episcopalians until the policy of Laud was brought to bear against them. They believed firmly in a union of church and state, and in the suppression of all schisms, provided theirs were the church, and that the suppression of schism were trusted to their hands." - They strove for their especial tenets with the earnestness of men who felt that they had a great reality at stake. The old feeling of hostility to Rome was awakened toward the 1 See Wilberforce, " History of the American Churchy" chap, iii., pp. 45-50, from which the above is largely quoted. 2 Douglas Campbell, " The Puritan in Holland, England, and America," vol. ii., p. 413. 92 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. Established Church. There was no idea or true compre- hension of toleration in the mind of any party in the church. The Puritans were forced by Queen Elizabeth to be present at their parish church. The Parliament under Cromwell sentenced to one year's imprisonment any one who for the third time made use publicly or privately of the Book of Common Prayer. In the reigns of EHzabeth and James I. the Puritans strove for mastery in vain. The law enforced conformity. Finding it impossible to follow out their convictions in their native land, they were content to forsake it rather than to violate what they deemed the dictates of conscience. Those who afterward became the Plymouth Colony first migrated to Holland ; but for many reasons they determined to plant and maintain the purity of the faith in a settlement of their own on the newly discovered continent of America. When, afterward, the Puritan element who were not Separatists, but nonconforming members of the Church of England, came with Winthrop to found the" colony of Massachusetts Bay, they said : " We esteem it an honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother, and can- not part from our native land, where she specially resides, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes. For, acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation we have received in her bosom and sucked it from her breasts, we leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nour- ished there ; but, blessing God for parentage and education as members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while we have breath sincerely desire and endeavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus." They desired simply what they esteemed PURITAN REJECTION OF EPISCOPACY. 93 a purer form of worship within the church, the aboHtion of what they regarded as superstitious usages, and the awakening of the clergy to a more earnest rehgious life and teaching. Their speedy lapse into a different form of church government and different methods of worship from the Established Church has led to the implication of in- sincerity in the foregoing expressions of attachment and loyalty to her. But it must in justice be remembered that to them the chief notes of the church were not the form of ecclesiastical organization nor the structure of the liturgy. They were the body of doctrine and the main- tenance of the truth and life of the gospel. They empha- sized the theological and religious elements, which in their eyes comprised the essence of its life, and claimed that the form of church government was a matter of indifference and could be lawfully regulated by the state. Therefore, accord- ing to their ideas, they were not departing from the essence of the church by departing from its outer forms of govern- ment and worship while they clung to the substance of its doctrine and the religious aim of its organization. When once they had begun their own ecclesiastical life and wor- ship under simpler forms than those which were associated with the oppression which they had suffered, and to escape which they emigrated from the mother-country, they were firm in their determination to resist any encroachment on their rights, and to discourage the presence of those who might revive the old proscription. This is the explanation of their treatment of individuals which we have sketched ; and this is also the reason why the life of the Episcopal Church did not really begin in New England until after the charter of the colony had been abrogated and Massachu- setts became a royal province. It was in May, 1686, that the frigate " Rose," bringing the king's commission appointing Joseph Dudley as pres- 94 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. ident of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and the king's provinces, brought also the Rev. Robert Rat- cHffe, M.A., who had been appointed to inaugurate the services of the Episcopal Church in Boston. Immediately- after his arri\'al he preached in the town house, and read Common Prayer in his surplice, attracting by the novelty a large audience. A month after his arrival, on the 15th of June, " the members of the Church of England, as by law established," assembled for organization. Provision was made for the minister's salary, which was fixed at fifty pounds per annum, and for the constant conduct of divine worship. The setting up of this church was considered a great affront by followers of the Standing Order. These resisted all attempts to appropriate one of the three Boston churches for the use of the Church of England, which found itself possessed of no exclusive rights and privileges here. A considerable number were, however, attached to it, and as many as four hundred were said to be daily frequenters of the church. The advent of Sir Edmund Andros, December 20, 1686, as the first royal governor of the province, gave a some- what different aspect to affairs. An application for the use of one of the meeting-houses for the church, at a time when it would not interfere with the rights of the original pro- prietors, was resisted by the ministers of the town, chief among whom were the Rev. Thomas Allen of the First Church, the Revs. Increase and Cotton Mather, father and son, of the Second Church, and the Rev. Samuel Willard of the South Meeting-house, all men of great distinction. However, on Good Friday, 1687, the governor had service performed in the South Meeting-house, and again on Easter Sunday, when the service, by reason of the sacra- ment and the long sermon, was protracted beyond the hour for the service of the proprietors of the house. Such BUILDING OF KING'S CHAPEL. 95 difficulties continued from time to time until the first King's Chapel was erected on the site which the present edifice now occupies. This church was begun in the latter part of 1688, and was erected by the gifts of a hun- dred subscribers. Before it could be occupied the news of the landing of William of Orange at Torbay arrived, about Easter, 1689. This was the occasion of a revolt against Andros. The royal authority was overthrown, and the church suffered with the crown. Ratcliffe, the rector, es- caped imprisonment, though he was sent to England. He returned, however, and opened King's Chapel, for the first time, June 30, 1689, his successor, the Rev. Samuel Miles, being present with him. In the midst of the excitement attending Andros's ad- ministration, Increase Mather published a pamphlet entitled " The Unlawfulness of Common Prayer Worship," in which he asserted that it was apostasy, in this age of light, to countenance or comply with the Common Prayer Book ; and the Puritan preachers generally denounced the great sin of formalism in Christian worship. The church, how- ever, was finished and furnished thoroughly. In 1696 the rector returned from England, bringing much communion- plate and other handsome furnishings for the church as a present from the king and queen. It was in 1698-99 that the Rev. Christopher Bridge became an assistant minister of the chapel. And thus the close of the seventeenth century found the church firmly established in New England's capital. The beginning of the eighteenth century marks a new era in the history of the Episcopal Church throughout all the provinces; for it was now that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (which held its first meeting at Lambeth Palace on the 27th of June, 1 701) began its exertions, so numerous, so generous, and so long continued, for the support and propagation of the 96 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. English Church in America. One of its first acts was to appoint a travehng missionary, commissioning him to ex- plore the whole field of the American colonies in its length and breadth, in order to discover the best points for in- augurating church work. This act was in response to the " Memorial on the State of the Church," by the Rev. Dr. Bray, commissary of Maryland. In fact, the society had itself grown out of the eflforts made by Commissary Bray to supply the spiritual needs of the American plantations. Through its labors the services and sacraments of the church were again administered in New England, after years of banishment and consequent disuse. It appears that outside of Virginia and Maryland, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were not half a dozen clergy- men of the church in the colonies of North America, and that the whole number of her ministers, from Maine to Carolina, was less than fifty. The need, therefore, of rein- forcement both of men and means was most urgent. This the society now undertook to supply. The missionary ap- pointed for this religious survey of the colonies was the Rev. George Keith, a Scotchman who had been converted from the Presbyterians to the doctrines of the Quakers, and who first came to America in 1682. He shortly after moved to Philadelphia to take charge of the Friends' public school. After being a rather conspicuous controversialist on be- half of the Quakers, he became converted to the Church of England, and he entered its ministry in i 700. He was commended by Dr. Bray to the society, who appointed him its first traveling missionary, associating with him the Rev. Patrick Gordon as a fellow- itinerant. They arrived in Boston June, 1702. The chaplain of the vessel, the " Centurion," the Rev. John Talbot, became so interested in the mission of Keith as to devote himself also to the mission work. MISSION OF KEITH AND TALBOT. 97 The clergy of King's Chapel, the Rev. Messrs. Miles and Bridge, welcomed these three brethren heartily ; and Keith, true to his old character, at once preached a sermon on the claims of the English Church, which involved him in a speedy controversy with Dr. Increase Mather. Gor- don died soon after his arrival in Boston ; and Keith and Talbot together began in July their missionary exploration, which occupied two years. They visited the coasts of New England, and the Puritan ministers gave countenance to their assaults upon Quakerism. In Rhode Island, where so many Quakers resided, they proclaimed with great vigor the faith of the Church of England. They were counte- nanced in Connecticut by Saltonstall and other distin- guished Puritan ministers, who were equally opposed to Quakers with themselves. They traversed Long Island, visited New York, labored in New Jersey, especially at Burlington, at which place, as everywhere in New Jersey, they received marked attention from the leading officers of the crown. They visited Philadelphia, where they were heartily welcomed by late converts from Quakerism ; and the clergy of New York assembled to meet them, and drew up an account of the state of the church in Pennsylvania, East and West Jersey, and New York. Keith was also especially busy in Philadelphia and the towns of Pennsyl- vania, and also in Delaware ; and he and Talbot were entertained by Colonel Nicholson, governor of Virginia, at Williamsburg. Tiiey penetrated into North Carolina, and afterward proceeded to Maryland, whence, after spend- ing several weeks, they returned to Philadelphia. Many converts were made during these journeys. Talbot was appointed to the charge of the church in Burlington; and Keith, after revisiting Maryland and Virginia, returned to England. He publislied a " Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck." Talbot, writing from Philadel- 98 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. phia September i, 1703, says : " We have gathered several hundreds together for the Church of England. Churches are going up amain where there were never any before. In all places where we arrive we find a great ripeness and inclination among all sorts of people to embrace the gos- pel." Their mission, by the spirit which it inspired, as well as by the converts which they made and the churches which they established, was the beginning of a new era in the history of the Episcopal Church in America. Still for long years it existed only in the form of isolated con- gregations; and deprived of the episcopate, the center of its organization and authority, it could only lead a maimed and disjointed life. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel did all that it could to maintain the separate congregations, both by sending out missionaries and by supporting the native ministry, which from time to time received orders from the hands of the Bishop of London. Far different was the quality of those whom they sent and supported from that of those who had come out more or less as clerical adventurers to the colonies of Maryland and Virginia, where the church was recognized by the govern- ment, and in a measure established. But no efforts of any society could supply the lack of a bishop's authority and oversight; and the history of the church until the time that an episcopate was received, after the Revolutionary War, is the history of an organization maimed and incom- plete. There was great activity, however, among its individual members, and there was much controversy between its advocates and those of the Standing Order, whom they antagonized. One of the most remarkable of these con- troversies occurred in Boston, shortly after the English Church had obtained its permanent footing there. John Checkley, who was born in Boston in 1680, was educated CONTROVERSIES OF JOHN CHECKLEY. 99 in part abroad, and on returning to his native land became the most noted controversialist on the side of the church in his day. To his learning he added the endowments of wit and humor to a great degree. He began his contro- versial writings by a tract concerning election and predes- tination. But what called him into special prominence was the publication of an edition of Leslie's " Short Method with Deists," to which was added " A Discourse Concerning Episcopacy," also by Leslie, with certain com- ments by Checkley, applying the arguments especially to the case of the New England Lidependents. The reflec- tions upon the orders of New England ministers and the validity of their sacraments were very distinct and very severe, and constituted the most pungent attack which had been made on the ecclesiastical authority of the Puri- tan colony. This publication produced a most profound sensation. It was universally discussed, and was pro- ceeded against as a scandalous libel, " not only reflecting on the ministers of the gospel established in this province, and denouncing their sacred function and the holy ordina- tions of religion as administered by them, but also sundry vile insinuations against his Majesty's rightful and lawful authority and the constitution of the government of Great Britain." The judges, however, declared from the bench that Checkley was not to be tried for writing anything in defense of England and the Episcopacy ; and the attorney-general was ordered to confine his attention to the clauses of the book supposed to reflect on the govern- ment. Checkley was condemned ; but on appeal he spoke in his own defense, in which he maintained, first, that no provincial assembly could by right or in fact establish either the Presbyterian or Congregational systems so as to constitute the Episcopal churches dissenters; second, that, lOO PROTESTANr EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. by the just and true construction of the laws of that very province, the Church of England was established there; and third, that, by the laws of England, the Church of England was established in New England, and no other was positively established in aH his Majesty's plantations. The previous excitement was immensely intensified by a speech unlike any ever previously made to a New England audi- ence. The jury ordered the conditional verdict that, " if this book be a false and scandalous libel, then we find the said Checkley guilty of all and every part of the indict- ment (excepting the political part of it) ; but if the said book containing the ' Discourse Concerning Episcopacy ' be not a false and scandalous libel, then we find him not guilty." The justices did not share the doubts of the jury, and condemned Checkley as guilty of publishing and sell- ing a false and scandalous libel, and sentenced him to pay the sum of a hundred pounds. Checkley was by no means silenced by this finding. He at once published two pamphlets, one called " A Modest Proof of the Order and Government Settled by Christ and His Apostles in the Church " ; the other, an octavo of sixteen pages, entitled " A Discourse Showing who is a True Pastor of the Church of Christ." ^ Even the assistant rector of King's Chapel, Rev. Henry Harris, was angry at Checkley's mode of disputation, and sought to prejudice the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) against him, and doubtless deferred his taking orders. These pub- 1 As an illustration of Checkley's trenchant humor, we may instance the following: " A Specimen of a True Dissenting Catechism," appended to the " Discourse," and also to a second edition of the " Speech." "Question. What don't the dissenters in their public worship make use of the creeds? "A7iszver. Why? Because they are not set down word for word in the Bible. "Question. Well, but why don't the dissenters in their public worship make use of the Lord's Prayer ? "Anszae/: Oh, because that is set down word for word in the Bible." BUILDING OF CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. lOI lications gave rise to many answering pamphlets by the Congregational clergy. Foxcroft, minister of the First Church; Wigglesworth, a Cambridge divinity professor ; Dickinson, afterward first president of the College of New Jersey ; Prince, a fellow of Harvard ; and Walter, a personal friend of Checkley, all published defenses of their ecclesi- astical position. Checkley replied with vigor, and became the most conspicuous churchman in New England of his kind. He applied a second time, in 1728, for orders in Eng- land, but was again repulsed; at last, in 1739, on a third visit abroad, he was ordained by the Bishop of Exeter, at the age of fifty-nine. He was appointed to St. John's Mission, Providence, where he labored for fourteen years for the negroes and Indians, as well as for his immeciiate charge. Here he died at the age of seventy-four, and is buried beneath the present edifice, which has replaced his humble chapel, though his grave is unmarked. In the midst of this controversy the Episcopal Church continued to increase in Boston. On the 15th of April, 1723, the corner-stone of Christ Church was laid, and on the 29th of December, the same year, it was opened for worship. It still stands, the oldest house of worship, and next to the oldest public building, in the city. It is a fine old edifice, near to the historic cemetery of Copps Hill, at the North End, now a mere missionary district, but for many years the court end of the town. The brick walls of the church are two feet and a half thick; its spire is a hundred and seventy-five feet high ; and from its steeple the lanterns were displayed which guided Paul Revere in his ride, on the night of the i8th of April, 1775, from Boston to Concord. Its first rector was Dr. Timothy Cutler, who had been converted to Episcopacy while rector of Yale College, and who, resigning his position there, went to England, and was ordained in London, March, I02 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. 1723. He was appointed missionary by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and began his rectorship on the 24th of September, 1723, continuing in this office for forty-two years. Eighty famiHes and forty communicants formed his congregation at the begin- ning, which increased afterward to eight hundred persons. Christ Church was ahvays aided during colonial times by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who pre- sented it also with a theological library. Numerous gifts of plate were sent over to this church from England; and on two of the flagons, the larger chalice and paten, and the offertory basin, may be seen the royal arms, with the words, " The Gift of His Majesty King George the Second, to Christ Church at Boston in New England, at the Re- quest of His Excellency Governor Belcher, 1733." King George also gave to this church a folio Bible, one of the celebrated Vinegar Bibles. Dr. Cutler also founded the church at Dedham, took care of Christ Church, Braintree, and preached frequently in places where there was no Episcopal church. He was an indefatigable worker and a steadfast advocate of the church of his adoption. He persistently urged the ap- pointment of a bishop for the American colonies, and resisted all attempts to limit or encroach upon the rights of the Church of England. He died in i 765 ; and in 1 768 Dr. Mather Byles, Jr., who had earlier been a Congrega- tional minister in Connecticut, became the rector. The church sent him to England for ordination, and he returned and entered on his duties the 28th of September. He found a hundred families and fifty communicants. Being, however, a strong loyalist, he resigned his charge at the beginning of hostilities with the mother-country, and his resignation was accepted April 18, 1775, on the evening of which day the signal-lanterns of Paul Revere, from TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON. I03 the church steeple, announced the beginning of the Rev- olution. In the meantime, in 1735, Trinity Church, much larger than Christ Church, had been built in Boston. This church did not receive aid from the Venerable Society (S. P. G.). The proprietors of the pews were patrons and owners of the living, and elected their clergymen and presented them to the Bishop of London for their ordination. The church has been associated with many of the most distinguished names in Boston. The Rev. Roger Price, rector of King's Chapel and commissary of the Bishop of London, laid the corner-stone, and held the first services in the completed structure August 15, 1735, Governor Belcher being pres- ent. Mr. Price here established the fund for the Price Lectures, which have been held annually ever since. Rev. Addington Davenport was the first rector, and was in- ducted into the rectorship in i 740. Peter Faneuil gave a hundred pounds to the church toward the purchase of an organ; and Governor Shirley presented the communion- plate, prayer-books, and other articles. In i 763 the heirs of Mr. Thomas Greene established the Greene Foundation, giving five hundred pounds sterling for the purpose of securing the services of an assistant minister; and other individuals in the parish contributed a like sum. On this foundation many of the distinguished clergymen associated with the parish have been settled as assistants. Among them we may mention Dr. Parker, who afterward became bishop of the diocese ; Dr. Gardiner, who afterward became rector, a man of great and general literary attainments ; Rev. George Washington Doane, afterward Bishop of New Jersey ; Rev. John Henry Hopkins, first Bishop of Ver- mont ; Dr. Jonathan M. Wainwright, who became Provis- ional Bishop of New York ; Rev. Manton Eastburn, who, on being elected Bishop of Massachusetts, became the I04 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. rector of Trinity parish; Rev. Henry C. Potter, the pres- ent Bishop of New York ; and Rev. Philhps Brooks, who, after a rectorship of twenty years, was elected bishop of the diocese. During the War of the Revolution services were held in Trinity Church, it being voted by the vestry that " Mr. Parker, the present minister, be desired to con- tinue officiating in the said church, and that he be re- quested to omit that part of the liturgy of the church that relates to the king." After the war and the secession of King's Chapel, Trinity became the principal church in the city. Thus at the beginning of the Revolution there were three Episcopal churches in Boston. Christ Church, Cambridge, was established in 1759, though the church was not opened until October, 1761. Its position was of importance for the church, being in the immediate neighborhood of Hai-vard College. It was a stately building for the time, though not large, and was erected by Peter Harrison, the architect of the Redwood Library, Newport, of King's Chapel, Boston, and of Christ Church. Mr. Apthorp was the rector, a man of distin- guished abiHties, extensive learning, and fine character. He defended in print the proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in founding these mission- ary churches, which met with a sharp reply from the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, D.D., pastor of the West Church, Boston. To this the Archbishop of Canterbury published a reply in 1764, which Dr. Mayhew answered, and to this Mr. Apthorp replied after he had withdrawn to Eng- land in 1765. This controversy is specially mentioned be- cause it probably furnished the reason for Mr. Apthorp's remaining in England. He was suspected and accused of being desirous of being made bishop ; and the handsome house which he had erected in Cambridge was said, in the derisive sarcasm of the day, to have been designed for the CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE. 105 "palace of one of the humble successors of the apostles." Though Mr. Apthorp remained in Europe, the church was supplied with services by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) until the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, when it was occupied, as were also the college buildings and many of the principal residences of Cambridge, as barracks for the troops. On Mrs. Washington's arrival in Cam- bridge, however, in December, 1775, a service, at her request, was held in the church on the last day of the year. From that time on, for fifteen years, the building remained neglected, deserted, and dilapidated. It was not opened again for worship until 1790. It was repaired and placed in its present condition in the year 1825. In the long course of its history it has had as rectors, assist- ants, or lay readers many who have become prominent in the history of the church. Among those who have been connected with it who have become bishops we may note specially Dehon of South Carolina, Wainwright of New York, Vail of Kansas, Howe of central Pennsylvania, Williams of Connecticut, and Southgate, missionary bishop to Turkey. Everywhere save in Boston the church lan- guished during the war, and at the close of the Revolution there were but four Episcopal ministers in Massachusetts and only six in all New England. RJwde Island. The Episcopal Church was established first in Rhode Island at Newport, in 1698. It was through the instru- mentality of Sir Francis Nicholson, who had been lieuten- ant-governor of New York under Sir Edmund Andros, afterward governor of Virginia, and who was at that time governor of Maryland. In 1 702 Trinity Church was begun there, and the church edifice erected. The Earl of T06 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. Belmont, governor of Massachusetts, applied for a mis- sionary to the lords of the Council of Trades and Planta- tions; and the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) sent out the Rev. James Honeyman, with an appropriation of seventy pounds a year. It was in i 704 that he began his minis- trations, and under his ministry the church grew, so that in 1726 a more spacious building was erected in the place of the original church. Except for its enlargement in length, made in 1772, the church remains unaltered to the present day ; so that, in its appearance and appointments, we now see in Trinity Church, Newport, a genuine speci- men of an English church of a hundred and seventy years ago. Mr. Honeyman proved a most devoted and inde- fatigable rector. He was kind-hearted and conciliatory, and " lived on good terms with the other religious per- suasions, all of which he embraced with the arms of charity." As early as the year 1 7 1 3 the wardens and vestry of Trinity Church petitioned the queen for the establishment of bishops in America, " setting forth the great benefit that would result to the church from such a measure." ■It was during the rectorship of Mr. Honeyman that Dean Berkeley visited Rhode Island, in 1729, and resided for more than two years in the neighborhood of Newport. The announcement of his arrival was made to Mr. Honey- man while in the pulpit on a saint's day. He immediately dismissed the congregation with the benediction, and they all repaired to the wharf to receive the dean and his friends. Of this visit of Dean Berkeley to America, and its consequences, further reference will be made hereafter. It may be here noted, however, that during his residence in Rhode Island he frequently preached in Trinity Church, and attracted large congregations. "He was of great ser- vice in forwarding its interests. On his return to England, THE NARRAGANSETT CHURCH. IO7 in I 73 1, he sent as a gift to the church the organ which is still to be seen there, with its gilded crown flanked by two miters. One of his children is buried in the churchyard. Mr. Honeyman continued in office for nearly fifty years, dying of extreme old age in i 750. The Venerable Society (S. P. G.) continued its support without abatement until 1752, when a reduction of twenty pounds was made in the stipend. Newport at this time was one of the richest and most flourishing towns on the seacoast, and the re- duction was justifiable. It was not until a year or two before the Revolution that the society withdrew its sup- port altogether. On the opposite side of the bay, on the Narragansett shore, many respectable and wealthy families had taken up their abode as early as 1670, and in 1707 what is now known as St. Paul's Church, Kingston, but which was long known as the Narragansett Church, was erected. It is supposed to be the oldest Episcopal church still standing in the northern part of the United States. It was removed five miles south, to its present position, in the year 1800. Occasional services are held in the old building still. It is carefully protected from decay ; and no changes have been made in it, except that the chancel, formerly on the east side, has been removed to the north. The original burying-ground on the old site of the church is still pre- served, and in it are buried several distinguished clergy- men who officiated from time to time. Among them were Dr. McSparran, who became rector in 1721, and was the most conspicuous clergyman sent to Rhode Island by the society in England, and who was the author of a work on the colonies entitled " America Dissected " ; also the Rev. Mr. Fayerweather, a graduate of Harvard, who succeeded Dr. McSparran in the rectorship ; and the Rev. William Smith, who composed the office for the " Institution of I08 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. Ministers into Parishes or Churches" contained in the Book of Common Prayer. He did more than any one else to introduce chanting into the services of the church. A massive granite cross has been placed on the spot once occupied by the chancel of the church, in memory of Dr. McSparran. In the days of Dr. McSparran, Narragansett County was noted for its extensive plantations, its retinues of slaves, and its profuse hospitality. It was more like a Southern than a Northern settlement in these respects. The relative strength of the Episcopal Church in these regions, and its general prosperity, compared, on the whole, favorably with other parts of the country ; for although it received no aid from the local government, as it did in Virginia and Maryland, it was not called to en- counter the legalized opposition with which it was assailed in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The principle of relig- ious liberty, upon the basis of which the State was founded, and which was never violated, left the field open for all Christian denominations to contend on a fair and equal footing. The society of the day was refined and well informed. Tutors were imported, and employed in the home for the instruction of the children, who were afterward placed in the families of learned clergymen. Dr. McSparran re- ceived young gentlemen into his home for instruction. President Clapp, of Yale College, completed his education under him. Dr. Checkley, whom we have previously mentioned in connection with the church in Boston, edu- cated several sons of the Narragansett families. Among these were many whose names are still remembered in Rhode Island, such as the Gardiners, Phillipses, Balfours, Babcocks, Updikes, Hazards, Browns, Brentons, and others. These came together at church on a Sunday morning, CHURCH LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 109 arrayed in the brilliant costumes of their times, and much state and ceremony was observed in the seating of the con- gregation and in the conduct of the worship. There were no carriages of any consequence owned in Narragansett. The narrow roads were little fitted for their use; so that almost everybody came to church on horseback, the ladies riding on pillions behind the gentle- men. The choir sang one of the metrical psalms of Tate and Brady, chanting being as yet unknown, and somewhat dreaded, as having a flavor of popery. The minister, ascending the high pulpit, preached in a black gown and bands, wearing silk gloves. The congregation presented a great contrast in its attire to the drab and brown so prevalent in the assemblies of the Quakers, who were the prevailing sect in the colony. Gay cavaliers in scarlet coats would be seated by richly dressed ladies such as we see portrayed on the canvases of Smibert and Copley. The negro servants would be massed in the galleries, and the whole appearance of things was that of an aristocratic community. This state of society, indeed, supported by slavery, produced a habit of festivity and even of dissipa- tion, the natural result of wealth and leisure. At various periods of the year festivities would be held which would sometimes continue for days. At Christmas twelve days were devoted to festive associations. Every gentleman of the State had his circle of connections, friends, and acquaintances, and they were invited from one plantation to another. Servants attended them to open the gates ; and the whole community seemed to be given up to social enjoyment. A wedding was a great gala time. At one given about the year 1790 by Nicholas Gardiner there were six hundred guests in attendance. Great sociability was the characteristic feature of the time ; but political acrimony and discord engendered by the Revolution no PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. broke up this state of society, which was never restored. Dr. McSparran was rector of the Narragansett Church for thirty-seven years, and left a great impress upon the com- munity, of which he was a very conspicuous figure. In Bristol, which until 1 746 was included within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, St. Michael's Church was organized in 17 19, the Rev. Mr. Oremus being sent over from England by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) as the rector. He remained only a year, when he removed to New York, and the Rev. John Usher was appointed to his place. " Mr. Usher was a man of most earnest piety, and thoroughly devoted to his work. His labors were signally blessed, and his hallowed influence and honored name have been perpetuated in Bristol to the present day. He made the welfare of the church the whole business of his existence, and was called to suffer deprivations and hard- ships such as few of the clergy are called to endure at the present day." Seven hundred and thirteen persons were baptized under his ministry ; and his parishioners raised from eighty to a hundred and thirty pounds annually for the expenses of their church, though, being in Massachu- setts, they were also taxed for the support of the Congre- gational minister. It is a singular circumstance in the life of Mr. Usher that, as the record says, the vestry voted, in 1730, "that henceforth the rector shall be called on to support all the widows of the church." The church, though the building was burned to ashes by a band of British soldiers during the Revolution, never ceased its corporate existence, and from the beginning has always been a powerful religious influence in the life of Rhode Island. Bishop Griswold was afterward its rector, and by his godly life and conversation continued the traditions of faithful and devoted service which Mr. Usher had begun. It was in 1722 that the first Episcopal church, then ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, R. I. I I I known as King's Chapel, but after 1794 as St. John's Church, was erected in Providence. At that time Provi- dence contained about four thousand persons, among whom was a httle band of church people, who, as the record reads, " having resolved to get a minister, and live like Christians, erected their house of worship with some aid from Newport and Boston." The congregation con- sisted of about a hundred persons, of whom seventeen were communicants. Their first rector, the Rev. George Pigot, remained with them but three years. He was a man of fair scholarship and good character, but was said to have been " of a roving disposition." Their second minister was a disgraceful character, so rare in the records of the New England church clergy, as we gather from the statement that " 'tis observable that the last Lord's Day he preached in the church he was, by an extraordi- nary gust of wind, forced out of the church in the time of service. The next Lord's Day, the people refused his preaching. Afterward he was committed to gaol for his breaking open the door of the church, which his people had fastened up after they had hall*^! him out of the pulpit on the 9th instant for his irregularities." The Rev. John Checkley, having at last obtained orders, as we have pre- viously seen, became rector in 1739. He was a good scholar, a man devoted to missionary work among the Indians, and, as is recorded, " a favorite companion of learned and curious men, though some were offended by his opinions, and others thought him too much of a wag for an intimate acquaintance." The Rev. John Graves, who succeeded him, an excellent man, and highly com- mended by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.), which sup- ported him, continued to officiate until July, 1776, " when he was pleased to absent himself from duty, though very earnestly requested to keep up the worship, saying he 112 PROTESTANr EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. could not, as prayers for King George were forbidden." His request to be reinstated at the end of the war was - refused. In connection with the founding of King's or St. John's Cliurch there are several laymen who deserve grateful recognition, among them Nathaniel Brown, the donor of the land on which the church was built, given, in the lan- guage of the deed, " for the glory and honor of God, and Promoting the Society and Communion of the Church of England in these foreign partes of the world, as the same is by law established." He was one of the persons im- prisoned in Bristol, in 1724, "for refusing to pay toward the support of the teacher in that town, namely, Mr. Greenwood, whom they refused to support, supposing it criminal to contribute toward supporting schism and a causeless separation from the Church of England." Jo- seph Whipple was another generous friend, one of the first wardens of the church, and the chief contributor toward the cost of its erection. The name, also, of Gabriel Bernon should be had in special remembrance. A tablet to his memory has been placed upon the walls of the present church, in which it is recorded that " to the persevering piety and untiring zeal of Gabriel Bernon, the first three Episcopal churches in Rhode Island owed their origin." He was a merchant of Rochelle, France, and a Huguenot who had been imprisoned two years in his native land for his zeal in the Protestant cause, previous to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He came to America soon after the year 1687, and was the first signer of the petition for Trinity Church, Newport, twenty-five years before the establishment of the church in Providence. In 1 72 1 he entered into correspondence with the Rev. Mr. McSpar- ran, of the Narragansett Church, in reference to the estab- lishment of Episcopal services in Providence, and in 1724 CIICKCH LIFE IX RHODE ISLAND. 113 addressed a letter to the secretary of the Venerable Society (S. P. G.), in which he says: "We have built a church which we have named King's Church, where we intend to obey, serve, and adore God according to the Protestant religion and the Reformation by Edward VI., Cranmer, and the blessed Queen Elizabeth. So we want the whole and entire ministry of a minister, and he shall have em- ployment enough to accomplish his mission." He was a man of the highest character, whose demeanor was marked by the courtesy indicative of his French lineage, and a layman to whom the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island is, perhaps, more indebted than to any other individual. It is recorded of him, " He died in great faith and hope in his Redeemer, and assurance of salvation, and has left a good name among his acquaintances." He died in i 736, and lies buried beneath St. John's Church. The four churches we have mentioned are the only ones which have survived of those established during the. eigh- teenth century in Rhode Island. They were all supported, to a great extent, by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.), who gave to each of them from sixty to seventy pounds a year. It is computed that to the churches in Rhode Island this society contributed altogether not less than a hundred thousand dollars. The characteristic of the church in Rhode Island during the period previous to the Revo- lution was that orderly and seemly worship which distin- guished it from the more emotional enthusiasm of the Baptists, as well as from the utter absence of form preva- lent among the Quakers, by which two bodies it was surrounded. It was not marked by religious enthusiasm, but " it stood sentinel over the proprieties and amenities and moralities of life, and taught the current virtues of good citizenship — honesty, sobriety, thrift, economy, and industry. It helped to make children obedient, and par- 114 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, i v. ents considerate and kind, and servants truthful and faith- ful. If it did not apprehend the breadth of Christ's purpose in establishing his kingdom on earth ; if the church was regarded rather as an organic structure than as a living power, still it was true to her ministry and order, and ordinances and services ; and those services edified and comforted the listeners, regulated and elevated the flow of common life ; and the Sundays and holy days made men understand and feel that there is something higher to live for than the greed of gain, or the follies of fashion, or the appetites of the body, or the rewards of ambition. If Christ was not preached in all his fullness, and the power of the cross brought home with earnestness and vigor to the souls of sinners, and believers led along the heights of grace in the pulpit, still the way of salvation was indicated ; and many with the liturgy in their hands, pervaded through and through with the truth and spirit of Christ, found peace in believing." ^ It was a period when the standard of religious fervor was generally low, and the number of those who were distinguished for theological learning and effective preaching was comparatively small ; but the churches thus maintained became the seed of an after- growth of a far higher and more vital type of Christianity. New Hampshire. Ninety years after the suppression of the Episcopal Church in Portsmouth by the Puritans, the church was again introduced in 1732. Many men of character and substance attached to the forms of the Church of England had by this time become residents of Portsmouth and its 1 Historical discourse by Bishop Clark at the opening of the one-hun- dredth session of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Rhode Island, June, 1890. ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PORTSMOUTH, N. H. 115 vicinity. They now erected a church, assisted by friends in London ; and the queen presented to it several foHo prayer-books and a service of plate for the altar, engraved with the royal arms. In token of gratitude for these favors the edifice was called Queen's Chapel, and was opened for divine service in 1734. Mr. Brown, from Providence, took charge of the chapel in 1736; and the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) allowed him sixty pounds a year as missionary at Portsmouth, and fifteen pounds on account of his min- istrations at Kittery. At that time Mr. Brown writes to the society that " the town and district of Portsmouth contain between six hundred and seven hundred families, whereof fifty or sixty are of the Church of England, and all the rest Independent, there being neither Quakers, Baptists, Papists, Heathen, nor Infidels. He read prayers every morning, at seven o'clock, from May to September, and preached a weekly lecture to strengthen his flock against the pernicious doctrine of enthusiasts, besides dis- charging his constant duty on Sundays." In the "Abstract of the Proceedings of the Society [S. P. G.] " it is stated that " the contagion of enthusiasm has spread itself into the government of New Hampshire ; but by letters from thence we are informed that the little flock of our fold there hath almost entirely escaped the infection" ; and in 1 746, " that the tempest of enthusiasm being blown over, great numbers of well-meaning persons who had been aff'ected with it, upon their return to sober thinking, re- paired to our communion as the best refuge from those wild principles and practices which had raised such great confusion among them, and that the Church gained ground and reputation throughout these very populous colonies." Mr. Brown ministered not only in Portsmouth ; he also made missionary excursions into the neighborhood all about, and gathered many for the church. He employed first Il6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, i v. his son, Rev. Marmaduke Brown, and afterward others, as itinerant missionaries, and thus disseminated a knowledge of the church quite widely. Mr. Brown died shortly be- fore the Revolution, in 1773, and Dr. Mather Byles took his place, coming from Christ Church, Boston. Being a loyalist, Dr. Byles retreated to Halifax in 1776, and it was not until after the war that the church in New Hampshire began to revive. In 1 791 what had been known as Queen's Chapel was incorporated under the name of St. John's Church, Portsmouth. The course of St. John's Church during a hundred and twenty years was an even and quiet one. During the days of the colonial government the aver- age number of families was about fifty. In common with the other Episcopal churches it suffered much harm during the war ; but when hostilities ceased there was a gradual accession of numbers to it. It more than kept even with the growth of the place. Rev. Dr. Burroughs, who became rector in 1812, was more than usually efficient and useful; and his ministry, with that of Rev. Mr. Brown, extended through eighty-four years. Besides St. John's Church, Portsmouth, there was in New Hampshire, before the Revolution, only one other church, that of Claremont. Although quite a large proportion of the first settlers were attached to the Church of England, and although during the colonial times it received many favors from those who were in places of power, especially the Wentworths, jts progress was inconsiderable. Political prejudice and interest retarded its growth. Parties of all kinds of religious belief and of no particular belief were united in opposition to it. In fact, the church was simply tolerated. The town of Claremont was chartered by his Excellency Benning Wentworth, governor of the province of New Hampshire, in 1764. In apportioning the terri- . tory into seventy-five equal shares of three. hundred and THE CHURCH IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 117 twenty acres each, one share was reserved for a glebe for the Church of England, as by law established ; one for the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) ; and one for the first settled minister. The town was not settled, however, until 1767, when it was occupied by emigrants from Farrington, Conn. They were anxious to have the services of the church, but were unable to obtain a minister. They engaged Mr. Samuel Cole, who had graduated from Yale College in 1 73 1, and had already made some progress in the studies preparatory to taking orders, to act as lay reader, cate- chist, and schoolmaster. He was a true and faithful man, who did his work well, though it was an humble one. The town was a hundred and forty miles from Portsmouth, and consequently could have no clerical assistance from that parish. The Rev. Samuel Peters, of Hebron, Conn., was the first Episcopal minister known to have officiated in Claremont. He made a tour as a missionary through the towns along the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire and Vermont, in 1770. He is said to have organized the church in Clare- mont in 1 771, and it was ministered to by the itinerant- missionaries of the S. P. G. for New Hampshire ; by the Rev. Mr. Badger until he resigned this office in 17 74- His successor, Mr. Cossit, fixed his residence in Claremont, and henceforth ministered to the congregation while continu- ing his missionary labors. The first church was erected in 1773, and during the war the congregation led a most uncomfortable existence. Mr. Cossit was confined to the town as a prisoner after April, 1775 ; but he writes to the S. P. G. : " I have constantly kept up public services, with- out any omissions for the King and royal family, and like- wise made use of the prayers for the High Court of Parlia- ment and the prayers used in the time of war and tumults. The number of my parishioners and communicants in Clare- Il8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, i v. mont are increased, but I have been cruelly distressed with fines for refusing entirely to fight against the King. In sundry places where I used to officiate, the church are all dwindled away. Some have fled to the King's army for protection, some are banished, and many are dead." ^ Until after the Revolution Vermont formed part of New Hampshire, and has no separate church history. Maine. From the death of Jordan, which we have recorded, until 1756, there was no Episcopal clergyman in Maine; but at Pemaquid, between i 725 and i 730, there was a person ap- pointed by the commissioners to read prayers and the holy Scriptures, and a small brick chapel was built at Prospect. A number of patriotic Germans having reached Boston in 1 75 I, fifty families settled at Frankfort, within the Kenne- bec Purchase, the Plymouth Company offering them lib- eral terms. In 1754 the people of Frankfort and George- town applied to the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) for a missionary. On March 31, 1755, Rev. William Macclena- ghan was appointed a missionary ; but he did not reach the mission till May, 1756. He was reported diligent in his work; but having no church or glebe or house, he lived in the old fort at Fort Richmond, and he soon be- came weary of duties which were very laborious. He left the mission in December, 1758, and appeared in Virginia, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, always a troublesome ele- ment. Neither the place of his birth nor of his death is known. On a renewed petition, in 1759, the society appointed Mr. Bailey, a graduate of Harvard, and who was recom- mended by ministers in Boston. He proceeded to Eng- 1 " The History of the Eastern Diocese," vol. i., p. 194. THE CHURCH IN MAINE. II9 land for holy orders. He reached his post June, 1 760, and wrote to the society soon afterward that he found in the county of Lincoln fifteen hundred families scattered over a region of a hundred by sixty miles, with no teacher of any denomination, except a number of illiterate exhort- ers who rambled about the country. Among the people was a mixture of several languages and religions ; but they were pretty constant in attending public worship. Travel- ing was difficult. He found the work sufficiently large and growing to write for additional missionaries. In 1 768 Rev. Mr. Wheeler, who had gone out to England for orders, was appointed, who, after a voyage of ten weeks, reached Boston, and at once went to Georgetown, and was well re- ceived. In October, 1 769, Mr. Wheeler writes the society : "There are about two hundred families, Presbyterians, In- dependents, Baptists. Preached three Sundays, and erected a church on the west bank of the Kennebec, three miles below Bath." The church, perhaps, was never finished. A church, however, was built in Pownal by Mr. Bailey during 1770, which measured sixty by thirty-two feet, and seated a congregation of from fifty to a hundred and thirty. In 1772 Mr. Wheeler went to Newport, R. I., and Mr. Bailey again took charge. The infant settlements extended from Pownalsborough forty-five miles along the river; and four hundred families were settled there, with no minister of any denomination. They were greatly indebted to Dr. Gardiner, of Boston, a phj^sician, who built churches and gave glebes and money. Mr. Bailey went in a sleigh the whole length of the Ken- nebec River to Fort Halifax, in the present town of Wins- low. During 1774 he says: "The parishioners here do not join in insurrections ; but nothing can be more dismal than the situation of the Episcopal ministers who have any dependence in Great Britain. They are insulted and I20 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. iv. threatened, and can scarce procure the necessaries of Hfe. My Presbyterian neighbors were so zealous for the good of their country that they killed seven of my sheep out of twelve, and shot a fine heifer as she was feeding in my pasture." Thus he writes amid his tribulations, which were not wholly inexcusable, seeing that he was a firm Tory amid a patriotic community stirred to war and striv- ing for independence. He stoutly refused to cease praying for the king, declaring, " If all my brethren had departed from their integrity, I could never think myself excused from blame by following their example." Yet he naively adds, " Perhaps my fortitude at another time might have failed." He, however, received aid from Boston in his dis- tress, but was at last prohibited by the sheriff of the county from officiating; and in 1779 he left for Nova Scotia, after being in Frankfort for nineteen years, and his church and parsonage fell into decay. He died after forty-eight years of service, a faithful priest, if a narrov/ -man. It was not until 1849 that the new parish of St. John's was organized in Dresden, which formed part of the old town of Pownalstown. The parish of Georgetown, to which Mr. Bailey ministered, also fell into decay. The old joarish has been in a measure revived by the organization of one in the city of Bath (Grace Church, consecrated in 1853), standing about three miles north of the old church. Thus the church has existed in this township two hundred and sixty-six years. After the death of Mr. Jordan (1679), until 1754, there was no service of the English Church in Falmouth. When Shirley visited it, in 1754, to make an Indian treaty, Mr. Charles Bucknell, assistant minister of King's Chapel, Boston, came with him and preached, and, according to the minister's diary, "carried on in the Church form," and " gave great offense by his doctrine." The service seems CHURCH CONGREGATIONS IN MAINE. 1 21 to have started anew the interest of church people ; and at last, in 1763, they took action toward building a new house of worship, subscriptions for which ran as high as forty pounds and as low as one pound tenpence. At a meeting of the signers two of them quarreled and fought ; and it is recorded, "A foundation for the Church was thus laid, the pillars tremble." However, the Rev. Mr. Wis- wall was called from the Congregationalists and sent to England for orders, whence he returned in 1765 with ad- ditional promise of support from the S. P. G. The new church, unfinished, was occupied^ In 1772 the tax for the support of the Congregational church was remitted. Troubles were rife during the excitement of the war ; and Wiswall, obliged to flee, went to Boston, and served as deputy chaplain to two regiments. During the war there were no services in Falmouth. In 1783 a meeting in the interests of the church was held at Mr. Thomas Motley's ; and services were conducted by lay readers until 1787, when a new church was built. In i 791 an Episcopal church named St. Paul's was formed in the town of Portland, of which Rev. Joseph Warren, of Gardiner, became minister in I 796. In I 771 Dr. Gardiner began a church at Gardinerstown, the building of which was interrupted by the war ; but it was finished in 1793. It contained three classes of pews. The first class was taxed fourpence a Sunday ; the second class, threepence ; and the third class, twopence. Dr. Gardiner left to the church a legacy of twenty pounds per annum, ten acres, a parsonage house, and a library. This church, called Christ Church, at Gardiner, and St. Paul's at Portland, were the only two Episcopal churches in Maine when Bishop Griswold became Bishop of the Eastern Diocese in 18 11, and there was no minister in either of them at that time. CHAPTER V. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN CONNECTICUT. The church in Connecticut was virtually founded and supported during the .colonial period by the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In the earliest history of the State, when there were two jurisdictions, with separate governors and coun- cils (that of John Winthrop, who came in 1635, and made a settlement at Windsor; and that of John Davenport and his associates, who gathered the settlements of the colony of New Haven in 1638), there is no evidence of the exist- ence of Episcopacy at all. By or a little before the time of the union of these two jurisdictions, in 1665, when Win- throp became the governor of the united colonies under the charter of Charles H., a petition of William Pitkin and six others, who signed themselves " Professors of the Prot- estant Christian Religion, Members of the Church of Eng- land, and Subjects to our sovereign Lord, Charles H., by God's grace King of England," was addressed to the Gen- eral Assembly. It asked for a redress of grievances, which were in substance that the ministers refused to baptize their children, and that they were neglected by them. As an answer the ministers and churches in Connecticut were recommended " to consider whether it be not their duty to entertain all such persons," meaning by entertain to receive into church fellowship and to treat accordingly. When the commissioners of Charles II. visited Connecti- INTRODUCTION OF THE CHURCH, HOG. 1 23 cut, in 1665, they carried back a report that " the colony will not hinder any from enjoying the sacraments, and using the Common Prayer-Book, provided they hinder not the maintenance of the public minister." This was, how- ever, not a legal provision, and it was not until 1 708 that any public worship except that of the religion established by the colonial government became lawful. Even then, those who dissented from the Standing Order were not exempt from taxation for its maintenance. They might worship in their own way, but they must pay to support the way of the colony. The first movement toward the establishment of an Episcopal church in Connecticut was that of a considerable number of freeholders, inhabitants of the town of Stratford, in Fairfield County, professors of the faith of the Church of England. Nothing, however, seems to have been ac- complished before the visit of Keith and Talbot, sent out, as we have seen, by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) to make a survey of the religious condition of the colonies. The only town which they visited in Connecticut was New London, where they preached in the Congregational church by the invitation of the minister, Mr. Gurdon Saltonstall, who afterward became governor of the colony. Keith reported to the society that Connecticut contained thirty thousand souls and about thirty-three towns, all dissent- ers, supplied with ministers and a school of their own per- suasion. The real introduction of Episcopacy into Connecticut came by way of New York, and chiefly through the in- strumentality of the Hon. Caleb Heathcote, a man of high position in the New York government. The application which had been made in 1 702 to the Bishop of London for a missionary at Stratford had not succeeded. Some Connecticut people living near Rye, within the borders 124 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. of New York, attended the ministrations of Rev. George Muirson, a missionary to the church at that place. Mr. Muirson, in company with Colonel Heathcote, made a journey in i 706 to explore the shore towns from Green- wich to Stratford. They seem to have anticipated oppo- sition, for they rode into the village fully armed ; and Muirson preached in the face of threats of imprisonment, and baptized about twenty-four, mostly grown people, as it were at the point of the bayonet. The parish of Stratford was organized by Mr, Muirson in 1707; but he died in 1 708, and the parish, with about thirty communi- cants, was left to the occasional services of missionaries who chanced to visit the neighborhood. The first mis- sionary sent by the S. P. G. arrived in 17 12; but he neglected his duties, and left the parish in i 7 1 3 worse than he found it. It was not until 1722 that any start was made for the building of a church. At that time the Rev. George Pigot was sent by the S. P. G. as missionary, and the timber which had been gathered for a church, and which had been seasoning since 1714, was then erected into a building. Mr. Pigot remained only about four months, taking up his mission at Providence, R. L, where he became the first minister of King's, afterward St. John's, Church. In the meantime, Mr. Reed, the Congregational minister, who had shown a friendly disposition to the Episcopalians, lost his parish by reason of this friendli- ness, and was replaced by Mr. Timothy Cutler, who later removed to the rectorship of Yale College, and by his con- version in that distinguished position became the inaugu- rator of a strong movement toward the church in Con- necticut. It was in 1722 that this event occurred, and it was so remarkable and momentous that we may well dwell upon it. CONVERSION OF THE RECTOR OF YALE COLLEGE. 125 Yale College had been moved in 17 16 to New Haven from Saybrook, where it had been founded in the first year of the century (1701) as the chief educational institu- tion of Connecticut. It was greatly favored by the more conservative element in Massachusetts, though some op- position had been raised by the officers and fellows of Harvard College, who thought that one collegiate institu- tion was enough for the wants of New England. Some, however, as the Mathers, thought that they discerned a too liberal tendency of things at Harvard ; and Yale was founded in a conservative interest. It was at first a school rather than a college ; but after its removal to New Haven it assumed a position of greater importance. After some trouble in the administration, the Rev. Timothy Cutler, then minister of the Congregational church at Stratford, was called to the rectorship of the college, at first tempo- rarily, and afterward, on account of his excellent adminis- tration, permanently. Daniel Brown was appointed as his assistant. These were the only two instructors in the institution, and the number of students was not more than thirty-five. There were some among them, however, who afterward became eminent, the most distinguished of whom was Jonathan Edwards, of whom Sir John Mackintosh after- ward spoke as " the Dante and Aquinas of New England," who was then a member of the junior class. Mr. Cutler was a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1 701, and was thirty-five years of age, having been settled nine years in Stratford, Conn. He may have owed his appointment in some measure to the fact that he was the son-in-law of the Rev. Mr. Andrews, who had discharged the duties of the rector's office in 1707, and also brother- in-law of Jonathan Law, of Milford, an influential member of the council at that time. But the real reason of his 126 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. appointment was his distinguished scholarship and his ad- mirable character. President Stiles, in his diary, declares that he was an " excellent linguist, a great Hebrician and Orientalist ; he had more knowledge of the Arabic than probably any man ever in New England before him, except President Chauncey and his disciple, the first Mr. Thatcher. Dr. Cutler was a logician, geographer, and rhetorician ; in the philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics of his day, or juvenile education, he was great. He spoke Latin with fluency and dignity, and with great propriety of pronunci- ation. He was a noble Latin orator. He was of a com- manding presence and dignity in government. He was a man of extensive reading in academic sciences, divinity, and ecclesiastical history. He was of a high, lofty, and despotic mien. He made a grand figure as the head of a college." The Rev. John Eliot, who was born in Boston in 1754, says in his "Biographical Dictionary": "He could never win the rising generation, because he found it so difficult to be condescending ; but his extensive learning excited esteem and respect where there was nothing to move or hold the affections of the heart." This, however, seems to be too sweeping a criticism, if judged by the expressions of Jonathan Edwards in a letter to his father while he was a student at Yale, wherein he says : " Mr. Cutler is extraordinarily courteous to us, has a very good spirit of government, keeps the school in excellent order, seems to increase in learning, is loved and respected by all who are under him; and when he is spoken of in school or town he generally has the title of president." The astonishment and consternation of the community may be imagined when, on September 13, 1722, the day after the annual commencement, the following paper was presented to the trustees of Yale College, assembled in the library at New Haven : ADDRESS TO THE TRUSTEES OE YALE COLLEGE. 127 " To the Reverend Mr. Andreivs and Woodbridge, and others onr Reverend fathers and brethren present in the library of Yale College this iltJi of September, I'jii. " Reverend Gentlemen : Having represented to you the difficulties which we labor under in relation to our continuance out of the visible communion of an Episcopal Church, and a state of seeming opposition thereto, either as private Christians or as officers, and so being insisted on by some of you (after our repeated declinations of it) that we should sum up our case in writing, we do (though with great reluctance, fearing the consequences of it) sub- mit to and comply with it: And signify to you that some of us doubt the validity, and the rest of us are more fully persuaded of the invalidity, of Presbyterian ordination in opposition to Episcopal, and should be heartily thankful to God and man if we may receive from them satisfaction therein ; and shall be willing to embrace your good coun- sels and instructions in relation to this important afTair as far as God shall direct and dispose us to do. "Timothy Cutler, "John Hart, " Samuel Whittlesey "Jared Eliot, "James Wetmore, " Samuel Johnson, " Daniel Brown." These signatures included not only the whole teaching stafT of the college, but also the names of five eminent and respected Congregational ministers of the neighborhood. At that date the Church of England had few avowed members in Connecticut, and not a single established con- gregation. All of these signers, save Cutler, were graduates 128 PROrESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. of the college ; and three of them, Johnson, Wetmore, and Brown, were members of the class of 1714. According to the testimony of a contemporary, they were "reputed men of considerable learning, and all of them of a virtuous and blameless conversation. The churchmen among us are wonderfully encouraged and lifted up by the appearance of these gentlemen on their side ; and how many more will by their example be encouraged to go over to them God only knows. It is a very dark day with us." Quincy, in his " History of Harvard College," declares: "This event shook Congregationalism throughout New England like an earthquake, and filled all its friends with terror and appre- hension." And President Woolsey, in his " Historical Dis- course on the Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Institution," says: "I suppose that greater alarm would scarcely be awakened now if the theological faculty of the college were to declare for the Church of Rome, avow their belief in transubstantiation, and pray to the Virgin Mary." After the above-named paper had been handed in, the signers were entreated to reconsider their opinions and give up their doubts ; and at the suggestion of the gov- ernor (Governor Saltonstall) an attempt was made to give the signers the satisfaction they craved by a public discus- sion in the college library. This was appointed for the day following the opening of the October session of the General Assembly. Governor Saltonstall himself presided, being a theologian of no mean ability. The debate was continued with dignity and decorum until an old minister began to harangue in a declamatory way, when Mr. Salton- stall put an end to the conference, saying he had only de- signed a friendly argument. Of the signers, Messrs. Hart, Whittlesey, and Eliot remained in their old ecclesiastical connection, and though they never afterward opposed the church, they remained silent, if not satisfied. The others RECTOR CUTLER'S CONVERSION. 129 were wholly unshaken in their convictions. The college voted to excuse the Rev. Mr. Cutler from all further ser- vice as rector of Yale College, and to accept the resigna- tion which Mr. Brown had made as tutor. It was pro- vided also that all future rectors and tutors should, before their appointment was completed, declare to the trustees " their assent to the Confession of Faith owned and con- sented to at Saybrook, September 9, 1 708, and shall par- ticularly give satisfaction to them of the soundness of their faith in opposition to Arminian and prelatical corruptions, or any other of dangerous consequences to the purity and peace of our churches." The straightforwardness of Mr. Cutler in this action has by some been called in question, because it is asserted that, even when coming to Yale College, his mind was disturbed on this subject. He is said to have declared to Mr. HolHs in London in 1723, "I was never in judgment heartily with the dissenters, but bore it patiently until a favorable opportunity offered. This has opened at Boston, and I now declare pubhcly what I before believed privately." His wife also is reported to have said that to her knowl- edge he had for eleven or twelve years been so persuaded, and that therefore he was the more uneasy in performing the acts of his ministry at Stratford, and the more readily accepted the call to a college appointment at New Haven. But, while it was inevitable that his conduct and methods should be aspersed by his contemporaries, there is not the least ground for suspecting the sincerity and genuineness of his convictions. Such a man in such circumstances does not come suddenly, or without cautious reflection and long-continued study, to a decision which reverses the current of his life and changes all his cherished asso- ciations. Doubtless he had had earlier doubts ; but the opportunity for the study of this question offered by the I30 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. books in the college library confirmed and strengthened his views. No position, not even that of rector of the new Christ Church in Boston, which he immediately accepted, could offer him a sphere of usefulness and distinction or temporal emoluments equal to those which he enjoyed as rector of Yale College. The inevitable obloquy attendant on his change would have deterred any one not thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of his course. His whole future life showed him to be a man whose decision must be respected, although it may have been deplored. Johnson, also one of the signers, was a man of the noblest qualities, of the sincerest piety, and of distinguished intel- lectual ability. He afterward became a warm friend of Dean Berkeley, whom he visited in Rhode Island, writing criticisms of some of his profounder books. He was, later in life, elected first president of King's, afterward Columbia, College, New York. The gift of a Prayer-book while he was yet a youth in Guilford awoke his interest and en- thusiasm ; and he studied it until his mind was full of its contents. As a Congregational minister in West Haven he was celebrated for the beauty of his prayers ; and these prayers were the collects of the Prayer-book, which he had committed to memory, and used as he could adapt them to the public worship of his congregation. He had been tutor for three years in Yale College, previous to the rec- torship of Cutler; and these three friends, Cutler, Brown, and Johnson, met often in the library of the institution, conferring together on the subject of church government and worship. There they read the best books which the library furnished on the controversy. They studied Bar- row, Patrick, South, Tillotson, Whitby, Burnet, and other eminent authorities in English theology. They were not anxious to be convinced of the validity of their doubts. Johnson wrote in his private journal three months before CONVERSION OF JOHNSON. I 3 i his decision was made : " I hoped when I was ordained tliat I had sufficiently satisfied myself of the validity of Presbyterian ordination under my circumstances, but I have had ever since growing suspicions that it is not right. . . . Oh that I could either gain satisfaction that I may lawfully proceed in the execution of the ministerial func- tion, or that Providence would make my way plain for the obtaining of Episcopal orders! Do thou, O my God, direct my steps, and guide and lead me and my friends in thy way everlasting!" Immediately after the commence- ment Johnson made another record of his feelings, thus : " It is with great sorrow of heart that I am forced thus by the uneasiness of my conscience to be an occasion of so much uneasiness to my dear friends, my poor people, and, indeed, to the whole colony. O God, I beseech thee, grant that I may not, by an adherence to thy necessary truths and laws, be a stumbling-block or occasion of fall to any soul!" Cutler, Brown, and Johnson at once set sail for England to receive ordination. It is sad to record that their con- version to the church excited some jealous apprehension in the minds of a few Episcopal clergymen of English birth in New England, lest they should " get the best places in the country, and take the bread from off our trenchers." The Rev. Matthias Plant, of Newbury, declared his readi- ness to join with the Rev. Henry Harris, assistant at King's Chapel at Boston, to oppose the converts, and addressed the Bishop of London for the purpose of preventing their ordination. Prominent laymen, however, recognized the value of this accession to the Episcopal ministry ; and the churchwardens and vestry of Trinity Church, Newport, wrote to the secretary of the Venerable Society that, " upon the whole, it seems highly probable that upon these gen- tlemen's fate — we mean their reception and encourage- 132 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. ment — depends a grand revolution, if not a general revolt, from schism in these parts." These three friends were all ordained by the Bishop of Norwich, in St. Martin's Church, London, both deacons and priests, in March, 1 723. Within a week after their ordination, Brown, who had preached the day before, was seized with smallpox, that most dire disease of the period, which is said to have carried off one fifth of all those who crossed the sea for ordination. He died on Easter even. His two friends, after visiting Ox- ford and Cambridge (both of which universities conferred upon Cutler the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and upon Johnson that of Master of Arts), were joined by James Wetmore, their fellow-signer, who was also ordained. Dr. Cutler and Mr. Johnson sailed for home in July, 1723. Cutler at once assumed charge of Christ Church in Boston, and Johnson proceeded to his mission in Stratford, Conn. Mr. Wetmore was sent to New York, being subsequently stationed at Rye, where he died of smallpox in i 760, after a successful ministry of thirty-seven years. It was from this remarkable beginning that the church took vigorous root in Connecticut, though Johnson was the only one of the three converts who remained in that colony. He at once proceeded to Stratford, and by Christmas, 1 724, he succeeded in completing the church which he found in process of building. This was the first edifice for the Church of England erected in Connecticut. His parish numbered some thirty families ; but besides his ministra- tions in Stratford, Johnson cared for the church families, some forty or more, which he found scattered through the neighboring towns of Fairfield, Norwalk, Newtown, Ripton, and West Haven. He was the only church clergy- man in the whole colony. He at once found the key to the situation, and appealed earnestly to the Bishop of London for a bishop for the colony. The church having OPPOSITION TO EPISCOPACY. 1 33 now an organization in Stratford, the rector received numerous intimations from various quarters of a desire to have the church planted among them. Daniel Shelton, a wealthy landed proprietor of Ripton (now Huntington), and a sturdy opponent of the tax for the State Establishment, subscribed largely for a minister in his town, and he was the representative of many who were like-minded elsewhere. There was naturally great repugnance to the introduction of the Episcopal regimen and liturgical worship on the part of those who had hoped for a quiet possession of the region, to which they had come, in great measure, to escape what had been to them the rigorous rule of prelacy at home. Their opposition was strenuous, often more strenuous than scrupulous; but it was an opposition to a system they disliked, not to men whom they discredited either for looseness of doctrine or laxity of life. It was an opposition not to aliens, but to friends and neighbors, chiUren of the soil, whose conver- sion they deemed perversion. They held that the gospel was already sufficiently ministered to the population ; and their opposition to the contributions of the Venerable So- ciety (S. P. G.) for the spread of Episcopacy was grounded in the conviction that they were fostering a needless schism. Of course human passion mingled largely with doctrinal devotion, and the defense of dogmatism was so engrossing as often to overshadow, if not obliterate, the spiritual pre- cepts of the Sermon on the Mount. The ruling order stood for their rights and the church- men stood for their liberties. "Traitor" and "bigot" were the fraternal terms by which ecclesiastical combatants saluted each other ; and the new Episcopacy was destined to have the full benefit of a sharp discipline. The church in its childhood was not to be spoiled for lack of the rod of the Puritan parent, where it could be legally applied ; 134 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. and the construction of the law, as well as the embarrass- ments of struggling parishes, gave sufficient opportunity for repressive treatment. Still the church grew and throve from the start. It was no exotic ; it was no intrusion of a state establishment. It arose out of sober conviction, and was characterized by sobriety of life. If it were more correct than profound in its religious life, it was at least correct. It was deemed formal, but it could not be deemed fanatical. It based its claim on the assurance of knowledge and the maintenance of temperance, not on the turbulent outburst of an ill- regulated enthusiasm. It strove to minister first to its hidden friends as they came to light, desiring to avail themselves of the worship of the Prayer-book, and then to extend itself to those whom the rigors of a strict Calvinism were hardening into indifiference. It was a needed coun- terpoise, to say no more, to the tendency toward the harsh rigidity of theological systems, and to the excessive individuality of Congregational independency. The ap- peal of its claims was historic, and the tenor of its discipline was communal rather than individual. It became, there- fore, a refuge from the parochial tyranny of both pastor and people. The liberty of its household was protected by law, and that not the law of an isolated congregation. It emphasized the sacraments, the monuments of God's grace given, rather than individual experience in the ictic reception of that grace. Its religious life was deemed a development, and not a separate creation in each case. " Nurture," rather than " conversion," was its watchword. An historic system took the place in it of an inorganic spiritual discipline. Johnson was fitted, both by nature and his spiritual ex- perience among the Congregationalists, to be the father of the church movement. He knew the good qualities and MR. JOHNSON AND DEAN BERKELEY. I 35 possessions of his opponents, and he also understood their lack. His benevolence of temper preserved him from rancor, and his calmness of soul saved him from irritation in controversy. He went steadily on his way, and always elicited respect, even when his principles were denounced. Some of the more strenuous of his Episcopal brethren called him once to account for sending his son to Yale College, because there he must attend extemporaneous prayers offered in the chapel by Congregational ministers. Johnson answered that he was not called to forego the education of his son, in the only place in the colony where he could get it, for attending prayers which, however in- complete, were not injurious, and which only intensified his son's love and preference for the devotions of the Prayer-book. The relations of Johnson to his alma mater were always those of a filial and devoted son. It was he w^ho, on a last visit to Dean Berkeley, before his departure for Eng- land, recommended the college to his friendly notice, " not having any further view than to hope he might send it some good books." The good dean responded liberally to the suggestion. He gave to his clerical friends the books he had brought over with him, and made a donation of all his own works to the college, and, aided by others, sent, after his return home, nearly a thousand volumes to its library. This, according to President Clap's estimate, " constituted the finest collection of books that had then ever been brought at one time to America." It was through Johnson, also, that the dean transmitted a deed conveying to the trustees of the college his Rhode Island farm of ninety-six acres, still in possession of the institu- tion. Out of this broad-minded recognition of the value of the college, Johnson gained an influence there which led many of the graduates to enter the ministry of the 136 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, v, church, and thus gave to its infant struggles the support of an educated clergy. One of the earliest of these learned recruits was Henry Caner, who graduated at Yale in 1724, to whom Johnson became theological instructor for three years, until he went abroad for ordination in 1727. After that he had him appointed missionary in Fairfield, the town adjoining" Stratford. Here Caner assiduously ministered, and in- corporated a church, the second in the colony, and ex- tended his labors to the neighboring towns, such as Norwalk, Stamford, and Greenwich. Prayer-books and other religious publications were circulated, and the efforts to discover families favorable to the church, wherever they might be, were unremitting. These were found in New- town, Redding, Ridgefield, and Danbury. Johnson also visited New Haven, New London, and Wethersfield. Thus the movement spread. A great hindrance to it was the tax levied by the colony for the support of the churches of the Standing Order, which was a heavy addi- tion to the voluntary contributions of churchmen for main- taining their own parishes. In the first five years of Johnson's ministrations in Stratford, eleven church families moved into New York for this sole reason. The wardens and vestrymen of Fairfield memorialized the General As- sembly in I 727 to remove this burden ; and in consequence a law was enacted permitting the taxes of churchmen to be applied to the minister of the Church of England, if there were one sufficiently near them to permit of their attending his ministrations. Parishioners of the Church of England were also excused from paying taxes for the building of meeting-houses for the churches of the colony. The law, however, was rendered in many cases nugatory by the construction put upon it. " Sufficient nearness " to the church was defined to be a distance within a mile CONVERSION OF BISHOP SEABURY'S FATHER. I 37 or two miles. Many of the scattered population were thus deprived of its benefit ; and it became a nullity in those towns where there was no Episcopal church or minister. This occasioned renewed efforts to secure resident mis- sionaries from the Venerable Society (S. P. G.). McSpar- ran, of Narragansett, came over from Rhode Island to give occasional services at New London and Groton ; and a spir- it of inquiry concerning the Scriptural grounds of differ- ence between Episcopacy and Congregationalism was rife throughout Connecticut as early as 1730. The number of actual churchmen at this period was small. A tendency to a more conciliatory attitude toward Episcopacy was, however, manifest. Johnson writes at this period : " A love to the church gains ground greatly in the college. Several young men that are graduates, and some young ministers, are very uneasy out of the communion of the church, and some of them seem much disposed to come into her service ; and those that are best affected to the church are the highest and most studious of any that are educated in the country." A notable addition was made to the ministry at this time in the accession of Rev. Samuel Seabury, the father of Bishop Seabury, who gave up his charge as stated sup- ply of the Second Ecclesiastical Society of North Groton, and, going to England, was ordained by Bishop Gibson. He was a graduate of Harvard. On his return home he began to officiate at New London, in a church not yet finished, to a congregation of a hundred persons, of whom fourteen were communicants. In less than two years wardens and vestrymen were chosen, and in April, 1732, the third Episcopal parish, with a church building and a resident minister, was established in Connecticut. In view of the subsequent career and influence of his son this was a notable conversion. 138 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. Two graduates of Yale, John Pierson and Isaac Brown (the latter a brother of the Brown who accompanied John- son and Cutler to England and died there), went about this time to England for ordination, and their accession had its influence, though they were appointed to labor as missionaries in other colonies. John Beach, also, a prom- inent young Congregational minister at Newtown, entered the church under Johnson's influence, and after his ordi- nation was appointed missionary in that town by the S. P. G. His earnestness rapidly increased his flock, and he reported accessions at every administration of the com- munion. He proceeded at once to erect two small churches at Redding and Newtown ; and the eager activity of his movements may find an illustration in the fact that the frame of the building at Newtown was raised on Saturday, the roof-boards put on the same evening, and the congre- gation assembled within this church for worship on Sunday morning. Thus by 1734 the fourth and fifth churches having a resident minister were established in the colony. Again, at North Groton there came an accession in the person of Ebenezer Punderson, the successor of the seced- ing Samuel Seabury as minister of the Congregational society, who was returned by the S. P. G., after his ordi- nation, as missionary to the scene of his former labors. He was an itinerant missionary, and officiated at North Groton and Norwich, and penetrated to Hebron and Middletown. A parish was soon organized and a church built at North Groton ; for Mr. Punderson was highly esteemed by his old parishioners, and drew many after him. Before this seventh church was erected, another, the sixth in order of church growth in the colony, had been Ipuilt at Hebron (1734), on the occasion of the secession of Rev. John Bliss from the Congregational ministry, he having been- the first minister of the town. Here Mr. Bliss served for a time as CONTROVERSIES. 1 39 lay reader. Johnson, now relieved by various missionaries, extended his own labors as far as Waterbury ; and Mr. Caner, of Fairfield, was able to build a new church at Fairfield of far larger proportions and more imposing ap- pearance than the first. By 1736 there were found to be seven hundred Episcopal families in the colony. It has been deemed best to dwell on these minutiae of the first ten years of the church's growth in Connecticut, to show the energy and sobriety of the clergy, and the persistent determination of the laity to secure the presence of the Episcopal Church among them. The church's growth, however, was not only the fruit of abundant labor, but also the result of sharp controversy. The Rev. Jona- than Dickinson, the celebrated Presbyterian divine of New Jersey, early entered the lists in a remonstrance to a pa- rishioner of Stratford church ; and this drew out a rejoinder from Rector Johnson. He was not infrequently hereafter called upon to defend the church of his adoption from various assailants. Mr. Foxcroft, of Boston, made a sharp attack. The Rev. John Graham, of Woodbur}^, contrib- uted sarcasm and ridicule to the controversy, which caused Mr. Johnson to publish a pamphlet on " Plain Reasons for Conforming to the Church " ; and a fusillade of replies and rejoinders followed. Dickinson again published a sermon on " The Vanity of Human Institutions in the Worship of God," in which he charged conformists to the Church of England in the colony with willful schism. Mr. John Beach, the convert at Newtown, replied in a pamphlet called " A Vindication of the Worship of the Church of England " ; and a lively conflict of tracts followed between these two. But the more the subject was discussed the greater was the growth of the church. It gained steadily all through the colony, and in the first ten years of its existence had taken firm root. I40 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. By 1738 " the members and professors of the Church of England Hving in Connecticut " felt strong enough to make an appeal to the legislature for a share in the seventy thousand pounds which had been obtained by the sale of the western lands of the colony to individual holders. This sum had been appropriated by the Assembly to the use of schools or the support of Congregational ministers. The petitioners based their appeal on their common right as citizens to share in the common property, and on the law of 1727, by which churchmen were exempted from taxes for churches of the Standing Order, arguing that, on these grounds, it was an injustice for them to be denied their share in the public moneys for the support of their ministers. Among the seven reasons given for their action, the fourth one was of special significance. In it they as- serted that, " in the opinion of the attorney-general, a solicitor, and other gentlemen of the law at home, there could be no such thing as a regular establishment of any one denomination of Christians in Connecticut, to the ex- clusion of the rest, without an explicit consent of the king's Majesty." The strength of the church is shown by the fact that the appeal was signed by six hundred and thirty- six males over sixteen years of age, resident in nine parishes or stations and under the charge of seven clergymen, and by the additional fact that, although the petition was not granted, the whole fund thereafter was devoted to public education, to the exclusion of the Congregational clergy as well as the ministers of the church. The church continued to increase through all this tur- moil. Milford was added to Johnson's labors ; and a church was begun in Derby, at the junction of the Housa- tonic and Naugatuck rivers, which it took eight years to build, and which was afterward faithfully served by Dr. Mansfield in the almost unique pastorate of seventy-two REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 14 1 years. Arnold, the successor of Johnson at West Haven in the Congregational ministry, turned to the church in 1734, and became an itinerant missionary for the colony. The church which he began in West Haven is, with the exception of the one in Brooklyn, the only one now stand- ing which was built in Johnson's lifetime. The position of West Haven was an important one, by reason of its near- ness to New Haven and Yale College. The instructors and students who were churchmen went out there to worship on Sunday ; and Mr. Arnold endeavored to secure land for a church in New Haven, which attempt was for a while frustrated by the violent opposition of some of the residents. The government was, however, more severe and hostile than the people in general. There was often very friendly intercourse between the missionaries and some of the Congregational ministers ; and the common opposition of both to the excesses which came in with Whitefield's visitation tended to draw them nearer together. It is time to speak of the widespread effects of that mar- velous orator and devoted, if erratic. Christian minister of the Church of England, who stirred the whole community of Connecticut, as elsewhere, by his rare gift of elo- quence. Before coming to Connecticut in i 740, he had had his career in Georgia, and had visited Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Everywhere his was the voice of the whirlwind and the storm. People came from over twenty miles to hear him. He had proved a power at Harvard College, as well as on Boston Common, where twenty thousand people are said to have assembled to hear his farewell sermon. Everywhere he kindled an intense enthu- siasm. Before coming to New Haven he visited Jonathan Edwards at Northampton, and came with his imprimatur to the college town. His relations to the Church of England sat lightly on him. His denunciation of unspirituality was 142 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. as unsparing of priests and bishops as of the worldly or dis- solute layman. His exercises were not limited by canons, and his methods showed scant acquaintance with rubrics. At the time of his visit to Connecticut he was almost com- pletely identified with the ministers of the Standing Order, and his attitude toward the church led them to welcome him as an ally. He kindled the fire, but he could not control the conflagration. The most fanatical excesses followed in the wake of his preaching. While he smote the conscience, he stirred the passions. The hearts of men were like wax at his touch ; but their imaginations were set on fire as with a devouring flame. The convictions of sin were mingled with bodily agitations and outcries. Jerkings and swoonings, faintings and trances, were regarded as the normal attendants of religious awakening. Soon the more sober-minded of the Congregationalists began to draw apart from him. Itinerant preachers rose up spontane- ously to rebuke the unconverted worldliness of those who held that things should be done decently and in order. These came in for the same denunciations as the church clergy, and were styled " dumb dogs " and " Pharisees." The Standing Order was divided against itself. Some were carried away by the popular enthusiasm ; others were re- pelled by the extravagances and the uproar. Thus it fell out that the church gathered in many who reacted against the prevailing enthusiasm. It grew continually all through the turmoil, and its growth was secure. Doubtless its own life was quickened by the prevailing religious atmosphere. It gained in warmth of feeling and depth of life by the contagion. For with all its faults and attendant evils, the movement had roused the slumberous life of Puritanism as by the call of a new reformation. It made religion an experience to many to whom it had been only a tradition. It vivified the gospel as a living oracle where it had be- EFFECT OF WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING. 143 come mostly a thesaurus for theological speculation. It made very real the relations of the personal soul to the personal God. Crude theology, indeed, followed in its wake, as well as irrational tests of spiritual experience. But henceforth the churches were alive. The faults of the succeeding systems of divinity or methods of administration all had the note of vitality. The revival was a veritable quickening, and the church shared in the general benefit. It was, of course, bitterly denounced, and its ministers were contemptuously referred to as " unconverted." Even Johnson did not escape. The Congregational minister at Stratford, Hezekiah Gold, threatened him with a plain personal admonition as an intruder, and denounced him as a worker of all manner of mischief. This called forth a letter from Johnson as full of manliness as it was of humil- ity; and the effect of it all was to stimulate the church growth. T-he good rector is reported to have replied humorously to an inquiry concerning his congregation at this time : " Yes, it is increasing. I am a feeble instrument in the hands of God ; but, thanks be to him ! he has placed my left-handed brother Gold here, who makes six church- men while I can make one." This effect was not confined to one locality. New churches were erected where before only a few worshipers had been gathered in private houses, as in Ridgefield, Waterbury, and Ripton (now Huntington). In Plym- outh eleven out of the eighteen proprietors of the Con- gregational church declared for Episcopacy, and took possession of the building where the society had worshiped for the use of the church. The extravagances of the min- ister, named Todd, accounted for this change. In fine, Johnson wrote to a friend in London concerning this ex- citement: " It has occasioned such a growth of the church in this town (as well as in many other places) that the 144 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. church will not hold us, and we are obliged to build or much enlarge." The movement had, in truth, divided the Standing Order into New Lights and Old Lights ; and, like all family quarrels, the dissensions between the two were bitter. To escape them many found refuge in the church. Some of the dissentients began to suflfer with churchmen in the matter of taxation. No religious society, of even the Standing Order, could be formed in any town and yet claim exemption from taxation to support the first existing society. This law of i 742 was used by those in power to crush out the new votaries of enthusiasm by preventing them from erecting new churches for themselves. The law, also, of 1 746, in its attempt to reach the seceding New Lights, indirectly excluded churchmen, as not being mem- bers of the first society, from any share in levying the taxes which they were obliged to pay for the common support of religion. Their taxes, as has been earlier explained, were applied to their own use since the law of 1727; but they were not allowed any voice in determining what those taxes should be. The progress of the church was, how- ever, not impeded. / In 1742, just twenty years after Johnson had begun his / ministry as the only Episcopal minister in the colony, churchmen could report fourteen churches built and build- ing, served by seven clergymen. They now desired the appointment of a special commissary for Connecticut. Rev. Roger Price, of Boston, was commissary for all New England, but he lived at too great a distance to be an effective of^cer. Mr. Morris, the one English clergy- man in the colony, disliked Johnson's nomination as commissary, on account of his conciliatory attitude to- ward the Congregationalists. He alone of all the clergy opposed his appointment, showing his unfortunate insular- ity in an attitude of harsh opposition to all outside the CAUSES FOR DESIRING A BISHOP. 145 church, and making apparent, by his exception to the rule, the inestimable advantage Connecticut enjoyed in having a native and not an imported clergy. An unwillingness on the part of the S. P. G. to restrict the original jurisdiction of Mr. Price prevented Johnson's appointment; but the request for it reveals the spirit of confidence and hope to which the church which made it had attained. The increase in the number of missionaries did not, un- fortunately, keep pace with the multiplication of parishes. Caner, who for twenty years had labored faithfully at Fairfield, and who was the most popular church preacher in the colony, removed to Boston and became rector of King's Chapel. The elder Seabury having removed to Long Island, left Mr. Punderson the only church mission- ary in the eastern part of the colony. Several seceding Congregational ministers, graduates of Yale, were, after ordination, appointed missionaries in other colonies, so that Johnson did not fail to impress upon the Archbishop of Canterbury the great importance of having a resident bishop. He wrote: "I am persuaded at this juncture there are several dissenting teachers who would take orders if they could have them by riding, though it were three or four hundred miles, and would bring all their people with them that are not infatuated with this New Light. An English bishop would be the most effectual means to vastly enlarge the church." In 1744 a threatened revisitation of Connecticut by Whitefield led the General Association of Congregational Ministers to declare that " it would be by no means advisa- ble for any of their ministers to admit him into their pulpits, or for any of their people to attend his ministrations." At Yale College, also. President Clap and the tutors signed a declaration against his principles. Both these declarations tended to inspire confidence in the order, doctrine, and 146 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. worship of the church, which Whitefield had so vigorously- denounced, and which had stood aloof from the wild fanaticism of his followers. Concerning New Haven it- self, where there was as yet no Episcopal church, Johnson writes about this time : " A love to the church is gaining in the college ; and four more, whose names are Allen, Lloyd, Sturgeon, and Chandler, have declared themselves candidates for holy orders ; and there seems a very growing disposition toward the church in the town of New Haven, as well as in the college ; so that I hope ere long there will be a flourishing church there." This hope was not to be fulfilled until after twenty churches had been built in other parts of the colony. A movement looking to the establish- ment of the church in New Haven had been made as early as 1735 by the Rev. Jonathan Arnold, who, while in Eng- land awaiting ordination, obtained from William Gregson, a descendant of Thomas Gregson, one of the original settlers of New Haven, a deed of a lot of an acre and three quarters, now known as the " glebe property," on the corner of Church and Chapel streets. This was con- veyed in trust for the building of a church and parson- age, for the laying out of a churchyard for the poor, and to serve as a glebe for the support of the church. The deed, however, lacked the proper acknowledgment; and the land having been occupied for many years by others, its possession by the church was resisted. In 1752, how- ever, twenty square rods of land were bought for two hun- dred pounds by Enos Ailing and Isaac Doolittle, opposite Gregson's Corner, "for the building of a house for public worship agreeable and according to the Establishment of the Church of England." The title was not completed and confirmed till 1756. Trinity parish having been previously formed, a church of wood was built for it, the door-sill of JOHNSON MADE PRESIDENT OF KING'S COLLEGE, i^y which was said to have been large enough to furnish seats for all the men of the Episcopal families in the town. Johnson was greatly interested in this church, on account of its immediate proximity to the college ; and Mr. Punder- son, who had been an itinerant missionary, was, at his own request, appointed missionary to the church at New Haven, as well as to Guilford and Bradford^ in the neighborhood; This establishment of a church in New Haven was an im- portant advance, and was a decided help to the church in all the surrounding localities. The church would have grown more rapidly could it have obtained more mission- aries; but already, several years before the first Trinity Church was built, in 1753, Lamson, Dibden, Fowle, Mans- field, and Camp had been added to the corps of clergy, and churches had been built at Stamford, Strathfield (Bridge- port), Guilford, Norwich, Litchfield, and Middletown. It was now fairly and widely distributed, and the controversies and conflicts, in which from time to time it was necessarily engaged, augmented and strengthened it. It was to meet a sore loss in the removal of its fostering father. Dr. John- son was called to New York to be first president of King's (now Columbia) College. He had declined the invitation of Franklin to be Provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia; but he accepted the appointment in New York for the purpose of forwarding the education of a church clergy free from the restrictions imposed upon them in the colleges of other denominations. These naturally guarded their own interests ; and this was sometimes thought to necessitate legislation to restrict the spread of Episcopal churchmanship. It had been settled that the president of King's College should be in communion with the Church of England, and that the liturgy of the church should be used at morning 148 PROTESTANl^ EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, v, and evening prayers ; the church would be in the ascend- ancy, and its members the objects of fostering care. At New Haven Episcopal students were fined for attending Episcopal services unless they were communicants, and then could only go on sacrament Sundays, which were rare, and were obliged to recite frequently the Westminster Confession of Faith as part of the college curriculum. Thus, after thirty-one years of indefatigable service at Stratford, Johnson went forth to another colony to guard and advance the interests of education in behalf of the church. He was made assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York, as well as president of the college ; and he en- tered on his duties in 1754. He had during his ministry in Stratford admitted four hundred and forty-two persons to the holy communion, and fourteen of this number had crossed the ocean for holy orders. He had labored all over the colony for his church, and had ministered faithfully to the Indians and negroes within his reach. He was followed at Stratford by Rev. Edward Winslow, a graduate of Harvard, an excellent preacher, and an ad- mirable man. He soon succeeded in securing an organ for his church, the first used in public worship in Connec- ticut. It was a great event in its influence upon worship, which must have seemed bare indeed when chant and Te Deum and Psalter and Gloria were all said instead of sung. Throughout the colony the record of growth was hence- forth continuous. The church pushed its way out into all the older parts of the colony, and up into the newer and last-settled portions of it in the northwestern corner, as in Cornwall, Sharon, and Kent. Where missionaries could not be had, lay readers kept up the services, and persever- ance and devotion met a slow but sure reward. The charge of proselyting was met by Johnson in New York by a vin- dication of his brethren, sent to Archbishop Seeker, in which CHARGE OF PROSELYTING. 1 49 he declares : "I never once tried to proselyte dissenters, nor do I believe any of the other ministers did. So far were we from promoting or taking advantage of any quarrels that happened among themselves that in many instances we obliged them to accommodate matters with their former brethren before we would receive them to our communion." Still no convert was repelled by a cold reception, and ag- gressive energy was a prominent characteristic of the whole church. Solomon Palmer, who had long served as Congregational minister in Cornwall, traversed Litchfield County after his ordination, and was a pioneer of the church in several places in Massachusetts and New York, as well as in north- ern Connecticut. The parishes of the southern shore, from Norwich to Greenwich, were constantly increasing in num- bers and strength ; w.hile in the interior, at Danbury and Newtown and other places, the unwearied efforts of the faithful missionaries, Beach and Leaming and Dibblee, were rewarded by an ever-increasing strength. Leaming, who was, after the Revolution, a prominent candidate for first Bishop of Connecticut, wrote to England, urging the need in the colony of a bishop to confirm, ordain, and govern. " Every Body," he said, " wants a Head ; and when we have one, may we have a sound head and a religious heart." It was not to be until the severance from the mother-country. Then the mother could grant to the alien what she denied to the child. At this period there is this excuse, if excuse it be, for the indifference of England to this appeal. A special violence of opposition had arisen on the part of the Congregationalists to having a bishop sent. England would not incense a majority of the colony ; and as in this matter the State ruled, the Church had to stand for a system the chief feature of which was denied them. It is amazing that the churchmen were not utterly disheart- 150 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. ened ; but that they never were. " Perplexed, but not in despair," was a text they illustrated and understood. Their strength lay in their unity and in the dissensions, now very rife, among their adversaries. The intense and bitter op- position of the conservatives to the enthusiasts waxed hotter and hotter. " They may really thank themselves," wrote Winslow, Johnson's successor at Stratford, " for no small part of the growth of the church, at which they are now so enraged. Their continual disputes and endless dissensions have drawn sensible people and serious persons to take refuge in our glorious constitution. The increase the church has received by means of these confusions has been by its obvious superior worth and excellence." It was now that the great leader of Connecticut church- men returned to be once more among them. After going to New York he had lost his younger son while seeking orders in England ; and his second wife was also taken by the same dire disease, smallpox. He wearied of the college duties, which were irksome to a man of sixty-seven, and of the publicity and distractions of a city life. He resigned the presidency of King's College, and returned to Stratford, where, on the retirement of Mr. Winslow to Massachusetts, he was soon made once more rector of the parish. His old friend Wetmore, who had stood by the first dissentients from Congregationalism in the library of Yale College, now died of smallpox at Rye, N. Y., on the border of Connecti- cut; and Mr. Punderson went to Rye from New Haven, and Mr. Palmer took his place in Trinity Church. The more vigorous prosecution of this New Haven mission under the very shadow of Yale College raised anew the assaults made from time to time on the Venerable Society, which in great part supported it. The answers which John- son and Beach, of Connecticut, and Apthorp, of Massachu- setts, made to Mayhew attracted notice, even in England. EFFECT OF THE STAMP ACT 1%5. 151 Archbishop Seeker entered the Hsts, and gave so temperate and clear a statement of the objects and methods of the society as to completely answer Mayhew, who insisted that the society intended to usurp authority over the various Christian communities settled in America. In this rejoinder of the archbishop there occurred a statement in- tended to quiet the apprehensions of those who, like May- hew, professed to dread the introduction of bishops as an hierarchical attempt to overthrow religious liberty in America. He said such American bishops, were intended to, " have no converse in the least with any persons who do not profess themselves to be of the Church of Eng- land, but may ordain ministers for such as do ; may con- firm, and take such oversight of the Episcopal clergy as the Bishop of London's commissaries have taken without offense. But it is not in the least desired that they should . . . infringe or diminish any privileges or liberties enjoyed by any of the laity, even of our own communion. This is the only scheme that has been planned for bishops in America ; and whoever has heard of any other has been misinformed through mistake or design." Such, then, was the position of the church in Con- necticut up to the passage of the Stamp Act by Parliament (i 765). Universal excitement was aroused throughout the colonies in consequence of that act. A general Congress of the colonies now met for the first time in New York ; and the eldest son of Dr. Johnson was sent by the As- sembly of Connecticut to represent the colony. His father sympathized with the patriots ; but the expressions of various missionaries in their communications to the Vener- able Society at this time indicated a sympathy with the mother-country which foretold what their course would be in the coming Revolution, yet ten years off. The repeal of the Stamp Act by Parliament a year later, accompanied by 152 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. the declaration that " Parliament had the right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever," allayed the temporary excitement of the people, but left anxious forebodings in the minds of the leaders ; for the claim was rightly re- garded as inconsistent with liberty. The clergy of Con- necticut, amid this commotion, were more than ever im- pressed with the necessity of having a bishop among them to counsel their action and hold them together. In October, 1 766, a convention was held at Stratford, where twelve of them were present, which prepared an address to the Bishop of London, urging action on this subject. The only answer was a resolution of the Venerable Society not to establish any more missions in New England. Private and public appeals continued to be made for the episcopate. Dr. Johnson wrote strongly to the archbishop once more. He recalled the fact that the" last two candidates ordained by his Grace were lost by shipwreck on their return. He recounted the experiences of the last forty years, wherein ten candidates out of fifty had been lost to the church through the "perils of the sea," and ended by saying: " If such a thing as sending one or two bishops can at all be done for us, this article of thine, now that all America are overflowing with joy for the repeal of the Stamp Act, would be the happiest juncture for it that could be, for I believe they would rather twenty bishops were sent than the act enforced." Dr. Chauncy, the celebrated Congregational divine of Boston, about this time published a " Letter to a Friend," in which he stated that the sole design of the Venerable Society was " to episcopize the colonies." After a consul- tation of the clergy, Dr. Johnson was asked to publish a pamphlet explaining the plan on which American bishops had been requested, stating the reasons for the request, and answering objections. Johnson felt physically unable to DR. CHANDLER'S "APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC:' 1 53 undertake the task ; and Dr. Chandler, of EHzabethtown, N. J., at his request, and that of many of the clergy of New York and New Jersey, published an " Appeal to the PubHc," in which he pointed out how needless were alarms at the thought of an American episcopate. Some months after the appearance of the " Appeal," the press of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, inflamed mofe with poHti- cal than theological passion, launched their thunders at it. Dr. Chauncy put forth a pamphlet of two hundred pages, entitled " The Appeal to the Public Answered," in which he declared, with heat generated by both political and ecclesiastical passion, " We are fully persuaded, as if they had openly said it, that they have in view nothing short of a complete church hierarchy, . . . with a large revenue for their grand support, and with the assurance of no other privilege to dissenters but that of a bare toleration." This set at liberty a series of lively papers, full of stinging per- sonalities and uncharitable aspersions of motives, in which the old Adam got very much the better of the young Melanchthon. Dr. Chandler, however, published a digni- fied reply, called "The Appeal Defended," and in 1771 "The Appeal Further Defended," in answer to a previous reply of his adversary. This closed the controversy, which, like most controversies of the kind, kindled a great deal of animosity and probably changed the opinion of no single soul. When, late in 1766, shortly after the formal addresses of the clergy to the Bishop of London, Dr. Johnson's son, William Samuel Johnson, left for England as a special agent of Connecticut in an important cause before the Lords in Council, he, being a churchman, was regarded with great interest by the authorities of the colony as a source of information concerning ecclesiastical affairs. Governor Trumbull wrote to him to inquire about the intentions 154 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. of the English government concerning the American bish- ops; and Mr. Johnson answered in the same strain as characterized Dr. Chandler's " Appeal." In notifying the governor that there was no intention at that time to send bishops to America, he stated with the utmost distinctness that " it had been merely a religious, and in no respect a political scheme." " As I am myself," he continued, " of the Church of England, you will not doubt that I have had the fullest opportunity to be intimately acquainted with all the stages that have ever been taken in this affair, and you may rely upon it that it never was, nor is, the intention or even wish of those who have been most sanguine in the matter that American bishops should have any, the least degree of secular power of any nature or kind whatsoever, much less any measure of concern or connection with Christians of any other denomination, nor even any power, properly so called, over the laity of the Church of Eng- land. They wish them to have merely the spiritual powers which are incident to the episcopal character as such, which, in the ideas of that church, are those of ordination and confirmation, and of presiding over and governing the clergy ; which can, of course, relate to those of that profession only who are its voluntary subjects, and can affect nobody else. More than this would be thought rather disadvantageous than beneficial, and, I assure you, would be opposed by no man with more zeal than myself, even as a friend to the Church of England. Nay, I have the strongest grounds to assure you that more would not be accepted by those who understand and wish well to the design, were it even offered." After such assurances by such a man, the authorities of Connecticut could have no excuse for cherishing the prejudices so apparent in Dr. Chauncy's letter, save that- inveterate and long-cherished, nay, hereditary dislike of LAST EFFORTS BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 155 prelacy, begotten of the persecution of their forefathers in England. The feeling of dread and opposition, however, continued, and the expression of it weighed heavily with the political leaders of the English state. Archbishop Seeker might urge and bequeath a thousand pounds to- ward the establishment of an American bishop ; Sherlock might earnestly petition the king to the same end ; but the fear of offending the Independents, who constituted the vast majority in the colony, and thus hampering political projects, effectually prevented parliamentary leaders from even seriously considering the question. Notwithstanding the long disappointment of their hopes, ^the missionaries did not slacken their zeal in the mainte- nance and spread of the church. Candidates continued to cross the sea for ordination. Dr. Johnson, in his old age, being relieved from part of his parish duties by his as- sistant, Mr. Kneeland, kept up a sort of small divinity school, training young men for holy orders. In 1769 there were seventeen resident missionaries in Connecticut. The last new enterprise before the Revolution was that which established the church in Pomfret, in the northeastern part of the colony, under the patronage and generous as- sistance of Mr. Godfrey Malborn, who had moved there from Newport, R. I. He was a man of wealth, and in order to avoid contributing to the town tax for a new meeting- house, he resolved to spend the amount, and more, in building an Episcopal church. In the important center, New Haven, there was also decided growth, so that a hun- dred Episcopal families were gathered there, besides thirty- five at West Haven. In Newtown Mr. Beach reported not only growth, but a more kindly feeling between churchmen and Congregationalists ; and Simsbury came third in the list of the church's strength. Hartford, which has since been such a center of Episcopal power, was not ecclesiastically 156 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. prominent until after the war. But nowhere was the church so strong as in Fairfield County, the place of its first establishment, where it had had Johnson's more im- mediate care. There it included a third of the people. In Newtown the church divided equally the population with the Standing Order. Churchmen from Mr. Beach's mis- sion and from other fields had by this time moved into the distant parts of Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, and were from time to time visited by their former pastors. Thus was the church constantly alert. And now, before the war should have despoiled the goodly heritage which he had nurtured, the noble Johnson was called home, and the church was left without his sage counsels to direct it in its most momentous crisis. On the morning of the Feast of the Epiphany (1772) he suddenly expired in his chair, having just expressed a wish to die like his friend Bishop Berkeley, who had passed away in the same manner. It was well that he went, for he could not have prevented the calamities of the war, and they would have rent his heart asunder. He was one of the noblest men of his day and generation, firm in his convic- tions, charitable in his judgments, wise in his counsels, in defatigable in his labors, sincere in his piety, incorruptible in word and deed. He was the heart and soul of the church movement in Connecticut, but he never broke with his old friends of the Standing Order. He honored Yale College and was honored by it. He brought up his son to be one of the distinguished men of the colony while the colony was ruled by those who opposed all his cherished ecclesiastical convictions. He saw with clear vision the needs of the church, and labored assiduously to supply them. Happily he was spared the hour of her disaster; but his influence wrought mightily in her reconstruction when once the time of her deliverance came. No name THE CHURCH DURING THE REVOLUTION. 157 deserves more reverent mention in all the annals of the church in America than the name of Samuel Johnson. At the outbreak of the Revolution the church which Johnson had fostered numbered tv^enty clergymen and forty churches. All but two or three of these missionaries were natives of the colony. The few English missionaries, with a native, Samuel Peters, of Hebron, at their head, made themselves especially obnoxious to the government, and were either removed from the colony or went their way of themselves. The native clergy mostly remained at their various missons ; but all sided with the English govern- ment. The war appeared to them as much a cause of the church as of the state. In great measure they drew their support from the Venerable Society ; and the oath of alle- giance taken at their ordination seemed to bind them to the king no less than to the Archbishop of Canterbury. They were not the sole adherents to the home government. A score of Congregational ministers in New England stood on the same side. Here, as in Massachusetts, the number of loyaHsts was by no means inconsiderable. When Howe evacuated Boston, the royal fleet took with it eleven hun- dred loyalists, including eighteen clergymen. From Con- necticut there was no such exodus, and loyalist and patriot lived on side by side. But the opposition to the war was far greater than in Massachusetts ; and even there the bill sanctioning the war was twice defeated before it was finally passed. Indeed, in the early years of the war, forty thousand Tories enlisted on the king's side ; and in its last year, when New York was evacuated, ten thousand left the city. When Inglis, the rector of Trinity Church, reached Nova Scotia in 1 783, thirty thousand refugees had preceded him. The Episcopal clergy were thus not exceptionally singular in their attachment to the crown. The excep- tional feature was that while other bodies were divided, 158 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai-. v. Episcopal clergymen at the North were of one heart and mind. The church congregations were greatly divided in senti- ment. In Derby, Mansfield reported only twenty families, out of the one hundred and thirty of his flock, as siding with the Revolution. In Stratford, only about ten miles distant, not a man dissented from the Revolutionary meas- ures. Most of the clergy held their peace, or took no act- ive part in the movements of the hour. Some were less prudent. Dr. Mansfield, of Derby, in writing to Governor Tryon, of New York, concerning the indignities shown to loyal members of his flock, suggested measures for reduc- ing the colony to obedience. His letter was discovered, and, to escape punishment and imprisonment, he had to flee to Long Island. Mr. Beach, of Newtown, who was very outspoken in the pulpit and out of it, was at one time put under strict guard. Mr. Nile, of Simsbury, suspected of assisting royalist prisoners to escape, was carried a prisoner to Hartford jail. Mr. Leaming, who wrote vigorously for the royal cause, had his house mobbed and was lodged in jail. After the Declaration of Independ- ence, some of the clergy were pulled out of their reading- desks for using the prayer for the king. These men suffered for political causes, as is inevitable in such a war. There was doubtless much needless vio- lence ; but the heat engendered of war is not nice in its discrimination. Passion was not the prerogative of one party only. Mr. Beach, of Newtown, venerable and ex- cellent man that he was, gave great offense to the Sons of Liberty by his outspoken defiance, and declared that " he would do his duty, and preach and pray for the king, till the rebels cut out his tongue." It is said that some mis- creant fired once at him while officiating in Redding, the ball lodging in the sounding-board. The intrepid old man SUSPENSIOiV OF SERVICES. 159 paused merely to repeat the text, " Fear not them which kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul," and then went on with the service as though nothing had happened. The indiscretions, to say the least, of these ardent cleri- cal loyalists were the cause of much suffering to their more prudent brethren. Several of the missionaries were for- bidden to go beyond their respective missions, and were sometimes not allowed to visit a parishioner without leave of the selectmen of the town. They were in great straits from their inability to draw their salaries from the Vener- able Society ; and as they could not pray in public for the king and royal famil}^, as the liturgy prescribed, without great danger to property, if not to life, a convention held in New Haven in July, 1776 (after the Declaration of In- dependence), resolved to suspend public worship. In con- sequence all the churches in Connecticut, except those under Mr. Beach, were for a time closed. Here, then, was a church with clergy suspected and denounced, and with ministerial functions quite suspended. Some, after a time, like Mr. Tyler, of Norwich, were wise enough to decide to read the service, omitting the obnoxious prayers, conclud- ing, as in his own words, " that the cause of religion ought not to be annihilated on a civil account." In November, 1778, his church was reopened. In New Haven Mr. Hub- bard took a like course in Trinity Church, and prayed for " Congress and the free and independent States of America." Others, like Mr. Graves, of Norwich, deemed such usage or disusage sacrilege, and after being roughly handled in church, " and brought expeditiously to the level of the floor," were finally obliged to flee to New York. Mr, Sayre, of Fairfield, took a different course. He held Sunday services in church, but would not use any part of the liturgy, for he would not mutilate it. He read Scrip- ture lessons and psalms and the homilies, and expounded l6o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. v. the catechism, thus, as he says, " enjoying one of the two general designs of public rehgious meetings, pubHc instruc- tion ; the other, to wit, pubHc worship, was inadmissible in our circumstances." He, however, had the misfortune to lose both his church and parsonage by the flames of the conflagration kindled by the direction of General Tryon to destroy Fairfield, though it had been designed to save the church property. The church at Norwalk was destroyed in the same manner by the same hands. The church suf- fered by both its friends and its enemies. In other places, where the churches were not destroyed, they were defaced and pillaged, as at Danbury by the British, and at Watertown and Litchfield by the patriots. Mr. Beach wrote in 1781 to the secretary of the Venerable Society : " Newtown and Redding are the only parts of New England, I believe, that have refused to comply with the doings of Congress. My two congregations are grow- ing, at Redding being commonly about three hundred, at Newtown six hundred." He died before the war ended, and was spared the triumph of his countrymen. What he did and suff'ered was for conscience' sake ; and the intre- pidity of his character commands universal respect, even from those who deplore his mistaken convictions. The missionaries held on tenaciously to their course through the buffetings of both sides in the contest. As a last touch of misfortune, the church in New London was burned in the conflagration kindled by Benedict Arnold, who had been sent by Sir Henry Clinton to make a diver- sion which might delay or frustrate Washington's expedi- tion to Yorktown and the capture of Cornwallis. Thus three of the largest churches were destroyed by those whom the clergy favored and upheld, and many churchmen fell in the atrocious and fratricidal massacre at Groton. When the war closed it found the church " cast down, THE CHURCH AT CLOSE OE REVOLUTION. l6l but not destroyed." Three of the principal churches had been burned by the British. The missionaries Peters, Graves, and Sayre had fled. Two, Beach and Kneeland, had died. Fourteen, however, were in their parishes. Learning being still in New York, whither he had gone after the burning of his church at Norwalk by General Tryon. The severance of the tie to the mother-country had cut the bond which joined the missionaries to the Venerable Society, as the charter of that society restricted its contributions to missions within the realm of Great Britain. Hence their salaries were gone, their numbers depleted, and their churches, to some extent, destroyed or dilapidated ; and those who remained were in ill favor by reason of their attachment to the losing side. Whatever they had lost, however, they had not lost heart. With indomitable pluck, they prepared to carry on their cause with yet more effective weapons than they had heretofore possessed. Their prompt action looking to the resuscita- tion of the church, when once hostilities had ceased, be- longs to the period not of its colonial history, but of its reconstruction under the auspices of national independence. We therefore close the history of the English Church in Connecticut at this point, when it ceased to be English and began to be American ; but not without a tribute to that sturdy steadfastness in the day of its incompleteness which was the sure prophecy of its intrepid advance in the day of its completed organization. CHAPTER VI. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN NEW YORK. The history of the Church of England in New York really begins in 1693, thirty years after the English had wrested the province from the Dutch. In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English mariner, sailing under the auspices of the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Com- pany, discovered the island of Manhattan, and ascended the Hudson River as far as the present site of Albany. In 1623 the first real attempts to colonize New Netherland began. Then a company of Belgian Protestants, called Walloons, was sent over, eight of them remaining on Manhattan Island, and part ascending the river to the present site of Albany, where they built Fort Orange. Peter Minuit, a director of the company, came in 1626 and bought the island of Manhattan of the natives for twenty- four dollars. In 1628 Michaelius, a minister of the Re- formed Church, arrived, and organized a church with fifty communicants; and in 1656 there were four Dutch clergymen in New Netherland sent out by the Classes of Amsterdam.^ In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant became governor; an honest and passionate man, strenuously opposed to popular rights. He warred with the Swedes and extended the jurisdiction of the Dutch over their territory on the Delaware. He was intolerant to the Lutherans and the Baptists, and fined, ' Fisher, " Colonial Era," p. i8i, 162 ENGLISH CONQUEST OF NEW YORK. 163 whipped, imprisoned, and banished Quakers, after Massa- chusetts fashion. Persecutions only ceased when, in 1663, the company gave Stuyvesant to understand that they must cease. The character of his administration explains the easy conquest of the country by the English, as well as accounts for the occasion of it. It was due mainly to commercial rivalry. Charles II. had made a grant of the territory lying between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers, com- prehending Long Island, to his brother, the Duke of York. The duke determined, in the interests of the Navigation Act, to assert his claims and give England and her Ameri- can colonies the benefit of free trading with the region held by the Dutch. In the meantime it was known that the commerce of New Netherland had not flourished under the rule of the West India Company, and that the people, comparing their situation with New England, which now contained over one hundred thousand inhabitants to seven thousand in New Netherland, were discontented. When, therefore, in 1663, the Duke of York sent four ships, con- taining four hundred and fifty regular troops, to take pos- session, he found an easy prey. Stuyvesant prepared to resist with spirit, but yielded the place at the solicitation of the authorities and clergy of the city, who, together with the officers of the burgher guard, saw that surrender was inevitable. Fort Orange, up the Hudson, and the forts on the Delaware were shortly taken ; and the province, as well as New Amsterdam, was henceforth called New York. Al- bany was the name given to Fort Orange, that being the second title of the duke. The internal dissensions already mentioned, together with the neglect of the Dutch home government, easily rec- onciled the people to the change, especially as the property and the civil rights of the citizens were guaranteed. There t64 PROTESTANT episcopal CHURCH. [Chap. vi. was no religious establishment; and freedom of religion was conceded to all professing Christianity, though service in each parish on Sunday was obligatory. Divine service according to the English liturgy was allowed to be held in the Dutch church in the fort at New Amsterdam, after the service of the Reformed Church was over, a courtesy re- membered and repaid by Trinity Church more than a hundred years afterward, when, in 1779, during the Revo- lutionary War, it gave the use of St. George's Chapel to the Dutch congregation, whose church at that time was taken for a hospital by the king's troops. In making this offer the vestry expressed themselves as " impressed with a grateful remembrance of the former kindness of the members of that ancient church in permitting the use of their church to the members of the Church of England when they had no proper edifice of their own." The surrender of New York to a Dutch squadron in 1673, and its restoration to the EngHsh in 1674, changed some of the ecclesiastical arrangements. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed governor with enlarged powers ; and he describes New York in 1678 as containing twenty- four towns, and adds, " religions of all sorts: one Church of England, Quakers and Anabaptists, some Jews, but Presbyterians and Independents most numerous and sub- stantial." He was strenuous in his advocacy of the English Church; but the Assembly passed a charter guaranteeing freedom of conscience and religion to all who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ. When the Duke of York be- came King James II., he abohshed the popular Assembly, and New York became a royal province. Colonel Thomas Dougan, a Roman Catholic, succeeded Andros, bringing Rev. John Gordon with him as chaplain of the royal forces. The instructions of the king, though himself a papist, still guarded the interests of the Church ACT OF 1693; GOVERNOR FLETCHER. 165 of England. "You shall take especial care," he wrote, " that God Almighty be devoutly and duly served through- out the government; the Book of Common Prayer, as it is now established, read each Sunday and holy day, and the blessed sacrament administered according to the rites of the Church of England." When James was dethroned, and William and Mary were proclaimed, in 1688, an in- surrection, or revolution, occurred, headed by Jacob Leslie, which was finally overcome in 1691, when Leslie was exe- cuted. This insurrection did not affect the church, save to accentuate the Protestant element, of which Leslie was the devoted adherent. Colonel Henry Stoughton, who was appointed governor hy William and Mary, was directed to give religious liberty to all but Roman Catholics, who, on account of political considerations, were now discredited. He was also in- structed to have the Prayer-book read in the colony. It was, however, under Governor Fletcher, who succeeded Stoughton, that the English Church began to grow and was accorded precedence. It was the proposition of Miller, the English chaplain of the fort, that a bishop with attendant clergymen should be sent over from England ; but, like all such appeals, this was never acted on. Under Governor Fletcher an attempt was made to secure a quasi- establishment of the church, which succeeded. An act of the Assembly was passed in 1693, providing that in four specified counties, New York, Westchester, Queens, and Richmond, there should be five ministers supported by the county, and that all freeholders should vote in the election of vestrymen and wardens. Governor Fletcher insisted that the act must relate to Episcopal ministers only. The Assembly repudiated this construction of the act, and de- clared by vote that the vestries might call a " dissenting Protestant minister." From this time on, however, it con- 1 66 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. tinned to be maintained, under the influence of the gov- ernor, that none but Episcopal clergymen had any title to a support at the public expense. This was all the establish- ment of the church there was. It was under this act of 1693, and this interpretation of it, that Trinity Church was established in 1697. The population of New York was now about eighteen thousand. The small chapel in the fort was the only place of worship, shared by the Dutch, the English, and, in a side chapel, the Roman Catholics. The sole minister of the Establishment was the garrison chaplain. The necessity of larger quarters and of more dignified accommodation for the English congregation was apparent. Governor Fletcher, therefore, in 1695, began to take steps to organ- ize and build a church on ground which had been secured on Broadway, without the North Gate of the city, the property still occupied by Trinity Church. He was the principal promoter and most generous benefactor of it. When, in 1696, the church building was nearly com- pleted, the appointment of a rector became a first necessity. The choice lay in the city vestry ; for the charter making the church a corporate body had not yet been obtained. This vestry had been elected, according to the act of 1693, by all the freeholders of the city without regard to religious belief. Urged by the governor to act, it had already, in January of the year previous (1695), proceeded under the act of 1693 to call "to be minister of the city of New York," Mr. William Vesey, an Independent minister preaching at Hempstead, on Long Island. This action was confirmed as lawful by the General Assembly, and with apparent reason, as the wording of the act of 1693 for providing " a good and sufficient Protestant minister " for the city was, considering the constituency which granted CALL OF MR. VESEY TO TRINITY CHURCH. 1 6/ it, presumably meant to include other than episcopally ordained clergymen. The vestry's action, however, in the choice of Mr. Vesey, was directly in the face and teeth of the governor's inten- tion. He consequently prorogued the Assembly, and the vestry's call fell through. By the next year the complexion of the city vestry was greatly changed, its membership hav- ing become much more favorable to the English Church ; indeed, the two city wardens and seven of the ten vestry- men of the city vestry of 1694 afterward became part of the church vestry of the parish. They proceeded, Novem- ber 6, 1696, to call Mr. Vesey for the second time to be " minister of the city of New York," but now on condition that he should procure episcopal ordination in England. The Dutch element, having been propitiated by a liberal charter granted by the governor to the Dutch church, ac- quiesced. Personally Mr. Vesey was " persona grata " to them, as they had previously called him. Ecclesiastically he would now be acceptable to the " managers of the affairs of the Church of England " and to the governor. He was an estimable young man, a graduate of Harvard College of the class of 1693. He is reputed to have belonged to an old church family of Braintree, Mass. ; but after leaving college he had officiated among the Independents at Hemp- stead, L. I., supported by the tax authorized by the act of 1693. He was a popular preacher in Queens County, and was well known in the city of New York. At the time of this second call the vestry had before them the certificate of Rev. Samuel Myles, rector of King's Chapel, Boston, and of the two churchwardens, testifying to the excellent re- ligious character of Mr. Vesey, and to the fact of his often receiving the sacrament in that church. On these grounds he was called ; and he, accepting the call, agreed to repair 1 68 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. to England for ordination, which he did the following spring, and was ordained by the Bishop of London, August i6, 1697. On May 6, 1697, "the managers of the affairs of the Church of England in the city of New York " petitioned for a charter, praying to be incorporated with the powers and privileges usually appertaining to the churches of the Establishment. They cited the fact that, there being then no building for the public worship of God according to the Church of England, " they had built a church and covered the same," and they asked the application of the main- tenance voted in the act of the Assembly of 1693 for the minister's support, and also for a grant of land near the church. The council granted the petition, and on the same day the governor issued a charter, in the name of the king, agreeable to the petition, and constituted the said church and cemetery to " be the sole and only parish church and churchyard of the said city of New York." The rector named in the charter was the Bishop of London, Dr. Henry Compton ; and among the wardens and vestrymen occur the names, so familiar still in the history of the city, of Ludlow, Janeway, Read, Morris, Emott, Clarke, and others, led by that of Colonel Heathcote, so energetic in the spread of the church everywhere, especially in Con- necticut, and an ancestor of the first Bishop of Western New York, William Heathcote De Lancey. The appointment of the Bishop of London as rector was, of course, only provisional, to satisfy the conditions of the charter. Mr. William Vesey, whom he so soon afterward ordained, became resident rector in the same year. Steps were immediately taken, when once the charter and gifts conferred by it were granted, to complete the church edifice; and a sum sufficient for the purpose was ordered to be charged on all the inhabitants in the parish, payable THE BUILDING OF TRINITY CHURCH. 169 in seven years. Subscriptions were also taken for the pur- pose ; and it is amazing and amusing to note that in but one case did they amount to five pounds, and that they mostly consisted of one or two pounds. A special subscrip- tion for the building of the steeple amounted to a little over three hundred and twelve pounds, of which nearly six pounds was contributed by the Jews. It is interesting, in view of the subsequent wealth of the parish, to observe the various means used to collect funds for the church. Some money, amounting to about three hundred pounds, which had been collected for the redemption of Christian slaves taken by the " Sally " from Algeria (which still re- mained in the public coffers, as the slaves had died or es- caped), was obtained from the council for finishing and furnishing the church. His Excellency also granted the wardens a commission for all " Weifts, Wrecks and Drift Whales," for the same purpose. Four hundred pounds was also borrowed, and became a corporation debt. The great endowment of Trinity Church was made in 1705, in the reign of Queen Anne, by a deed patent, signed by Lord Cornbury, then governor, conveying to the corpora- tion the Queen's Farm, a tract of land extending along the river from the present site of St. Paul's Chapel to Chris- topher Street. It was, of course, at that time wholly un- productive ; but it has since been the source from which the Trinity corporation has chiefly derived the revenues for its own extensive and constantly extending parish activities, and for the munificent gifts to such corporations as Colum- bia (then King's) College, the Society for the Promotion of Religion and Learning, and Trinity School, and to such churches as St. Mark's, St. George's, and Grace in the city, and to many other parishes within and without the city which have been founded or generously fostered by the mother-church of the diocese. rr 170 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. Mr. Vesey was inducted into his position on Christmas day, 1697. Trinity Church being then unfinished, the ceremony of induction took place in the Dutch church in Garden Street. Governor Fletcher acted as inducting officer, for it was chiefly a civil ceremony, affirming the legal status of the incumbent. Two Dutch ministers. Dominie Selyns of New York and Dominie Nucella of Kingston, were among the subscribing witnesses. It is thought that the service was performed in Latin, a tongue which both Dutch and English could understand better than they could the language of each other. The English church was not finished for three months, and during this period Dominie Selyns and Mr. Vesey officiated alternately in the Dutch church, in their respec- tive languages. On March 13, 16)8, Mr. Vesey opened Trinity Church, bringing his bride with him as one of the congregation. At this service the rector read the certificate of the Bishop of London, and promised conformity to the Book of Common Prayer, The founding and establishment of Trinity Church in New York proved a notable event in the history of the church in America. The situation of the city was such that it could not fail to become the center of trade and commerce into which it has since expanded. The presence and patronage of the royal governor gave at the start prestige to the church of which he was a member. The emigration of the Dutch for the most part ceased when the English took possession, but the English came in increasing numbers. The Jesuits found here a refuge for a while ; and Palatine settlers on the Hudson, with the Dutch de- creasing and the English increasing, formed the bulk of the population. The problem which the church here had to solve was wholly difi"erent from that of the church either in the CHURCH LIFE IN NEW YORK. 171 Southern States or in New England. In the South it was more completely established; but it was there the church of a thoroughly agricultural community, widely scattered, containing a vast slave population, where the parishes were immense in territory, but whose inhabitants were sepa- rated by wretched roads and an absence of public con- veyances. A landed aristocracy existed, the members of which were greatly isolated ; and there were no great centers where they could come frequently together and form a communal life. There could be no concentration of church effort, and discipline was relaxed by distance and the quasi-independence of the rectors. In New England the church was not only in the minority, but was discredited and discountenanced. There it was in fact a dissenting body. It had to fight for existence. The institutions of learning were in the hands of its adversaries. The tone and temper of society were at variance with the doctrinal and ecclesiastical convictions of churchmen. It lived by sufferance, and was an object of suspicion and dread. In New York it stood at the head of a community not inimical beyond the limits of denominational rivalry, when not identified with it ; a community where the amenities of social life flourished, and where it received the prestige of royal favor and princely munificence. The Dutch church in Garden Street, and the Huguenot church in Pine Street, together with Trinity Church, furnished services in the three languages, English, French, and Dutch. There was a population of industrious and prosperous tradesmen of these various nationalities. There was also an aristocracy of vast landed proprietors, the patroons, whose immense estates lay in the neighborhood of the Hudson, but who built fine houses in the city, in which they lived in winter. Here they resided in princely fashion, with great retinues of servants, both white and 172 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. black. Their entertainments were frequent and splendid. If not of the church, they were not hostile to it; and by- reason of the blind insistence of the Dutch in holding their services in a foreign language, the sons and daughters of the patroons and the higher classes generally found it more agreeable to attend the English service, and drifted slowly and surely into that communion. Kindly feelings for the most part existed between the two churches, but the Eng- lish Church was the absorbent. It had the advantages without the drawbacks of the South. It shared the enter- prise and earnestness of New England, unburdened by opposition and distrust. Immediately on the completion of Trinity Church there began a rapid development of church life. The first build- ing was a small square edifice, which was enlarged in 1787, when it attained the size of a hundred and forty-eight feet in length and seventy-two feet in breadth, with a steeple a hundred and seventy-five feet in height. The interior is described as being more richly ornamented than any other place of public worship. There was an altar-piece in the chancel. Gilt busts of winged angels crowned the tops of the pillars which upheld the gallery, and two glass chande- liers hung from the ceiling. The side walls were decorated with the arms of some of the principal benefactors of the church. A gallery on the south side was erected for the use of the governor and council. A fine organ stood in the gallery at the west end. Mr. Vesey proved a valuable and churchly rector. He possessed the instincts of a churchman, and called forth the commendations of Lord Cornbury, the governor, and Colonel Heathcote, both noted for their ardent church- manship. He was maintained by a tax levied on all the inhabitants of the city, amounting to a hundred and sixty pounds ; one hundred in perpetuity to the parish, and sixty, THE ENGLISH AND DUTCH CHURCHES. 173 added by an act of the Assembly, while Mr. Vesey should remain incumbent. Twenty-six pounds was added by the governor's council for house-rent. Fees, also, for burials and marriages were established by the vestry as his perquisite. About this time the parish was the recipient of many valuable gifts from various distinguished persons. The Bishop of London presented a bell and sixty pounds, and also "a parcell of books of Divinity." The Bishop of Bristol gave paving-stones; Lord Cornbury, a black-cloth pall, also two Prayer-books, and the beginnings of a library. The benefactions and patronage of such distinguished per- sons could not fail to influence the temporal condition of the parish. This did not, however, release the rector from the many trials and vexations incident to his situation, and which bore heavily on a man of Mr. Vesey's temperament. The growth of the church under his faithful and pains- taking oversight was steady, both from the incoming of English residents and the accession to it of numbers of the Dutch and Huguenot families. The civic and social jeal- ousies of such propagandism at one time seemed to array society in two factions: churchmen headed by the De Lanceys, and Presbyterians led by the Livingstons. In a formative and rapidly growing society such as New York then exhibited, religious differences entered largely into political and social questions. Such local and temporary disagreements, however, grew less and less evident as the various parties grew more and more self-reliant ; so that when, in 1780, the Dutch church returned thanks to the vestry of Trinity for the use of St. George's Chapel during the occupation of their own house of worship as a hospital, they spoke of their congregation as those " who have always considered the interests of the two churches as in- separable, and hope that this instance of brotherly love will 174 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. evince to posterity the cordial and happy union subsisting between us." Mr. Vesey was mindful of the interests of the church in the counties as well as in the city. At his suggestion, as early as 1 702, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel decided that six missionaries should be sent to New York. Rev. Patrick Gordon was appointed to Jamaica, L. I., but died soon after his arrival. The Rev. J. Bastow, who was sent the same year to Westchester, N. Y., found only ten churchmen there, but two years afterward made a report of many accessions, saying, " Those who were enemies at my first coming are now zealous professors of the ordinances of our church." Many Presbyterians at East Chester for- sook their minister and conformed to the church ; and the Dutch thronged to hear the rector preach at Yonkers, where he sometimes officiated in a private house or barn. The Rev. J. Thomas, who came to Hempstead and Oyster Bay, on Long Island, in 1 704, found a population very ignorant of church ordinances and church ways; but in 1709 he reports thirty- five communicants from among them. The Rev. E. Mackenzie was sent to Staten Island in 1 704, and was enabled by the society to establish schools and dis- tribute books. The Dutch and French Huguenots were already there, but the English consisted chiefly of Quakers and Baptists. The French especially received the mission- ary kindly, giving him the use of their church until his own was built ; and the Dutch, after receiving the Prayer-book in their own language, allowed their children to be instructed in the church catechism, as also did the French and all but a few of the English dissenters. Mr. Mackenzie was highly esteemed, and his labors wrought a decided reformation in the manners and morals of the people. The Rev. George Muirson, whom the society sent to Rye in 1705, found few church-members there, but soon gathered a large congre- THE CHURCH IN ALBANY. 175 gation from persons of all persuasions. He was a beacon- light, also, to the neighboring churchmen of Connecticut, just over the border of the Province, and, accompanied by Colonel Caleb Heathcote, performed the first Episcopal service in Stratford, where he also baptized a number of persons and founded a mission. At New Rochelle, in 1 709, the Venerable Society, at the solicitation of the French Protestant church there, adopted their minister. Rev. D. Burdet, instructing him in the liturgy ; and the people generally conformed, and provided a new church, a house, and a glebe. At Albany, which was thus early an im-f portant center as a chief trading- station with the Indians, and as the garrison post where two or three hundred soldiers were stationed to guard against the ravages of the French and Indians, the Venerable Society, in 1709, ap- pointed the English chaplain at the fort. Rev. T. Barclay, to be its missionary. There were nearly four thousand inhabitants then in the place, mainly Dutch. The Dutch minister at this time had returned to Europe, and Mr. Barclay had the use of the Lutheran church for seven years, and a large number of the Dutch conformed. He was very diligent, also, in instructing the negro slaves. A new church was built for him, and finished in 1716. This was the first building of St. Peter's Church, Albany, where Mr. Barclay remained as rector until 1728. When ap- pointed missionary, he was directed by the society to in- struct the neighboring Indians. This he did with assiduity, and in October, 1712, opened a chapel which had been built among the Mohawks, who had received him favor- ably. He officiated once a month at Schenectady, and often for the Indians lying twenty-four miles west of it. Such progress was made by his unwearied labors among them that in 17 12 the S. P. G. sent Rev. William Andrews \ as a special missionary to the Indians, among whom he made 176 PROTESTANT EnSCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. for a time a good impression. The Indians built a school- house. Portions of the Prayer-book and Bible were pro- vided in the Mohawk language, as well as school-books, and instruction was diligently given in the same. Fifty Indians were baptized within six months, of whom eighteen became communicants. A little later the introduction of rum by the traders wrought great demoralization, and the mission had to be suspended in 17 19. Later on, in 1734, Mr. Henry Barclay, son of the Rev. Thomas Barclay, was appointed catechist to the Mohawks at Fort Hunter im- mediately after his graduation at Yale College. Mr. Bar- clay proved so efficient and devoted in this sphere that when Mr. Miln resigned his rectorship of St. Peter's, Al- bany, in 1737, he was appointed his successor as rector of the parish. Here he continued his labors among the Indians to such effect that in i 741 he reported to the S. P. G. that his congregation in Albany consisted of a hundred and eighty English, besides two companies of soldiers ; and in Mohawk County of five hundred Indians settled in two towns thirty miles from Albany. He had sixty Enghsh and fifty-eight Indian communicants. In i 743 he stated that two or three only of the whole tribe remained unbaptized, and that he had appointed two Mohawk schoolmasters to teach the young Mohawks, who were very diligent and successful. He labored with great zeal and success until the latter part of 1 745, when his work was rudely checked by the intrigues of the French and a hostile invasion of Indians. The pros- pect of doing good among the natives during the contin- uance of hostilities seemed now almost hopeless ; and Mr. Barclay, after much hesitation, concluded to accept the call of Trinity Church, New York, to be its second rector, the Rev. Mr. Vesey having died the previous year. He was inducted into that office December 22, 1746, and, amid all the labors it involved, never lost his interest in the Indians, MR. ELI AS NEAU'S WORK FOR AEGROES. 177 among whom he had labored Hke an apostle. He never afterward relaxed his efforts in their behalf. In his last years, about i 762, he was engaged in superintending a new edition of the Indian Prayer-book. This Indian mission was continued by a succession of able missionaries, and as a consequence the Mohawks were the only Indian nation who continued steadfast to the English in all their wars. Nothing is more praiseworthy, either in the history of the Venerable Society or in the annals of Trinity Church, than the care and attention given to the Indian natives and the negro slaves of New York. During its connectioiV with the province the Venerable Society employed sixteerj clergymen and thirteen lay readers for these helpless and ignorant classes. Trinity Church, from the very start, maintained, and persuaded the Venerable Society to maintain, catechists and schoolmasters for the Indians and negroes of the city. Of the slaves there were then about fifteen hundred, and great pains was taken to get hold of them by Mr. Elias Neau. He was a Huguenot who had been imprisoned abroad for his religion, and who, coming to New York as a trader, conformed to the English Church on ac- count of his attachment to the liturgy, part of which he had learned by heart in his dungeon. For a long series of years he labored with great assiduity among the negroes, bringing them to church on Sundays to be catechised by the rector, and instructing them on week-day evenings, the only time when they could be reached by his labors. All this was done in the face of prejudice and scorn, which seem to have been attached to the negro race from the in- troduction of slaves into the country. He was a catechist of the Venerable Society, whose attention he had called to this field of labor, and a fine type, in that early day, of the devout layman. After his death the Venerable Society appointed others to carry on his work, and the mission 178 rKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chav. vi. was continued under an ordained missionary during the remainder of the society's connection with the colony. In 1745, shortly before his death, Mr. Vesey, who in 1 712 had been appointed commissary of the Bishop of London, reported to the Venerable Society that within his jurisdiction in New York and New Jersey there were twenty-two churches, most of them commonly filled with hearers, although he adds: "When, in 1697, I became rector of Trinity, besides the church and chapel in the fort, one church in Philadelphia, and one in Boston, I don't remember to have heard of one building erected for the public worship of God according to the liturgy of the Church of England on this northern continent of America, from Maryland to the easternmost bounds of Nova Scotia." Much of this result was due to the Venerable Society, who, during its connection with the colonies, assisted in main- taining in New York fifty-eight missionaries and twenty- three central stations.^ The wording of the act of 1693, especially the phrase " a good and sufficient Protestant minister," by its ambiguity, or the varied interpretation given to it, gave rise to unpleasant wrangling as to who should possess and use the church buildings and parsonages erected in the counties by the tax authorized in that act. In Jamaica, on Long Island, a Presbyterian minister was ejected from his parsonage by Lord Cornbury, and the building handed over to the Episcopalians. This governor, though ardent in his advocacy of the church as an establishment, was not an ornament to her communion. By his rapacity and prof- ligacy he brought on himself the hatred of all parties. He carried his ecclesiastical prejudices to an extreme, and pros- ecuted the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie, whose parsonage he had seized, for using forms of worship not set forth in the 1 " Digest of S. P. G. Records," p. 78. THE BUILDING OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL. 179 English Prayer-book, asserting that the English Acts of Uniformity were in force in the province. The minister was acquitted, and the principle of religious liberty was sanctioned, though it is doubtful if he ever regained his parsonage. Thus, in the midst of much admirable earnestness on the part of the clergy and laity, and occasional unjust partisanship on the part of officials, the church grew. The tares and the wheat mingled in the administration of the province, but as a rule dignity and justice prevailed. With such typical and illustrious laymen as Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey and Sir William Johnson (famous for his labors in behalf of the Mohawks), with faithful and devoted mis- sionaries and not less faithful and devoted lay catechists and school-teachers of the poor and despised negroes, and with such able and honorable men as the successive rectors of Trinity parish, the church deserved the success which it achieved. Trinity Church had been enlarged during the rectorship of Mr. Vesey, in 1737. During the rectorship of Dr. Barclay (who had now received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University) the rapid growth of the parish made it necessary to erect a chapel of ease to ac- commodate the augmenting congregation. St. George's Chapel, subsidiary to the parish church, was built in Beek- man Street, in the region known as the "Swamp," the pres- ent center of the leather-trade, and was opened for service July I, 1752. It was a large church, with a lofty spire, and the opening service was a sort of civic festival. There was a procession from the City Hall to the chapel, in which the rector, assistant rector, churchwardens, and vestry were accompanied by the mayor, recorder, aldermen, and Common Council of the city, together with the clergy of the town and neighborhood, the Charity School and l8o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. schoolmaster of the parish, and many prominent citizens. The Charity School thus represented had been founded in 1 709, and was jointly supported by the Venerable Society and Trinity corporation. It was the forerunner, or the beginning rather, of the present Trinity School, afterward amply endowed by the parish and by the legacies of various benevolent individuals, among whom, for their early and large benefactions, may be especially mentioned Mr. Alexander Troup and Hon. John Chambers and wife. A donation was also made to it by the State. It was founded to give gratuitous education to poor children, and to instruct them in religion according to the doctrines of the church. In 1826 it was reorganized under the name of the " New York Protestant Episcopal Public School," and classical instruction was added to its curriculum. In 1845 it received its present name of Trinity School. In the same year with the opening of St. George's Chapel the vestry took measures looking to the founding and building of a college for higher education. Two years later, in 1754, they voted to give from the King's Farm the land on which Columbia College stood for so many years, viz., " from Church Street all the lands between Barclay Street and Murray Street to the water side; upon this coridition that the President of the said Colledge for- ever, for the time being, be a member of and in Com- munion with the Church of England, and that the morning and evening service in said Colledge be the Liturgy of the said Church, or such a collection of prayers out of said Liturgy as shall be agreed upon by the President, or Trustees or Governours of the said Colledge." In regard to this ecclesiastical condition of the gift of land, the vestry, in a letter asking for aid, wrote to the Venerable Society as follows : " We never insisted on any condition, till we found some persons labouring to exclude all systems of re- FOUNDING OF KING'S {COLUMBIA) COLLEGE. l8l ligion out of the Constitution of the College. When we discovered this design we tliought ourselves indispensably obliged to interpose, and have had the countenance of many good men of all denominations, and in particular the ministers of the Foreign Protestant Churches in this city, who are appointed Governors of the College, and who, without the least hesitation, qualified agreeable to the Church and continue hearty friends of it." The society responded with a donation of five hundred pounds. The Assembly voted funds for the building of the college. Provision was made by a succession of lotteries for its support; and Dr. Johnson, the veteran missionary of Con- necticut, was elected first president, and began the col- legiate course of instruction alone, July 7, 1754, with a class of twelve students. The vestry immediately elected President Johnson an assistant minister of Trinity Church, with a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds, and with nominal duties, to aid him in his support. Although the college soon after became the recipient of gifts and legacies, its revenues are in large part derived from the property conveyed to it in that early day by Trinity parish. It was about this time, in 1756-57, shortly after the opening of King's College under the presidency of Dr. Johnson, that Rev. Samuel Seabury, Jr., afterward the first Bishop of Connecticut as well as the first in America, was appointed to the parish of Jamaica, L. I. It was a position of difficulty, on account of the nature of the appointment. This was the parish where Lord Cornbury had seized the parsonage of the Presbyterian divine whom he had prosecuted for non-conformity, but who had been ac- quitted. The county vestry, in which dissenters were in the majority, from a long-cherished feeling of retalia- tion, on the decease of the incumbent, chose a dissenter for minister of the town, as they maintained the act 1 82 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. of 1693 gave them a right to do. The governor, Sir Charles Hurdy, refused to induct him, and after six months appointed young Seabury to the cure. The father, Rev. Samuel Seabury, was living not far off, in Hempstead, and there his son had spent his boyhood from the time when he was thirteen years of age. Knowing the ground, and having his experienced father near by for consultation, he was deemed the most suitable person for the post. He had had only a brief experience of little over two years in New Brunswick, N. J., his first parish, but he proved an in- defatigable and at last a successful rector. He had to en- counter not only the opposition of the vestry and their numerous adherents, turbulent with the excitement of disappointment and repulse, but also the great laxity prevalent in morals and manners, and the presence of re- ligious indififerentism and even open infidelity, which he traced to the Quakers, who were very numerous in the place. His encounters with them and their unliturgical and non- sacramental system, as well as afterward with the wilder enthusiasm of Whitefield and his followers, inten- sified his churchmanship and narrowed his sympathies toward anything outside the church. This parish left its mark upon him as truly as he left his impress on it. He served it with great faithfulness, and it helped to make him what he was. The noble Dr. Barclay, the second rector of Trinity Church, died in 1764. In the last, year of his life there were a hundred and thirty-seven marriages celebrated in the parish, and four hundred and thirty-one adults and children were baptized. In view of such evidence of strength and growth, the necessity of a new chapel within the parish was felt, and the present St. Paul's Chapel was begun in the spring before Dr. Barclay's death, which oc- curred in August. Dr. Auchmuthy, an assistant minister ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL. I S3 of the parish, was elected successor of Dr. Barclay as rector ; and under his auspices St. Paul's Chapel was built, and opened for service the 30th of October, 1 766. It stands to-day externally almost the same as it was on its completion, the only relic, of old colonial New York now in use. When opened for service, Sir Henry Moore, repre- senting the home government, was present. The building has since been associated with our most distinguished patriots : with Washington, who, after the service of his inauguration as first President of the Republic at the City Hall in Wall Street, attended by the whole company, walked to St. Paul's Chapel, and was there received by Bishop Provoost, who, with suitable religious services, in- voked the blessing of God upon the first ruler of the nation ; with General Richard Montgomery, who fell before Quebec December, 1775, and whose body was buried here in 18 18, forty-three years after his death, Bishop Hobart reading the service ; with General Lafayette, who here attended, in 1824, a sacred concert given in his honor. It is much to be regretted that the reverent care with which its fabric and traditions are now guarded by the present rector had not been exercised by his predecessors, who allowed the interior to be greatly altered. It is, however, still a fine specimen of the early colonial style of architecture. Dr. Auchmuthy had won his preferment to the rector- ship by most faithful service as an assistant. He had been especially assiduous in his care and instruction of the ne- groes, and he commanded the respect of all the congre- gation, white and black. He continued to serve the parish faithfully until the time of the Revolution. From 1 765 he had as an assistant Rev. Charles Inglis, who afterward succeeded him as rector and became first Bishop of Nova Scotia. In 1 766 Rev. Samuel Provoost was also made as- sistant minister; he afterward became rector of the parish 184 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. VI. and first Bishop of New York. In 1774 Rev. Benjamin Moore, who succeeded Dr. Provoost later on, both as rector of Trinity Church and Bishop of New York, was made an assistant minister, Dr. Provoost having retired ; as well as Rev. John Bowden, who, on the death of Bishop Seabury, in 1 796, was chosen Bishop of Connecticut, which election he declined by reason of ill health. These clergy minis- tered in the three church edifices of the parish. Trinity, St. George's,, and St. Paul's. The mutterings of the coming Revolution began to be heard during Dr. Auchmuthy's administration, and the storm broke before his death. His death, indeed, is to be attributed to the troubles which the political turmoil brought upon him. Like his chief assistant, Mr. Inglis — in fact, like most of the Episcopal clergy of the city and neighborhood — he was an ardent loyalist. Dr. Provoost was the one conspicuous exception, and he, in 1770, retired from the parish and city on account of his patriotic convic- tions, which put him out of sympathy with his coadjutors. The rector and his other assistants kept on their way, sub- ject to much obloquy by the patriots, but sustained by the countenance and sympathy of the loyalists, who, both at the beginning and during the continuance of the war, con- stituted a large proportion of the citizens. Theirs was the hardship of living in the midst of a civil war. It was a state of things wholly different from that which existed during the war with the Confederacy. In that conflict the great body of sympathizers on either side were massed to- gether in special localities. It was virtually a war between North and South. But in the Revolution a man's foes were those of his own household. No city or county but diver- sities of opinion prevailed there. The outrages said to have been perpetrated on either hand were not unnatural in that heated time. They were the stern accompaniment of war, NE W YORK CLERG V D URING THE RE VOL UTION. 1 8 5 which cannot be confined to the slaughter of the battle- field, but which involves personal opprobrium, private spoliation, individual indignity and loss. The future Bishop Seabury, who by this time had gone to Westchester, was suspected of unpatriotic acts, not without reason, and was seized and carried to New Haven and imprisoned. It is not strange that he should denounce such treatment as an outrage, but it is strange that such outrages should have been thought strange. The passions engendered of civil conflict are not careful of civic etiquette or of just dealing, either. The complaints of Inglis and other strenuous loyalist clergymen are natural, but not more natural than the conduct of which they complained. All honest men must honor the strict adherence to conscience and convic- tion of the clergy who advocated the royal cause. They thought the cause of independence was the cause of un- righteous rebellion. They firmly believed it could not succeed and did not deserve to. They acted accordmgly and suffered accordingly. It was not to be expected, how- ever, that patriots of convictions as undoubted, who took their lives in their hands to secure the liberties of themselves and their posterity, should coolly brook the machinations of men against the cause wherein their homes and their fortunes were imperiled. These were constrained to watch and guard against those enemies whose character carried weight, and whose means of influence were not inconsider- able. We always honor the sufferings of good men in a mistaken cause. It is impossible not to honor the stead- fastness and unflinching pluck with which the colonial clergy of the Northern colonies stood for what they deemed the rights of their king and the obligation of their oath. But could they have seen more widely and thought more justly ; could their sympathies have been with the people instead of with Parliament ; could their inspiration have 1 86 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chav. vl. been drawn from the spirit of liberty instead of from the letter of allegiance, they would have left a more helpful heritage to the church of the coming nation. As it was, their conservatism proved an obstacle, almost insurmount- able for years, to the advance of the Episcopal Church in America. It was adduced as evidence that this eccle- siastical body was out of sympathy with the republican institutions amid which it had placed, or was thought to have intruded, itself. Had it not been for the different stand of the clergy of the Middle and Southern colonies, it is hard to see how the church could have been nationalized, or have continued other than as a dwindling, protesting sect, like the nonjurors of Scotland, alien, and uninfluential upon the civilization amid which it was cast. The proclamation of the Declaration of Independence increased the embarrassment of the clergy, sufficiently em- barrassed before. They must either mutilate the liturgy or proclaim rebellion from the chancel in their use of the prayers for the king. They therefore in most cases shut up the churches. When Washington and his army occupied New York, the rector of Trinity, being ill, retired with his family to New Brunswick, N. J. Mr. Inglis was left in charge. His church was still open. He paid no attention to suggestions, said to come from the highest quarters, that he should omit the royal prayers. On one occasion, while he was officiating, a company of a hundred and fifty armed men marched into the church, amid beating drums and with fixed bayonets, to the great terror of the con- gregation. The terror did not reach the chancel. The intrepid clergyman kept calmly on with the service, omit- ting no jot or tittle of it, and the tumult of arms was stilled before his undaunted serenity. At last all the parish churches were closed at the instance of the vestry, but Mr. Inglis remained to do such parochial work among the poor DH. INGLIS RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH. 187 and sick as was permitted him. When, after the battle of Long Island, General Howe returned to the city with his army, one of the churches was again opened. In the great conflagration which followed almost immediately, and which consumed nearly a third of the city, Trinity Church was destroyed, as well as two hundred houses from which the parish revenues were derived. The rector's residence, the two Charity School houses, the valuable library, and the parish register were all consumed. The loss amounted to over twenty-five thousand pounds. Dr. Auchmuthy re- turned to New York, and divine service was soon begun in the two chapels remaining to the parish, and was there- after regularly maintained, as the royal army remained in occupation till the end of the war. The rector, already enfeebled, died shortly after the disasterous fire, in the spring of 1777. He was a good man, who fell on evil times. Dr. Inglis at once succeeded Dr. Auchmuthy in the rectorship. He was inducted into office by Tryon, the royal governor, amid the ruins of the parish church, placing his hand upon the crumbling walls. He had earlier made himself especially obnoxious to the " Sons of Liberty " by his pamphlet in answer to Thomas Paine's " Common Sense." He still continued a mark of patriotic scorn; for, on the occupation of the city by the royal forces, he had drawn up the petition to the king, praying his Majesty to pardon their temporary submission to the rebel forces, and to receive the city and community again under his gracious protection. We may remember as an excuse that Mr. Inglis was an Irishman by birth; but the knowledge of this fact did not increase his popularity at that time. By an irony of fate his property at Kingston on the Hudson was destroyed by British troops in 1777. In 1779 he was included in the Act of attainder, which banished his person and confiscated his estate. On the establishment of the new 1 88 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vi. government he resigned his office as rector, November i, I 783, and retired to Nova Scotia, where thirty thousand refugee royalists had already preceded him, and where, after four years, he became the first colonial bishop of the Church of England. He was consecrated Bishop of Nova Scotia in Lambeth Chapel by the Archbishop of Canterbury, August 12, 1787, just six months after his successor in the rectorship of Trinity Church, Dr. Provoost, had been consecrated first Bishop of New York, in the same place, by the same hands. Although the rectorship of Dr. Provoost did not occur until after the Revolution, we may well recall the circum- stance here, as his was the last election to that office before the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and thus terminate the history of the colonial church in New York. Immediately on the resignation of Dr. Inglis, and a few days before the evacuation of the city by the British, the Rev. Benjamin Moore, assistant minister, was chosen to be rector. He was not inducted into office until after another election, seventeen years later, in consequence of the proceedings relating to the corporation during the change in the government. To bring the charter of the parish into conformity with the constitution of the State and the political changes which had occurred, an act of the legislature was passed, April 17, 1784; and the vestry ap- pointed by that act disregarded the election of Mr. Moore, and proceeded to elect Rev. Samuel Provoost. This vestry was largely, if not wholly, composed of Whig Episcopa- lians ; and its members, having been obliged to remove from their homes during the war, disputed the validity of any election of vestrymen while the city was in possession of the British. Their position was affirmed by the council of the legislature appointed for the temporary government REV. SAMUEL PROVOOST, RECTOR OF TRINITY. 1 89 of the southern part of the State, and Mr. Moore's election was in consequence disregarded. The Rev. Samuel Provoost was in great favor with the new vestry by reason of his patriotic sentiments, which had induced him to resign his post as assistant minister in 1770, and retire from the city. He was as ardent a patriot as Dr. Inglis was a loyalist ; and soon after his becoming rector of Trinity he was made a regent of the University of the State of New York, and elected chaplain of the Continental Congress when that body, in 1785, removed from Trenton to New York. This is, however, anticipating the history of the church subsequent to the Revolution. When that epoch-making war began, the church folk in the province of New York were estimated at about one fifteenth of the population. In addition to the strong mother-parish of Trinity Church, with its stately building and its two large chapels, St. George's and St. Paul's, there were also in the province the flourishing church of St. Peter's in Albany, and the small churches at Rye and Westchester on the mainland, at Hempstead and Jamaica on Long Island, and at Rich- mond on Staten Island. These constituted the formative root of the aftergrowth which we are to trace when once the Protestant Episcopal Church is formed out of the various groups of colonial churches ; an ecclesiastical body, national in aim and extent. CHAPTER VII. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN NEW JERSEY. There is no trace of the church in New Jersey until it became a single province by the union of East and West Jersey under Queen Anne, in 1702. The territory had been given, nearly forty years before, to Lord John Berke- ley and Sir George Carteret by the Duke of York. When, however, in 1666, Carteret reached New York, he found that settlers had already taken up their residence at what is now Elizabeth, having been confirmed in their posses- sions by Nicolls, the deputy governor of New York, in ignorance of the Duke of York's gift to the two courtiers. New settlers came in, drawn by the " concessions," present and prospective, issued by the proprietors. They came especially from the New Haven colony, and in 1666 Newark was planted by them. In 1676 the line between East and West Jersey was drawn, being virtually the Dela- ware River ; and by sale and other acts of transference, first West and then East Jersey became the property of Wil- liam Penn by 1682. This occasioned a large immigration of Quakers into the territory of West Jersey ; and a large influx of emigrants from Scotland came into East Jersey, making the Presbyterians strong there. After the English Revolution of 1688, the connection of New Jersey with New York, which James H. had effected, was broken off. A very disorganized state of affairs existed for ten years, until both provinces were consolidated by Queen Anne into one, under Lord Cornbury, as governor, 190 KEITH'S AND TALBOT'S COMING. 191 in I 702. It was in this year that the two agents of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Keith and Talbot, visited New Jersey, where, as yet, no Episcopal church existed. Colonel Lewis Morris, in 1 700, had addressed a memorial to the authorities at home " concerning the state of religion in the Jerseys." He stated that there were in Elizabeth- town and Newark some few churchmen, and about twelve communicants all t'old in the provinces. An old ruin- ous court-house had been fitted up as a church at Perth Amboy, the capital city, where the Rev. Edward Puttock had officiated, as well as at other outlying places. He suggested measures for advancing the church ; and the visit of Keith was in accordance with his wish. Keith preached first at Amboy in October, 1702, and then in many other of the ten towns of East Jersey, and especially in the town hall at Burlington in West Jersey. He created a great impression. The Quakers, whom he had left to take orders in the Church of England, were much incensed; but a number, who like him had become dis- affected, gave him a hearty welcome and became adherents of the church. There is trace of ministrations by Rev. Alexander Inness prior to Keith's coming, and occasional services had from time to time been held at Burlington by visiting clergy from New York and Philadelphia. But now the glow of enthusiasm was such that, aided by the encouragement and earnest sermons of Rev. Evan Evans, rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and by the exhortations of Rev. John Talbot, who accompanied Keith, a beginning was made for a church building. Gifts came from Mr. Myles, rector of King's Chapel, Boston, from churchmen in Philadelphia, and from Mr. Robert Wheeler, a merchant of Burlington, and others; and the corner-stone of St. Mary's Church 192 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. was laid by Talbot, March 25, 1703, being the feast of the Annunciation. It was sufficiently finished for ser- vice by August; and on the 13th of that month, Keith, on his return from the South, preached the first ser- mon in it. It was not completely finished until June, 1 704. On Whitsunday of that year, Talbot administered the holy sacrament in the church, for the first time, though services had been held in it from the time when Keith preached there before Lord Coi^bury. A warrant was issued by the governor. Lord Cornbury, for a patent to incorporate the parish under the name of St. Anne, in honor of the Queen, October 4, 1704; but by some ne- glect the charter was not passed until January 25, 1709, when the name of St. Mary was substituted. In 1705 Mr. Talbot became rector of the parish. He proved a veri- table apostle to the churches in New Jersey. His labors were so great, and his history so singular and conspicuous, that it is fitting some detailed account of him should be given. He first appears as a fellow-missionary of Rev. George Keith, in his tour of observation through the colonies on behalf of the Venerable S. P. G. He was chaplain of the " Centurion," the ship which brought Keith over; and by conversation with him and Colonel Lewis Morris, governor of New Jersey, who was also a passenger, he became so much interested in the projected missionary tour that he resolved to become Keith's companion in it. He was at this time fifty-seven years of age, and rector of Fetherne, Gloucestershire, a parish in no way suited to a man of his energy and ability, containing only twenty houses and a hundred and twenty inhabitants. He was a gentleman by birth, being the son of Thomas Talbot, of Grenville Hall, Norfolk. He was a scholar, having been admitted Master of Arts at Cambridge University in 1671. Keith cordially welcomed his cooperation, and until 1705, when the former JOHN TALBOT. 193 left America, they journeyed together through ten of the colonial provinces. He would not leave the society's ser- vice when Keith returned to England, though he had offers of easier work and a larger stipend. When, after his acceptance of the rectorship of St. Mary's, Burlington, in 1705, his parish of Fetherne was sequestered on account of his non-residence, he became completely identified with the colonial clergy. His labors were incessant, and ex- tended over a wide field. He had a restless temperament, which kept him awake to every call made upon his services. He traveled all over the province of New Jersey, building churches, and earnestly seeking for clergy to work them. His zeal often outran his discretion, for no sufficient sup- plies came ; and several of the churches built in hope were deserted in despair. The whole aspect of affairs early convinced Talbot of the indispensable necessity for a resident bishop, if the church was to extend itself or develop its real power. Within a year of his settlement at Burlington he journeyed to Eng- land as bearer of a memorial to the queen, praying for a suffragan bishop. The mission was, as all such missions were, fruitless ; but this did not diminish Talbot's interest in a matter he felt to be so vital, and for twenty years he was instant in season and out of season, urging it. On his return in 1 708, he preached in many places out of the province, as well as in it, and declares, " I am forced to turn itinerant again, for the care of all the churches from East to West Jersey is upon me; what is worst, I can't confirm any, even had I a deacon to help me." His earnest appeals for the establishment of the episcopate in America begot the suspicion that he was unfriendly to the government. It involved him in several serious and acrimonious disputes with Governor Hunter, of New York. He was accused of being a Jacobite; of " incor- 194 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. porating the Jacobites in the Jerseys under the name of a church, in order to sanctify his insolence and sedition to the government. " The Venerable Society was warned by Gov- ernor Hunter, in 1715, that if it " did not take more care in the choice of its missionaries, instead of estabHshing religion, they would destroy all government and good manners." Talbot indignantly denied all such charges. He vehe- mently declared to the Bishop of London that he " was a Williamite from the beginning," and prayed, "The Lord rebuke the evil spirit of lying and slander that is gone out against the church." His warden, Jeremiah Bass, who was secretary of the province, clerk of the council, and prothonotary of the Supreme Court, declared the gov- ernor's charge to be entirely false. His vestrymen warmly espoused his cause, and asserted that the accusation was " a very false and groundless scandal." Talbot himself, in his letter to the Venerable Society, spoke as follows : " I call God to witness I know no soul in the church of Bur- lington, nor in any other church I have planted, but is well affected to the Protestant Church of England and present government in the house of Hanover; therefore he that accused us all for Jacobites hath the greater sin." He survived these troubles, and continued in good relations with the Venerable Society, who, on his visit to England in 1720, applied the interest of Archbishop Tenison's legacy for an American bishopric (as the terms of the be- quest allowed) to his maintenance while in England. He returned in the latter part of 1722, and continued his work at Burlington, and, though now seventy-seven years old, was full of zeal and delight in it. . It was during this visit to England that he is said to have sought and obtained consecration as bishop from the non- jurors. The question concerning this is one which has no practical bearing on the history of the church, as Talbot TALBOT'S ALLEGED CONSECRATLON. 195 never exercised the prerogative of a bishop, and carefully .concealed the fact, if fact it was. It has been accepted as a fact by most writers on this period of the church's his- tory. Bishop Wilberforce, Canon Anderson, Dr. Hawks, and Dr. Hills 1 assert it ; but the monograph of Dr. Fulton on " The Nonjuring Bishops in America " - indicates that this was a mistake, arising from confounding John Talbot with another man of the same surname, whose baptismal name is not given in the register of consecration. The grounds for establishing the fact are chiefly the asser- tions of a violent enemy of Talbot, Rev. Mr. Urmston, who urges the accusation, amid many other aspersions of his character, as an evidence of his hypocrisy and perfidy ; and also an episcopal seal, which Talbot is not known to have used, or even seen, but an impression of which his wife afifixed to her will in 1730, on which seal were en- graved a miter and the monogram of Talbot, or, as some decipher it, I. Talbot. This was three years after Talbot's own death. The reasons adduced for rejecting this testimony of the vociferous Urmston and the silent signet-ring are: First, the improbability of an old man seventy-seven years of age seeking consecration for himself in a sphere where great activity was needed. Second, the gross inconsistency of a Williamite seeking consecration of the nonjurors, from whom he could not have obtained it without a dissimulation of his political sen- timents, alien to Talbot's character. Third, the incompleteness and confusion of the record of consecration given by PercivaP and Satterbury,* in 1 " History of the Churcli in Burlington," pp. 179-204, 211, 247. 2 See Perry's " History of the American Episcopal Church," vol. i., p. 541. 3 " Percival on the Apostolical Succession," pp. 132-134, Am. ed. •t " History of the Non-jurors," p. 364. References given by Dr, Fulton from Dr. Hills. 196 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. neither of which accounts does the surname John ap- pear, but only Talbot, and wherein the dates are in- accurate, the consecration of Talbot being ascribed to the year 1723-24, as performed by Ralph Taylor (who died in 1722), together with Robert Hilton. John Tal- bot had returned to America in the latter part of 1722. Either the date given by Percival is inaccurate, or John Talbot could not have been the person consecrated. Per- cival's references for his data are partly to " some curious printed documents in my own possession," and to informa- tion derived from " the clergymen who were still living in 1839." The contemporaneous record of Dr. Rawlinson, since found in the Bodleian Library, omits the date, also the Christian name of Talbot, and changes Hilton's name from Robert to Ric ; it is therefore incomplete and in- conclusive. Fourth, to have secured a nonjuror consecration would have frustrated Talbot's chosen plan. It would either have split the colonial churches into two contending fac- tions, while Talbot earnestly labored for their unity ; or, if the churches had all gone in one way, it would have sepa- rated them from the Church of England, whose authority Talbot was especially anxious to preserve. He, at the very .time of the accusation by Urmston, was securing a glebe and parsonage to his successors, on condition that each of them should be " presbyter of the Church of Eng- land, as by law iiozv established " ; and " conforming to and complying with the rubrics and canons of the Church of England as aforesaid." Fifth, the testimony of Rev. Mr. Urmston that Talbot claimed a nonjuror consecration is open to great suspicion. Urmston bore a disreputable character in North Carolina, in Maryland, and in Philadelphia, where for a while he served at Christ Church. He was dismissed from Christ TALBOT AND URMSTON. 1 97 Church by the vestry for " conduct not proper to be men- tioned or allowed in any sober society." Talbot was mixed up with these proceedings, and supplied Christ Church for a few months after Urmston's dismission. Hence the drunken wrath which raged without bounds, and which culminated in the accusation of Talbot's claim to be a bishop. It is from Urmston that Henderson and Governor Hunter received and repeated the slander. The one cir- cumstantial statement that Talbot " convened all the clergy to meet, put on his robes, and demanded episcopal obedi- ence from them," is refuted by Governor Keith, who de- clared in a letter in 1 724 that " the clergymen accused of claiming the authority and office of bishop do not own to any such pretension." Urmston did not pretend to be an eye-witness of the transaction, and there is no other witness. Sixth, the existence of a ring in the possession of Mrs. Talbot, engraved with a miter and a monogram of the family name Talbot, never used by John Talbot, and pos- sibly a present from Bishop Talbot, of Durham, is too slight evidence to confirm so untrustworthy and inimical an accusation as that of the disreputable Urmston. It has seemed best to dwell on this personal incident thus fully, using the material so elaborately compiled and combined by Dr. Fulton, because of its bearing on the character of a devoted man, and its influence on his for- tunes. His accuser carried his malignity across the sea, and denounced Talbot to the Bishop of London and the Venerable Society. His own worthless character was not known to these, and Talbot was personally unknown to the new Bishop of London and the new board of managers of the S. P. G. The result was that Talbot was virtually dismissed from the roll of the society's missionaries, the payment of his salary being suspended " until he could 198 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. clear himself of the facts laid to his charge." The facts, however, which the Venerable Society adduced were not the charge of episcopal consecration by the nonjurors, of which no notice was taken, but that " he would never take the oaths to the king, and never prayed for him by name in the Hturgy." As this action of the Venerable Society had been taken on the complaint of the Bishop of London, Talbot wrote him a letter, in which these sentences oc- cur: " I understand that I have been discharged from the society for exercising acts of jurisdiction over my brethren the missionaries. This is very strange to me, for I know nothing about it, nor anybody else in all the world. I could disprove it by a thousand witnesses. ... I have suffered great wrong for no offense or fault that I know of." Being dismissed from his position in the society, he neither attempted to create a schism, nor to set up a claim to an episcopate, w^hich, had he possessed the right to it, it was now the time to assert. " Weary and old with ser- vice," he bore his burden with a quiet spirit; and such was the meekness of his conduct that when the Bishop of London's commissary arrived, he wrote back in his behalf, and spoke of him as " a man universally beloved, even by the dissenters." He was not reinstated. The charges made were of too delicate a political character to be dismissed without ir- refragable proof, which, at the distance, it was hard to fur- nish in satisfactory measure. He died two years after, on the last day of November, 1727, being eighty-two years old, leaving a reputation for devoted labor and exalted character wholly inconsistent with the malignant accusa- tions of a disreputable opponent. But if not a disguised bishop, he was a visible apostle of the faith, " in labors more abundant," " in journeyings often," " in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false l^ALBOTS CI/AKACTEK AXD LABORS. 199 brethren." " The care of all the churches " was upon him ; and walking among them in the sincerity and devotion of a man who took up the labors of a missionary when fifty- seven years old, and continued unwearying in them until past eighty years of age, he was in the province " a living- epistle, known and read of all men." His memory has al- ways been cherished in New Jersey with abundant honor. He was the fostering father of the infant Church in that province, and to him more than to any one else is due the strong root from which has grown so goodly a tree. His body was buried within St. Mary's Church, which he built, and which he had served nearly twenty- five years. One hundred and fifty-one years afterward, in 1878, a mural tablet was erected there to his memory, crowned with an enlarged facsimile of the famous seal ; and in the inscription stand the words, " A Bishop by Non- juror Consecration, 1722." The legend is thus perpetu- ated in the letter engraved in stone; but his more enduring memorial survives in the apostolic spirit which inspired him, and to which the effect of his labors bear continuous witness still. In the same year (1705) in which Talbot became rector of St. Mary's at Burlington, tiie Rev. John Brooke was sent as missionary by the Venerable Society, and was placed by Lord Cornbury at Elizabethtown. His was a short but efficient ministry. He died in 1 707. Yet, during his life in New Jersey, he not only ministered at Elizabeth- town, but also at seven other stations fifty miles apart. He is said to have possessed in an unusual degree the faculty of arousing the people to a sense of their duty toward God, himself being earnest, zealous, and self-sacrificing. He had the courage of his convictions, too, and assisted the escape of Rev. Mr. Thoroughgood Moor, who, while at Burling- ton, was silenced by Lord Cornbury, and imprisoned in 200 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. Fort Anne, N. Y., for refusing the sacrament to Lieuten- ant-Governor Ingoldsby, a notorious evil liver. He laid firmly the foundation of St. John's Church, Elizabethtown, and reported that churches had been commenced at both Amboy and Freehold. He was succeeded in i 709 by Rev. Edward Vaughan, who continued his labors at Elizabethtown and in several other parishes for thirty-eight years. Vaughan was an admirable and interesting man, and his public ministrations were marked by great solemnity and tenderness, " espe- cially in the administration of the holy Supper." Being eloquent in public and engaging in private, his long labors made an indelible impression on the early church life of New Jersey, which province was especially fortunate in the character and gifts of its early missionaries. This fact is signally illustrated by Dr. Vaughan's suc- cessor, Rev. Thomas Bradley Chandler. He was a de- scendant of Colonel John Chandler, of Andover, Mass., and was born in what is now Woodstock, Conn., in 1726. He was graduated at Yale College in 1745, and then studied under Dr. Johnson at Stratford. Before he was of age to be ordained he was, in 1747, called by the vestry of St. John's Church, Elizabethtown, as catechist and lay reader ; and permission was asked of the Venerable Society that he might be permitted to receive holy orders at the proper time. He was ordained by the Bishop of London in 1751- He at once returned and entered upon his work as rector of St. John's, and, extending his labors to Wood- bridge, was soon made missionary at both places, at his own request. Judging from his reports to the society, he seems to have dreaded the effects of the harmony and good understand- ing which had grown up between churchmen and tliose without the fold. This seemed to him, in those days of THOMAS BRADLEY CHANDLER. 20I political and ecclesiastical contention, to savor of indiffer- ence. He had seen the church gain rapidly in times of controversy ; and he feared that the charity toward dis- senters, which granted there was but little difference between the church and themselves, might generate the opinion that there was no material advantage in conform- ing to the church. Yet there was no man more capable of taking a broad-minded view of both sides of a question. He was, by reason of his well-balanced intellect and char- acter, deservedly one of the foremost men of the American clergy. His "Appeal to the Public," and "Defense" of it (the result of the controversy concerning the appoint- ment of bishops for America) gave him justly great prominence as a polemical divine, while it showed the sedateness of his character and convictions. Unhappily the dread of political bishops could not be dissipated by a reasonable appeal for a spiritual episcopate. But Dr. Chandler gave a clear and dispassionate statement of what the colonial churches desired ; and doubtless to this so famous pamphlet, and the controversy stirred by it, is in great measure to be ascribed the sudden cessation of op- position to an American episcopate, when once the success of the Revolution had dissevered absolutely the church from the state. He was not simply a scholar and thinker. He was untiring in his zeal in missionary labors, the effects of which were both great and permanent. He stood firmly against the unseemly and unbalanced enthusiasm roused by Whitefield in his visits to New Jersey, for he was convinced of the unhealthiness of such unrestrained excitement, and was much repelled by Whitefield's disre- gard of the church, whose claims were to him paramount. He refused his pulpit to the popular preacher, to the great umbrage of the religious public, being the first to do so in the region of the Middle Colonies. Yet, after noting that 202 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. vii. Whitefield had been received on his second, as on his first, visit to Philadelphia in the churches there, he re- marks: " Some years ago very few dissenters were to be seen in church on any occasion; but now they sometimes crowd thither in such numbers as to be more numerous than our own people that are present." When the Revolution approached, his position was characteristic of him. He disapproved the measures of Parliament which provoked the animosity of his country- men ; but he could not countenance an appeal to arms to resist them. He was out of favor with both parties, yet by the nobility of his character commanded the respect of each. He did what he could by his pen and his tongue to avert the rupture. When it became inevitable, he returned to England. There he stayed ten years, from i 775 to 1 785, living in intimate relations with the Archbishop of Can- terbury and other dignitaries of the church, and many distinguished persons. While abroad he was offered the bishopric of Nova Scotia, which his health compelled him to decline. In 1783, the war being ended, his old church, St. John's, at Elizabethtown, asked him to come back and resume his duties as rector; and when he returned, in 1 785, though his health was insufficient for the discharge of a rector's duties, the vestry insisted on his retaining the office as long as he lived. Though he never attempted any public service after his return, he exerted a marked influ- ence by the weight of his counsels on the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Chandler and Talbot are the two names most conspicuous in the annals of the colonial church in New Jersey ; but the province was also well served by other faithful men. The names of Holbrook and Harwood and Weyman, of Campbell and Odell and Hardin, are names which tell of faithful and well-directed labor for the church's sake. By CHURCH CONDITION BEFORE THE REl'OLUT/ON. 203 them and others Hkc them the church grew and spread, so that in 1770 Chandler states that there were " elcx'en mis- sionaries in the district, none bhimable, some eminently- useful " ; and of the church buildings: "we have now several that make a handsome appearance, particularly at Burlington, Shrewsbury, New Brunswick, and Newark, and all the rest are in good repair; and the congregations in general appear as much improved as the churches they asserrible in." The name of Rev. Thomas Thompson may well close the list. He was a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, who, after five years of devoted labor as a missionary in Monmouth County, left America in 1751 to become a missionary to Africa. His labors on the coast of Guinea are recorded in his account of his two missionary voyages to Africa, which constitutes the first contribution from America to the literature of foreign missions. The province of New Jersey was a special scene of war- fare during the Revolution. The effects on the church were, of course, most disastrous. The missionaries were loyalists; and the churches, after the Declaration of In- dependence, were closed, because the clergy could not read the full liturgy, and would not read a mutilated one. Yet so prominent had become the church in the province that it was in New Brunswick that the first meeting of clergy was held which led to the movement for the consolidation of the colonial churches into a national Episcopal Church. CHAPTER VIII. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE. The celebrated William Penn, both courtier and Quaker, was sole proprietor of Pennsylvania and Delaware. His friendly relations with the royal court and his steadfast adherence to the cause of the Quakers account both for his possession of the territory and the character of its colonization. In 1681 the territory had been granted him by the crown in discharge of a debt of sixteen thousand pounds due to his father, Admiral Penn. The charter fix- ing the boundaries of Pennsylvania was in some respects sufficiently indefinite to warrant Penn in claiming the lands on the Delaware which had been settled by the Dutch and Swedes ; which claim was conceded by the Duke of York in 1682. This gave him possession of the waters and shores of the river and bay of Delaware to the ocean. While a student at Oxford, Penn was greatly impressed by the preaching of a Quaker minister, Thomas Loe. In consequence of his neglect of the regular worship in the college chapel, he was expelled from the university, and was ordered abroad into gay society by his father. On his return, again meeting with Loe, his religious nature was stirred anew, and he embraced the religious ideas of the Quakers, about 1667, with an ardor and enthusiasm which from that time never flagged. He aided the emi- gration of a large number of Friends to West Jersey, of 204 PENN AND HIS SETTLEMENT. 205 which he had become possessed with other Quakers, in 1677; and when he received the crown grant of Pennsyl- vania he conceived a plan of colonization on a far larger scale, incited by the desire to provide a place of refuge for his persecuted brethren. Two emigrant ships were sent out in the autumn of 1 68 1, with William Markham as deputy governor; and in August, 1682, Penn himself followed with a large body of Quaker colonists. He arrived in October, just after the site of Philadelphia had been chosen. The future city was at once laid out in that rectangular style so characteristic of it, and before Penn's return to England, in 1684, had three hundred and thirty-seven houses, many of them three stories high. No colony ever grew more rapidly in num- bers, with the possible exception of Massachusetts. Penn spared no exertions to advance its interests and well-being. His address to the province in the beginning ceded the right of self-government to the people, and came nearer the realization of government " of the people, by the people, and for the people " than any other colony of that day. The first Assembly, which met at Chester, guaranteed re- ligious freedom. The Indians were propitiated and made allies by kindness and justice. The benevolent spirit of the proprietor was reflected in the laws and diffused through the institutions of the settlement. In 1683 the Mennonites, under the leadership of Pasto- rius, settled Germantown. In the same year a school was established, where moderate fees only were paid. In 1685 the first printing-press in the Middle Colonies was set up in Philadelphia by William Bradford. In that same year, the fourth since the settlement, there were o\'er seven thousand inhabitants, the English constituting rather more than half. There was no religious dissatisfaction or wrangling. The Swedish Lutherans, the Dutch Calvinists, and the German 206 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. viii. Baptists all flourished, unmolested, together with the pre- ponderating Quakers. The city of Philadelphia grew apace. In 1698 it was said to contain many stately houses of brick, together with fine courts and squares. There were two markets a week, and there was frequent intercourse on the water between the principal market- towns, Chester and the rest. It was a prosperous and enthusiastic colony. Into such surroundings the church was introduced not earlier than 1694-95. The charter granted to Penn by the crown contained a clause that " on the petition of twenty persons, a preacher or preachers might be sent out for their instruction by the Bishop of London, and should be permitted to reside in the province without any deniall or molestation whatever." The exact date of the intro- duction of Episcopal services cannot be ascertained. It was, however, at a time when the dissensions among the Quakers were rife, owing to the secession of George Keith. The schism of Keith began in 1691, and was a protest es- sentially for the external element of religion in revealed truth and for positive discipline, in opposition to an undue emphasis on mere inward spiritual impressions and guid- ance. This movement shook the Society of Friends in the Middle Colonies, and also in England, to its foundations.^ Its tendency was toward the church idea of visible institu- tions as accompanying and embodying spiritual realities. It resulted in its author finding his way into the ministry of the Church of England. In i 702 he became the first traveling missionary of the S. P. G. in the colonies, and prepared the way among his followers for accepting the ap- peal of the church. Just how the church movement started is not known. The first church building, the precursor of 1 " American Church History," vol. xii., p. 233; " History of tlie Society of Friends in America," by Professor A. C. Thomas and R. H. Thomas, M.D. FIRST RECTORS OF CHRIST CHURCH. 207 Christ Church, was erected m 1695, " a very poor church," according to Gabriel Thomas, who gives the date of its erection ; and a petition for a clergyman was sent to the Bishop of London, signed by several hundred persons. Before one came, the Rev. Richard Sewall, of Maryland, held occasional services, to which he was invited by Mr. Arrowsmith, a schoolmaster to Governor Nicholson, who speaks of " a full congregation and some very desirous to receive the sacrament." There was thus a nucleus of churchmen formed when the Rev. Thomas Clayton came, in 1698, as the first regular incumbent of Philadelphia, by whom appointed is not clear. His somewhat intemperate zeal caused his Maryland brethren to remonstrate, and he withdrew. He seems to have had considerable sucaess ; for the Rev. Edward Porlock, of New Jersey, who officitced at times after Clayton's departure, wrote to the Archhobisp of Canterbury, in i 700, that the church community num- bered more than five hundred souls in and about the city. There was naturally a strong feeling among the Society of Friends against the introduction of the church. It not only seemed fitted to foment their own dissensions at the time, but they could not, for all Penn's intimacy with the king, get rid of their general distrust of the ecclesi- astical body from which they had suffered persecution in England. Their opposition was, however, short-lived. In the latter part of 1701 the Venerable Society sent out its first missionary to Philadelphia in the person of the Rev. Evan Evans, who remained in charge of Christ Church for eighteen years. He was an admirable man, full of zeal for his church, and full of love for souls ; an apt choice for the time and place. His earnestness prompted him to undertake great labors, not only in Philadelphia, but in the surrounding districts as well. He introduced church services at Chester, Chichester, Concord, Montgomery, 2o8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. viii. Radnor, Oxford, and Perkiomen, places ranging from ten to twenty-five miles distant from the city. All these places he visited often, and some regularly. In Christ Church he preached constantly, and also delivered two lectures, one a monthly lecture preparatory to the holy communion, the other a weekly Sunday-evening lecture to a society of young men with whom he read the Scriptures and sang psalms. He thus gathered about him many earnest ad- herents among the young, so that before the coming of Keith and Talbot, in 1702, he is said to have baptized more than five hundred adults and children of Quaker families; and before his visit to England, in 1707, the number had increased to over eight hundred. He had the assistance of a deacon. Rev. John Thomas, who also officiated at Trinity Church, Oxford. The church's growth in other places was not inconsid- erable. Rev. Henry Nichols, who ministered at Chester, computes that half the inhabitants of that place in 1 704 were churchmen. Political dissensions of a local char- acter disturbed at times the peaceable relations of the churches, but they were neither very deep nor very last- ing. A certain Colonel Quarry, formerly governor of South Carolina, but now an admiralty judge in New York and Pennsylvania, a leading churchman, was a bitter op- ponent of the plans and policy of Penn, and spared no pains to secure, through Lord Cornbury, the overthrow of the proprietary government, and to advance the interests of the church and crown. But Cornbury, notwithstanding his aggressive churchmanship in New York, mindful of Penn's cordial relations with the royal court, turned rather a cold shoulder to Quarry's proposals, and was reported as " much averse to the warmth of those who go by the name of the church here." Penn, with not unnatural rigor, de- nounced the turbulent churchmen, who sought the over- RELATIONS TO SWEDISH CHURCHES. 209 throw of his colonial plans, called them " a rude and un- grateful gang," and announced that any who should invade the authority of his laws should " feel the smart of them," The commotion seems to have subsided by 1 704. When " Parson Evans," as he was usually called, visited England in 1707, his place was supplied by a Swedish clergyman, the Rev. Andrew Reedman ; an incident which, like many other instances of interchange and good offices, shows the kindly relations of the two churches, which seemed to exist side by side, without any suspicion of each other's orders, to offer Episcopal ministrations to the com- munity, the one in the English, the other in the Swedish language. Reedman had been sent over from Gothenburg in 1696 by King Charles XI. of Sweden and the Archbishop of Upsala to minister to the Swedish colonists. He died before Evans's return, in the service of Christ Church, in 1 708, and was buried in Gloria Dei Church at Philadelphia. Evans, while abroad, made a report of his labors in Pennsylvania to the Venerable Society, from which we learn that churches had been erected at Oxford, Chester, and New Castle,^ as well as in Philadelphia ; and the report ended with one of the many fruitless appeals for a resident American bishop as the most essential element of church progress. On his return home, in 1709, Evans brought with him the set of silver communion -plate which Queen Anne had presented to the church the previous year, and which is still in use in Christ Church. The congregation soon outgrew the capacity of the church to hold them, and two new aisles were added in 171 1. New gifts of com- munion-plate and a font were presented by Quarry, and in Philadelphia the church waxed stronger and stronger. In the country districts matters did not progress so fa\'or- 1 New Castle was situated in that part of the territories of Pennsylvania now constituting the State of Delaware. 2IO PROrESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai'. viii, ably. Many of the clergy removed to Maryland and Vir- ginia, where the church was established and the livings were more secure. The churches they left were closed, and their parishes dwindled away. Other troubles came on. When Mr. Evans again visited England, in 1715, Rev. Francis Phillips, who for a while ministered in his place, gave such offense by his unworthy conduct that he was challenged to fight a duel. Though the governor sided with him and released him from jail, he was promptly dis- missed by the vestry, and Mr. Talbot, of Burlington, was put in his place by the Bishop of London. The governor, however, tried to silence Talbot, and brought against him charges of sympathy with the Stuarts and of disloyalty to the government, which charges were distinctly repudiated by Talbot. When the old and faithful rector, Evans (who on his return had taken charge of the missions of Radnor and Oxford), finally retired into Maryland, after eighteen years of service. Sir William Keith, governor, who was chairman of the vestry, again secured the services of Mr. Talbot, together with others, to supply the vacancy, thus showing the respect felt for that much-reviled man. Evans had retired in 17 18, unable to perform the ac- cumulated duties of the parish ; and it was not until Sep- tember, 1 7 19, that the Rev. John Vicary was appointed by the Bishop of London to the rectorship. Though in feeble health, he served faithfully for five years, and the parish flourished under him. He was obliged, however, to represent to the Venerable Society that the parishes in Bucks, Kent, and Sussex counties, where churches and parsonages had been erected, were in a deplorable and declining condition, owing to the long vacancies occasioned by the death of some of the missionaries and the removal of others. On Mr. Vicary's death, in 1723, the notorious John Urmston filled his place, but he emptied the church REV. RICHARD IVELTON. 211 of the best people by his scandalous conduct, and, being dismissed, Mr. Talbot was again put in charge. Then it was that, in revenge for his displacement, Urmston brought the charges of disloyalty and of a nonjuror consecration against Talbot, whom he regarded as the cause of his dis- missal. As no appointment was made by the Bishop of London for more than six months, the vestry, in July, 1724, invited Rev. Dr. Richard Welton, formerly incum- bent of St. Mary's, Whitechapel, London, who was visit- ing in the city, to take charge of the church. This he did with great acceptance for eighteen months, when, owing to rumors of his nonjuring consecration as bishop, and to reports of his refusal to pray for the king and royal family by name, he was commanded by the governor, upon his allegiance, to return to Great Britain forthwith. He had undoubtedly been consecrated bishop by the non- jurors in England, though it had not then transpired in Philadelphia, and so the vestry gave him a testimonial of his good conduct among them. Talbot's association with him, though they soon differed and broke off their corre- spondence, undoubtedly gave color, if it did not give rise, to Urmston's charge against him. Welton died at Lisbon, on his way home ; and in September of the same year the Rev. Archibald Cummings was appointed by the new Bishop of London, Gibson, to the cure. He served, dur- ing a period of great prosperity for the parish, for fifteen years, until he died, in 1741. The cause of the church outside the city continued to languish by reason of the destitution of ministers. The death of a missionary was frequently followed by the loss of a congregation to the church. Sir William Keith re- ported to the Bishop of London, about the time of Welton's coming, that there were " twelve or thirteen little edifices, called ' churches ' or ' chapels,' erected by voluntary con- 212 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, viii. tributions, at times supplied by one or other of the poor missionaries sent from the society to New Castle, Chester, Oxford, and Sussex ; whose character for life and conver- sation and a diligent application to their duty is, I believe, generally approved of, and I cannot say but their behavior to myself and the magistracy has been all along very decent and respectful." This was a set-off to his com- plaints against Christ Church, whose members had re- moved him from the vestry on the ground of his " taking upon him to overrule them, and entirely depriving them of the freedom justly due." Christ Church, in the person of Peter Evans, repelled the governor's insinuation of dis- loyalty as " a piece of injustice," and under the ministry of Mr. Cummings went on its way rejoicing. Seven months after Cumming's arrival on April 2^, i J2J, the corner-stone of the present interesting edifice was laid by Hon. Patrick Gordon, the governor of the province of Pennsylvania ; the mayor of the city, the rector, and others assisting. The walls of the new building rose around those of the old, in which the congregation still worshiped, and the edifice was completed in its present form in 1 744. It was a great achievement for its day, and it is still an ad- mirable specimen of colonial architecture. Together with the parish it accommodates, it stood in the same relative position to the colonial church in Pennsylvania as Trinity Church in New York stood to the church of that province. Although it anticipates the general course of this history, it is appropriate to recall here some of the striking events which are associated with it, and make it, even more than Trinity Church, New York, an object of interest to all churchmen, and of regard to every patriotic American. It was in this edifice, now standing, that President Wash- ington was an habitual worshiper for six years, during his term of office. Here the Continental Congress came in a CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 213 body from the State-house to attend the service of fasting and prayer set apart by themselves, July 20, 1775, on which occasion Rev. Jacob Duchc, who had opened the first Continental Congress by prayer, September 4, 1774, preached the sermon from Psalm Ixxx. The first Gen- eral Convention, in which the original constitution of the church was framed, was held liere September 2 7, 1 785 ; also the second, June, i 786 ; also that of 1 789, when, for the first time, the whole Protestant Episcopal Church was repre- sented by all its bishops, including Samuel Seabury of the Scottish succession, and by clerical deputies from New England, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In this Convention the Prayer-book was ratified, and the constitution was extended over all the dioceses, making the church one. In this church Dr. William White was elected Bishop of Pennsylvania by the Diocesan Convention, September 14, 1786. He had been baptized in the church in infancy, he had served seven years as assistant in the parish, and, having been elected rector in 1779, he held that position, as priest and bishop, until his death, in 1836, a period of fifty-seven years. 1 Three distinguished signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence were pewholders in Christ Church. Of these, the most distinguished, Benjamin Franklin, served several years as vestryman. Francis Hopkinson was rector's war- den, and gave his services as organist for a time. Robert Morris, the great financier of the Revolution, and brother- in-law of Bishop White, constantly attended service here. A month before the day of humiliation and prayer, at a service which the Continental Congress attended in a body, Rev. Dr. William Smith, one of the foremost clergymen of his day, and one of the most influential men in the forma- ^ Perry, " History of the American Episcopal Cliurcli," vol. i., p. 605 (article " Christ Church," by Bishop Davies). 2 14 PROTESTAKT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. viii. tion of the Protestant Episcopal church, preached here a discourse on " The Present Situation of American Afifairs," which created a great sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and is said to have given a clearer understand- ing of the position of our fathers than any other printed document of the time. Here Bishop White held most of his ordinations ; and eleven bishops have been consecrated within its walls. The church possesses a library of considerable antiqua- rian interest, which began to be formed in 1695, and was afterward enriched by Queen Anne, and especially by Rev. L. C. Spergell in 1728. By subsequent gifts it has reached the number of twelve hundred volumes. The communion-plate is of much historic interest from the distinguished donors of it. On some of it is found the inscription, " Anna Regina in usum Ecclesia Anglicanae apud Philadelphinum, A.D. 1708." To return now to the history of the parish, which con- stituted the chief part of the colonial church in Pennsyl- vania. It was during Mr. Cummings's rectorship that Whitefield thrice visited Philadelphia, and preached fre- quently in Christ Church, exciting so great an interest here, as elsewhere, as to compel a removal to the fields on the occasion of his farewell discourse ; the church being unable to contain a fourth of the people who flocked to hear him. On his third visit to the city he was not invited to Christ Church, his course having given rise to a suspicion that he meant not merely to awaken and purify the church, but to rend it asunder or establish a rival institution. This conservative course increased the growth of the church by accessions from those dissenters who were offended by the too enthusiastic methods of the New Lights. Mr. Cummings was succeeded by the Rev. Robert Jenny, LL.D , in 1 742, and this new rectorship lasted twenty ST. PETER'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 215 years. It was a period of great prosperity, during which St. Peter's Church was built as an enlargement of the parish, being proposed in 1754, begun in 1758, and finished and opened for worship in 1761. It formed an integral portion of Christ Church parish until 1832, when it was set off by itself, and was, until that time, ministered to by the rector and assistant clergy of the mother- church. Its first rector, wlien it became a distinct parish, was the Rev. Dr. William H. De Lancey, previously Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and afterward first Bishop of the new diocese of Western New York, to which he was elected in 1839. Its second rector was Dr. W. H. Odenheimer, who became Bishop of New Jersey in 1859. Its fourth rector. Dr. Thomas F. Davies, became Bishop of Michigan in 1889. With the exception of Independence Hall, St. Peter's Church is the only building of the last century in Phila- delphia which retains all its original features, interior as well as exterior. It was from the pulpit of St. Peter's that Bishop White preached his first sermon on his re- turn from England after his consecration, and there also he preached his last sermon three weeks before his death. During Dr. Jenny's rectorship of Christ Church, the College and Academy of Philadelphia, since developed into the University of Pennsylvania, was founded and opened in 1 749, some five years before the opening of King's College, New York. Benjamin Franklin, a vestry- man of Christ Church, was the chief mover in the matter, and had received Bishop Berkeley's suggestions regarding it. Three fourths of the trustees were members of the Church of England ; and they, with Franklin, were strongly desirous of securing Dr. Johnson, of Stratford, Conn., as rector of the institution. Failing in this,' Mr. David Mar- tin, M.A., professor of Greek and Latin, acted as rector 2l6 rR0rES7\li\T EriSCOrAL CHURCH. [CiiAP. VIII. for three years, when he died. It wa.s in 1754, the year that Dr. Johnson became president of King's College, New York, that Rev. William Smith was " inducted Provost of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, and Professor of Natural History." He prepared a " Plan of Education," which has formed the basis of our American college system. Though the college was not exclusively a church institution, which Dr. Jenny did not approve, yet two thirds of the trustees were churchmen, and the provost soon became the most prominent figure in the Convention of clergy, and acquired a controlling influence in the man- agement of church affairs. Dr. Jenny was becoming old and infirm ; but he had the invaluable services of two assistant ministers, whose terms of service overlapped each other, but were not cotermi- nous. The Rev. William Sturgeon, a student of Yale College, who became assistant in 1747,. worked with in- defatigable zeal for nineteen years, not only for the parish, but also especially for the negroes of the city. A large measure of the success of the church in maintaining itself and enlarging its work is due to him. The Rev. Jacob Duche was added to the staff of clergy in i 759, and served through the terms of both Dr. Jenny and his successor, the Rev. Dr. Richard Peters, and with such success and ability that on the resignation of Dr. Peters, in 1775, he succeeded him as rector of the united churches. It was during the incumbency of Dr. Peters that the united parishes received from Thomas and Richard Penn, the proprietaries of the province, a charter constituting the rector, churchwardens, and vestrymen of Christ Church and St. Peter's " a body politick and corporate." The charter, "signed by the Hon. John Penn, Esq., Lt.-Gov- ernor, and under the great seal " of the province, was formally received and accepted by the vestry June 28, DA'S. DUCIlfi AND IVHITE AS RECTORS. 217 1765. The rectorship of Dr. Duche was short, by reason of the poHtical troubles of the time. As we liave seen, he opened the first Continental Congress with prayer, and preached before it on the day of national humiliation and fasting in Christ Church. After the vestry, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, requested the clergy to omit the prayers for the king, Dr. Duche requested leave to return to England to see and consult with the Bishop of London, and remove objections he might have to his conduct. His opinions suffered a decided change, at least in relation to the success of the Revolution, and he wrote a letter to Washington urging a cessation of hostilities. He never resumed his rectorship. He re- mained abroad until after Bishop White's consecration at Lambeth, which he attended. When he returned to America he continued to live in closest friendship with his former co-laborers, though he never assumed any charge. His successor in the rectorship was the venerable Wil- liam White, father of the American church, who, together with Rev. Thomas Coombe, had been elected assistant minister to Dr. Peters in 1772. Coombe resigned in 1777-78, being unable, after long reflection, to conscien- tiously renounce allegiance to the king. White had as clear a conviction of his duty to the Republic, and was as stanch in his patriotism as he was mild in his treatment of those who differed with him. He was unanimously elected rector in 1779, when Duche failed to return; and his acceptance of the position is truly characteristic of him. He asked that his letter of acceptance be put on record, in which he assured the vestry that " if ever, at their desire and that of the members of the churches in general, and with the permission of the civil autliority, their former rector should return, he should esteem it his duty, and it would be his pleasure, to resign into his hands the charge 2l8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai'. viii. which he had now received." ^ He retained his rectorship all through his episcopate, and before his consecration was made chaplain to Congress during the war, and was again appointed by the Senate under the Federal Constitution as long as Philadelphia was the seat of government. Of his career we shall treat later on, for the history of the formation of the national church is largely his own. We turn now to other parts of Pennsylvania to see how the church fared there. In 1760 the first convocation of the clergy was held in Philadelphia. There were ten members present, and four others were unable to attend, so that there were fourteen in all.^ The accounts of the missions in Pennsylvania and Delaware stated, among other items, that in the Dover mission (coterminous with Kent County) there were three churches, under the care of Rev. Charles Inglis, who after- ward became rector of Trinity Church, New York, and that these churches were crowded and the communicants on the increase. At New Castle the church was " thin of people," but at Chester there was improvement; and at Oxford the church was " in a very flourishing way." Radnor was faithfully supplied. There was a small church at Lancaster, another at Bangor, a third at Pequa, these last two of stone. There were missions at Huntingdon, York, and Carlisle. Reading desired a missionary, and Easton was in similar need. Yet the church, for all the efforts made, did not include one fiftieth of the population ; and in 1 766 Dr. Peters, who was commissary, wrote that about twenty missions were vacant A third church, St. Paul's, had been added to the number in Philadelphia ; 1 Anderson, " History of the Colonial Church," vol. iii., p. 280. - The clergy in the province of Pennsylvania, as distinct from Delaware, never exceeded ten in number, four being parochial clergymen in Philadel- phia and six missionaries of the S. P. G. (See " Memoirs of the Church," Bishop White, p. 14, note.) ^7: PAUL'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 219 but it was the offspring of a schism from the mother- church in the following of the Rev. William MacClenna- chan, whom some desired for an assistant to Dr. Jenny, but whom the Bishop of London would not license for the post. St. Paul's was thus hardly an element of strength in the church life of the city. But stir and various signs of life appeared. When Whitefield came once more to the city, in 1763, he preached several times in the two churches, " without any of his usual censures of the clergy and with a greater moderation of sentiment." The Col- lege and Academy of Philadelphia was training able men for the ministry, with William White among them. The Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of the Clergy was instituted, an effort for whose resuscitation after the Revolution started the movement for the con- solidation of the church. All along there had been frequent exchanges of pulpits and parishes by the clergy of the churches of England and Sweden; and when the Swedish language fell into disuse, the Swedish churches, as those of Trinity Church, Wil- mington, Del., and what is now Gloria Dei Church of Philadelphia, became parts of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Among the names of the clergy who wrought with great faithfulness for the church in Pennsylvania, not only among the white settlers, but also for the negroes and Indians, and which should be ever held in grateful remem- brance, are those of Crawford of Kent County, Beckett of Sussex, Neill of Oxford, Ross of Chester, and Barton of York and Cumberland. This last missionary reported in 1763-64: "The German Lutherans have frequently in their Coetus proposed a union with the Church of P^ng- land ;" and " a large and respectable congregation of Dutch Calvinists in Philadelphia have already drawn up a consti- 220 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. viii. tiition by which they obhge themselves to conform to the canons and constitutions of the National Church, and to use her Liturgy and forms, and none else, provided they be approved of and received at Home, and that my Lord Bishop will grant ordination to such gentlemen as they shall present to him." It is impossible, in view of such testimony and of the gradual assimilation of the Swedish Churches, which the Venerable Society aided, not to lament the torpor and blindness which denied the episcopate to America in her colonial period. To a great extent, all that might have been achieved and all that had been gained was wiped out by the Revo- lutionary War, during which, at one time, Rev. William White was the only Episcopal clergyman in the State. Yet here the Venerable Society had assisted in maintain- ing at various times forty-seven missionaries and planting twenty-four central stations. But little has appeared in this narrative in regard to Delaware as related to the Episcopal Church of the col- onies, because it formed a part of the larger province, and was called the "Territories of Pennsylvania " or "the three lower counties on the Delaware." Its church history is thus mingled with that of Pennsylvania. In 1 67 7 the noted Rev. John Yeo came from Maryland to New Castle, and, on being approved by the governor, was appointed minis- ter by the court. The Swedes hitherto had possessed the land, having begun to build churches as early as 1638, when a log chapel was erected just to the east of the present Old Swedes' Trinity Church in Wilmington. The corner-stone of the present edifice, which has passed into the hands of the Episcopal Church, was laid May 28, 1698. It is the second oldest church edifice in the country and is the oldest church in which continuous religious services have been conducted from its foundation to the present OLD SWEDES' GIIURCII, WILMINGTON. 221 time. It is still sacredly kept in repair, and to-day is the home of a regular congregation. About the middle of the eighteenth century much excellent missionary work was done here by Ross and Beckett, and what the Swedes sowed was reaped by the Episcopalians when, by the gradual dis- use of the Swedish language, the Swedish churches and congregations became merged in the Protestant Episcopal Church. CHAPTER IX. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN THE CAROLINAS. The name Carolina appears to have been first applied to the region which it designates, in honor of Charles IX. of France, by the French Huguenots, who settled in Florida as early as 1562. The name, however, was form- ally given to the territory by Charles I. of England, in honor of himself, when in 1629 he made a grant of it to Sir Robert Meath. No settlement was made under this grant; and in 1663 Charles II. apportioned the region to eight lord proprietors, including among them the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, and Lord Ashley Cooper, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury. In 1665 he gave another charter, greatly enlarging the territory, and two settlements, the Albemarle and the Clarendon, were started. Before the first charter, in 1663, a small company of Dis- senters had migrated from Virginia to the Chowan River, which formed the nucleus of the Albemarle settlement, to which a governor, William Drummond, was appointed by Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia. Some Eng- lish colonists in 1665 came over from the Barbadoes to the Cape Fear River and formed the nucleus of the Clarendon, or southern, settlement ; and their leader, John Yeamans, was appointed the governor. Freedom of religion was guaranteed in these charters to all who did not disturb the peace ; and the proprietors were at pains to make liberal offers to New Englanders and any others who might choose to migrate to their possessions. 222 THE CONSTITUTION OF JOHN LOCKE. 223 It was in 1669 that the proprietors adopted "The Fundamental Constitution of CaroHna," framed by the philosopher John Locke in conjunction with the proprietor Lord Shaftesbury, his intimate friend. It proved to be an impracticable system of government, with whose general features, as they were never carried out, this history is not concerned. Its religious features are interesting, as it contained, contrary to Locke's wishes, a provision for the establishment of the Church of England, the building of churches, and the maintenance, through acts of the Par- liament, of its ministry. No one was to be molested or coerced on account of his religious opinions. Any seven persons might organize themselves into a church who should profess their belief in God and their obligations to worship him, and adopt a form of oath or affirmation to be used by witnesses in the courts. Thus, either by the charters of Charles II. or the constitution of Locke, the Church of England was "by law established." The Clarendon Colony did not flourish ; and after its disappearance there were two colonies, Albemarle on the north and the Ashley River Colony on the south, re- spectively North and South Carolina. The settlers at Albemarle were reinforced by emigrants from New Eng- land who were not churchmen ; and the Quakers were in sufficient force, though not numerous, by 1672 to be vis- ited by George Fox. A large number of fugitives from Virginia, who fled to escape punishment on the suppres- sion of Bacon's rebellion, settled in Albemarle ; and under Governors Stevens and Sothel the state of this mixed society was anarchical, owing to the unwise interference of the proprietors. Amid the variety of religious beliefs and sects there was no effort made by those who were of the Church of England to tax themselves for her support. The settlers 224 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHCRCII. [Chap. ix. generally were men of small means, and, while of great courage and energy, were indiflferent to the outward observances of religion. Until the beginning of the eight- eenth century, when the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) began to take notice of it, there was no stir of church life in the colony. The southern settlement, on the Ashley River, began in 1670; and two years after, Charleston, named in honor of the king, was made the permanent site. The religious character of the settlers was very varied. Dutch emigrants arrived early from New York. Negro slaves were im- ported in 1 67 1. English colonists came over, and a company of Scotch Irish in 1683. A large number of French Huguenots, fugitives from the persecution result- ing from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, emigrated to the Cooper River in 1685. This Huguenot addition had subsequently a marked effect upon the church, and lived with it in great amity ; but in its early stages it seemed to add a new element to the religious chaos. It was the object at first of a ve'xatious and oppressive jeal- ousy ; and its members made complaints to the proprietors that they were denied the rights of subjects and were treated as aliens. The authorities were ordered to remedy these complaints as early as 1693 ! but it was only in 1699 that an act was passed by the Assembly securing to the Huguenots the immunities and privileges they desired. It was almost twenty years from the date of the first Carolina charter before any clergyman appeared in the province. There was no visible token that it was a Chris- tian country. In 1680-81, however, a piece of land was granted in Charleston by private parties, Reginald Jackson and Millicent his wife, as a site for the erection of a build- ing in which the services of the Church of England were to be celebrated by Atkin Williamson, cleric; and in the ST. PHILIP'S CHURCH, CHARLESTON. 225 following year a church of black cypress upon a brick foundation, large and stately, was built, and was called by the name of St. Philip. This first church of St. Philip stood on the site of the present St. Michael's. Williamson was succeeded by Rev. Samuel Marshall in 1696, and was later on pensioned by the Provincial Assembly, who gave him an annuity of thirty pounds. Marshall proved an admirable man. He had been rec- ommended by Bishop Compton, to whom Commissary Bray had introduced him, and by Burkitt, the New Testa- ment commentator; and he did credit to their nomina- tion. The Assembly, recognizing his value and desiring to perpetuate his services, passed an act in 1698 for the maintenance of a minister of the Church of England in Charleston. This was the first-fruits of the Act of Establishment granted thirty-five years before by the king's charter, and twenty-eight years after Locke's con- stitution had been published. The act appropriated to Marshall and his successors forever one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and directed that " a negro man and woman and four cows and calves be purchased for his use, and paid out of the public treasury." It ended by declaring that Marshall, " by his devout and exemplary life and good doctrine, had proved himself worthy of the high report made of him by the Bishop of London." His ministry was too short for the good of the church. He died in three years ; and, before Bishop Compton could reply to the request of the governor and council to send them another minister like him, a clergyman, Edward Marston, was elected rector of St. Philip's by " about thirty of the chiefest inhabitants." He proved to be an unfor- tunate choice, and was ejected, after a few years of service, in 1705, by the governor and chief- justice. When the Venerable Society (S. P. G.) afterward objected to the law 226 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. of 1 704, which gave too much control to the laity over the clergyman, the governor and council explained that the clause in the act was made " to get rid of the incendiary and pest of the church, Mr. Marston," and that, had the society known the facts of the case, it would not have blamed them " for taking that or any other way to get rid of him." After his ejectment he continued to prove a veritable thorn in the flesh to the church, who found it impossible to silence or suppress one so turbulent and de- termined. The church was only relieved of his irritating presence by his return to England in 1712. The Rev. Samuel Thomas, who had come out in 1702 as the first missionary of the Venerable Society, was ap- pointed in Marston's place. He was a saintly man, who had proved his worth and fidelity by his work as mission- ary during the three previous years. Having been designed for a mission to the Indians, he found it impossible, by reason of their turbulent condition, to gain a hearing among them ; so he settled at Goose Creek in the Cooper River district, and devoted himself to the almost heathen inhabitants, including many negro and Indian slaves. In three years he wrought a visible abatement of immorality and profaneness, and was able to secure a general observ- ance of the Lord's day, and introduce both the institutions and sacraments of the church and private worship in the home. On returning to England, in 1705, the governor and Parliament showed their confidence and esteem by empowering him to choose five ministers of the Church of England, such as he should think fit, to officiate in the vacant parishes laid out by the government. During this visit he was instrumental in accomplishing the abrogation of the objectionable law of i 704, before alluded to, which placed in the hands of certain lay commissioners the power of removing the clergy. The Venerable Society, whose MISSIONARIES THOMAS AND IE JEAN. 227 attention he called to.it, referred the matter to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, and agreed to stop sending any ministers into the colony until satisfied that the obnoxious law was or would be rescinded. The House of Lo ds, also, in response to a petition pre- sented in behalf of the inhabitants of Carolina by a Charleston merchant, Joseph Boone, declared the law con- trary to the colonial charter. The queen also pronounced the oflfensive acts null and void, and they were repealed by the General Assembly in i 706. Mr. Thomas returned to Carolina in i 706 and resumed his work, but died the same year, to the great loss of the church. The governor and council petitioned the society for more such men, and promised to protect and honor them and to enlarge their salaries. So great an impression can one good man make. Dr. Le Jean, who was appointed the successor of Thomas at Goose Creek, labored in his spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice for eleven years, until his death. He ministered diligently to the negroes amid much opposition, giving them systematic religious instruc- tion, and persuadinty their reluctant masters to allow him to administer the sacrament to them. There were excep- tional masters and mistresses who zealously seconded the efforts of Le Jean to evangelize their servants ; but the owners generally were at first opposed to his instruction, under a vague apprehension that the christianizing of the negro by baptism would make him a free man. Wher- ever the instruction of the blacks was permitted, and especially where it was seconded by their owners, it was largely successful, so that in some congregations they furnished one half of the communicants. The free Indians were also the objects of Le Jean's care ; and in 1713 a Yammonsee prince was brought by the Rev. G. Johnston, of Charleston, to England to be edur. 228 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. cated in the Christian religion. He was welcomed by the king and baptized by the Bishop of London, and returned to his tribe two years later a Christian man. The promise of much good to the Indians from such conversions was rudely dispelled by an insurrection in 1715, in which many tribes from Fort St. Augustine to Cape Fear joined, during which the missionaries were impoverished and many colonists massacred. Efforts for their conver- sion and civilization were continued. When Le Jean died, in 1 71 7, the mission was left seven years without a per- manent minister, until Richard Ludlum effectually renewed the interrupted work, leaving at his death, five years later, two thousand pounds for the instruction of the poor chil- dren of his parish. It was about this time, in 1 729, that the interests of most of the proprietors of Carolina were purchased by act of Parliament and vested in the crown. Henceforth the colony was divided into two distinct provinces, called North and South Carolina, each being ruled by a governor and council of the king's appointment. Before this divi- sion thirty -eight clergy had been settled in the various parishes of the common colony; and between that time, and the Declaration of Independence ninety-two more came out to South Carolina alone. Many other parishes, about twenty in all, had been formed in the province soon after that established by Mr. Thomas at Goose Creek, among which were St. John's in Berkeley ; Christ Church, near Craven County ; St. Thomas's and St. Denis's on the Cooper River ; and many others in various parts of the present State. Some of the clergy who came out to min- ister to these parishes felt the climate severely, and died or returned to England. A large majority, however, remained, and were, on the whole, steady and consistent in the discharge of their duties. Among them were such ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH CHARLESTON. 229 men as Robert Maule, conspicuous for his attention to the spiritual welfare of the French refugees, who from the first formed an important part of the colony, and many of whom conformed to the Church of England. The parish of St. James, Santee, was formed in 1 706 expressly for their benefit; and during the sufferings from the Indian war, Philippe de Richebourg, the first minister, and his colleague, La Pierre, were both aided by the Venerable Society, though not employed by it. The parish of St. Philip continued to be the only church in Charleston until 1751, when St. Michael's was formed, comprising all parts of the town south of the middle of Broad Street. The ministers in Charleston were more favored than those of the country parishes. Their con- gregations were steadier and the growth more regular. The unhealthiness of the rice-plantations drove many of the wealthy planters from the country to reside six months in the year in the town, so that often regular services were only maintained in the country churches from November till June. Early in the eighteenth century Charleston had become a flourishing town, with a lucrative commerce and hand- some houses, which were the homes of refined and intelli- gent families. It became a great mart of trade, and soon the seat of wealth and fashion. There was a marked di- vision between the aristocrat and the tradesman, fostered by the institution of master and slave. The higher circles became distinguished for a certain elegance and polish, the result both of their domestic institutions (which gave rise to a comparatively leisure class) and of the commingling of the French element, with its grace and refinement, an element which was large and influential, and which soft- ened the characteristics of the English race, which was here less predominant and formative than elsewhere. The 2 30 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. various elements combined to form a cultivated, while virile and self-respecting community. In this community the succession of rectors was respectable and respected. After Ludlum at St. Philip's came Millechamp, Stone, and Harrison, the last of whom for twenty years, from 1752 to 1774, carried on his ministry with the greatest energy and success. The church was then a power and the center of influence in the colony. The office of Commissary of the Bishop of London was early established ; and Gideon Johnston was first ap- pointed to it in I 707. He was not naturally of a happy disposition, but he was distinguished for the energy with which he labored after the things which make for peace. His ministry was one of conciliation. He had been a clergyman of high reputation in Ireland, and his prudence and discretion were a distinct benefit to the church in its early and formative condition. After Johnston's death the Rev. William Treadwell Bull, incumbent of St. Paul's, Colleton, was made commissary, and showed in 4:his office the same qualities of energy and discretion which had marked him as rector, and which enabled him to advance greatly the material and spiritual interests of his charge. He assembled the clergy once a year for conference, and was fearless in his exercise of discipline, though kind and gracious in his personal inter- course. After four years of excellent service he returned to England, in 1723; and from " A Short Memorial " ^ which he had compiled of the state of the church in the colony, we learn that there were at that time in South I Carolina thirteen parishes — eight in Berkeley, two in Craven, two in Colleton, and one in Granville County. Of the eight churches in Berkeley County, St. Philip's in Charleston received one hundred and twenty pounds ster- 1 Perry, " History of the American Episcopal Church," voh i., p. 390. SUPPORT OF THE COUNTRY CHURCHES. 23 1 ling from the public treasury of the province, besides con- siderable perquisites ; and there was also a grammar-school in the city, which was allowed from the same source sixty pounds, in addition to the thirty pounds given by the Venerable Society. Each of the other seven parishes of the county had one hundred pounds proclamation money from the provincial treasury. There were handsome and substantial churches in almost all of them, and comfortable parsonage houses of brick, together with glebe-lands of several hundred acres, being the gift of the government. St. James's at Goose Creek, founded by the first missionary, Rev. Samuel Thomas, was a very flourishing parish, as were also St. Andrew's and St. George's. All these seven churches were within a radius of twenty-five miles from the city. Most, if not all, of these parishes were served by missionaries from the Venerable Society. The Church of St. Denis, in the parish of St. Thomas, consisted of a congregation of French refugees who had conformed to the Church of England. The Rev. John La Pierre, the clergyman, had the stipend from the Assembly, but was no missionary. In Craven County one of the two churches (St. James's, Santee) was likewise a church of French refugees who had conformed ; and the minister was a convert from the Church of Rome. Being sixty miles from Charleston, and land, in consequence, being less valuable, the glebe consisted of a thousand acres. To King George's parish, in the same county, the General Assembly allowed one thousand pounds for the building of a church, to which Governor Nicholson, newly ap- pointed, added one hundred pounds. These churches were respectively sixty and ninety miles from the city. Of the two parishes in Colleton County, St. Bartholomew's had been vacant since 17 15, having been then depopulated by the Indian war; while St. Paul's, twenty miles from 232 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. Charleston, had a brick church, which, being found too small, was enlarged and beautified by the parishioners themselves at a cost of one thousand pounds, to which the Assembly added five hundred pounds currency, and to which Mr. Whitemarsh, a parishioner, left a legacy of one hundred pounds. To the one parish of St. Helen's, in Granville County, which also had become depopulated in the Indian war, the Assembly gave one thousand pounds and the governor one hundred pounds for the building of the church. It is thus seen that in temporalities the church in South Carolina, when Commissary Bull left it, was in a prosperous condition ; and its religious condition was without scandal, and, as even Wesley ^ testified later, in a healthy spiritual state. Alexander Garden, who had been rector of St. Philip's, Charleston, since 1719, was made commissary by Bishop Gibson in 1 726. His province included the Bahama Islands, as well as the whole of Carolina, North and South. When he, in 1 749, resigned his rectorship, the vestry of St. Philip's spoke warmly of the " zeal, piety, and candor" which for more than thirty years had proved him a good shepherd of Christ's flock. His chief notoriety came from his collision with Whitefield, whose loose ways and intoler- ant denunciations of his less ardent brethren found no favor in the eyes of one who was set for the defense and propaga- tion of the decorum and reasonableness of the Established Church. He summoned Whitefield before an ecclesias- tical court in St. Philip's Church for his irregularities ; and Whitefield appeared and protested, making objection to the authority of the court. Time was given him to exhibit his 1 In 1737 John Wesley went up from Georgia to Charleston, and met the clergy of South Carolina at their Annual Visitation. With them he had " such a conversation on Christian Righteousness as he had not heard at any Visitation, or hardly on any other occasion." (Wesley's "Journal," April 17-22, 1737.) COMMISSARY GARDEN AND WHITEFIELD. 233 objections; but judgment was at last pronounced against him. Then there was another appeal to the lord commis- sioners at home, and after a year Whitefield was again sum- moned. He neither appeared nor sent an answer, and the decree of suspension from his office he neither noticed nor regarded. The whole affair must have seemed to him like a very small affray at a way-station, past which the express-train of his enthusiasm was rushing on the more momentous matters of spiritual life or death. Not so to Commissary Garden, to whose legal mind the whole transaction involved the order and stability of his church. He suspended the ardent and erratic evangelist from his office, and published " Six Letters to the Rev. George Whitefield," criticising both his doctrinal and ecclesiastical positions. This most famous episode in Garden's life as commissary would give a wrong impression of him if it led one to infer that he was a mere ecclesiastical martinet, scrupulous as to the letter and unalive to the spirit of his office. He was himself earnest and devout in the work of the ministry, though not an enthusiast, as in those times men of Whitefield's temperament were called. For thirty-four years he was the faithful rector of St. Philip's, Charleston. He was greatly interested in religious'^* education, and himself inaugurated and superintended a; negro school of seventy pupils, besides bestowing much ' time and attention upon the free school, which long out- lived him. This was done in the face of many difficulties, at a time when the government had not one institution for the fifty thousand negroes in the colony. By his exemplary life and earnest ministrations he gained and retained a strong hold on the hearts of his people ; and no commissary left a more lasting or useful influence on the church and community. The liberality of the church was so stimulated during his administration, 234 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. and contributions to churches and schools became so generous, that in 1759 the Venerable Society decided not to fill up the existing missions in the province as they be- came vacant. In 1 769, however, a special call was made on behalf of the Protestant Palatines in South Carolina, which immigrants were unable to support a minister. Their settlement was from fifty to seventy miles distant from any clergyman already in the province. To this last and ex- ceptional appeal the society responded, sending the Rev. S. F. Lucius, who continued among the Palatines as the society's missionary until the end of the Revolution. Garden resigned his position as commissary in 1 749, after twenty-three years' service ; and four years later he resigned the rectorship of St. Philip's, having held the position from 17 19 until 1753, thirty-four years. He died in Charleston, to which he returned after a visit to England, in 1756, in the seventy-first year of his age. The year after his death Rev. Robert Smith, who had an immense influence upon the attitude of the church in South Carolina during the war and over its fortunes subsequent to the Revolution, was made an assistant at St. Philip's, and in 1759 became its rector, succeeding the Rev. Mr. Clark. Though an Englishman, educated at Cambridge University, he was a decided and consistent patriot. At first inclined to sustain the crown, on the appeal to arms he sided with the colonists, stirring up the people to re- sistance by his preaching, and, at the siege of Charleston, serving in the ranks. To his influence and example is to be largely attributed the fact that, while in the Northern colonies not one in ten of the church clergy opposed Great Britain, in South Carolina three fourths of them were patriots. His banishment by the British, when Charleston surrendered to them, only endeared him the more to the people on his return after the war. He at once set to THE LAITY IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 235 work with characteristic energy to restore the waste places. It was mainly by his advice that the church in South Carolina sent her delegates to the earliest General Con- vention held at Philadelphia for the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church ; and, as was most fitting, he was elected first bishop of the diocese of South Carolina in 1795. Among the most distinguished and faithful missionaries in the colony was Rev. John Hodges, who came to Prince Frederick's parish from St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1736, literally starved out of that inhospitable province. For fifteen years he showed a zeal and devotion worthy of all praise, and ended his labors only with his life, in 1751. Mention also must be made of Rev. Thomas Russell, who for thirty-five years ministered to the parish of St. Thomas to such effect that a number of his parishioners, among whom Mr. Beresford and Mr. Harris were the most con- spicuous, left large legacies to aid him in his parochial work in the care and education of the poor. In fact, no- where in the land was there shown among the laity a more active and beneficent spirit than among the churchmen of South Carolina. In some parishes a chief planter would build a church or erect a parsonage or present the glebe- land or provide an endowment. The clergy and the laity stood well together ; and though the province was ravaged again and again by war, neither the churqh spirit nor the church property wholly disappeared amid the horror and turmoil of the Revolution. During its earlier history and time of need the Vener-i able Society had assisted in maintaining fifty-four mis-l sionaries and establishing fifteen central stations in South Carolina. Unlike most colonies, this one outgrew, as we have seen, the necessity of much help, by reason of the generosity of the laity and the endowments by the gov- 236 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. ernment. Yet this happy result was the outcome of the society's earher fostering care. If we now turn to the northern settlement on the Albemarle, known after 1729 as North Carolina, we find that the real history of the church begins with the labors of the Venerable Society in its behalf. It is true that in I1701 the Assembly , took so much notice of the wants of 'the settlement as to pass an act constituting each of the four precincts in Albemarle, and one in Bath, parishes, and appointing a select vestry in each. The vestry was em- powered to lay a tax, not exceeding five shillings a head, to build churches, buy glebes, and employ ministers, the salaries of the latter not to exceed thirty pounds in com- modities, equal to sixteen pounds sterling. Under this act only one church was built, at what is now Edenton, and another begun, but not finished, in Perquimans. Some religious books had been sent over by Dr. Bray the year previous; but an unworthy minister (the only one we hear of) destroyed the good effects they were meant to accomplish. Of him the record is brief, but pointed : " For about half a year he behaved in a modest manner, after that in a horrid manner." Keith and Talbot, on their missionary tour for the Venerable Society, essayed to visit this region in 1 703 ; but, after preaching once at a house in Currituck, they were unable to penetrate farther into the country, because of its swamps and marshes and the lack of any means of conveyance. In 1 704 the Rev. John Blair was sent out by the Venerable Society upon funds supplied by Lord Weymouth ; but he, enfeebled by sickness, returned in in a few months, declaring the region to be the most bar- barous place on the continent. The country then, indeed, was most wild and difficult of access. Roads and bridges there were none. Traveling was chiefly by canoes along MISSIONARIES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 237 the watercourses, and through the forests and marshes by infrequent paths more easy to lose than to find. How- ever, in I 708, Gordon and Adams were sent out as per- manent missionaries, and to them were assigned the four parishes or districts laid out by the Assembly in 1701. They found a most illiterate people. Few even of the justices of the peace and vestrymen could read or write. With this ignorance was combined the opposition of the Indians ; so that, after a year, Gordon returned to England, " unable to endure the distractions among the people, and other intolerable inconveniences in the colony." Adams served faithfully for three years, when he died, in 17 10. He earned the character of " a pious and painfull pastor," who " had much conduced to promote the great end of his mission." He left more communicants in Currituck than could be found in most of the neighboring parishes of Virginia, where there had long been a settled ministry ; but he declared in the last years of his life, " Nothing but my true concern for so many poor souls, and my duty to those good men who reposed this trust in me, could have induced me to stay in so disorderly and barbarous a place, where I have undergone a world of trouble and misery both in body and mind." At this time there was no organized religious dissent in the colony, except the Quakers, who were reckoned by Adams to constitute one seventh of the population. A few Presbyterians at Pasquotank conformed to the church under Adams's ministrations, as did also a small colony of Huguenots from Virginia who settled in Bath. The rest of the population on both sides of Albemarle Sound and along the Pamlico River were nominal churchmen, igno- rant and careless of both church principles and religious obhgations. Until the Revolution of 1776, however, the people asserted through their legislature that the Church 238 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. of England was the church of North Carolina. They accepted the establishment of the church as part of the necessary machinery of civilization ; but in no department of their work did the missionaries receive much help from the colonists. These missionaries were, with one excep- tion, faithful men ; and the reports which reached the society in England were uniformly satisfactory. They were by no means equal to the task laid upon them ; but they served to keep religion alive by preaching from house to house and baptizing from five hundred to a thousand persons a year. The legal establishment of the church did not help them ; it was rather a hindrance. The rev- enues it provided were never adequate to support the minister or build the needed churches ; while the tax im- posed to raise these revenues exasperated the opposition of dissenters. Still the leading men in North Carolina, repelled by the narrowness and ignorance which generally characterized the dissenters, regarded the church as an essential part of a well-ordered commonwealth. Endeav- oring to reproduce English civilization and English insti- tutions here, they recognized that the English Church was a most powerful instrument to these ends. Thus they stood out for the Establishment, inadequate as it was ; while it was the missionaries, dependent mostly on the society's support, who laid, in much suffering and want, the foundations of the church. " In weariness, in painful- ness, in watchings often, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren, in hunger and thirst, in fast- ings often, in cold and nakedness," they reproduced the apostoHc life and sought to emulate the apostles' labors. " Compelled to lodge, when at home, in some old tobacco- house, and, when they traveled, to lie oftentimes whole nights in the woods, and to live for days together upon no other food but bread moistened in brackish water; PRIVATIONS AND LABORS OF MISSIONARIES. 239 journeying amid deep swamps and along broken roads tlirough a wild and desert country, and finding themselves, at the distance of every twenty miles, upon the banks of some broad river which they could only cross by good boats and experienced watermen, neither of which aids were at their command ; encountering in some of the plantations the violent opposition of various nonconform- ists, already settled there in preponderating numbers; receiving in others the promise of some small stipend from the vestry, which was called a ' hiring,' and, if paid at all, was paid in bills which could only be disposed of at an excessive discount; forced, therefore, to work hard with ax and hoe and spade to keep their families and them- selves from starving, ... it cannot be a matter of surprise that some of them should have sought once more the shelter and rest of their native land."^ Into this rough land and rougher living there came from time to time men of striking character ; and the Venerable Society assisted in maintaining thirty-three missionaries in the province up to the time of the Revolution. Suc- cessive missionaries for many years had, in addition to other hardships, to encounter dangers arising from the incursions of the Indians. Efforts were, nevertheless, made to instruct and preach the gospel to the savages. The negroes, also, were as far as possible cared for. After the death of Adams, Rainsford came out, in 17 12, and, though he remained only a year in the province, in- terested himself greatly in the remains of the Chowan and other Indian tribes. The notorious Mr. Urmston, who later created so much disturbance at Philadelphia, in relation to Mr. Talbot and the so-called nonjuror bishops, had come out in 171 1 ; but, while enduring many hard- ships, his career was of no service or credit to the church. 1 Anderson, " Colonial Church," vol. iii., p. 489. 240 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. " He did more harm to the church in North Carolina than any man. He was scurrilous, profane, intemperate, and mendacious. His appearance upon the stage of action is one of the events which mark and darken the records of 1711."^ He, however, remained ten years. I In 1 7 1 5 the Assembly divided the country into nine par- ishes, instead of five as before, and established salaries for the ministers of each parish, not to exceed fifty pounds in the currency of the province. The vestries, however, took very little pains to make the law of support operative, and there were no clergymen to-do the required service. The act continued in force until 1741, new parishes being formed from time to time by the Assembly. When, in 1 718, Rev. Ebenezer Taylor came to Albemarle from South Carolina by the direction of the Venerable Society, he rejected the legal support of the act, and lived on the voluntary ofTerings of the people. He was an old and feeble man, but diligent and devout. His labors among the negro and Indian slaves were discountenanced and forbidden by the planters, under the impression that bap- tism manumitted a slave. His career was a short one ; for, while making a missionary tour from Bath to Cove Sound, he was exposed for ten days in an open boat in very severe weather, and he died in consequence. His death, in i 720, left Mr. Urmston the only minister in the colony, and he left it the next year, much to the relief of the people. For some years following his departure but little is known of the scattered congregations. There were brief ministrations by Newman and Bailey and Blackwall and Granville ; and La Pierre, the Huguenot, came from South Carolina to the Cape Fear River upon the invitation of 1 De Rosset, "Church History in North Carolina," chap, iii., p. 62; Rev. J. B. Cheshire, " The Church in the Province of North Carolina," THE VESTRY ACT OF 17 4I. 24 1 the people. In 1730, however, there was not one minister! of the Church of England settled in North Carolina. The only ministrations were those of Rev. Mr. Jones, of Vir- ginia, who officiated once a month at Bertie. An itinerant missionary was then appointed by the Venerable Society to travel through the whole country and officiate occasionally in every part of it. This was Mr. John Boyd, who was a graduate of the University of Glasgow, and had been a physician in Virginia. He went to London for orders, the first candidate from North Carolina, in 1732. Re- turning, he became the minister in the northwest parish of Bertie. He seems to have labored with assiduity, but died after five years' service, a missionary of the society to the last. Then the province was divided into two itinerant missions, to one of which was appointed Rev. J. Garzia, who had come from Virginia. A new Vestry Act was passed by the Assembly in I 741. It differed from former acts in that it provided that the vestry should be chosen by the freeholders of the parish in an election to be held by the sheriff on Easter Monday of every alternate year beginning with 1742. Hitherto the vestries had been close corporations and self- perpetuating. The act of 1741 made the number oft parishes seventeen. It gave power to the vestry to stop the stipend of a minister guilty of scandalous immorality. This act recognized and declared the right of performing the marriage service to lie in the clergy of the church, there being at that time no organized body of dissenters in the province, and no dissenting minister who claimed any ministerial authority to perform the marriage cere- mony. The clergy, at the time of the passage of this act, con- sisted only of Rev. Mr. Garzia, of St. Thomas's Church, Bath, who had been appointed itinerant missionary by the 242 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. Venerable Society in 1737, and the Rev. James Moir, who had lately come from South Carolina to St. James's Church, New Hanover. Mr. Moir was a diligent and de- voted man, who officiated in the province until his death, in 1767. He is cited by Bishop Chester as an example of the Establishment idea applied to the facts of American colonial life. " He did not lack abilities or worth, but he was all the time vexing himself and railing at his circum- stances because he could not make the Established sys- tem work. He held several important positions, as at St. James's, Wilmington, and St. Philip's, Brunswick, and St. Mary's, Edgecombe; and for a while he traveled and preached extensively. He seems, however, to have ac- complished little or nothing, because he was fettered by the system under which he had been brought up." ^ [ A different career was that of Rev. Clement Hall, who went to London in 1 743 for holy orders, the second native candidate who went out from North Carolina. He had been a magistrate in the Commission of the Peace in the colony, and had officiated for several years as a lay reader in congregations destitute of an ordained minister. The estimation in which he was held, both as a legal officer and a church layman, is shown in the fact that his letters of application were signed by the attorney-general, the sheriffs and clergy of the province testifying that he was of " very good repute, life, and conversation." He re- turned, after ordination in 1744, as a missionary of the Venerable Society, with an allowance of thirty pounds a year, and from that time gave himself up to a life of almost incessant labor. Unlike Moir, he found the system of the Establishment no insuperable barrier to his labors, because he was not working for the system, but simply sought to bring the gospel to bear upon the people. For 1 See De Rosset, " Church History in North Carolina," p. 72. THE REV. CLEMENT HALL. 243 twelve years he was the only clergyman for hundreds of miles of country. Though his labors were chiefly confined to Chowan County, they were extended at stated periods to three others. The distance and difficulties of his jour- neys in this rough country were very great; but he was cheered by the eager sympathy of the people. The chapels and court-houses were seldom large enough to contain half the numbers who flocked to hear him. He preached often beneath the trees of the forest, by the riverside, and by the sea. His health was delicate ; but he was instant in season and out of season in his work. Eight years after the beginning of his ministry, in 1752, he gave this summary of his labors : " I have now, through God's gracious assistance and blessing, been enabled . . . to journey about 14,000 miles, preach about 675 sermons, baptize about 5783 white chil- dren, 243 black children, 57 white adults, and ii2 black adults — in all, 6195 persons; sometimes administering the Holy Sacrament of ye Lord's Supper to 2 or 300 com- municants in one journey, besides churching of women, visiting the sick, etc. I have reason to believe that my health and constitution is much impair'd and broken by reason of my contin. Labours and also from the injurious treatment I have often reed, from the adversaries of our Church and Constitution ; for w'ch I do and pray God to forgive them and turn their hearts."^ After this, in 1753, he reports that in thirty-five days he traveled 536 miles, officiated in 23 congregations, bap- tized 467 white and 21 black children and 2 white women. Where others found discouragement he found happiness and hope. His annual stipend from the society never exceeded the thirty pounds per annum with which he set out; and he must have supplied from his own resources 1 " Digest of S. P. G. Records," third edition, p. 24. 244 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. much of the means needed for the prosecution of his work. At length, in 1755, because of his faiHng strength, he was reheved from the cares of an itinerant missionary, and was appointed to St. Paul's parish, Edenton. No sooner there than he lost his house, books, and most of his personal property by fire. To supply this lack the Venerable Society voted him a grant of money and a new library for the use of the mission. With courage unbroken, he per- severed unto the end. It came in 1759, after a ministry of fifteen years. In the words of Canon Anderson, " At the expiration of four years after his appointment to St. Paul's, worn out with sickness and hard toil, Clement Hall closed, in the bosom of an affectionate and grateful peo- ple, a career of pious usefulness which has been rarely, if ever, equaled." ^ Another missionary who deserves to be ranked with Clement Hall was Rev. Alexander Stewart, who came to the province in 1753 as minister of St. Thomas's Church, Bath. For eighteen years he preached and ministered to the people of Beaufort, Hyde, and Pitt counties, serving thirteen chapels besides his parish church. He gave special attention to the negroes and Indians, employing and paying a schoolmistress to teach Indian boys and girls and a few negro children, supplying them also with books. He too suffered much from sickness, and for a time rheu- matism deprived him of the use of his limbs. As one fruit of his labors in Bath he sent two notable men to England as candidates for holy orders, Mr. Peter Blinn and Mr. Nathaniel Blount, who afterward served the church long and faithfully. There were more of these pluralists in labor, if mendi- cants in purse. Among them was the Rev. James Reed, who came from England to Christ Church, New Berne, in 1 Anderson, " History of the Colonial Church," vol. iii., p. 493. GOVERNOR TRYON'S INFLUENCE. 245 the same year that Mr. Stewart came to Bath. He served nine chapels in Craven and Carteret counties, and he built the New Berne Academy. He was a loyaHst, and disap- peared at the time of the Revolution, leaving behind him the reputation of a man of honor and a faithful minister of God. By 1754 Wilmington had grown to be the largest town in the province ; and handsome churches had been begun both there and in Brunswick, though they were long in building, and were not finished until within a few years of the Revolution. These churches were served by a suc- cession of worthy men : McDowell and Barnet and Mills and Christian. Clement Hall was succeeded in Edenton by Rev. Daniel Earl, who continued in charge through the War of the Revolution, and reported in 1775 that he had not received a shilling of his salary from his parish for near three years. Burgess became the minister of Edgecombe parish, Halifax; and his grandson in 1834 conveyed to the vestry of Calvary Church, Harborough, a lot which his grandfather had purchased at the laying out of the town. When Governor Tryon began his administration there came a great increase of ecclesiastical activity through the stimulus of his own zeal for the church. He won the good will of dissenters by his generous appreciation of them, while he zealously promoted the interests of the church, all of whose ministers found in his house a boun- teous hospitality and a hearty sympathy. He was recog- nized by the clergy as a ready and indefatigable friend. Owing to a disconnected series of acts by the Assembly between 1754 and 1764, the province was left without any legal vestries, much to the confusion of the ministers. In the latter year this was remedied by an act providing for the election of vestries and the support of the ministers, whose salaries were raised to a hundred and thirty-three 246 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. pounds. As the act still left the election of vestrymen to the freeholders of the parish, dissenters might be elected, and the vestry remain inactive in parishes where the services of the church were not desired. The act, however, provided that in case an elected vestryman should refuse to qualify, if a known dissenter, he should be fined three pounds. Under these acts scarcely any contest took place be- tween dissenters and churchmen in regard to enforcing the law. This peace and harmony was perhaps not so much owing to the wisdom of the law as to the fact that each section of the province had been settled by a homogeneous population.^ The northern counties from Orange to the seaboard were chiefly English and favorable to the church. To the west the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed had each their settlements, but in separate and distinct communities. In such communities the vestrymen elected performed their civil duties, but, as no Episcopal service was wanted, ignored their ecclesiastical functions. The governor, the Assembly, and the Episcopal clergy ac- quiesced in this state of things. When, in 1 766, the Rev. Andrew Morton was sent out from England to St. Martin's parish, Mecklenburg County, the inhabitants being all Cove- nanters and Seceders, Governor Tryon simply transferred him to St. George's parish in Bertie. During the seven years of Tryon's administration the number of clergy in 1 the province rose from five to eighteen. Almost without exception the ministers who came in under his rule were men of force and zeal. They were distributed from Salis- bury to the seacoast, some being supported by the Ven- erable Society in conjunction with the voluntary offer- ings of the people, and engaged in establishing new con- gregations in the waste places ; others settling over the churches already established, and creating the beginnings 1 De Rosset, " Church History in North Carolina," pp. 77, 78. REV. EDWARD JONES. 247 of educational institutions. The stipends furnished to parishes by the legislature being quite insufificient to sup- port the clergy and build up church institutions, the vestries resorted to the selling of pews and to lotteries to finish the churches. But the laws, while inadequate to the support of the church, yet served to exasperate its opponents, and made the people lethargic in doing their part. For a time the church seemed to prosper, and it retained, down to the Revolution, a majority of the population of the province. At the beginning of that war there were only two Baptist associations in North Carolina ; and while the Methodists were becoming numerous, as a body they were still loyal to the church. A number of young men ■ of the province at this time entered the ministry. Macartney and Burges and Johnstone, and Blinn and Jones, went over for orders, and returned and did good ser- vice. Of the last-mentioned, Edward Jones, it may be said that he suffered the loss of all things to undertake his holy calling. He sold his patrimony to pay the expenses of his journey to England, and, being stricken with illness on his arrival, became penniless in a strange land. He had to walk to London, and sell his clothes to buy food. Some irregularity being found in his papers by the bishop, he was plunged almost into insanity by his desperate condi- tion. Fortunately he recalled the fact that Governor Tryon, whose letters he bore, had a sister living in Lon- don, and, finding her, he received her compassionate assistance, and was enabled to surmount his difficulties. His case is here quoted as an instance of the great obsta- cles which stood in the way of those who would serve the church in her ministry, and to point out once more the cause of the church's tardy growth, by reason of Parlia- ment's, refusal to grant her local bishops. 248 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. ix. It is to be noted in the case of North CaroHna that while the EngHsh government estabHshed the church, its rev- enues came entirely from the Assembly of the province. Native taxes furnished such means as were given it by the state; and these, supplemented by voluntary contributions, constituted its entire support. The English government furnished neither bishop nor revenue; though too high praise cannot be given to the Venerable Society, which so long and so generously contributed to the maintenance of the missionaries whom it sent or adopted. CHAPTER X. THE COLONIAL CHURCH IN GEORGIA. Georgia was the one American colony founded in benevolence. The unselfish philanthropy of James Edward Oglethorpe suggested and promoted it as a refuge for poor debtors, imprisoned, by the cruel and senseless laws of the time, for poverty, and wasting their lives idly in English jails. He put upon the seal of the colony the legend, ''Noil sibi, scd aliis," and it well described the character of the settlement. The purpose of the undertaking seemed to inspire with the spirit of philanthropy those who came to minister to it; and this colony, small as it was, became the seat of the most extensive philanthropic in- stitution of the colonial church — the Bethesda Orphan House estabHshed and supported by Whitefield. Interest in the colony lies more in the agents of the Venerable So- ciety than in what was permanently accomplished for the church. With it are associated the names of the great re- vivers of practical religion in the English Church in the eighteenth century — John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. Their efforts in Georgia were heroic. It seems strange that they should not have left a more permanent impression upon it. The first settlement took place in November, 1732, when Oglethorpe himself, accompanied by a hundred and thirty persons, arrived at Charleston, S. C, and, proceed- ing to the Savannah River, selected the site and laid out 249 250 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. the town of Savannah. He had served as an aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene, and assisted at the capture of Belgrade, and after his retirement from the army on inheriting the family estates had entered Parliament, in 1732. Being made chairman of a committee on prison reform, his atten- tion was arrested, in the course of his visitation of the prison- ers, by the multitude of poor debtors ; and the sympathy awakened by their wretched condition resulted in the start- ing of this colonial enterprise for their relief. He organ- ized a board of trustees, and obtained a grant from King George H. of the territory between the Savannah and Alta- maha rivers. The colony was to be distinct from South Carolina, which was quite willing to have a new settlement established as a barrier between her and the Spaniards and Indians of Florida. Benevolent people of his own rank combined with him to compound with the creditors, and by the king's grant all things were made ready. Free- dom of religion was to be enjoyed by all except papists ; the corporators were to govern for twenty-one years; thereafter the king should ordain the form of government and appoint the officers. Arms and tools were furnished to the settlers. Negro slavery and spirituous liquors were strictly forbidden. Great care was taken to choose the emigrants and exclude the unworthy. As the immigra- tion increased several villages were formed on the Great and Little Ogeechee rivers and elsewhere. With Oglethorpe and his first company came Rev. Henry Herbert, D.D., as chaplain; but he remained only three months, and returned home to die. Application was made to the Venerable Society for an allowance for Rev. Samuel Quincy, the minister chosen to be settled among them, until the glebe of three hundred acres set apart for the minister became productive for his support. A site for a church was secured, and some benefactions CHARLES WESLEY IN GEORGIA. 25 I received were appropriated to erecting a church building. Communion-plate and a surplice were supplied ; so that Mr. Quincy was not wholly unprovided. He had not, how- ever, the stamina of a pioneer missionary, and only stayed two years. There was much grumbling on his part, for which, doubtless, there was occasion enough in such a com- munity. Before he left, John and Charles Wesley arrived. Dr. Burton, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was one of the Georgia trustees, and he commended the enthusiastic brothers to Oglethorpe. Their father. Rev. Samuel Wes- ley, who had given the pewter communion-plate to the first chaplain, was dead. But after consultation with brother and mother, and much reflection and prayer, the two determined to go to convert the Indians, as well as to minister to the poor white debtors. Could devout- ness devoid of common sense have succeeded, their har- vest had been abundant. Never was such consecration and such zeal. They set sail in October, i 735, and arrived in February of the following year. Charles stayed but four months. He was assigned to Fredrica, a small village on the island of St. Simon, intended as a bulwark against Spanish invasion. He went at once, and began his strict church discipline, administering strong meat to those to whom even the milk of the gospel was indigestible. He at once insisted on baptizing by immersion all children not physically unable to bear that form of the rite. Four times every day the drum beat to prayers ; nor would the ardent idealist relax the discipline in the least for any expostulation. Such efforts proving fruitless, he left for England, convinced, doubtless, of the divineness of his method and the judicial blindness of the people who re- fused it. John Wesley abode in Savannah. He began his min- istry there on Quinquagesima Sunday, March .7, 1735; 252 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. and such a ministry ! He neither spared himself nor his flock ; but what his fiery zeal and iron constitution enabled him to bear was a burden too heavy for the issue of a debtors' prison. He had little time to give to the con- version of the Indians, as the bad lives of his countrymen absorbed both his time and his energies. To the Italians from Piedmont, who had been brought out to introduce the culture of silkworms, he also gave attention. A company of Protestants who had been driven out of Salz- burg had come over in i 734, bringing their minister with them, and had settled at a little distance from the town, on Ebenezer Creek, and also a company of pious Mora- vians, who had planted themselves with their pastor be- tween the Germans and the city. Wesley was thus not the only spiritual leader and guide. But his church prin- ciples were at that time so narrow and high that he came into frequent collision with those who did not measure up to his standard. He refused the holy communion to an excellent man who had not been baptized by an episcopally ordained clergyman, and, without the privacy of a confes- sional, he assumed the role of director to the consciences of individuals in matters beyond the limits of church law. How unwearied were his labors may be seen by a brief extract from his diary : " Sunday, 30. — I had full employment for that Holy Day. The first English prayers lasted from five to half- past six. The Italian, which I read to a few Vaudois, began at nine. The second service for the English (in- cluding the sermon and the Holy Communion) continued from half an hour past ten to half an hour past twelve. The French service began at one. At two I catechised the children. About three I began the English service. After this was ended I had the happiness of joining with as many as my largest room would hold, in reading, prayer, JOHN WESLEY IN GEORGIA. 253 and singing praise ; and about six the service of the Mora- vians began, at which I was glad to be present, not as a teacher, but a learner." Thus was Wesley iinsparing of himself. He was equally unsparing of others. He drew up rules for a stricter, holier course of life, which he called " ApostoHc Institu- tions," because they were modeled on the primitive church. To these he expected his people to conform. The attrac- tion, however, which asceticism almost always has at first soon vanished. The incessant attendance required by him at meetings and prayers and sermons tended inevitably to formalism and hypocrisy. He began to be suspected of being a papist at heart, on account of the penances and ascetic practices which he endeavored to enforce. Men declined so great a usurpation over their consciences. The fact is, Wesley had not yet come to that crisis in his life which he calls his " conversion," and which, whatever it is called, was assuredly the turning-point in his spiritual history, transforming him from a fearful servant into a confiding and rejoicing child of God. He had " received the spirit of bondage again to fear." He was to receive the spirit " of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." His sincerity cannot be doubted for a moment. But it was the sincerity of an anxious soul, which was toiling by painful steps and slow up to God to gain his favor ; not the sincere service of a grateful soul kindled to loving devotion by the reception of God's gift of grace. The sacraments which he administered so punctiliously and so often were to him the badges of his allegiance to God, intensifying his responsibility, rather than the witnesses of God's allegiance to him in the impartation of his help and favor which they declared and confirmed. Hence his spirit was legal and his thought self-centered. When he set out he wrote in his journal : " The end is simply 254 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. this : to save our souls ; to live wholly to the glory of God." He was looking to himself. When he learned to forget himself in the service of the Master who gave himself for him, then he became the man of power, who drew the clamorous crowd about him, who kindled a devotion to him- self which a century has not abated, and who awoke a move- ment of renovation and spiritual power which has quick- ened the life of English Christendom on both sides of the sea. But Wesley in America and Wesley in England were two different beings. It was well for himself and the colony that his stay in Georgia was short. The chief cause of his return was an intolerant interference with an indi- vidual soul which the commonest prudence should have ' taught him not to touch. He had fallen in love with a niece of Causton, an agent of Oglethorpe, a man very unpopular by reason of his intolerance and overbearing demeanor. She, however, though a devoted spiritual dis- ciple of Wesley, did not return his affection, and married another, a Mr. Williamson. Shortly afterward Wesley thought he saw something blamable in her conduct, re- buked her in such manner that she became angry, and then, on the technical ground that she had not signified her intention to commune, and on the moral ground that she had not openly declared herself repentant of her fault (both causes within the letter of the rubric), he forbade her the holy communion. Williamson preferred a charge against him before the magistrates of defaming his wife and repelling her without cause from the Lord's table. Wesley denied the first charge, and denied the right of the secular court to adjudicate the second. The grand jury found a true bill ; but twelve of their number pro- tested -that the indictment was a malicious attempt to traduce Wesley's character. It is quite in keeping with Causton's character that he should have resented the cause GEORGE WHirEFIELD IN GEORGIA. 255 of his niece in this manner. The whole prosecution was Hkely enough the outgrowth of his spite, and was designed to drive from the colony one who dared to oppose his will and proved an obstacle to the exercise of his tyranny. Wesley sought to be tried on the charge of defamation, the only charge on which he allowed the jurisdiction of the secular court, but for three months met with delay after delay. He continued his labors, and even multi- phed them. In Savannah and the surrounding settlements he held services in Italian, French, and German, as well as in English. Weekly eucharists, public catechisings, in- formal prayer-meetings, besides constant preachings, filled all his hours. But the whole colony was stirred with the scandal. Congregations dwindled ; and at last, finding no prospect of action by the court, and no prospect of useful- ness among the people, Wesley determined to leave. He let it be known that he should shortly depart ; but he went quietly one evening, after reading the Evening Prayer, and, reaching Charleston, sailed for England December 22, 1737, having been in America a year and nine months. The vessel which brought Wesley back to England passed another conveying Whitefield to Georgia. This distinguished evangelist had just been ordered deacon. He had known Wesley at Oxford while a servitor at Pembroke College, and had become thoroughly imbued with the religious enthusiasm of the Methodists. Out of gratitude and attachment to those who had awakened his spiritual nature he heeded the appeal of Wesley for help- ers. His eloquence was already recognized in England ; but, notwithstanding his rising popularity, he refused the offers of preferment pressed upon him, and sailed for Georgia, on the recommendation of the trustees and with the approval of Bishop Gibson and Archbishop Potter. He embarked the last of December, 1737, but did not 256 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. reach Savannah until the beginning of May, 1738. He found religious matters in a state of chaos, since the ser- vices of the church had been suspended by the removal of an unworthy chaplain who had had charge of them to South Carolina. In much weakness of body he began his ministrations with all Wesley's vigor, but with less rigor of discipline. He did not insist on immersing infants, and showed less austerity and more geniality in his intercourse with the people. His eloquence drew crowds about him, so that many stood without the doors and under the windows to listen to his preaching. He lived in perfect harmony with his flock, and was untiring in his ministra- tions for them. He visited the sick every day, and estab- lished several schools for the children. On Sundays he read prayers and expounded one of the lessons for the day at five in the morning. At ten and three o'clock he read prayers and preached. At seven in the evening he expounded the catechism to large congregations of ser- vants. During the week he had daily morning and even- ing prayer in public, and gathered the people privately in his own house for instruction and worship three times a week besides. He strove to gain access to the Indians, but with little success. He was especially struck with the forlorn condition of the orphan children in this wilderness settlement, and formed the project of establishing an orphan house for their support and instruction. This benevolent scheme became the object in which his labors in Georgia chiefly centered. He writes in his journal : " For want of a house to breed them up in, the poor little ones (for whom the trustees had endeavored to make some provision) were tabled out here and there, and, besides the hurt they re- ceived by bad examples, forgot at home what they learned at school. Others were at hard service, and likely to have BETHESDA ORPHAN HOUSE EOLXDED. 257 no education at all. Upon seeing this ... I thought I could not better show my regard to God and my country than by getting a house and land for these children, where they might learn to labor, read, and write, and at the same time be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." He at once began the nucleus of Bethesda Col- lege, and during the thirty subsequent years of his life, though " in journeyings often," he never forgot or neglected this institution. In all he collected eighty thousand dol- lars for it, of which he gave sixteen thousand dollars him- self. The institution was located nine miles from Savannah. Temporary shelter was provided for the orphans of the colony by Mr. Habersham, a lay reader and schoolmaster, while the permanent buildings were in course of construc- tion ; and free instruction was also offered to the children of the colonists who were not orphans. An infirmary was established, and the sick were cared for by an experienced surgeon without charge. In the meantime Whitefield returned to England three months after his arrival in Georgia, and was ordained priest by the Bishop of Gloucester in January, 1739, in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and appointed by the trustees of the colony rector of Christ Church parish, Savannah. He remained in England until August, preach- ing to thousands who flocked to hear him, either in the churches or, when these were denied him, on the moors and commons of Kingswood and Moorfields and Black- heath. Never was greater enthusiasm stirred by any man. A heart so humane and lips so eloquent compelled a homage which was intensified by a sense of personal obligation. If some of the clergy grew imbittered, hosts of the common people heard him gladly, and he stirred their hearts as the heart of one man. He was not, how- ever, turned from his missionary labor by his mar\"elous 258 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. evangelistic success, nor was he as yet imbittered against the church. He was constant at prayers and sacraments. He gathered a thousand pounds for his orphanage, and obtained a grant of five hundred acres of land for it ; and when he sailed in August for America he carried eight men as assistants with him. His practical benevolence grew but stronger in the heated atmosphere of religious enthusiasm. That atmosphere surrounded him every- where and at all times. On arriving in Philadelphia from England, the scenes of London were repeated in Christ Church; and in New York, where Trinity Church shut its doors to him, the meetings in the fields recalled those of Kensington Com- mon. Such demands were made upon him for sermons that though he had landed in November, 1739, he only reached Savannah in January, 1 740. At once he devoted himself anew to his beloved orphan house, making even the interests of the church in Savannah, to which he had been appointed rector, subordinate to it, though he at once resumed his ministrations in that place, and started to build a church for his parish. He returned north in a few months, and came back with lay assistants for various mechanical trades, with provisions and clothing for his orphans, and with five hundred pounds for the institution. He became from this time on more and more irregular in conducting the services of the church, admitting dissenters to its ministrations and curtailing the prayers. The fervor of his zeal could not brook the bounds of rubrical require- ments, and he was inhibited by Commissary Garden, of South CaroUna, which inhibition he failed to heed. The importance he placed on his view of the new birth, and the great effects which he wrought by preaching it, led him to denounce those who opposed or failed to advocate it, whether authors like Law and Archbishop Tillotson, or BETHESDA COLLEGE RULE. 259 the living clergy, of whatever rank, whose preaching fell short of his doctrinal standard. He fell off from his dear friend Wesley on the subject of Calvinism, and could hold no fellowship with an Arminian in theology, though in practical measures and methods they were so akin. He became more and more of an enthusiast of untempered zeal. It was impossible that one who, in spite of his aberrations, or perchance by reason of them, could do such great things could be confined to so small a sphere as the little colony of Georgia. His sense of power became the measure of his duty, and henceforth he was an itinerant, making frequent visits to England, where his old influence revived, and preaching also from time to time throughout the colonies of America, with a power as magical and effective as ever. But in all his wanderings he never lost sight of his beloved Bethesda College. He gathered money again and again in England for its needs during all the excitement of his evangelistic labors. From time to time he visited Georgia and devoted himself in person to the orphan school. By 1 742 the great dormitories, workshops, and store- houses at Bethesda were occupied and the " great house " nearly completed. The services of a Latin master were secured, and a foundation laid " in the name of our dear Jesus for an University in Georgia," to use Whitefield's own phrase. Thirty-nine boys and fifteen girls were sup- ported there, and some had already been sent out to trades. The establishment had a strict discipline, and was some- what overcharged with a religious atmosphere. An account of it by a visitor from Boston reads as follows: " The bell rings in the morning at sunrise to wake the family. When the children arise they sing a short hymn and pray by themselves ; then they go down and wash, and by the time they have done that the bell calls to 26o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. public worship, when a portion of Scripture is read and expounded, and a psalm sung, and the exercise begun and ended with prayer. Then they breakfast, and afterward go, some to their trades, and the rest to their prayers and schools. At noon they all dine in the same room, and have comfortable and wholesome diet provided. A hymn is sung before and after dinner; then, in about half an hour, to school again, and between whiles find time enough for recreation. A little after sunset the bell calls to public duty again, which is performed in the same manner as in the morning. After that they sup, and are attended to bed by one of their teachers, who then pray with them, as they often do privately. On the Sabbath day they all dine on cold meat, provided the day before, that none may be kept from public worship, which is attended four times a day in summer and three in winter. The children are kept reading between whiles." ^ This founding of Bethesda College was by far the most interesting and valuable act of Whitefield in Georgia. In an age too Httle given to such practical benevolence, and in a wilderness settlement so remote and poor, its con- ception and its persistent advocacy go far to balance the irregular and intemperate enthusiasm of many of his min- istrations. With every temptation to forget " these few sheep in the wilderness," undistracted by the popular frenzy excited by his surpassing eloquence wherever he appeared, he showed in this charitable foundation a gen- uine enthusiasm of humanity. Through evil report and good report, amid the clamors of acrimonious controversy, living, as it were, in the storm and whirlwind of religious excitement, he never forgot or neglected the orphans, whom, like his Master, he gathered in his arms. 1 Given in Perry's " History of the American Episcopal Church," vol. i., P- 354- WHITEFIELD'S DEATH. 26 1 After twenty-five years of varied fortune, Whitefield determined to enlarge the scope of his institution and make it in reahty a university of Georgia. In 1 764 he petitioned the governor and council for a grant of two thousand acres of land, in order to make " provision for the education of persons of superior rank, who thereby might be qualified to serve their king, their country, and their God, either in church or state " ; and in his memorial he showed that he had already expended twelve thousand pounds on Bethesda. His friend and helper, James Ha- bersham, was now president of the Upper House of As- sembly, and by his influence the governor's indorsement was obtained. Though the necessity of reference to the home authorities entailed delay, the result was at last favorable. In the last year of Whitefield's life, in i 770, the govern- or's council and the Assembly attended services at the chapel of the orphan house ; and Whitefield preached, taking as his text Zechariah iv. 10: " For who hath de- spised the day of small things? " The Rev. Mr. Ellington, who had had a most successful ministry in Augusta, ac- cepted the headship of the enlarged institution on White- field's declaring his intention of having " the stated wor- ship of the seminary agreeable to the liturgy of the Church of England." The work prospered under him. The death of Whitefield, however, in the same year, greatly impeded the development he had so earnestly labored to secure. He left by will the orphan house and all his possessions in Georgia to his patroness, the Countess of Huntingdon, or, in case of her death previous to his own, to his friend Mr. Habersham, who was made his executor. Thus in death as in life he kept the institution near his heart. But the Revolution, which came on apace, wrought the ruin of his great enterprise. The inmates of 262 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. the orphan house were scattered, the revenue ceased, and the buildings were destroyed during the war. Bethesda College survives only as a grateful memory and as a tribute to the practical benevolence of one of the greatest preach- ers since the days of St. Bernard. It is a singular fact that this humane man, whose heart beat so warmly for the orphans and the rising generation of whites, should have favored the demands of the colo- nists for the repeal of the law forbidding the introduction of negro slavery. He parted from Wesley in applied as well as in theoretical Christianity. Instead of regarding slavery, like his great prototype, as " the sum of all vil- lainies," he maintained, from the Old Testament, that to keep slaves was lawful ; that to introduce them into Georgia would bring them within the reach of the means of grace, and make them partakers of a liberty more precious than that of the body. He did not hesitate, therefore, to use his influence for the movement which brought slaverj- into the colony, declaring that " to require the colonists to cultivate the soil in a hot climate without negro labor was little better than to tie their legs and bid them walk." Thus his pity for the bodies of the colonists and his com- passion for the souls of the negroes led him to approve a fatal policy which it has taken a century to reverse. When Whitefield took up his itinerant life it became necessary to supply his place as rector of Christ Church, Savannah. The appointments to this post were most un- fortunate. The first, the Rev. Mr. Norris, formerly of Fred- rica, stayed but a short time, and was much calumniated. The Rev. Mr. Metcalf, of Lincolnshire, appointed by the trustees to succeed him, died before entering on his duties. The Rev. Christopher Orton, his successor, died within a year. In July, 1743, the Rev. Thomas Bosomworth was licensed to perform all religious and ecclesiastical CHURCH PROGRESS SLOW AND MEAGER. 263 oflfices in the colony. He went to Fredrica, which he found especially destitute of religious instruction, and where, for a short time, he showed an exemplary religious zeal. Unfortunately, the year after his arrival, he married an Indian woman, who, though a Christian, involved him in an Indian plot to seize the English possessions. He backed her claim to the lands on which Savannah was situated, and to enforce it appeared in full canonicals with her (she being costumed as an Indian princess) before the authorities. An Indian outbreak was the result, and the revolt was only terminated by the arrest and imprison- ment of the recreant priest and his bride. He was dis- missed from his post by the Venerable Society, which had appointed him ; but the scandal of this perversion of his sacred office continued to work mischief in the religious affairs of the colony. He was succeeded in 1746 by the Rev. Mr. Zouber- buhler, son of a Swiss pastor in South Carolina, who labored faithfully for twenty years. He reclaimed many to the church who had wandered from it, and after three years went to England for more laborers, stating to the Venerable Society that " there were about three thousand / persons in Georgia, and no other minister of the Church I of England in the province." It was not until 1750 that the church at Savannah, which was begun in 1740, was finished ; and then, in a population of eight hundred, the number of communicants was only sixty-five. It was in this year, also, that the settlers built a small church at Augusta, under cover of the fort ; and the Rev. Jonathan Copp, a graduate of Yale College, was appointed to the cure, which he served faithfully, in the face of many diffi- culties and dangers, until succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Frink in i 766. These two churches, a hundred and fifty miles apart, were the only two in Georgia in i 769, though 264 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. x. in 1758 the province had been divided by an act of As- sembly into eight parishes, and an annual stipend of twenty- five pounds sterling allowed to the clergy officiat- ing in each. No leader had given elTect to this enactment, and the condition of the church in Georgia was weaker than in any other province of North America. The Rev. Mr. Frink gives this melancholy account of the settlers at that time : " They seem in general to have but very little more knowledge of a Saviour than the aboriginal natives. Many hundreds of poor people, both parents and children, in the interior of the province have no opportunity of being in- structed in the principles of Christianity, or even in the being of a God, any further than nature dictates." ^ Samuel Frink and Edward Ellington were the two most distinguished missionaries in Georgia, and no exertion on their part was wanting to supply the spiritual destitution around them. When Frink was appointed by the gov- ernor to Christ Church, Savannah, Ellington succeeded him at Augusta. It was his practice to leave Augusta on Monday, and, after a journey of forty miles, to hold service on the three following days at three places ten miles distant from one another, and to give the last two days of the week to his work at home. Frink was equally faithful, and thus it was that at Savannah, Fredrica, and Augusta the ordi- nances of the church w^ere seldom intermitted, and that the scattered families removed from these centers were not left wholly without religious ministrations. Ellington, as we have seen, left Augusta to take charge of Whitefield's orphan house, when once assured that the services should be according to the liturgy of the Church of England. This must have been a consolation as well as an astonishment to his fellow-missionary, Frink, who 1 " Digest of S. P. G. Records, 1 701-1892," third edition, p. 28. CHURCH EXTERMINATED BY THE REVOLUTION. 265 had written to the Venerable Society, two years before, that " Whitefield had done more mischief in Georgia by the disorder and confusion which he had created than he could undo in three centuries, and made his orphan house a nest for the enemies of the church." Ellington was succeeded at Augusta by the Rev. J. Seymour, of whose labors there is little record, but whose sufiferings and per- sistent efforts to continue his work during the Revolution- ary War called forth the sympathy and admiration even of those whom he opposed. He was a stanch loyalist, and after sufTering " the loss of all things," escaped to Florida, and ministered there until the Spaniards took possession in 1783. The church in Georgia disappeared during the Revolu- tion, having never made a strong impression in the colony, although the Venerable Society had assisted in maintain- ing thirteen missionaries within its borders, and among them the two Wesleys and Whitefield, who elsewhere wrought the most powerful evangelistic work of the eighteenth century. CHAPTER XI. SUMMARY OF THE COLONIAL CHURCH AND ITS LESSONS. Before recounting the history of the formation of the national church out of the remains of the colonial churches it will be well to recall certain features of the past, in order to understand the movement based upon it. The advan- tages which the church in the colonies enjoyed were all contained in the countenance and aid given it by the Venerable Society (S. P. G.). From the government of England it received only the doubtful favor of a quasi- Establishment in a few provinces. This Establishment, enforced by the patronage of the royal governor and his council, gave the church a special prominence and social standing in certain communities. These communities, however, were largely composed of dissenters, who held to their views with a tenacity strengthened by their recoil from the English Church at home, and the Establishment thus provoked opposition as well as conciliated favor. The Establishment, moreover, did not bring with it established revenues. It merely gave power to raise revenues by taxation for the benefit of the church established. This not unnaturally provoked animosity, and the benefit to the church was limited. The experience of the provinces where the Establishment was most fully recognized showed another side as well. These colonies became a refuge and resort for the thriftless and profligate clergy of Eng- 266 EVILS OF STATE PATRONAGE. 267 land, who were glad to escape from their debts and difficulties at home, and whose friends were so happy to get rid of them that they aided in securing for them assured positions and salaries on the distant continent. Of course such men were a burden and not a benefit to the church's life and reputation. Their carelessness and the scandals to which they gave rise were powerful in- centives to the growth of Methodism while that earnest body was still affiliated with the church. They united the Presbyterian and Baptist communions to the tenacious preservation of those principles and forms in which they had found the realities of a religious life; realities which the worldliness, to say the least, of these ecclesiastical ad- venturers failed either to exhibit in themselves or admin- ister to others. The church was more numerous in the provinces where it was established, but its life was not as healthful or as stable as where it was deprived of all state aid. The sad experience of Maryland and Virginia, as contrasted with the much smaller church communities in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, shows most unmistakably the mischief which may come of political patronage in founding the church in new communities. Another lesson of vital importance is shown in the history of the colonial churches. It is the crass folly of trying to propagate a system by mutilating it. The colo- nial churches were acephalous. No bishop could be had, or even borrowed for a season ; and moral discipline and ecclesiastical order were without any efficient head. The incredible discomfort of a voyage to Europe in those days, and the enormous expense of it to men of moderate means, put a check upon the growth of a native clergy, which experience proved to be far more valuable than an im- ported ministry. A sea- voyage, with its dangers and dis- 268 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. comforts, which was an imperative necessity for every priest and deacon seeking holy orders, was an impediment to the progress of the church whose hindrance it is impos- sible to compute. The lack, too, in relation to the clergy, of any competent or complete theological education was a serious drawback to the church. The colleges of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton had been early founded to raise up a learned clergy for the Congregationalists and the Presby- terians. It was not until within thirty years of the Revo- lution that King's College and the Academy and College of Philadelphia were started, where churchmen practically preponderated ; and the College of William and Mary in Virginia languished on account of the Establishment, which cast so dark a shadow on everything pertaining to the church in that colony. To graduate at Yale or Harvard was to intensify, perhaps, one's churchmanship by reason of reaction ; but these colleges did not generate an at- mosphere favorable to the development of an PZpiscopal clergy, or furnish the equipment requisite for their calling. The attempts to obtain bishops were constant, and came from all parts of the colonies. The need was recognized in England. As early as 1638 Laud had set on foot a scheme for sending a bishop to New England. The Ven- erable Society submitted a memorial to the c]ueen in i 709, urging the appointment of a bishop for the American colo- nies, which memorial it renewed four years later, when the queen seemed so favorable that only her sudden death put an end to the project. The application was renewed in a memorial in 17 15 to George I., for four bishoprics for America, two for the islands and two for the continent. These latter two were to be located at Burlington, N. J., and Williamsburg, Va. Means for raising an income of a thousand pounds for each see were suggested and urged, on the ground that the society had already expended six JJV AMERICAN EPISCOPATE FAVORED. 269 hundred pounds for the purchase of house and land for a bishop's residence in BurUngton. The struggle, however, of the House of Hanover to establish itself against the House of Stuart absorbed at this time the attention and interest of the crown ; and no consideration could be given to supplying a complete church order to distant colonists, many of whose clergy were suspected of favoring the cause of the Pretender. Thus, under Queen Anne and King George, these well-considered plans miscarried, as had the attempt in 1672, under Charles H., to send out as Bishop of Virginia the Rev. Dr. Alexander Murray, who had been a companion of the king in his exile. Such, also, had been the fate of the project of Dr. Sharpe, Archbishop of York in 171 1, who, together with the Bishops of Bristol and St. David's, made a proposal to the Lower House of Convocation " concerning bishops to be provided for the plantations." The subject, however, did not cease to occupy the thought of the episcopate. Archbishop Ten- ison, at his death in 1715, bequeathed a thousand pounds to the Venerable Society " toward the settlement of two bishops, one for the continent and the other for the isles of America"; and in 1718 an unknown benefactor gave the society a thousand pounds for the same purpose, which sum was doubled shortly after by gifts from Mr. Dugald Camp- bell and Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Much later on, in 1 750, a united and sustained effort was made to establish an American episcopate by Bishops Seeker of Oxford, Sher- lock of London, and Butler of Bristol ; and as by that time much hostility had arisen in America on the part of the dissenting colonists against the project. Bishop Butler, the celebrated author of the " Analogy," prepared an expla- nation and statement of the scheme, to allay all possible misapprehension of it. The statement declared \h2X, first, no coercive power over the laity was desired, but only 270 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. power to regulate the behavior of the clergy who were in Episcopal orders ; second, that no share in the temporal government was desired for bishops ; tJiird, that the main- tenance of the bishops was not to be at the charge of the colonies ; fourth, that no bishops were to be settled where the government was in the hands of dissenters, as in New England, but that they should only have authority to ordain and discipline the clergy of such Church of England congregations as might be among them, and to confirm the lay members thereof. It was, however, too late for any such scheme to be carried into effect. The opposition of the colonists had by this time introduced a political ele- ment into the question, and no prime minister could conceive it expedient to embroil his government with it. The interest awakened in the minds of the English dignitaries was not unshared by the colonial clergy. It was rather stimulated by their petitions and representa- tions. Commissary Bray, of Maryland, had, after his short visitation in America in i 700, urged the sending out of a bishop to that province, and projected a plan of raising by private contributions enough to buy a plantation in Mary- land for his support. The Venerable Society, among its earliest acts, tried to secure a Scotch bishop as suffragan to the Bishop of London for that purpose, which effort failed by reason of the advanced age and the small number of the Scotch bishops. John Talbot, Keith's companion in his itinerant journey of preliminary observation, wrote in 1 702 to the society just founded : " There are earnest addresses from divers parts of the country, and islands adjacent, for a suffragan to visit the several churches, ordain some, confirm others, and bless all;" and as he began, so he continued his life long. In 1 704 he wrote to Keith, nominating a clergy- man fit for the place, and declared that if the queen INDIVIDUAL REQUESTS FOR BISHOPS. 27 1 understood the necessities of the case she would allow a thousand pounds per annum rather than so many souls should suffer. Again, in 1716, he sent a most caustic complaint, in which he contrasted apostolic alertness with the government's delay, saying : " When the apostles heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, im- mediately they sent out two of the chiefs, Peter and John; . . . they did not stay for a secular design of sal- ary. But we have been here these twenty years, calling till our hearts ache, and ye own 'tis the call and cause of God, and yet ye have not heard, or have not answered, and that's all one. There's a nolo episcopari only for poor America." The call for the episcopate was not confined to the iso- lated cry of individual clergymen. In 1 705 a memorial was addressed to the archbishops and bishops, from a con- vocation of fourteen clergymen at Burlington, N. J., pray- ing for the presence and assistance of a suffragan bishop, and stating the urgent reasons therefor. Soon afterward Governor Nicholson, of Virginia, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury " that unless a bishop be sent, in a short time the Church of England will diminish rather than in- crease in North America." In fact, so much attention was called to the subject in England about this time that it became a topic of general conversation and a matter of banter to Dean Swift (we can scarcely deem it more), who writes to his friend, Colonel Hunter, who had been ap- pointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia, and became after- ward governor of New York, that " he must hasten to get him his Virginia bishopric, or he will be compelled to go to Ireland with Addison." This widespread attention to the subject was not allowed to fade away out of sight. From all parts of the colonies the cry and call came con- stantl}', as well as from New Jersey and Virginia. 2 72 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. In I 724 Samuel Johnson, the distinguished missionary of Connecticut, tlien but recently converted to the church, urged the subject upon the Bishop of London, in view of the fact " that a considerable number of young gentlemen, of the best educated among us, for want of episcopal ordination, decline the ministry, unwilling to expose them- selves to the dangers of the seas and distempers ; so that the fountain of all our misery is the want of a bishop, for whom there are many thousands of souls in this country who impatiently long and pray." This prixate petition was followed up the next year by a memorial of six of the New England clergy to the Venerable Society, praying for an orthodox and loyal bishop. One of the signers of this memorial, the Rev. James Honeyman, of Rhode Island, addressed as well a personal communication to the Bishop of London, stating many and grave reasons why the mat- ter should be attended to. The vestries and congregations were zealous as well as the clergy. In 1718 a petition was signed by order of the vestries of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and St. Mary's, Burlington, as also later by many of the laity in Maryland, recounting the bur- dens entailed on the church by this lack : " For want of episcopacy being established among us, and that there has never been any bishop sent to visit us, our churches remain unconsecrated, our children are grown up and cannot be confirmed, . . . our clergy sometimes under doubts cannot be resolved. But more especially . . . the vacancies which daily happen in our ministry cannot be supplied for a considerable time from England, whereby many congregations are not only become des- olate, and the light of the gospel therein extinguished, but great encouragement is thereby given to sectaries of all sorts, which abound and increase among us." The South added her voice to that of the Northern and. COMBINED ACTION TO SECURE BISHOPS. 273 Middle Colonies. In reply to many hitherto fruitless ap- plications, the Bishop of London empowered the clergy of Maryland to nominate one of their number for the office of suffragan ; which they proceeded to do, naming the Rev. Mr. Colebatch, a man every way fit for the work. The legislature, however, interfered, and forbade the nominee to leave the province. The consecrated Clement Hall, of North Carolina, added his plea to the general voice. At last, in 1766, certain prominent clergy of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (among whom were Dr. Auchmuty, rector of Trinity Church, New York; Dr. Chandler of Elizabethtown, N. J. ; President Cooper of King's College, New York; Samuel Seabury, afterward first Bishop of Connecticut and the first in the United States ; Dr. Inglis, later first Bishop of Nova Scotia ; and the distingushed presbyter, Abraham Beach of Connecti- cut) formed a voluntary convocation to meet once a year " to use their joint influence and endeavors to obtain the happiness of bishops, and to support the church against the unreasonable opposition given to it in the colonies, and to cultivate and improve a good understanding and union with each other." This convocation addressed a letter to the Venerable Society, urging " as an incontestable argu- ment for the necessity of American bishops" the fact " that not less than one out of five who have gone home for holy orders from the Northern Colonies have perished in the attempt." This letter was followed hi i 'j^'] by Dr. Chandler's " Appeal to the Public in Favor of the Church of England in America," which, as we have already noted in the account of the colonial church in New Jersey, produced such widespread controversy. The subject had now passed beyond the limits of the church. The public papers were full of it. The press of Boston, New York, and Philadel- 2 74 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. phia teemed with communications and invectives attacking the church in a most uncompromising manner. Answers appeared as caustic as the attacks. Provost William Smith of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, and Dr. Chandler of New Jersey, wrote in an able and digni- fied manner. The nature of the anonymous papers may be judged from their titles: "A Whip for the American Whig," " A Kick for the Whipper," and others like them. The cause of such violent opposition is not far to seek. It came from that alliance between church and state in Eng- land which made bishops government officers. Th-fc dread of ecclesiastical tyranny backed by the strong arm of the law, however unreasonable in view of the statements made in Chandler's " Appeal," was the motive-power of the opposition, rather than dislike of episcopacy, though that was intense enough. This even influenced the House of Burgesses of Virginia, whose members were for the most part churchmen, to pass, in 1771, a vote of thanks to those members of the Episcopal clergy who had opposed and defeated a project to address the crown in favor of an American episcopate. The controversy which this action aroused between the Northern clergy and those of Virginia brought out the distinct statement of the latter that they were not opposed to an American episcopate, if " intro- duced at a proper time, by proper authorities, and in a proper manner." Such was the opposition of churchmen. The intense dread of Puritans and Presbyterians, we learn from their own statements. In 1 768 the Massachusetts House of Representatives, addressing its London agent, wrote by the hand of Samuel Adams as follows : " The establishment of a Protestant episcopate in America is very zealously contended for. . . . We hope in God such an establishment may never take place in America ; we desire you would strenuously oppose it. The revenue PURITAN AND PRESBYTERIAN OBJECTIONS. 275 raised in America, for aught we can tell, may be as con- stitutionally applied toward the support of prelacy as of soldiers or pensioners." John Adams testifies that " fear of the Church of Eng- land contributed as much as any other cause to arrest the attention not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over the colonies." " The objection was not only to the office of a bishop, though that was dreaded, but to the authority of Parlia- ment on which it must be founded. The reasoning was this : There is no power less than Parliament which can create bishops in America. But if Parliament can erect dioceses and appoint bishops, they. may introduce the whole hierarchy, establish tithes, establish religion, forbid dissenters, make schism heresy, impose penalties extending to life and limb as well as to liberty and property." ^ From 1766 to 1775 the non-Episcopal churches of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania com- bined in " a plan of union " " for preserving their religious liberty," and met annually for that purpose. They be- lieved that to suppress an American episcopate was one of the most indispensable steps for maintaining their own independence. From a letter appended to the records of this body we learn fully their sentiments and apprehen- ' sions. After alluding to the effort to obtain an American bishop, the communication proceeds as follows : " Nor do we envy the Episcopal churches the privileges of a bishop for the purposes of ordination, confirmation, and inspecting the morals of their clergy, provided they have no kind of superiority over, nor power any way to affect the civil or religious interests of other denomina- 1 See " Works of John Adams," especially vol. viii., p. 184, and vol. x., p. 185. 276 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. tions. ... It is alleged that no other than the above- hinted moderate episcopacy is desired or designed ; yet should it not be fixed by parliamentary authority, we have no security that matters will be carried no further. . . . Gentlemen acquainted with the law inform us that a bishop is a public minister of state, known in the common law of England. . . . Might he not plead . . . that the common law of England is his birthright, and that the laws in force before the settling of the colonies were brought thither and took place with the first settlers? What is to hinder him to claim all the powers exercised by Archbishop Laud and his ecclesiastical courts? . . . A covetous, tyrannical, and domineering prelate, or his chancellor, would always have it in their power to harass our country, and make our lives bitter by fines, imprison- ments, and lawless severity." At a meeting of this Convention at Elizabethtown in 1768, another letter was reported and approved which shows that the same apprehension was rife. " It is very evident," it says, " it is not that harmless and inoffensive bishop which is designed for us, or the missionaries among us request; and therefore we cannot but be apprehensive of the danger from the proposed episcopate, however plausible the scheme may be represented. We all know the jealousy of the bishops in England concerning their own power and dignity suffering by the example of such a mutilated bishop in America; and we also know the force of a British act of Parliament, and have good reason to dread the establishment of British courts among us. Should they claim the right of holding these courts, and of exercising the power belonging to their office by the common law of England (which is esteemed the birthright of a British subject), we could have no counterbalance to this enormous power in our colonies, where we have no POPULAR OPPOSITION TO BISHOPS. 277 nobility or proper courts to check the dangerous exertions of their authority; and where our governors and judges may be the needy dependents of a prime minister, and therefore afraid to disobhge a person who is sure to be supported by the whole bench of bishops in England : so that our civil liberties appear to us to be in immediate danger from such an establishment.-" The sudden collapse of all such opposition after the Revolution had dissevered the colonies from the mother- land shows that the popular objection to the introduction of bishops was chiefly political. It bore none the less hardly on the church on that account. Had there been any wise prevision on the part of the governing powers in England, bishops would have been granted long before any organized remonstrance could have arisen. In certain colonies bishops would have been cordially welcomed ; and these could have exercised sufficient spiritual jurisdiction from such centers as to have insured the growth and purity of the church at large. The predominant conception of the episcopate at that time was, however, largely Erastian. There was no proper apprehension of it as a missionary force. Men's thoughts concerning it could not be dissev- ered from the station and revenues which pertained to it in England, where bishops were spiritual lords, members of the Upper House, and in possession of large incomes derived from ancient endowments. A print of the period illustrates the popular conception. A crowd is depicted shoving from the wharf a ship with a bishop in robes clinging to the shrouds. A large episcopal coach is prominent on the dock, against which a miter and a crosier rest. The mob are exclaiming, " No lords, spiritual or temporal, in New England!" Friend and foe alike were possessed of the idea that the office involved the trappings of worldly state. All efiforts to secure an American bishop 278 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. involved efforts to secure for him an income of at least a thousand pounds, a large sum in those days. Such bishops as the church has since possessed in Chase and Kemper and Washington Lee were quite beyond the conception of the churchmen of that day. Besides the imperfect estimate of a bishop's office as a pioneer missionary, there arose another obstacle to the demands of the colonial churches from the vague concep- tion of their wants and surroundings by the mother-coun- try. The America of that time was more distant than the South Africa of this. It was, in the minds of men, wilder and more savage than Australia and New Zealand in the day of their first colonization. It seemed incongruous to furnish colonists surrounded with negroes and Indians, whose life was so rude, whose wants were so primitive, with all the institutions of an old and advanced ci\-ilization. They might be happy if the Bishop of London noticed them enough to ordain their native candidates who crossed the seas. The palace at Lambeth was as much beyond their reach as the palace of Westminster. This explanation of the denial of the episcopate to America does not excuse it. It illustrates the difficulties of a state church as a missionary propaganda. Whatever advantages inhere in an establishment which has grown with the growth of the nation, and become intertwined with its traditions and institutions at home, in its efforts to extend its jurisdiction abroad, the church's spiritual effi- ciency is greatly restricted by it. The true missionary spirit was not absent from the church's heart, however Parliament might bind the church's hands.^ At the instance of Commissary Bray, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 1 " Digest of S. P. G. Records, 1701-1892," third edition, pp. 4, 5. ORIGIN OF THE S. P. G. 279 Parts was founded in London in 1 701 . It was an outgrowth and extension of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of which Dr. Bray was also a chief .promoter, which had its origin in 1699, and whose work in foreign parts had been " the fixing parochial libraries throughout the plantations (especially on the continent of North America)." After Dr. Bray's brief visit to Maryland as commissary, from which he returned in 1 700, he made an appeal to the crown " to make such other provision as shall be necessary for the propagation of the gospel in those parts." The Lower House of Convocation of Can- terbury appointed a committee early in 1701 to consider the same subject. Archbishop Tenison and Bishop Compton and many others favored the project ; and the result was that on June 2'], i/Oi, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts held its first meeting at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding, with many other bishops and distinguished churchmen, clerical and lay, present. It is to the earnest, generous, and constant zeal of this society that the colo- nial churches were more indebted than to all other sources put together. What it did has in some manner been made apparent in the preceding chronicle of the different colonial churches. Its course was marked by wisdom from the beginning. It at once prepared for a preliminary survey of the field. It chose for this purpose one who knew the country and its needs, and who possessed, moreover, all the enthusiasm of a recent convert to the church. The Rev. George Keith, the society's agent in this matter, was originally a Presbyterian, a fellow-student of Bishop Burnet at Aberdeen. He, after graduation, became a preacher among the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and after a dispute with the Society of Friends concerning the value of external as contrasted 28o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. with internal rev^elation, became the leader of a schism. He finally conformed to the church, and was sent as first itinerant missionary of the S. P. G. " to traverse the colonies, inquire into the spiritual condition of the people, and to awaken them to a sense of the importance and reality of the Christian religion." From the information gathered by him and his volunteer attendant. Rev. John Talbot, the society began the work of sending and appointing missionaries. In 1741 Bishop Seeker, after- ward archbishop, could speak thus of the results : " In less than forty years, under many discouragements and with an income very disproportionate to the vastness of the undertaking, a great deal hath been done. Near a hundred churches have been built; above ten thousand Bibles and Prayer-books, above a hundred thousand other pious tracts distributed ; great multitudes, on the whole, of negroes and Indians brought over to the Chris- tian faith ; many numerous congregations have been set up which now support the worship of God at their own expense, where it was not known before ; and seventy persons are constantly employed, at the expense of the society, in the farther service of the gospel." In less than forty years after this, when by the independ- ence of the United States the former colonies were cut off from the assistance on which they had relied so long, a brief summary of what the society had done in seventy- five years gives the following results. It had maintained 310 ordained missionaries, had assisted 202 central stations, and had expended ;^22 7,454, or nearly a million and a quarter of dollars. It had stimulated and supported mis- sions to the negroes and the Indians as well as to the white colonists. Its labors were chiefly in those colonies where the church was not established ; and the contrast between JVORIsT ACCOMPLISHED BY THE S^. P. G. 28 1 the results of the vokmtary and the government effort is markedly in favor of the former. Since its cessation of labors in the United States the Venerable Society has on three separate occasions shown its sympathy with the church it nurtured so long, by handsome gifts of money to the corporation of St. George the Martyr in New York, to Bishop Tuttle's mission to the Mormons in Salt Lake City, and to the church in Maine. In recognition of its invaluable services an alms-basin was presented by the American to the English church at the one hundred and seventy-first anniversary of the society, held in St. Paul's Cathedral, July 4, 1872. At the time of the first Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops throughout the World, in 1868, Bishop Littlejohn, of Long Island, at a missionary conference given by the society, gave utterance to the sentiments of all American hearts when he said : " For nearly the whole of the eighteenth century this society furnished the only point of contact, the only bond of sympathy, between the Church of England and her children scattered over the waste places of the New World. ... It is therefore with joy and gratitude that we, the representatives of the American church, greet the Vener- able Society on tRis occasion as the first builder of our ecclesiastical foundations, and lay at her feet the golden sheaves of the harvest of her planting. . . . May God speed the work of this society in the future as in the past! The greatest, the most enduring, the most fruitful of all missionary organizations of Reformed Christendom, may it continue to be in the years to come, as in those which are gone, the workshop of churches, the treasury of needy souls all over the world!" Again, in 1883, the General Convention acknowledged 282 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. the congratulations of the society in a message of which the following words are an extract: " At the close of the first century of our existence as a national church we ac- knowledge with deep and unfeigned gratitude that what- ever this church has been in the past, is now, or will be in the future, is largely due, under God, to the long-continued nursing care and protection of the Venerable Society." Of all individual influences upon the fortunes of the English Church in the American colonies, that of Bishop Berkeley was undoubtedly the greatest and most beneficent. He landed in Newport, R. I., in January, 1729, and he had come in pursuance of a purpose to found in the west- ern hemisphere a Christian university. He had fixed upon the Bermuda Islands for this purpose, " as a spot favorable to the health, industry, and morals of the students, and at the same time healthful and commodious for all the Eng- lish possessions in the western hemisphere, both insular and continental." He had in early life come to the con- clusion that the best hope of the human race was to trans- fer itself gradually from the Old World to the New, where it might begin its career over again, freed from the evil traditions with which it had become environed. To pre- serve the New World from a like corruption, religion and education were the essential elements in its early civiliza- tion. The church had been planted and was fostered by the Venerable Society. Berkeley, therefore, would devote his life to the promotion of education. He was, at the time of his coming to America, forty-four years old. He had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and, both as a student and fellow of that institu- tion, had been distinguished for scholarship and philo- sophical acumen. Before he was ordained in 1 709, he had begun his philosophical publications. Afterwards he DEAN BERKELEY'S AMERICAN PROJECT. 283 became the associate and friend of Addison and Steele and Swift. He lived for four or five years upon the Continent, engaged in profound studies concerning the sociological conditions of Europe. These studies developed his views concerning the value of the new civilization in America. On his return from the Continent he had been made first Dean of Dromore, then Dean of Derry ; and such was the recognition of his abilities and character that the highest ecclesiastical promotion was within his reach. Bishop Atterbury had said of him : " So much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels till I saw this gentle- man." To one so gifted and prized, however, no prospect of personal promotion seemed in the least comparable with the opportunity to permanently better mankind. He ear- nestly set about enlisting the sympathy of his friends, and securing their gifts for his enterprise, so earnestly that- Dean Swift wrote to Lord Carteret, " His heart will break if his deanery be not taken from him," and his project accomplished. His earnestness was contagious, and he secured a num- ber of voluntary contributions. Unfortunately he did not confine himself to these, by which in the end he might have secured the necessary endowment, but sought also a government appropriation. To the five thousand pounds which he had raised, Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister, added a personal subscription of two hundred, and gave a promise not to oppose the bill asking for an appropriation by the House of Commons. The charter of the college was granted, and the proceeds of the sale of certain lands in the West Indies were bestowed upon it by Parliament. In view of this Walpole promised to Berkeley twenty thou- sand pounds. For two years the dean waited in England for the grant, in the meantime completing his preparations. 284 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. Then Walpole declared the grant could not be paid until he had actually made some investment in America for the college. This is the explanation of his appearance in the harbor of Newport, and of his purchase of the farm near the second beach at that place, and of his residence in Rhode Island. He waited in vain. Walpole evaded the promise made, and advised his return. He replied to the Bishop of London, who, as Berkeley's friend, pressed upon him the fulfilment of his promise : " As minister I must and can assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of the twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to return home to Europe, and to give up his present expectations." Thus the project of Berkeley, in the form in which he sought to accomplish it, was frustrated ; and he returned to England in 1731, was made Bishop of Cloyne in 1734, and died in 1753. While, however, his purpose failed of fulfilment as an established institution, it came to fruition as a leaven which permeated powerfully the church life of the colonies. He became the inspiring and guiding spirit of the church's efforts in the sphere of higher education. The very presence in America of a churchman of such genius and accomplishments gave to the church an intel- lectual atmosphere which it had greatly lacked before. Not only did he, during his sojourn in Rhode Island, write his most celebrated work, " Alciphron," but, from the very first, he put himself into communication with the men who were working in American colleges, inspired them by his enthusiasm, and assisted them by gifts of books. His donations of both books and landed property to Yale Col- lege have linked his name indissolubly with that honored institution as one of its earliest and most munificent ben- BERKELEY'S INFLUENCE IN AMERICA. 285 efactors. He became, also, the intimate friend and fre- quent correspondent of Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, Conn., and through him, after his return to Europe, con- tributed largely toward forming the charters and direct- ing the course of the Academy and College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) and of King's Col- lege, New York (now Columbia College). Dr. Johnson was called to be the first president of both these institutions. Benjamin Franklin strongly urged the claims of the Philadelphia Academy upon him ; and, though Johnson declined the offered position, he com- municated to Franklin the suggestions of Bishop Berkeley, which were carefully considered and acted upon. This was not strictly a church institution, but it was largely under the influence of churchmen, and its first provost was the distinguished Rev. William Smith, one of the men most influential in determining the constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church. If it was not the child, it was the foster-child of Berkeley. Of King's College (now Columbia College) Bishop Berkeley was the true spiritual founder. Its first trustees acted explicitly and consciously on the model conveyed to them, through Samuel Johnson its first president, from the bishop. This institution has always been under the direction of a churchman as its head, the corporation of Trinity Church having given the site on the condition that the president of the college should be in communion with the Church of England, and that the Morning and Even- ing Prayers should be those of the Prayer-book. Thus in the very heart of the metropohs of America the dream of the great dean is finding realization in a way far more effective than the exact accomplishment of his plans for a college in Bermuda could have secured. The influence of Berkeley has not yet died out. His is 286 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xi. Still a name to conjure with in matters educational. The town wherein stands the University of California is named in honor of him. His name is given to the Divinity School of Connecticut at Middletown, and to various pre- paratory schools throughout the country, notably those in New York and Providence. The Berkeley Prize which he founded in Yale College is one of the most coveted in the university at New Haven. There a college hall bears his name, and a stained-glass window stands as his memorial in the college chapel. His interest in America con- tinued active after his return to Europe. He frequently corresponded upon topics of education with our prominent professors, and wrote shortly before his death to President Clap : " The daily increase in religion and learning in your seminary of Yale College gives me very sensible pleasure and an ample recompense for my poor endeavors to further those good ends." His interest in America was continued by his son, the Rev. George Berkeley, whose influence both in Scotland and England in securing an American episcopate was as great as, if not greater than, that of any other single man. The advantages of the colonial churches are thus seen to have arisen, not from government patronage, but from personal and voluntary counsel and contributions. PERIOD II. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES (a.d. 1789-1895). CHAPTER XII. ECCLESIASTICAL ACTION PRELIMINARY TO THE FORMA- TION OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. When the War of the Revolution had ended it became' a difficult and delicate task to gather the scattered rem- nants of the English colonial churches together, and out of them to construct an ecclesiastical corporation coter- minous with the nation. The nation itself was as yet un- settled in regard to the nature of the union of the States. The political condition of the confederation did not of itself tend to foster the conception of one uniform Episco- pal communion for the whole country. The first efforts, therefore, for the resuscitation of the Episcopal parishes were provincial. The church, as well as the nation, passed through a confederate period which, only after several years, resulted in both cases in the adoption of a constitution which established unity. In the same year (1789) the United States became a nation with a President and a Constitution, and the Protestant Episcopal Church an organized ecclesiastical body with Bishops and a General Convention. Previous to this consummation the State, in ecclesiastical as well as political affairs, preserved a prominence which concentrated attention on the concerns of the church within its own borders. In the beginning of the national existence the Episcopal Church in each State considered itself an integral part of the church of Christ, independent in its. government of any other branch 287 288 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. of the church in Christendom. So ingrained was this idea that the habit of referring to the State rather than to the diocese continued long after ecclesiastical unity had been established. As a consequence, before any proposition had been made from any quarter, or any meeting had been held anywhere, looking to organic unity, the churches in the various States began to consider how best to secure the separate interests of their own locality. The ecclesiastical tie with the Bishop of London having been severed, and all support from the Venerable Society having ceased by the terms of its charter, three great necessities forced themselves on the attention of earnest churchmen. These were : first, the conservation of church property ; second, the preservation of the church's wor- ship ; third, the inauguration of an American episcopate. These three needs were differently emphasized in differ- ent parts of the country. The South, as the seat of the Establishment, had its attention first directed to the neces- sity of gathering up the fragments of church property which had survived the wreck of the war. As this property had its title in the enactment of a government which was now discarded, and as it had been given to an Establishment which was now repudiated, it was a question of moment and difficulty how to avoid complete parochial bankruptcy. The churches of the Middle States, Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, had been especially depleted, being in the 'pathway of the war. With clergy scattered and congre- gations dispersed, the thought which came first into the minds of the sincere churchmen who remained was how to gather together the spiritual body, and nourish it with the convenient food of the liturgy, and once more estab- lish it in the ways of rational piety until such time as the full system of the church could be introduced. ACTION IN PENNSYLVANIA. 289 .In New England, where the church had always existed in opposition to the popular will, and where it had espe- cially felt the defect of incomplete organization, the first necessity descried and the first efifort made was to secure the episcopate. It was in Connecticut, where the church had grown up on the soil, developed out of conviction, not merely received by inheritance ; where its ministry was chiefly native, and its character especially steadfast and correct, that the first distinct motion for completing the church organism by obtaining a bishop was put forth. This object was the one most beset with difficulties, having to face apathy abroad and turn its back on distrust and enmity at home. It was felt, however, to be a matter of life or death to the church. The body and the members were both preserved, though in disabled condition ; but the head must be added, and at once, or the church could neither run nor walk, but must limp impotently among its adversaries, whose polity was complete, and whose patriot- ism was astir with hatred of both the English state and the English Church. Such was the general situation. ACTION IN PENNSYLVANIA. The first suggestion of a plan for resuscitating the Epis- copal churches and binding them together into some sort of unity emanated from the Rev. William White, presbyter of Pennsylvania, and rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia. In the summer of 1782, after active hostilities had ceased, but before independence had been acknowledged or peace declared, he published anonymously a pamphlet entitled " The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered." ^ This publication was prepared just at the 1 The document is given in " Half-century of I,egislation of the American Church," Ferry, vol. iii., p. 421. Dr. White himself gave this account of it in a charge which he delivered to his clergy in 1 832, forty-five years after he 290 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. time when Sir Guy Carleton made the first communication looking toward the estabHshment of peace with independ- ence. It contemplated a state of things where there was no bishop and no likelihood of obtaining one ; and its ob- ject was to inaugurate such action as should prevent the entire dissolution of the remaining parishes and congre- gations. The author pointed to the fact that all former jurisdiction over the churches had been withdrawn by the war, and that their future continuance could only be pro- had been made bishop : " The congregations of our communion throughout the United States were approaching annihilation. Akhough within this city [Philadelphia] three Episcopal clergymen were resident and officiating, the churches over the rest of the State had become deprived of their clergy during the war, either by death or by departure for England. In the Eastern States, with two or three exceptions, there was a cessation of the exercises of the pulpit, owing to the necessary disuse of the prayers for the former civil rulers. In Maryland and Virginia, where the church had enjoyed civil es- tablishments, on the ceasing of these, the incumbents of the parishes, almost without exception, ceased to officiate. Farther South the condition of the church was not better, to say the least. At the time in question there had occurred some circumstances which prompted the hope of a discontinuance of the war ; but that it would be with the acknowledgment of American in- dependence there was little reason to expect. On the 6th of August, 1782, the Congress, as noticed on their printed ' Journal ' of that day, received a communication from Sir Guy Carleton and Admiral Digby, dated the 2d of that month, which gave the first opening of the prospect of peace. The pamphlet [" The Case," etc.] had been advertised for sale in the ' Presbyte- rian Packet ' of the 6th ; and some copies had been previously handed by the author to a few of his friends. This suspended the intended proceedings in the business, which, in the opinion of the author, would have been justified by necessity, and by no other consideration. " It was an opinion commonly entertained that, if there should be a discon- tinuance of military operations, it would be without the acknowledgement of independence, as happened after the severance of the Netherlands from the crown of Spain. Of the like issue there seemed probable causes in the feel- ings attendant on disappointed efforts for conquest, and in the belief cherished that the successes of the former colonists would be followed by dissensions, inducing the return to the domination of the mother-country. Had the war ended in that way, our obtaining of the succession from England would have been hopeless. The remnant of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, laboring under penal laws not executed, would hardly have regarded the bringing down on themselves of the arm of government. Fear of the like offense would have operated in any other quarter to which we might have had recourse. In such a case the obtaining of the succession in time to save from ruin would seem to have been impossible." "CASE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCHES:' 29 1 vided for by voluntary associations for union and good government. He therefore advocated an immediate move- ment, without waiting for the presence of a bishop, which should bring the churches into some measure of association and common government. Most of the principles main- tained in the pamphlet were afterward incorporated in the constitution of the church. With the exception of the provisional substitute for a bishop (made unnecessary, before the pamphlet was really issued, by the recognition of the independence of the country), the general features of the plan still exist in the organization which was finally established in i 789. " The Case " was a very remarkable forecast, as coming from the mind of one but thirty- five years of age. The principle of lay representation was fully enunciated in it. The features which are now embodied in our Diocesan and General Conventions were here distinctly traced in their essential characteristics. To state the plan more fully and distinctly : The individual churches were to be associated in small districts, in each of which the minister should be a delegate to a Convention composed of representa- tives elected from the vestry or congregation which they served. A permanent president was to be chosen, who, with other clergymen appointed by the body, might exer- cise powers purely spiritual, including powers of ordination and discipline according to reasonable laws. The country was to be divided into three large districts, each of which should have an annual assembly, consisting of members of the smaller districts within it, composed equally of clergy and laity, the presiding clergyman being always one. There was also to be a body representing the whole church, consisting of members from each of the three larger dis- tricts, chosen from clergy and laity equally, which should meet statedly once in three years. The general doctrinal 292 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. position of the church was sketched very much as it now exists ; for the clergy, the questions contained in the ordination service, " with some general sanction given to the Thirty-nine Articles, so as to adopt their leading sense, not exacting entire uniformity of sentiment." For divine worship it was urged that power be lodged some- where " of making necessary and convenient alterations in the service of the church," with the caution that such power should be exercised with great moderation. With regard to ecclesiastical discipline a like moderation was commended. " Such are the tyranny and hypocrisy too frequently arising from the exercise of this power," it said, " that it may be thought safest to leave men to those great sanctions of duty, the will of God and future repro- bation." Attention has usually been withdrawn from the general governmental positions of this pamphlet, which constituted its chief value and its enduring influence, and fixed upon its proposal to convey for a while the power of ordination to a presiding presbyter until such time as a bishop could be obtained. This suggestion attracted great attention, and called forth much animadversion, especially from the clergy of New England and New York. It perhaps quick- ened the action of the clergy of Connecticut, to whose notice it had been brought, in meeting and selecting a candidate for the episcopate in March of the following year. It certainly called forth from them a strong protest against its principles, in a letter written in their behalf by Dr. Jarvis, which stood by the position that a church with- out a bishop was no church, and that the necessity of the sacraments was not greater than the necessity for the authority to administer them. This letter, while urging that the true and timely remedy was an immediate appli- cation abroad for. the episcopate, did not mention the fact WHITE'S POSITION ON EPISCOPACY. 293 that steps had been taken in that direction by the Con- necticut clergy. The necessity of secrecy was deemed so imperative that Dr. White was not advised of this action until more than a year later, when he met with some clergy at New Brunswick, N. J., to consider the situation of ecclesiastical affairs. The proposal, however, to do without the episcopate was only a dictate of necessity, and it was provided " to include in the proposed frame of government a general approbation of episcopacy^ and a declaration of an inten- tion to procure the succession as soon as conveniently may be"; and when it had been obtained, "to confer a con- ditional ordination on those already made presbyters, to repair any defect in their orders." With the declaration of peace Dr. White recognized and rejoiced that no such necessity as he had suggested now existed ; and in his answer to Dr. Jarvis he pointed out that the letter from Connecticut was a protest after the withdrawal of the prop- osition. He, however, always stood by the position he had taken. In his pamphlet he had fortified that posi- tion by reference to Hooker, Bishop Hoadley, Archbishop Usher, Archbishop Cranmer, and others of the English divines who had allowed necessity as a valid reason for departing from the episcopal regimen ; showing that his position had been well considered before it was taken. He maintained that " a temporary departure from episco- pacy in the present instance would be warranted by her [the Church of England's] doctrines, by her practice, and by the principles on which episcopal government is asserted." He never changed his views on this subject, though he deemed it fortunate that he was not called to act upon them. So late as 1830, in a letter^ to his dear friend and son in the gospel. Bishop Hobart, who in this > See " Memoir of Bishop White," Bird Wilson, D.D., pp. 86, 87. 294 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. respect differed so widely from him, he remarks in a note : " In agreement with the sentiments expressed in that pamphlet ["The Case," etc.], I am still of opinion that in an exigency in which a duly authorized ministry cannot be obtained, the paramount duty of preaching the gospel, and the worshiping of God in the terms of the Christian covenant, should go on in the best manner which circum- stances permit. In regard to the episcopacy, I think that it should be sustained as the government of the church from the time of the apostles, but without criminating the ministry of other churches ; as is the course taken by the Church of England." Dr. White was in the real sense of the word a statesman. His temperament, his convictions, his training, all kept him from being an unpractical idealist. The elevation of his nature, and his conception and experience of the value of Christian life and doctrine, preserved him equally from a truckling expediency. His plan for organizing the church in America was free from all effort to force a theory ; but his fundamental regard for principle kept him from the contrasted danger of mere opportunism. He recognized the validity of the church principle and the value of its historical integrity. To illustrate the one and to conserve the other were his equal determination. He would gather together and concentrate all the life present and all the disorganization existent, that these might be saved from integration and held in feadiness for larger and more perfect development. While he was not a doctrinaire, insistent on an instant completeness which he could not compass, he yet contemplated the ultimate realization of every element of a full church organization. While not an opportunist in the sense of discarding essential elements of life or organization for immediate success, he chose an incomplete realization for a season, in preference to a WHITE'S ADVOCACY OF LAY REPRESENTATION. 2g$ complete dissolution for all time. He had, in fine, so high a conception of the value of religion as the traditions and creeds and organization of the English Church presented and regulated it that he would allow no temporary obstacle to stand in the way of its future realization in the United States. The church might limp until it could walk, but it must keep in motion. And when it could stand in its own right it must stand unfettered by foreign domination or proscription. It must be, not the Church of England in i^ America, but the American church. While holding to the essential and permanent features of the English Establish- ment, the American church was not only not to be an Establishment, which indeed were impossible, but it was to be adapted to American life and ideas in its constitution and administration. It was to make its appeal to the national character and spirit. Hence it could not be sim- ply a clerical autocracy ; it must draw its strength from the source which supplied strength to the state, namely, the people. Lay representation became thus a prime element in its structure. He regarded this, indeed, as a practice of the primitive church ; but his urgent and com- pelling motive for its introduction was not chiefly a regard for antiquity, but his conviction of its necessity for a vig- orous and truly national life of the church in the United States. The laity, in fact, through the absence of any thorough ecclesiastical system, had had so large a share in parochial management during the colonial period that not to have admitted them to the church councils would have seemed to deprive them of a right already existent. To recognize them as representatives did not appear like the introduction of a novelty. It seemed to be the appropri- ate recognition of the old spirit of church administration. Such, then, being his purpose (to embody the essential elements of the English Establishment in a form of organ- 296 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. ization which should imbibe and express the national spirit), Dr. White would not wait either for a complete ecclesias- tical organization or a full national representation before undertaking the task.^ He was bent on an organization of the churches which could with propriety apply for the episcopate, not waiting until all parts of the country could respond to the proposal. It was his purpose to begin with such fragments of the colonial churches as could be gath- ered, in order that there might be some body which could speak with representative authority and form the nucleus of a complete ecclesiastical organization. He believed this course necessary to give weight to the intended application to the English Church, when the time should come, for the episcopal succession. It is certain, that he thus obviated one cardinal objection which the archbishops brought forward to the consecration of Bishop Seabury, viz., that there was no ecclesiastical or civil organization back of him. These views were the issue of long deliberation. They were the outcome of a mind which had been brought into contact with most of the great minds of the country dur- ing the critical period of the nation's birth, and of one who had deeply imbibed the calm and devout spirit of the communion in which he had been baptized and bred. He came of gentle blood, his father being an Enghshman of good family and a churchman. His mother was also of the Episcopal Church, with a strain of Quaker blood in her veins. He was born in the spring of 1747-48, was baptized in Christ Church, and carefully trained both at home and in school. He was graduated at the Academy and College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), a good scholar, in 1765, having been in that institution under the administration of the provost, Dr. William Smith. His days seem to have been " bound each 1 " Memoir of Bishop White," Bird Wilson, D.D., p. 85. WHITE'S EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 297 to each by natural piety," and his companions looked upon him as a predestined clergyman. His pure nature was im- pressed and deepened by the death of a youthful friend, and by the preaching of Whitefield, who, as an old man, on his last visit to Philadelphia, preached in Christ Church once more. Thus it came about that after his graduation at the age of seventeen he turned his attention to sacred literature, and, under the direction of Provost Smith, to- gether with four companions, wrote and delivered com- positions concerning biblical and theological subjects on Sunday evenings, in the college hall. These studies and exercises continued for five years, w^ien, in 1770, he pro- ceeded to England for orders. Ordered deacon in December of that year, he had still eighteen months to wait until of proper age to be ordained to the priesthood ; and during this time he either sojourned with his aunts (certain Jacobite ladies of gentle blood and impoverished resources) or traveled through the country. In London he came to know Dr. Samuel Johnson well and Oliver Goldsmith more slightly. The whole sojourn deep- ened his culture and widened his intellectual horizon. On his return home, in September, 1772, having been ordained priest by Dr. Terrick, Bishop of London, in June of the same year, he at once became an assistant minister of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and remained connected with it all the rest of his life. When the hostilities of the Rev- olution came on, young White espoused earnestly the cause of his country. He had studied deeply the question of allegiance, and felt, no doubt, that in following the cause of the patriots he was acting on the principles of the English Revolution of 1688. When once the Declaration of Independence had been issued, he claimed to fulfill the liturgical law of praying for rulers by praying for Congress instead of the king. Circumstances, in his view 298 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. justifiable, had changed the persons, as in England they had aforetime substituted William III. for James II., and henceforth his prayers went with his allegiance. Though, to use his own phrase, he " never beat the ecclesiastical drum," he was chosen chaplain to the Continental Congress while on his way with his family to Maryland during the advance of the British on Philadelphia in 1777, and the consequent retreat of the Congress to Yorktown. It was a gloomy moment in the national history. Gen- eral Burgoyne had not yet been checked in his march through northern New York, the severing of the Southern from the Eastern States seemed imminent, and the war- chest was empty. His brother-in-law, Robert Morris, said that to accept the post of chaplain was to present his throat to be cut ; but, because of the danger. White discerned the duty. Excluded from his cure, he divided his time between Congress and his family until the evacuation of the city in June. He continued to act as chaplain alter- nately with Rev. Mr. Duffield, a Presbyterian clergyman, until Congress removed to New York, and was afterward appointed chaplain to the Federal Congress while Phila- delphia was the seat of government. On Mr. Duche's retirement to England, after his letter to General Wash- ington urging an end of the war, Mr. White was made rector of the parish. Thus from his youth up he was brought into connection with the best minds of the con- tinent. Philadelphia was then the largest city in the country, and its opulence was greater than that of New York or Boston. The presence of Congress gathered together in the city the most influential movers in affairs. White thus breathed an atmosphere of pure patriotism and enlightened statesmanship. He was in the midst of affairs, and in familiar intercourse with those who directed and controlled them. He was always hon- WHITE'S AMERICAN SPIRIT. 299 ored by them for his scholarship and his character. Washington and Frankhn were his parishioners ; Hopkin- son and Morris were his vestrymen ; Jay and Hamilton and Madison were among his friends. He felt the stimulus of their greatness, and none of his thoughts or projects were petty, though, so far as his church was concerned, it was the day of very small things. Thus when the plan of raising the church out of the dust into which it had fallen began to form itself in his mind, it did not take the shape first of a perfect ecclesias- tical structure, as with the Connecticut churchmen, nor of a legal security for the properties of a disestablished Establishment, as with the churchmen of Maryland and Virginia; but his first purpose and effort were for the consoHdation of the spiritual forces at hand. He would nourish and augment the life which existed by consolidat- ing its scattered fragments, and increase its vigor by stim- ulating its circulation. From this status, as a body united and representative, he thought it could appeal with dignity and success for its completed ecclesiastical order abroad, and with practical and reasonable argument for its right to its temporal possessions at home. If Seabury possessed the legal mind of the movement, with his eyes fixed on " espe- cially the parchments," and William Smith represented the practical politician, intent to gather up the fragments of glebe and parish possession, that nothing be lost. White may justly be called the ecclesiastical statesman of the time, by reason of the broader scope of his purpose, which contemplated nothing as local, but everything as national. His heart beat not merely as a churchman, but as an American who foresaw that even the wheels of the most complete ecclesiastical organization would never move safely and aggressively in the land unless impelled by a spirit within the wheels which should be the religious ex^ 300 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. pression of the national life. The spirit of freedom in the people was to him a divine spirit, and its noble aspirations and regulative exercise were to be conserved as forces in the kingdom of Christ. He meant to keep that kingdom true to its Master, and from the hand of the English mother he would take creed and liturgy and order. Faith, worship, and discipline (in its large sense) should here stand as they had stood in the past ages. He also meant to make Christ's kingdom true to the exigencies of the new realm of the Republic, and mold it into forms which should appeal to the national conscience as reasonable and helpful, in harmony with a government of the people, by the people, and for the peopfe. He aimed, therefore, from the beginning to make it in its organization truly representative of all estates of men in the church. The ministry and the laity were to take sweet counsel together, and to walk in the house of God as friends. Such was the informing spirit of this first publication of " The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered," and it was the spirit of all the subsequent work of actual organization. To this attempt Dr. White brought the forces of competent learning and of a broad and benignant spirit which are impressed on all the after- legislation. He was both firm and conciliatory. His temper was irenic, and his mind fair and generous enough to recognize both the honesty and worth of those with whom he differed. He held his own opinions with con- viction ; yet what he required of others was not agreement, but cooperation in the practical work of building up Christ's kingdom. His moderation did not suffer him to be immoderate in his own claims upon others whom he might think extreme. He was a man of the type of Til- lotson, and fully shared in his spirit of comprehension. Ecclesiastically he was in" agreement with the Low-church- WHITE'S VIEWS. 301 men of the eighteenth century ; but his temperament and his reHgious experience kept him from sympathy with the more fervid and exciting methods of the more ardent evangeHcals of his day. In theology he was one with them in his opposition to the theory comprised in the words " priest, altar, sacrifice " ; ' but he did not share in their tinge of Calvinism, and nurture rather than conversion was his ideal of Christian experience. He was solicitous to vindicate the rights of High-churchmen ; and his inter- course with Seabury and the Eastern clergy of his type was one of unfailing courtesy and charity. Unlike Provoost, he would not allow differences of pohtical conviction to interfere with ecclesiastical comity. He stood for the combination of all schools in the higher unity of Christ's church. Had it not been for the equipoise of this clear mind and true heart it is difficult to see how the diverse elements of Southern and Eastern churchmanship could have all been combined in one Episcopal Church for the country. The rigidity of the North and the laxity of the South seemed to confront each other as implacable foes. But this man, who never yielded a point of principle, knew how to draw into practical union those who differed so widely both in temper and theory. The result was less one of compromise than of mutual recognition. It was a commingling of centrifugal and centripetal forces, resulting in coherence. The issue was a system of liberty protected by law ; and the final ecclesiastical constitution which re- sulted bears the impress of the comprehensive wisdom and catholic heart of him from whose mind it originally sprang. To make that church a church of party would be to contradict the spirit of its origin. It was framed to be the hospitable home of all who could rest on its fundamental 1 See article of Bishop H. U. Onderdonk in "Annals of the American Pulpit" (Sprague), vol, v., p. 284. 302 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. principles. It was not conceived in the spirit of sect. Its whole effort was for inclusion, not exclusion. Its govern- ment was based on historic facts, not on ecclesiastical theory. Its theology was as wide as the creeds. Its worship strove to reproduce the treasures of devotion from all ages. It came into being as a Catholic body, not as distinct from a Protestant body, but as inclusive of it ; as catholic in its protest for the old faith of the gospel, and therefore against the outcroppings of superstitious after- growths ; for the old order, and so against the extrav- agances of later ecclesiastical pretensions ; for true wor- ship in spirit and in truth, and consequently against the intricate technicalities and intrusive directions of medie- val legislation. In thus following the English Church as its mother, the Episcopal Church in America nevertheless cut loose from all that entangled it with the state, and asserted its com- petency to adjust the old life to the new conditions in which it found itself placed. It put away childish subjection, but ,it retained a childlike gratitude and love. It was transformed from a daughter into a sister church ; and its action gave the pattern by which the mother church her- self has since ordered the conditions of her children in the colonies. Upon essentially the same lines as White laid down in the permanent part of " The Case of the Episco- pal Churches in the United States Considered," the vast and growing churches of England's colonies have been constructed. English ecclesiastics of high position have recognized with gratitude their debt to the clear and far- seeing wisdom of the patriarch of the Protestant Episcopal Church ; and that church itself is indebted for its harmo- nious working at home and its peaceful relations abroad ■ in abounding measure to him whose voice was first heard summoning the churches into one national communion. THE NAME PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 303 ACTION IN MARYLAND. The title "Protestant Episcopal Church" was first applied to the Episcopal Church in Maryland during the latter part of the Revolution. It was adopted at a confer- ence of the clergy and laity held at Chestertown, Kent County, Md., November 9, 1780. This conference was called by Rev. Dr. William Smith, shortly after his removal to the State from Pennsylvania, to consider the temporal condition of the churches subsequent to the Vestry Act of 1779.^ It consisted of three clergymen and twenty-four laymen, mostly delegates from churches in Kent County. Dr. Smith was chosen president. At his instigation "A Petition to the General Assembly of Mary- land for the Support of Public Religion " was prepared, to be submitted to the several parishes, and, when approved, presented to the Assembly. It asked that an act be passed, in accordance with the Declaration of Rights issued by the Assembly (November, 1776), empowering the vestry and wardens of the several parishes to raise money, by pew- rents and other means, to restore and keep in repair the church property. In order to appear as an ecclesiastical organization, a name was requisite. To speak of the Episcopal body as the Church of England would have been repugnant both to the loyal sentiment and the ecclesiastical prejudice of the province. It was moved, therefore, by the Rev. James Jones Wilmer, rector of Shrewsbury parish, Kent County, " that the Church of England, as heretofore so known in the province, be now called the Protestant Episcopal Church."^ Dr. Smith is reputed to have been the author of this name, and very likely he suggested it ; but, being in the chair, he could 1 See chap, iii., p. 82. 2 See " Life of Rev. William Smith, D.D.," vol. ii., p. 39. 364 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. not propose it. The motion was adopted ; and the name made its way everywhere throughout the Episcopal church, as indicative and expressive of its leading peculiarities : Episcopal as distinguishing it from' the presbyterial or- ganization which virtually characterized all other Prot- estant ecclesiastical bodies, and Protestant as distinguished from the Church of Rome, whose regimen was also episco- pal The title was first used officially by a representative body of the church in a " Declaration of Certain Fundamen- tal Rights and Liberties," issued by the clergy assembled in Annapolis in 1783. The occasion of this convention was as follows : After the declaration of peace. Governor Paca, in May, 1 783, called the notice of the Assembly to the subject of religion, and recommended, as among the first objects proper for consideration on the return of peace, an adequate support of the Christian reHgion.^ Governor Paca was a friend, and had been a pupil, of Rev. William Smith at the College of Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in 1759, and he retained for him a warm regard. It is thought that the address to the Assembly was sug- gested and urged by his former instructor, who was now president of Washington College, Maryland. This college had grown out of a classical seminary established by Dr. Smith a year or two previously, after he had ceased to be provost of the Academy and College of Philadelphia. It had received its charter in 1782, and held its first com- mencement May 13, 1783. This was a week only after the governor's address had been delivered. At this commencement a number of the Maryland clergy were assembled. The governor's address aroused great interest and gave rise to much consultation. The result was a petition to the legislature, signed on behalf of the clergy by William Smith and Thomas Gates, asking 1 See Hawks, " Ecclesiastical Contributions," vol. ii., " Maryland," p. 291. ECCLESIASTICAL ACTION IN MARYLAND. 305 for leave to prepare a bill which should enable the Episco- pal clergy, without losing their identity, to make neces- sary alterations in the liturgy and arrange a plan for the perpetuation of the ministry according to the episcopal regimen. A great controversy was excited by the proposal. The odium of the Establishment clung firmly to its ecclesiasti- cal polity ; and there was a dread lest the movement might secure a legislative recognition which would involve a quasi-union of the Episcopal Church with the state, to the prejudice of other religious bodies.^ The petition was, however, granted, and the clergy met at Annapolis August I3> 1783, to consider the proposed law. They prepared a charter of incorporation for adoption by the legislature, and issued a " Declaration of Certain Fundamental Rights and Liberties." In this "Declaration " the church in Maryland claimed to have an independent existence apart from any connection with the church in any other colony. It asserted the right for the church to act on the belief " that there be these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church — Bishops, Priests, and Deacons " ; and that episco- pal ordination was essential to the due exercise of minis- terial functions in said church. It declared the identity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland with the Church of England, formerly established in the province, and asserted its title to the property secured to the Church of England by the Bill of Rights. It affirmed the right of the church to alter the liturgy in order to adapt it to the circumstance of its becoming an independent church. This was the first occasion on which the title Protestant Episco- pal Church was officially used. All the eighteen clergy present signed the " Declara- tion," and sent it to the governor with a suitable address. 1 Hawks, " Ecclesiastical Contributions," vol. ii., p. 293. 306 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xil. He admitted its reasonableness, and promised his aid to secure its provisions. Owing to the failure of the legisla- ture to meet, no legal action was taken on the proposed law until the latter part of 1 784. In the meantime, in June, 1 784, the clergy met with the laity, as representa- tives of the several churches, to revise the action which had been taken solely by the clergy ; and the laity, considering the " Declaration " and the other measures in a separate session, gave their unanimous consent. Here- upon a joint committee of both orders was appointed to devise a system of ecclesiastical government, to define the duties of the clergy in matters spiritual, and to prescribe a mode of discipline for both clerical and lay offenders. This joint committee made an incomplete report indicating the essential features of their scheme. They agreed that any one ordained by a foreign bishop must take the oath of allegiance to the State of Maryland before he could be admitted into or enjoy any of the churches or glebes formerly belonging to the Church of England. They affirmed that the office of a bishop differs only from that of other priests in the power of ordination and confirmation and the right of precedence, and that any alteration of these positions must be the joint action of clergy and laity. To the clergy was assigned the determination of the valid- ity of claims to ministerial authority and commission, to- gether with the decision concerning the religious, literary, and moral qualifications of candidates for orders. To the laity was accorded the sole right of the reception of min- isters into the parishes. An ecclesiastical Convention of clergy and laity was decreed to be held annually. It was as the result of this presentment by clergy and laity alike that the legislature, in the latter part of 1784, passed the act incorporating the Episcopal clergy of the State as a " Society for the relief of widows and children of DR. WILLIAM SMITH ELECTED BISHOP. 307 the ministers of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Mary- land." This Act of Incorporation is the only law passed at this time in recognition of the church. We now return to the Annapolis Convention of August, 1783. One of its most significant acts was the election by the clergy, of whom alone it was composed, of Dr. William Smith, its presiding officer, to the office of Bishop of Maryland. A testimonial was prepared, to be given to the Bishop of London when Dr. Smith should apply for consecration, in which he was commended as a fit person, every way qualified for the office. The Convention also enacted that, until such time as a regular ordination of clergymen could be obtained, three clergymen should be appointed in each shire as examiners of candidates for holy orders, to whom they might give certificates as lay readers. By these acts the church in Maryland claimed to have a distinct, independent existence, without reference to any connection with the church in any other colony. Though Dr. Smith was never consecrated bishop, he was so influential later on in the formation of the constitu- tion of the church that an account of his career forms an essential feature of the ecclesiastical history of his time. He was a Scotchman of good family, born in Aberdeen- shire about 1727, .and was graduated at the University of Aberdeen in 1747. He came to this country as tutor to the two sons of Colonel Martin, of Long Island, in 1751. During his residence of two years in New York he pub- lished a pamphlet with the title " A General Idea of the College of Moravia," intended as a sketch for a proposed college in New York. It attracted the attention of Dr. Benjamin Franklin and the Rev. Richard Peters, of Phila- delphia, and resulted in Smith's appointment as provost of the newly established Academy and College of Philadel- phia in 1754. In the meantime he had returned to Eng- 3o8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. land for holy orders, and had been ordained deacon, in Fulham Palace, by the Bishop of Lincoln, acting on behalf of the Bishop of London, December 2i, 1753, and two days afterward was ordained priest, in the same place and at the same request, by the Bishop of Carlisle. "As provost of the college he attained later a wide celebrity. His talents and scholarship were such that in 1759 he was made Doctor of Divinity by the University of Oxford, on the recommendation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prominent bishops of the English Church. The University of Aberdeen and Trinity College, Dublin, sub- sequently conferred the same honor upon him. His great interest was in education, but he also acted as adviser of the Venerable Society in regard to church interests in Pennsylvania. He was a man of enthusiastic temperament and of generous impulses, and became noted as an elo- quent preacher, officiating on almost all public occasions ; in fact, he was the most prominent pulpit orator of his day. His style was the style of his time : Johnsonian in its use of magniloquent words and high-sounding phrases ; inter- spersed with classical and poetical quotations ; full to repletion with an ornate rhetoric. Through all this oratori- cal glow, however, there was an earnest and strong purpose to impress the truth on the minds and hearts of those who heard him.^ His ardor often got the better of his discre- tion, and brought him into not infrequent collision with 1 Dr. Smith prepared two volumes of sermons for publication, and pur- posed publishing five volumes, which purpose was frustrated by his death. His biographer, in speaking of his funeral oration in honor of General Mont- gomery, which he was invited to deliver before Congress, says : " The opening part of the discourse was a grand review from classic poets and other authors, laying, in the customs of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc., a wide foundation for honors after death to heroes and states- men. It puts you in mind of one of David's large pictures in the Louvre, with lines of tnbicines and long trumpets, of the lictor and his fasces, of standards and S. P. Q. R.'s, and all old Rome in solemn procession." C Life of Rev. William Smith, D.D.," vol. i., p. 545.) PROVOST WILLIAM SMITH, D.D. 309 opponents. He early had an encounter with the Quakers, who sued him for hbel, and later he lost his provostship in a violent altercation with the trustees of the college. He was an intense antagonist and a hard hitter in contro- versy ; but he did not cherish malice, and often became a warm friend to those whom he had opposed. When the war came on he was open and constant in his expression of disapproval of the measures of the British Parliament and ministry, declaring them unconstitutional, unjust, and unwise. When, however, it came to hostihties he was not prepared to counsel resistance, though he acquiesced in the condition of affairs after the Declaration of Independ- ence. His sermon preached in Christ Church, June 28, 1775, before Congress and a vast concourse of people, at the request of the mihtia officers of Philadelphia, produced an immense sensation. It was entitled "A Sermon on the Present Situation of American Affairs." It ran through many American editions, was translated into several foreign languages, and the chamberlain of London ordered ten thousand copies of it to be printed at his expense and sold for twopence a copy. In it Smith maintained his opposition to British measures, characterized the doctrine of absolute non-resistance as absurd, yet declared it not within the province of the ministers of Christ "to draw the line, and say where submission ends and resistance begins." Though general and evasive in its conclusions in regard to definite measures, this sermon greatly stirred patriotic zeal, and consequently roused the ire of Governor Tryon, of New York, who threatened the author with the severe cen- sure of the Bishop of London. It called forth the encomium of Dr. Priestley and the animadversion of John Wesley. It made Dr. Smith a famous man on both continents. He continued devoted to the college and the advance- ment of its interests during the war, until 1779, when 3IO PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. there arose a distinct opposition to the institution, based on political grounds. Its charter was changed, and Dr. Smith, the only Episcopal clergyman among the professors, was dismissed from the provostship. This occasioned the founding of the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. It was one of the violent acts of a violent time, and is gener- ally supposed to have been aimed at the provost, whose popularity and influence as a church orator were not grate- ful to those whose political principles were more decided than his own.^ In the patriotic fervor of the time it was feared, or it was plausibly assumed, that the broad foun- dation of the college would be narrowed into a Church of England institution. After the Revoliition, in 1789, the charter was restored, and Dr. Smith again became provost. , In the meantime he had removed to Maryland and founded his new institution at Chestertown. In one year he col- lected ten thousand pounds from the planters of the eastern shore of Maryland for its endowment, General Washington himself contributing fifty guineas, thus testifying to his confidence in Smith's patriotism. As we have seen, at the first commencement of this institution in 1783, Dr. Smith started the series of Conventions of the church in Mary- land which had so strong an influence on the later forma- tion of the church, and first gave to it the provincial name which afterward became the national designation. From what has appeared of Dr. Smith's characteristics it is not strange that with his learning, his natural powers, and his financial success in establishing his college, he should have been the instant and unanimous choice of the eighteen Maryland clergymen for their first bishop. A man of such distinction at home and abroad at once tow- ered above all local celebrities. It is not strange, either, 1 For an account of this occurrence see " Life of Rev. William Smith, D.D.," vol. ii., p. 18; also Wilson, " Memoir of Bishop White," p. 66. DR. SMITH AND THE MARYLAND EPISCOPATE. 311 that he should have had opponents as well in those less dominated by his inspiring personality. The laity were not so enthusiastic as the clergy who elected him. Many were strongly opposed to there being at that time any bishop in Maryland. Even among his warm personal friends there were those who disapproved of his election. Dr. White afterward opposed its confirmation, not giving his reasons ; but it is known that they were based on an estimate of his character. That character was generous, but not prudent. There was a secularity in his manner and tone of thought which savored more of worldly wisdom than of devout consecration. He was convivial, and may have at times lapsed into impropriety. The temporal rather than the spiritual concerns of the church engrossed his attention. In controversy, to which he was prone, the old Adam often got the better of the young Melanchthon. He was not, however, self-seeking. The opposition which he made to Dr. Seabury's consecration by the nonjuring bishops, if it had its personal element, was also caused by the fear that such a procedure would shut the door to the application for the English succession. This result would have greatly diminished the prestige of the national church, and given it a provincial aspect and character, marking it as distinct from the English Church, rather than as its legitimate successor. Dr. Smith may himself have been convinced of the inappropriateness of his own election to the episcopate. Certain it is that he never applied for con- secration in England, though his election and testimonials from his State were above suspicion. When his election was not confirmed by the General Convention which gave its imprimatur to White and Provoost and Griffith, his dis- appointment did not sour him. He continued to be one of the most indefatigable workers in the construction of the ecclesiastical organization in which he was not to be a chief 312 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, xii. officer. He was a co-laborer with White in all his efforts, and preserved a steadfast friendship for him, notwith- standing his opposition to his consecration. Prejudiced at first against Seabury, both on account of his ecclesiastical views and his Scotch consecration, he was the chief mover in the measures which recognized the validity of his con- secration and brought him into union with the General Convention. But both his good quahties and his defects were such as to wisely exclude him from the episcopate. ACTION IN CONNECTICUT. No sooner had Connecticut received the news of the preliminary treaty acknowledging the independence of the United States than the church clergy became alert. A month before the formal proclamation of peace, in the last week of March, 1783, ten of the fourteen missionaries in the State came together in a quiet and secret conclave at Woodbury. Theymet at thehouseofthe Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, missionary, and rector of St. Paul's Church in that place, to deliberate on the present affairs of the church and to organize for the future. No minutes of the meet- ing were kept, for the business which they had in hand was deemed perilous. It has transpired since that, with- out going into a formal election, they selected two persons, Rev. Jeremiah Leaming and Rev. Samuel Seabury, as suitable, either of them, to go to England and secure, if possible, episcopal consecration. Mr. Jarvis, who acted as secretary, was deputed to go to New York and consult the clergy there and secure their concurrence. He was directed to prevail on one or other of the two candidates, who were both in that province, to accept the appointment. Mr. Leaming at once declined on account of his age and SEA BURY, BISHOP ELECT OF CONNECTICUT. 313 infirmities, and Mr. Seabury, by the advice of the clergy, consented. Seabury was a native of Connecticut, born while his father was yet a Congregational licentiate. He was reared in the colony, on Long Island once claimed by it, and he was a graduate of Yale College. His ministry had been exercised outside of Connecticut, in New Jersey, on Long Island, and at Westchester, N. Y. ; and he had served, also, during the war as chaplain in the British army, being appointed in 1778, by Sir Henry Clinton, chaplain to the king's American regiment, commanded by Colonel Fan- ning. By his character, his churchmanship, and his politi- cal convictions he was a fair representative of the Con- necticut clergy. He was their fitting choice ; and his nomination was conducted according to his own principles, and was a strictly clerical one.^ He was a man possessed of a clear vision, if not of the very widest horizon. He saw with distinctness what fell under his observation ; and a duty once discerned called out a pertinacity of effort to accomplish it which eminently fitted him for the trying and difficult task now laid upon him. In that time of doubtful prospects everywhere, and of unsettled ecclesiastical principles in various parts of the country, it was fortunate that one so completely convinced of both the righteousness and the necessity of his mission should have been found to act as pioneer in the search for the episcopate. That one thing he would do. The man- 1 It has been suggested by Dr. McConnell, in his brilliant " History of the American Episcopal Church," that the laity were excluded from these proceedings out of regard for their safety. But the whole tone of Connect- icut churchmanship, until a much later period, was adverse to the admission of laymen to church councils. The thought of admitting them to their delib- erations probably occurred to no one of the clergy assembled at Woodbury. The whole transaction exhibits both the moral fiber and the stanch ecclesiastical character of the missionaries, whose claims concerning clerical prerogatives were never in the least doubtful. 314 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. ifold necessities of the ecclesiastical situation did not pre- sent themselves to his mind as to the mind of White ; nor had he anything like the same statesmanlike grasp of the national relations of the church as that great man who chiefly drew up its constitution. But he had an eye single to the one feature of the ecclesiastical regimen which could alone give coherence and vigor to its life, however constituted and controlled. For him it could never exist as a torso. A head must be given to its members, how- ever feeble or ill regulated, and then it could take measures for growth and advance. It is not open to doubt that, apart from the matter of principle, as a matter of ex- pediency, he was right. No body could have a healthy self-respect, or that consciousness of power and resource essential to its maintenance and increase, which must be dependent for the exercise of its chief functions on sources outside itself. Nor is it doubtful that the gaining of his episcopate at the hands of the nonjuring bishops of Scot- land, for an unformed diocese of a few clergy in a small State, was a potent element in opening the way for the bestowal of the English consecration upon the bishops who came later, bent on the formation of a national Epis- copal communion. Dr. Seabury was authorized, in case he failed to gain consecration in England, to apply to the nonjuring bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. He went out fully equipped with documents to the English ecclesiastical authorities, which so forcibly stated the case and so eloquently urged it as to deserve better success than they secured. Sailing early in June, 1783, on Admiral Digby's flag-ship, he arrived in London July 7th, several months before the royal troops evacuated New York. He pro- ceeded with all diligence to present his testimonials and letters testifying to his election, and urging his consecration. SEA BURY SEEKING CONSECRATION: 315 These consisted chiefly of a letter written to the Arch- bishop of York, on behalf of the Connecticut clergy, by Abraham Jarvis, who had been secretary of their Conven- tion; a testimonial testifying to Dr. Seabury's election and qualification for the office of a bishop, signed on the same date as the letter (April 21, 1783), by the clergy in New York who had been consulted in the matter, namely, Jeremiah Leaming, D.D., one of the two designated by the Connecticut clergy as a fit nominee, Dr. Inglis, rector, and Dr. Benjamin Moore, assistant minister, of Trinity Church; and a long letter of the same signatures to the Archbishop of York, dated May 24th. Longer epistles of the same character, but of later date, were addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that see having been vacant when the first letters were written. These communications urged the paramount necessity of laying the foundation of a valid and regular episcopate in America ; expressed dissatisfaction and rejection of the plan, published in Philadelphia, to constitute a nominal episcopate by the united suffrages of presbyters and lay- men, which had been proposed and justified on the plea of the impossibility of securing bishops ; pointed out that opposition to an American episcopate, on the part of non- Episcopalians, had declined since the acknowledgment of independence had deprived it of any political character; and urged that the various legacies which had been left for the support of bishops in America should be appropri- ated to the maintenance of Dr. Seabury, in case of his consecration. The communication from New York also commended the Rev. Dr. T. B. Chandler, formerly of Elizabeth, N. J., for appointment to the bishopric of Nova Scotia.^ 1 The Rev. Dr. Chandler was later fixed upon for the first Bishop of Nova Scotia, but, by reason of ill health, he was obliged to decline the appointment. 3l6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. Dr. Seabury was politely received by the ecclesiastical authorities in England ; but the action urged upon them by the letters and testimonial was delayed on account of objections drawn both from English law and American opinion. The entanglement .of the church with the state finally defeated the proposed measure. The oaths in the Ordination Office, imposed by act of Parliament, could not, it was decided, be omitted by the sole dispensation of the king; and Parliament, though it decreed permission to the bishops to ordain priests and deacons for foreign countries, drew the line there, and refused to empower them to con- secrate bishops without requiring the customary oaths of allegiance. The bishops required, also, the consent of the State of Connecticut that a bishop should reside within its borders before they could presume to accede to what might be deemed an act of political intrusion. This last point was completely cleared up by the prompt and self- sacrificing action of Dr. Seabury, who at once wrote to his friends to apply to the proper authority for permission to have a bishop reside in the State, and offered to surren- der his claim to that office in favor of any presbyter less obnoxious to the public, saying, " The State of Connecti- cut may consent that a bishop should reside among them, though they might not consent that I should be the man." The committee, consisting of Messrs. Teaming, Jarvis, and Hubbard, appointed by the clergy in convention at Wallingford to attend to this matter, were assured that no special act of the Assembly was needed in the case ; that, if a bishop came, he would stand, by the provisions of the law, upon the same grounds as the rest of the clergy or the On his recommendation the Rev. Dr. Charles Inglis, who had nominated him for the post, was appointed and consecrated, and the funds designated for the support of bishops in America, by both legacy and gift in England, were appropriated to this first colonial bishopric. OBSTACLES IN SEABURV'S IV AY. 317 church at large. Certified copies of the law which had been passed, " embracing the church and comprehending all the legal rights and powers intended to be given to any denomination of Christians," were sent to Seabury by the committee and used by him, but, so far as he was con- cerned, used in vain. There was at this stage of proceedings no disentangling the political from the ecclesiastical relations of the episco- pate in the minds of bishops appointed by the crown. The apprehension of the civil rulers, also, of giving umbrage to a power with whom a treaty of peace had just been signed stayed their hand in opening the way for the bish- ops to act. Without the formal request, or at least consent, of Congress, the ministry refused to permit a bishop to be consecrated for any of the United -States. Parliament adjourned, and no enabling act had been passed. Seabury had now been in England over a year. He could not anticipate either a speedy or a favorable action of the great powers, temporal or spiritual. Mindful of his instructions at home, he proceeded to Scotland to lay his case before the nonjuring bishops of that realm. The vi^ay had been prepared for his favorable reception. The Rev. George Berkeley, prebendary of Canterbury and son of Bishop Berkeley, of Cloyne, who when dean had visited America, shared his father's enthusiasm, and earnestly desired to see the Episcopal Church fully equipped and established in the Western continent. In 1782, before the effort for organization in Connecticut had been begun, he had written to the Scotch presbyter of Aberdeen, who, at the time of Seabury 's application, had become Bishop Skinner, suggesting that the suffering church of Scotland might confer great benefit on the suf- fering church in America. Later he wrote again, directly suggesting and urging the sending of bishops from Scot- 3l8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. land to American churchmen, who could not obtain the gift from England. Bishop Skinner did not give an enthusiastic reception to such suggestions, but attention and sympathy were awakened by them. There was, indeed, in the respective fortunes or misfortunes of the two bodies much to attract them to each other. The nonjuring bishops of Scotland were the successors of those English bishops who, in 1688, refused to disown James II. and take the oath to William III., and hence were called " nonjurors." They had been in successive generations ardent Jacobites or adherents of the Stuarts. They had lost establishment under William by their politi- cal rejection of him as king, and their proscription was made more severe and bitter after the risings of 171 5 and 1745 in behalf of the respective pretenders. Of these ris- ings the Episcopalians were the essential leaven, and as political insurgents they were denounced and persecuted. Their chapels were burned. It became penal for more than five of them to gather together for worship, for no sedition was to be bred of their religious assemblies. For Episcopalians, loyal to the actual sovereign, clergymen of English orders were supplied, and the Episcopal household in Scotland was divided against itself. The two parties were alien in sympathy, and in a measure in worship, two varying liturgies being used. The English were regarded by the Scotch as ecclesiastical intruders ; the Scotch by the English as political rebels. Twenty years after the last political rising of 1 745 the intensity of this party feel- ing became somewhat relaxed, and the relations of the two ecclesiastical bodies were from this time on somewhat less strained. A revised form of the liturgy of the nonjurors, being a close approximation to the first Prayer-book of Edward VI., was prepared, and accepted for general use in 1 764. The oppressive state laws, without being revoked, THE NONJURING BISHOPS OF SCOTLAND. 319 were not enforced. Congregations met quietly, but in such numbers as they could gather. With such a history behind them, it required courage backed by principle for the church of the nonjurors to deliberately resolve to do what the English hierarchy had refused, or had not been empowered by the state, to do. No wonder that Bishop Skinner at first hung back from George Berkeley's proposition. 'To act might disturb and dissipate the comparative peace now enjoyed. He wrote, in reply to the prebendary's appeal : " The enemies of our church might make a handle of our correspondence with the colonies as a proof that we always wished to fish in troubled waters ; and we have little need to give any ground for an imputation of that kind." But it soon be- came evident that if there were to be an American bishop the nonjurors must consecrate him. The English Church in Scotland was as much tied and bound by Parliament as the Established Church in England. Thus it was that Seabury turned his face toward Aberdeen, where, and in the neighboring Highlands, the nonjurors were to be chiefly found. He had likely enough become acquainted with the church when, as a young man, in 1752, waiting to attain the proper age to obtain orders, he had studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. The similarity between the situations of the two churches has been well pointed out : " Both churches had, through their political situation, been driven to emphasize strongly the divine side of epis- copacy. They both had their homes in the midst of a hostile Presbyterian community. They had each been trained to recognize 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 lived. They were not readily touched by the spirit 320 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. XII. of their time and place. Their spirit, at its best, was serene, assured, self-contained." * When George Berkeley heard that Dr. Seabury had reached England in search of orders, he reopened his cor- respondence with Bishop Skinner," urging the Scotch bishops to act in his case, and assuring them that " they need anticipate no opposition from the English govern- ment." As to the American government, he added, " The Episcopal Church of Scotland cannot be suspected of aiming at supremacy of any kind over any people." The last proposition was sufficiently evident, and the first came from good authority ; so that now the Scotch bishops expressed their warm approbation of the new proposal; and when Dr. Seabury's distinct application came to them they were ready to grant it. This application he made through his friend. Dr. Myles Cooper, his fellow-loyalist, to whom he addressed a letter from London, dated August 31, 1784. In this letter 3 he gave his reasons for first applying to the EngHsh bishops, explaining that it in- volved no doubt of the equal validity of Scotch orders, which, he assured them, all the clergy of Connecticut, as well as himself, cordially acknowledged. He assured them of the equal position of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut with other religious denominations. He showed that the statistics of the church in that State gave to it forty congregations and forty thousand adherents, and informed them that the legislature knew that a bishop had been applied for, and who had been chosen, and had made no objection, and would not needlessly aflfront so large a body of the citizens by so doing. He did not plead the possession of an endowment, but he did plead • 1 McConnell, " History of the American Episcopal Church," p. 138. 2 Wilberforce, " History of the American Church," p. 153. 3 Bearclsley, " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Seabury, D.D.," p. 136. SEABURY'S APPLICATION TO THE NONJURORS. 32 1 the pressure of poverty as a reason for their speedy deci- sion ; and he made a suggestion that must have touched them strongly when, toward the end of his letter, he said, " Perhaps for this cause, among others, God's providence has supported them, and continued their succession under various and great difficulties: that a free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical episcopacy may from them pass into the -Western world." The consent of the bishops was hardly gained when an objection was started from an unexpected quarter. Dr. William Smith, a Scotchman by birth, who had been or- dained together with Dr. Seabury to the priesthood, and who, at the present time, was head of Washington College, Maryland, had been elected Bishop of Maryland August, 1783, just a year before. He had received letters com- mendatory to the Bishop of London, and hearing of the application of Seabury to the nonjurors, feared that if action were taken it might still further complicate matters in England and prevent his consecration by the English bishops. Through his cousin, then resident in London, he sent a protest against the proposed consecration, stating that Seabury's political course in America would render episcopacy suspected there, and asserting that the action proposed was " against the earnest and sound advice of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York." This protest made little impression in comparison with the impression made by Seabury's own person and presence, for he was a man after the nonjurors' own heart. As regarded the position of the archbishops, George Berkeley undertook to make that clear, writing to the Archbishop of Canter- bury of the proposed action, and asking a reply in case of serious objections, stating that no reply would be con- strued favorably. No reply came and the coast was clear. Previous to this last ecclesiastical flurry the primus. 322 PROTESTANr EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xii. Robert Kilgour, had written,^ at the beginning of Octo- ber, that the Scotch bishops were willing to comply with Seabury's proposal, " to clothe him with the episcopal character, and thereby convey to the Western world the blessings of a free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical episco- pacy, not doubting that he will so agree with us in doctrine and discipline as that he, and the church under his charge in Connecticut, will hold communion with us and the church here in catholic and primitive principles." Aber- deen was fixed upon for the place of consecration, and the time was left to Dr. Seabury to decide. He at once sent his answer, conveying his thanks for their consent, prom- ising, so far as his influence could extend, to establish the most liberal intercourse and union between the Episcopal Church in Scotland and that in America, and appointing November loth as the time of his arrival in Aberdeen. Immediately on his arrival, arrangements were made for his consecration. It took place November 14, 1784, being a Sunday, in the chapel, which was formed out of the upper rooms of the house of the coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen, Dr. Skinner. It was situated in Longacre, a narrow lane of the city, where public carriages never passed." Though the severe penal laws had fallen into disuse, and larger assemblies than the four persons from outside the household could now meet undisturbed, the idea of erecting an ostensible, church-like place of worship was not to be thought of by the Scotch Episcopalians. Thus, though in a sequestered corner, " the service was performed in the presence of a considerable number of 1 The letter was addressed to Rev. John Allen, of Edinburgh, by Dr. Cooper, who had forwarded the request of Seabury to the Scotch bishops. 2 This building was demolished in 1 794, and on its site was erected a new chapel, which was sold to the Wesleyans in 181 7, when the Kpiscopal con- gregation removed to St. Andrew's Church in King's Street. The Wesleyans have since abandoned it as a house of worship, and when the author visited the place In 1891 he found it used as a china-store. It was never consecrated. SEABURY'S CONSECRATION AT ABERDEEN. 323 respectable clergymen and a great number of laity." The consecrator was Robert Kilgour, primus, assisted by Arthur Petrie, the Bishop of Ross and Morny, and John Skinner, the coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen, who preached the sermon on the occasion.^ In view of all the past and of all the future it was a significant moment. The act secured at least two great results of far-reaching influence. In and through its eff"ect upon England it undoubtedly hastened the Enabling Act, whereby the English bishops were empowered to convey the episcopate to America and give the stamp of national character to the Protestant Episcopal Church. In its effect upon America it saved it from the chaos of a continued acephalous condition, and secured to it the incomparable Communion Office, through the influence of Seabury, which both restores the primitive completeness of the service and guards it sedulously from the Roman error of transubstantiation. Bishop Seabury, as soon as possible after his consecra- tion, made arrangements for his return to his home, which was now to be his diocese.^ He did not sail, however, for six months ; but he made good use of the interval. On the day after his consecration he signed a concordat ^ with the bishops who had consecrated him, which pledged full 1 The sermon preached by Bishop Skinner was pulihshed both in England and Scotland, and aroused much attention and animadversion because of its seeming reflections on the Church of England, in its assertion, in a note, that the Scotch church was wont to pay more attention to " the Acts of the Apostles than to the acts of Parliament." There were sharp criticisms upon it by Bishop Lowth and the Rev. George (afterward Bishop) Gleig and others. It, however, undoubtedly, aroused the attention of Englishmen to the unnecessary oppression of the Scotch Episcopal Church, which led to the repeal of the penal laws in 1792. 2 Bishop Seabury preached in the afternoon of the day of his consecration, in the chapel where he received his orders, and made a favoral^le impression by his earnestness, at the same time startling the congregation by the energy of his delivery, as " he used more gesture than was common in Scotland, and waved a white handkerchief while he preached." (See Beardsley, " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Seabury, D.D.," p. 157.)' ^ See Appendix A. 324 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xil. communion between the two churches of which they were the respective heads, on the basis of their common faith, and contained a promise of the new prelate to endeavor all he consistently could with peace and prudence to cause the Communion Office of the church in Connecticut to con- form to that of the church in Scotland. There was a cer- tain implied promise, also, that when in Scotland he should not hold communion in public service with those ordained by an English or Irish bishop, whom the Scotch bishops looked upon as schismatical intruders. This is a water-mark in the document, which shows not merely the scar still quivering from the ill usage which the Scotch Episcopa- lians had received, but also indicates the sturdy self- consciousness and respect which lived in the hearts of those who ventured to do what English bishops could not do, and who endeavored to impress on the church in America a peculiar stamp of their own which the English Church lacked. Armed with this concordat, with his let- ter of consecration, and a letter from the Scotch bishops to the clergy of Connecticut, Bishop Seabury went on his way. Before going to London he stopped with his old loyalist friend. Dr. Myles Cooper, at Edinburgh, and there wrote a letter to Rev. Jonathan Boucher, which showed a more candid and larger view of the situation than might have been expected, and indicated that he intended to rule his diocese as " in the communion of the Catholic Church," rather than as the . offspring of a Scotch provincialism.^ 1 " His Grace of Canterbury apprehended that my obtaining consecration in Scotland would create jealousies and seditions in the church, that the Mo- ravian bishops in America would be hereby induced to ordain clergymen, and that the Philadelphia clergy would be encouraged to carry into effect their plan of constituting a nominal episcopacy by the joint suffrages of clergymen and laymen. " But when it is considered that the Moravian bishops cannot ordain clergy- men of our church unless requested so to do, and that when there shall be a BISHOP SEA BURY AND CHARLES WESLEY. 325 He wrote from London to his clergy in Connecticut as soon as he could make definite arrangements for his de- parture, which he found could not be until spring. He corresponded with the Venerable Society, concerning the continuance of his own and the other missionaries' sti- pends, and found that by the constitution of that society no help could in future be expected, as it was empowered by its charter to assist missionaries only in the colonies of Great Britain. He had interesting interviews with Dr. Inglis and Rev. Jacob Duche, both of whom had left their charges in America on account of their loyalty to the crown, and who gave him letters to Dr. White (now mov- ing in the matter of the organization of the church in the United States), which, if not needed, greatly tended to smooth the way, on his return, for cordial and courteous intercourse with that calm and statesmanlike divine. He met with the Rev. Charles Wesley (who deplored the pre- cipitancy of his brother John in setting apart Coke and Asbury as superintendents " of the Methodists in Amer- ica "), and he impressed him greatly. " You knew," wrote the younger Wesley to Dr. Chandler, " I had the happi- ness to converse with that truly apostolical man, who is esteemed by all that know him as much as by you and me. He told me he looked upon the Methodists as sound members of the church, and was ready to ordain any of the preachers whom he should find duly qualified." ^ bishop in America there will be no ground on which to make such a request, and that the Philadelpliia plan was only proposed on the supposition of a real and absolute necessity, which necessity cannot exist where there is a bishop resident in America, every apprehension of this kind must vanish. My own inclination is to cultivate as close a connection with the Church of England as that church and the political state of the two countries shall permit. My hope is to promote the interests of that church with greater effect than ever." (Letter of Bishop Seabury of December 3, 1784. .See Beardsley, " Life of Samuel Seabury," p. 160.) 1 He adds in the same letter a sorrowful lament over his brother's act, and a prophecy, which has certainly not been fulfilled. " Had they had patience 326 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xil. Having thus redeemed his time, Bishop Seabury sailed for home March 15th, and arrived in Newport, R. I., June 30, 1785, having stopped at HaHfax on the way. He re- turned poorer than he went, having spent in this mission, which had lasted over two years, more than all that he had; but rich in the consciousness of success, and endeared to his clergy by his devotion to their cause. On August 3d he presided at the first convocation of the diocese, and laid before the clergy (there was no lay representation) the concordat and the pastoral letter of the Scotch bishops, to their great satisfaction. On their part the clergy ac- cepted him as " supreme in the government of the church and in the administration of all ecclesiastical affairs." In the letter on their behalf written by Mr. Jarvis to Dr. White at the time of the selection of Dr. Seabury as bishop, they had strongly repudiated the plan suggested by his paper, " The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered," denying its necessity and re- jecting its principles. Now, after two years of struggle, they felt themselves vindicated by facts. Their bishop, albeit not directly of the English succession, was among them, and at this primary convention exercised his episco- pal authority in ordaining four candidates to the diaconate. This was the first episcopal ordination in the country. Little else was done at the convocation, but it was itself the evidence, in its existence and acts, that the church in the integrity of its ecclesiastical order was present in the land. a little longer," he wrote, " they would have seen a real primitive bishop in America duly consecrated by three Scotch bishops. His ordination would be genuine, valid, episcopal. But what are your poor Methodists now? Only a new sect of Presbyterians. They will lose all their usefulness and impor- tance . . . and, like other sects, come to nothing.'''' CHAPTER XIII. FORMATION AND ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PRAYER-BOOK ( I 784-89). The movement to constitute one Episcopal Church for the whole United States was begun at an informal meeting of several clergymen from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, at New Brunswick, N. J., May 11, 1784. They met by appointment to consult concerning the inter- ests of the " Corporation for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of the Clergy," a corporation which had been founded in 1 769, largely by the efforts of Dr. William Smith, for the benefit of the three provinces now repre- sented at the meeting.! j^-g charter and its funds needed attention under the changed conditions of the country. Before this meeting was arranged, the Rev. Abraham Beach, of New Brunswick, who suggested it, had written, in January, 1784, a letter to Dr. William White, of Phila- delphia, expressing the hope " that the members of the Episcopal Church in this country would interest them- selves in its behalf, would endeavor to introduce order and uniformity into it, and provide for a succession in the ministry." This was thoroughly in accord with the plans and pur- 1 This corporation, by mutual consent, and with a fair division of tlie funds, was afterward resolved into three, under the charters of the tliree States respectively. 327 328 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. poses of Dr. White. As early as November 13, 1783, he had proposed, at a meeting of the vestry of his own church, the appointment of committees from the vestries of the churches in Philadelphia to confer with the clergy concerning the formation of a representative body of the Episcopal churches in Pennsylvania. The committees were appointed, and, after consultation with the clergy, at the house of Rev. Dr. White, March 29, i 784, " were of the opinion that a subject of such importance ought to be taken up, if possible, with the general concurrence of the Episcopalians in the United States." When, therefore, the clergy came together at New Brunswick, in May, their minds were charged with a larger interest than the resus- citation of the corporation in behalf of which they were assembled. There were present at this meeting three representative clergy from each of the three States ; namely, from New York, Messrs. Bloomer, Benjamin Moore, and Thomas Moore; from New Jersey, Rev. Messrs. Beach, Eraser, and Ogden ; from Pennsylvania, Rev. Drs. White and Magraw, with Rev. Mr. Blackwell. Several laymen who were in the town on civic business were requested to attend the meeting. They were Messrs. John and Richard Stevens, Mr. Richard Dennis, and Colonel Hoyt. Dr. William White presided. The corporation was not neglected, but the principal discussion of the first day was on the princi- ples of ecclesiastical union. The Philadelphia clergy urged the adoption of the principles which they had previously agreed upon ; but an unexpected obstacle arose, prevent- ing definite action at this time. It transpired, through Mr. Benjamin Moore, of New York, that the New York clergy had a year previously joined, with the clergy of Connecticut in an application abroad for the consecra- tion of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Seabury as Bishop of Con- MEETING IN PHILADEIPHIA. 329 necticut, and that, pending the appHcation, they could not join in any proceeding" which might seem to interfere with it. A committee of correspondence was, however, appointed " for the purpose of forming a continental representation of the Episcopal Church, and for the better management of the concerns of said church " ; and also a committee, consisting of Messrs. Beach, Bloomer, and Moore, to at- tend the Trinity Convocation of the Connecticut clergy " for the purpose of soliciting their concurrence ... in such measures as may be deemed conducive to the union and prosperity of the Episcopal Church in the States of America." It was also agreed to procure as general a meeting as might be of representatives of the clergy and laity of the different States in the city of New York on the 6th of October following. Before that general meeting a provincial one was held in Philadelphia which had great influence upon it. Within a fortnight after the meeting in New Brunswick a conven- tion of the clergy and laity from the different parts of Pennsylvania was held in Christ Church (May 24, i 784), in accordance with the previous recommendation of the clergy and vestries of the churches of Philadelphia at their meeting (March 29th and 30th), for the purpose of form- ing a representative body of the Episcopal churches of the State. The clergy, of whom there were four, came in their right as rectors ; the laymen, of whom there were .twenty-one, had their appointment by delegation from the churchwardens and vestrymen of each separate Episcopal congregation. It was the first time that the laity sat in the councils of the church. Dr. White presided, and each church had one vote. A resolution reported by a special committee was adopted, to this effect : " That it is expedient to appoint a standing committee 330 PkOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURClL [Chap. xiii. of the Episcopal Church in this State, consisting of clergy and laity ; that the said committee be empowered to correspond and confer with representatives of the Epis- copal Church in the other States or any of them, and assist in framing an ecclesiastical government ; that a constitution of ecclesiastical government, when framed, be reported to the several congregations, to be binding on all the congregations consenting to it, as soon as a majority of the congregations shall have consented ; and that the committee be bound by the following instructions or fundamental principles : " First, That the Episcopal Church in these States is, and ought to be, independent of all foreign authority, ecclesiastical or civil. " Second, That it ought to have, in common with all other religious societies, full and exclusive powers to reg- ulate the concerns of its own communion. " Third, That the doctrines of the gospel be maintained as now professed by the Church of England ; and uni- formity of worship continued, as near as may be, to the liturgy of said church. " Fourth, That the succession of the ministry be agree- able to the usage which requireth the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons ; that the rights and powers of the same, respectively, be ascertained ; and that they be exercised according to reasonable laws, to be duly made. " Fifth, That to make canons or laws there be no other authority than that of a representative body of the clergy and laity conjointly. " Sixth, That no powers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical government, except such as cannot conven- iently be exercised by the clergy and laity in their respective congregations." ^ ^ See " Half-century of Legislation," vol. iii., p. 38. MEEThXG IN NEW YORK. 331 A standing committee was appointed, of which Dr. William White was chairman. He was not a negligent one. Before the autumn meeting in New York he had corresponded widely with churchmen in various parts of the country. Park'er in Boston, and Bass at Newburyport (both afterward bishops of Massachusetts), Provoost at New York (subsequently its first bishop), Wharton at Wilmington, Del. (one of the co-laborers in liturgical changes). West of Baltimore, and Smith of Chestertown, Md., Grififith of Fairfax, Va. (first bishop elect of the State), and Purcell of South Carolina, with others, received these letters, which entered at length and in detail into the plans of reconstruction, and which, coming from such a source, stirred the interest and stimulated the action which brought so large a delegation to New York at the time appointed. It was on the 6th of October that the convention agreed upon at New Brunswick in May assembled in New York. Rev. Dr. William Smith was made chairman.^ There were representatives of eight States present ; but the present meeting, like that of May, at which it was arranged, was regarded as a voluntary rather than an authorized conven- tion, because, apart from the delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, the members represented no authority from the united churches in the several States, but only held appointments from special congregations. Even the regularly appointed delegates had received authority only to propose and deliberate. The acts of the body, therefore, took the form of recommendation and proposal.- One of the regularly appointed delegates, the 1 See White, " Memoirs of tlic Cluircli," p. S6 ; " Ilalf-century of Legis- lation," vol. iii., pp. 3, 4; Perry, "History of the American Episcopal Church," vol. ii., p. 36 el snj.; Wilson, " Memoir of Bishop White," p. loi et seq. 2 "At a Convention of Clergymen and Lay Deputies of the Protestant 7,^2 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. Rev. John R. Marshall/ from Connecticut, read a paper which declared he had only been empowered to announce that the clergy of Connecticut had taken measures for obtaining the episcopate, and that, until they had suc- ceeded, they could do nothing; but that as soon as they should have succeeded they would come forward with their bishop, ready to do what the general interests of the church might require. The Rev. Samuel Parker, rector of Trinity Church, Episcopal Church in the United States of America, held in New York, October 6 and 7, 1 784. PRESENT AS FOLLOWS : Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Rev. Samuel Parker, A.M. Connectiait. Rev. John R. Marshall, A.M. Ne7i< York. Rev. Samuel Provoost, A.M., Rev. Thomas Moore, Rev. Abraham Beach, A.M., Hon. James Duane, Rev. Ben. Moore, A.M., Maruis Wuxet, \ j. Rev. Joshua Bloomer, A.M., John Alsop, \ Rev. Leonard Cutting, A.M., AWi'' Jersey. Rev. Uzal Ogden, John Chetwood, Esq., John de Hart, Esq., Mr. Samuel Spragg. Pennsylvania. Rev. Wm. White, U.D., Rich. Willing, i Rev. Samuel Magraw, D.D., Samuel Powell, > Esqs. Rev. Joseph Hutchins, A.M., R. Peters, ) Mathew Clarkson, Esq., Delaware State. Rev. Sydenham Thorn; Rev. Chas. Wharton; Mr. Robt. Clay. Maryland. Rev. William Smith, D.D. " N. B. — Rev. Mr. Griffith, from the State of Virginia, was present by permission. The clergy in that State being restricted by laws, yet in force there, were not at liberty to send Delegates, or to consent to any alterations in the Order, Government, Doctrine, or Worship of the Church." (The above note is a copy from the minutes of the assembly.) 1 It was at his house in Woodbury, Conn., that the Assembly of Connect- icut Clergymen (missionaries of the S. P. G.) had nominated Dr. Seabury as bishop (1783). LETTERS TO THE AEW YORK CONVENTION. 333 Boston, who represented both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, also bore a missive from his constituents. They returned the Pennsylvania resolutions, which had been sent them, indorsed, with two suggestions : one, that the first resolution, concerning the independence of the Episcopal Church in this country from foreign eccle- siastical and civil control, was not to be construed so as to exclude an application for the episcopate to some regular episcopal power abroad ; and the other, that in the repre- sentative body of clergy and laity the laity ought not to exceed the clergy, either in their number or their votes. Accompanying the resolutions thus approved were a series of votes by the clergy of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the chief of which was one urging " that a circular letter be written to the Episcopal clergy of Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, urging the necessity of their uniting with us in adopting some speedy measures to pro- cure an American episcopate ; as it is the* unanimous opinion of this convention that this is the primary object they ought to have in view, because the very existence of the church requires some speedy mode of obtaining regu- lar ordination." In the letter transmitting the resolutions and the votes it was said: "It is our unanimous opinion that it is beginning at the wrong end to attempt to organ- ize our church before we have obtained a head ;" and *' as to the mode of obtaining what we stand in such need of, we wish above all things to procure it in the most regular man- ner" and particularly from our mother-church in England." These documents from the East serve to show the very different standpoints from which the various parts of the church approached the problem, and make it all the more remarkable that they should have united so cordially in the " Fundamental Principles of an Ecclesiastical Consti- tution," which was the great achievement of the conven- 334 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. tion. A committee,^ composed of clerical delegates from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts, and of lay delegates from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, was on the first day appointed to formulate some general and fundamental principles of organization, to be proposed for adoption by the churches of the several States ; and it was also desired to frame a proper substitute for the State Prayers in the liturgy for temporary use. It does not appear that this lesser duty- was performed, but the greater was accomplished with substantial unanimity. The report, made on the second day, embodied essentially the principles affirmed by the Philadelphia clergy in May, and was adopted.- It advo- 1 The members of this committee were Rev. Drs. William Smitli and William White, Rev. Messrs. Samuel Parker and Samuel Provoost, together with Messrs. Clarkson, De Hart, Claj', and Duane. 2 The report was as follows : " The Body now assembled recommend to the clergy and congregations of their Communions in the States represented as above, and propose to those of the other States not represented, That as soon as they shall have organized or associated themselves in the States to which they respectively belong, agreeably to such rules as they think proper, they unite in a general ecclesias- tical Constitution on the following fundamental Principles : " I. There shall be a General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. " II. That the Episcopal Church in each State send deputies to the Con- vention, consisting of clergy and laity. " III. That associated congregations in two or more States may send deputies jointly. " IV. That the said Church shall maintain the doctrines of the gospel as now held by the Church of England, and shall adhere to the Liturgy of said Church, as far as shall be consistent with the American Revolution and the Constitution of the respective States. " V. That in every State where there shall be a bishop duly consecrated and settled, he shall be considered as a member of the Convention ex officio. "VI. 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 any measure. " VII. That the first meeting of the Convention shall be at Philadelphia, the Tuesday before the Feast of St. Michael next; to which it is hoped and earnestly desired that the Episcopal churches in the respective States will send their clerical and lay deputies duly instructed and authorized to proceed on the necessary business herein proposed for their Deliberation. " Signed by Order of the Convention, " Wii.t.iAM Smith, D.D., President.''' FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITU'JIONAL PRINCIPLES. 335 cated one general Episcopal Church for the United States, to be constitutionally governed by representatives, clerical and lay, from the church in each State; that this church embody the doctrine and adopt the liturgy of the English Church, so far as consistent with the changed political situation ; that bishops be recognized as ex officio members of the General Convention; and that the concurrence of clergy and laity be essential for the validity of all meas- ures. The first meeting of this General Convention was appointed for the Tuesday before the feast of St. Michael (i.e., September 27th), 1785, at Philadelphia. This action, thought advisory and voluntary, was a timely one. It came in between two significant acts which bore strongly on the future of the Episcopal Church. On the 2d of September of this same year John Wesley had privately, in his bedroom at Bristol, solemnly set apart Dr. Coke as superintendent of the Methodists in America, with authorization to appoint Rev. Francis Asbury to a like position, and to ordain elders for the administration of the sacraments. Hitherto the IMethodists, who now num- bered fifteen thousand members and eighty-three preach- ers, besides several hundred local preachers,^ had held themselves to be a society in the English Church, receiv- ing the sacraments from its clergy. Henceforth they were to formi a separate communion, and remove from even a quasi-ccnnection with the Episcopal Church.- It is doubtful if Mr. Wesley meant more than to impart to Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, in a solemn manner which should compel respect and obedience, a .special superintendence of the American Methodists, like that which he bore to the Methodist societies in England and Ireland. He cer- tainly gave them the power of ordaining elders who should administer the sacraments ; but this he did on the principle 1 Stevens, " History of Metbodism," vol. ii., p. 209 et seq. 2 Tyerman, " Life and Times of Jolin Wesley," vol. iii., p. 434. 336 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. (which in a limited way he practiced in regard to Scotland, and which he had adopted from Lord King) that a pres- byter . might ordain presbyters. As America was now severed civilly and ecclesiastically from England, he as- sumed that he might rightfully do this for those outside the control of the English Church. When, however, these superintendents, a few years later, called themselves bish- ops, Wesley was loud in his protest against it.^ But it was too late. The force and fervor of the whole body were then in full swing. Their administration had the efficiency of the episcopal regimen ; and their religious enthusiasm carried them further and further from any sympathy with the order and moderation of the church from which they came out. No one in America, at the time of the October Convention, knew of this circumstance ; but the action had been taken which, but for this anticipative legislation, might have detached even larger numbers of Southern Episcopalians from the fold. As it was, South Carolina a little later came into connection with the General Conven- tion only on the express stipulation that there should be no bishop in their State. The action was, moreover, timely in relation to Dr. Seabury's consecration, a month later, by the Scotch non- juring bishops. At the time of the Convention it was known that he had not succeeded with the English bishops. It was not known that he would succeed with the Scotch. 1 In a letter to Mr. Asbury, dated September 20, 1788, he says: "You are the elder brother of the American Methodists, as I am, under God, the father of the whole family. But in one point, my dear brother, I am a little afraid you and the doctor differ from me. I study to be little ; you study to be great. One instance of this your greatness has given me great concern. How can you, how dare you, suffer yourself to be called Bishop? I shudder, I start, at the very thought. Men may call me a knave or a fool, ... I am content ; but they shall never, by my consent, call me Bishop. For my sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, put a full end to this. . . . Let Methodists know their calling better." (Tyerman, " Life and Times of John Wesley," vol. iii., p. 438.) PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CALLED. i^\^'] When he returned the next summer to Connecticut it was to no organized diocese, but to a few clergy and churches, whom he was bound, so far as possible, to rule in the spirit and by the forms of the proscribed Scottish prelates who had ordained him. Had there been no other element than this in the national construction of the church, it would have stood to the apprehension of the community as an imported sect, discredited, if not disowned, by the mother of the colonial churches. Whatever service the action in Connecticut might contribute to the final result was largely dependent on its reception by a body with clearly defined principles of legislation, in harmony with the national spirit of representation, and determined to maintain the prestige and traditions of Christianity as embodied in the Church of England. These two events (the breaking off of the Methodists and the establishment of a church hierarchy in Connecti- cut), great as were their effects on the future national church, w^ere as yet unknown and could concern only those interested in the constitutional movement. When the advisory Convention of 1784 adjourned, to prepare for the authoritative and duly commissioned Convention in Philadelphia in 1785, the members left with a sense both of responsibility and anxiety. The Southerners were ap- prehensive that too much would be assumed. The North- erners were solicitous lest too much should be conceded. Dr. White, as prime mover and counselor, was serene and hopeful. At a meeting held at his house (February 7, 1785) by the members of the New York Convention of the preceding October, a Convention of all the clergy and lay delegates of Pennsylvania was called to meet in Christ Church on the 23d of May, " in order to organize the Episcopal Church in this State agreeably to the intentions of the body assembled in New York." At this Convention 338 ■ PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. duly assembled, " An Act of Association of the Clergy and Congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania " was ratified, wherein the name " The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Penn- sylvania " was adopted; an annual Convention with authority was established, pledged in its action to " be consistent with the fundamental principles agreed on at the two previous meetings in Philadelphia and New York " ; and deputies were chosen to the Convention to be held in Philadelphia in September, 1785. On the 1 8th of May, 1785, a convention (having at last been authorized by the act of the General Assembly of the State), consisting of thirty-six clergymen and more than seventy laymen of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, met in Richmond, and passed resolutions appointing dep- uties to the Philadelphia Convention to be held in Sep- tember, 1785. It agreed to the fundamental principles of the proposed constitution, but declined to be bound by Section IV., concerning the doctrine and liturgy, and Section VI., concerning the mode of deliberation and vot- ing.^ It then proceeded to the enactment of " Rules for the Order, Government, and Discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia," by which it was designed to displace some of the English canons. A standing committee was also chosen, and " instructed to consider of 1 In the instructions to the deputies, given with these resolutions, occur tlie following sentences: " Uniformity in doctrine and worship will unques- tionably contribute to the prosperity of the Protestant Episcopal Church. But we earnestly wish that this may be pursued with liberality and modera- tion. . . . From the Holy Scriptures themselves rather than the covenants of men must we learn the terms of salvation. Creeds, therefore, ought to be simple ; and we are not anxious to retain any other than that which is com- monly called the Apostles' Creed. Should a change in the liturgy be pro- posed, let it be made with caution, let the alterations be few ; . . . we will not now decide what ceremonies ought to be retained. We wish that those which exist may be estimated according to their utility ; and that such as may appear fit to be laid aside may no longer be apjjendages of our church." CONVENTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 339 the proper means of obtaining consecration for a bishop to officiate in this church." In Maryland, where, as in Penn- sylvania, a Convention had been lield before the October meeting in New York, another Convention was held subse- quent to it, in the latter part of October, in which, the church in the State having been pre\'iously organized, the relations of the State Convention to the General Conven- tion were defined. After two attempts, a Convention of the clergy and laity of South Carolina was held in Charleston July 12, 1785, to take into consideration the matters recommended by the meeting at New York. It was .sparsely attended, only three clergymen and scarcely half a score of laymen being present. Little was done, either in the way of organizing the church in South Carolina or suggesting action for the deputies of the church at large; but five deputies were chosen, only one of whom was a clergyman. This clergy- man was the Rev. Robert Smith, who declined the ap- pointment, and was replaced by the Rev. Henry Purcell. Smith's reasons for declining were of the noblest. Epis- copacy was in this State distrusted as identified with an undue attachment to the British government. The anti- British sentiment, on account of the fearful ravages of the war, was intense ; and there was danger that patriotic aversion to the church might be increased by its eccle- siastical consolidation. There was a strong probability that the Convention would decline the invitation given by the Convention in New York. Dr. Robert Smith, being the most probable candidate for bishop, should one be chosen, averted the danger by moving compliance with the invitation to join the Convention, on the understanding that no bishop should be settled in the State. He sacri- ficed his own prospects, and was content to appear an opponent of the episcopate to which he was soon to be 340 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. elevated, in order to join South Carolina to the General Convention. After so doing he could not feel that he was the proper representative to advocate a policy which car- ried out his motion, but did not express his sentiments. In New York a Convention was assembled June 22, 1785, scarcely larger than that of South Carolina, consist- ing of five clergymen and eleven laymen, who elected three clerical and three lay delegates to the coming Gen- eral Convention, whom they commended to conform to the general principles already established to regulate their conduct in the matter. In New Jersey the Convention met at New Brunswick, July 6, 1785, consisting of three clergymen and fourteen laymen, and proceeded to elect a delegation of four clergy- men and six laymen to the coming General Convention. These were empowered to accede, on the part of the Convention, to the fundamental principles of the October Convention in New York, and to adopt measures necessary for the general church not repugnant to those fundamental principles. Arrangements were also made for an annual State Convention. At the North a different attitude toward the coming Convention was occasioned by the return (June 30, 1785) of Dr. Seabury, now a bishop. He had met his clergy in convocation at Middletown on the 2d of August, had delivered to them a solemn charge, and had received their address of allegiance. They all felt that the church in Connecticut was fully organized. An invitation had been addressed to Dr. White, and through him to the Southern brethren, to be present at this convocation, for the pur- pose of considering measures tending to the union of the church in the thirteen States. It did not seem advisa- ble to them, in view of the coming General Convention, LETTERS OF PARKER AND SEABURV. 341 to accept it ; and their response was an invitation to Bishop Seabury and his clergy to attend the Convention to meet in Philadelphia in September. This, in turn, it did not seem expedient or proper to the Connecticut clergy to do. The fifth of the fundamental articles set forth in the preliminary Convention at New York did not give to their bishop that official precedence which they held to be his due. Mr. Parker, of Boston, who was present at the Middle- town convocation, had urged Bishop Seabury to attend at Philadelphia, and wrote to Dr. White, a fortnight before the assembling of the Convention, that, had Section V. (as he had proposed) provided that a bishop, if present, should be president of the Convention, he made no doubt one would have been there. In the meantime such slight alterations as had been made in the liturgy at Middletown were in the main adopted by a Convention of clerical and lay delegates from the churches in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. A copy of these proceed- ings, sent by Mr. Parker to Dr. White for the president of the coming Convention, was all the response made to the invitation to attend. Bishop Seabury himself wrote a long letter to Dr. William Smith, and a shorter one to Dr. White, setting forth his sentiments, and criticising the fundamental principles adopted in New York. He for- warded these documents through Dr. Chandler, who had now returned from abroad to New Jersey ; and that worthy divine accompanied the communications with a weighty one of his own. All the letters were fraternal in tone and courteous in language ; they were equally explicit and outspoken in their opinions. They criticised the premature establishment of so many and so precise fundamental rules, the too great curtailment of the episcopal office and dig- 342 PROTESTAXT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. nity, and the admission of lay delegates into the church councils, at least in the degree allowed. With such divi- sion of sentiment, Bishop Seabury could not see that his duty would permit his attendance. Thus it happened that all New England was left out of the first General Convention. Before it assembled, moreover, there came various unfavorable comments from abroad. Bishop Skinner (a consecrator of Bishop Seabury) and the Rev. Jonathan Boucher each carried on a correspondence loudly lament- ing the "busy bustling" of Dr. Smith and the "motley composition " of the proposed Convention. The versatile and voluble Boucher was especially eloquent in his letters to Dr. White, with depreciatory criticisms of the constitu- tional plan of organization, and with strong advocacy of Bishop Seabury's claims and principles. Rev. Alexander Murray, formerly missionary at Reading, Pa., now abroad, and anxious for an American bishopric himself, was copious in his communications, which were filled with complaints and suggestions of that omniscient character which are incident to persons remote from the scene of action. In the meantime Granville Sharpe had sent to his corre- spondent, President Manning, of Brown University, Rhode Island, a protest against both the regularity and validity of Bishop Seabury's orders from the nonjuring prelates. Copies of this protest were placed in the hands of Rev. Samuel Provoost, rector of Trinity Church, New York, for the purpose of laying them before the Philadelphia Con- vention. Dr. Rush, a prominent Presbyterian physician in Philadelphia, and friend of Dr. White, had occasion to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and urged the consecration of American bishops, as the time was fully ripe. Dr. Franklin, also, whose fame and influence abroad were great, interested himself on the same behalf in a THE FIRST GENERAL COXVENTIOX. 343 correspondence with Mr. Sharpe, though he did not see the necessity for the act which others so strenuously urged.^ It was in an atmosphere so charged with opposing tendencies that the first General Convention met. It came together in Christ Church, Philadelphia, on the 27th of September, 1785. It was composed of sixteen clergy- men and twenty-four laymen, representing seven of the thirteen States then existent, namely. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. The large preponderance of delegates was from the two States of Maryland and Virginia, they to- gether having ten of the clergy and fourteen of the laity on their lists.- Rev. Dr. White was chosen president, and Rev. Mr. Griffith, of Virginia, was appointed secretary. The first business was the reading of the " Fundamental Principles" of 1784, and their formal approval, except Section IV., to which the Virginia Convention, by far the 1 He had in the summer of 1784 written from Passy, near Paris, to the young Americans who were in vain waiting for ordination in London: " An hundred years hence, when people are more enlightened, it will be wondered at that men in America, qualified by their learning and piety to pray for and instruct their neighbors, should not be permitted to do it till they had made a voyage six thousand miles out and home, to ask leave of a cross old gentle- man at Canterbury." In the same letter he had shown the chaotic state of his mind in matters ecclesiastical by the following narration : " I applied to a clergyman of my acquaintance for information on the subject of your obtain- ing ordination liere. His opinion was, it could not be done; and if it were done, you would be required to owe obedience to the Archbishop of Paris. I next inquired of the pope's nuncio whether you might not be ordained by their bishop in America, powers being sent him for that purpose, if he has them not already. The answer was, the thing is impossible, unless the gentlemen become Catholics. . . . But what is the necessity of your being connected with the Church of England? Would it not be as well if you were of the Church of Ireland? . . . If both Britain and Ireland refuse you, I am not sure that the bishops of Denmark or Sweden would ordain you, unless you became Lutherans. What is to be done? " 2 Of the clergy, the Rev. Messrs. Provoost of New York, Beach of New Jersey, White of Pennsylvania, Smith of Maryland, Wharton of Delaware, Griffith of Virginia, and Purcell of South Carolina were the most prominent. The more prominent laymen were Messrs. Duane of New York, Dennis of New Jersey, Peters of Pennsylvania, Sykes of Delaware, Craddock of Mary- land, Page of Virginia, and Read of South Carolina. 344 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai". xiii. largest of any which had sent delegates, had objected. Instead of it, a resolution was adopted as follows : " That a committee be appointed, consisting of one clerical and one lay delegate from each State, to consider of and report such alterations in the liturgy as shall render it consistent with the American Revolution and the consti- tutions of the respective States ; and such further alterations in the liturgy as it may be advisable for this Convention to recommend to the consideration of the church here represented." The Sixth Fundamental Principle, to which Virginia had also demurred, was explained as meaning that the deputies were to vote by States and not individually. These Fundamental Principles, as adopted by this Con- vention, became the only bond of union acted under by the church until i 789. The general constitution framed at the present Convention was recommendatory only, requiring ratification by the church in the different States before it became obligatory.^ This was also true of the liturgical alterations, afterward embodied in the " Proposed Book," as well as of the Articles as altered by this Con- vention. The principle embodied much later in the constitution was here acted upon, namely, that the provis- ions of the constitution and all alterations of them must be proposed in one General Convention, announced to the church in the various States, and then be ratified by the subsequent General Convention. On the first day of the Convention a committee was appointed to report a " Draft of an Ecclesiastical Consti- tution for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." To this same committee was subse- quently assigned the duty of preparing the necessary and proposed alterations in the liturgy ; and later still it was 1 White, " Memoirs of the Church," pp. 107, 108. THE ''PROPOSED BOOK:' 345 instructed to prepare and report "A Plan for Obtaining the Consecration of Bishops, together with an Address to the Most Rev. the Archbishops and the Right Rev. the Bishops of the Church of England for that Purpose." The chief labors of the Convention thus fell upon the committee, which was composed of those persons whom we have previously indicated 'as the ruling spirits of the assembly, and of whom Dr. White was unmistakably the leader. By October ist, which fell on a Saturday, the committee reported on the first two subjects ; and the consideration of the liturgical alterations, paragraph by paragraph, was begun, and continued at Monday's session. During the transcription by the clerks of the liturgical alterations on Tuesday, October 4th, the " Ecclesiastical Constitution" was agreed upon, and the address to the English archbishops and bishops was received. This rapid action indicates careful preparation previous to the Con- vention ; but in the case of liturgical alterations a longer time was needed to put them into shape before they could be wisely acted upon. On Wednesday, October 5th, when all the proposed alterations had been read and reviewed, a committee, consisting of Dr. White, Dr. Smith, and Mr. Wharton, was appointed to " publish the Book of Common Prayer with the alterations proposed, as well as those now ratified (in order to render the liturgy consistent with the American Revolution and the constitutions of the respec- tive States), 1 as the alterations and new offices recom- mended to this church ; and that the book be accompanied with a proper preface or address, setting forth the reasons and expediency of the alterations ; and that the committee have liberty to make verbal and grammatical corrections, but in such manner as that nothing in form or substance be altered." This resulted later in the publication of the 1 The parentheses are introduced by the author to make the sense clear. 346 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUKCH. [Chap. xiii. " Proposed Book." The same committee were " authorized to pubhsh with the Book of Common Prayer such of the reading and singing Psahns, and such Kalends of proper lessons for the different Sundays and Holy Days through- out the year, as they may think proper." On the day of adjournment, October 7th, as had been voted by the Convention, the liturgy of the " Proposed Book " was read by Dr. White, and a sermon explanatory of it was preached by Dr. Smith, who was the chief promoter of the changes proposed. These changes were much greater than had been anticipated ; but still they were not so great as those which appeared in the " Proposed Book." Dr. Smith, in his sermon, had said of the committee on alterations in the liturgy, of which he was the ruling member,' " We stood arrested, as it were, at an awful distance. It appeared almost sacrilege to approach the porch, or lift a hand to touch a single part, to polish a single corner, or to clear it from its rust of years." But this proved to be only the rhet- oric appropriate to the occasion. The committee's report included (besides the changes of phraseology in some sentences of the Te Deum and a few of the collects, and the excision of certain repetitions) the abolition of two creeds, the Nicene and the Athanasian ; the omission of one article (on the descent into hell) of the Apostles' Creed ; the reduction of the Articles from thirty-nine to twenty, and the alteration of some which remained ; also selections from the Psalms in place of the Psalter, and changes, in- volving doctrinal comment, in the Offices of Baptism, the Burial of the Dead, the Visitation of the Sick, and the Catechism ; together with other literary variations indica- tive of taste good or bad. Special services were provided, 1 Dr. White was not a member of the subcommittee which undertook the liturgical aUerations. Dr. Smith was chairman of it. THE CONSTITUTION. 347 also, for the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving day. In embodying these changes in the " Proposed Book," still further modifications were introduced, although it had been provided that "nothing in form or substance be altered." As the book was never adopted, never even achieved a passing popularity, and would not even sell, it may seem needless to have dwelt upon it at all. It forms, however, too significant an indication of the temper of the times, whose dangers the wiser counsels of more sober men averted,^ to be hghtly passed by. The really great work of this Convention was " A Gen- eral Ecclesiastical Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." " It had been anticipated in the Fundamental Principles of i 784, and it was changed in several features in 1789; but it is the root out of which the constitutional system of the church has grown, and exhibits the foundation-principles of the present ecclesiastical organization. It is preeminently the work " of Dr. White, who was engaged upon it while Dr. Smith was busied with the liturgical changes. It embodied the principle of one church for the country, to act through deputies from the churches in the several States in the • 1 See White, "Memoirs of the Church," p. 115 et scq., where Dr. White fully criticises and explains the course, which he deemed unwise and unjustifiable, taken in this matter, which, otherwise, from his membership on the committee of publication, he might have been deemed to approve. As an instance, much commented on in regard to the religious looseness of the time, notice ought, perhaps, to be taken of the proposition of Mr. Page in the committee to substitute one short petition for the first four petitions of the liturgy. No one but himself favored it, and he explained that his objec- tion was not to the doctrine, but to the use of the word " Trinity" as an appellation of God in prayer, which, not being a Scriptural term, he deemed undesirable. Should, however, the fourth petition be omitted, the other three might be construed to involve tritheism, and therefore one inclusive petition (what, does not appear), he thought, would obviate the difficulty. This, the most startling proposition made, does not, therefore, stand so much for doctrinal unsoundness as for liturgical rashness. 2 See Appendix B. 348 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. General Convention, which was to meet once in three years. It defined the number of deputies and their mode of voting. It was chiefly remarkable for its insistence on lay as well as clerical representation, and the ex officio membership of bishops, to whom, however, it failed to give official precedence. It provided that clergymen of every order should be amenable to the authority of the Convention of their own State, in regard to suspension or removal ; an article strenuously opposed by the English bishops, as well as by Bishop Seabury, as seeming to in- volve a subjection of the highest order of the ministry to the lower orders and to the laity (a view which Dr. White disclaimed). It provided for the ratification of the Book of Common Prayer as altered ; and set forth a Declaration, essentially in the form at present in use, to be signed by every minister before receiving permission to officiate in this church. This constitution, when ratified by the church in the different States, was declared fundamental and unalterable, save by the General Convention. This whole business of forming a constitution before the accession of the episcopate was justified by the conviction of its practical necessity.^ It was done to prevent the church in different localities from taking different courses in ecclesiastical legislation (and that without schism, as there was as yet no ecclesiastical bond of union) ; to pre- vent the adoption of different liturgies, different articles, or an episcopate from different sources; in fact, to prevent the formation of many independent churches, instead of one communion for the whole country. Its success in this direction confirms the wisdom of its advocates, and especially the statesmanlike prevision of its chief originator. Dr. White. In view of the widely variant principles manifest in separate portions of the country, it is, to quote 1 White, " Memoirs of the Church," pp. 109, no. THE ADDRESS TO THE ENGLISH BISHOPS. 349 Dr. White's own expression, " far from being certain that the same event would have been produced by any other plan that might have been devised." The adoption of the constitution with amendments at the General Con- vention of 1789 created a church, as the simultaneous adoption of the Constitution of the United States created a nation. The Address to the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England/ asking for the episcopal succession at their hands, was also a most important act of the Con- vention. The letter of Bishop Seabury to Dr. Smith had been laid before the delegates, as the author had requested, and its sentiments created some warmth of expression from those of conflicting opinions. The fact that the bishop and the Connecticut clergy had been invited to the Con- vention made it eminently proper that the communication should be heard ; and when this was pointed out the com- motion subsided. The letter, however, had a decided effect on the Address to the English bishops. "The majority of the Convention certainly thought it a matter of choice, and even required by decency, to apply, in the first instance, to the church of which the American had been, till now, a part;" although there had been a repug- nance on the part of some to applying where a refusal had been so constant, and, in Bishop Seabury's case, so recent. The door was open for a Scotch consecration ; but, in view of the sentiments of Bishop Seabury's letter, those inclined to enter it were convinced that it would be better and more available to apply where there would be less stiffness on the points objected to by Bishop Seabury, who reflected the Scotch view of the matter. There was great unanim- ity, therefore, in the application to England. 1 See Appendix C. 350 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. The Address was written by Dr. White, and reflects his character in the dignity and courtesy of its style, and the absence, in all its earnestness and anxiety, of flattery or fawning. It asked what he felt the church had a right to demand. It referred with gratitude to the past and pointed out the necessities of the present. " The petition which we offer to your venerable Body is," it stated, " that, from a tender regard to the religious interests of thousands in this rising empire, professing the same religious principles with the Church of England, you will be pleased to confer the episcopal character on such persons as shall be recom- mended by this church in the several States here repre- sented." It .said, in relation to the political side of the subject, " Our civil rulers cannot ofiicially join in the present application ; but we are far from apprehending the opposition or even displeasure of any of those honorable personages ; and in this business we are justified by the constitutions of the States, which are the foundations and control of all our laws. There had been numerous intimations from various quarters that an application to the English bishops would not be in vain. Granville Sharp, in his letter to Dr. Franklin, while deprecating the consecration of Seabury by the Scotch bishops, had advised an appeal to England. Dr. Murray had declared his belief that a request from a regularly constituted Convention would not be unsuc- cessful. Bishop Seabury, in his letter so distasteful to the Convention, had indicated a way to obviate the diffi- culties he had encountered. With so hopeful a view of the situation, great pains were taken to make the Address successful. It was re- solved by the Convention, " in order to assure their lord- ships of the legality of the present proposed applica- tion, that the deputies now assembled be desired to make FRIENDLY ACTION OF JOHN ADAMS. 35 I a respectful address to the civil rulers of the States in which they respectively reside, to certify that the said application is not contrary to the constitution and laws of the same." In consequence of this, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Virginia, through their chief officers, gave the desired certification ; and the names of Charles Biddle, George Clinton, and Patrick Henry were found appended to the documents from their respective States. John Adams was then minister to the court of St. James ; and his assistance, not officially as foreign minister, but as a private individual of commanding position, was sought in the matter. Though he had no connection with the Episcopal Church, he had previously interested him- self in obtaining ordination from the Danish bishops for several candidates for orders^ who could not, after the acknowledgment of American independence, obtain ordi- nation from the Bishop of London. He had succeeded then, and he now presented the Address of the Convention to the Archbishop of Canterbury in person, and accom- panied it with such explanations and documents as were calculated to forward the object. He afterward took occasion to express his satisfaction that he had been able to be of service in the matter. Undoubtedly he was of great service. Official station had then, as now, great weight in England ; and the fact that Mr. Adams was a Congregationalist gave assurance that no opposition of a civil nature was likely to be aroused by granting the request. In voting the Address the Convention recommended to the Conventions of the respective States to elect bishops for their several jurisdictions, and to provide that their respective bishops be called "The Right Rev. A. B., 1 White, " Memoirs of the Church," p. 17. 352 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in C. D.," and as bishops have no other title. Further, the Convention appointed a committee with various powers, among which was the one of correspond- ing during the recess with the archbishops and bishops of England. It then adjourned (October 7th), to meet again in Philadelphia June 20, 1786.1 The Address was at once sent to England. Much solic- itude was felt as to its reception. Dr. Provoost, who was an ardent patriot and a lukewarm divine, took counsel of his prejudices and his fears, and apprehended much opposition from Bishop Seabury, which apprehension he was not reluctant to express. He was not an unkindly- man; but Seabury's service as chaplain in the royalist army, and his English pension in consequence, together with his intense Toryism, were an offense to him. The offense was heightened by Seabury's acceptance of orders from the nonjurors, whose political views he equally detested, and whose whole ecclesiastical attitude was uncongenial to him. He was a man of learning, having graduated at the first commencement of King's (Columbia) College in 1758, when he transferred his membership from the Dutch Reformed Church, in which he had been bred, to the Episcopal Church, of which Dr. Johnson, the presi- dent, was so ardent an advocate. He afterward studied at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, England, and was ordained deacon and priest in London (1766). At once, on his return, he was made an assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York, from which position he retired during the war, on account of his loyalty, being opposed in poli- tics to the rector and his coadjutors. He had since the war become rector of the parish, being elected thereto immediately after the peace in 1784, when it was the turn l White, " Memoirs of the Church," p. 22. REV. DR. SAMUEL PROVOOST. 353 for the Tory rector to retire. His accomplishments and social geniality made him a conspicuous and popular man in the community, and his nomination as first Bishop of New York seemed to be a foregone conclusion. While he was no devotee, he was never lax in his conduct, and his characteristics as a theologian were akin to those of his per- sonal character. He was a fair specimen of the Georgian divine of the better class. He stood equally aloof from the dogmatic assertiveness of the High-churchmen and the fervent enthusiasm of the Evangelicals. He would prob- ably be classed as a latitudinarian doctrinally and ecclesi- astically ; but he lacked both the philosophical depth and the moral enthusiasm of those of the Cambridge divines designated by that name. He was thus out of touch with the religious elements working in the community where he lived, while as a scholar and social leader he was held in high esteem. His course, therefore, in regard to Bishop Seabury, which was one of unrelenting opposition, polit- ically, doctrinally, and ecclesiastically, is explicable though not excusable. There was not in his case, as in White's, the solicitude of a deep moral earnestness to keep a curb on his prejudices and passions. He made up for his moderation in the church by his animosity against individual churchmen, and came near making church unity impossible. In view of such impetuosity as that of Provoost and such pertinacity as that of Seabury, it is no wonder that Dr. White, speaking of the adjourned meeting of 1786, should say, " The Convention assembled under circumstances which bore strong appearances of a dissolution of the union in this early stage of it." The partisan expectations of Provoost in regard to Bishop Seabury's action were not justified. The latter wrote to Dr. White early in 1786, and, while he still strongly objected to much which he had heard about the 354 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. Convention, said, " I assure you no one will endeavor more to effect the cordial union of the Episcopal Church through the continent than I shall, provided it be on Episcopal principles." ^ Letters were, hovvever, received by Dr. White from Drs. Duche, Alexander Murray, and Charles Inglis, from England, expressing great alarm lest the proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention should prevent, and rightly, a favorable answer from the bishops to the Address. The answer came by the middle of May, and was com- municated to Dr. White by Dr. Provoost, who also laid it before the New York Convention. The adjourned General Convention met in Philadelphia to consider it, June 20, 1786. Seven States were represented. There were four- teen clergymen and twelve laymen present; but of these only eight of the clergy and three of the laity had been present at the meeting in 1785. At this meeting Hon. John Jay, the first chief-justice of the United States, made his first appearance in the general councils of the church. Rev. Dr. Griffith, of Virginia, was made president, and Hon. Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was chosen secretary. The first business in order was the reading and consideration of the letter of the English bishops in answer to the Address sent by the last Convention to them.- It was a friendly but cautious reply. It expressed great interest in the movement to organize an American Episcopal Church, and pledged the best endeavors of the bishops to acquire a legal capacity of complying with the prayer of the Address. It also ex- pressed anxiety concerning the alterations in the formu- laries, of which they had as yet only learned through private channels, and concluded as follows : " While we 1 Beardsley, " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Seabury, D.D.," p. 252. TROUBLES IN THE GENERAL CONVENTION. 355 are anxious to give every proof not only of our brotherly affection, but of our facility in forwarding your wishes, we cannot but be extremely cautious lest we should be the instruments of establishing an ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterward may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially, either in doctrine or discipline." The resolutions passed concerning this letter expressed the trust that the Convention would be able to give such information to the venerable prelates as would satisfy them that no essential deviation from the Church of England had been adopted or intended ; and a committee, consist- ing of Drs. Smith, White, and Wharton, and Messrs. James Parker and Cyrus Griffin, was appointed to draft a reply to the letter. The allusion in the letter to private information of an alarming character seems to have stirred up some bitter feeling among the members of the Convention in regard to the New England element, known to be in opposition. A motion to require the clergy present to declare by whom they were ordained, and one to pledge the Convention to do no act that should imply the validity of ordinations made by Dr. Seabury, were made and lost. But other resolutions were adopted recommending that " clergy- men professing canonical subjection to any bishop in any State or country, other than those bishops who may be duly settled in the States represented in the Con- vention, be not received to a pastoral charge " ; and, again, that no " minister receiving ordination from any bishop residing in America, during the application now pending to the English bishops for English consecration, be admitted as minister in the States represented in the Convention." These resolutions were regarded by many as affronts to 356 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. Bishop Seabury. Dr. White, the author of the first, disclaimed any such intention. Dr. Robert Smith, of course, alluded to him in offering the second. It is but fair to remember, however, that in addition to the irritation produced by the attitude of Connecticut and Massachu- setts, whose clergy, it was feared (though wrongly), were trying to defeat the application to England, great anxiety existed lest a seeming approbation of the Scotch conse- cration should itself defeat the application for English orders ; the relation of the English hierarchy to the non- jurors being what it was. A memorial from the church in New Jersey, said to have been drawn up by Dr. Chandler, was received and referred " to the first General Convention which shall assemble with sufficient powers to determine on the same." This memorial approved of the application to England for consecration, and of the Address in which it had been made. It also approved of the alterations in the Hturgy, in respect to its political changes, which had already been adopted. But it strongly objected to the sweeping changes in the " Proposed Book " yet under consideration, as unseasonable and irregular, and likely to occasion dissension and schisms, and urged that these might prove a fatal obstacle to obtaining bishops of the English succession. While the answer to the letter of the English bishops was preparing, the various amendments to the proposed constitution were adopted, tending to obviate the objection that it degraded the episcopal office. To Section V. the phrase was added, " And a bishop shall always preside in the General Convention, if any of the episcopal order be present." To Section VIII. the words were added, "At every trial of a bishop there shall be one or more of the episcopal order present, and none but a bishop shall pro- REPLY TO THE ENGLISH BISHOPS. 357 nounce sentence of deposition or degradation from the ministry on any clergyman," The " Proposed Book " was authorized to be used by the church in those States which adopted it, until the first General Convention, with sufficient power to ratify a Book of Common Prayer, should assemble. The moral and doctrinal requirements for candidates for ordination and parochial cures were also strengthened and emphasized. The churches in the several States represented in the convention were recommended to authorize their deputies to the next General Convention, after a bishop or bishops had been obtained, to ratify a general constitution. The draft of the reply to the English bishops, composed by Dr. William Smith and amended by Hon. John Jay, was then read and adopted. It acquiesced in the wisdom of the bishops' hesitation to act while doubts existed con- cerning the maintenance of the same essential articles of faith and discipline with the Church of England. At the same time it expressed satisfaction that no other obstacle was likely to stand in the way, as they trusted that the proposed ecclesiastical constitution and Book of Common Prayer, which were now sent, would afiford a full answer to every question which could arise on the subject. They therefore renewed their application with gratitude and confidence, and asked for a speedy answer, as in certain States the church had proceeded to the election of persons to be sent for consecration, and others might soon proceed to the same. When this reply had been signed, the committee on correspondence was empowered to call a General Conven- tion at Wilmington, Del, whenever a majority of It should think fit ; and the Convention adjourned June 26th. Shortly after the adjournment another letter was received from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, written 358 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. after their receipt of the ecclesiastical constitution (as enacted October, 1785) and the "Proposed Book," which had come to hand soon after the adjournment in June. It declared that a bill empowering them to consecrate bish- ops for America had been prepared, and would doubt- less soon be passed by Parliament, notwithstanding their strong dissatisfaction with most of the liturgical changes in the " Proposed Book." They insisted on the restoration of the Apostles' Creed in its integrity, and urged the retention of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, even though the use of them should be left discretional. They required, also, that candidates for episcopal consecration should bring both a testimonial from the General Conven- tion, with as many signatures as possible, and a more particular one from the respective Conventions in those States which recommended them. In regard to the ecclesiastical constitution, they strongly objected to Section VIII., which seemed to render possible the trial of a bishop by presbyters and laymen ; but this had already been in great measure obviated by the amend- ment at the June Convention. Shortly after the receipt of this letter a communication came from the Archbishop of Canterbury inclosing the act of Parliament authorizing the consecration of bishops for America, and announcing that it was decided to consecrate only three bishops. All things were now ripe for the reassembling of the Convention at Wilmington, as had been provided for. It came together on the loth of October, 1 786, at the call of the committee on correspondence, as an adjourned Convention. Before its assembly a num- ber of things had happened which influenced and gave direction to its proceedings, besides the answer of the English bishops. After a voluminous correspondence, Dr. William Smith, with the assistance of Dr. White and THREE BISHOPS ELECTED. 359 Dr. Wharton, had completed and issued the " Proposed Book " ; but from the course taken in regard to it by the various State Conventions, " it was evident that," to quote the words of Dr. White, " in regard to the Hturgy, the labors of the Convention had not reached their object." New Jersey had rejected it. Maryland and Pennsylvania had proposed amendments. Delaware had not acted. New York held its decision in suspense, Virginia had accepted it with the rejection of the rubric concerning the repelling of evil-doers from the communion. South Carolina alone had adopted it entire. New England was lukewarm, and Connecticut was against it. Under such a state of opinion, concessions to the objections of the Eng- lish bishops were not difficult. In the meantime three bishops had been chosen in addition to Dr. William Smith, the Bishop elect of Mary- land. Dr. Griffith had been elected, at the second Con- vention of Virginia (held in May, 1786), bishop of that State ; Rev. Samuel Provoost (made Doctor of Divinity three weeks later by the University of Pennsylvania) had been elected Bishop of New York at the Convention of the church in that State (held June 13th) ; and Dr. William White had, at a special Convention held at Philadelphia (September 14th), been chosen Bishop of Pennsylvania. When the Convention assembled at Wilmington, Octo- ber lOth, Virginia was not represented. Dr. Griffith hav- ing written Dr. White that he thought he had no right to a seat without a new election. Only six, therefore, of the States represented in the June Convention were repre- sented here, and there were only nine clerical and eleven lay deputies present. The chief men, however, were there ; and Provoost of New York, Ogden of New Jersey, White of Pennsylvania, Wharton of Delaware. Robert Smith of South Carolina, and William Smith of Maryland 360 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. fairly represented the opinions, and more than represented the ability, of the clergy of the several States. Rev. Dr. Provoost, Bishop elect of New York, was made chairman in the absence of Dr. Griffith, and the Convention was declared an adjourned meeting of the Philadelphia Conven- tion. The letter of the archbishop and the accompanying act of Parliament were at once considered, and referred to an able committee, whose report was established as "An Act of the General Convention." In this act the commit- tee acceded to the urgent request of the archbishops and restored the Apostles' Creed to its integrity. They also adopted and inserted the Nicene Creed, and made the necessary changes involved in the preface, the rubrics, and the Articles of the " Proposed Book." The Athanasian Creed was rejected almost unanimously.^ The form to be subscribed by bishops, priests, and deacons concerning the Prayer-book was accommodated to the present state of affairs; and the English Prayer-book, as amended in its political parts by the previous Convention, was made the standard until a General Convention with full powers had acted on the liturgy. Section VIII. of the constitution, as amended by the last Convention, having obviated the objection of the English prelates in regard to the posi- tion of the bishops, was retained ; and bishops elect seeking consecration were empowered to sign either the ecclesias- tical constitution or the "Act of this Convention" now forwarded to the bishops in England, together with a letter of thanks for their action, and signed by Samuel Provoost, president. On a call of the States represented, to ascertain 1 Bishop Seabury had, in correspondence with Dr. White, urged the inser- tion of the Athanasian Creed, even if the use of it were left optional, or the damnatory clauses omitted. Dr. Parker, of Massachusetts, who usually agreed with him, opposed its insertion, unless the said clauses were omitted ; and he demurred to the insertion of the " descent into hell " in the Apostles' Creed, afifirming it to be a late addition to the creed, and misleading in its phraseology. (See *' Half-century of Legislation," vol. iii., p. 326.) WHITE AND PROVOOST SAIL. 36 1 whether bishops had been elected by the respective Con- ventions of the same, New York responded with the name of the Rev. Samuel Provoost, D.D., and Pennsylvania with the name of the Rev. William White, D.D., as bishops elect. Their testimonials were signed by the members of the Con- vention in the form prescribed by the archbishops ; and as it appeared that the Convention of Virginia, not represented, had elected and recommended the Rev. Dr. David Griffith as bishop, his testimonials were also signed. A commit- tee of correspondence was appointed, with power to call a General Convention at Philadelphia when a majority of them should see fit ; and the Convention then adjourned sine die, on October iith.i As Bishop George Burgess, of Maine, at a later period remarked, " No assembly of the American church has occupied itself with transactions of greater pregnancy than those which, in October, 1786, were settled by the voices of twenty men in two days." Their rapidity of action was, however, not haste; it was the result of long and earnest premeditation. It brought forth immediate fruit. Three weeks after the Convention adjourned, namely, on November 2, 1786, the two Bishops elect of New York and Pennsylvania embarked for England on the packet " Speedy." Dr. Griffith, of Virginia, did not accompany them, being de- tained by private circumstances ; and it is known that poverty prevented his taking the voyage both now and at a later period. He was never consecrated. Drs. White and Provoost reached Falmouth in less than three weeks, landing November 20th. They were in London Novem- ber 29th, and waited at once on Mr. Adams, the American minister. His cordiality and interest were abundantly 1 The records of the Convention say nothing of Dr. William Smith's appli- cation for testimonials as Bishop of Maryland. If made, it was not granted; and Dr. Smith had no vote in the Convention, because there was no lay dele- gate from Maryland, which made the representation of the State incomplete. 362 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. manifested, though he had no personal interest in the Episcopal Church. He accompanied the bishops elect to Lambeth, the day after their call upon him, and presented them in person to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, in the words of Bishop White, ^ " in this particular, and in ever-y instance in which his personal attentions could be either of use or an evidence of his respect and kindness, continued to manifest his concern for the interests of a church of which he was not a member." Dr. Lowth, Bishop of London, was also visited in his feebleness ; and, after many interviews with the bishops and other clergy. Dr. White could write, early in December, to the standing committee of Pennsylvania, that there was " not the least doubt of our church's having retained the essential doc- trines of the gospel as held by the Church of England." This was predicated of the position held by the " Proposed Book," as amended by the insertion of the unmutilated Apostles' and Nicene creeds. Concerning the omission of the Athanasian Creed, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated to Dr. White, " We sincerely wish that you had retained the Athanasian Creed, but I cannot say I am uneasy on the subject, for you have retained the doctrine of it in your liturgy ; and, as to the creed itself, T suppose you thought it not suited to the use of a congregation."^ In fine, the cordiality and graciousness of the reception of the two American divines could not have been exceeded. They called on all the bishops to thank them for their good offices, and were welcomed everywhere. They were presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the King, who was pleased to reply to Dr. White's brief address of thanks for his kindness in the matter of the consecration, " His Grace has given me such an account of the gentle- 1 White, " Memoirs of the Church" (edition 1880), p. 26. 2 Ibid., p. 134. CONSECRATION OF WHITE AND PROVOOST. 363 men who have come over that I am glad of the present opportunity of serving the interests of rehgion." At last the prescribed formahties were completed, and the eventful day, so long desired, dawned. It was Sep- tuagesima Sunday, February 4, 1787. A little company assembled in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, consisting chiefly of the archbishop's family and household, together with the officiating clergy. At Dr. White's special request, his old rector, Dr. Duche, whom he had now displaced in the rectorship of Christ Church, was present, a token of good- fellowship amid differences so characteristic of all the coming bishops' course. The sermon was preached by Dr. Drake, a chaplain of the archbishop, on 1 Corinthians xiv. 10, and, as Dr. White relates, " had very little refer- ence to the peculiarity of the occasion." Another chaplain read the prayers. It seemed like a private service of the archbishop, with the consecration added. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. John Moore, was the consecrator. The Archbishop of York, Dr. William Markham, was the pre- senter. The Bishop of Bath and Wells,^ Dr. Charles More, and the Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. John Wick- liffe, joined in the imposition of hands. Dr. White, though the younger man and clergyman, and whose elec- tion to the bishopric was subsequent to that of Dr. Pro- voost, was ordained first, ^ because of the English custom of awarding priority to the one who had longest been Doctor of Divinity. Bishop White's doctorate had pre- ceded Bishop Provoost's by several years, and thus he became the first bishop of the English succession in the 1 As the Bishop of Bath and Wells had been the most strenuous in his in- sistence on restoring the omitted article of the Apostles' Creed in the " Pro- posed Book," it was particularly gratifying to the new bishops to have, in his participation in the service, an evidence of his satisfaction and confidence. 2 See Perry, " History of American Episcopal Church," vol. ii., p. 74, note. 364 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. United States, and patriarch of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Momentous as was the service of this day, it seemed almost like a family gathering. The quiet and seclusion of the upper chamber from which the apostles went forth anointed with the Holy Ghost pervaded the whole proceed- ing. Its significance was, of course, dimly apprehended by the chief actors, for they had not the gift of prophecy ; but those who received their commission thus quietly felt the full weight of the occasion, and recorded their prayers for God's blessing upon it. After the family service came the family dinner with the archbishop, in which all the bishops, old and new, partici- pated ; and after strong words of gratitude and confidence on both sides, the young American prelates took their final leave, and the very next day set out for Falmouth, whence they were to sail for home. Though they reached Fal- mouth on the loth of the month, they were detained by contrary winds until Quinquagesima Sunday, February 1 8th, when they embarked. The contrary winds continued, so that they were seven weeks on the voyage, and only reached New York on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, April 7th. They were warmly received, and the hearts of the constitutional churchmen were greatly cheered. The new bishops speedily received the congratulations of those who had sent them and signed their testimonials, but not of those only. Three weeks after their arrival Bishop Seabury wrote a letter of congratulation to each of them, expressing his anxiety for the union and con- cord of the church, and as an evidence of his sincerity inviting them to a convocation of the Connecticut clergy to be held shortly at Stamford, to consult concerning it. Bishop White could not, and Bishop Provoost would not, go ; but Bishop White, in his answer, while saying, " There CONNECTICUT ELECTS A COADJUTOR BISHOP. 365 is nothing I have more at heart tlian to see the members of our communion throughout the United States connected in one system of ecclesiastical government," and showing a disposition to accommodate the revision of the liturgy to a general sentiment, stood firmly by the principles of the ecclesiastical constitution already proposed, especially its feature of lay representation. He pointed out that the approbation of all the Conventions southward, and the acquiescence of the English archbishops and bishops who had consecrated the authors of it, indicated that union could only come along that constitutional line. There were also very friendly and earnest letters from Dr. Leam- ing of Connecticut and Dr. Parker of Boston, all contem- plating union, but not silent concerning obstacles in the way. It had been recognized by the Connecticut clergy, just after the consecrations in England, what a strong advantage would be conferred on the constitutional party by the presence of two bishops in America with the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Canterbury's official act and sanction. They met, therefore, at Wallingford, February 27th, on the call of Bishop Seabury, about three weeks after the English consecrations had taken place, and when the returning prelates were a week out on their return voy- age. Then and there they chose, first, Rev. Jeremiah Teaming, and on his declining. Rev. Richard Mansfield, of Derby, and on his refusal, Rev. Abraham Jarvis, as coad- jutor Bishop of Connecticut. There was no need of an extra bishop, save, to use the words of Rev. Samuel (after- ward Bishop) Jarvis, " to obtain the canonical number of bishops in New England of the Scottish line." Bishop Seabury was very frank about the matter ; and in the letter which he wrote to the Scotch Bishop Skinner, asking his cooperation, he expressed himself as " very 366 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. apprehensive that, should it please God to take me out of the world, the same spirit of innovation in the government and liturgy of the church would be apt to rise in this State which has done so much mischief in our neighborhood. . . . Should this see become vacant, the clergy may find themselves under the fatal necessity of falling under the Southern Establishment." Bishop Skinner replied, on the part of his Episcopal brethren, deprecating the proposed action, but indicating a willingness to act in case " these new bishops either refuse to hold communion with you, or grant it only on terms with which you cannot in conscience comply." ^ Measures were also started to secure the election of Rev. Samuel Parker, of Boston, to the bishopric of Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire (in which region there were now six clergymen), to be similarly consecrated, so that in New England the Episcopal college in the Scottish line might be complete. The correspondence with Bishops White and Provoost was conducted with this proposed final recourse in mind. It came to nothing. There was, after all, a supreme sense of the importance of union, and a desire for it, in all. The efforts of Seabury, Teaming, and Parker were bent toward making the settlement one by the bishops. White and Provoost, and their followers, were committed to making it an act of. the church, repre- sented by all orders of the clergy, together with the laity. The constant plea of New England was. Let the three bishops meet and arrange matters ; and when Bishop Sea- bury made his very last proposition for a consultation, in a long communication to Bishop White, dated June 29, 1 789, it was for the bishops to come together, with certain of their clergy as proctors ; but no faintest indication appeared of the recognition of the laity in the matter. To have 1 " Life of Samuel Seabury, D.D.," pp. 293-298. BISHOP SEABURY'S POLICY. 367 yielded to this request would have been to yield the whole question. Whether cognizant of what had occurred in Connecticut or not, Bishop White was steadfast in his refusal to have Dr. Grifhth, of Virginia, consecrated in this country before the full number of three bishops should have been com- pleted in the English line. Virginia had suggested it, and in the inability of Dr. Griffith (by reason of personal poverty and the slackness of subscriptions to meet his expenses) to go to England, the irregularity might have been overlooked. But instead of this, Bishop White urged upon Mr. Parker, of Boston, that a suitable presbyter be selected for Bishop of Massachusetts and sent to England for consecration. He assigned as a reason " the effecting of a junction with our brethren of Connecticut, who would thus have a bishop of the English succession of their own ecclesiastical views, and with the three thus consecrated Bishop Seabury could cooperate." In the meantime Bishop Seabury was magnif3dng his office in his diocese. He held many and large confirmations. He ordained a number of priests and deacons. In September, 1787, he consecrated the new Church of St. James at New London, of which he was rector, with great pomp, wearing his scar- let doctor's hood, and, for the first time, a miter, which he had imported, and which he wore afterward only on very stately occasions.^ He caused a temporary coolness between himself and Mr. Parker by seeming to assume too impressive a manner, and acted at this time as if impelled to vindicate an office and authority whose validity Bishop 1 " He did not use the miter at first, nor did he bring one with him when he came home after his consecration ; but, when he found many of the non- Episcopal ministers about him disposed to adopt the title of ' bishop ' in derision of his claims, he adopted a miter as a badge of office which they would hardly be disposed to imitate." (See Hallam, " Annals of St. James's Church, New London," p. 73.) 368 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. Provoost and others ventured to doubt, if not assail. It was everywhere an unhappy time. The theological waters were troubled, and not by the stirring of an angel. Only two months after the consecration of Bishop Sea- bury's church, King's Chapel, the oldest Episcopal church in Boston, became irrevocably Unitarian. This change was not so much an illustration of the transformation of species as an ecclesiastical analogy to the habits of the hermit-crab. A new occupant of an old institution changed its character while retaining its form. When the British troops occupied Boston they turned the Old South Meeting-house into a riding-school. After their departure the dispossessed congregation moved bodily into King's Chapel, and worshiped there until their own building could be restored ; the rector and most of the congregation of the chapel having migrated to Nova Scotia on the evacuation of the city by the British troops. During this occupancy by the Congregationalists the churchwardens invited Mr. James Freeman, a graduate of Harvard College in 1777, a young man of twenty-three, to officiate as a lay reader for six months. He was greatly esteemed and beloved, and at Easter, 1783, was chosen pastor, and accepted the posi- tion, having been informed that " the proprietors consent to such alterations in the service as are made by Rev. Dr. Parker, and leave the use of the Athanasian Creed at your discretion." The spirit of Unitarianism was already rife among the Congregational churches of Massachusetts, and Mr. Freeman imbibed it. He soon found the liturgy in its clear statements inconsistent with the faith he had come to hold; and in 1785 the proprietors sustained him in the liturgical alterations he proposed to make, which were such as involved the omission of the doctrine of the Trin- ity. The congregation, however, still counted themselves Episcopalians, for the reason that they held to liturgical DEFECTION OF KING'S CHAPEL. 369 worship; and they desired episcopal ordination for their minister. Mr. Freeman appHed to Bishop Seabury for orders soon after his return from Scotland; but, as his profession of faith was not more definite than that he be- lieved the Scriptures, the bishop declined to confer them. Bishop Provoost was for referring the case to the General Convention, before which it was never brought, as no further effort was made either by Mr. Freeman or his people. On Sunday, October 18, 1787, after evening service, the senior warden, acting (according to genuine Congregational principles) for the congregation, ordained Mr. Freeman to be " rector, minister, priest, pastor, teach- ing elder, and public teacher " of their society. The breach was complete. The first Unitarian society was organized in the building, and continued to hold the prop- erty, of the first Episcopal church ; but it was not formed largely out of the material of the Episcopal body. The claim of the Unitarian society to the possession of the property was finally sustained by the courts, but it was not at the time unresisted. The protest was loud and clear on the part of certain of the original proprietors of the chapel. The few Episcopal clergy of Boston and its vicinity and other parts of the country, including Bishop White, joined vigorously in the protest ; and the whole procedure added fuel to the flames of ecclesiastical ex- citement. The political condition of the country was also greatly disturbed, and affected the atmosphere of the church as well as of the State. The year 1786 had witnessed Shays's rebellion in Massachusetts, and 1787 was occupied in the widespread, violent, and virulent discussion of the proposed Constitution of the United States throughout the country. Excitement charged the air and tended to the expression of extreme statements and the insistence on 370 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. extreme measures. Fortunately, before the General Con- vention of 1789, the political atmosphere cleared consider- ably. The Constitution of the United States was finally adopted by the nine States necessary for its ratification in the summer of 1788. Washington was chosen President, and was inaugurated April 30, i 789. The ecclesiastical outlook also became calmer. Dr. Parker, of Boston, who had been urged by Bishop Seabury to become a third bishop in the Scotch succession, and by Bishop White to become the third in the English succes- sion, proposed a measure to be presented to the Conven- tion, which he hoped would reconcile the opposing sides and result in union. On June 4, i 789, he had secured the election by the six presbyters of Massachusetts and Rhode Island of the Rev. Edward Bass, of Newburyport, to be their bishop ; and in the " Act of the Clergy of Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire " imparted this information to the General Convention in Philadelphia, asking at the same time for the united assistance of the Bishops of New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut in the consecration of Bishop Bass. He thus hoped that, by the practical recognition of Bishop Seabury in an official act, the union of all the churches, so long contemplated, might be effected. This request did soon bring about the recognition and the union desired, but not by compliance with the act requested. It was on Tuesday, July 28, 1789, that the memorable General Convention, whose action was to unite and con- solidate the church, met in Christ Church, Philadelphia. It was a time favorable to such action. The whole national spirit had been attuned to it by the ratification of the Constitution and the election and inauguration of Wash- ington as first President of the United States, only three months before. The ecclesiastical deputies were full of GENERAL CONVENTION OF 1789. 37 1 the national enthusiasm. One of their first acts was to prepare and send an address of congratulation to the Pres- ident of the United States. This Convention falls into two parts, the original assembly and its adjourned meeting in September. The first session, was chiefly given to securing the union of all the Episcopal churches in the country ; the second to such important legislation as a full representation of the whole church could alone adequately enact. When the Convention first met, only the seven States previously represented were present by deputies, namely, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- land, Virginia, and South Carolina; and Virginia had no clerical delegate. Seventeen clergymen, inclusive of Bishop White, and sixteen laymen constituted the body. Bishop Provoost was detained by illness at home ; and, as there could be no separate House of Bishops, Bishop White was the presiding officer of the Convention. Official in- formation was received from Virginia that Dr. Griffith had relinquished his election to the bishopric. The deputies, being called, all gave information that they came fully authorized to ratify a Book of Common Prayer. A com- mittee was appointed on the proposed constitution and amendments to it; and then came the presentation of the "Act of the Clergy of Massachusetts and New Hampshire " in the election of Rev. Edward Bass to the episcopate, with the request for his consecration by the three bishops. The very full letters of Bishop Seabury to Bishop White and Rev. Dr. William Smith were laid before the Convention, upon which it was resolved unanimously " That it is the opinion of this Convention that the consecration of the Right Rev. Dr. Seabury to the episcopal office is valid." So far a? the Convention could act without destroying its own validity, the right hand of fellowship was now extended. 372 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. It remained to be seen whether the Bishop of Connecticut would grasp it, seeing that the obnoxious lay element formed part of the Convention which solicited his presence. Even before this vote the Convention had practically set-' tied the point of the validity of the Scotch consecration by admitting as deputies men like the. Rev. Joseph Pilmore, of Pennsylvania, who had been ordained by Bishop Seabury. The Convention, however, went much further than either this act or the resolution recorded. It adopted the resolutions reported by the committee of the whole, to whom had been referred the "Act of the Clergy of Massachusetts and New Hampshire." These resolutions affirmed : " First, That a complete order of bishops, derived as well under the English as the Scots line of episcopacy, existed in the United States in the persons of the Bishops of Penn- sylvania, New York, and Connecticut [who were men- tioned by name]. " Second, That these three bishops are competent to every proper act and duty of the episcopal office, including the consecration of other bishops and the ordaining of priests and deacons, and for government under the canons and constitution of the church, as such are or may be deter- mined. " Third, That the just and reasonable requests of any of the sister-churches in the United States should, as far as possible, be met by the Convention ; and therefore, " Fourth, That Bishops White and Provoost are requested to unite with Bishop Seabury in consecrating Rev. Edward Bass, as requested by the 'Act of the Clergy of Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire.' " Fifth, That the Convention will address the English archbishops and bishops with a view to obviating any difficulty which may exist in regard to such action." PARKER'S PROPOSITION CONCERNING BASS. 373 The unanimous adoption of these resolutions disclosed the mind of the Convention in regard to Bishop Seabury. It was, however, a cause of embarrassment to Bishop White, who, as chairman of the Convention, could neither speak 'nor vote. No one was more identified with the spirit and intent of the resolutions than he. In regard to the act requested he had very serious misgivings. At the time of his consecration it had been the purpose of the archbishop to consecrate three bishops for America, in order to complete the canonical number necessary for the regular consecration of future bishops. On account of the absence of Dr. Griffith only two were consecrated; and Bishop 'white felt that the purpose of estabhshing the canonical number in the English succession ought to be fulfilled before an episcopal consecration could be ven- tured upon. To his mind that purpose implied a promise that it should be so. Bishop Provoost considered the promise not only implied, but pledged. Stoutly opposed to the Scotch succession, he had no hesitation in refusing the Convention's request. But White was, of all men, most anxious for the union of Seabury with the church. He was fully convinced of the validity of his orders, and yet he could not seem to disregard the intention of those at whose hands he had received consecration. The relations of the Enghsh bishops to the nonjurors were most delicate. They could not legally recognize those who were proscribed by the state. He did not wish, therefore, that they should be asked to decide the question started by the Convention. Delicacy forbade its being brought before them. In justice to them no consecration ought to take place until three bishops in the Anglican line could take part in it ; otherwise they might be brought into politi- cal complications at home. The mind of the committee, however, had been fully revealed, and the way laid open 374 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. for union. They went further still. They enacted a body of ten canons/ which showed marked respect to the Episcopal office. They adopted the constitution, with such alterations in that of 1786 as allowed (in Section II.) a representation of a church by clerical members only, and (in Section III.) provided for a special and separate House of Bishops when there should be three of that order. This was to exist as a house of revision for acts passed in the General Convention, and its non-concurrence could defeat legislation unless overcome by a three-fifths vote of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies. This, though it seems little in comparison with subsequent legislation, was a distinct advance on the positions of the past. The Address to the archbishops and bishops of the English Church, asking for their concurrence in the pro- posed consecration of a bishop for Massachusetts and New Hampshire by the three bishops, contained a full account of all the letters and proceedings connected with the request, as the best argument for granting it, and it was officially signed and sent. Dr. Griffith, the first Bishop elect of Virginia, had died a few days after the assembling of the Convention, and his funeral had been attended by all its members. Dr. WilHam Smith, as was inevitable, preached the funeral sermon, and the whole proceeding tended to subdue and mollify any recalcitrant feeling. Having done so much, by resolutions and addresses, by the enactment of canons and the establishment of a con- stitution, the Convention determined on a recess to see if union could not be actually and at once accomplished. A proper committee was appointed to forward the address to the English prelates, to send the necessary answers to Dr. 1 See Appendix C. SEABURY CONSENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 375 Parker and the Eastern clergy, to answer Dr. Seabury's letters, and to forward to him, as well as to the archbishops, the minutes of the Convention, and to notify him and the Eastern clergy, not represented in the Convention, of the time and place of its adjournment, and to invite them to attend at its next session. The Convention then adjourned, August 8th, to meet September 29th, requesting Bishop Provoost, who had hitherto been absent, to preach the opening sermon at the coming session. The thirteen days of the session had caused the spirit of union to grow apace. No sooner had the adjournment taken place than both the committee of correspondence and the Rev. Dr. Smith personally communicated to Bishop Seabury what had been done, pointing out the special features of legislation intended to conciliate him and smooth the way for his union with the Convention, and expressing their most cordial wishes for so propitious a result. The Bishop of Connecticut could no longer hesitate. He had not gained all he wanted, nor all that he thought important for the welfare of the church; but he clearly saw in the disposition manifested by what had been done a promise of better things, according to his notion, in the future. He perceived, with the New Eng- land shrewdness in which he was not deficient, that the power of the church and the influence of its bishops would be increased a hundredfold by such a union as was now possible, over a provincial Scottish New England hier- archy, with the real successor of the English Church standing as a rival in the Middle and Southern States. Ardent Tory as he was, the appeal to nationalism at last found echo in his mind and heart. He could hope, at least, to preserve the one church from ecclesiastical disin- tegration, with which he feared it was threatened at the 376 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. South, and perchance, after his death, at the North ; and he could try, at least, to mold its manners and amend its speech. He wrote at once to Bishop White on receipt of the communication, " I will, God permitting, most willingly join you at your adjourned Convention the 29th of Sep- tember." He promised, if possible, to bring a couple of clerical deputies, and expressed himself cordially to both his correspondents. Bishop Provoost, on the other hand, was much offended and dismayed. He declared that the New York dep- uties had gone contrary to their instructions in favoring the constitutional provision allowing a church to be rep- resented by clerical deputies only, and by signing the Address to the English prelates, asking sanction for allow- ing the bishop of Scotch consecration to act as the third bishop in consecrating Mr. Bass. He declared that the absolution of the archbishop would not absolve his con- science, and expressed alarm lest the constitution of the church were in danger. He would not preach before the adjourned Convention, nor even attend it. That Convention reassembled Wednesday, September 30th. Bishop Seabury was on hand with two clerical delegates, Abraham Jarvis and Bela Hubbard, from Connecticut. Dr. Samuel Parker was present also, as deputy from the churches of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. All New England was thus represented. The Convention at once declared that, for a better promotion of a union of this church with the Eastern churches, the general constitution was still open to amendment; and a committee was appointed to confer with the deputies of the Eastern churches concerning such union. As a re- sult, Section HI. of the constitution was so amended as to give the House of Bishops " a right to originate and pro- NEW ENGLAND JOINS THE CONVENTION. 377 pose " acts for the concurrence of the House of Deputies, and also " a negative on the acts of the House of Deputies, unless adhered to by them by a four-fifths vote." It was also resolved to advise the several State Conventions that the next General Convention would consider the propriety of conferring on the House of Bishops a full veto power over the proceedings of the House of Deputies. This oc- curred on the third day of the Convention (October 2) ; and on the same day the Bishop of Connecticut, with the two clerical delegates from that State, together with the clerical delegate from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, signed the following statement: "We do hereby agree to the constitution of the church, as modified this day in Con- vention." This act occurred in the State-house, where the Constitution of the United States had been previously signed ; the Convention having the day before removed its sitting from Christ Church to that place with the permis- sion of the president of the State. Thus, by the ordering of Providence, out from the walls already consecrated to political liberty and union there came forth a national church committed to conserve re- ligious liberty by its union, and engaged to discard and disown the perpetuation and incorporation of separate ec- clesiastical cliques, set to emphasize disagreement and to stir up strife. The whole history of the proceedings which led up to this happy consummation indicates the nature of the ecclesiastical organization to which our fathers set their seal. Its realization would have been impossible without the submerging of mutual differences and the recognition of mutual rights. Theirs was in its true sense the church idea of unity regnant amid diversity, in contradistinction to the sect idea of unity submerged in diversity. This idea it guarded in its constitution and guaranteed to all who accepted its fundamental features. Within the realm 378 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. of its law no proscription of parties is valid while those parties recognize its law. The divergent tendencies exist- ent in those who framed the ecclesiastical body have often since been developed in extreme antagonism ; but no right of excision of one party by another is recognized by the constitution which binds them both together. Loyalty is not measured by opinions, nor dependent upon theories. Ecclesiastical and theological variations are legally permis- sible so long as the creeds and the constitution are not con- tradicted. Liberty and union are the watchwords of the church as well as of the State. The day after the accession of New England to the church the Convention met in two houses, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. Three bishops now existed, and the absence of one of them was not held to obviate the right of the other two to meet apart from the Lower House. On Monday, the 5th of October, 1789, the House of Bishops held its first session in the com- mittee-room of the House of Assembly. The rule pre- pared by Bishop White was adopted, that the bishop first consecrated should preside; and Bishop Seabury was in consequence the chairman of the House of two. There, then, the two, who met for the first time in this Conven- tion, sat together at last to consult and to contemplate each other, the ecclesiastical anatomist confronting the ecclesiastical physiologist ; one insistent on the accuracy and integrity of the frame, the other intent on adjusting tissue, muscle, nerve, and sinew to the national environ- ment; each bent on securing certain functions deemed indispensable for the body, each willing, if it must be, to yield preferences which were yet dispensable. From con- victions and conceptions so different, had it not been for the genuine goodness and courtesy of both, there could only have issued contention and strife. As it proved, the THE PRAYER-BOOK. 379 peace and permanence which followed were quite as much the result of moral earnestness and spiritual devotion as of polemic argument or ecclesiastical assertion.^ The chief business of both houses was now the final preparation of a Prayer-book. No effort for the accept- ance of the " Proposed Book " was made. Dr. Parker, of Massachusetts, representing as he did the general sen- timent at the North, though one of the few who had largely used the " Proposed Book," urged that the Eng- lish Prayer-book should be made the ground of the pro- ceedings, without any reference to the book tentatively set forth in 1785. This course was not formally adopted, the resolutions being so worded as to imply that there was no book of authority in existence. This Bishop White deemed discourteous to the "Proposed Book," which had been recommended, and in one service used, by a previ- ous Convention ; and dangerous, as it involved liberty for a complete and independent construction of a liturgy, in- stead of the alteration of one already existent. It also changed the force of a negative of the bishops to any proposed office. For the veto of a wholly new ofifice involved the exclusion of any office for that occasion; whereas the veto of a proposed alteration of an existing office would simply have the force of retaining the office in its original form. All danger was averted by the gen- eral disposition of the committee to depart as little as pos- sible from the English Prayer-book, though theoretically they proceeded to make a book, not to alter one. The preparation of a Prayer-book was assigned to five committees : one on the Calendar and Tables of Lessons, 1 Outside the Convention there was a threatened disturbance of the har- mony within from the objections of some deputies to Bishop Seabury as the recipient of a pension as former chaplain in the British army. Bishop White quieted the matter by showing that it involved no civil disability, and should not, therefore, prove an ecclesiastical obstacle. 380 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. with the Collects, Epistles, aad Gospels ; another on the Morning and Evening Service ; a third on the Litany and Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings ; a fourth on the Order for the Administration of the Holy Communion ; and a fifth to report in what manner the Psalms should be used. The reports of each committee, when adopted, were transmitted to the House of Bishops, from whence they were returned with amendments. From the bishops were received, in the first instance, thfe various special offices to be adopted for use in the American church. The alterations, other than those of a political nature, were mainly verbal, together with the omission of repetitions; the addition of Selections of Psalms, to be used at the discretion of the minister; an Office for the Visitation of Prisoners, from the Irish Prayer-book ; a service of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Fruits of the Earth, from the " Proposed Book " ; and an Order of Family Prayer. Be- sides these, Bishop Seabury secured in the Order for the administration of the Holy Communion the restoration to the Consecration Prayer of the Oblation and Invoca- tion found in King Edward VI. 's First Prayer-book, and retained essentially in the Scotch office. The deliberations were conducted with great harmony ; and the result was the setting forth of the Book of Com- mon Prayer, to be in use from the 1st of October, 1790; which book was in use, with certain subsequent additions to its offices, until displaced by the revision which was brought to a close by the ratification of the Convention of 1892. The adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles of Re- ligion, though proposed by the bishops, was referred to the consideration of a subsequent Convention, and they were not established until 1801. The Athanasian Creed was rejected altogether by the House of Deputies, though Bishop White, who disliked it, and avowed his purpose OMITTED RUBRICS. 38 I never to read it, was willing to concede to the Bishop and clergy of Connecticut the right to print it in the Prayer- book, with a rubric permissive of its use. The Lower House would not have it in any shape. A number of rubrics of the English Prayer-book were omitted, not as impugning their propriety for England, but as indicating that they cease to have the force of law for America.^ The two most conspicuous instances of these omissions are the celebrated Ornaments Rubric, which was then obsolete or obsolescent in the English Church, and the so-called Black Rubric, concerning the adoration of the elements, at the end of the Communion Office. Too great reverence for the sacraments, or too frequent use of the service, were not the dangers prevalent in America at that time ; and no one then dreamed of the restoration of vestments and ornaments which has since been made by the modern construction of the Ornaments Rubric. The happy deliverance of the Episcopal Church in America from dependence on the decisions of English ecclesiastical courts in such matters was achieved by a simple omission of the rubric from the formularies. These omissions, and other special features of the Prayer-book as now adopted, 1 Hon. Murray Hoffman, in " The Ritual Law of the Church," p. 135, takes this position in regard to the Ornaments Rubric: " But our church in 1789 omitted this rubric. Nothing can be more clear than that such omis- sion was equivalent to a declaration that it should not constitute part of our law." The only rules concerning clerical vestments adopted by this first or any other General Convention are included in the rubrics in the Form of Ordain- ing or Consecrating a Bishop, and those of Making Deacons and Ordering Priests. In regard to the bishop, the rochet is prescribed, and then the rest of the episcopal habit, referring to the costume universally prevalent then in the Anglican communion. In regard to candidates for the diaconate or priest- hood, it is simply said, " Each of them being decently habited." This is a phrase which is capable of wide construction, but in its time and place it re- ferred apparently to the surplice or gown and bands, then the universal vest- ments of the clergy, and which were referred to as the proper ecclesiastical apparel of officiating clergymen by the House of Bishops in 18 14. (See " Half-century of Legislation," vol. i., p. 431.) 382 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. show clearly that the changes involved were not consid- ered to be inconsistent with the declaration, in the admi- rable preface,^ that " this church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship, or further than what circumstances require" ; they are merely special instances of the exercise of the right claimed, in the same preface, " to establish such other alterations and amendments therein as might be deemed proper." This same sentiment appeared later, when, in the Con- vention of 1 8 14, the identity of the Protestant Episcopal Church with the Church of England was declared, in which declaration it is said : " The church conceives herself as professing and acting on the principles of the Church of England; . . . but it would be contrary to fact were any one to infer that the discipline exercised in this church, or that any proceedings therein, are at all dependent on the will of the civil or ecclesiastical authority of any foreign country." The Convention thus felt amply competent, in restoring to the Apostles' Creed the clause concerning the descent into hell, to prefix the rubric allowing the omis- sion of its use, or the substitution for it of the phrase " he went into the place of departed spirits." The changes introduced show that the identity with the mother-church to be maintained must consist in oneness of spirit rather than in exact conformity to the letter. They are an inter- pretation of the meaning of the preface, and illustrations of what its declarations may involve. Besides the changes of discipline already indicated, the Convention acted in regard to hymnody and other mat- ters pertaining to the liturgy. The Psalms in meter, and twenty-seven hymns, the foundation of later hymnals, were 1 This preface is essentially that of the " Proposed Book," and was written by Rev. Dr. William Smith, of Maryland. THE COMMUNION OFFICE. 383 set forth ; the canons were increased by the enactment of eight, requiring the exclusive use of the Prayer-book as established, stating the duty of the clergy in regard to epis- copal visitations, directing the censure of notorious crimes and scandals, enforcing the sober conversation required in ministers, providing for the due celebration of Sundays, the preparation of a regular list of the clergymen of the church, and giving notice of the induction and dismission of incumbents.i By far the most influential and significant change in the Prayer-book was by way of addition. It occurred in the most sacred office of all, the Order for the Administration of the Holy Communion, and was the work of Bishop Seabury, being the result of his concordat with the Scotch bishops, his consecrators. It consisted in placing the words of Oblation and Invocation immediately after the words of Institution, giving a completeness to the office which not only adds greatly to its solemnity and beauty, but also gives clearness to the doctrine embodied in it. The Invo- cation comes after the Oblation, and clearly discriminates 1 One or two minor changes in the service are indicative of special and local consideration. The Litany is appointed to be read after the Prayer for the President. This is said to have been the act of Rev. Dr. William Smith, to whom the preparation of the book was intrusted. The reason given was that President Washington never attended church of an afternoon, and so would never hear the prayer if the Litany came in before it. Another reason may have well suggested the unauthorized change, the fact being that, unlike the English service, there is no sufTrage for the President in the American Litany, and no prayers for rulers in the "Antecomniunion Office," save in the Prayer for the Church Militant, not always used. To secure constant ]5rayer for the President the collect must invariably form part of the Order of Morning Prayer. The rubric allowing the use of the " Antecommunion Office " ' ' where Morn- ing and Evening Prayer are appointed to be said," as well as "at the right side of the Table," is said to have been put in for the accommodation of Bisho]~> White, the chancel of St. Peter's Church, where he officiated, being at the east end of the church, while the reading-desk and pul]3it are at the west end. To be saved the conspicuous walk along the broad aisle would be consonant with the shyness and modesty of Bishop White, and so the rubric was made to read as at present. 384 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiii. the effect of consecration from transubstantiation, by call- ing the elements already consecrated and offered " thy creatures of bread and wine," and supplicating the aid of the Holy Spirit that the partaking of the outward sign may be effectual to the reception of the inward reality sig- nified. It is by word and act the practical realization of the doctrine of the Catechism and the Articles that " the Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." The Convention of 1789 adjourned on the i6th of Octo- ber, after appointing a standing committee authorized to recommend to the bishops the calling of special meetings of the Convention, if necessary, and recording their opinion that the bishops have a right to call special Conventions when they think proper. The adjournment thus found the church fully organized. The Convention in both houses had established its con- stitution, canons, and liturgy. It had not undertaken to create the functions of bishop, priest, or deacon, but it had undertaken to regulate the exercise of those functions according to established law. Thus the church took the form of a consdtutional, not merely of a traditional body. The powers of all the orders within it were guaranteed and limited by express enactment. In its creeds and ministry it stood catholic and primitive. As an American eccle- siastical organization it established its own constitution and canons.^ 1 Hoffman, " The Ritual Law of the Church," pp. 379, 380. CHAPTER XIV. A PERIOD OF SUSPENDED ANIMATION AND FEEBLE GROWTH (l 789-18 II). The history of the Protestant Episcopal Church after its complete organization in 1789 falls naturally into four periods. The first, extending" from 1789 to 181 1, may not inaptly be styled "A Period of Suspended Animation"; the second, from 181 1 to 1836, "A Period of Aroused Self-consciousness and Aggression " ; the third, from 1836 to 1865, "A Period of Internal Conflict," arising from vigorous life and mutual misconception ; the fourth, from 1865 to 1895, "A Period of Positive Advance," founded on mutual recognition. The first period, from 1789 to 1811, which we have en- titled "A Period of Suspended Animation," was not with- out its marked features, nor was it altogether devoid of im- portant action. The bishops and deputies, clerical and lay, did not return to their homes from Philadelphia simply to congratulate themselves that a church had been organized. But the temper of the time and the profound difficulty of adapting new institutions to the crude conditions of a new nation were shared alike by church and state. The political atmosphere was charged with political passion. The ad- ministrations of Washington and Adams and Jefferson were rife with personal acrimony and turbulent partisan- ship. Even the Presidents and their associated counselors did not escape the shafts of malice and detraction. It was 385 386 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, xiv, the " storm and stress " period of a young nation which did not understand how to adapt its inherent forces to its new possession of authority, and whose inexperience and unregulated enthusiasm deprived it of the calmness and sobriety which are the issue of established character and recognized achievement. An intense and unusual interest in politics absorbed the public mind. The church was re- manded far back into the shadow. The spirit of irreligion and infidelity, moreover, was widespread, a not unnatural result of eight years of war and of the incoming of conti- nental influences. Paine represented the vulgar, and Jefi"er- son the philosophical skepticism. All ranks of life felt the benumbing influence. To hold its own was in itself an achievement for the church. The Protestant Episcopal Church, notwithstanding its new name and constitution, was popularly regarded as an English institution, and distrusted or hated accordingly. Anti-British feeling, deepened by the unpopular Jay treaty, and culminating in the War of 1812, pervaded the ecclesi- astical as well as the political world. The church's salient features, of a graded ministry with a sort of kingly officer in its bishop ; a vested clergy, indicative of an aristocracy ; and a liturgical worship, suggesting a court ceremonial, and not to be distinguished by the common mind from formal devotion — all these apparent features made a far deeper impression than the fact of lay representation in a trien- nial Convention, or the restriction of bishops to spiritual jurisdiction. The church, in fine, was misunderstood in its temper and spirit ; and had it been at that time under- stood, it would not have been better liked. The religious sentiment of the day demanded more fervor of personal expression in worship, more definite and insistent state- ment in doctrine concerning religious experience and meta- physical theology, more direct and intrusive personal dis- FAULTS OF THE CHURCH. 387 cipline in regard to the conduct of communicants, than the Episcopal Church offered. The prevaiHng rehgious temper was largely subjective. The liturgical tone of the church was largely objective. The very features which constitute its abiding value and influence tended in this period to depreciate both. And it cannot be said that the church was only mis- understood. Its own faults, as well as popular misappre- hension, hindered its advance. It was nowhere a type of vigorous earnestness or aggressive spirituality. It was de- fending its right to be by its antecedents, instead of prov- ing its right to be by its apostolic fervor and practical achievements. It stood by its guns, but it did not train them eflectively on the enemies of ungodliness and unbe- lief. The energy which had brought the child to the birth seemed unequal to its nurture and training. The church's course for a long period was marked with all the obstinacy of a weak mind and a strong constitution. The preacliing of the clergy was ethical rather than spiritual. The de- parture of the Methodists at the South had left the church there in a sort of respectable torpor ; and the Congregation- alists and Presbyterians of the Western and Middle States stood aloof on both patriotic and ecclesiastical grounds. No summons to the church was likely to be listened to which, like that of the loyalist Bishop Seabury to the patriotic Congregationalists of Connecticut, called on them to " relinquish the errors their fathers had through preju- dice most unhappily imbibed." The records of the General Conventions of this period show the paucity of growth by the slender representation of the churches. The two bishops and twenty clergy- men and sixteen laymen of the Convention of 1789. are augmented by only five clergymen and four laymen in the Convention of 181 1, a period of twenty-one years. The 388 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. number of bishops had been increased from time to time, but their attendance had only once been as large as five ; and the clerical representatives up to 1811 had but once numbered twenty, while the lay delegates had rarely ex- ceeded half a score. An epidemic had cut ofif the repre- sentatives of New England from the Convention of i795- The same cause prevented a meeting of Convention in 1 798, and reduced the attendance at the special Conven- tion of I 799. In fact, the General Convention, which it had cost so much to constitute and inaugurate, lagged from lack of interest, begotten of the debilitated condition of the churches in the several States. That condition was in many regions deplorable, espe- cially so at the South, where the church had once been supreme. In May, 1 790, Virginia elected Rev. James Madison, D.D., president of the College of William and Mary, bishop of the church in that State; and he went to England, where he was consecrated, September 19, I 790, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London and Rochester. He was a most creditable representative of the church, a man of fine character, a good scholar, an eloquent preacher, and a gentleman of the colonial type. But he fell upon times difficult and dispiriting, and his collegiate duties distracted his attention from his diocese. He returned from England immedi- ately after his consecration, and at once entered earnestly on the duties of his bishopric, giving, in his first charge to his clergy, an ardent exhortation to devotion and righteous- ness of life, and tracing much of the misfortune which had befallen the church to the lack of fervent Christian zeal in its ministry. He had a broader mind in regard to church comprehension than almost any man of his day. He proposed, in the General Convention of 1792, a plan for comprehending the Methodists within the fold, which CHURCH DECLINE IN VIRGINIA. 389 the bishops agreed to, but which the Lower House re- jected as disorganizing. In his own diocese he had seen the spiritual depletion of the church following the depar- ture of the Methodists from it ; and, marking the low ebb of religion everywhere, he longed for the union of all be- lievers as a means of resisting and overcoming the indiffer- ence and ungodliness of the times. In his own Diocesan Convention of i 793 he referred to his rejected scheme with regret, and spoke of union and comprehension quite in the modern spirit of the Chicago Convention and the Lambeth Conference. His counsels and his labors, though aided by many earnest clergy and faithful laity, were not generally effective. The spoliation of the church by the selling of the glebes for the benefit of the State was accomplished in 1802, and seemed to take all heart out of the communion. The clergy were impoverished. Church buildings and communion-plate and baptismal fonts met, though with- out legal warrant, the fate of the glebes. The ministry diminished in number, services ceased to be held, and the old church lost her hold on her children. The lethargy of despair ensued. The bishop himself, noble man that he was, lost heart. He busied himself with his college duties, and gradually discontinued the visitation of his diocese. From 1 805 to 181 2 no Convention was held in Virginia. When the parishes became vacant they re- mained so for lack of clergy. Only one ordination, and that an unworthy one, had taken place in many years. Chief-Justice Marshall, a devout churchman, thought the church too far gone ever to be revived ; and when Mr. Wil- liam Meade offered himself at Williamsburg in 181 1 for ordination, universal surprise was expressed that a gentle- man, college bred, should apply for orders. A party of family relatives, consisting of two ladies and fifteen gen- tlemen, formed the entire congregation at the ordination 390 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. service. The students, with dogs and guns, passed the dilapidated church scornfully by, bent on the chase, hav- ing recently debated the questions " whether there be a God," and " whether Christianity had been injurious or beneficial to mankind." When, after Bishop Madison's death in 1812, a special Convention was assembled in 18 13 to elect a successor, only seven clergy and eighteen lay- men, representative of fourteen parishes, could be gathered together. Virginia was the most flagrant illustration of church de- cline ; but other regions of the South were not much more hopeful. In Maryland and Delaware nearly half the par- ishes were vacant. A spirit of indifference to religion was everywhere manifest. Never were ministers more needed ; never were they more difficult to obtain. There were no seminaries to educate them ; and clerical support in par- ishes, when it existed at all, was most meager. Maryland in 1 792 elected a bishop in the person of Rev. Dr. T. J. Claggett ; and the deputies from that State re- quested his consecration from the whole House of Bishops. It was accorded ; and there being the canonical number of three bishops of the English succession, Bishop Provoost (who, as presiding bishop that year, was consecrator) did not press an objection to Bishop Seabury's making a fourth, though the latter suspected that he would, and warned Bishop White of the consequences if he did. These were to be nothing less than the secession of New England from the Convention. Personally Bishops Provoost and Sea- bury had met and become acquainted at the meeting of the Convention in New York, the Bishop of Connecticut making the first advances by calling on the bishop of the diocese in which the Convention was assembled. There was social politeness, but no ecclesiastical cordiality. The ser- vice of consecration, however, took place in Trinity Church, THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH. 39 1 New York, September 12, 1792, all the bishops joining in the imposition of hands, and thus completing the recogni- tion of the Scotch consecration, and joining the orders so obtained to all subsequent American ordinations. This fifth bishop in the United States, and first of Mary- land, could not accomplish much in his diocese. He was laborious and earnest both as a diocesan and a rector, which two offices he held together ; and he was born and bred in Maryland, and thoroughly understood the situation, but the crudities of the time and place were not to be conquered in one episcopate. Later, indeed, violent dis- sensions broke out, after Bishop Claggett had gone to his rest. In North Carolina, farther south, efforts were made, at the suggestion of Bishop White, to organize the church as early as i 790 ; but no Conv^ention was held in the State until late in 1793, when three clergymen and three laymen met together at Tawborough. The state of the church was represented by them as " truly deplorable, from the paucity of the clergy and the multiplicity of opposing sectarians." The next year (1794) a constitution was prepared and a bishop elected, namely, the Rev. Charles Pettigrew, who was never consecrated. On his way to the General Con- vention of I 795 he was stopped by an epidemic fever in Norfolk, and, returning home, shortly after died. The re- vival of the church in North Carolina was, in consequence, long deferred, and not until 181 7 were the foundations laid for its restoration. South Carolina was more fortunate in regard to an early episcopate, as she had been in the earlier colonial church settlement. The diocese, as we have seen, had entered into alliance with the General Convention on the condition that no bishop was to be established in that State. In 1 795 the very same clergyman. Rev. Robert Smith, D.D., who 392 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. had offered that motion, in order to gain at all hazards adhesion to the National Movement, was elected Bishop of South Carolina, and was consecrated in Christ Church, Philadelphia, September i8th of the same year. He un- doubtedly kept the church alive and together; but he was then sixty-five years of age, and could not push matters rapidly in so distrustful a church community. He is said never to have administered the rite of confirmation; and certainly no Conventions were held in the State from 1 798 until 1804. In the meantime Bishop Smith had died in 1 80 1. A successor was unanimously elected in 1804, the Rev. Edward Jenkins, D.D., but he declined the honor; and until 18 12 the bishopric remained vacant. Georgia made no sign at this period. Even in 181 1, when Rev. Mr. Burton presented to the General Conven- tion a certificate of his appointment as deputy by the wardens and vestry of the Episcopal church in Savannah, the house was compelled to decline admitting him, because the church was not organized in the State, and the consti- tution of the Protestant Episcopal Church had not been ac- ceded to. Georgia was not visited by a bishop until 1816, when Bishop Dehon, of South Carolina, went to Savannah to confirm, this being the first confirmation e\'er held in the State. In the Northern and Middle States ecclesiastical affairs were in better condition, but they were nowhere flourish- ing. In Delaware all was very dead. The church held its first Diocesan Convention in 1791, but failed to elect its most distinguished presbyter, Dr. Wharton, to the episco- pate. The diocese was only served at long intervals with episcopal ministrations by Bishop White and Bishop Clag- gett. There was no bishop in Delaware before 1841, until which time it was under the care of the Bishop of Pennsvh'ania. THE CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE STATES. 393 The church in Pennsylvania at this period was mostly the church in Philadelphia, and this was flourishing. The character and station of Bishop White, and the dignified edifices of Christ Church parish, caused it to command re- spect and influence. It was not popular with the middle and lower classes. It was rather the church of the aristoc- racy. The attendance on its worship of President Wash- ington and many distinguished members of the Continental Congress gave it prestige. This, however, did not bring it into touch with the people. It kept the appearance of a church for a special class, and its regulated worship and unenthusiastic preaching removed it far from the popular sympathy. But Philadelphia was the chief city of the country, and the church in Philadelphia represented a most dignified and influential portion of the community. In New York, in spite of the wealth and prestige of Trinit}^ parish, there was little ardor of church life. The scars of the Revolution had gone too deep. The bishop had been elected as a patriot, and his national ardor far outran his ecclesiastical zeal. He thought that tolerance to his com- munion was all that could be expected in view of its politi- cal history, and tolerance was consequently all that it re- ceived. Neither his ecclesiastical nor theological principles were firm or aggressive. He was a bishop of the type of the Georgian era. His interest was in his studies rather than in his diocese. He was an accomplished scholar and a good botanist ; and on the death of his wife, which was to him ^ most terrible affliction, he resigned his jurisdiction and retired from the duties of his office.^ This was in 1 The minute of the House of Bishops in regard to Bishop Provoost's let- ter informing them of his resignation is as follows : " The House of Bishops having consitlered the subject brought before them by the letter of Bishop Provoost, and by the message from the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies touching the same, can see no grounds on which to believe that the contemplated resignation is consistent with ecclesiastical 394 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. 1 80 1. Under so lukewarm a diocesan the diocese could not greatly advance. In fact, Bishop Provoost thought it would die out with the old colonial families. Such prog- ress as was made came rather from the vis inertiae of the church system than the efficiency of its leadership. Some few ordinations were held ; some few churches, as that at Duanesburg (the gift of a private individual, Hon. James Duane), and that at Ballston, and St. Mark's in the Bowery (erected by Mr. Stuyvesant, a great-grandson of the last Dutch governor), were consecrated. There w^as a movement of the Lutherans in the State of New York to join the Episcopal Church in 1797 ; but the Convention to which the proposition was to be referred was unfortunately delayed by the prevalence of the yellow fever, and could not meet until 1801. At that time the resignation of Bishop Provoost occupied all the attention that was given to ecclesiastical affairs, and a great move- ment for church comprehension passed unheeded by. It was significant of the tone and temper of the times. After Bishop Moore was consecrated, Zion Church, the first Eng- lish Lutheran church in New York City, became (rector, order, or with the practice of Episcopal churches in any ages, or with the tenor of the Office of Consecration. Accordingly, while they sympathize most tenderly with their brother, Bishop Provoost, on account of that ill health and those melancholy occurrences which have led to the design in question, they judge it to be inconsistent with the sacred trust connnitted to them to recog- nize the bishop's act as an effectual resignation of his episcopal jurisdiction. Nevertheless, being sensible of the present exigencies of the church of New York, and approving of their making provision for the actual discharge of the duties of the episcopacy, tlie bishops of this house are ready to consecrate to the office of a bishop any person who may be presented to them with the requisite testimonials from the General and State Conventions, and of whose religious, moral, and literary character due satisfaction may be given. But this house must be understood to be e.xplicit in their declaration that they shall consider such a person as assistant or coadjutor bishop during Bishop Provoost's life, although competent, in point of character, to all the episcopal duties ; the extent in which the same shall be discharged by him to be depend- ent on such regulations as expediency may dictate to the church in New York, grounded on the indispositibn of Bishop Provoost, and with his concurrence." BISHOP BENJAMIN MOORE. 395 officers, and congregation) Episcopal, Iiaving previously sent out an offshoot in St. Stephen's Church to the same communion. Such movements were, however, due more to the attractiveness of the church, as possessed of an English liturgy, than to the solicitation or interest of the members of the Episcopal community.-^ The Rev. Benjamin Moore, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, was unanimously elected bishop of the diocese the day after Bishop Provoost's resignation. The House of Bishops consented to consecrate him as " assistant or coadjutor bishop during Bishop Provoost's life," demur- ring to the validity of the resignation, but recognizing the necessity of putting some one at the head of the diocese. The Diocesan Convention, however, had not elected him as coadjutor, and paid no attention to the intimation of the bishops. Bishop Moore always acted, and the "Journal " of the Convention always referred to him, as " head of the church in New York." He was a man of mild manners and of gentle speech, thoroughly Christian in his temper as in his life ; one who without aggressiveness commended the church in his own person to the confidence of the public; not fitted so much to arouse enthusiasm as to win 1 The trend toward tlie Episcopal Church among the Germans in New York was fostered, if not started, by the determination of the Lutherans to conduct their services in the German language only. The children, growing up to speak English, were impatient of the custom. When, in 1797, " The Trustees for the English Lutheran Church in the City of New York " were incorporated, and had informed the evangelical Ministerium meeting at^Rhine- beck of their action, and the reasons for it, the Lutheran Consistory, in set resolutions, declared " that they do not look upon persons who are not yet communicants of a Lutheran church as apostates in case they join an English Episcopalian church," but " that this Consistory will never ackno\\ledge anew- erected Lutheran church merely English, in places where members may par- take of the services of the said Episcopal Church." This resolve they based on the " intimate connection subsisting between the English Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church, and the identity of their doctrine and near alliance of their church discipline." (See " History of the Church of Zion and St. Timothy of Ne\\- York," by David CJarkson [1894], pp. 5, 6.) 396 rROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. respect for it. Perhaps, in that formative time, it was its strength to stand still. The neighboring diocese of New Jersey was also far from prosperous. Some smoldering life and organization it had, forming in 1 790 a standing committee of clergy and laity " for the recommending of candidates for holy orders," and giving its adhesion to the proceedings of the General Con- \ention of i 789 in establishing the constitution, the canons, and the Prayer-book. It had no bishop of its own at this period, though it made an attempt to secure one by elect- ing in 1796 the Rev. Uzal Ogden, D.D., rector of Trin- ity Church, Newark, to the episcopate. This choice was never confirmed, the General Convention complaining of irregularities in the election. Before these could be recti- fied, ecclesiastical irregularities on the part of the candidate produced the conviction that he was nearer allied in opinion and sympathy with the Presbyterians, whom he afterward served, than with his own communion. Farther north, in Connecticut, things moved slowly on in much the accustomed way. Though Bishop Seabury had, before the ratification of the Prayer-book, himself issued a Communion Office nearer allied to the Scotch than the book of 1 789, he set diligently to work to introduce the new book to which he had pledged himself, notwithstanding its, to him, objectionable features. He found his steady- going people, in some instances, more conservative than himself. A Rev. Mr. Sayre, of Stratford, was stubborn and would not conform. He left this honored parish and stirred up strife at Woodbury which it took time to quell. The Rev. Mr. Dibblee, of Stamford, had to be entreated by the bishop as a father before he would comply. " Is not, then, the unity of the whole church through the States a price sufficient to justify the alterations which have been made?" asks the bishop in a letter which recognizes at DEATH OF BISHOP SEA BURY. 397 once the worthiness and narrowness of his presbyter.' The bishop, in fine, acted fully up to iiis implied stipulations in joining the national church. Though it was not in the bond, lay delegates were introduced into the State Conven- tion of 1792, although, even up to the present time, the laity have not been represented in the standing committee of the diocese. In 1790 Rhode Island had formally put itself under Bishop Seabury's jurisdiction ; and he made regular visita- tions to the four parishes which remained there, and which, though few in numbers, gave him no little trouble with their feuds. He was thoroughly diligent and spared him- self no labor. He was as loyal to the new church as he had been to the old king. He was prevented from taking part in any but one General Convention after 1789 (that of 1 792, when he assisted at the consecration of Bishop Claggett) ; for an epidemic cut him ofif from that of 1795, held in Philadelphia, and shortly afterward he died. A stroke of apoplexy, February 25, 1796, brought his life and labors to an end together. It was the removal of a marked man, whose resolute devotion to his convictions enabled him to secure an influence larger than his mental equipment would seem to warrant. He was not, indeed, inteUectually deficient. He had a fair measure of learning and a larger endowment of both wisdom and wit ;- but the 1 He is supposed to have yielded ; but his hold on his parishioners, and their awe of him, is shown in their vote at a parish meeting held April 9, 1792, of which what follows is a record : " Past a vote to adopt the new constitution or liturgy of the church, as agreed upon by the bishop and clergy of this State, provided that it is agree- able to Rev. Air. Dibblee.'" 2 He was desirous of retaining in the Prayer for the President the sono- rous phrase " health and wealth," instead of the substituted " health and pros- perity." Dining with Bishop White after the change had been determined, he said to the latter's wife, " Hereafter I suppose I must address your husband as Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Common Prosperity of Pennsylvania." (Beardsley, " Life of Seabury," p. 381.) 398 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, xiv, source of his power lay in his unswerving loyalty to princi- ple. It was genuine grit which gained him both station and influence, and his impress on the church he served is indelible. He was succeeded in office by the Rev. Abraham Jarvis, D.D., who was thrice elected bishop, and finally accepted the office, being consecrated in Trinity Church, New Haven, October i8, 1797, by Bishops White, Provoost, and Bass. His episcopate was a quiet one of sixteen years, during which he strengthened the foundations of the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, which Bishop Seabury had estab- lished in 1792, and also started the " Churchman's Maga- zine " in 1804, contributing in both these measures to the literary standing of the church. In Massachusetts and the rest of New England this period was, as elsewhere, one of an enfeebled vitality. Dr. Edward Bass, of Newbury port, who had declined his nomination as bishop soon after the Convention of 1789, was again elected in i 796, and was consecrated in Phila- delphia May 7, 1797. At his first Diocesan Convention, in I 798, there were only five clerical and seven lay deputies present. Trinity Church and Christ Church were the only two parishes at that time in Boston, and Bishop Bass con- tinued to act as rector of his old Church of St. Paul at New- bury port, as before his advancement to the episcopate. He was a good, but by no means a great, man ; and the church under his rule was kept respectable, but respectably small.' It is a matter of lasting regret that during these first years of formation the church could not have had the inspiring leadership of Dr. Parker, the rector of Trinity Church, Bos- ton, the distinctly superior man of the Episcopal Church at the North ; able, liberal, loyal ; a marked personage in the city, who would have compelled attention and deserved 1 He consecrated only one church (a new one for his own parish) during his episcopate. THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 399 it. He had been able to keep Trinity Church open during the Revolution, knowing how to be both wise and true. Being a graduate of Harvard, and a man of social station and fine manners, as well as a dignified divine, he was a marked character in the community. He became the suc- cessor of Bishop Bass, who died in 1803, and was conse- crated by Bishop White in New York, at the meeting of the General Convention in 1804. Taken ill immediately on his return to Boston, he died three months after his con- secration, never having performed a single episcopal act. From that time until 18 10 Massachusetts was without a bishop. It then became part of the Eastern diocese, which comprised all New England outside of Connecticut, and came under Bishop Griswold's jurisdiction.^ It is evident that, with its several members so enfeebled, the corporate body could not be strong. The General Con- vention, sparsely attended, did some good things which were not great, and failed to do some great things which would have been good. In 1 792 an alternate form was allowed in the ordinal in the Form and Manner of Order- ing Priests, so that, in the imposition of hands in ordination, the bishop may lawfully use either. A Form of Consecra- tion of a Church or Chapel was added to the Prayer-book in 1799; and in 1801 the Thirty-nine Articles were at last, after long delay and many fruitless attempts at amendment or substitution, " established," in order to identify the church doctrinally with the Church of England.- They were ap- 1 After the death of Bishop Bass, and before the election of Bishop Parker, Judge Dudley Atkins Tyng, of Newburyport, a devout and distinguished lay- man, was urged, on behalf of the clergy of l\Ias?achusetts and Rhode Island, " to receive orders as deacon and priest, that they might, with as little delay as possible, elect him their bishop." He declined the request, the only one of the kind ever made to a layman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. (See " Life of Stephen R. Tyng, D.D.," p. 21.) 2 " The object kept in view, in all the consultations held and the determina- tions formed, was the perpetuating of the Episcopal Church on the ground of the general principles which she had inherited from the Church of England ; 400 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. pended to the Prayer-book as accepted historical theolog- ical statements, and as committing the church to the gen- eral doctrinal position of the Church of England in re- gard to the controversy with Rome out of which they sprang; but no canon concerning a special subscription to them was then, or has at any time since been, enacted.' The Office of Institution of Ministers (under the title of Induction, afterward changed) was adopted in 1804, being essentially an office prepared in 1 799 for the diocese of Con- necticut by Rev. Dr. WilHam Smith, a nephew of Provost Smith, of Philadelphia, and rector of St. Paul's Church, Nor- walk. Its phraseology stands out in such distinct contrast to that of the rest of the Prayer-book as to emphasize the absence in the old formularies of terms which this office and of not departing from them, except so far as either local circumstances re- quired or some very important cause rendered proper. To those acquainted with the system of the Church of England it must be evident that the object here stated was accomplished on the ratification of the Articles." (Bishop White, " Memoirs of the Church," p. 33.) It should further be noted in this connection that it appears from the " Journal" of the Convention of 1804 that " a proposed canon, concerning subscription to the Articles of the church, \\as negatived, under the impres- sion that a sufficient subscription to the Articles is already required by the Seventh Article of the Constitution." (See " Half-century of Legislation of the American Church," vol. i., p. 301.) 1 The Articles, to quote Bishop White, " were therefore adopted by the two Houses of Convention, without their altering of even the obsolete diction in them ; but with notices of such changes as change of situation had rendered necessary." The action setting forth the Articles is as follows : " Resolution of the bishops, the clergy, and laity of the Protestant Epis- copal Church in the United States of America, in Convention, in the city of Trenton, the 12th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1801, respecting Articles of Religion. " The Articles of Religion are hereby ordered to be set forth with the fol- lowing directions, to be observed in all future editions of the same ; that is to say : " The following to be the title, viz. : " ' Articles of Religion, as established by the bishops, the clergy, and the laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Convention, on the 1 2th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1801.' " The Articles to stand as in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, with the following alterations and omiss'ions " 'Here follow the changes in Articles 8, 35, and 36.) CAAOAS CONCERaYING MORALS. 40 1 alone employs. For this reason, though there is much beauty in the service, it has been less used than any other portion of the Book of Common Prayer. The much-desired veto power was given to the House of Bishops in 1 804, unfortunately too late to gratify Bishop Seabury, its chief advocate ; and morals were not over- looked in the legislation of the period, which was chiefly ritual. In order to discountenance dueling, so prevalent at the time, a resolution was adopted declaring that the clergy ought not to perform the Burial Service in the case of any person who should give or accept a challenge. The adoption of the Table of Degrees of Affinity in relation to marriage, of force in the English Church, was urged by some, but it was not conceded. In its place a resolution in regard to divorce was adopted, declaring " That it is the sense of this church that it is inconsistent with the law of God ; and the minis- ters of this church, therefore, shall not unite in matrimony any person who is divorced, unless it be on account of the other party having been guilty of adultery." Earlier than this by some years measures were proposed for evangeliz- ing the West; and "An Act of the General Convention for Supporting Missionaries to Preach the Gospel on the Frontiers of the United States" was passed in 1792. It was not effective, but it showed an awakened spirit con- cerning the duty of the church in these first years of its existence. Attention was also directed to the theological education of candidates for the ministry; and in 1804 " A Course of Ecclesiastical Studies " was established by the House of Bishops in pursuance of a request made by the preceding Convention. Many petty matters, which were the occasion of sound legislation, vexed the minds of the bishops and deputies from time to time. The Rev. Dr. Purcell, a deputy from South Carolina, had pubHshed a pamphlet entitled " Stric- 402 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. tures on the Love of Power in the Prelacy," leveled at Bishop Seabury for his advocacy of the veto power of the House of Bishops. When brought to the notice of the House of Deputies by Rev. Dr. Andrews, of Virginia, it was condemned as containing " very offensive and censur- able matter." Dr. Purcell apologized, but, after the ad- journment of the Convention, he challenged his brother clergyman to fight a duel, and was bound over to keep the peace by the civil courts. Rev. Ammi Rogers caused great vexation by his persistent demands to be recognized and reinstated in the ministry after most reprehensible be- havior. Rejected as a candidate by Bishop Seabury, he had removed from Connecticut td New York, and, applying to Bishop Provoost for ordination, had forged the signature of the secretary of the Connecticut Convention to a testimo- nial in his behalf. This certificate, being deemed genuine, secured his ordination in New York. On moving back to Connecticut he was inhibited from officiating by Bishop Jarvis ; but, proving refractory, the House of Bishops was asked to decide to what jurisdiction he was amenable. He was assigned to Connecticut and pronounced worthy of degradation from the ministry. His case occasioned the passage of canons relating to the transfer of clergymen from one diocese to another, which prevented for the future any such disgraceful complication. At the General Convention of 1795 a communication was presented from Vermont asking for the consecration, as bishop of that State, of Rev. Samuel Peters, LL.D., the testimonials asserting that he had been elected the previous year. It was a most flagrant case of ecclesiastical effront- ery, quite worthy to be associated with the author of " A General History of Connecticut," in which publication Peters had satirized his State by the invention of the Blue Laws and many other equally incredible narrations. He THE CHURCH AND THE METHODISTS. 403 had not for twenty years resided in Vermont, nor exercised his ministry anywhere, and was now abroad, having unsuc- cessfully appHed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for con- secration, and having announced his purpose to apply to the Scotch bishops. There was but one Episcopal clergyman in Vermont, and he there temporarily ; and the election had been compassed by " the Episcopalians (twelve in number) of Vermont, united with a body of those not previously of that communion."^ The request was refused on the ground that Vermont had not acceded to the constitution of the church. The result of this request was the enact- ment of a canon providing that the church in a State shall not be entitled to a resident bishop unless there shall be at least six presbyters residing and officiating therein. Another canon, growing out of an existing abuse, was enacted, forbidding the union of a congregation in one diocese with the church in any other jurisdiction. These instances of personal baseness and effrontery would not deserve record save for the light which they throw on the difficulties which the newly established church was called to encounter. It was a period in which she was learning to understand herself, and to gather her forces together in the midst of misapprehension from with- out and of many insidious attempts to impose upon her from within. Caution was a virtue to be cherished then ; not the highest of virtues, but the necessary precursor of higher. And this explains, if it does not wholly excuse, the hesitancy or indifference of the church to the move- ments made to comprehend the recently removed Meth- odists within the fold. This was the great mistake of this period, whose results are felt forcibly to-day. Could that union have then occurred, both parties to it would have immensely benefited, and the influence of these united 1 Sprague, "Annals of the American Pulpit," vol. v., p. 195. 404 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. forces would have constituted the great Christian power of the continent. But no one had the gift of prophecy. Conservatism appeared to be the sole safeguard of the church, and unregulated evangelization the sole duty of the Methodists. Bishop Madison, as we have seen, had a keen sense of the dangers of a permanent disruption, and a strong hope that it might be overcome. In the General Convention of 1792 he had offered a proposition to that effect. This proposition, as agreed to by the House of Bishops, was as follows : " The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, ever bearing in mind the sacred obligation which attends all the followers of Christ to avoid divisions among themselves, and anxious to promote that union for which our Lord and Saviour so earnestly prayed, do hereby declare to the Christian world that, uninfluenced by any other considerations than those of duty as Chris- tians, and an earnest desire for the prosperity of pure Christianity and the furtherance of our holy religion, they are ready and willing to unite and form one body with any religious society which shall be influenced by the same catholic spirit. And in order that this Christian end may be the more easily effected, they further declare that all things in which the great essentials of Christianity and the characteristic principles of their church are not concerned, they are willing to leave to future discussion, being ready to alter or modify those points which, in the opinion of the Protestant Episcopal Church, are subject to human alter- ation. And it is Kereby recommended to the State Conventions to adopt such measures or propose such con- ferences with Christians of other denominations as to themselves may be thought most prudent, and report accordingly to the ensuing General Convention." This proposition was communicated to the House of DR. COKE AND BISHOP WHITE. 405 Deputies ; but, although a few gentlemen who were cogni- zant of the correspondence between Dr. Coke and Bishop White favored its consideration, it was generally regarded as "preposterous," and as "tending to produce distrust of the stability of the system of the Episcopal Church, without the least prospect of embracing any other relig- ious body." Agreeably to leave granted " as a matter of indulgence," the bishops withdrew the proposition, which constituted the earliest recorded document bearing upon the questions of church unity and comprehension, which have from time to time agitated the Episcopal communion. The reference to a correspondence between Dr. Coke and Bishop White gives us a key to the understanding of the whole matter in relation to the Methodists. Since Dr. Coke's appearance in America as ordained superintend- ent of the Methodist societies, and his ordination of Mr. Asbury, the separation from the Episcopal Church had been complete. In the beginning of this movement Rev. Dr. West, rector of St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, invited Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury to his house to discuss the situation ; but nothing came of the interview, though Dr. Coke owned it would be more regular and consistent to " connect the succession." When Dr. White went to England for his episcopal consecration he took' letters to both John and Charles Wesley from their friend, Rev. Joseph Pilmore, hoping to make some arrangement by which the Methodists might be retained in the Episcopal communion. He saw Charles Wesley, but could not meet John ; and though he tried to effect something, nothing came of his efforts. The desire for the union of the two bodies may not have been general on the part of the American Methodists, but some held to it. Joseph Pilmore, one of the two preachers first sent to America by Wesley in i 769, was one of the first to be ordained by 406 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xiv. Bishop Seabury on his return. Thomas Vasey, also, one of those on whom Wesley had laid hands in his chamber at Bristol when he commissioned Dr. Coke, was ordained by Bishop White almost immediately upon his arrival from England. Other Methodist preachers were ordained by the American bishops. It was in April, 1791, that Dr. Coke wrote to Bishop White on the subject of the union of the two bodies. He was fully aware of the sentiments of Mr. Wesley, and declared concerning him, " He went further, I am sure, than he would have gone if he had seen some events which followed ; and this I am now cer- tain of, that he is now sorry for the separation." ' "The general outline of Dr. Coke's plan was,"- as Bishop White recounts it, " a reordination of Methodist ministers, and their continuing under the superintendence then existing, and in the practice of their peculiar institu- tions. There was also suggested by him the propriety, not named as a condition, of admitting to the episcopacj^ himself and the gentleman (Mr. Asbury) associated with him in the superintendence of the Methodist societies." ^ Dr. Coke was anxious that something might be arranged before the death of Mr. Wesley, who was now very old and feeble, knowing that his approval would settle the matter, but that without such consent its accomplishment was more than doubtful. Before, however, he received Bishop White's guarded answer, which was sent within a few weeks, Mr. Wesley died, and Dr. Coke was called off to England. On his way to embark from Philadelphia he called to see Bishop White ; but nothing definite was de- cided at the two interviews which ensued, and Dr. Coke was anxious that the matter should be kept from Mr. 1 See Perry, " Facsimiles of Church Documents." 2 Letter to Rev. Samuel Wetmore, dated July 30, 1804. (See Perry, " Fac- similes of Church Documents.") DR. COKE AND BISHOP SEA BURY. 407 Asbury, who had not been consulted by him. Bishop White, therefore, could do no more. Dr. Coke also wrote, after Mr. Wesley's death, to Bishop Seabury a letter ' dated May 14, 1791, in which he embodied the proposals made to Bishop White in a form yet more distinct. " If," he says, " the two houses of the Convention of the clergy would consent to the consecration of Mr. Asbury and me as bishops of the Methodist society in the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States (or by any other title, if that were not proper), on the supposition of the reunion of the two churches, under proper mutual stipula- tions, and engage that the Methodist society should have a regular supply on the death of their bishop, and so ad perpettiani, the grand difficulty in respect to the preachers would bo removed." He ends his communication by de- claring, " I most cordially wish for a reunion of the Protest- ant Episcopal and the Methodist churches in these States. The object is of vast magnitude." - It is true that, fifteen years after, when his memory seems to have become confused concerning what he had proposed, Dr. Coke changed his mind, and, in a letter to Mr. Asbury in 1808, says, " I now see that the failure of my plan, which was laid down from the purest motives, was for the best." No true advocate of church unity can agree with him. There is nothing in the plan which does not come within the scope of the Chicago-Lambeth Declaration concerning Unity ; and were the Methodists of Dr. Coke's mind to-day, the union might be accomplished. At that time much stood in the way of it. On the part of the Methodists there was doubt or disbelief of the religious 1 The original of this letter is in the possession of Professor William Sea- bury (great-grandson of the bishop), of the General Theological Seminary, New York. It is printed in " Facsimiles of Church Documents " (Perry). 2 See article by Dr. Charles R. Hale, " The American Church and Meth- odism," in " Church Review" for January, 1891. 408 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai'. xiv. character of the Episcopal clergy. They deemed them unconverted, having the form but denying the power of godliness. The plan of Dr. Coke might have pleased Wesley had he lived to hear of it ; but it would not have pleased Wesleyans, save as being the will of their founder. Dr. Coke's concealment of the- proposal from Mr. Asbury, much the greater man of the two, indicates that it was a personal scheme of his own rather than the embodiment of a general sentiment of the Methodists. On the part of the Episcopalians there was the difficult question of sanction- ing an uneducated ministry (for the Methodist preachers were raised from the ranks of the laity, without schol- arly training), and the danger of having their newly con- structed constitution exposed to a strain it might hardly be able to bear. On both sides, moreover, there was a lack of genuine interest in, or comprehension of, the sub- ject of unity. A century has developed sentiments then dormant or unknown. Time has added to the difficulties of a settlement ; but it has also deepened a conviction and stirred a feeling which may prove more than a match for the difficulties. In one respect the tables are turned. The church of Seabury and White now holds out the hand. How weak that church was then, how little self-assured or inspired, is made evident by the last General Con- vention of the period we are considering, the Conven- tion of 1808, held in Baltimore. Only two bishops. White and Claggett, were present, meeting in a hall bedroom of the rectory of St. Paul's Church, still standing on Saratoga Street. Only seven dioceses were represented, and of these New Jersey sent no clerical deputies and Rhode Island no laymen. On account of this sparse attendance resolutions were adopted urging the duty of sending reg- ularly a deputation to the General Convention. This GENERAL CONVENl'ION OE 180S. 409 Convention, small as it was, was not an harmonious one-. A sharp spirit of controversy cropped out, and it seemed a house divided against itself. Bishop' White wrote of it despondingly as follows : " On a retrospect of the transactions of this Convention there is entertained the trust that it did not end without a general tendency to consolidate the communion ; although, in the course of the business, there has been displayed, more than in any other Convention, the influence of some notions leading far wide of that rational devotion which this church has inherited from the Church of England. The spirit here complained of was rather moderated than raised higher during the session. But it being liable to be combined with schemes of personal consequence, there is no foreseeing to what lengths it may extend in future." ^ 1 White, " Memoirs of the Church," p. 208, CHAPTER XV. FROM THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP HOBART TO THE DEATH OF BISHOP WHITE (l 8 I I-36). The period which now comes before us marks a distinct advance in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It is distinguished at the outset by the consecration to the episcopate of a group of three men who had a formativ^e influence over its life and character. In after-years the church advanced by the force of its own characteristics, when once these were more fully formed, more clearly discerned, and more widely appreciated. In this earlier time its' growth was more largely conditioned by the intellectual and moral power of certain prominent char- acters who were its advocates. The first group of bishops who shaped its destinies were John Henry Hobart, Alexander V. Griswold, and Richard Channing Moore. The first two were consecrated together in Trinity Church, New York, May 29, 181 1 ; the latter in St. James's Church, Philadelphia, May 18, 18 14. In their respective dioceses of New York, New England, and Vir- ginia they simply reconstructed the church in tone and character. Any one who would understand its later his- tory must study the elements of it in the acts, lives, and labors of these men. Bishop Hobart was in intellectual force the greatest of the three, and his impress on the church is more distinct- ive. He was a marked character from a boy, and was 410 JOHN HENRY HOBART. 4II brought up under the influence and training of Bishop White in Philadelphia, by whom he was confirmed in his fifteenth year. Two years previously he had entered the College of Philadelphia, when thirteen years of age. He soon removed to Princeton, and graduated there in i793, when eighteen years old, sharing the highest honors of his class. Here he became a tutor for a few years, pursuing theological studies under the general direction of Bishop White; and in 1798 he returned to Philadelphia, and was admitted deacon June 3d of that year. The friendship between the youthful deacon and the mature bishop was of the closest character. Much as they differed in temper- ament and opinions, they were always the fastest friends. Young Hobart from the start was a favorite in the church. His intellectual gifts, his generous social disposi- tion, and his devotion to his work early made their mark. After a few brief ministrations in small places he was called to be assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York, in September, 1800, and, on taking the place, was ordained priest by Bishop Provoost, in 1801. His life as a parish priest was active and studious. He loved his books and he loved the souls of men. He loved his church, and be- lieved in her special claims, and advocated them with an insistent fervor which drew to him at once the attention of those without and those within her fold. He soon became known as an author of devotional books, the first of which, " The Companion for the Altar," published in 1804, treated less of the nature of the sacraments than of the authority to administer them, and of the spirit in which they should be approached. This volume emphasized his views of the church and the ministry, and in its forms of devotion ex- pressed as well the fervor of his soul. Men hesitated whether to call him a Methodist or a High-churchman. In a sense he was both. He believed in the reality of a 412 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.. [Chap. xv. subjective religion; he believed as firmly that a true in- ward experience could only be rightly regulated and fed by the divinely appointed order and sacraments of the church. " The gospel in the church," " evangelical truth and apostolic order," phrases identified with his name, are apt expressions of his regulative ideas. All his later works rung the changes upon them ; all his ecclesiastical action was given to propagate and fortify them. He was early called into controversy by the Rev. Dr. John Mason, the great Presbyterian divine of his day ; and out of this po- lemical contest came, in 1807, " An Apology for Apostolic Order and its Advocates," which convinced his opponent of his ability and sincerity, if not of the validity of his po- sition, and which called forth from him this extraordinary expression of appreciation : " Were I compelled to intrust the safety of my country to any one man, that man should be John Henry Hobart." With his zeal in parish work, his ardor in controversy, his occupations' as secretary of the House of Bishops and of the Diocesan Convention, and as a member of the stand- ing committee of the diocese, he was kept alive to the exigencies of the time. These suggested new projects. He devoted himself to the furtherance of theological edu- cation, and his society for that end was the germ of the General Theological Seminary of after years. He became editor of the " Churchman's Magazine," which he removed from New Haven to New York. He originated the Bible and Common Prayer-book Society, and was stanch in his maintenance of the rights of the church in the corporation of Columbia College, of which he was a trustee. He was, in fine, an intense man both in his convictions and in his measures to carry them out. He aroused opposition, but he awakened respect and admiration, and personally con- ciliated those whose opinions he controverted. When, then. CONSECRATION OF HOB ART. 413 in the spring of 181 1, Bishop Moore felt compelled by his increasing infirmities to call a special Convention and ask for an assistant bishop, here was the man ready for the place. He was at once elected by a majority of both orders, and with the heartfelt approbation of his diocesan. At the General Convention of 181 1, held in New Haven, his credentials were passed; but there were only two bishops. White and Jarvis, present, and the consecration had to be deferred. It seemed for a time that the church would be subjected to the necessity of again applying to the English Church for the episcopate. Bishop Moore was incapacitated by paralysis. Bishop Claggett was ill. Bi.shop Madison pleaded his university duties as an excuse for absence. Only Bishop Provoost remained to make up the canonical number of consecrators ; but he, too, was feeble from recent illness, and his lack of sympathy with the ardent nature and ecclesiastical convictions of the bishop elect would, it was feared, prevent his emerging from his long retirement to assist at the consecration. The exigency of the occasion, however, was sufficiently evident to move him to act; and on May 29, 181 1, in Trinity Church, New York, Dr. Hobart and Dr. Griswold were duly consecrated. Bishop White acting as consecrator, and Bishops Provoost and Jarvis assisting. The consecra- tion was attended not only with difficulty, but also with opposition. "A Solemn Appeal to the Church " had been issued as a protest by the Rev. Lot Jones, a fellow assistant minister of Trinity Church, which served for some years as a firebrand to kindle an acrimonious opposition to the new prelate. Bishop Provoost, too, sought in 18 12 to re- vive his own claim to jurisdiction, appealing to the record of the House of Bishops at the time of the consecration of Bishop Moore, and asserting his conviction that without his concurrence no episcopal act in the diocese was of 414 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. authority. This claim was immediately and emphatically disallowed by the New York Convention, and it was not further urged. Bishop Hobart's episcopate, thus begun in trial and tur- moil, was from the beginning characteristic of the man. It stood out in great contrast to that of both of his prede- cessors. Their tone had been that of moderation, the moderation of indifference on the one hand and of placid piety on the other. Hobart was the embodiment of posi- tive assertion and aggressive action. All the ardor of his soul went forth in the incessant discharge of ever-aug- menting duties. He was a larger Seabury touched with emotion, awake to the necessities and responsive to the spirit of his time. From the day of his consecration the Episcopal Church in New York never existed on sufferance. Its time of apology was past. It might be liked or dis- liked, opposed or favored ; but it was henceforth recognized as an organization with distinct claims of its own, and with a distinct determination to prosecute them. It stood no longer on the defensive. It became self-conscious, self- confident, and self-assertive. Through Hobart's touch it was roused from slumber and reminiscent dreams, and stalked forth into active life, energetic, persistent, and aggressi\e. The whole tone of public feeling toward it changed. It was no longer tolerated as an amply endowed institution too respectable to be disturbed, but too torpid to be feared. It became a living factor, dreaded by some, admired by others, but acknowledged and respected by all. Whatever criticism may be passed on Bishop Hobart's opinions or methods, this incalculable benefit he conferred : he made the church in New York a living power. And from out this central battery the electric current ran to distant dioceses, quickening life everywhere. What fol- lowed was a virtual ecclesiastical renaissance. HOB ART'S EPISCOPATE. 415 There is no space to follow in detail the movements of this remarkable man. His diocese extended more than three hundred miles from east to west; but promptness and fidelity made him equal to the task of ministering to its burdensome- demands. For nineteen years " he ruled it prudently with all his power." He was too ardent to be always wise ; and his eagerness to establish and advance the distinguishing and determining tenets of his commun- ion led him at times into a narrowness of judgment and action which gained him the name of bigot and aroused charges of intolerance. He had the defects of his nature. "Give me a little zealous imprudence" was with him a favorite phrase. He could suffer nothing which seemed to hinder or conflict with the position he claimed for his church. He would not join others even in an object he acknowledged to be good, lest that union of action might be construed as yielding the supreme claims of his own order. With the American Bible Society he would not affiliate, though he established one of his own. He wanted to stop the prayer-meeting of saintly Dr. Milnor, of St. George's Church, lest recognition of such extemporaneous devotion should disparage the more excellent way of the liturgy. Earnest in his study and love of the Scriptures, aflame with devotion in his soul, he could thus act in seem- ing contradiction to his spiritual convictions. But his jeal- ousy for the church was not zeal for a perfunctory mech- anism, nor a denial of all good outside of its ecclesiastical sphere. His cry in advocacy of the church was, " Behold, I show you a more excellent way." A modern Parochial Mission, with its free methods, would not then have met his approval ; and a Young Men's Christian Association he would doubtless have frowned upon as an unhallowed alliance. Men of his school to-day approve and patron- 41 6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. ize both. The difiference lies in the time and its task. That was the period of formation ; this is the period of recognized position. His rigidity in regard to the episco- pate then seemed partisan and exclusive ; now that epis- copate is cherished as an indispensable element of church unity. The exclusiveness of his day is transformed into the inclusiveness of our own. Bishop Hobart was a prolific writer of sermons and charges, and these were able and heartfelt ; but his strength lay in his organizing faculty and in the vitahty of his spiritual power. He was the originator and presid- ing officer of many societies for the advancement of the church, such as the Episcopal Tract Society, Sunday-school Society, Missionary Society. He headed a movement in 1826 to shorten and in some measure modify some of the offices of the Prayer-book, in order to make them more efficient and in their use more regular ; and he was widely misconceived and soundly berated for the" attempt even by those who usually acted with him. He had, however, the courage of his convictions, and, in whatever he did, he had an eye single to the advancement of the church ; an eye clearer in its vision than that of many who rejected meas- ures now everywhere conceded wise, but then beyond the ken of minds less unobstructive than his own. His diocese grew apace under his ardent administration. The twenty- eight clergymen at the time of his election had by 18 16, the date of Bishop Moore's death, increased to thirty-six ; and at his own decease, in 1830, the clergy list numbered one hundred and twenty-seven. The numerical increase of clergymen and parishes was not the chief gain. That lay in the larger and intenser spirit which he aroused in men of all parties in his diocese. He was earnest in missionary enterprises. He sent the gospel to the Oneida Indians in the western portion of the State, and in 18 18 made them DEATH OF BISHOP HOB ART. 417 a personal visitation and confirmed eighty-nine souls. He subsequently ordained Rev. Eleazar Williams, supposed then to be of Indian extraction, and who afterward claimed to be the Dauphin Louis XVII., to be their minister. When this missionary and many of his people were transferred to Green Bay, Wis., Bishop Hobart made an effort to visit them there ; and his movements awakened the church to the need of missionary effort in what was then considered the far West. When the General Theological Seminary finally settled in New York he accepted the professorship of pastoral the- ology in that institution ; and the effect of his uncompro- mising ardor was strongly felt by his pupils, one of whom, Whittingham, afterward the distinguished Bishop of Mary- land, said, " For few of God's many blessings have I so much reason to be so supremely grateful as for the day that brought me to sit at the feet of Hobart." Such was the man who made a marked impression on the church of his day. His whole life was an illustration of his latest words to his family. When starting on the final visitation, which ended in his death at Auburn, September 12, 1830, his wife urged upon him caution, saying, " You are under- taking too much;" and his answer was, " How can I do too much for Him who has done everything for me?" It was this consecration of soul which gave to his life its greatness and enduring power. Bishop Griswold, who was consecrated at the same time with him as Bishop of the Eastern Diocese, was a man of different temperament and churchmanship from Hobart, but of as marked and influential a character. He was a type of the Evangelical Low-churchman, though he had been trained by his uncle, Rev. Roger Viets, missionary at Simsbury, Conn., who had been converted to the church while a student at Yale College, from studying books on 41 8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. the church in the college library. His father's losses as a loyalist in the Revolution rendered it impossible for him to graduate at Yale as he desired ; but he was thoroughly trained by his uncle, and was studious and unusually apt at acquiring knowledge. The moral and religious train- ing of his mother made him devout and earnest in religion from an early age. His religious experience was never tumultuous, but his faith quietly penetrated his life and molded his whole moral organization. Like Hobart, the Puritan strain in his blood was manifest in the persistent intensity of his spiritual nature. His uncle moving to Nova Scotia after the Revolution, young Griswold married and studied law, remaining in the old Simsbury parish. Here he was confirmed at twenty years of age, on Bishop Seabury's first visit to the parish, in 1786. His services in reading prayers and sermons were so acceptable that he was persuaded to take orders ; but such was the narrowness of his resources that he had to work with his hands for the support of his family until he could be ordained. As he could not well afford can- dles, he would stretch himself on the hearth and study by the firelight late into the night, after a day of toil in the fields. He was made deacon at Stratford in June, 1795, and ordained priest in October of the same year at Plym- outh, at the last ordination held by Bishop Seabury. Already he had served, while a candidate, three small parishes in Litchfield township, and he continued with them ten years, often teaching a district school in winter, and in summer serving as a day-laborer among his parish- ioners to eke out his support. After rejecting two calls to Bristol, R. I., he finally accepted a third and removed thither in 1804, becoming rector of St. Michael's Church. His spiritual nature seems to have been deepened by this THE EASTERN DIOCESE, 419 change. His preaching dwelt less on matters of ecclesi- astical controversy, and assumed a more strongly evan- gelical type. He at once became a power in the town, a favorite with those without his church, and a strong influ- ence within it. His church was soon enlarged, but not his salary ; and to his labors as rector he had to add those of teacher of a select school. His health suffering from three sermons on Sunday and daily teaching during the week, he was about to accept a call to St. Michael's Church, Litchfield, when, to his surprise, he was elected Bishop of the Eastern Diocese, May 31, 18 10. That diocese was fully organized at a Convention held in Boston, May 29, 18 10, and was formed by the union of the churches in the State of Massachusetts (which then included the district of Maine) with those in Rhode Isl- and, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The inability of the churches in any of these States to support a bishop of their own compelled this course of action. In the whole Eastern Diocese there were but twenty-two parishes and sixteen officiating clergymen. Most of these parishes were feeble, many almost dead. The only strong churches were Trinity in Boston, St. John's in Providence, and Trinity in Newport. For six years there had been no bishop in the entire region, and those years had been years of de- cay and spiritual torpor. The rising tide of Unitarianism had greatly affected the church in Massachusetts, since the untimely death of Bishop Parker in 1804. After Bishop Seabury's death Rhode Island had sought to place itself under Bishop Moore, of New York ; but he had not felt able to undertake the charge, and no further efforts for the episcopate were made in that State until the Eastern Diocese was formed. New Hampshire, too, had, on Bishop Seabury's death, elected Bishop Bass, of Mas- sachusetts, to this jurisdiction; but he' died a few weeks 420 PROTESTANr EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. after the election, and nothing more was done. Vermont did not really become part of the Eastern Diocese until 1 8 19. It had had a checkered history as a diocese. Its Convention was only organized in i 790 by two clergymen and eighteen laymen. In 1 793 Dr. Bass was elected bishop, and accepted the office conditionally ; but a special Convention held in 1 794, composed of but nine out of twenty-four nominal parishes, disregarding this action, chose the notorious Dr. Samuel Peters as bishop. Confirmation of this election was refused by the General Convention. This movement seems to have been made in the interest of a land speculation pertaining to the glebe-lands earlier apportioned by the English government, through Gov- ernor Wentworth, to the church and the Venerable Society. These lands it was hoped would prove very remunerative to the church and to those who might help to recover them. The real spiritual ministrations of the church appear to have been largely dependent during this period on the devotion of Mr. Bethuel Chittenden, a man of great abil- ity, who with his brother had emigrated from Connecticut, and, perceiving the spiritual destitution, had, when forty- nine years old, presented himself to Bishop Seabury, and been made deacon at St. John's Church, Stamford, in i 787. After he was ordained priest in 1 794, by Bishop Seabury, in his own Church of St. James at New London, he be- came the most prominent man in church councils in the State, and did well the work of an evangelist. He died in 1808, before the Eastern Diocese was formed; but he was largely instrumental in preserving what there was of the church for Bishop Griswold to take hold of. Bishop Moore, of New York, had been requested by the Ver- mont Convention in 1805 to take the church in the State under his episcopal care, with a view to securing pos- session of the church lands. He had consented on the BISHOP GRISIVOLD. 42 I express understanding that he should not be expected to visit the State. Such, then, was the condition of the extended district to whose episcopal supervision Bishop Griswold was elected. At first he utterly declined the office, feeling himself in- adequate ; but the difficulties of the situation appealed to him, and, urged by others, he finally accepted. A year from the date of his election he was consecrated, together with Bishop Hobart (May 29, 181 1), by Bishop White, in Trinity Church, New York. He was then forty-five years of age, ten years older than Hobart, having been born in 1 766. His health was never strong, but he was in the full maturity of his powers, and he began his work with a zeal which never flagged. It was an arduous and difficult task. To secure sufficient support he retained his position as rector of St. Michael's in Bristol until 1830, when, in order to be nearer the center of his diocese, he became rector of St. Peter's, Salem, Mass. Not until 1835, when he was sixty-nine years of age, did he retire from parish duties and confine himself wholly to the duties of the episcopate. Those duties he always most faithfully ful- filled. His first effort was to rekindle the fires of spiritual life, which were merely smoldering in many places. He was set to harmonize discordant elements of church life w'hich were bitter by reason of their unreasonableness. He had to administer discipline too long delayed. Like Hobart, he must create the church anew, only out of elements far more hopeless and decayed, far more widely scattered and impoverished. The formidable nature of his task deep- ened his spiritual intensity. A very marked attention to religion was awakened, the year after his consecration, in his parish church at Bristol, R. I. It came apart from any special measures used to excite it ; only, as he writes in 422 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. his "Autobiography," " My recent ordination to the epis- copate was the means of awakening my own mind to more serious thoughts of duty as a minister of Christ; -and in consequence I had, no doubt, with more earnest zeal preached 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' " The awak- ening spread through the whole town. It was attended by no extravagance ; and the result was the addition of a hundred communicants to his small flock of forty, and a great deepening of its religious life. These scenes of spiritual interest spread through the diocese. He could report, the year after his consecration, twelve hundred confirmations, and an increase not only in numbers, but in attention to the doctrine and discipline of the church. This was the history of his episcopate throughout. He lived to see the scanty score of feeble and scattered par- ishes which constituted his jurisdiction at the beginning multiplied nearly fivefold, and distributed into five fully organized dioceses, able to support four bishops, instead of employing one whom they could not support. Nor was his interest wholly confined to his own diocese, though it was centered there. A pastoral letter sent out in 1 8 14 was among the chief means of awakening the whole church to its duty in missionary efforts, and in secur- ing the interest which resulted for the formation of its mis- sionary organization. The first foreign missionary ever sent out by the church was nominated by him. He made great efforts to multiply the copies and increase the circu- lation of the Book of Common Prayer, which he was wont to declare was "second only to the Bible in its utility." " This is the best gift you can send after the Word of God and his ministers," he told his Convention. Never would he give up seemingly lost ground. To a proposition to sell a church in a decayed parish to the Congregationahsts he answered, " I can never indorse or consent to such a LABORS OF GRISWOLD. 423 measure." In places where there was no church he held services in the groves, and gathered to confirmation many scores from these wayside hearers. In northern Vermont, in western Massachusetts among the Berkshires, in the wildernesses of Maine and New Hampshire, he repeated the Apostle's experience, " In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often. . . . Besides those things that are with- out, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches." "Who shall satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?" he was ever asking, as, like his Master, he " looked on the multitude, and had compassion upon them." He always placed the chief emphasis upon personal religion, while claiming for the church the office of its safe guide and educator. Thus it came to pass, in favorable contrast to past times, that in less than thirty years the Eastern Diocese, once made necessary for the con- servation and propagation of religion as the church under- stood and embodied it, had so vivified the region which it embraced that, in order to secure sufficient ministrations for the growing churches and congregations of its vast area, its dissolution became as imperative as its formation had once been. In the midst of his self-forgetful labors Griswold had at last outlived his contemporaries, and in 1838 he became the senior and presiding bishop of the church. In this capac- ity he was brought in contact, through active correspond- ence, with the archbishops and bishops of the English, Scotch, and Irish churches ; and the old esteem in which he had been held by the Church Missionary Society was now enlarged by this wider association. He grew in honor as he advanced in years. His last act of ordination was that held in Trinity Church, Boston, December 29, 1842, when he consecrated the Rev. Manton Eastburn, D.D., of New York, to be his helper as assistant Bishop of Massa- 424 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. chusetts. Not two months afterward, on February ii, 1843, he walked through the snow to call on his coadjutor, and, as he reached the door, fell dead upon the step. Like Bishop Seabury, who confirmed and ordained him, he did not dread a sudden death, and, like him, he shared it. He fell amid his labors, seventy-seven years of age, having in an episcopate of thirty- two years recreated the Episcopal Church in all New England outside of Connecticut. He was a saintly character, and was " in labors more abundant." We turn now to the episcopate of the Rev. Richard Channing Moore, which, for Virginia and the South, was as epoch-making as that of Bishop Hobart in New York and Bishop Griswold in New England. Here, again, was a man eminently suited to the place. Though from New York, he had traits specially adapted to Virginia. He was of gentle blood, being descended from Sir John Moore, who was knighted b}- Charles I. in 1627. His grandfather was an eminent merchant of New York, and a member of the king's council for the province, and was the first person buried in Trinity Churchyard (1749). His father was educated in England, and his mother was Elizabeth Channing, of a prominent family. The future bishop was born in New York, i 762. He was bred for King's Col- lege ; but the Revolution prevented his entering it, and after the war he studied and practiced medicine for a few years. Becoming earnestly religious, he studied for orders under the general direction of Bishop Provoost, and was ordained deacon and priest by him in 1787, being twenty- five years old. As the High-church Hobart was trained under the moderate Bishop White, and the Low-church Griswold came from the hands of the High-church Bishop Seabury, so the intensely Evangelical Moore received his guidance into the church from the latitudinarian Provoost. He was adapted to the South both by the nature of his RICHARD CHANNING MOORE. 425 religious convictions and by his genial social temperament and personal charm. He was persona grata always and everywhere. His conversation was spiced with a fund of anecdote, and his amiable disposition brought him hosts of friends. And all his native gifts were made the vehicle for a fervent presentation of those features and facts of the gospel which especially appeal to the personal conscience and win the individual soul. In a good sense he was a revivalist, delighting to improve times of special religious interest by more frequent services and more direct preach- ing, and by that intense earnestness of Appeal and prayer which cannot healthfully be continuous. But he discoun- tenanced mourners' benches and the various devices which have been commonly associated with such times of special awakening. He was emotional, but kept a check on his feelings. He was very direct in his charge to the sinful ; but he loved to dwell on the promises of God, and lure men rather than drive them home to Christ. He had, moreover, that personal magnetism which drew and fixed attention, and a persuasive eloquence which made his speech rarely effective. His manner was animated and pathetic, and his voice full of charm. His heart overflowed with charity to all Christian people. He was in all things a gentleman, the very man to fire the Southern heart. How he came to Virginia we shall now relate. After passing the first two years of his ministry at Rye, he became the rector of St. Andrew's Church, Staten Island, in 1789, and continued there for twenty-one years. It was a ministry of wonderful success. The bounds of his parish were enlarged, the communicants largely increased, the standard of Christian character greatly elevated. Numbers flocked to his ministry from far and near, so that there was no accommodation at the parish church, and a chapel of ease had to be built six miles distant from it. The 426 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. following incident illustrates his unique hold upon his hearers : " He had been preaching at one of his usual stations in the afternoon, and, the ordinary closing devotions being ended, pronounced the benediction. But not a person moved to retire. All seated themselves in the attitude of fixed and solemn attention. A member of the church arost and said, ' Dr. Moore, the peojDle are not disposed to go home. Please to give us another sermon.' At the close of that a like scene was repeated. And the services were continued, until, at the close of a tJiird sermon, the preacher was obliged to say, ' My beloved people, you must now disperse, for, although I delight to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation, my strength is exhausted and I can say no more.' Under these sermons many were awakened to righteousness. It was the commencement of a glorious revival of religion, as the fruits of which sixty new-born souls were added to the communion of the faith- ful." i It was during this ministry at Staten Island that Dr. Moore attended as a deputy the General Convention of 1808, held at Baltimore. This was his first acquaintance with the South. He preached in the Baltimore churches, and in consequence was twice called to St. Paul's, the mother- parish of the city, which invitations he declined. He so greatly aiffected the Convention by his reading of the new hymns which were proposed for adoption that an opponent of the measure protested, saying, " I object to the hymns being read by that gentleman, for we are so fascinated by his style of reading that we shall without hesitation adopt them all." Thus it was that Dr. Moore became known to Virginia while yet busy with his island parish ; preparing unconsciously for his future bishopric by scouring the 1 See Henshaw's " Memoir of Bishop R. C. Moore," p. 66. MOORE ELECTED BISHOP. 427 island, preaching in school-houses and farm-houses on week-days, and three times at his different stations on Sundays. He was called to St. Stephen's Church, New York, in 1809, and went, leaving his son behind him as rector of St. Andrew's. Here he stayed five years, finding a small congregation and thirty communicants, and leaving a church crowded to overflowing, and with between four and five hundred communicants. There were differences of views and usages which kept him awhile apart from Hobart, both as rector and bishop ; but they were both too much akin in their spiritual fervor not to come to under- stand and appreciate each other. Thus it came about that, when Dr. Moore was elevated to the episcopate of Virginia, Bishop Hobart wrote a letter strongly indorsing him. He was elected bishop in 18 14. To secure his support as bishop he was also chosen rector of the Monumental Church in Richmond. As before related, only seven clergymen and eighteen laymen constituted the special Convention which made the election. We need not here repeat what has been already said concerning the low con- dition of the church in Virginia at this time. The paucity of clergy had had, however, one good effect. It had stirred to greater earnestness those who remained. Among them were four very marked men. They were Wilmer of Fairfax, Norris of Alexandria, Dunn of Loudon County, and, chiefest, William Meade, afterward assistant to Bishop Moore, and his honored successor. These had carefully studied the character of Moore, and stood ready to pledge him their unfaltering support. Moore knew the unprom- ising nature of the field, more desolate and discouraging, perhaps, than any other portion of the church's domain. He felt a strong and clinging affection for the parish he had so ably built up, and for the life of the community in 428 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. which he was a distinct power. But he also saw the need of Virginia, and felt in touch with the devout remnant of its people. He thought he knew the remedy for their misfortunes : that it lay in the earnest presentation of the gospel truths he loved and lived by, and in the methods which he employed. And so he went forth from home and kindred, scarcely knowing whither he went, but be- lieving that God called him. The event proved that he was not mistaken. He was consecrated by Bishop- White, May i8, 1814, in St. James's Church, Philadelphia; his own bishop, Hobart, together with Bishop Griswold and Bishop Dehon, of South Carolina, assisting. It was a rare benediction to have such saintly and earnest hands laid on such a head. Its power proved as genuine as its form. The coming of Bishop Moore to Richmond was like the coming of summer, the season in which he came. Hope sprang up at once in the few earnest souls who were alert to restore the waste places. The commanding presence and persuasive speech of the new bishop gained him atten- tion from the start, and it rapidly deepened into admiration and love. He earnestly set to work to do all he could, and he could do much. He was now over fifty years old, and his years had been years of exhaustive labor. His parochial engagements and bodily infirmities prevented his visiting many parts of the diocese, and Bishop. Meade narrates that he never crossed the Alleghany Mountains, though he sometimes visited North Carolina, which had then no bishop. But wherever he went, life started anew and passed on and out beyond the place where it started. His first Convention of 181 5 was attended by double the number of clergy present at his election the year before ; and an increased lay representation gave evidence of new life and zeal. The bishop, in his address, spoke hopefully, MOORE'S VIRGINIA EPISCOPATE. 429 as was his wont, and declared that " in every parisli he had visited he found the most animated wish of the people to restore the church of their fathers to its primitive purity." At once measures were taken to restore discipline, confined at first to grosser sins, yet immediately raising the cry of priestly usurpation and oppression. The lawless declared the clergy only wanted power, and that fire and fagot would soon be used again; that the bishop was only estab- lishing a Methodist Church, and that the new church needed reforming already.^ This very opposition showed the presence of a new vitality, and the work of reformation went steadily on. Parishes seemingly dead were aroused to life and vigor. In another year ten new churches were reported as about to be built, while eight of the old dilap- idated or deserted sanctuaries were undergoing repair. The work of revival, development, and growth never afterward ceased. It continued all through his episcopate and that of his coadjutor and successor, Meade, and through those of their successors. When Bishop Moore came to his diocese there were only four or five active laboring ministers. When, after twenty-seven years, he died, there were nearly a hundred earnest and devoted clergy, and a hundred and seventy churches served by them. He made and kept his clergy devoted by friendly intercourse, by unfailing interest in their work, and by faithful admonition. The tendency to slight the liturgy, hitherto used so formally, which at times cropped out amid the renewed zeal for spiritual results, was always noticed and restrained. He had a great love for associations for informal devotion, for lecture-room services and prayer-meetings ; but he never suffered them to be regarded as substitutes for the regular public devo- tions of the Prayer-book, nor esteemed as superior to them. 1 See Meade, " Old Churches and Families of Virginia," vol. i., p. 39. 43 O PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. At the annual Conventions of the diocese there were meetings preceding and succeeding its sessions, to which he summoned as many as possible of the church families of the neighborhood, and which were centers of great re- ligious influence. Fervent preaching and earnest prayers characterized them ; and the bishop regarded these as- sociations so called as a chief means of stimulating devo- tion in both clergy and laity. They associated the legis- lation of the church with its life, and gave to its routine business a religious tone and meaning. These devotional meetings during Convention were supplemented by asso- ciations of more frequent occurrence in special districts, where the same measures were used to arouse and keep alive the religious life of the neighborhood. The utter contrast of all this to the old life, or lack of it, indicated a complete renovation of the church. Communicants were urged to abstain from worldly amusements, and a stricter personal discipline was inculcated than has usually char- acterized the communion. The liturgy, however, was duly prized. There was, in fact, in Bishop Moore an ultra-conservatism in regard to it. Mistaking the object of Bishop Hobart's movement in 1823 for shortening the Morning Prayer in order to secure the constant use of the Antecommunion Office, he opposed it sturdily. "The church in Virginia," he said, " will never be induced, I trust and pra)^, to depart from her prescribed forms, but will defend the liturgy in its integrity. To alter a service of such acknowledged worth, without years of prayerful consideration, should not be ventured on." He was also more stringent than most of his day in regard to the doctrine of the sacra- ments, defending baptismal regeneration against the Cal- vinistic doctrine of the indefectibility of grace, and declar- ing of the Lord's Supper, " In a way we cannot perfectly HIS ECCLESIASTICAL POSITION. 431 explain, God is pleased to make the ordinances of his re- ligion the channels of his love to man. We perform our duty in obeying that precept which leads us to the altar. God strengthens us by his inward grace imparted to us." He was very earnest, however, in emphatic protest against the "Tracts for the Times," and rejoiced in Bishop Mcllvaine's criticism of the Oxford Movement. He was stanch in his belief in and love for the church of his fathers, while he cherished a spirit of forbearance and charity toward the followers of Christ of every name. Thus he was for many years the president of the Bible Society of Virginia. " Could a Prayer-book accompany every volume of the Sacred Writings I should be rejoiced," he said in a letter to Bishop Ravenscroft ; ** but as that was not the case when the Scriptures were first given to the world, I cannot see the propriety of making it a con- dition of their dissemination at the present day." Such was the spirit and course of his episcopate. The wants of his own communion he was neither slow to de- scry nor slack to remedy. He urged strongly the duty of systematic giving; and, if he did not institute the weekly offertory, he at least exhorted every churchman " to lay aside on the first day of the week a portion of his earnings to be sacredly devoted to the cause of Christian benevo- lence." He felt the crying need of earnest ministers, cognizant of the special wants of his diocese, and was greatly instrumental in instituting the Virginia Theological Seminary in order to supply them. This was not done in opposition to the General Seminary in New York, but to gain what that could not give him. And he was mindful of the wants of his clerg)^ when he got them, and strenu- ously pleaded for their more adequate support, urging the formation of a missionary fund for their relief. He called attention to the claims of the Prayer-book and Tract 432 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. w. Society, and recommended the formation of auxiliaries to it in all the parishes. He encouraged the publication of the " Southern Churchman," a weekly religious paper, and desired that the editor would " feel himself bound to in- culcate and faithfully to guard the distinctive principles of the Protestant Episcopal Church, without wantonly assail- ing the principles of other Christian communities, and to avoid controversy when controversy can possibly be avoided." Thus he labored on until his eightieth year, taking many journeys of great extent, and, though after 1829 relieved by the assistance of his coadjutor, Bishop Meade, daily employed in the public duties of his office. At every succeeding Convention the parochial reports showed dis- tinct progress in the church. He saw his beloved Theo- logical Seminary growing in strength and sending forth laborers into the vineyard. He experienced the warmest reception of himself, and recognition of his work, in other dioceses ; and in Baltimore as in New York he received almost an ovation at times after his powerful preaching. His last speech in the General Convention of 1841 was in advocacy of sending missionary bishops to Texas and western Africa; for his interest in Christ's church was as wide as it was deep. He returned home before the Con- vention adjourned, preached at a funeral in Richmond with a fervor so extraordinary as to excite the remark, " Surely this must be his last message to Richmond," and then went on to Lynchburg to hold a confirmation. After a stirring address at night to a congregation moved to tears by his earnest eloquence, he repaired to the rectory, which he never left alive. He was taken ill that night and died after a week's sickness, with the composure and peace of a Chris- tian warrior lying down to rest. Though nearly eighty years old, like Hobart, he died on a visitation away from OTHER BISHOPS. 433 home. Like him, he left a diocese so reconstructed through his labors and by his spirit as to make it a perpet- ual witness to his power and goodness. He was a man of great popular gifts ; but as with his two distinguished contemporaries, Hobart and Griswold, it was the spiritual consecration of the man to his Master which gave him the commanding influence he exercised upon the life and for- tunes of the church. These three bishops whose careers have been sketched were typical of the church history of their time. The spirit in which they wrought furnished the recreative power of the Episcopal Church. That spirit was by no means wholly confined to them. It was manifest in other quar- ters, and by many in other orders of the ministry, who labored under them, even to mention whom the time would fail us. Already before the consecration of Bishop Moore, of Virginia, Dr. Theodore Dehon, who had been the successful rector of Trinity Church, Newport, and after- ward for seven years rector of St. Michael's, Charleston, was elected and consecrated Bishop of South Carolina in 1 8 12. His short episcopate of five years gave stability and increase to the Southern church. Dr. James Kemp in 1 8 14 was made coadjutor to Bishop Claggett, of Maryland, in special charge of the churches on the Eastern Shore, and in 1 8 16 succeeded to the charge of the whole diocese. Through many troublous scenes he safely guided the church until 1827, when he died. New Jersey at last, in 18 1 5, roused itself from its lethargy, and elected Dr. John Croes for its first bishop ; and he for seventeen years ruled the diocese faithfully in the meekness of wisdom. Bishop Bowen succeeded Bishop Dehon in South Carolina in 1818 ; and in 18 19 Bishop Brownell succeeded Bishop Jarvis after an interval of six years in the episcopate of Connecticut. During this time the records of the General Convention 434 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. manifest and reflect the spirit rekindled in the dioceses. The attendance was notably larger, and attention was given in various ways to the discipline and worship of the church, aiming to make it more earnestly devout. Warnings against worldliness came from the House of Bishops, and new hymns were provided for the expression of the life awakened throughout the communion. In order to meet questions concerning the possession of church property in some quarters, the declaration concerning the identity of " the Protestant Episcopal Church with the body hereto- fore known in these States by the name of the Church of England" was passed by both houses in 1814. In this it is said : " The church conceives of herself as professing and acting on the principles of the Church of England ; but it would be contrary to the fact were any one to infer that the discipline exercised in this church, or that any proceedings therein, are at all dependent on the will of the civil or of the ecclesiastical authority of any foreign coun- try." Attention also was directed in 181 7 to organizing the new Western States into dioceses, moved thereto by the report from Ohio of the existence of nineteen organized parishes in that State. Everywhere save in Delaware the situation seemed to be full of encouragement; and by 1820 the church is reported as organized, though not supplied with bishops, in all the original thirteen States. The most significant consecration of a bishop at this juncture was that of the Rev. Philander Chase in 18 19. He was the pioneer bishop of the West, and by his varied and energetic and untiring efforts did more than any other man of the period to redeem the neglect by the church of the horde of emigrants pouring into the Western country. He was a genuine Yankee, with the characteristic traits of his Puritan stock. Frugally reared on a Vermont farm, yet contriving, as only a New England farmer's boy could, to BISHOP PHILANDER CHASE. 435 go to college, he graduated at Dartmouth in i 795. He had entered a Puritan; he came out a churchman; for he had found there a Prayer-book, and the study of it converted him. After teaching at Albany he was ordered deacon by Bishop Provoost in i 798. He was possessed of a restless missionary zeal, and the life of a frontiersman beckoned him. His first work was in western New York, planting parishes in the wilderness, notably at Utica and Auburn. After receiving priest's orders he for five years had charge of churches at Poughkeepsie and Fishkill, to which double charge he added the labors of principal of the academy. The Protestants of New Orleans applied to Bishop Moore for a clergyman, and he sent them Chase. He went in 1805, established Christ Church in New Orleans, scoured the outlying settlements for converts, fell almost mortally ill of malaria, and returned to New England in 181 1. From this time he was rector of Christ Church, Hart- ford, Conn., until 181 7, when he could no longer repress his itinerant instincts, and so started for the district in Ohio called the Western Reserve. Here at Salem he made his home. No Episcopalians were there ; in fact, there were few among the Western emigrants anywhere, for at the East they chiefly belonged to the classes which did not emigrate. But from settlement to settlement Chase pushed his way, instructing the people in the church's worship, with which many were much pleased. He established relations with the two clergymen already in the State, but remote from each other. In 181 8 the five clergy who con- stituted the entire clerical force in the State met with some nine laymen at Worthington, having organized a diocese at Columbus the year before, and elected Chase bishop. It was an election to toil and penury, but as such it had for him its charms. He was consecrated by Bishop W^hite in St. James's Church, Philadelphia, February ii, 1819. 436 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. He at once pushed his way on horseback, through incred- ible dangers, back to his diocese. To detail his perils in the wilderness there is no space. The fruit of them is found in the two dioceses of Ohio and Illinois. He knew the people, and was wise to win them ; and he saw that those who should win them must know and love them. Hence the necessity for Ohio, as for Virginia under Bishop Moore, of a ministry bred on the spot. He de- cided to found -a college and to go to England for money to build it. He met with discouragement by the way. Bishop Hobart strongly disapproved his action and was on his way to England, where his position and character would give him influence. Still the sturdy frontier bishop went; and he captured the public. He was a prehistoric ecclesiastical ranchman, withthewild flavor and unconventional simplicity which so captivate the aristocrat to-day. He had a letter from Henry Clay to Lord Gambler, who was president of the Church Missionary Society, and he was received with open arms. He returned home in 1824 with twenty thou- sand dollars, and subsequently received ten thousand more. He named the college Kenyon, from Lord Kenyon, who largely assisted him ; and the place where he established it Gambler, from his first English friend. Lord Gambler. He gathered pupils and instructors, and, amid much roughness of living, the work of education went on. Difficulties and disagreements in administration arose, and caused him in 183 1 to resign both his presidency and his bishopric, after he had with incessant toil served in this twofold capacity for ten years. The college still stands, and, though it has never been a large institution, has sent forth a remarkable number of distinguished men, and is efficient to-day. After leaving Ohio he went to the still wilder Michi- gan, where he combined missionary labor and farming for three or four years, " invading no man's diocese, parish, or BISHOP CHASE IN ILLINOIS. 437 labors," until in 1835 the three clergymen and three par- ishes in Illinois met at Peoria, formed themselves into a diocese, and elected Bishop Chase their bishop. He was received by the General Convention which assembled the same year. Though now sixty years of age, he began with all the ardor of youth to repeat the labors and suc- cesses of his old Ohio life. He found the same needs here as in his first diocese, and at once proceeded to supply them, and in the same manner. In the autumn of the year of his assuming the episcopate of Illinois he went a second time to England to gather funds for a new college for the training of Western ministers and the education of the sons of the frontiersmen. In seven months he returned with ten thousand dollars, and began the foundations of Jubilee College. He received gifts, also, from his own countrymen. He again visited the South in 1839, and Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and South CaroHna made generous response to his appeals. Philadelphia, New York, and Brooklyn, at the North, contributed. New England sustained scholarships; Old England, from time to time, sent aid. Thus he established his second college ; and as the pioneer missionary bishop to the West, service- able to its humblest needs and alive to its imperative demands, he did his great work of saving the region to civilization and to a reasonable and churchly Christianity. Two collegiate institutions and two dioceses, started and consolidated, are a monument which few have ever erected to their own memory. And it is to be remembered that all this was done in the midst of primeval forests, surrounded by the crudest conditions of pioneer life. In "the meantime the church at the East and the South felt the same impulse to supply facilities for the education of the ministry that Chase had felt in the West. From this impulse, the General Theological Seminary at New York, 438 PKOrESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Va., and Trinity (at first called Washington) College at Hartford, Conn., took their rise. As early as 1814 the Rev. Mr, Gadsden, of South Carolina, had moved in General Con- vention " that a joint committee of both houses be appointed to take into consideration the institution of a theological seminary " ; and at the subsequent Convention of 181 7 the sense of both houses was found to be in favor of a general school, which it had been determined to establish in New York. On the motion of Bishop Dehon, of South Carolina, it was " Resolved, That it is expedient to establish, for the better education of the candidates for holy orders in this church, a General Theological Seminary which may have the united support of the whole church in these United States, and be under the superintendence and control of the General Convention ; and that this seminary be located in the city of New York." Bishop Hobart of New York and Bishop White of Phil- adelphia subsequently called attention to the institution, and appealed for aid to found it. Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis and Rev. Samuel N. Turner were appointed the first pro- fessors. In 1 8 19 Mr. Clement C. Moore, of New York, offered the sixty city lots now occupied by the seminary, on condition that " the buildings of the theological school should be erected thereon." South Carolina, from whence the first movement had been started, pledged it effectual support. The work of instruction began May i, 1819, with only two professors and six students, among whom, however, were the future bishops G. W. Doane and Man- ton Eastburn. St. Paul's Chapel first, and then St. John's, housed the seminary in their respective vestry-rooms. But it did not flourish in the city, and the General Convention of 1820 resolved to remove it to New Haven, and to reor- GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 439 ganize it on a different plan. Bishop Brownell, who had succeeded the year before to the episcopate of Connecticut, took a hvely interest in it, and promulgated a plan of organization ; and as Dr. Turner was now, owing to the resignation of Dr. Jarvis, the only professor, the bishop moved to New Haven to act gratuitously as an instructor. In the meantime Bishop Hobart founded the Protestant Episcopal Education Society of the State of New York, which took immediate measures to establish two associated schools, the principal one in New York, the other in Geneva. Both schools were opened in the early summer of 1821, with a corps of professors in each. When, then, in March, 1 82 1 (a little before the opening of the New York school, in May), the will of Mr. Jacob Sherred, a vestryman of Trin- ity Church, was read, bequeathing a legacy of about sixty thousand dollars to a seminary to be established in New York by the General or Diocesan Convention, " for the edu- cation of young men designed for holy orders in the Prot- estant Episcopal Church," this new diocesan society of Bishop Hobart claimed the bequest, which claim the trus- tees of the General Seminary at New Haven were disposed to dispute. A special meeting of the General Convention was held, in consequence, in October, at Philadelphia, to decide the question ; and the result was the removal of the General Seminary back to New York, and its union with the diocesan school. Thus the present General Theological Seminary was formed, and inherited the munificent legacy of Mr. Sherred. The seminary reopened in New York in February, 1822, with twenty-six students, and has continued its instruction to this day. Of its long and honorable history we have not space to write, nor can we fitly commemorate the labors and self-denials of the many admirable men who have taught in it, nor the many distinguished alumni who have 440 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. graduated from it. The names of Hobart and Turner, and Wilson and Moore, and Seabury and Forbes, and Whittingham and Mahan, are all indissolubly associated with it, with many others among the living whom we may not name. The late munificent legacy of Dr. Eigenbrodt, who served many years gratuitously as a professor, shows the appreciation in which those hold it who have been associated with it. To the princely benefactions of the present dean, Rev. Dr. E. A. Hoffman, the church and the city owe one of the noblest groups of ecclesiastical archi- tecture to be found on the continent. The Theological Seminary of the diocese of Virginia was inaugurated about the same time as the General Sem- inary in New York. It was designed to educate clergy especially adapted to Virginia and the South ; and, while Bishop Moore disavowed any feeling of rivalry with the General Seminary, there was a widespread fear in Virginia that a general seminary might take too great an impress from the diocese in which it was located, and thus become really diocesan while enjoying the prestige of a general church institution. Many prominent clergymen and bish- ops favored diocesan schools in preference to a general one, and Bishop White was among them. He stood for the General Seminary when the mind of the church was ascertained to favor it, but candidly owned that he " had sacrificed his peculiar sense of the subject to that of the church generally." The need of diocesan schools at that day was more imperative than now. The distances were ten times greater then, by reason of the modes of travel and the badness of the roads. The poverty-stricken can- didates must study privately unless the seminary were easy of approach. The Alexandria seminary was thus not founded in faction, but to satisfy a real demand. After a few years of ill success in establishing a theological profess- VIRGINIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 44 1 orship at the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg, the Virginia Theological Seminary was opened at Alex- andria in 1823. It, too, has had an honorable and distin- guished history. The successive bishops of Virginia have taken the greatest interest in it, and, not to mention others, the association of such a man as Dr. Sparrow, its most dis- tinguished professor, with it gave it a consecration in the minds of all men who prize intellectual greatness combined with spiritual power. Its theology has always taken the complexion of the Evangelical school, though it has edu- cated many who have not belonged to it. It long held the distinction of sending out all the foreign missionaries of the church ; and of its nine hundred graduates fully fifty have gone on foreign missions, while twenty-two have been made bishops. Fifteen different dioceses have at times been represented among its students. After the Civil War it was nobly assisted by munificent benefactions from the North, especially by the princely gifts of the late William H. Aspinwall, of New York. It stands strong to-day. It was soon after the consecration of Bishop Brownell, in 1 8 19, that steps were taken in Connecticut to establish a church college. The new bishop had been tutor and professor in Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., for ten years, and was deeply interested in Christian education. It was a congenial task to him to revive the project which Bishop Seabury had started, but was unable to complete, in the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, of securing a church college capable of conferring degrees and giving the complete education to which they witnessed. Many circumstances combined to make this a propitious time for the movement. The unhappy war with England (18 12-15) had at least had this happy effect: to remove from the Episcopal Church the charge of disloyalty. Churchmen 442 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. as well as others had enlisted and fought bravely in the war. The " Star-spangled Banner," which became at once a national anthem, had been written by Francis S. Key, a devout as well as distinguished layman of Maryland ; and the church was seen to breed patriots in Connecticut, as in the Revolution it had bred them in Virginia. The taint of anglomania was now lessened, if not obliterated, in the diocese whose first bishop had been a chaplain in the royal forces. Again, in 1 8 1 7, the Episcopalians in the State received from the Bishops' Fund one seventh of the sum which Connecticut recovered from the United States for expense incurred in the late war with England, and which the State distributed among the various denominations in proportion to their numerical strength. In 18 18 the Standing Order was overthrown, and a State constitution was adopted, with an express provision for religious equality. In 1818 also the governor, Oliver Wolcott, invited the rec- tor of Trinity Church, New Haven, to preach the Election sermon before the General Assembly at Hartford. In so favorable a political atmosphere the General Assembly granted the petition presented by churchmen May 13, 1823, and passed the Act of Incorporation of Washington (since 1845 called Trinity) College. The college began in September, 1824, with one senior, one sophomore, and six freshmen; but by the end of the year the number of students was twenty-eight. The first commencement was held in 1827, when ten young men were graduated Bach- elors of Arts. Bishop Brownell acted as president of the institution for seven years, and always watched over its interests. Its list of presidents, including, since Bishop Brownell, Dr. Totten, Bishop Williams, Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Samuel Eliot, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Pynchon, and Dr. William- son Smith, has been a most honorable one ; and, though CHURCH COLLEGES. 443 the near neighborhood of Yale College has somewhat over- shadowed the institution, in the tone of its scholarship it has maintained a high rank. During the seventy years of its existence it has taught more than sixteen hundred students, conferred the degree of B.A. on over nine hun- dred of them, and sent forth three hundred ministers, of whom eight have become bishops. The Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown was founded as an offshoot of the college during the administration of Bishop Williams. The colleges established under the influence of the church, though respectable and useful institutions, have not up to this time, with the exception of Columbia Col- lege, New York, taken a leading rank in the country, and for various reasons. They were preceded by older foundations, which in turn have sent forth vigorous off- shoots in newer but still strong organizations. At the West and the East alike the church community itself was small, and was absorbed in reestablishing itself after the Revolution in the face of strong popular prejudice. When the rnovement of establishing colleges began they were chiefly intended to supply local wants, and they partook largely of the local character of the diocese in which they were placed. They have been, as it were, diocesan rather than general institutions, and have thus embodied and represented sections of the church instead of the whole body. As time went on party spirit in the church grew rife, and the colleges stood for special schools of churchmanship, to be sought or avoided, accord- ing to the sympathies of individual churchmen. They have thus not appealed to the church as a whole, and have suffered accordingly. Columbia College, by reason of its situation in New York City, has been largely freed from this narrowing and partisan aspect, and has profited by this freedom. The latest of the large institutions, the 444 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. University of the South, virtually founded since the war of 1 86 1 -65 , at Sewanee, Tenn., though established originally for one political division of the country, has imbibed a more generous spirit, and appealing to all the Southern dioceses, which are represented in its board, puts on the larger aspect of the whole church. It comes nearer than most institutions to being truly a church college, and its promise is proportionally great. When all the colleges of the church give broader significance to the legend on the seal of Trinity College, "Ecclesia et patria," they will be- come more commensurate with the character of the church they represent. While the church was thus fortifying itself within by the creation of schools for theological and secular learning, it was roused also to extend its work and influence by establishing its missionary organization. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society was formally inaugurated in Philadelphia November 21, 1821. Previous missionary eff"orts had been provincial and not over-successful. Two missionary societies had been formed in Philadelphia : one in 181 2, for work within Pennsylvania; one in 18 16, for work beyond the State. In 1820 this last society, through a report by Rev. Messrs. Kemper, Muhlenberg, and Boyd, urged the formation of a general missionary society of the whole Episcopal Church, to labor in the two fields of for- eign and domestic missions. As the term was then used, foreign missions included missions to Indians, even when within the borders of States. Thus at last the whole church spoke on the subject in the General Convention of 1820; and though the plan then adopted was found to be defective and unworkable, the trustees, with the advice of most of the bishops, consented to begin the enterprise. A new constitution, free from misconception, was adopted at the special General Convention of 1 821, by which the MISSIONARY ORGANIZATION. 445 society was constituted as composed of the bishops and deputies of the General Convention, represented by a board of directors, and working by an executive committee of eight. The great hindrance before this time to planting missions in the new States and Territories had been the identity of the state with the diocese. It was not until 1838 that the word "State" was replaced by the word " Diocese" in the constitution. The General Convention had felt itself un- warranted to impose bishops on independent churches or on States which possessed the inherent rights of organiza- tion and of choosing their own episcopal head. There thus existed for years many dioceses which were represented in the General Convention only in the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, because there was no bishop. As an ex- treme instance, Delaware (represented in the earliest Con- ventions, and furnishing, in the person of the Rev. Dr. Charles Henry Wharton, one of the men most influential in framing the Constitution and forming the Prayer-book) had no bishop until 1841. New Jersey, Maine, North Carolina, Georgia, and other States shared in less degree this same impediment to growth. It was seen that the time had come for other and more aggressive action. The effort to awaken a missionary spirit in the church met with enthusiastic and general support. Auxiliary societies immediately sprang up. The very next year the executive committee reported the formation of eleven of them, eight of them being female societies; and in 1836 thirty-two auxiliaries were reported. All types of church- men cooperated in urging the claims of missions. Doane and Hopkins, Mcllvaine and Meade, Otey, De Lancey, Henshaw, Milnor, Tyng, all used their eloquence to ad- vocate the cause. OfTerings flowed in in response. On motion of Bishop Hobart the House of Bishops in 1828 446 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. recommended the clergy to make annual collections for the society ; and Dr. Wainwright made plain that " though domestic and foreign missions may be distinct in name, yet the ca-use itself is one and indivisible." Bishop White pledged his private credit for the supply of needed means in an emergency. The first person who offered himself for foreign mission- ary work was the Rev. Joseph R. Andrews, of the Eastern Diocese, who, commended by Bishop Griswold, went out in 1820 to Liberia as "a missionary and agent of the Colonization Society." He died the next year. The General Convention of 1826 unanimously declared that " measures should be taken for establishing missions at Liberia and Buenos Ayres " ; and the executive committee nominated Mr. Jacob Orson, a colored man, as missionary to Africa as soon as he could obtain orders. Ordained afterward by Bishop Brownell, he died as the ship which was to take him was about to sail. The blockade of Buenos Ayres prevented the Rev. Lot Jones, appointed to its oversight, from reaching his destination. The mission to Greece in 1829 was the really first foreign mission estab- lished. The Rev. J. J. Robertson, of Maryland, was sent to Greece on a tour of exploration in 1829; and in conse- quence of his report on his return, he, together with the Rev. and Mrs. John R. Hill and Mr. Solomon Bingham, sailed in October, 1830, and established schools in Athens, which have been fruitful of results from the beginning. The instructions to these missionaries, prepared by Bishop Griswold and Dr. (afterward Bishop) B. B. Smith, im- pressed upon them that they were not going to establish another church, but to endeavor to prudently and gradu- ally eliminate from their pupils the corruptions of their own. It was not a quixotic enterprise. The whole world at the time was alive with enthusiasm over the heroic FOREIGX MISSIONS. 447 efforts of the Greeks in freeing themselves from Turkish rule and Mohammedan oppression ; and the need of education was so great in the old classic country that many of the Greek youth were sent to the continent of Europe for education, where they imbibed and returned with infidel principles. In two months after Mrs. Hill's school for girls was opened there were a hundred and sixty-sev^en pupils, from three to eighteen years old, and very few of them could read. A boys' school was begun, and a hundred pupils flocked to it. The influence of Mr. and Mrs. Hill was ever most healthful and purifying. Through a long life they continued to educate in a pure Christianity multitudes of those who are now the fathers and mothers of the Greek community. The schools are still maintained, a blessing to the land. The mission to China was established at the very close of the period of the church's life we are now considering. It owed its beginning to the devotion of young Lyde, who died in 1834, at the age of twenty-one, before he could enter the missionary service, to which he had consecrated his life. His spirit was caught by others, and in 1835 the funds were found, and the Rev. Henry Lockwood, of the General Theological Seminary, and the Rev. Francis R. Hansen, a graduate of the Virginia Theological Seminary, sailed together for China. This was before the English Church had entered that field. Bishop Boone was the first foreign missionary bishop elected by the Protestant Episcopal Church, and he was consecrated for China in 1844. The history of these missions we may not here trace. The church, after the action of 1821, was fairly started on the course she has ever since pursued with steadfast steps. All the bishops for the new-formed dioceses were really missionary bishops in the nature of their work. But not 448 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. until 1835 was the first so-called missionary bishop elected in the person of Jackson Kemper, D.D. His truly apos- tolic work will be noticed hereafter. The most significant fact in regard to the church's missionary action at this period is to be found in the report of the committee hav- ing in charge the " consideration of changes in the mode of missionary operations." Its spirit inspired the whole church, and its plan reinvigorated its whole missionary activity. It was the outcome of churchmen of all schools, and was the unanimous expression of their settled convic- tions. It enunciated and enforced the proposition that " the church is the missionary society," and that " every Christian in the terms of his baptismal vow " is pledged to cooperate in preaching the gospel to every creature. The Board of Missions thus became the agent of the whole church in missionary work, and its two departments, foreign and domestic, were regarded only as what Dr. Tyng had de- clared them to be — departments of one great field. Bishop Doane, the chairman of the committee, presented and en- forced these positions with great eloquence and power ; and he was ably seconded by other members of the committee, notably by Bishop Mcllvaine and Drs. Henshaw and Milnor. As a result, the General Convention unanimously adopted the canons concerning missionary bishops; and Bishop Kemper was elected for the Northwest, and Dr. Francis L. Hawks for the Southwest, which appointment, however, the latter declined. To return to the year 1823, beyond which we have traced the course of the Missionary Society, we find that there was an evident expansion all through these years of the church's life. The consecration, in 1823, of John Stark Ravenscroft to the bishopric of North Carolina forced into prominence a marked character whose impress is still strong on the church at the South. The diocese had only BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 449 been organized in 181 7, and consisted of four churches, three surviving from the colonial period, namely, St. James's, » Wilmington, St. Paul's, Edenton, and Christ Church, New Berne ; and one new one added, St. John's, Fayetteville. This work of organization was simply meant to gather together what remained of the old colonial churches. Bishop Moore, of Virginia, gave them occasional episcopal oversight until 1823, when Ravenscroft was elected bishop. John Stark Ravenscroft was unlike the men who had been previously admitted to the episcopate, in that he had lived an utterly godless though not a dissolute life until he was thirty-eight years old, and had been admitted deacon at the ripe age of forty-five. He was born in Virginia, 1772, of Scotch parentage, and, while of gentle blood and breeding, exhibited both before and after his conversion the blunt pertinacity and pugnacity of his race. He combined with his Scotch obstinacy the ardor of a Virginian; and when once his feet were turned into the right path, he walked unflinchingly in it. His con- version was a very marked one, and his theological opinions and ecclesiastical convictions bore the impress of it. The doctrines of grace, so called, formed the sub- stance of his preaching. Being consciously converted himself, he believed in bringing others through a similar experience. Withal he was a strong High-churchman ec- clesiastically, demanding for the satisfaction of his soul a demonstrable authority for those rites and sacraments which incorporated him into the church and preserved him in the covenant of grace. After a ministry of six years in Virginia he undertook the rule and oversight of the four churches of North Carolina, and of the other scattered sheep of the Episcopal fold within its borders who had no sheepfold and no shepherd. Before his death, in 1830, there had been added to the original four churches twenty- 45 O PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. three. He accomplished this result by incessant labor and by a promptness and devotion beyond praise. Such jour- neyings, and such wildness both of nature and of man to be encountered in them! They seemed only to inflame the whole soul of the intrepid bishop. He was called the lion- hearted, and, from the description of the energy and roar of his preaching, he might well have been called the lion- mouthed. Force was his distinguishing characteristic; and his brusqueness and bluntness often gave offense. But there was a force of afTection as well as of speech and action, and it was quite as characteristic of him. On his death- bed he said, " I have many pardons to ask of my fellow-men for my harshness of manner toward them, but," striking his heart, he exclaimed, " there was no harshness here." Sternness and severity were apparent in him because they were real in him. They were the sternness and severity of a man who has felt his own need of them in gaining deliverance from sin, and he believed others needed them as well as he. " There are times when you must not withhold the terrors of the law, but pour them boiling hot into their hearts," he once said to one who pleaded for occasional mildness in preaching ; and the impression of his own sermons is seen in the remark of a hoary sinner, one of his hearers : " O sir, you have made me feel as I have never felt before ; God is greatly to be feared." Such a man, of commanding height and mien, of stormy energy, of intense devotion, of clear-cut convic- tions, tinged with the gloom and earnestness of a rescued soul, could not fail to make a deep mark on the men he wrestled with and the church he ruled. He was virtually a missionary in his own diocese, and his work and his character are stamped indelibly upon it. Such men have their limitations, but their influence is abiding. No one VARIOUS EPISCOPAL COXSECRATIONS. 451 in North Carolina during or after Bishop Ravenscroft's rule could dare repeat the old reproach that the church he served guarded the decencies but neglected the essen- tials of religion. He won respect for its rigor and earnest- ness. He made it a power which has not waned. Other consecrations to the episcopate followed that of Ravenscroft, whose influence was more felt at a subsequent period than this. Henry U. Onderdonk became assistant to Bishop White in 1827, amid scenes of partisan conflict which foretold the coming contention of parties who could not understand or appreciate one another until the vigor of their youth had by experience gained a calmer and broader wisdom. The denominational spirit long prevailed in the body which laid emphasis on its churchliness ; and its violent manifestation at this election vexed the soul of the venerable White, who had laid the foundations of the church on the basis of mutual comprehension, and not of one-sided domination. William Meade, who had been a candidate in the Penn- sylvania election, and withdrawn from it, became the as- sistant of Bishop Moore, of Virginia, in 1829; a veritable coadjutor, who shared the convictions of his chief, and long after him ruled the diocese in the same spirit. William Murray Storer succeeded Bishop Kemp as Bishop of Mary- land in 1830, a compromise candidate between Dr. Wyatt on the one side and Drs. Henshaw and Johns on the other. For seven years he filled with dignity that most difficult position, in which it is almost impossible to satisfy either of the electing parties, because the actual bishop is the first choice of neither. In the same year Benjamin T. Onder- donk began his troubled episcopate of New York, in succession to Bishop Hobart ; and in 1831 Levi Silliman Ives succeeded Bishop Ravenscroft in North Carolina. The year 1832 was memorable for the consecration to- 452 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. gather of four men who became as marked in their influence upon the church as the group of three from- whose consecration we date this period. They were John Henry Hopkins, first Bishop of Vermont; Benjamin Bos- worth Smith, first Bishop of Kentucky ; Charles Petit Mcllvaine, second Bishop of Ohio ; and George Washing- ton Doane, second Bishop of New Jersey. The service was held in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, October 31, 1832, the venerable White acting as consecrator. James N. Otey became first Bishop of Tennessee in 1834; Jack- son Kemper was elected and consecrated missionary bishop of Missouri and Indiana, with jurisdiction all through the Northwest, in 1835; and Samuel Allen McCoskry was elected first Bishop of Michigan in 1836, just too late to be consecrated by Bishop White, who then lay on his death-bed. It will be seen by some of these consecrations that a number of new dioceses had in the meantime been organ- ized and joined the General Convention. Maine had been admitted in 1820, though it continued to form part of the Eastern Diocese; Georgia in 1823; Mississippi in 1825; Kentucky and Tennessee in 1829; Alabama in 1830; and Michigan in 1832. The church in New York had by this time grown to such an extent that the necessity of dividing the diocese had become apparent. To accomplish this, which was a new departure and the beginning of the breaking up of State representation in the General Convention, an altera- tion of Article II. of the constitution was necessary, and it was therefore recommended for the consideration of the next Convention. In 1838 the division was made, and the diocese of Western New York created. This was not done without much controversy and a storm of pamphlets ; but it was accomplished under the wise DEATH OF BISHOP WHITE. 453 advocacy of Dr. Whittingham, afterward the great Bishop of Maryland ; and the new diocese, under the wise rule of Bishop De Lancey, fully vindicated the wisdom of the procedure. At this last Convention before the death of Bishop White the clergy list, which in 181 1 had contained one hundred and sixty-nine names (Virginia not included), had grown to include seven hundred and sixty-three. The two bishops, with twenty-five clerical and twenty-two lay deputies who were in attendance on Convention then, were now represented by fourteen bishops, sixty-nine clerical and fifty-one lay deputies. Nine States were represented in 181 1 ; in 1835 twenty-one. Within the year following the Convention of 1835 Bishop White was called to his rest. He was preparing to preach at the consecration of Bishop McCoskry, which took place July 7, 1836, when he was taken ill, July 2d, and, lingering till July 1 7th, died in the same peaceful serenity in which he had lived. He was eighty-eight years of age and in the fiftieth year of his episcopate. The course of his life in the church has been indicated in the history of the events in which he took part. It was an illustration of the beatitude, " Blessed are the peacemakers." He had won universal respect. His chief service had been that of counselor; and the foundation of the national church was due to him more than to any other man. He was, however, faithful in all things, and if not largely endowed with the modern spirit of stirring activity, he was intrepid in the discharge of every paro- chial and civic duty. He remained at his post unflinch- ingly for weeks during the ravages of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, when many ministers had left the city. He stood for things honest and of good report in civil life also, and was honored beyond most men as a citizen. 454 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xv. Never mingling in ordinary politics, he did not believe that his duties as a member of the community were abrogated by his ecclesiastical position. He always voted. He took a decided stand on the moral aspects of public affairs, as in his opposition to the acceptance by the city of Mr. Girard's bequest, conditioned on the exclusion of clergymen, even as visitors, from the college he founded. He favored the American Colonization Society and pre- sided at its public meetings. He was long president of the Philadelphia Bible Society, whose course he thoroughly approved and upheld. His relations to non- Episcopal clergymen were marked by the courtesy and friendliness which were the outflow of his conviction that in maintain- ing the ancient regimen of bishops the English Church pronounced no judgment against those who did not. He did not believe in entangling alliances, nor in mingling services, nor in exchange of pulpits, holding that peace and amity were best advanced by each body preserving its own special features and attending strictly to its own affairs. But neighborliness was eminently his characteristic, and, while loyal to his own household of faith, he was benign in his charity to all. He was endeared to all, and he was often spoken of by members of all denominations as " our bishop." His re- ligious convictions were clear and simply evangelical, and his character came as near to that of innocence as is com- patible witli the infirmities of human nature. He was learned for his day and was a generous benefactor, and thus became an object of veneration to all men ; and his presence, so modest and reserved, was regarded as a ben- ediction everywhere. He was buried July 20th, in his family vault at Christ Church. His remains have since been removed to a place beneath the chancel. On the day of his funeral there was BISHOP WHITE'S FUNERAL. 455 voluntarily a general suspension of business. The public authorities, the various literary, charitable, and religious societies, the clergy and members of different Christian churches, as well as those of his own communion, composed the immense funeral procession, which was witnessed by many thousands who thronged the streets, and v>'ho pre- served silence and good order throughout. His name had been a tower of strength to the church in the days of its infancy. During its youthful years nothing tended more than his unflinching advocacy to divest it of a for- eign aspect and commend it to the respect of his coun- trymen. In its later life his steadfast enthusiasm and ap- proval greatly aided its establishment as a potent factor in the religious history of the American people. CHAPTER XVI. FROM THE DEATH OF BISHOP WHITE TO THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR (1835-65). A CHANGE had come over the temper of the church during the last years of Bishop White. A change was likewise impending in the mind and method of the church's work. In the crystallization of parties there lay the germs of much internal and unprofitable strife, and also of much vigorous and aggressive life. In replacing the State idea by the diocesan principle, a force was set free which joined the church more fully to the course of the nation's develop- ment. Through its missionary bishops it now became a fully organized church in the Territories as well as in the States, and though it accomplished but a tithe of its task, it discerned it, owned it, and labored at it. This was done by the efforts of what now became fully recognized as two distinct parties, each suspicious and distrustful of the other, each striving for the mastery, and failing to see how, if its own postulates were true, the other had any right of being whatever. Notwithstanding the anomaly of internal dissension and external progress, this time of strife was the time of the church's most rapid and widespread growth. It witnessed the heroic labors of Kemper in the Northwest and Otey in the Southwest, whereby the church was started or estab- lished in the outlying regions of the Mississippi River, both at its source and at its mouth. In the latter part of 456 EXFANSJON OF THE EFISCOFATE. 457 this period Bishop Kip became the first bishop of the Pacific coast, going out to the miners of CaHfornia in 1853. Bishop Scott planted the church in Oregon, 1854; and Bishop Washington Lee began to rule it in Iowa the same year. Henry Benjamin Whipple went to Minnesota in 1859; now the sole survivor of the Western pioneer bishops, worthy to live on as witness of what consecrated service can accomplish for native Indians and encroaching white men. He lives ; and we may not write his epitaph, for that could only be eulogy. And there have been Talbot in the Northwest and Indiana, Gregg in Texas, Freeman and Lay in Arkansas, Rutledge in Florida, Vail in Kansas, Clarkson in Nebraska, and Randall in Colorado, all appointed within this period, and all pioneers in their respective fields. They stand as witnesses not only to the personal devotion and self-sacrifice which the gospel inspires, but to an expansion of ecclesiastical juris- diction which has made the church coterminous with the national domain. During this period forty-four bishops were consecrated, nearly three times as many as survived at the death of Bishop White ; and had the proportional increase of the first half of the period continued, the church would have now almost dominated the religious life of the nation. The numerous details of this wonderful expansion cannot in the allotted space be stated, nor is there even room for the grateful mention of the many noble men and women who have by their labors produced it. We can only indi- cate certain of its salient features which serve to illustrate the rest. By 1850 the seven hundred and sixty-three clergymen of 1835 had more than doubled, having reached the number of fifteen hundred and fifty-eight ; and during the last half of this period, or by 1865, the clergy list re- ported twenty-four hundred and fifty. The communi- 458 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. cants, who in 1835 numbered about thirty-six thousand, in 1850 had risen to almost eighty thousand; and by 1865 nearly one hundred and fifty thousand were reported.^ But the church's growth was not only along the lines of geographical extension and numerical increase. The features which distinguish it became more clear-cut and more influential, and by the force of their own character brought it into prominence and multiplied its clergy and its membership. Its worship took on a more dignified mien and a warmer tone. Through the efforts especially of Dr. Muhlenberg, its hymnody was enriched and enlarged. Church architecture was improved, receiving its most po- tent impulse from the erection of the present edifices of Trinity Church and Grace Church, New York, and creat- ing a new taste and knowledge in church building and fur- nishing, which has revolutionized the appearance of church edifices throughout the country. Stained glass came in, and vested choirs of men and boys appeared. Recessed chancels became the rule ; and pulpit and reading-desk were so placed on either side of it as to make the holy table evident, and give it the dignity of chief position. The old three-decker arrangement, of high pulpit, lower reading-desk,- and still lower communion-table (which had been introduced by Bishop Hobart, not to obscure, but to give prominence to, the holy table, which before had been hidden behind pulpit and reading-desk), gave way. A lectern often replaced the cumbrous desk, and stalls for choir and clergy were erected. Subordinate, except esthetically, as such matters were, they were resisted and advocated on party grounds in this polemical time. Church newspapers multiplied. The 1 In 1850 the population of the United .States was 28,847,884, and Episcopal communicants 79,987. In 1895 the State of New York alone has 5,981,934 inhabitants and 140,055 communicants of the Episcopal Church. (.See " Whittaker's Protestant Episcopal Almanac," 1895, p. 250.) MISSIONARY ORGANIZATIONS. 459 " Churchman," the " Protestant Churchman," the " Ban- ner of the Cross," the " Episcopal Reader," and many more, evidenced growth of church interest, but also in- crease of church strife, which they did nothing to allay, but everything to inflame. The first half of this period, especially, was witness to strenuous and vigorous advance, but an advance along party lines. Even the educational institutions now founded partook of the same spirit. Gen- uine religious enthusiasm and principle lay at their foun- dation ; but Nashotah, established as an associate mission in 1842, was as strongly contrasted with Bexley Hall, inau- gurated at Gambler in 1839, as Racine in Wisconsin has been distinguished from Griswold College in Iowa, both born within this period. The missionary life of the church seemed to turn into like limited channels. In 1835 there was a sort of tacit understanding, which men of the stamp of Bishop Alonzo Potter, Dr. Sparrow, and Dr. Stephen H. Tyng opposed, that the foreign department of missions should be in the hands of the Evangelicals, and the domestic field should be directed by the High-churchmen. The consequent growth at home, and the proportionate increase in repre- sentation at the General Convention, of High-churchmen wrought so much in favor of the influence of the latter that, under the sense of unfair disadvantage, the Low- churchmen, in i860, organized the American Church Missionary Society, to try to recover their prestige in the newer parts of the country. Thus it came about that even in its missionary department the church seemed to rise in arms against itself. Happily this state of affairs did not last long ; and the general and special missionary organiza- tions became in 1877 auxiliary to each other. But for a w^hile strong party feeling ruled in the missionary work of the church. 46o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai'. xvi. This spirit was not so apparent in the foreign work, for that was distant ; and Bishop Boone, who went as missionary bishop to China in 1844, had other tasks than party war- fare to accomplish, as had also Bishop Payne, who went to Africa in 185 i. Horatio Southgate was thought to be a Low-churchman when he was sent to Turkey as missionary bishop in the domains of the sultan in 1844. He had pre- viously labored for several years among the Mohammedans, and was now instructed to seek for friendly intercourse with the Eastern Christians, and to exert an influence for their enlightenment, rather than to suggest intercommun- ion with them. His methods of doing so, however, excited much criticism by Low-churchmen at home, who feared he was being more influenced by the Greek Church than influencing it. When, therefore, he returned home in 1849, with the ideas he had imbibed in his five years' residence in Constantinople, to attempt the separation of his mission from the jurisdiction of the Foreign Committee, and to transfer it into the hands of the House of Bishops, the mission was eventually allowed to drop. There can be no doubt that the bishop's advanced churchmanship had much to do with this result.' The publications of the church were likewise full of the polemical spirit. The Society for the Promotion of Evan- gelical Knowledge was established in 1 847, to counteract the influence of the Oxford tracts and the pamphlets inspired by them, which had now appeared in copious measure; its professed object being " to maintain and to set forth the principles and doctrines of the gospel, embodied in the liturgy and Articles of the Protestant Episcopal Church." Both parties claimed equal loyalty to the church, but each 1 Bishop Southgate was elected first Bishop of California at this time and declined. He resigned his Oriental mission, and served henceforth as rector of St. Paul's Church, Portland, Me., the Church of the Advent, Boston, and Zion Church, New York. CHURCH PARTIES. 46 1 suspected the other of disloyalty, and hence the clash of arms. Each was striving for the right to be. At the time this seemed to involve the denial of the other's right to be. The two parties whose rival action is so characteristic of this period were not the products of it. They were representatives of the two tendencies, the subjective and the objective, in religious thought and life, which always exist, and must exist, and which were distinctly apparent in the colonial churches and in the earlier years of the national church, before the death of Bishop White. They were both stimulated by the Oxford Movement, whose effects were quite as apparent in America as in England, and each became more active as the growing life of the church enlarged its sphere of influence. Bishop Griswold in New England, Bishop Philander Chase in Ohio and Illi- nois, and Bishop Channing Moore in Virginia had exerted their influence along the lines of the Evangelical school in molding the church life of their respective dioceses; while Bishop Seabury in Connecticut, Bishop Hobart in New York, and Bishop Ravenscroft in North Carolina had left an equal impress of the High-church system on their respective fields of labor. The parties were not at first very distinct from each other in theological tenets. Each claimed to be the especial champion of the orthodoxy of the Prayer-book, while they laid emphasis on different parts of it. Biblical criticism was as yet dormant in America ; and both parties held to the Bible with the same tenacious grasp, as an in- fallible authority in all matters ecclesiastical as well as the- ological. The conduct of worship was very uniform. There was nothing in the symbolic adornments of the churches, in the dress of the officiating minister, in his gestures or post- ures, or modes of administering the rites and offices of 462 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. public worship, by which one class of churchmen could be distinguished from another. The difTerence was not exter- nal, but internal; not at that time theological or ritual, but practical. The Evangelical laid strongest emphasis on the individual reception of grace ; the High-churchman on the institutional administration of grace. The watch- word of the one was experience ; that of the other, author- ity. The one looked more to the personal Christian life ; the other more to the corporate Christian life. It was in- evitable, therefore, that they should regard the same doc- trine and the same sacrament difTerently. The Evangelical was very strenuous in the subordination of the letter to the spirit, of the form to the substance. He had great dread of formalism ; and the early church life of the regions where this school most abounded gave a very salutary aspect to this dread. The formula went for little until interpreted by the heart and conscience. The great object of truth and worship was to bring the soul into direct contact with its Saviour, and unless this were accomplished no outward reverence was of any avail. This predominantly experimental Christianity brought with it inevitably a certain attitude toward various feat- ures of the church which distinguished its votaries from others. It became a bond of unity with other Christians of like experience, though not of the same ecclesiastical household. Affiliation with them became desirable and useful; and not to mark the differences, but to indicate the resemblances, between the two was recognized both as a duty and a privilege. Hence cooperative action with all denominations in Bible and tract and temperance soci- eties marked the men of this mold. They never swerved from a strong attachment to the principle of episcopacy ; but while they believed the historic episcopate to be un- doubtedly the form in which the church was fashioned as THE EVANGELICALS. 463 soon as its organization was complete, and that it was essen- tial to the best ordering of the church, they did not find it a divine command in the Scriptures, and regarded it as a providential rather than as a positive institution. The test of experience ruled here as in regard to worship, sacraments, and dogma. God's abundant blessing on the labors of non-Episcopal churches indicated to the Evangel- icals that these were not without the essence of the church, though they might be deprived of some of its best advan- tages. Hence they fraternized more fully with other de- nominations than their more exclusive brethren. While they had unfeigned attachment to the liturgy, they advo- cated and practiced freer modes of worship in less formal assemblies than the stated Sunday congregations ; and prayer-meetings and extemporaneous exhortations were highly prized as means of grace, as by Bishops Griswold and Channing Moore at an earlier period, so at this time by Drs. Milnor, Bedell, and Tyng. In regard to the liturgy, they held it to be thoroughly evangelical. They regarded the sacraments as means of grace therein offered and con- veyed ; but they emphasized the element of faith in the recipient as an essential condition of benefit from the same. The soul's attitude of acceptance was as indispensable as the divine attitude of proffer. Subjective experience must enter into sacramental communion. The whole subject of regeneration in baptism was somewhat indistinct and muddled while the term was identified, as it generally was, with moral change or conversion in the recipient, and many theories were broached to avoid or explain the direct and positive .statements of the Baptismal Office. The hypothetical theory, the charitable-hope theory, the change-of-state theory, were, with many others, advocated by men who could not harmonize the fruits of baptism in experience with the unqualified assertions of its spiritual 464 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. benefit in the service. When the term was more accu- rately defined (as much plater by the House of Bishops in 1 871) as not involving moral change, as the witness to God's gift, but not to' the active reception of it by the baptized ; when, in fine, regeneration was identified with divine endowment, and not necessarily with human appro- priation of it, and baptism was made witness to an object- ive fact, and not to a subjective experience, then the Bap- tismal Office ceased to be an object of controversy. This feature of spiritual experience gave the key to the doctrine of the Evangelicals concerning the ministry. They held to its official authority, but not to its official priestliness. Ministers were authoritative witnesses to God's grace and conveyers of the knowledge of it, but not essential mediators of its application, or indispensable to its communication. They clung with great tenacity to Bishop White's position : " That, as the word ' priest ' was never applied in Scripture to the Christian ministry, the word in the Prayer-book must be used as synonymous with, and as a contraction for, ' presbyter.' " They marked the absence of the term "altar" from the Communion Office as confirming this view, and were not fond of it, though its use in a general way by the Methodists, for the communion rail and place, brought it into general use among anti-sacerdotalists of all denominations. In preaching, the Evangelical school gave supreme prominence to the Saviour in everything pertaining to be- lief or feeling or conduct. Christ is all : that was their gospel. Good works cannot save us, ordinances cannot, priestly power cannot. " Jesus only " was their watch- word ; and the personal appeal, the direct contact, the im- mediate communion of the soul with him, these were the themes which roused their eloquence and made them speak as with lips touched with fire. There was a mild tinge of EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY. 465 Calvinism in most of this school, which in some was not so mild ; and in this they were distinguished, like the English Evangelicals, the Simeons, Romaines, and Venns, from the Wesleys, in so many other respects like them. And the explanation is that they sat at the feet of the English Re- formers, while the Wesleys referred everything to the early fathers and the primitive church, before even Augustinian- ism was born. Practically they were not extreme, and their hearers were not racked with the tortures of absolute divine decrees and the harrowing uncertainties of unconditional election. They spoke to the heart and conscience, and from these their response came. It cannot be doubted that this school, whatever its in- consistencies or party passion or assumptive monopoly of vital piety, rendered service of incalculable worth to the church's life. More than all others it drew the common people, and roused the church to spiritual sympathy with the general religious life of the community. It divested it of that air of ecclesiastical isolation which once made it seem to be in the community, but not of it ; and it drew attention to the spiritual significance of its worship, which has won for it more and more appreciation. Within as without the church, this school has permeated and elevated the devotions of those farthest removed from its special tenets. Its demand for the direct contact of the soul with its personal Lord finds sacramental expression in the Eucharist of the Ritualist ; and the Broad-churchman, re- joicing in the spiritual freedom of a living organism as con- trasted with a constrained subjection to a mere prescriptive authority, may well say of the Evangelical fathers, " Other men labored, and we are entered into their labors." The High-churchmen who contended with them caught the glow of their zeal and felt the warmth of their enthusiasm, and made the system for which they contended, and in the 466 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. main secured, the more vital by reason of its contact with its foe. The Evangehcal prayer-meetings and revivals, which once appeared so reprehensible, survive in more churchly form, but in essential spirit, in the parochial church mission in which all schools to-day unite. All kinds of churchmen now respond to the touch of that spirit which fifty years ago called itself Evangelical. For in the contention for the right to interpret the formularies by the early Reformers, and to exercise freedom of action and worship in matters not prescribed by rubrics and canons, the Evangelical school gave a larger interpretation to the church system, infused into it a spirit of Christian liberty, and raised into a manlier tone the legislation which threat- ened to sink into a mere prescriptive discipline. As a com- pact party organization the school has dissolved, but it has by no means perished. It lives as an influence in almost every department of the church's life, spiritualizing its wor- ship, enlarging its intellectual range, and strengthening its practical benevolence by its spirit of personal devotion to individual souls. The voluntary principle which it con- tended for and secured in its management of missions has survived the mere occasion which called it forth, and has given zest and impetus to all manner o^church work, only remotely akin to the views of the early Low-churchmen. Sisterhoods flourish, guilds grow, brotherhoods extend, through that right of voluntary association which these men, through much contention, left as the church's heri- tage. "They builded better than they knew." And one other service they rendered, not exclusively, but in large degree, and that is the awakening of the laity to a sense of their ministry in the church, and securing their cooperation in advancing its spiritual and benevolent in- terests. The structure of the General Convention had en- listed from the beginning the interest of the laity in legisla- PROMINENT LOW-CHURCHMEN. 467 tion. Francis S. Key, Jay, Binney, Hugh Davy Evans, are types of men who have guided the church in Convention. But the direct personal appeal of the Evangelicals secured the earliest efforts of laymen in the strictly religious province ; from which seed the after-harvest has been so prolific and salutary. The men who led in this movement were the peers of any in the church. Of the bishops there were Meade and Johns of Virginia, Burgess of Maine, Eastburn of Mas- sachusetts, Henshaw of Rhode Island, Lee of Delaware, Washington Lee of Iowa, Chase of Illinois, Elliott of Georgia, Polk of Louisiana, Smith of Kentucky, Alonzo Potter and Stevens of Pennsylvania. Of the presbyters, Drs. Milnor, Bedell, Johns, and Tyng ^ were most promi- nent, by reason of their extraordinary pulpit power and the vast numbers whom they gathered into the communion and parish life of the church. Beside them stood John S. Stone of Brooklyn and Boston, Dr. Crocker of Providence, and Dr. Sparrow of the Virginia Seminary, the profoundest theological mind of the party. Then, too, there were Dr. Richard Newton of Philadelphia, who swept the chil- dren into the church and developed the Sunday-school into a power ; and Alexander H. Vinton of the whole church, a man of the mold of Daniel Webster, " tohis, teres atqiic rotundns ;'' and Samuel Clark, the brother of Bishop Clark of Rhode Island, who himself still stands as an advance-guard of the principles established and the liberties gained by this school. Space and time would alike fail to tell of Ridgely and Suddards and Cutler and Andrews and May, and later of Francis L. Hawks and Heman Dyer, and Drs. Goodwin and Butler, and John Cot- 1 Dr. Tyng was always considered a typical Low-churchman, but Bishop Mcllvaine once remarked of him : " When the church is attacked he is like a tlierniometer plunged in boiling water, shooting at once up to the highest point." (Dyer, " Records of an Active Life," p. 231.) 468 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. ton Smith; all of them men of profound influence, arising from the possession of native power and high character. It was at one time thought that this school would be the most powerful and prominent of any in the church. As an organization, from its very nature, that could hardly be. Its aim was not the construction of the wheels of progress, but the quickening of the spirit which should animate them. In this it was largely successful. Like the leaven, the party disappears to reappear in a church life raised and ennobled by it. When we turn to their ecclesiastical opponents it is not to be assumed that the elements most pronounced among the Evangelicals were wholly lacking in High-churchmen. A high spiritual elevation marked many of their leaders, as well as Hobart, their spiritual father. Who more de- voted than Otey or more intrepid than Kemper; wiser than De Lancey or nobler than Whittingham ? As we look at the list of the chief men who led and established this party we are forced to fuid some other explanation of their movement than an effort at obstructive repression of spiritual freedom, or the establishment of mechanical and exclusive ecclesiasticism. Neither Brownell nor Williams of Connecticut, nor Henry U. Onderdonk of Pennsylvania, nor generous and magnetic Doane of New Jersey, nor learned Odenheimer, his successor, nor Upfold of Indiana, nor Green of Mississippi, nor Lay of Easton, nor Wain- wright and Horatio Potter of New York, can be rightly understood by the application of such a formula. These men were the exponents of a movement which is founded on the belief of the importance of institutional re- ligion. Their efforts and measures find their explanation as endeavors to make the church authoritative in its rule and teaching, and to vindicate it as a divine institution as distinguished from a voluntary religious association. They HIGH-CHURCHMANSHIP. 469 recognized both the defect and the danger of unregulated religious enthusiasm, and the necessity, for its proper regula- tion, of ancient precedent and primitive organization. Their idea was a church as distinguished from a denomination, by its being an inheritance instead of a manufacture; a regulative discipline in worship and creed, instead of a modern expression of individual convictions ; a valid repro- duction of primitive usage, and a trustworthy guide to the spiritual life which it was its object to awaken and sustain by means of the divinely ordered sacraments. In its doc- trine of the sacraments it tended to divert men's attention from themselves and their emotions, and fix it upon God's attitude and intention as revealed and ministered in these means of grace. It looked fixedly, in fine, on the object- ive side of religion as a divine revelation and a positive in- stitution. It was distrustful of all that seemed to overlook the continuity of its connection with the church of apostolic times. There was in this attitude a reaction from the popular statement that religion is simply a matter between man and his Maker. To this school it was that ; but it involved also a relation to the household of faith. There was a cor- porate as well as an individual life in Christianity, a union with the body of Christ as well as with Christ the head. The union with the head was to be accomplished in the body, therefore the body must be organic, and relation to it must be a duty as well as a choice. Hence the .stress laid upon legitimacy of orders and valid administration of the sacraments. The expression of these fundamental principles was doubtless sometimes narrow and extreme. They were looked at, perhaps, generally from their exclusive rather than their inclusive side ; but they were in reality a vin- dication of spiritual law as distinguished from religious 470 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. opinion, and, rightly administered, tended to the establish- ment of spiritual freedom from the tyranny of sectarian rule. This movement to indicate the divine authority of the church was thus not a mere impulse of ecclesiastical pre- tension. It came in legitimately in a country where the church was left to vindicate and sustain itself without the least aid or countenance from the state. There was in America a new condition of affairs in the history of even Protestant Christianity. In Europe the relations of church and state were fixed and intimate. In Lutheran Germany, as well as in Reformed England, not only support but countenance was given by the civil to the ecclesiastical powers. " Here, for the first time since Constantine, the religious element had been left absolutely without restraint, and conditions of ecclesiastical development had been sup- plied such as exist nowhere else in Christendom. Each religious organization had been allowed free scope, to un- fold according to its own interior law, and solve after its own way its distinctive ecclesiastical problem. The result has been a quickening of ecclesiastical activity, and an im- pulse to ecclesiastical development. It is certain that the ecclesiastical life of the middle ages was greatly stimulated by the prevailing political anarch}^ ; and it seems not un- likely that the increasing fluctuation of our own political life may have disposed some to look with more favor on stable ecclesiastical forms." ^ Such general considerations found their special illustra- tion in the development of the High-church party. Ac- cording to its conception, the church as ecclesiastical must be clearly defined and established, and the relation of the individual to it made dominant. Out of the midst of con- 1 See " Religion in America," by Professor J. L. Diman, in " North American Review," January, 1876; also in " Memorial Volume of J. Lewis Diman," p. 242. HIGH-CHURCH THEOLOGY. 471 flicting sects there should arise an institution more per- manent, more positive, more primitive, which, claiming apostolic lineage, should maintain the ancient prerogative of fostering and ruling the religious life of men. Thus, while the Evangelicals emphasized personal redemption, the High-churchmen emphasized the spiritual kingdom. Individuals must become incorporate into that supreme and spacious commonwealth, without whose wholesome restraints and benign supervision all bonds would be re- laxed, all spiritual progress would falter, and all highest aims of Christian attainment or conquest fail of accom- plishment. Out of this general idea of the church the special views and methods of the High-church party sprang. They were accused of preaching the church rather than Christ ; but they preached the church as the body of Christ, in which his Spirit especially dwelt and chiefly manifested its power. They did not advocate the church as a substitute for Christ, but as the vehicle of his own ordaining for the impartation and sustaining of his life. But the persistence with which they cried, " Hear the church," produced the impression that they did not heed the call, " Hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." The odium was at- tached to them of exalting a visible organization into the place of an invisible power. Externalism was their crying sin in the eyes of the opposite party. The growing atten- tion to the details of worship, and the ordering of churches, and the observance of fasts and feasts, gave rise to the charge of formalism. " There is one body," cried the one ; "There is one Spirit," responded the other; and neither seemed to think it possible that both might be united in the " one hope of their calling." What might have been conceived as parallel streams were regarded as counter- currents. The increasing strength of the church imparted 472 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. vigor to each tendency, and the waves ran high when the conflicting currents met. The party, however, gathered constant strength from the younger men, especially those who were educated at the General Theological Seminary, which, situated in New York, had felt the molding influence of Bishop Ho- bart from the start. Its professors, with the exception of Dr. Turner and Dr. Bird Wilson, stood on essentially the same ground. Moore and Seabury, and McVickar and Johnson, and Ogilby and Whittingham, left this impress on their pupils. The Rev. Milo Mahan, coming after them, was one of the strongest and ablest advocates of High- churchmanship. The influence of the powerful corporation of Trinity Church, New York, as well as of the bishop of the diocese, was on this side. Bishop De Lancey made it regnant in western New York. As far north as Boston, the Rev. William Croswell made it honorable by the beauty of his character and the affluence of his gifts. Connecticut, of course, stood by its hereditary churchmanship. Mary- land, by the election of Bishop Whittingham, emphasized this element, which had been present, if dormant, in its earlier bishops, Claggett and Kemp. Otey and Kemper infused its tone into their apostolic labors in the South- west and Northwest. Breck and Adams incorporated the associate mission at Nashotah as its exponent. A majority of the young and enthusiastic clergy, who were the graduates of Dr. Muhlenberg's collegiate institution on Long Island, embraced the system, and carried it with them to their scattered schools and parishes ; notably Dr. Kerfoot, after- ward the Bishop of Pittsburg. But perhaps its most commanding and influential representative was Bishop G. W. Doane, of New Jersey. He was a man to carry weight by the force of his character, the spell of his elo- quence, and the majesty of his appearance. He was full BISHOP G. IV. DOANE. 473 of gifts and graces. If Whittingham may be considered the learned counselor, Doane was assuredly the powerful advocate, of this school. He was instinct with life. He struck at the roots of church life when he established and made successful St. Mary's School for Girls at Burlington, whereby he spread the influence of the church system through hundreds of families in the persons of the mothers of the coming generation, who were his enthusiastic ad- mirers. He was no mean poet, and added some of the noblest hymns to the literature of the church, and was the first to introduce Keble's " Christian Year " to American churchmen. He may have seen visions and dreamed dreams which were impossible of realization, and which his lack of practical talent made him incompetent to put into permanent and enduring form; but his generous nature, his genuine sincerity, and his commanding talents made him magnetic, and imparted a charm to his act and speech which was itself a power. Such natures must be dominant, and hence opponents called him domineering; but he could no more repress the assertiveness of his churchmanship than a bird can repress its song. Clouds which threatened at one time to settle upon him and obscure his influence were dispersed, not more by the un- rivaled skill of his diplomacy than by the commanding assurance of his integrity. For his character was built on solid foundations, though it displayed the traits of a decorated architecture. His courage was undaunted and his conviction keen. Take him for all in all, he was a tower of strength to the High-church school. That school received an impetus from the Oxford Move- ment, by which, on the whole, it stood; but this increased the alarm of its opponents, and caused some of its follow- ers to draw back. The publication of Tract 90 produced a ferment in America, as in England. The Roman Catho- 474 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. lie bishop, Dr. Kendrick, publicly appealed to the bishops to submit to the Church of Rome, on the ground that the Oxford tracts had yielded almost every ground of dispute between the two communions; and Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, always ready for controversy, and delighting in it, made an indignant reply, and in American fashion challenged Bishop Kendrick to an oral discussion. But it was the Carey ordination in New York which sounded a note of alarm which sent a shudder through the church, and stirred Bishop Hopkins to write his celebrated " Letters on the Novelties which Disturb our Peace," w^hich publication later on somewhat disturbed his own. The ordination of Arthur Carey, involving, as it did, the first official recognition of the views of Tract 90 as legitimate in the church, created an impression altogether out of keep- ing with the importance of the candidate. He was, indeed, a young man of marked ability and singular sanctity of character, a graduate of the General Theological Seminary, forced into premature notice ; for he graduated in 1842, too young for ordination. When he came up for examination in 1843 it w^as found that he accepted the teaching of Tract 90, and believed in the reconciliation of the Decrees of the Council of Trent with the Thirty-nine Articles, though it is said that he suggested that it was the Decrees which required explanation, and not the Articles. The Bishop of New York (B. T. Onderdonk) and his examining chaplains were satisfied of his essential orthodoxy ; but two prominent presbyters (Dr. Henry Anthon and Dr. Hugh Smith) pro- tested, and at the ordination service in St. Mark's Church repeated their protest in public. The ordination w^ent on, and it was held that it committed the bishop and his examiners to the views of the candidate. It did not. It only established the fact that in their judgment the views were permissible within the comprehension of the church, THE CA RE V OKDINA TION. 475 and maintained the constitutional right of the bishop to ordain when he and the constituted authorities were satisfied. In the heat of the time it could not be seen, but the decision was a protest against personal and partisan rule. Even Dr. Stephen H. Tyng found in it no cause of present- ment against the bishop ; and Bishop Hopkins, who opposed it, deemed it objectionable as an error of judgment only. Nevertheless the whole church was set on fire. Pamphlets descended in showers. So great was the agitation that Bishop H. U. Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania, deemed it in- expedient for Bishop Hopkins to deliver his lectures on the British Reformation in Philadelphia, lest they should increase the strife. For this he was denounced as a ma- lignant, and not blessed as a peacemaker. From this time on, until the General Convention of 1844, the Oxford Movement was the great and constant theme of sermons, newspaper articles, and diocesan discussions. Before that Convention assembled, however, an event had occurred which threw a dark shadow over it, and intensi- fied partisan feeling yet more. Bishop Henry U. Onder- donk had been charged in his own diocese with habits of intemperance, with a view to bringing him to trial before his peers. The bishop with manly frankness acknowledged the truth of the accusation, and explained it. He had first used stimulants as a remedy in subduing severe bodily pain, and the habit had grown upon him and given occa- sion for scandal. He asked the sentence of his brethren without the formality of a trial, and placed his resignation of the jurisdiction of his diocese in the hands of the House of Bishops. The committee to whom the sad matter w^as committed was not a partisan one. It included Bishops Brownell, Ives, and Hopkins, as well as Bishops Chase and Meade ; and their report favored the acceptance of the res- 476 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. ignation. In response to Bishop Onderdonk's request for such sentence as might be deemed proper, the presiding bishop was empowered to pronounce, in the presence of the House of Bishops, a sentence suspending him from all public exercise of the offices and functions of the sacred ministry. This sentence, excelling in severity, and declared by the distinguished legal authority of Horace Binney to be not only unjust, but uncanonical and illegal, was submitted to without protest by the bishop, who, if he had shown frailty, had displayed a noble manliness of acknowledgment and manifested a sincere repentance. He forthwith gav^e up all use of stimulants ; and such was the subsequent unsullied sanctity of his life that in 1856 his sentence was revoked. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the heated state of party feeling had unconsciously much to do with the whole course of the affair. There was as indubitably a godly jealousy for the honor of the church, which refused to suffer ecclesiastical dignity to shelter personal unworthi- ness, and which emphasized the importance of vindicating the necessity of absolute integrity of character in its high- est officers. But a greater leniency would surely have been shown had the theological aspects of the case been want- ing. Henry U. Onderdonk was a rare man. He com- mended himself to the confidence of his predecessor. Bishop White, whom he had been chosen to assist, and of Bishop Alonzo Potter, who was elected to supplant him. What- ever his own views, he was fair-minded and noble-minded, a man to be relied on by those from whom he differed, as well as by those with whom he agreed. But for the frailty so insidiously induced by baffling a painful disease, he would have been conspicuous as one of the brightest lights of the church in his day. More charity and less caution might well have marked the action of his peers. GENERAL CONVENTION OF IS44. 477 The General Convention of 1844, of which this sad his- tory forms a part, was a very stirring one. The long debates, extending from day to day, on the Oxford Move- ment somewhat cleared the air, but gave rise to no definite action concerning it. The only result was a resolution declaring " the liturgy, offices, and articles of the church sufficient exponents of her sense of the essential doctrines of Holy Scripture ; and that the canons of the church afi"ord ample means of discipline and correction for all who depart from her standards; and, further, that the General Conven- tion is not a suitable tribunal for the trial and censure of, and that the church is not responsible for, the errors of individuals, whether they are members of this church or otherwise." There were several special measures which diverted the attention from the general theological situation, and thus left the Convention uncommitted to one side or the other. In view of rumors concerning the unsoundness of the General Theological Seminary, a formal visitation of that institution by the bishops, in their capacity as visitors, was decreed. It was made, and resulted in a report of confidence. The case of the confirmation of Rev. Francis L. Hawks, historiographer of the church, as Bishop elect of Mississippi, was the occasion of a long and brilliant de- bate of a week's duration, which closed with a speech of such unrivaled eloquence by the candidate himself as to leave the Convention in a state of excitement too bewil- dering for wise decision, so that the matter was relegated to the judgment of the diocese itself.^ The consecration of the three bishops (Chase of New Hampshire, Cobb of Alabama, and C. S. Hawks of Missouri) during the session, and the nomination of the three missionary bishops (Boone 1 Dr. Hawks was sul:>sequently triumphantly reelected, but declined, as he did afterward an election to the diocese of Rhode Island. As an eloquent preacher he had no peer during his life. 478 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. for China, Freeman for Arkansas, and Southgate for Tur- key), who were consecrated immediately after the adjourn- ment, turned the minds of many from the consideration of polemics to the region of practical affairs and missionary propaganda. The storm passed with less violence than had been anticipated. It was soon to gather in concentrated form in the trial of Bishop B. T. Onderdonk, of New York. Into the particular features of that trial it is not necessary to enter. The bish- ops were reluctant to undertake it ; but the presentment of a bishop by three of their number, on the charge of un- chaste behavior, rendered action imperative. It has been surmised that had there been an acknowledgment by the accused, before the trial, of indiscretions which had been mis- interpreted as improprieties, no trial would have occurred. The treatment of his brother of Pennsylvania does not seem to warrant such a conclusion. There was generally a stern determination to vindicate the moral status of the episcopate in the face of high ecclesiastical claims ; and the rumors of gross fault were such as to furnish an opportu- nity which seemed to involve an obligation. Subsequent events showed that the Diocesan Convention of New York would not have presented their bishop for trial. But at the recent General Convention a canon had been adopted giving the right of presentment to any three bishops, as well as to the bishop's own diocese. This canon had been proposed as early as 1835 by Bishop Hopkins, as a step toward making a bishop amenable to his peers ; but it set up a roving commission of inquiry which was soon seen to work disastrously, and such action of the bishops as it authorized has since been confined to the three bishops in nearest proximity to the accused. Now, how- ever, by his peers, on the 9th of November, the present- ment of the Bishop of New York was formally made. The ECCLESIASTICAL TRIALS. 479 trial began on the loth of December, and continued until the 3d of January. The accused never flinched from the assertion of his in- nocence, which he maintained till the day of his death. He was ably defended, but the court of seventeen bishops found him guilty by a majority of eleven to six. Those who voted for acquittal were obliged to join with their opponents in a vote for indefinite suspension from office, in order to avoid a sentence of deposition, w^hich a major- ity of the court favored. Bishop Onderdonk was, in con- sequence, suspended, and never restored, though efforts in that direction were made by the New York diocese. It was in 1852 that Dr. Wainwright was made "provisional bishop," and up to that time the diocese was left a prey to faction. The battle was bitter between the supporters and the opposers of the suspended bishop. Bishop Hopkins, in the " Protestant Churchman," on the one hand, and Dr. Samuel Seabury, editor of the " Churchman," on the other, spared nothing of the sharpness of controversy, embittered by both party and personal prejudice. It was the sad evi- dence of a vigorous household divided against itself. It is as impossible here as in the case of his brother of Pennsyl- vania to avoid the conclusion that the court could not escape the influence of theological and ecclesiastical dis- sensions. This was not characteristic of one party only ; both were shaking with the same malaria. It is equally impossible to doubt that the sentence expressed the honest conviction of men set for the defense of the purity of the gospel ministry. The suspended bishop had the satisfaction of knowing that the great body of the people of New York persistently maintained his innocence, and that he retained the confidence of some of the first bishops of the church. The third ecclesiastical trial of a bishop was not in real- ity a trial, though it gained the reputation of one. It was 480 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. rather a prolonged effort to secure a trial on the one side, and to defeat it on the other. Bishop Doane, of New- Jersey, had been forced into bankruptcy in his attempt to found and foster Burlington College for the sons, and St. Mary's School for the daughters, of the church. Like many a man of noble ideas, he lacked the financial skill to embody them in a successful institution. The Diocesan Convention of New Jersey had refused a proposed in- vestigation. The three bishops, Meade, Mcllvaine, and Burgess, than whom three purer never sat upon an episcopal bench, felt it imperative for the honor of the church that an investigation should be had ; for rumors of dishonesty, or carelessness amounting to it, were abroad. It was utterly repugnant and distressing to a man of the mold of Bishop Doane to be summoned to the bar of the church for moral delinquency. The nobility of his nature recoiled from such an accusation even. He was determined that he would not be presented to his peers on such a charge if it could be avoided, and that he would, to use his own phrase, " make the trial of a bishop hard." There is no doubt but that he prejudiced his cause in the eyes of many by this stand. It was looked upon as another bluff movement of episcopal assumption. No matter ; he be- lieved it was essential for the stability of the church, and took his stand accordingly. He protested against the right of the three bishops to suggest to his diocese the calling of a special Convention to consider the case. The Conven- tion was, however, called, and declared an inquiry unneces- sary. A presentment by the bishops was then made, and the trial was appointed for June 26, 1852. It was, how- ever, postponed until October, in order to allow the at- tendance of the bishops at the Jubilee Celebration of the Venerable S. P. G. in London. In the interim, in July, the New Jersey Convention had, after taking evidence, DEFECTION OF BISHOP IVES. 48 1 fully exonerated their bishop. The court assembled Octo- ber 7th, and Bishop Doane resisted all further proceedings by it, on the ground that he had been exonerated by the Diocesan Convention, in July, on most of the charges, and that a canonically called Convention would examine what remained. The court, by a vote of seven to six, conceded the bishop's plea. A third presentment was made, but when a court of twenty-one bishops assembled in Camden, in September, 1853, to take action upon it, such legal points were raised that a committee appointed to consider the matter unanimously reported in favor of dismissing the presentment and discharging the respondent. The court unanimously concurred in the report of the committee, though vindicating the good faith of the presenters ; and thus the so-called trial of Bishop Doane was no trial, and he never pleaded to any charge at the bar of the House of Bishops. 1 During the years of this struggle a notable event in re- lation to the episcopate had occurred at the South. Bishop Ives, of North Carolina, resigned his office and seceded to the Church of Rome. It was a unique event, no other bishop in the whole Anglican communion having ever be- fore or since taken such a step. The announcement of it was made in a letter to his diocese dated at Rome, De- cember 22, 1852, whose closing sentence was: " I hereby resign into your hands my office as Bishop of North Caro- lina ; and, further, I am determined to make my submission to the Catholic Church." The act was the culmination of several years of vacilla- tion, wherein the bishop had alternately alarmed and reas- sured his diocese, now giving assurances and now retracting 1 The trial of Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, in his own diocese, on a charge of inveracity, resulted yet more grotesquely than the fiasco in New Jersey. The court, chosen by the diocese, returned the verdict " Guilty, but without the least criminality." 482 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. them in a manner which plainly showed the deep perturba- tion of his mind. His Convention had appointed a com- mittee of investigation, and he had met it with explanations of his course as arising from a desire to bring about a union of the Roman, Greek, Anglican, and American churches, which he had become satisfied was impracticable. Resolutions which had been introduced, expressing a want of confidence, and asking for his resignation, were with- drawn. The purpose of presenting him to the General Con- vention for trial was withheld. He went to Europe for a vacation of six months in the early autumn of 1852, and, without further notice to his diocese, before sailing left in the hands of Archbishop Hughes, of New York, his abjura- tion of the faith in which he had been bred and exercised his office. His church heard of it from Rome, where he submitted to the Roman obedience. At the following General Convention of 1853 he was, under the action of a special canon, pronounced " ipso facto deposed to all intents and purposes from the office of a bishop in the church of God, and from all the rights, privileges, powers, and digni- ties thereunto pertaining." This sentence was pronounced with due formality by the presiding bishop, sitting in his chair, in the presence of both houses. This was the most conspicuous of the secessions to Rome occasioned by the stir of the Oxford Movement. Others had gone, but the loss had not been great. Some, " lovely and of good report," had been swept off their feet by the new swelling tide ; but thpy had had small following, and hardly numbered more than fifty. The action of Bishop Ives provoked reaction, made the ardent souls more sober, and tended to clear the air of much murky sentimentalism, which led to a less partisan and more rational appreciation of one another by members of the different schools. Whether this opened the way to it or not, the Conven- THE MEMORIAL MOVEMENT. 483 tion which witnessed the deposition of Bishop Ives saw the beeinnine of a movement more significant than any which had occurred in the church's history. It was the presen- tation of the Memorial suggested and composed by Dr. Muhlenberg, and indissolubly identified with his name, which looked to bringing the communion out of the attitude of a denomination into the position of a church. Whatever claims had been made for it, the Protestant Episcopal Church had hitherto been ordered very largely in the spirit of a sect, or a particular household, adapted to a part only of the community, and hemmed in with regulations as to worship and action which could commend it to only a chosen few. Those within, as we have seen, had been clamorous for party predominance rather than for mutual recognition of one another's rights. The impression without had been largely ineffective on the masses of the popula- tion. It had made no adequate attempt to be the church of the people ; and the Memorial contended that it could not, until its attitude was altered by enlarging the scope of a bishop's action, and by making the arrangements of its own household more flexible. Before entering more fully into the details or the history of the Memorial Movement, it is well, for the understand- ing of both, to glance at the person and character of its proposer. William Augustus Muhlenberg was a rare man for any time. The elements of genius were abundant in him, and they were all suffused with the genius of common sense. Opposing qualities met in him, not in contention, but in mutual helpfulness ; for a heavenly vision beckoned all his powers, and he was not disobedient to it. His child- like simplicity intensified the manliness of his understand- ing, while his sanctity of character made itself apparent in the brilliant flashes of his wit as well as in his alms-deeds and prayers. Like Bunyan's Pilgrim when past the De- 484 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. lectable Mountains, he " seemed to be in heaven before he got at it," and he walked through the slums of New York as along the streets of the Celestial City. But it was a walk of practical usefulness. He had A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize. Songs of faith and love issued from his lips, while his hands were busy ministering to the wants of sinful and suffering men. He was both a poet and a schoolmaster, and was eminent as both. He was intensely churchly and broadly liberal. He called himself an Evangelical Catholic, not in the party sense of either term, but as expressive of the union of the subjective and objective elements of thje church which formed his ideal. His catholicity embraced Protes- tantism, in admiration and appreciation of which he was very strong ; and his evangelical faith found its expression in an esthetic ritual of a glowing, though not conventional, type. There was no department of church life " which he did not touch, and, touching, did not adorn." He first started and made successful, with the success which has been the fruit- ful germ of all its rich aftergrowth, the church school. At Flushing and College Point, on Long Island, for eighteen years he educated, in an atmosphere charged with religious and churchly enthusiasm, a band of young men, who never ceased to thrill with the magnetism of his character, or to diffuse his spirit, even when not sharing his opinions. After his college life ended he started and made powerful the first free church of any prominence or influence in the city of New York, by founding the Church of the Holy Communion ; in which church he not only made the sittings free, but introduced those elements of worship and work which succeeded in making it the home of all manner of devout and active souls. The daily prayer, the WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG. 485 weekly communion, the divided services, the weekly offer- tory, the choir of men and boys, the festival commemora- tion, the Easter flowers, features of worship now general, were introduced by him for the first time in America, and all for the practical edification of the people, as well as for extending the influence of the church and amplifying the sphere of her possibilities. The practical side of church life, as well as the liturgical, found its ample development in him. His was the earliest sisterhood, at first informal, after- ward organized. His practice first started the Fresh Air movement for the city's poor. His were the first Christmas trees for the Sunday-school. His Church Infirmary sug- gested and started his own movement for the founding of St. Luke's Hospital, the first church hospital of any Christian communion in the land. All these things had taken shape before the Memorial Movement began, and that movement was meant to make possible and widespread in the general church what he had in a limited degree accomplished in his own parish. He loved the church in such measure that he would free it from restrictions which he saw hindered its expansion. He believed in it so intensely that he was sure of its com- petency to become the church of the nation, if only it would consent to develop its latent resources. As Hobart had reproduced Seabury in larger type and ampler spirit, so Muhlenberg stood related to Bishop White. He shared the large wisdom and broad spirit which had framed a church for a nation, but with the intuition of a seer he de- tected latent energies in it which might make it the nation's church. All the ardor of his genius was awakened to make real the vision which haunted him. He was an idealist of consummate practical force ; and he was bent on transform- ing what was practically a liturgical denomination into what should be really a catholic church ; a church not only in its 486 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. claim, but in its accomplishment ; a church which should be a center of unity to at least Protestant Christendom, and adapted to all sorts and conditions of men in the manifold working of its activities and the multiform adapta- bility of its worship. He was utterly weary of the conten- tion of parties who would not understand one another, and was alive to the importance of combining their energies in the practical work of making the nation Christian and the church supreme in it, comprehensive of all types of good- ness, aggressive against all forms of evil. In the Memorial^ there were associated with Dr. Muhlen- berg men of mark ; but he was the informing spirit. It was addressed " To the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Council Assembled," but it persisted in regard- ing them as " a College of Catholic and Apostolic Bishops," having a wide relation to the church of God as such, as well as to a fragmentary part of it. It did not so much ask for specific measures as suggest action according to certain indicated principles. Its chief inquiry was " whether the Protestant Episcopal Church, with only her present canoni- cal means and appliances, her fixed and invariable modes of public worship, and her traditional customs and usages, is competent to the work of preaching and dispensing the gospel to all sorts and conditions of men, and so adequate to do the work of* the Lord in this land and in this age." The statement of its conviction was " that our church, con- fined to the exercise of her present system, is not sufficient to the great purposes above mentioned ; that a wider door must be opened for admission to the gospel ministry ... of men who could not bring themselves to conform in all par- ticulars to our prescriptions and customs, yet sound in the faith." Its suggestion was that " an important step would thus be taken toward efTecting church unity in the Protest- 1 See Appendix D. SCOPE OF THE MEMORIAL. 487 ant Christendom of our land." Its declaration of ultimate design was " to submit the practicability, under your auspices, of some ecclesiastical system broader and more comprehensive than that which you now administer, sur- rounding and including the Protestant Episcopal Church as it now is, leaving that church untouched, identical with that church in all its great principles, yet providing 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 that system, it is beheved, must sooner or later be the work of an American catholic episcopate." This Memorial was signed, together with Dr. Muhlen- berg, by such men as Edwin Harwood, Alexander H. Vinton, M. A. De Wolfe Howe, and others, as also, with reservations, by A. Cleveland Coxe, John Henry Hobart, and Francis Vinton. Its scope was, briefly, to preserve intact the Protestant Episcopal Church for those who valued its special features of worship and discipline, but also to extend its jurisdiction over those who did not; in fine, to embrace in its system those who need not submit to its denominational peculiarities. Its aim was to make the church something more than a liturgical section of Christendom, and to show the catholicity of its constitution by the catholicity of its administration, not elevating things desirable to some into things necessary for all, but adapting the apostolic faith and order to the varying wants of com- munities and men. This Memorial made a profound impression. The con- sideration of it was referred to a committee, by a vote of twenty to four, with instructions to report to the next General Convention. Bishop Otey was the chairman, and Bishops G. W. Doane, Alonzo Potter, George Burgess, and John Williams were the members of it, a committee so 488 PJ^OTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chai-. xvi, weighty as to show the importance attached to the subject. The church, though startled into interest, was not ready for the scheme, which, nevertheless, proposed to satisfy the expressed aims of both parties : of the Evangelicals, in the wider spread of the gospel and the more flexible use of the liturgy ; of the High-churchmen, by extending the jurisdic- tion of the episcopate and constituting it the center of unity. Most of those who reported upon it at the next General Convention failed to grasp the fullness of its conception, or were distrustful of it. A preliminary report was offered at the beginning of the session in 1856, in expectation of some action at the outset of the discussion. It did not go to the heart of the subject, but indicated certain concessions or directions in the use of the liturgy, in the separation of services, and other surface matters, and recommended that a commission of five bish- ops be appointed at each General Convention to sit as a commission on church unity. The long report introduced at the end of the Convention did little more. The church had not risen to the height of Dr. Muhlenberg's concep- tion. It could not safely legislate on what it did not fully comprehend. The settlement of the questions sug- gested was largely left for future consideration. In many respects, however, the Memorial won success in the midst of defeat. It occasioned the most widespread discussion. The attention of the younger clergy was attracted to a new phase of churchmanship divergent from the old party lines ; and thoughtful minds among them were awakened to a nobler idea of the church's mission. It is interesting to recall what Dr. Muhlenberg himself wrote to Bishop Otey in the pamphlet, " What do the Memorialists Want? " con- cerning flexibility in the use of the Prayer-book in regular congregations, and to find the desired requirements every one granted in the revised Prayer-book of 1892. The BISHOP ALONZO POTTER. 489 Memorial was the seed of the revision movement, as it also was of the celebrated Declaration concerning Unity, pro- mulgated at the Convention of 1886, and by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. But there was one who at the time of the Memorial comprehended its meaning and saw its worth. It was that statesmanlike bishop, Alonzo Potter, of Pennsylvania, who became the champion of the principles which under- lay the whole movement. In his efforts to emancipate the liturgy from the slavish yoke of the letter, to remove the bars to the progress of the apostolic ministry, to bring out the undeveloped powers of the church and utilize its every instrument to reach and elevate all conditions of men and departments of life, he showed himself a master builder on the foundations which Dr. Muhlenberg had laid bare. He had been chosen Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845, ^t a time when the Episcopal Church was divided by a wide and deep cleavage into two great parties, each of which regarded the other with distrust, if not aversion. One of these accounted itself as having all the piety, and the other all the loyalty and good manners, in the church. Each of them contemplated the growth of the other as an event to be deprecated and discouraged. At such a juncture Bishop Potter came to Pennsylvania as the choice of a majority, but not a large majority, of the clergy and laity, and in the expectation that he would be a tolerant bishop. Men soon found that he was something else, and more. He was sometimes called the " schoolmaster bishop," and his training was occasionally thought to smack of the class- room and the college from which he had come. But as a matter of fact Union College had been the best training for the task to which he was called. He was neither unctuous nor " sacerdotal " in his manners, but he was intelligently sympathetic. 490 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. He had, indeed, been a parish minister as rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, in his earlier years ; but he had fortunately outgrown that parochial conception of episco- pal administration which bishops too often take into their higher office. From the outset he showed himself not merely a tolerant but a comprehensive bishop, who recog- nized explicitly that the various schools of thought in the church have each their rightful place as representing one or another aspect of the many-sided truth of which it is the guardian and keeper, and as set to preserve it from being obscured or lost sight of. In this spirit he welcomed men of every variety of opinion and usage to his diocese, and carefully avoided a policy too common in the episcopate, which seeks to fill a diocese with clergy who are more or less pale imitations of its ordinary. In this way he secured a wholesome and hospitable atmosphere for the best in- telligence and the best endeavors which the diocese could command, and made it a home to which men of every shade of opinion eagerly turned from other and less generous associations. His administration thus illustrated more conspicuously than the history of the Episcopal Church had yet seen a truly catholic episcopate. And something more. From the outset Bishop Potter recognized that, to those without, the church must first commend herself by her spirit rather than by the self-asserting obtrusion of her institutional characteristics. He was by temperament and embodiment a statesman, and would have been anywhere a leader of men. He did not cease to be so when he became a bishop. Without forgetting in any smallest degree the obligations of his office and work or the proprieties which hedged it about, he soon made it apparent that he was a citizen as well as a bishop, and that, in the spirit of Terence, nothing that concerned the well-being of humanity could be in- FATE OF THE MEMORIAL. 491 different to him. The urgent social questions of his genera- tion found in him a wise and thoughtful student ; and every serious endeavor for their solution, a friend and pioneer. In this way before long he became a recognized force and leader in the whole community, and illustrated in his episcopate the highest order of ecclesiastical statesmanship. He never intrigued for ecclesiastical advantage, or clamored for official recognition ; but the church won friends every- where, and his office evoked a confidence wholly unprec- edented, because he interpreted both in a way so large and noble to the best intelligence of his generation. When his work in Pennsylvania was ended, the Episcopal Church in that great commonwealth, and the office of a bishop, had come to be, in the minds of its citizens, something other and more than they had ever before conceived them. Through the Memorial, whose chronicles and papers Bishop Potter gathered and preserved for future guidance and inspiration, the church had received a summons to a united and positive advance, which should bring its action into accord with its principles, and fill it with one spirit amid all its diversities of operation. It was too great an idea to gain instant acceptance, or to act other than as a leaven to raise the lump to the height of its conception. To " give over the attempt to cast all men's minds into, one mold" ; to "cherish among her own members mutual toler- ance of opinion in doctrine and taste in worship " ; in fine, to be truly catholic, as well as claim to be catholic — all this the author of the Memorial did not cease to urge. But it required the tumult of the ritualistic rising and controversy, and the secession. of the Reformed Episcopal communion, before the church, through sad experience, learned more adequately to comprehend the spirit which might have prevented both. Nevertheless it went on its way, quick- ened by an impulse which it could not fully embody. 492 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. From this time on to the beginning of the Civil War, which during its continuance parted it into two separate famiHes, the church's energy and progress were not in- considerable. The influential and distracted diocese of New York became placated and prosperous under the conciliatory policy of its provisional bishops. The short episcopate of the courtly and thoroughly Christian, Wain- wright, too soon accomplished, struck the key-note which his successor, Bishop Horatio Potter, was apt and keen to prolong and develop. The convictions and sympathies of the latter were not concealed, but they were not permitted to meddle with the rights of others. His conservative nature held him aloof from active propagandism ; and, while diligent and faithful in a sphere of peculiar difficulty, he showed a masterly inactivity in regard to the causes of ecclesiastical agitation, which resulted in the subsidence of angry and heated feeling. His was the Fabian policy, which in its wisdom saved the strongest and most influential diocese of the country from the disintegration of factious warfare. Calmness succeeded strife, and then came prosperity and peace. At the South the noble Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, was the ruling and guiding spirit of this time, and was more and more prized and deferred to as age and experience developed the marvelous power which in two years after his consecration had doubled the number of parishes and communicants within his jurisdiction. He was a man equally admired and beloved. His eloquence and the fervor of his evangelical convictions made him a potent factor in the religious life of the whole community, as well as of his own church. One not of his communion was the chief benefactor of the church school which he early started. He was causing the church to be felt all through the Southern States. KEMPER AND BRECK. 493 Bishop George Burgess, of Maine, was making the im- pression of his scholarly mind and earnest soul visible through all New England, of which at this time he was the most able and eminent representative. California and Ore- gon had received their bishops, and no more glances were thrown toward the Greek Church across the Pacific, which in the very beginning, when California seemed nearer to Russia than to the Eastern United States, had been contemplated as a source of orders for the churchmen gathered there. The church hfe, which had been cherished by the Rev. Flavel S. Mines during the years before Bishop Kip came, was now becoming regularly organized. At the North- west, lying east of the Rocky Mountains the apostolic, Kemper, after founding and fostering the church in Mis- souri, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota, through incredibel hardships and by a devotion as heroic as had marked any age of the church, accepted the bishopric of Wisconsin in 1859, taking the title of missionary bishop in that wilder- ness jurisdiction, but not changing his work. The associate mission at Nashotah, where he resided, had become an im- portant center of education, both secular and theological, for the region ; and James Lloyd Breck, who had assisted at its foundation in 1841, in 1857 founded the educational in- stitutions of Faribault, Minn., which Bishop Whipple, since 1859, has so wonderfully developed. The work of Breck deserves larger recognition than it is possible to give it here. It was a marvelous instance of religious devotion in adhesion to the strictest ecclesiastical principles, and com- bined with a pioneer instinct which made him restless at the approach of the civilization for whose advantage his numerous schools were established and his many churches formed. He founded them so securely that when left to the care of others they survived and grew, while he pressed on to new efforts for Indians yet more remote and for set- 494 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. tiers yet more recent in the regions beyond. He appro- priately found his last work in establishing a school a't Benicia, in California, only stayed, it would seem, by the Pacific Ocean from regions more distant still. Had Sitka been ours then, it would have beckoned him irresistibly. This spirit of restlessness was the spirit, not of an adven- turer, but of a founder ; and the fruit of his labors is the permanent possession of the church in those far-off regions into which he opened the way for her. The result of all these labors, North, South, East, and West, was soon to suffer shock by the disruption of the Civil War. The Episcopal Church as an organization had, from the beginning, determined to keep aloof from party politics, and, more fully than other ecclesiastical bodies, had done so. Her membership was very varied among the influential classes of society. Many of the distinguished statesmen of all parties were of her communion. They acted in their several political spheres as citizens and as churchmen, neither gave nor withheld their countenance in political action. The triennial meetings of the General Convention had made the clergy and laity of the North and the South familiar and friendly with one another. The sectional in- stitution of slavery, which occasioned the secession move- ment, had not been made a subject of general ecclesiastical legislation. It was left to the regulation of the dioceses in which it existed. The North had had its strong antislavery advocates in the Danas of Boston, the Jays of New York, and the Binneys of Philadelphia, as the South had had as defenders of the institution its most distinguished states- men— in fact, almost its entire white population. Bishop Meade disliked slavery, but defended its lawfulness. Others held to it as an institution sanctioned by the Bible, and es- sential for the best interests of the negro ; and the Epis- SEPARATION BY THE WAR. 495 copal Church had cared for the slave. In South CaroHna there were a hundred and fifty congregations of negroes for a hundred of whites ; and the devotion of masters and mistresses to their servants' rehgious welfare was in many cases of the most patriarchal and self-sacrificing character. The Bishop of Virginia preached a Convention sermon on the duty owed by the whites to the negroes ; Bishop Polk, a large slave-holder, cared diligently for his servants ; and there were thousands of communicants among the colored people. The whole attitude of the negroes toward the white population during the war, while a conspicuous tribute to the noble and winning traits of their race, showed unmistakably that their masters had largely won their love, as well as awed them by authority. The con- viction of Northern churchmen as to the evils of the in- stitution, and their religious and political aversion to it, had not blinded them to those practical ameliorations of the system with which their ecclesiastical intercourse with Southerners had made them familiar. Bishop Mcllvaine, of Ohio, the most conspicuous of the Northern bishops in the cause of the Union, was in closest bonds of religious and ecclesiastical sympathy with that most ardent secessionist. Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, who had been converted under his ministry while a cadet at West Point. They prayed for each other by name every Sunday morning. There was no religious household in the land into which the coming of the Civil War intro- duced more personal distress than that of the Episcopal Church. At first some of the Southern bishops deprecated seces- sion, notably Meade of Virginia and Otey of Tennessee ; but when their States seceded they joined heart and soul with Elliott of Georgia and Davis of South Carolina, who had ardently fanned it from the first ; and it was the aged 496 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. Meade who cautiously counseled the more youthful Polk to enter the army, and use the military education he had received at West Point for the advantage of the en- dangered Confederacy. It was a unique position for a Protestant bishop; but it was reluctantly undertaken from the sternest sense of duty, and discharged in the spirit of a Christian warrior. On the other hand. Bishop Whit- tingham, of Maryland, not a Southerner by birth, stood stanchly for the Union, with an unswerving intrepidity, amid dissevered friendships and in a divided diocese. But we anticipate the church's action. In compliance with a call issued before the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas had seceded, the Bishops of South Carolina, Georgia, Mis- sissippi, Florida, and Texas, together with clerical and lay delegates, met in Convention in Montgomery, Ala., July 3, 1 86 1. It was unanimously resolved that the secession of the Southern States from the United States, and the formation of the government of the Confederate States, rendered necessary an independent organization of the dioceses within the seceded States. A draft of a constitu- tion and canons was prepared, and the Convention ad- journed, after sitting three days, to meet in October. At the October session, held at Columbia, S. C, ten bishops were present, and Bishop Meade was made chairman. Clerical deputies from nine States and lay deputies from seven were also in attendance. The constitution reported by the committee to whom its preparation had been in- trusted at Montgomery was adopted, and its submission to the several dioceses authorized. When seven should ratify it, the union of the church was to be declared complete. The canons of the church in the United Stages were provisionally accepted, and the name " Protestant Episco- pal Church in the Confederate States " adopted by a large CHURCH IN THE CONFEDERACY. '497 majority, in opposition to a proposal to eliminate " Protest- ant " from the title, or to substitute the name " Reformed Catholic. ' ' The diocese of Alabama was empowered to pro- ceed, under existing regulations, to elect a bishop. After the adjournment of the Convention Dr. R. H. Wilmer was elected Bishop of Alabama, and was consecrated by Bishop Meade in Richmond, Va., March 6, 1862. By this act more strongly than by any resolution the church proclaimed itself an independent ecclesiastical body. Yet the whole attitude of the body, while maintaining with unmistakable emphasis its political or national independence, was one of thorough accord with the old church in all other respects. The resolutions, the reports, the pastoral letters issued from time to time, breathed a spirit of friendly intercommunion in all ecclesiastical and doctrinal affairs. In the ordering of divine Providence the separate existence of the church in the Confederate States was of so brief a continuance that there is no need to further trace its history.^ Its action was such as to leave no invincible obstacle to a complete re- union when once the political situation was changed. Its one bishop who had entered the Southern army had fallen, and all men honored his motive and his spirit, while they deplored his action and his fate. Arkansas, which had become a diocese, of necessity lapsed into its previous condition as a missionary jurisdiction, and its bishop was continued in the position to which he had been appointed before the war. The consecration of the Bishop of Ala- bama was confirmed and ratified on his making the usual " promise of conformity comprised in the Office for the Consecration of Bishops." The attitude of the church at the North was identical 1 For a complete account see Perry's " History of the American Episcopal Church," vol. ii., pp. 560-592, being a monograph by Rev. John Fulton, D.D., entitled " The Church in the Confederate States." It is ample, thorough, and impartial. 498 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. with that of the national government. It refused to ac- knowledge that the church was broken up, just as the country refused to acknowledge that it was rent asunder. There was rupture, but not permanent disruption. At the General Convention held in New York in 1862, though but twenty-four bishops were present and only twenty-two dioceses were represented, the roll-call included each day the names of the Southern dioceses. They were absent, but absent members. It was a time of great uncertainty as to the result of hostilities. The weight and meaning of the war were then just beginning" to be fully understood, and the question came whether the indorsement of the government in its supreme struggle for life and being was to be regarded as ordinary politics, and as such, according to precedent, eschewed ; or whether it was to be considered as a sacred national duty, binding on church and state alike, irrespective of and superior to all party obligation. There were those who urged that any action or expression of opinion recognizing the state of civil war and pledging fealty to the government was a political procedure deroga- tory to the church of Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world. It was to be remanded to the same department as tariffs and taxes, and was not to be regarded as of religious obligation. But the vast body of bishops, clergy, and laity maintained that a church which recognized the President in its prayers, and besought deliverance from sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion in its Litany, which incul- cated obedience to the higher powers of government as a duty to God in its Articles, and prayed constantly for unity, peace, and concord for all nations, was bound, when the national existence was in peril from what cause soever, to contribute to the national safety by the expression of its un- swerving loyalty, and to sanction the righteousness of the national struggle by its unmistakable indorsement. It pro- LOYAL ATTLTUDE OF THE CHURCH. 499 ceeded to do so in the face of a limited but vigorous protest. ' The House of Clerical and Lay Delegates passed the reso- lutions of the committee of nine, of which the third is expressive of their purport, and which ran as follows: ''Resolved, That while as individuals and as citizens we ac- knowledge our whole duty in sustaining and defending our country in the great struggle in which it is engaged, we are only at liberty, as deputies to this council of a church which hath ever renounced all political association and action, to pledge to the national government — as we do now — the earnest and devout prayers of us all that its efforts may be so guided by wisdom and replenished with strength that they may be crowned with speedy and complete success, to the glory of God and the restoration of our beloved Union." A solemn service was held by the Convention in Trinity Church, whose rector ^ was the son of one of the most dis- tinguished Union generals ; being " a service of fasting, humihation, and prayer," in view " of the present afflicted condition of the country " ; and the offertory at the service was in behalf of the Sanitary Commission. By word and deed the church thus stood boldly and unfalteringly by the nation, as thoroughly identified with its cause as the church in the Confederate States was identified with the newly projected government at the South. This attitude was 1 The Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D., the rector for more than thn-ty-five years of Trinity Church, New York City, is distinguished in the literary as well as the theological world as the author of " The Life of General Dix," his father, and also of sermons and lectures on many topics of ecclesiastical interest. Besides recognition of his efficient management of the vast concerns of his great parish, he is entitled to the gratitude and admiration of the whole church for the dignity, impartiality, and intelligence with \\hich he has pre- sided during four sessions of the General Convention over the proceedings of the House of Deputies. The justness of his rulings, combined with the courtesy of his manners, has guided the legislature of the church safely through many perils, and has largely contributed to the confidence and satis- faction with which its action has been received. 50O PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvi. maintained in the pastoral letter of the House of Bishops, delivered, under circumstances of unusual solemnity, at the final morning service, which included, contrary to pre- vious custom, the administration of the holy communion. This pastoral letter made the more marked impression be- cause it had been the subject of controversy. By reason of the illness of Bishop Brownell, Bishop Hopkins, of Ver- mont, the next in succession, took his place as presiding bishop of the Convention, and he had prepared a draft of a pastoral letter excluding all reference to the national crisis as irrelevant and opposed to proper ecclesiastical action. He was so strenuous in his opposition to the pastoral letter written by the conspicuously loyal Bishop of Ohio ^ that he refused to appear in the chancel at the service when it was read, and the chair of the acting presiding bishop was conspicuously vacant until after its delivery. That which marked his personal disapprobation emphasized the more the determined attitude of the Convention. It was an at- titude which pronounced the Protestant Episcopal Church a church of the nation as well as a church /// the nation. It exalted patriotism above party, and must have com- manded the respect, while it awakened the regret, of the churchmen in the Confederate States, who had, by the creation of their separate ecclesiastical organization, yet more fully identified their new church with the cause of their new government. Bishop Hopkins did not stand alone in his convictions, nor did these convictions involve 1 Bishop Mcllvaine, of Ohio, was one of the distinguished citizens (among whom were Archbishop Hughes, Henry Ward Beecher, and Thurlow Weed) who had been informally accredited by President Lincoln to the English peo- ple, and who went abroad at a time when English sympathies for the Con- federacy seemed strongest, and by their personal influence effected much for the Union cause. He was received cordially by the royal circle at Windsor, and with such an imprimatur, combined with his ability and character, did effective service. When, some years after, he died abroad, a funeral service was performed in Westminster Abbey, and his remains rested awhile in that historic sanctuary, until they could be conveyed to the United States. BISHOP J. H. HOPKINS. 501 disloyalty to the government. He desired the perpetuity of the Union, but his loyalty was clogged by the convic- tion, expressed by him in a pamphlet, that secession was a constitutional right of the States. He proposed to submit the question for settlement to the Supreme Court, a procedure which, under the circumstances, was like committing the management of a coming cyclone to a meteorological bureau. The pamphlet containing these sentiments was written, as hostilities were awakening, to prove the right of negro slavery to exist to-day from the recognition of white slavery of old in the Bible. Thus committed to the right of secession and the moral lawful- ness of the institution in whose defense it was attempted, Bishop Hopkins was out of sympathy with the public sentiment about him. He did not mind that. The per fervidum ingeninvi of his Celtic blood inclined him to controversy, and he had long been conspicuous in it. He was a man of versatile talents. Literature, art, science, music, as well as law and theology, occupied at times his attention, and he was thus regarded more as a widely read than as a deeply learned man. His legal training, which was his strong point, inclined him to rest content in precedent rather than to profoundly study ultimate principles. In the expression of his opinions there was an assertive elo- quence which affirmed the positlveness of his own convic- tions, and which attracted attention even when it failed to secure the conviction of others. He had not always ap- peared on the same side of ecclesiastical questions, and the variations of the needle had been too marked to enable him to point with certainty the course which the church might think best to follow. Concerning the political situation he was, however, as dogmatic as in theology, and he deter- mined that the church should follow his bent even if it did not share his opinions. His design was frustrated, and his 502 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap, xvi, displeasure and disapproval found vent in a protest printed for the public and scattered broadcast by the newspapers ; and his pamphlet on slavery was a little later reprinted and used as a campaign document. ^ This action gave an impression in regard to the church which threat- ened to becloud its loyal attitude, and Bishop Alonzo Pot- ter, of Pennsylvania, published a public protest against it. The action of Bishop Hopkins was soon seen to be personal, that of Bishop Potter to be representative of the church. While the action and sentiments of Bishop Hopkins were not suffered to damage the church's loyal position, his consequent relations of sympathy with the South were helpful in restoring unity when the war ended. By that time he had, through the death of Bishop Brownell (June 13, 1865), become presiding bishop of the church. Before the meeting of the General Convention in the autumn of 1865 he wrote in his official capacity a circular letter to all the Southern bishops, inviting them to the Convention, and assuring them of a warm welcome from their brethren. There was no general response in act to this hospitable in- vitation, but its moral effect was doubtless salutary. It was, however, not needed by the old church. There was no heart but was ready to greet the presence of the bish- ops, clergy, and laity for a while estranged in act, but not in heart. This was abundantly evident at the opening ser- vice of the General Convention of 1865, held in St. Luke's Church, Philadelphia. The Bishop of North Carolina was discerned among the crowd approaching the church. He was at once warmly greeted and invited to the chancel by friends swarming around him. He at first declined, not willing to act alone, and sat in the congregation ; but when 1 This pamphlet called forth a rejoinder from a distinguished scholar of the Church of England, Professor Goldwin Smith, in one of his ablest works, " Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery? " REUNION. 503 some of the bishops left the chancel and sought him amid the worshipers and urged his presence among them, the public recognition was too convincing of the general senti- ment, and -he yielded and joined them at the altar, to the great joy of all present. At the first business session of the Convention the secretary of the House of Deputies proceeded, as he had at the Convention of 1862, to call for the Southern deputies, the roll beginning with Alabama. The general failure of response did not diminish the validity of the recognition, and the answer to the roll-call by cleri- cal and lay delegates from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas gave indication and promise that the absence of the South was but temporary. Bishop Lay, of the South- west, had joined Bishop Atkinson, of North Carohna, in Philadelphia, and they together sent an inquiry, through Bishop Horatio Potter, to the House of Bishops concerning the terms on which they would be permitted to take their seats in the house. The Bishop of Maryland, whose loyalty was as unquestioned as his greatness, moved that " the Bishop of New York be requested to ask his brethren, in behalf of whom he had consulted the house, to trust to the honor and love of their assembled brethren." Such courtesy and confidence were irresistible. The reunion of the church was cemented by the charity which " thinketh no evil." As the church had maintained its loyalty, so it could without peril manifest its concession ; and in the service of " thanksgiving for the restoration of peace to the country and unity to the church " it refrained from all expressions which could wound those who were once again represented in its assembly. Some thought that too much deference was shown, but it was an indication of a spirit of reconciliation and peace. The few obstacles to complete reunion, as we have before related, were soon removed, and all traces of strife presently vanished away. 504 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvl. The church, which in 1859 had, by the election of Dr. Tal- bot as Bishop of Nebraska and the Northwest, and of Dr. Lay as Missionary Bishop of Arkansas and the South- west, made its jurisdiction coextensive with the boundaries of the United States, was again one throughout the whole national domain. The. consecration of Bishop Quintard for the vacant Southern diocese of Tennessee crowned the work of reunion by a most significant act ; and the presence and participation in the service of Bishop Fulford, metro- politan of Montreal, contributed to a growing sense of the unity of the church throughout the whole American continent. CHAPTER XVII. FROM THE REUNION OF THE CHURCH TO THE PRESENT TIME (1865-95). The fullness of life which characterized the nation after the cessation of the war was characteristic also of the church. Before that lamentable interruption of its activi- ties all the elements of successful advance had been found present in it. It had become in 1859 coextensive in its episcopate with the national domain. It was increasing :"ts educational institutions. Its missionary operations were thoroughly organized and efficient. Its worship was taking on a warmer tone, and its church buildings display- ing a nobler type. The controversies through which it had passed had sobered its mind and softened its heart. Even its course during the war was one of advancing growth. All the favorable features of its organization now re- ceived an impetus and an enlargement consequent on the experience which the civil conflict had engendered. The movements of armies, constituted largely in their ranks as in their officers of the educated classes, had given a larger scope to the general intelligence. Men had traveled far, and seen strange communities, and awakened to a sense of wider relations, in their pursuit of war. All forms of relig- ious belief and organization had been jostled together in the companionship of arms, and the humanitarian work of the Sanitary and Christian commissions had enlisted the labors of Christians of every name. The chaplains of the 505 506 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. army had ministered to every variety of faith among the soldiers, and had illustrated every variety of faith among themselves. This larger association of both laity and clergy had widened their mental horizon, while the solemnities of war had deepened religious conviction. A number of the best bishops of this latter period, such as Elliott of Texas, Galleher of Louisiana, and Dudley of Kentucky, came from the officers of the Confederate army, where they had learned to know the stern realities of life and the necessity of religion to meet and mitigate them. The chaplains of the Union army and those whom they had served had gone through the same educative process. It is not strange that the church should emerge from this baptism of blood with a nobler consecration and an en- larged conception of her task. That she was not freed from many clogging infirmities the record of these last thirty years abundantly proves, but the record also shows a far ampler life and an effort to rise to far nobler concep- tions of her task than had marked any previous period of her history. Her literature, which had been chiefly con- troversial and polemical, became more genuinely original and spiritually suggestive. Not to attempt the mention even of the numerous volumes which illustrate this larger mental life, we cannot but find in such volumes as "The Church Idea," by Dr. William R. Huntington, " The Relation of Christianity to Civil Society," by Bishop S. S. Harris, the various volumes of Bishops Littlejohn and F. D. Huntington, "The English Reformation," by Bishop John Williams, " The Primary Truths of Religion," by Bishop Clark, " The Epochs of Church History," by Dr. E. A. Washburn, and most notably the " Sermons " and " Lectures on Preaching," by Phillips Brooks, "The Con- tinuity of Christian Thought," by Professor Alexander V. G. Allen, and " The Nation " and " The Republic of THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 507 God," by Rev. Elisha Mulford, a far wider vision and a deeper philosophical conception, as well as a nobler literary form, than in any theological literature the church had previously produced. Again, in her educational life the church in the last thirty years has greatly enlarged, as well as deepened, her work. The Philadelphia Divinity School was incorporated, under the auspices of Bishop Alonzo Potter, in the early years of the war, in 1862, when Northern students w^ere cut off from the seminary at Alexandria. It was founded in no narrow spirit, but with the liberal conceptions of its great patron; and its course, under the able Dr. Goodwin, the scholarly Dr. G. Emlen Hare, and the genial and widely read Dr. Clement Butler, has been one of marked ability and value. The Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., was incorporated just after the war, in 1867, founded by the munificence of Mr. Benjamin T. Reed, and since endowed with princely gifts by Mr. Robert M. Mason, Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, and Mr. John A. Burnham, all of Boston. Under its successive deans. Dr. John S. Stone, Dr. George Zabriskie Gray, and Dr. (now Bishop) William Lawrence, together with its distinguished professors, it has made itself a powder in the church. In the words of Dean Gray, " The aim has been to be independent of all schools or parties, and to make the teaching as compre- hensive as the church itself, and as impartial toward all loyal members thereof." These two institutions, with the Western Theological Seminary, inaugurated at Chicago in 1885, are the principal new foundations for theological education of this period, but the schools earlier formed have also greatly increased their efficiency. The General Theological Seminary in New York has enlarged its teach- ing faculty and developed its curriculum and multiplied its students under the recent rule of Dean Hoffman, whose 508 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. munificence haS increased its endowments and built a theo- logical palace for its habitation. The Alexandria seminary has, as has been noted, been rejuvenated since the war. The Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown, Conn., founded in 1850, has continued to send out men whom the church de- lights to make bishops, hoping, doubtless, that they may in a measure reflect the calm wisdom and intellectual poise of the presiding bishop, who is its president. At the West, Nashotah has greatly strengthened her work, and the Sea- bury Divinity School at Faribault, Minn., has, under the inspiration of Bishop Whipple, recreated itself, and become a power which the ardent Breck, who founded it in 1857, could with all his prophetic imagination have hardly con- ceived. Besides these institutions, where the color-line is no longer drawn, special provisions for the instruction of colored candidates for the ministry have been made in the institutions of Hoffman Hall, Nashville, Tenn., King Hall (in connection with Howard University), Washington, D. C, St. Augustine Training-school, Raleigh, N. C, and the Bishop Payne Divinity School, Petersburg, Va. In regard to collegiate institutions, there has not been so large an advance. St. Stephen's College, which was founded in i860, under the inspiration of Bishop Horatio Potter, of New York, by the liberality of Mr. John Bard, has since been fortified in its endowments by the liberal gifts of Rev. Dr. Charles F. Hoffman ; and Dr..Fairbairn,its warden, has by his devotion and scholarly gifts added greatly to its efficiency. It was chiefly intended to furnish collegiate instruction for future students for the ministry in the Gen- eral Theological Seminary, and has sent out men who have become distinguished in the church. From its plan it can- not hope to be a large institution, but it has been a useful one. Racine College, in its efficiency, really belongs to this period of church life; for though /ounded in 1852 to COLLEGIATE INSTITUTIONS. 509 be a sort of St. Stephen's to the Nashotah Seminary, its whole effective life was bound up in Dr. James De Koven, who became warden in 1859. Dr. De Koven really made the institution all it ever came to be. He was a singularly magnetic man, and full of enthusiasm, imbued with the views of the advanced school, and their eloquent defender in the General Convention. He purposed making Racine " the church university of the West and Northwest " ; and it was changed from a diocesan to a general institution in 1868, and in 1875 collegiate departments were established. So long as his presence was assured, students flocked to the college, and his hold upon the young men was ex- traordinary. But four years after his university scheme was developed he died, and from that sad date, March 19, 1879, the institution has been unable to realize the expectations which his genius had created for it. It is now conducted as' a grammar-school. Lehigh University, a collegiate and polytechnic institu- tion, was founded and munificently endowed at South Bethlehem in 1865, by Asa Packer, a leading churchman of the diocese. It is conducted under general church auspices, but, like Columbia College, New York, is not in the restricted sense a church institution. It is already a great college, and stands deservedly high, especially in its scientific departments. Kenyon College, Ohio, founded so long ago by Bishop Chase, is also, under Bishop Leonard, developing a new and stronger life, with Bexley Hall as its theological department. In this period, too, Columbia Col- lege, first under President Barnard and since under Presi- dent Low, has developed into a university of the first rank, and for scholarly influence in the church stands conspicu- ous above all its fellows. The munificent gifts of Presi- dent Low and Mr. William C. Schermerhorn made while these sheets are passing through the press, show the con- 5IO PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. fidence of its friends in its future as one of the greatest collegiate foundations in the land. Hobart College, at Geneva, N. Y., which, as we have seen, was begun by Bishop Hobart as an academy in i8i i, but which received its collegiate charter in 1825 and took the name of its founder only in i860, has within the last two decades made steady progress under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet Potter, brother of the Bishop of New York. Recognizing the isolation and limitation of the scattered and small church colleges through the country, President Potter moved the General Convention in 1889 to estab- lish " The Church University Board of Regents," with the general purpose of coordinating the separate church col- leges into a church university system. Already certain scholarships, to be awarded by the university examining board to the best competitor from any church institution, have been founded and awarded, and should the plan achieve its purpose it would greatly increase the efficiency and raise the tone of the scattered collegiate institutions of the church. The most interesting and hopeful of tjie strictly church institutions which in this period have been virtually estab- lished is the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn. It was projected as a great Southern university, by Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, and other Southern bishops in 1856, and the corner-stone of the main central edifice was laid in the autumn of i860. The war swept everything away, but within a year after its close the enterprise was resumed through the exertions of the Bishop of Tennessee, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ouintard. It has since grown largely in everything but material endowment, which it awaits with confidence of the assured desert. Its organization con- sists of a grammar-school, an academic, a theological, a medical, and a law department; and all the Southern UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH. 5 I I bishops are on its board of trustees, Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, being chancellor of the university and president of the board. For the details of its history and struggle there is no space, but it were unjust not to mention the great debt it owes for its remarkable measure of success to the ability and devotion of Dr. Thomas F. Gailor as chan- cellor, now assistant Bishop of Tennessee. According to the record of Dr. Du Bose, the accomplished dean of its theological faculty, " The University of the South was conceived in the most catholic spirit, and is designed to be in the truest sense broad and comprehensive. Under the control and influence of the church, it draws to itself representatives of all faiths and opinions. The North as well as the South, and England as well as America, have always contributed to its list of students. In every department of learning the utmost freedom of thought and research is allowed and practiced, influenced, but not restrained or narrowed, by the Christian character of the institution. As a church university it has this guaranty against any one-sided development in matter of doctrine or practice, against its ever becoming identified with any one school or party in the church : that it repre- sents a wide constituency, and most particularly that its religious teaching and worship are under the immediate and constant supervision of the tw'elve bishops associated in it." In its endeavor to represent the whole church it has struck the true key-note of a church institution. It was the happy thought of the late lamented Bishop Harris, of Michigan, to utilize the State University for the use of the church, instead of setting up a feeble rivalry to it by inaugurating a separate church college. He made arrangements, through the generous aid of Governor Bald- win, a leading churchman of his diocese, for a hall and lecture and reading rooms at Ann Arbor, where the course 512 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. of the State University might be supplemented with lec- tures and instruction in those subjects which churchmen deem of importance, and thus utilizes for the church the State endowment and its distinguished faculty, in respect to the general subjects which all universities teach in com- mon. This most wise adaptation of church teaching to the system of public education has met the cordial en- couragement of the distinguished President Angell, of the University of Michigan, and of the faculty, and has given to the church the advantages of an institution of the first rank. The example has been followed elsewhere, and is deserving of larger application. Of all the educational efforts in the church, however, the establishment of church preparatory schools has won the largest measure of distinction and success. The school and college of Dr. Muhlenberg at Flushing and College Point, besides their own success, became the prolific seed of similar institutions. The most prominent of these have arisen within these last thirty years. The College of St. James, near Hagerstown, Md., fostered with such sacrifice and devotion by Dr. Kerfoot (since Bishop of Pittsburg), and St. Timothy's School, founded and taught by Dr. Van Bokkelen, near Baltimore, were both creations of de- voted pupils of Dr. Muhlenberg. The war destroyed the former. But before the war, in 1855, St. Paul's School at Concord, N. H., was incorporated. Dr. Shattuck, a promi- nent and devoted layman of Boston, was its munificent founder and benefactor, giving his country-seat for its site, and ever after continuing to foster and extend it. It owes its great distinction and success to its head master or rector, Rev. Dr. Henry Augustus Coit, also a pupil of Dr. Muhlenberg, who from 1856 to 1895 guided its course and created its character. It has always been a school imbued with church influences; in fine, a church school PREPARATORY SCHOOLS. 513 where the Catechism has been the basis of rehgious in- struction, and the ritual of the church duly rendered in a glowing and beautiful service. Its aim has been to cultivate Christian character as well as to impart sound scholarship. And it has been eminently successful. In its influence on the church schools which have sprung up in its wake all over the land (notably St. Mark's at South- boro', the school of Dr. Peabody at Groton, Mass., and the school of Dr. Toomer Porter at Charleston, S. C.) it has stood as Rugby stood to the English public schools after Dr. Arnold became its incomparable head master. From a group of five or six boys it has grown to an assemblage of about three hundred scholars. From one or two small buildings its ample halls and dormitories and noble chapel have enlarged its appearance to that of a village. And this extension of its outward features has been but com- mensurate with and expressive of the excellence of its scholarship and the elevation of its moral tone. This great work is due in abounding measure to Dr. Coit. It is, of course, evident that he was a good scholar, a devout Chris- tian, and a thorough gentleman; but these elements of character are incompetent to explain his phenomenal suc- cess, without the higher attribute of educational genius, which was largely his. His recent death is a loss to the whole church which it is impossible to adequately measure. Numerous church schools for girls (of which St. Mary's, Burlington, N. J., still efficiently maintained, was the norm and type) are found all over the land : in the Wolfe School at Denver, Colorado, and St. Mary's Hall, Faribault, as well as in St. Agnes's at Albany, and St. Mary's, of the Cathe- dral Foundation, at Garden City, Long Island. These schools are a chief instrument of gaining and extending church influence in the newer missionary jurisdictions. In fine, in the matter of preparatory education the 514 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. church schools within the last thirty years have taken rank with the older foundations at Exeter and Andover, and stand in generous rivalry with them. In its missionary activity the last period of the church's life is more than abreast with that of its past history. It owes much to the able men who have been its agents and secretaries. One of them, Dr. A. T. Twing, served the Domestic Board from 1866 to 1882, and by incessant zeal and incomparable tact invigorated the whole department. In 1863 the contributions for domestic missions were $37,458 ; in 1882 they amounted to $228,375. When Dr. Twing became secretary there were but four missionary bishops and ninety-nine missionaries; when he died these had increased to thirteen missionary bishops and three hundred and forty-six clergymen. Among them are numbered some of the noblest sons of the church, whose indefatigable labors have laid sure foundations for her future in the Western territories. The record of their names is inspiring to all who have known of their denials and de- votion. There are Clarkson of Nebraska, Randall of Colo- rado, Tuttle of Utah (now of Missouri), Morris of Oregon, and Whitaker of Nevada (now of Pennsylvania), all ap- pointed after the war and before 1 870. Since then, in 1873, William Hobart Hare was consecrated for Niobrara (now South Dakota), the first missionary bishop appointed es- pecially for the Indians, though Bishop Whipple, of Min- nesota, had by his devotion to the native tribes within his jurisdiction already won the title of "Apostle to the In- dians." The remarkable success of Bishop Hare in this rough field is due to the admirable efficiency and unremit- ting toil of a refined scholar, gifted with common sense, by which he has shown himself to be a worthy descendant of his grandfather, Bishop Hobart, whose labors for the Oneida Indians of New York were so earnest and unremitting. DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 515 And there are Spalding of Colorado, Elliott of Western Texas, Wingfield of Northern California, Garrett of North- ern Texas, Dunlop of New Mexico, Brewer of Montana, and Paddock of Washington, all sent out to " perils in the wil- derness " before 1880 had ended. Within the last decade we find added to this efficient staff Walker of North Da- kota, Talbot of Wyomihg. and Idaho, Johnson of Western Texas, Leonard of Nevada and Utah, Kendrick of Arizona and New Mexico, Graves of the Platte, Wells of Spokane, Gray of Southern Florida, Brooke of Oklahoma, and Barker of Western Colorado. A record of names is but a slight tribute to labors such as theirs, and only a faint indication of the vast results accomplished by them for the church. While planting churches and founding schools, these have confronted the Mormon with her message, and welcomed the Indian to her fold. In the department of foreign missions the church does not show a proportionate development, and for the reason that domestic missions are largely foreign, in their ministra- tions to the natives of all European and Eastern countries who throng the Western territories. China, Japan, India, Armenia, as well as all the countries of Europe, continue sending swarms of their poorer people to America, with no shepherd to fold them, and foreign missions lie at our very door. But the church has in this period sent out witnesses to other lands. As she had preceded the English Church in appointing a bishop for China in 1844, so, after Japan had been opened to the Western world by Commodore Perry, in 1852, she preceded her mother in that country. Two missionaries were sent to Japan in 1859, and one of them, the Rev. Channing M. Williams, was consecrated Bishop of Yedo in 1866, taking also jurisdiction in China, Bishop Boone having died two years before. Incessant toil and slow gains marked his episcopate at first; but 5l6 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. " steadfast, with a singleness of aim," he got at last a foot- hold for his admirable mission and established an efficient divinity school, as well as St. Paul's College, at Tokyo. Under the able management of Rev. Theodosius S. Tyng, these schools are educating natives for missionary work, and children in the Christian faith. After the resignation of Bishop Williams, in 1889, the Rev. John McKim, D.D., was consecrated his successor as Bishop of Tokyo. The fruits of the church's labors in Japan are to be found in the fact that it possesses 76 mission stations, 20 clergy, i mis- sionary physician, 25 foreign teachers and workers (includ- ing wives of missionaries), 153 Japanese assistants, 17 pos- tulants for orders ; and that its last yearly record shows 273 baptisms, 25 i confirmations, 1597 communicants, 1 141 day- scholars, 226 boarding-scholars, and 21 13 Sunday-school scholars. In China the Rt. Rev. Dr. Schereschewsky succeeded Bishop Williams in 1877, and his translation of the Bible into the Mandarin language is a work of rare scholarship and of inestimable value. Ill health compelled him to re- sign his position in 1884; but in sickness as in health he continues his literary labors for the mission. His successor in the bishopric, the Rt. Rev. William J. Boone, a son of the first bishop sent to China, died in 1891, and has been suc- ceeded by the Rt. Rev. F. R. Graves, D.D., who was con- secrated in 1893. The state of the mission as last reported is as follows : mission stations, 42 ; clergy, 34 ; missionary physicians, 4; lay foreign teachers, 16; native assistants, 95 ; candidates for orders, 5 ; medical students, 8 ; baptisms, 238; confirmations, 147; communicants, 889; Sunday- school scholars, 1226; day and boarding scholars, 1187. In 1874 the Rev. James T. Holly, a colored man, well qualified for the work, was consecrated Bishop of Haiti. The church under his care is not wholly self-supporting, FOREIGN MISSIONS. 5 I 7 but receives aid from the church in the United States. Its condition in 1894 was as follows: clergy, 14; mission sta- tions, 15; postulants, 2; lay readers, 19; teachers, 10; Sunday-schoolteachers, 10; baptisms, 51; confirmations, 33 ; communicants, 389; day-scholars, 244; Sunday-school scholars, 229. There is also a mission in Cuba, conducted by an American and two native presbyters, under the epis- copal charge of Bishop Whitaker, of Pennsylvania, and in the care of the American Church Missionary Society, act- ing as an auxiliary to the Board of Missions. A* Brazilian mission under the same care, and superintended by Bishop Peterkin, of West Virginia, is conducted by the Rev. Lucius L. Kingsolving and various native clergy. In 1894 it re- ported: stations, 14; chapels, 6; clergy, 8; baptisms, 50; confirmations, 142; communicants, 174; services, 838; Sunday-schools, 4; teachers, 16; scholars, 235; parochial day-schools, 3; teachers, 8; scholars, 120. The mission to Africa has been sustained, though out of the 87 missionaries sent, all but 3 have died or have returned on account of ill health, and though all the Southern bishops are more or less African missionaries in their charge over the colored race. It has met with a series of misfortunes either in the death or the resignations, made necessary by the fatal climate, of those appointed to its episcopal super- vision. Bishop Payne, appointed in 1851, resigned after twenty years of faithful labor, in 1871 ; and his successor. Bishop Auer, appointed in 1873, soon after died. Bishop Penick, consecrated in 1877, had to resign in 1883, but still continues earnestly laboring for the race in America, as the energetic agent of the church's Commission for Work among the Colored People. His place in Africa has been taken by the colored Bishop Ferguson, as bishop of the missionary jurisdiction of Cape Palmas and parts adjacent. He was appointed in 1885, and by reason of his race, it is 5l8 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. hoped, will be capable of withstanding the ravages of the malarious climate. The condition of the mission is shown in the following statistics for the year ending June 30, 1894: clergy, 16; mission stations, 53; candidates for orders (Liberian 6, native 3), 9 ; postulants (Liberian 6, native i), 7; lay readers, 18; catechists and teachers, 30; female teachers, 13; baptisms, 250; confirmations, 118; communicants, 1185; Sunday-school scholars, 1552; boarding and day scholars, 1293. There are 23 day- schools, \2 boarding-schools, and 31 Sunday-schools in all connected with the mission. The Commission for Work among the Colored People may be fittingly mentioned here, though its place is in the department of domestic missions. It was in 1 886 that the General Convention formally recognized this special form of missionary labor, which had been informally carried on since 1865, by the churches in various dioceses; and which was a product of the war in its enfranchisement of the negro slaves. A commission was appointed for this special work under the Board of Missions, and in various forms of organization has continued its labors ever since. The total number of colored clergy now at work is 68 ; of these 41 are in priests' orders and 13 are employed in Northern cities. In addition, 52 white clergy are wholly or in part engaged in the same department in the South. Of the 5 archdeacons devoted exclusively to the work of extending the influence of the church among the colored people in the several dioceses under the bishops' direction, 2 are colored. In the sixteen Southern States aided by the Commission, representing nineteen dioceses, with a population of about 7,500,000, there cannot be fewer than 6000 communicants at the present time. The Bishop of Southern Florida re- ports one seventh of the whole number of communicants THE MEXICAN MISSION. 519 as black, and the Bishop of Georgia reports one tenth of the communicants in his diocese as black. The mission in Mexico is still carried on, though the original organization of the Reformed Church there is, by the church's own action, temporarily in abeyance. The government is now in the Ciierpo Ecclesiastico, which con- sists of the clergy and lay representatives of the congre- gations, the episcopal authority being, by election of the Cnerpo, in the presiding bishop of the Protestant Episco- pal Church. The Bishop of New Mexico and Arizona is the commissary of the presiding bishop, with power to act for him ; and the presbyter, Henry Forrester, is the resi- dent representative in Mexico, appointed to guide and counsel the local authorities. Its present status is seen by the following statistics : priests, 5 ; deacons, 2 ; candidates for orders, 5 ; other readers, 7 ; congregations, 22 ; day- schools in same, 10; teachers, 10; scholars, 400. This mission has caused the church more perplexity and disap- pointment than all the others combined. A reformed movement arose in 1854 among the Roman clergy in the city of Mexico, and, failing to gain favorable response to their application to the Pope, in 1866 they chose a bishop and applied to the presiding bishop of the Protestant Epis- copal Church for his consecration. The constitutional provisions of this church did not allow it. A visiting com- mission from Mexico in 1868 secured the services of the Rev. H. C. Riley, presbyter of the church, who returned with them, and gathered, in company with Aguas, a Roman priest of high standing, several congregations, and organ- ized a Synod. In response to a memorial from " members of the Synod of the Church of Jesus in Mexico," pre- sented to the House of Bishops at the General Convention of 1874 by Bishop Lee, of Delaware, a commission of great dignity, comprising the names of Whittingham, Stevens, 520 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. Littlejohn, Lee, Coxe, Bedell, and Kerfoot, was appointed to consider their petition " to take such measures as may- lead to the granting of the episcopate " to the new Mexican church organization. At the instance of this committee Bishop Lee made a visitation to Mexico, confirming over a hundred persons and ordaining seven men as deacons and then as priests. As a result of this visitation the Church of Jesus was recognized as a foreign church under the care of the Protestant Episcopal Church until it should have a sufficient number of bishops ; assent having been given to its doctrine, discipline, and worship. Dr. Riley was con- secrated Bishop of the Valley of Mexico in 1879, in Pitts- burg, Pa. The appointment proved unsatisfactory, and after five years, in April, 1884, Bishop Riley resigned his jurisdiction, promising to forego all exercise of his episco- pal office in Mexico or elsewhere without the consent of the Mexican Commission, or other lawful authority of the church from which he received his orders. In the mean- time, in 1883, the Cnerpo Ecclesiastico had been recognized by the Mexican Commission as the representative body of the new church organization, which was, as a mission, taken under the care of the church in the United States. The bishops approved this action, and the Commission was dis- charged with thanks. The Rev. William B. Gordon was nominated by the presiding bishop, and appointed as coun- sel and guide of the ecclesiastical body in Mexico ; and on his resignation, in 1893, the Rev. Henry Forrester became his successor, and has efficiently carried on the work.^ The perplexities of the whole affair to those within the Commission were increased by the criticism of those with- out who considered the movement an unlawful intrusion 1 For a fuller account of the difficulties of the Mexican movement see " The Church in America," by Leighton Coleman, Bishop of Delaware, pp. 286-295, to which the above account is greatly indebted. FOREIGN CHURCHES. 521 into the province of the Church of Rome. The House of Bishops, however, simply acted on the principle, without explicitly defining it, that when the sacraments are denied and excommunication is threatened to those who do not accept the errors which the English Church . rejected at the Reformation, then a purer form of the church may be lawfully introduced. They saw that to refuse compli- ance with a request like that of the Church of Jesus in Mexico would be to reflect on the validity of their own principles and position, as well as to deprive of the benefits of the church those who were excommunicate because they were in essential agreement with themselves. The law of etiquette, they felt, must give way to the law of life. Other missions have been carried on in the church, if not always by it. There is a Society for the Propagation of Christianity among the Jews, and also for Work among the Colored People, as has been stated. A very noble effort for ministrations of the church to deaf-mutes was or- ganized as early as 1850, but its efificiency has been chiefly confined to this period of the church's history, and it has been especially championed by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Gal- laudet, of New York, under whose efficient labors it has come to pass that the majority of the fifty thousand deaf- mutes of the country are under the influence of the church's teaching. The churches and chapels on the continent of Europe may here be mentioned, not as a part of the church's mis- sion work, but as illustrating the expansion of her organiza- tion wherever her children are gathered. Such churches ha\^e grown up gradually where an American colony has established itself, as in Paris, Rome, Florence, Nice, Dres- den, Geneva, and Lucerne. The chief church abroad is the Holy Trinity at Paris, whose rector. Rev. John B. Morgan, D.D., has been able to have built one of the noblest 522 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. modern church edifices in Europe, whose organization is a distinct rehgious power in the French capital. St. Paul's at Rome, under the charge for many years of R. J. Nevin, D.D., with its beautiful edifice, stands for a pure catholicity in the midst of the papal city, and with its hospital and trained nurses illustrates its practical benevolence. Nice, Geneva, and Dresden have also fine church structures and do effective work. These churches all form part of the home church, and are under the charge at the present time of the Bishop of Albany, who visits them and confirms in them. All sorts of benevolent institutions have arisen in the church within this last period of its history. Church hos- pitals for children, for cripples, for adults, homes for the aged, the infirm, the incurable. Girls' Friendly Societies, and other helpful associations, have multiplied ; and the humanity of Christ as well as his divinity has found ex- pression in abounding works of benevolence.^ One signal benefit has lately come to the church's life in the development of women's work. A prominent illustra- tion of this is to be seen in the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions. It had been preceded by the Bureau of Relief, founded in 1865 at Hartford, Conn., by the present Bishop of Albany, who was then Dr. W. C. Doane, rector of St. John's Church in that city; and also by the Ladies' Domestic Missionary Relief Association of Grace Church, New York City, which was founded in 1868 by the present Bishop of New York, who was then Dr. H. C. Potter, 1 The Rev. T. M. Peters, D.D., Archdeacon of New York, and rector of St. Michael's Church, was, after Dr. Muhlenl^erg, the wisest and most effi- cient worker in church charities of his day. There are few of the benevolent institutions of New York City whicli he did not personally organize or directly influence. He was a typical man of a typical time; a humanitarian touched Avith sympathy for all human needs, a churchman of high principles and de- voted life. His early and constant advocacy of free churches was awakened by his love of the poor. He died in 1893, honored of all men. THE WOMAN'S AUXILIARY. 523 rector of the parish. But these and other similar associa- tions were simply local and isolated parochial organizations. The Woman's Auxiliary, as a general church organization, was authorized by the Board of Missions in October, 1871. It owes its great measure of success largely to the wise plans and indefatigable labors of its secretaries, the first of whom. Miss Mary A. Emery (who now, as Mrs. A. T. Twing, is honorary secretary), for four years worked as- siduously to fix and extend its organization, and who was succeeded by her sister. Miss Julia C. Emery, its present secretary, who has shown equal capacity in the manage- ment and extension of what is now a great organization. It is not a self-constituted and independent society, but is a department of the Board of Missions which seeks to glean the fields already harvested. It, together with the Junior Auxiliary, which enlists the interest of the children and young people of the church, adds over $350,000 an- nually (in money and the value of boxes of clothing and books) to the general missionary treasury, and in the twenty-three years of its existence has gathered over $4,000,000 for missionary work. Besides its general offi- cers, the auxiliary has over five hundred diocesan officers in sixty-five dioceses and missionary jurisdictions, includ- ing the officers of the Junior Auxiliary. It has aided ma- terially in a few instances in the education of the children of missionaries. The auxiliary meets once in three years, at the time and place of meeting of the General Convention. Its diocesan branches meet annually, semi-annually, quar- terly, monthly, or otherwise, as determined in the respective dioceses. Apart from the work it has done, the missionary spirit and interest it has aroused have been of incalculable service to the church. In regard to sisterhoods, the General Convention has thought best to leave their regulations untrammeled by 524 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. canonical provisions. The first sisterhood arose^ as we have seen, in the parish of the Holy Communion, New York, under the auspices of Dr. Muhlenberg, in 1843. It was not formally constituted until 1 852, nor was the first sister form- ally admitted by special service until 1857. It has proved the germ of many others more or less like it. The Sister- hood of the Good Shepherd, in Baltimore, Md., became a community in 1863, though it was inaugurated earlier by Dr. Rankin ; and in New York the Sisterhood of St. Mary came into being in 1865, and that of the Good Shepherd in 1869. The English Sisterhoods of St. Margaret and St. John the Baptist have branches respectively in Boston and New York. Being unreported to any ecclesiastical body, the record both of their number and their work is necessarily incomplete. In regard to deaconesses, we may trace their origin to Dr. Muhlenberg and Bishop Alonzo Potter, in connection with St. Luke's Hospital, New York, and the Episcopal Hospital of Philadelphia, before this period of church life begins; and in Mobile, Ala., a diocesan order of deacon- esses was instituted in 1864. The efTort to revive the order of deaconesses through church legislation dates from the General Convention of 187 1, when, on motion of the Rev. W. R. Huntington, D.D., a joint committee was appointed to investigate and report upon the expediency of reviving the primitive order of deaconesses. The canon it recom- mended was not accepted. The subject was renewed in the General Conventions at Boston in 1874 and at New York in 1880; but not until 1889, just eighteen years after the words " order of deaconesses " had been first uttered in the House of Deputies, was the present canon reported and adopted. Under this canon of 1889 two training-schools have been established : one in New York, begun October, 1890; and the other in Philadelphia, started a little later. DEA CONESSES. 525 The New York school has already graduated fourteen pupils, nine of whom are actively engaged in their calling. There is a deaconess house, called St. Faith's, giv^en by Grace Church, which gathered the means for it ; and a reg- ular course of instruction, covering two years, is conducted by a faculty consisting of a dean and ten assisting in- structors. This is in fulfillment of the canon which requires that every deaconess, before she is set apart for that office, shall have had " an adequate preparation for her work, both technical and religious, which preparation shall have covered the period of two years." The Philadelphia school is also admirably conducted, making, perhaps,^practical par- ticipation in church work a more prominent feature in its course than the New York school. The demand for dea- conesses for parish and mission work is far greater than the supply, and there is every prospect that this channel for the labors of devout women will extend with rapidity, to the great advantage of the church's work and the quicken- ing of its life. The latest phase of organization for the more efficient conduct of church administration is the archdeaconry sys- tem, which has only within the last decade been introduced into some dioceses. It is a modification of the English system, the archdeacon being simply the representative agent of the bishop in the management of the missionary interests of his district. Local missions being an essential part of the work of every diocese in -a country which is nowhere, save in cities, densely settled, the chief aid which a bishop requires is in this direction. The importance of planting and cherishing new centers of church life in a growing community is so apparent, and the oversight and regulation of such enterprises require so much attention, that the archdeaconry system has arisen, not to copy a for- eign fashion, but to meet a real emergency. The success 526 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. which has attended its working where it has been intro- duced is prophetic of its universal adoption. As a contribution toward the more efficient working of the church system, the cathedral holds a tentative position among the forces recently evoked. It was about the begin- ning of the period of which we are now treating that a ca- thedral organization was effected in Chicago by the Bishop of Illinois, the Rt. Rev. H. J. Whitehouse, D.D., and an edifice of moderate size erected. This was the first em- bodiment of the cathedral idea in the country. It was later followed by like attempts in Milwaukee, Faribault, Omaha, Topeka, Denver, Davenport, and other places in the West, and in Portland, Me., in the East. These cathe- dral establishments are rather the germs for a future de- velopment than a full realization of the cathedral system. Neither in the size and dignity of the churches and their endowments, nor in the constitution of their chapters, are they more than prophecies of a completed cathedral organ- ization. But quite recently at the East the system has received an impetus and a reinforcement in the gift to the diocese of Long Island, of the handsome and costly struc- ture of the Church of the Incarnation at Garden City for a cathedral church. The gift of the edifice has, since the death of the donors, Mr. and Mrs. A. T. Stewart, of New York City, been supplemented, by their legacies, with a handsome endowment. Here the full service of a cathedral is impressively performed, and a regular cathedral organ- ization established and carried on. It is made the center of the missionary work of the diocese. At Albany, N. Y., Bishop Doane by ceaseless diligence has established the organization of the Cathedral of All Saints, and reared for it a fitting habitation in a noble structure which, though incomplete, is of adequate proportions and sufficient dignity to illustrate the cathedral idea and symbolize the strength CA THEDKALS. 527 of the diocese. In New York City the project of a cathedral was started during" the episcopate of Bishop Horatio Potter, and an act of incorporation was secured for it. Nothing was done for its reahzation until the present bishop, the Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D., came into office. Under his auspices the work has been vigorously under- taken. Sufficient funds have been gathered by a few munificent donations and legacies to purchase a command- ing site, to secure noble architectural plans, and to begin the erection of the choir of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The corner-stone was laid with impressive cere- monies on St. John's day, 1892. The constitution of the cathedral corporation makes this in reality the bishop's seat and church. In constituting the archdeacons of the diocese, w4io are the chief supervisors of diocesan missionary work, members of the chapter, and by other features, the cathedral constitution aims at creating, not a medieval anachronism, but an efficient engine and organ for modern diocesan ac- tivities. This new method for effective administration of the dio- ceses indicates the growth and strength of the church, in that it has become necessary notwithstanding the multi- plication of new dioceses by the division of the older ones. This division, or the formation of smaller dioceses within the boundaries of the States, with which the dioceses were originally coterminous, is a marked feature of the church of this period. What had required the most cogent argu- ments and the most unceasing effort of Bishop Whittingham and others to effect in 1837, inregard to the division of the diocese of New York, has gone on with vigor ever since. In 1868 the diocese of New York was divided into three: New York, Albany, and Long Island. In the same year Western New York was divided by the setting off of Central New York. Maryland in the same year consti- 528 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. tuted the Eastern Shore of the State the diocese of Easton. Still earlier, in 1865, Pennsylvania had set off the diocese of Pittsburg, and later, in 1871, the diocese of Central Pennsylvania. The movement toward smaller dioceses has since then continuously gone on, until most of the older dioceses outside New England have now been divided. In what constituted old Virginia there are now the dioceses of Virginia, West Virginia, and Southern Virginia; in Ohio the dioceses of Ohio and Southern Ohio ; in Illinois the three dioceses of Chicago, Ouincy, and Springfield. Michi- gan has set off Western Michigan as a diocese, and North- ern Michigan as a missionary jurisdiction. Missouri has been divided into Missouri and West Missouri. Texas has set off the missionary jurisdictions of Northern and West- ern Texas. North Carolina has set off the diocese of East Carolina. California has constituted Northern California a missionary jurisdiction, and Colorado, Western Colo- rado. Dakota has separated into North and South Dakota, and Nebraska has set off the Platte as a missionary juris- diction. Washington is now divided into the missionary jurisdictions of Spokane and Olympia, as earlier it was itself an offshoot from the diocese of Oregon. Wisconsin is divided into the dioceses of Milwaukee and Fond du Lac, New Jersey into New Jersey and Newark, and Florida has set off Southern Florida as a missionary jurisdiction. Maryland also has just resolved to ask the General Con- vention to set off the District of Columbia and four con- tiguous counties as the diocese of Washington. Thus the thirty-three dioceses of 1865 have expanded into fifty-three dioceses and seventeen missionary jurisdic- tions in 1895. This subdivision of States into a number of smaller dioceses has suggested the necessity of the provincial sys- tem. In Illinois there exists a Provincial Council of the three dioceses within the State, and in New York there is RITUALISM. 529 a Federate Council of the five dioceses within the State. As yet throughout the church there has been no general movement in the matter, and it waits for its development the coming of future necessity.^ Some general features of the latest development of church life having now been traced, we turn our attention to some special facts which give character and meaning to this period of the church's history. One of the inevitable struggles of the church was to ad- just itself to the new development of ritualism, which may perhaps be defined as the effort to symbolize in worship, by a return to pre-Reformation usages, the doctrinal sys- tem of the extreme Anglo- Catholic school. The whole legislative action in this respect has been derided as an un- dignified wrangle over church millinery. That is a very inadequate conception of the controversy. Neither side looked upon it from so frivolous a point of view. Those who claimed the right to hold the doctrinal opinions of this school claimed the right to express and teach them by ritual action. They justified their vestments and cere- monies, hitherto unknown in the church in America, either by the usage arising in the English Church from the con- struction there of the Ornaments Rubric (though its force and obligation were then the subject of controversy and litigation), or by the lack of legislation in the canons and rubrics of the church in the United States, which had never sanctioned the Ornaments Rubric. On the other hand, those who were opposed to this in- 1 Perhaps the most prominent and persistent advocate of the division of dio- ceses and of the provincial system was the Rev. Dr. John Henry Hopkins, Jr., son of Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont. He was the wittiest and most pungent controversial writer the church has produced. His literary talents were more brilliant than his father's. His chief literary work, his father's " Life," would be simply beautiful as an instance of filial devotion if it were not so jubilantly polemic and exultantly partisan as to seriously lessen its value as a contribu- tion to the history of the time. 530 PROrESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. dividual action of members of a separate school urged that an opinion permitted to be held /;/ the church was not to be construed as the doctrine of the church, and that the new ceremonies, meant to teach it, were so indistinguishable from the ceremonial which expressed the tenets of the Church of Rome (which this church had, in common with its English mother, rejected as errors), that to permit them was dangerous. They urged, moreover, that it was likely to hopelessly destroy both the moderation and the uni- formity in worship which had been so characteristic of the connnunion. The ritualistic controversy is therefore not to be described as a childish contention on either hand about matters in themselves insignificant; nor is the movement to be confounded with that growth in esthetic culture so characteristic of this time in all departments of life, and by which both the structures and the services of the church have so greatly benefited. Every school of thought within the church, as well as all sorts and conditions of men with- out, have felt that influence. High-churchmen led the way, but Low-churchmen followed quickly after, until all the features of English cathedral worship, of choral service and vested choristers, as well as of pictures upon the walls and stalls and lecterns in the chancel and crosses on the spire or over the holy table, have ceased to be indicative of party position. The ceremonial brought in question by the ritualistic controversy was not simply esthetic, but symbolic of a special school of doctrine, which had never before sought to so express itself since the Reformation. It was perhaps a little book entitled " The Law of Ritu- alism," by the then presiding bishop, issued in 1866, which called the attention of bishops and churchmen generally to the subject. In twenty years, Bishop Hopkins, who had been at first much disturbed by what he termed the novel- CONTROVERSY CONCERNING RITUAL. 531 ties of the Oxford Movement, had come to be undisturbed by the .ceremonial which expressed them, and even ap- peared as its advocate and defender. Early in 1867 twenty-four bishops issued a declaration condemnatory of ritualism, in which they declared that " no Prayer-book of the Church of England in the reign of whatever sovereign set forth, and no law of the Church of England, have any force of law in this church such as can be justly cited in defense of any departure from the express law of this church." In fine, this declaration claimed the right of " this national church " to prescribe its own ritual, and condemned such usages as were especially attributed to the ritualistic party. This started the controversy. It is too recent, and the records of it are too accessible, to render a complete account of it advisable. The flood of debate, moreover, renders such an account impossible. In the General Convention of 1868 the subject was earnestly considered, but after many resolutions and counter-reso- lutions the only result was the consent of the House of Bishops, in response to a request of the House of Depu- ties, to "appoint a committee to consider whether any ad- ditional provision for uniformity, by canon or otherwise, is practicable and expedient, and to. report to the next General Convention." Bishop Hopkins had died in January before this Conven- tion assembled, and Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, was now presiding bishop. He appointed on this committee Bishops Lee of Delaware, Williams of Connecticut, Odenheimer of New Jersey, Clark of Rhode Island, and Kerfoot of Pitts- burg. This committee reported to the next General Convention, held in Baltimore, 1871. In this report they declared their conviction that some action of the General Convention on the subject was desirable, if not absolutely demanded. They asked that such, action should be in the 532 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. form of a canon, and recommended that it should prohibit eleven specified things, among which were the use of in- cense and of the crucifix, lights on or about the holy table, and certain actions of the officiating minister, such as the elevation of the consecrated elements, prostrations, cross- ings, solitary communion of the priest, etc. They recom- mended another canon on Vestments, restricting the bishops to the episcopal habit heretofore in use, and the clergy to a white surplice and black gown, a white or black stole, white bands, and a black cassock. They also reported a resolution that," the House of Deputies concurring, a joint committee be appointed, to consist of three bishops, three presbyters, and three laymen, with directions to report such canons as might be thought desirable to this Convention as early as possible." The joint committee was granted and appointed, and reported a canon on Ritual, in which it was declared, first, that " this church recognizes no other law of ritual than such as it shall have itself accepted or provided " ; and second, that " the provisions for ritual in this church are the Book of Common Prayer, with the offices and ordinal ; the canons of the Church of England in use in the American provinces before the year 1789, not subsequently superseded ; and the canonical or other de- cisions of this church in its Conventions " ; and " referring to the ordinary all questions arising concerning ritual ob- servance." A resolution was appended asking for a joint committee to report to the next General Convention on " what portions of the English canons of 1603 were in use in America in 1 789, and how far they may have been mod- ified." Innumerable amendments were offered to this canon, and on the closing day of the session, before any definite action was taken by the Lower House, the bishops sent in a canon concerning the administration of the holy com- CANON CONCERNING RITUAL. 533 munion, forbidding elevation of the elements and any ceremony not prescribed in the Order for the Administra- tion of the Lord's Supper in the Book of Common Prayer. The canon was lost by non-concurrence of the house. Two resolutions were, however, passed ; the first condemning all ceremonies fitted to express a doctrine foreign to that set forth in the authorized standards of the church, and the second, declaring the counsel of the bishops as sufficient to suppress all irregularities. It was not until the Convention of 1874 that a canon on Ritual was passed. Then by an overwhelming majority the present Section 1 1 of Canon 22 of Title i was adopted. This canon forbids the elevation of the elements in the celebration of the holy communion ; any acts of adoration toward the elements ; and all other like acts not authorized by the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. The whole action, protracted as it was, was more influ- ential through the expression of opinion elicited than from the legislation enacted. The constitutionality of the canon has been disputed and practically disallowed by those whose practices it forbids, and those who desired legislation at all desired more than they got. By their messages and pro- posed measures the House of Bishops showed their general disapproval of the movement, and the House of Deputies their disinclination to minute legislation concerning it. Its clerical and lay advocates were backed by many who dis- approved it, but who wished to make the church compre- hensive of all types of churchmanship. The canon so fully approved has stood chiefly as a formal protest against the central error alleged to be involved in the rituahstic de- velopment. Whether it was owing to the very full opportunity for the church to give its utterance on the subject in these General Conventions, or to other causes, the excitement 534 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. concerning ritualism from this time gradually declined. In its extreme form it is rare in the church, and its advocates, if intense, are not numerous. The discussion concerning ritualism in 187 1 was espe- cially animated. It brought into prominence as its most eloquent advocate Dr. James De Koven, whose speeches did as much as anything to defeat more definite legislation. He was a man of singular charm and of magnetic influence, which arose from a rare combination in him of earnest en- thusiasm, genuine conviction, and spiritual refinement. His ardent followers have attributed to him more intellectual power than his short life made apparent, but his gifts and his graces alike combined to place him in the forefront of the Anglo- Catholic party. This Convention of 1871 saw the issue of a declaration of the House of Bishops which did more to quiet the ap- prehension of the Evangelicals than any legislative en- actment could possibly have done. There was much excitement at the time concerning the word "regenerate " in the Baptismal Office, consequent on the trial and suspen- sion, six months before, of a Chicago rector for refusing to use it. The bishops sitting in council issued the declaration that in their opinion " the word ' regenerate ' is not there so used as to determine that a moral change in the subject of baptism is wrought by the sacrament." Forty-eight bishops were present and signed the declaration. However unnecessary such a statement may have been for a trained theologian, and whatever the force of this utterance as a doctrinal definition, it is from the date of its promulgation that we begin to see the decline of party spirit in the church, and a greater union in practical effort among the members of its various schools. It was in the interval between the General Conventions of 1 87 1 and 1874 that the useless schism of the Reformed REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 535 Episcopal Church took place. It was precipitated, on the part of Bishop Cummins, the chief mover in it and an indis- pensable elemept if it were to be an Episcopal communion, by certain criticisms in the public press. He had participated with Dr. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury, in a celebra- tion of the holy communion in a Presbyterian church, held in connection with a world-gathering of the Evangelical Alliance in New York, October, 1873. Bishop Cummins was assistant Bishop of Kentucky, an eloquent preacher of Evangelical sentiments and strict theological convic- tions. He had previously been much disturbed by the ritualistic controversy, and seeing that proscriptive legis- lation was not likely to equal his demands, his conscience was stirred at the thought of continuing to bear rule in a church where what he esteemed vital errors would be permitted, even if discountenanced. The act of joining in the Presbyterian communion service was sharply criticised in the newspapers by Bishop Tozer, an English missionary bishop who was retiring from Zanzibar, and who was in New York at the time. His denunciation, which did not dis- turb the Anglican dean, proved the finishing-touch to the long-gathering dissatisfaction of the American bishop. A month later, on November 10, 1873, Bishop Cummins ad- dressed a letter to his diocesan, Bishop Benjamin B. Smith, of Kentucky, who was also presiding bishop, announcing his " purpose of transferring his work and office to another sphere." After expostulation he was arraigned for trial, and was finally deposed from his office and ministry by the. presiding bishop, June 24, 1874. This sentence was approved and ratified by the House of Bishops at its next session, and announced in a solemn service to the church in General Convention assembled the same year, October, 1874. In the meantime, a month after his letter of renun- ciation of his ministry in the Protestant Episcopal Church, 536 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. in December, 1873, Bishop Cummins had met with seven clergymen and twenty laymen in the city of New York, and inaugurated a separate ecclesiastical organization. Bishop Cummins was chosen presiding officer of the new body, and he proceeded to consecrate the deposed pres- byter of Chicago, the Rev. C. E. Cheney, D.D., who was by the new body elected bishop. He was a notable accession by reason of his gifts and character and the conspicuous position he had obtained. Could the strictness of the letter have been less rigidly enforced against him he might have been spared to the church, and the Reformed Episcopal Church to America, for he was the most influential man who joined it. A few earnest souls followed him, of the type which is intense within a limited horizon ; whose conception of the church is too circumscribed to admit of varied apprehensions of doctrine, and who fear if tares and wheat grow together, the tares will assuredly root out the wheat. This movement drew to itself but few of the promi- nent men of Evangelical antecedents, and has not established itself as either a numerous or an influential ecclesiastical body. All the views for which its protest is made have been and may be held within the communion from which it parted.^ This departure may have awakened in the old home a spirit of comprehension too slumberous before ; a return would keep it yet more wide awake. When the controversy over ritualism was renewed at the General Convention of 1874 it was carried on with less virulence. Dr. De Koven pleaded against repressive legis- lation because of its narrowing eff"ect upon the communion, and it was in this spirit that the Convention contented itself with the general statements of its canon. The temper of 1 H. K. Carroll, LL.D., "The Religious Forces of the United States," in " American Church History Series," vol. i., p. 325, " Reformed Episcopal Church." AMERICAN CHURCH CONGRESS. 537 the body was shown, however, in its refusal to confirm the election of Dr. G. F. Seymour to the bishopric of Illinois, on the ground that he was an active member of the advanced ritualistic party. This charge he denied, but the Conven- ' tion declined to assent to his consecration. In the calmer times which have since ensued he has been made bishop of the diocese of Springfield. Just before the General Convention met in New York in 1874 the first meeting of the American Church Congress was held in the same city. It had, of course, been sug- gested by the English Church Congress, and the plan originated among a number of clergymen, usually styled Broad-churchmen, who were advocates of the comprehen- siveness of the church and of intellectual freedom within it. They felt that the time had come for a free expression of opinion by all classes of churchmen, clerical and lay, on topics of common Christian and church interest, unham- pered by prospective legislation or representative respon- sibility. They believed that if honest men of differing convictions could thus meet on a common platform, state and advocate their convictions, and learn the rationale of their difTerences, the result would be a decline of party spirit, an increase of ecclesiastical comity, and an awakening of intellectual and spiritual life. At a meeting of a number of clergymen of Boston and New York at New Haven in the spring of 1874, the subject was broached. The Rev. Dr. Edwin Harwood, the scholarly rector of Trinity Church, New Haven, who had recently attended a meeting of the English Church Congress, suggested the introduction of the same thing in America. The subject was duly discussed, and finally formulated by such men as Bishop Clark of Rhode Island, Drs. E. A. Washburn and John Cotton Smith of New York, and Phillips Brooks of Boston. Rev. Dr. George D. Wildes was appointed general secretary. Prepa- 538 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. rations were made to hold the first session of the Congress in New York, just previous to the assembling of the Gen- eral Convention, in order to secure a full and represent- ative audience for the inauguration of the movement. The appointment of this time caused the project to be misunderstood by the Bishop of New York, who had been asked to preside, and he opposed the holding of the Con- gress, fearing it might be meant to influence the legislation of the coming General Convention. Nothing was further from the purpose of the originators of the Congress, and the best way to answer such suspicions was to hold the Congress and let it speak for itself. It was accordingly held with great success in Association Hall, and largely attended, though many bishops and delegates withheld their presence out of deference to the scruples of the bishop of the diocese. Bishop Whipple made the opening address at the celebration of the holy communion at Calvary Church, which preceded the first session, and Dr. Alex- ander H. Vinton, of Boston, acted as president of the Congress. Speakers of all ecclesiastical schools took part. The boldness of utterance, the ability of the discussions, the courtesy of the writers and speakers, created a profound im- pression, and awakened the admiration as well as satisfied the curiosity of the audiences. The non-partisan nature of the organization was conspicuously evident from the topics discussed, the speakers who took part, and the tone of the debates. It was the successful inauguration of an institu- tion which has since done more to mitigate the bitterness of party spirit than any series of publications or resolutions of ecclesiastical bodies could possibly have accomplished. It has made men and parties understand one another, by bringing them face to face in absolute freedom of discus- sion. Its direction has been eminently fair; no school or extremest section of a school has been overlooked in the BROAD-CHURCHMEN. 539 selection of its writers and speakers. If some have kept aloof from it, it has not been for lack of invitation to attend. The late Bishop of New York, notwithstanding his first opposition, at a later period welcomed it to his diocese and presided at its meetings. Those only dislike it who distrust the effects of free discussion. They do not constitute a majority of any party in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The class of churchmen among whom the Congress took its rise came into notice gradually and as individuals rather than as a school. Though styled the Broad-church party, from the nature of their position there can be no binding party organization among them, for they emphasize in- dividual freedom of both thought and action, and stand for the constitutional rights of loyal churchmen of every school. Their symbol is rather the leaven which influences and raises the mass wherein it is set, without taking evi- dent form for itself, than the seed which is reproduced and multiplied in definite and enlarged organizations. They are the representatives on this side of the Atlantic of the school in England identified with the names of Arnold of Rugby and Robertson of Brighton, with the brothers Hare, and with Maurice and Stanley and Temple. They vary in churchmanship, in theological opinions, in ritual manners. Their bond of union lies rather in their method of approach- ing questions than in definite conclusions concerning them. They are the apostles of the Spirit. In answer to charges of vagueness and indifference to positive results which have been brought against them, they claim that their breadth is not that of the aeronaut who, drifting among the clouds, sees everything and distinguishes nothing, but is that of the astronomer who from a firm position broadly scans the heavens, and learns of a greatness which, if it dwarf the planet whereon he stands, yet glorifies it by making it part of a universe. Many of this school are strong churchmen, 540 rROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. holding" to the value of the historic order of the church as a bulwark against the distractions of denominationalism, and as a witness to the continuity of the Christian faith, whose legitimate outcome is growth. They regard the church of this century, however, as being as truly under the guidance and blessed by the presence of the Divine Spirit as the church at any earlier period of its history. They regard it not chiefly as a past tradition, but as a present reality set for understanding the mind of the Master and applying his gospel to the wants of men to- day. The school thus believes in progress through its belief in the living presence of God by his Spirit. It recognizes that the same Spirit may be manifest in diverse operations, and its idea of unity is not, therefore, uniform- ity. It holds that the duty of thinking has not been relegated to any one age, but that the church's past ex- perience has prepared it for fuller disclosures and ampler statements of the "faith once delivered." To it theology is not simply an archaeological research. It is hospitable to advance in thought, in criticism, in modes of worship and action. Reality rather than antiquity is its watch- word. Reality tested by antiquity, or by survival through fitness from past ages, it honors in the creeds, in the epis- copate, in the essential forms of the liturgy, which live on by their inherent power and are as vital tp-day as afore- time. But age with these is not equivalent to reality, and old customs would not be regarded as binding, even if once salutary, if the conditions out of which they arose have been changed. Broad-churchmen hold strongly to the creeds, but look more doubtfully on articles and con- fessions, save as the guides of a past experience to a fuller attainment. They venerate the sacraments as divine wit- nesses of a grace greater than themselves, to which they testify with authority, and administer, but do not confine. BKOAD-CIIURCHMANSHir. 5 4 1 The authority of the church hes to them chiefly in the reasonableness of its decrees, and the authority of the Bible in its divine and spiritual message to the soul and the conscience, wholly unimpaired by any crudity of style or inexactness of popular scientific illustration it may exhibit. They regard inspiration as of the spirit, not of the letter, and hold that the supernatural is not to be construed as the unnatural. This school, therefore, concerns itself much with the kingdom of righteousness on earth, and is less dogmatic concerning the features of the spiritual world beyond. It is interested in applying the principles of Christ's teaching, and the truth of God, revealed in his incarnation and pas- sion and resurrection, to the present actual needs of men and society, and is largely humanitarian in its conception of applied Christianity. This brief sketch of the Broad-church school may serve to show its trend. It is not eminently dogmatic, but tends to discriminate essential Christianity from theological spec- ulation, and to identify its essence with a living relation of the soul and of society to Christ. It has had wide influ- ence over both thinking and practical men. It has drawn into the church many whom ecclesiasticism repels, and whom the subjective individualism of the Evangelical system does not satisfy. It, of course, embraces men very wide asunder in their conclusions, and its coherence lies solely in its spirit. To exist as an influence is its end and aim. That end is to " live in the Spirit"; that aim is to "walk before God in the land of the living." Of the exponents of this school, the most eminent have been Dr. Washburn, of New York, and Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts. The lives of both were too influential to be indicated in a brief sketch, yet too significant to be passed without notice. 542 PROl'ESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. Edward Abiel Washburn was drawn out of the Con- gregationalism in which he was reared into the Episcopal Church through the attraction of its historic and institu- tional character. He used to speak of himself as a philo- sophical High-churchman, because he held to the value of the historic continuity and organic structure of the church on philosophical rather than on dogmatic grounds ; for the sake of their reasonableness rather than because of conciliar or traditional authority. According to his conception the church could not rightly exist as a congeries of atomic congregations, nor even as a rivalry of mutually exclusive parties striving forpredominance within the selfsame house- hold. It must stand as an organism coextensive with the boundaries of the faith, with equal constitutional rights guaranteed to all loyal souls therein. The idea of com- prehensiveness thus detached him from denominationalism and attracted him to the church, which he regarded as a realm of law insuring a reign of liberty. Its historic char- acter, its ancient landmarks, its rich heritage of liturgical treasures, were especially dear to him ; for he was an ac- curate scholar, profoundly versed in history and philosophy and the literature of many lands. He was a keen critic, and possessed an epigrammatic style which expressed his convictions with crystal clearness. He was by nature a chivalrous soul, whose presence always suggested knightly prowess and the distinction of a high-bred nature, to which what was mean, false, or pretentious was disdain- fully repugnant. He was, as Dean Stanley wrote of him, of " that small transfigured band whom the world cannot tame : the band of Falkland, Leighton, Whichcote, Arnold, Maurice." He stood in fullest sympathy with the catholic aims of his friend, Dr. Muhlenberg, in all matters of practi- cal benevolence and Christian fellowship, and the two found an intellectual point of union in their poetic nature, which EDWARD A. WASHBURN. 543 was marked in each. But Dr. Washburn's chief interest lay in departments unfamiHar to his gifted friend : in those deeper problems of philosophical speculation and historical investigation which furnished the roots of his theological method. He was intent on the discovery of the rationale of all doctrines and institutions, and his chief mental power lay in the possession of a keen analysis which suffered no subterfuge to escape him, and which brought out the lurking error or the hidden truth so that it was impossible to mistake its identity. Though possessed as a preacher of a rare eloc^uence of both style and expression, his appeal in the pulpit, as in his writings, was to the thoughtful and studious classes rather than to the mass of men. He ap- proached men through their intellect too predominantly to greatly attract or influence the general crowd, but within the sphere he had deliberately chosen he stood supreme. Upon vague sentiment or misty doubt his clear intelli- gence shone like the sun, dispersing the vapors and re- vealing the source of their origin. He recognized and welcomed the new problems in thought and action of his time, and rejoiced to go forth to meet them in the friendly spirit which greeted them as signs of life, better far than any sultry calm. As their solvent he brought forth out of his treasury things new and old, holding, with his friend Stanley, that " the transitory stands still, fades, and falls to pieces ; the eternal continues by changing its form in accordance with the movement of advancing ages." As a philosophical Christian divine and as a liberal churchman, not less but more devoted by reason of his liberality, his influence on his fellow-clergy and the thoughtful minds of the community was marked and deep. And all that influence went for manliness and sincerity, for generous sympathy, for high scholarship, for fearless investigation, His courage was boundless because of his 544 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. confidence that truth, not error, is the strongest thing in the church as in the world. His salutary influence on multitudes of the younger clergy can hardly be computed. As we turn to speak of Phillips Brooks we meet a nature in full accord with Dr. Washburn's aim and tone, but with characteristics widely different. He grew up in Boston, under the influence of his rector. Dr. Alexander H. Vin- ton, " whose vigorous mind and great acquirements and commanding character and earnest eloquence," to quote Bishop Brooks's own estimate of him, " made him a most influential power, and gave a noble dignity to the life of the church in Boston." A graduate of Harvard and a student under Dr. Sparrow at Alexandria, his mind never in earlier or later days turned fondly toward institutions, but centered itself on the spiritual and moral and intellect- ual aspects of the truth itself. High as was his intelligence and wide as was his culture, his appeal to his hearers was not chiefly through the intellectual gifts which separated them, but through the moral and spiritual elements they shared in common and which made them all akin. At once on emerging from the seminary he became preeminent in the pulpit, and from the very beginning continued till his death the most powerful and fascinating and uplifting preacher the Protestant Episcopal Church has ever known. He drew all sorts and conditions of men and women in •vast assemblies about him, and they hung breathless on his lips, and went home from his sermons feeling that a strong wind of God had blown freshness and courage and hope and aspiration into their souls. It is impossible to say whose lives he touched most potently, whether the students of Harvard, or the merchants and physicians of Philadelphia, or the judges, statesmen, and scholars of Boston, or the clerks and seamstresses and artisans everywhere. No one but felt and responded to the nobleness of his nature and PHILLIPS BROOKS. 545 the majesty of his spirit as he stood before them to plead with them, as the children of God, to rise to the height of the divine possibilities within them, and walk as children of the light and of the day. It is difficult, if not impos- sible, to analyze his power. He had affluent gifts, but it did not lie in them. He had an exquisite diction which sang its sentiment into the soul, and a wealth of illustration which constituted him a veritable seer to whom nature laid bare the secrets of her spiritual suggestion, together with a beautiful simplicity of style which transforms his writ- ings into literature. Mentally he had a clear perception of the fundamental truths of God and man, a noble philoso- phy of life, a keen appreciation of the forces moving in society, an intense appreciation of all genuine forms of life. But it was the mystic touch of genius which took all the rich endowments of his nature, and all the acquire- ments of his scholarship, and all his varied culture and ex- perience of men, and from out them evoked a power of spiritual sympathy which made him supreme as an inspi- ration and a guide. His theology was Christology, and his religion was a transcript of Dr. Arnold's expressive phrase : " There is one name, and one alone, in heaven and earth to whom we can surrender our whole soul and be satisfied. And that name is not truth, not justice, not benevolence ; not Christ's mother, nor his holiest servants, nor his blessed sacraments, nor his very mystical body, the church ; but himself only, who died for us and rose again, Jesus Christ, both God and man." The divinity and humanity of Christ were a blended light which enabled him to apprehend the significance of each, and to comprehend their unity in him. The realization of that unity in man was to his thought the end and aim of creation and re- demption, and to it he summoned all who heard him by earnestly eloquent appeals to the noblest elements within 546 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. them. He depicted Christian character in the greatness of its manliness, and in contrast showed the turpitude of evil in its littleness as well as in its guilt. His teaching was thus characterized by a lofty belief in man's spiritual possibilities, and a large hope for man's eternal destinies. The progressive revelation of truth and morality in the Bible, crowned by the incarnation, assured him of its divine spirit and origin, which no criticism of the letter could affect. And the church of Christ was to him the brotherhood of all who were baptized with Christ's spir- itual power, and followed him as Master. Neither his theological nor his ecclesiastical views were conventional, and this gave rise to misconception and misunderstanding of him. His method was synthetic, not analytic, and this, too, bewildered the conventional mind, which could not believe that the skeleton was sound or entire unless it protruded itself through the tissues of the ampler life with which he clothed it. Those who would subject a poem to the tests of a mathematical problem might remain doubtful of his essential orthodoxy, but not those who caught the real meaning of his thought and were responsive to the passionate yearning of his soul to make God and Christ and all Christian truth a reality in the life of to-day, and not leave it chiefly the tradition of a past age of faith. He never uttered a sensational sentence, nor one that had not a sensation for earnest souls. In the chiefest English cathedrals, as in the least parish churches of his diocese, he was a living oracle. And in his influence on his own communion and community he stood foremost as an in- spiring presence, who made life nobler, and thought and speech worthier, by the spirit of manliness and godliness with which he suffused, them. Of other men of influence of this school there is no space to speak ; but brief mention must be made of PAROCHIAL MISSIONS. 547 John Cotton Smith, rector of Ascension Church, New York, who, beginning as a narrow Evangelical, expanded into a broad Evangelical; always holding to the subjective the- ology he loved, yet coming to comprehend the equal force and claim of other schools of thought. His strong native powers were enforced by learning, and his philosophic cast of mind lent depth to his conclusions. His pamphlet, " The Church's Mission of Reconciliation," had a very wide effect in calming party passion and making his powers known and his influence felt generally throughout the church. It was a plea for unity amid diversity, justi- fied by an exposition of the peculiar task and value of each school in its testimony to some special element of the faith, and urged in the interests of that " special agency in building up the future church of the nation " which he believed Providence laid upon his own communion. In fine, the aim of this school has lain in an endeavor to make the church comprehensive, and in claiming free scope for the development of its power. Another new organization of this period has likewise been influential in the cause of unity within the church on its spiritual side, as the Church Congress has been on its intellectual side. It is the Parochial Mission Society, which by freer methods and a continuous series of services strives to do in a more churchly fashion what the prayer-meet- ing and religious conference aimed to do of old. It com- bines in its committees and its workers churchmen of every school or party, who are earnestly set to dissipate the apathy which settles on the routine life of parishes, and to call in from without to the influences of the gospel those who either neglect the church or are utterly indiffer- ent or hostile to it. To gather in the wayfarer and stimu- late the sluggish Christian is the work of the Parochial Mission. Its services are differently conducted by different 548 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, [Chap. xvii. types of men; but the unity of aim begets unity of spirit, and the outcome has been an enlarged charity and a better mutual appreciation among the varied schools of church- men. The St. Andrew's Brotherhood is another such unifying organization, which touches church life on its practical side. This society, which, with simplest rules and methods, exists to enlist the cooperation of young men in church work, such as bringing men to church and welcoming them there, teaching in Sunday-schools and night-schools, and other like avocations, has become widespread and influential throughout the land. The Church Congress and the Parochial Mission Society both had their prototypes in England. The St. Andrew's Brotherhood is purely Ameri- can. It began as a parochial society in St. James's Church, Chicago, to meet a local need, under the inspiration and suggestion of Mr. James Houghteling, a layman of the parish. Originating in 1886, it has now a thousand chap- ters and a membership of eleven thousand widely scattered through the dioceses. It holds its conventions, where the members gather in vast numbers, and is a distinct power in consolidating the practical forces of the church, and divesting them of a partisan character. The Daughters of the King is a society for girls, of the same essential aim and spirit, though it is by no means so large an organization. Church clubs, too, have numerously sprung into being, which have the opportunity at least to foster unity on its social side. The laymen in the cities are enlisted in them, and they manifest and deepen a vigorous Christian vitality among churchmen. Of the various attempts at social reform which have com- bined churchmen of all schools in equal enthusiasm, one of the chief is the Church Temperance Society, which seeks to diminish and destroy drunkenness by the combined efl"ortsof CHURCH TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. 549 all sober people. It admits, therefore, to its fellowship both those who moderately use and those who totally abstain from using spirituous drinks. It was established in 1881, and -under its able president, Mr. Robert Graham, has done much to oppose the vice so fatal to domestic peace and personal respectability by affecting legislation and call- ing attention to the problem of drinking-saloons and their distribution, by the establishment of coffee-houses and lunch-wagons where the temptation to dram-drinking is ab- sent, by lectures and mass-meetings, and especially by the establishment in churches of corps of Knights of Temper- ance, with drill and uniform, among the young, pledged to sobriety and purity and reverent speech. The reasonable- ness of its basis, whereon all the friends of sobriety may stand, frees it from the taint of an uncharitable fanaticism, and promises for it a sphere of usefulness akin to that of the English Church Temperance Society, whose success suggested the adoption of its methods in America. The American Church Building Fund Commission is another practical combination of all sorts of churchmen in needed work. Founded in 1880 by the General Conven- tion, it aims to raise a large fund by annual offerings from congregations and by individual gifts ; portions of the principal to be loaned, and of the interest to be given, for church building wherever needed. Amid all these manifestations of a broader and nobler conception of the church's task, the individual churches themselves, whether the seats are rented and appropriated or whether they are indiscriminately free, have in large measure ceased to be mere places of worship for the little groups who have combined to build them, preserving carefully the chartered privileges of their parishioners, and have aspired to become religious homes for the community and centers of religious work for the help of all kinds of 550 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. suffering and need. In the larger cities the mission chapels and parish houses of the self-supporting churches offer the opportunity for worship and helpful sympathy in the very midst of the poorer population ; and the general City Mis- sion, in the city of New York, carries the ministrations of the gospel, through its chaplains, to all the city institu- tions, to every prison and hospital and almshouse supported by the municipality.^ A larger conception of church catholicity has at times seemed to some to demand a change of name for the ec- clesiastical organization which has so developed itself. In the General Convention of 1877, held in Boston, the sub- ject was broached by the presentation of some resolutions of the diocese of Wisconsin, asking among other things for a change in the legal title of the church. The deputy from Wisconsin who introduced the resolution, the Rev. Dr. De Koven, was its chief clerical advocate, and the Hon. S. Corning Judd, of Illinois, its chief lay supporter. The older and larger dioceses did not favor it. The Hon. Hamilton Fish, of New York, vigorously opposed and denounced it. The final vote on the change of name was on the resolution reported by the committee to whom the Wisconsin resolution had been referred, viz., "Resolved, That no change be made in the name of this church, as used in the constitution." An overwhelming majority of dioceses sustained the resolution, only one lay delegate from Alabama and two clerical delegates from Wisconsin voting in the negative. In connection with this subject an occurrence in the General Convention of 1886 has been cited as indicating a change of sentiment - in regard to it. 1 The beautiful Chapel of the Good Shepherd, built l)y Mr. George Bliss, of New York City, at a cost of seventy thousand dollars, on Blackwell's Island, for the use of the inmates of the city almshouse, is a striking illustration of the awakened spirit of philanthropy in the church to-day. 2 See Morehouse, " Some American Churchmen," p. 217. LAMBETH CONFERENCES. 55 I Such was not its significance. It was proposed, in connec- tion with the enrichment of the Prayer-book then under consideration, that the name of the church should be, not changed, but omitted from the title of the Prayer-book. Many of the strongest opponents of the change of name were in favor of this proposition, believing it would tend to make the Prayer-book more widely acceptable without the church, and insure its use in congregations not Episcopal. There was a clerical majority of nearly two thirds in its favor, and it was defeated by the non-concurrence of the laity, largely on the ground that such omission in the title of the Prayer-book would be construed as a desire to change the church's name. Whenever the subject of the change of name has come distinctly to the front it has been emphatically disallowed. Before considering the two important actions of the church at home which will conclude this record, it is well to give a brief glance at its relations abroad. These have been chiefly confined to the participation of the American bishops. in the three conferences of the whole Anglican episcopate, held by invitation of the Archbishop of Canter- bury at Lambeth Palace. At the first, held in 1867, the opening sermon was preached by Bishop Whitehouse, of Illinois, in consequence of an arrangement with the Rt. Rev. Dr. Hopkins, to whom, as presiding bishop, the appoint- ment had been referred, in recognition of the church in the United States. Bishop Hopkins was, however, a prominent and conspicuous member of the conference; and Bishop Lee, of Delaware, made a profound impression by his learned and judicious counsel, which caused him to be especially consulted on momentous questions. As the utterances of these conferences are of no binding legal obligation, their efTect has been chiefly in deepening a sense of the unity of aim and identity of life between the 552 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. sister churches on either side of the sea, in spite of the diversity of operations to which their separate circum- stances call them. They have resulted in a more frequent interchange of pulpits between the two countries, and have developed a stronger sense of brotherhood without entailing any mischievous results of legislative alliance. The two most marked actions of the church of the present period remain to be noted : the enrichment of the Prayer-book and the Declaration Concerning Unity. They were in a measure synchronous, the Declaration being issued after the Prayer-book revision had been begun and before it was ended. In the matter of the revision of the Prayer-book, the resolution calling for the joint committee to consider the question was offered by the Rev. William R. Hunt- ington, D.D., of Massachusetts, on the ninth day of the session, in the General Convention of 1880. It read as follows : ^'Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring. That a joint committee, to consist of seven bishops, seven pres- byters, and seven laymen, be appointed to consider and report to the next General Convention whether, in view of the fact that this church is soon to enter upon the second century of its organized existence in this country, the changed conditions of the national life do not demand certain alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, in the direction of liturgical enrichment and increased flexibility of use." The vote on the resolution was largely in its favor, as follows: of the clergy, forty-three dioceses represented, ayes 33, nays 9, divided i ; of the laity, thirty-five dioceses represented, ayes 20, nays 1 1, divided 4. Under this reso- lution the following bishops were appointed as members of the joint committee : Williams, Lay, Coxe, Stevens, Young, Doane, and Huntington; and the following presbyters and PR A YER-BOOK RE 1 7SI0N. 553 laymen: Huntington, Dalrymple, Goodwin, Dix, Harwood, Garrison, Harison, Fish, Coppee, ShefFey, Wilder, Andrews, Smith, Burgwin. It was felt at the outset that the efficiency of the com- mittee was somewhat handicapped by the fact that the greater number of those appointed to represent the House of Deputies upon it were men who had not voted for the resolution ; but this fact became of itself an argument for revision when, at the Convention held in Philadelphia three years later, the report brought in by the joint committee was found to have been signed by all the members. The report, when presented, had attached to it a sample Prayer-book showing how the changes recommended, if adopted, would appear. This was known as the Book Annexed, and in connection with the report furnished the subject-matter for an animated debate covering the greater part of the session of 1883. The recommendations of the committee were grouped and classified so as to facilitate the process of selection, and much the greater portion of what had been recommended by the committee secured the Convention's approval. No sooner, however, had this body adjourned than, in accordance with a natural law of reaction, an attack upon the revision movement was begun all along the line ; so that it presently looked as if the whole labor of the committee would come to naught. But the violence of this reaction spent itself in the course of two years, and w^hen the time had come for the Convention to meet again, this time at Chicago, it was evident that a counter-reaction in favor of revision had begun. Op- position, however, was still strong enough to enable the opponents of the movement to secure the rejection of a great deal that had been accepted at Philadelphia. A Sifting Committee, so called, was appointed to sit in judg- ment upon the recommendations agreed to in Philadelphia, 554 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. and to report back to the Convention such features of re- vision as ought in its judgment to receive final approval. As a result of this procedure certain changes were then and there adopted and became part of the liturgical law of the church ; while certain others received preliminary approval and were handed on to the next Convention for final action. At the General Convention of 1889 the final results were gathered up, and a committee of twenty-one was appointed to prepare and present to the Convention of 1892 a standard book. It should be noted, however, that at Chicago the Committee on Revision was reorganized and its number reduced to fifteen. On the reorganized committee the original mover of the resolution for revision declined to serve. At the General Convention of 1892, at Baltimore, the committee on the Standard Prayer-book presented its re- port, a learned and exhaustive document, understood to be mainly the work of the Rev. Dr. Hart. Proof-sheets of the Standard Book were at the same time presented, a canon was passed providing that henceforth the Standard should be a single volume rather than an edition, as here- tofore, and the committee was continued, with instructions to provide said volume and to turn it over to the custodian with the least possible delay. The committee was also authorized to issue replicas of the Standard for the use of the several dioceses, and to reimburse itself by the sale of subscription copies, for some portion of the expense in- curred. Rev. Dr. Samuel Hart, of the diocese of Con- necticut, who had rendered much able service to the cause of revision, was appropriately appointed custodian. To the fostering care of the Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Williams, and of the Bishop of Albany, the Rt. Rev. W. C. Doane, the whole movement for revision owed a THE MEMORIAL VINDICATED. 555 large share of its success, but, more than to any other, to the Rev. William R. Huntington, D.D., who was its inspira- tion and chief guide, without whom it would not have been started, or, if started, would have failed, and whose able and courteous conduct of the long and intricate discussions in the House of Deputies secured to him the recognition by the whole church of a master of debate. It is interesting to see in the rubrical relaxations and liturgical enrichments of the present book how fully the demands of the Memorial Movement of 1854 have been met.^ In his letter to Bishop Otey concerning " What the Memorialists Want," in relation to the church services, Dr. Muhlenberg had specified especially these things : 1. The use of other texts of Scripture among the intro- ductory sentences. 2. That the minister may at his discretion omit the exhortation. 3. That the minister may at his discretion omit the General Confession and Absolution on week-days, except Fridays; and on Sundays, when the holy communion is administered, may begin with one or more of the sentences of Scripture, or with the Lord's Prayer. 4. To allow the use of some twenty or thirty psalms or portions of psalms instead of the psalter for the day. 5. To allow the substitution of other lessons than those appointed. 6. To allow the substitution of certain anthems or other portions of Scripture for the present canticles of Morning or Evening Prayer. 7. To allow on certain occasions additional prayers or offices, such as shall be prescribed by the bishop. All these demands have been more than conceded. The enrichment by additional material, if not large, has been 1 Muhlenberg, " Evangelical Catholic Papers," first series, p. 230. 556 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. choice. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, which were contained even in the Proposed Book of 1785, and which should never have been lost, have been restored, and an additional feast-day, in the festival of the Transfiguration, has been added to the calendar. As it is now constituted the American Prayer Book is perhaps the noblest manual of public devotion in the Christian church. The Convention of 1892, which completed the revision of the Prayer-book, adopted also a Hymnal, compiled by a committee of singular culture and ability, under the lead- ership of Bishop W. C. Doane, of Albany, who both by paternal heritage and native poetic gifts was fitted to be its ideal chairman. Lacking space for a fuller treatment of the history of the Hymnal, there are a few names especially which must be gratefully associated with it. Apart from Dr. Muhlen- berg, whose service has been before mentioned in this relation, the first is that of Bishop George Burgess, of Maine, who was one of the best literary scholars the church has ever known, and who brought his wide culture and distinct poetical talent to bear upon the subject between the years 1857 and 1865. His influence was marked and salutary. Another name is that of the Rt. Rev. A. Cleve- land Coxe, D.D., Bishop of Western New York, a co-laborer with Bishop Burgess, and a poet likewise, who by his " Christian Ballads " has set the church bells chiming in many a household, and who has bestowed a goodly heritage upon the church in his own noble hymns, which at times, as in that on the church, vibrate with a lyric ring akin to Camp- bell's, and again, as in that on Christ's humility, recall the meditative sweetness of Keble. With these two poet prel- ates. Bishop Howe, of Central Pennsylvania, associated his ample learning and cultivated taste ; and in this last Hym- nal, compiled under the supervising care of Bishop Doane, DECLARATION CONCERNING UNITY. 557 all previous efforts have found their fitting culmination. As regards both prayer and praise, the church in this last decade has been amply endowed for a reverent and glow- ing service to Almighty God. It was during the movement for the enrichment and re- vision of the Prayer-book that, at the General Convention held in Chicago in 1886, the House of Bishops issued their celebrated Declaration Concerning Unity. A memorial on the subject had been presented to them, signed by more than eleven hundred clergymen and over three thousand laymen. A committee was, in consequence, appointed " to consider the matter of the reunion of Christendom." It consisted of Bishops Littlejohn of Long Island, Bedell of Ohio, Howe of Central Pennsylvania, McCoskry of Michi- gan, and Galleher of Louisiana. The subject was not in substance a new one, though it was new in form. In i 785, Bishop Seabury, in a letter to the Rev. Dr. William Smith, ^ had indicated as the fixed and settled notes of the church, of universal obhgation, these four: government, sacra- ments, faith, and doctrine. If doctrine be made equivalent to the Holy Scriptures as the source and standard of it, then the report on unity, as finally shaped by the Lam- beth Conference, is in exact accord with Bishop Seabury. The attention of the committee was called as well to the much more recent and full expression of the same essen- tial position by the Rev. Dr. WilHam R. Huntington, in his " Essay toward Unity," called " The Ciiurch Idea." ^ The four postulates therein laid down were almost literally adopted by the committee in the four propositions which constituted the sum and substance of its report, and which are commonly known as the Quadrilateral. 1 See Beardsley, " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Scahury, D.D.," p. 234. 2 " The Church Idea: An Essay toward Unity," p. 157 (E. P. Button & Co., 1870). 558 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. [Chap. xvii. ■ Tliat report, after referring to the commission in 1853, in response to the Memorial of Dr. Muhlenberg, and the action taken by the bishops in council in 1880, proceeded to make the following Declaration " to all whom it may concern, and especially to our fellow-Christians of the diflferent communions in our land who, in their several spheres, have contended for the religion of Christ: " I. Our earnest desire that the Saviour's prayer that we all may be one may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily fulfilled; " 2. That we believe that all who have been duly baptized with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are members of the Holy Catholic Church ; " 3. That in all things of human ordering or human choice relating to modes of worship and discipline, or to traditional customs, this church is ready, in the spirit of love and humility, to forego all preferences of her own ; " 4. That this church does not seek to absorb other communions, but rather, cooperating with them on the basis of a common faith and order, to discountenance schism, to heal the wounds of the body of Christ, and to promote the charity which is the chief of Christian graces and the visible manifestation of Christ to the world. " But furthermore, we do hereby affirm that the Chris- tian unity now so earnestly desired by the memorialists can be restored only by the return of all Christian com- munions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its exist- ence, which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian faith and order committed by Christ and»his apostles to the church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men. THE QUADRILATERAL. 559 " As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore as essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom, we account the following, to wit : " I. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- ments, as the revealed Word of God ; " II. The Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith ; " III. The two sacraments, baptism and the Supper of the Lord, ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him ; " IV. The historic episcopate, locally adapted in the meth- ods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his church. " Furthermore, deeply grieved by the sad divisions which afflict the Christian church in our own land, we hereby declare our desire and readiness, so soon as there shall be any authorized response to this Declaration, to enter into brotherly conference with all or any Christian bodies seeking the restoration of the organic unity of the church, with a view to the earnest study of the conditions under which so priceless a blessing might happily be brought to pass." This report was adopted and communicated to the House of Deputies, who subsequently asked again for the appointment of a joint commission on the subject. This action was finally concurred in, and it was made the prov- ince of the commission to communicate to the organized Christian bodies of the country the Declaration set forth by the House of Bishops, and to hold themselves ready to enter into brotherly conference with all or any such bodies seeking the restoration of the organic unity of the church. One remarkable effect of this Declaration was its virtual adoption and promulgation by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. By the bishops of the whole Anglican commun- 56o PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, [Chap. xvii. ion then assembled the articles here promulgated were amended to read as follows : " {a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- ments, as ' containing all things necessary to salvation,' and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith ; " {b) The Apostles' Creed, as the baptismal symbol ; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith ; " {c) The two sacraments ordained by Christ himself, baptism and the Supper of the Lord, ministered with un- failing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the ele- ments ordained by him ; " (^o - - - - -'<^'-'f'3>-iOf'5fO'^M S3 cU P ~ t; •:: =? , i: rt o £ C J^ C.5 CI c a. o -s b Di -7^ rt : ^ S S o ^ .^ § 11 - ^ "fe w<; s^ Ss' .^-- C/l -tJ U S c 5^ M ctj I— ,<: O r^ aj g ^ ^ r" V> rt c H« rt ^ J= -O ^^ ^ 5h H ►^.^ > P5h-! 576 APPENDIX. N N N M ■^ \J^\C> 00 O^O O M I- N M rn-*-5j-ThThTh-^ir>i^a^O ^ '-' '-' " OOCC(»&OCO(y30000C>OC>OOOCOOOOOCCOO<>OCO(>00000000000X^>^o'rOl-<'vo"Tfl-^unCT^C^ rOrOfOfO'-iM Nn^i-i'-iN'-iNNNNMNMrO'-'N-H'-iNN O O O O 3,c^ ►i.Q S ►^c^ feOOQ<;OOOOOOfeOPfe H- ,o O <5 !^ JJ rt S - o ^ c ^ 2i b ■5 w-5 .:r-^< 13 a._ c ^ 2 't^ 3. ci n =2 cs -c rt « - - ^ K 4j m iri ^ ifi ^ m ^ m tA fi lA ifi -^-i ^^ Mi-ii-ii-icqi-ir'il-ii-iMMMrl-n U ri S C a; 1 _c ^ 1) ^ " U -^ ^^ fS ^ P '^ ^s^ ^ ^ -„^__ stu.2oiu- < ^^S H^u 12; u ^ O ffi < O O ^ ^,fe 2.K _r vO f^cO O O >-i <^ ro ■^ »r)>£) i^co CT> O '-' M ""O -^ vr)0 I^GO O O '-' PI fO ■* "^ APPENDIX. 577 N ir-, in mvo v^ vD ^ \0 t-» t^ l^oo 00 CCOOCOOOCCCCOOOOdOOOCOCOOOOOOOOOOOOO 12; o o o Ao ^Q <'z: - "li rC t3 > wO o 0 :5 o c u r" r ^ r" h-< h-i ,.— H ?- H W HM K 5 ^ E t-H M rt rt o ai uu H O O < -5.^ S S -s aK:5 3^2 U^ fc c ci c3 <1> [J D J 4J l> ;iq ?: w C w . w « Q D ^ MS oi c 5 W w P^Q' r- - OJ W ; 2 2 3 ^ ijj; g£S < ' U 13! M 2f= « i'. c c .H->&H 578 APPENDIX. (>OC>OC>OC»C«CCCOC/DC^COOOC)OOOC»tX<>0&0:>OC>OCOC<)CCOOOOOO CO .y 1-. t^'^O CO CC 00 00 00 CO r^ flj (U mt/3 ^ (V, ^ ■S^ai OO 1X3 OD 00 sm rt ^ (J^ ■ >s i; .;£ S "^ ''^ ^ ^ s ^ ^ rt rt c U Oh-Ku;2;<;:z;Sc/3Cj^uS;z;u;> J1 .'^- r'^ O 5. 0^ ro 00 00 C^-|o c c X >^ ^ 2 O OJ r; ^ "z; b o t; ^ ^ fe C 5^ "> « X "Td c^ +j +J 4_» 4-»^^__^^^ 4-» 4_>^ ti"^ t:JiN-!'^ t:i "ti rr^ "ti i M § r '^ '^ .^ J o Q ^2 n t3 t: 5 ti r s s p « ^ (3! 13 ^ HH, U2 ^; ; O 1J o >- O g O J^ tj w < " ^Q O ai s: >, y ^vi u ^<: P ft 3 ^.^^Q ^^: w „ i^ 5< o ^ So |><-^2l^lQS«g2o|;;^:oS;:i C c ^ i-ri tJ--^0 " ro p-i ro " 1-1 " .. — — ...... 6 S S ►^-j: Afe ^ Q P Afe O O O Q <^ O O At^ A< O <^ ^ I ■ ^ u .^ (U C ." '^ c CO OS CO 00 p, =^ 51) -?„ >>> "^ S) 5 .2 ^ c .S 5 to 6 -3l ■*;? c3 ci • t^ — ■ C r^ jj ^1^ ^ 5 '^ o S o ^HSH'S'S'S^'SSH-S'S'^nSHSt'Sl'S'tU'S'SH'S'S'S'^'S^'S . . . H K i« '^ 1 o '"Ph' "5 S < O 3 -^ S o I— I ^. w ►J k; ai g w o 3 J w c^<0 «: ■ Si -^ -"►SO S • - -> S ^ H Ph . o rJ « t/2 O W H Q ^ < hJ Q H w ^ O e O O C/3 H I o t4 p^ j3 ^ <" - -? '^ t/)3 ' t- C' c O " -H qj O 9 < o Sj 5 5?; i« o -^ O « Z W H Q Ph > H r; !^ r; ci -J s^ o Q w (/) w w < w J S ^O g g S 5^ < r/ O S c_ Oz - c/) ti c < w o (73 1-1 < o w u o r'; S: -; u. := H |J -• oi D r « ►-. ►J K W o ^ w 2 ^ ^ ;-.« C > " t« ►- * '^ ^ -:.v£) r^oO On O « N ro T^ iriO I--00 q; O " 2. !2 2 l^'S- ^°H- 5 2n 58o APPENDIX. OaNOOO>-'i-'">-iMf<)MNNrorofOmfOfO'^(v5TfTj' OOOOOOOOOOOOOOClOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOCCOOOOOOOOOOOO o-StlcSticc OOi hi>0 h^^O O fiH ►:^0 Q Q ^^ "^ ■""* *""* Ti Ti ^Ti C3 **! o J5 ^ -It; rt a I' %^^ Ij Pi o ^^ r/l S U < r, hj < ,-1 •— 'Z ^ S 5 a: S > ^ _ K ^ Q 2-;U ^ Pi w S t,, < n < -* 5 o < ^ ° " n K K J O J ^ Ph ^ t^fcL, W H ^ Pi K 55 I-; " H ^ « C« iv! W > O 5 O APPENDIX. 581 APPENDIX F. GENERAL CONVENTIONS. PLACE OF MEETING. Philadelphia I7^S Philadelphia 1786 Wilmington, Del. (adjourned Convention) 1786 Philadelphia 1789 Philadelphia (adjourned Con- vention) 1789 New York 1792 Philadelphia 1795 Philadelphia (special) 1799 Trenton, N. J 1801 New York 1804 Baltimore 1808 New Haven, Conn 181 1 Philadelphia 1814 New York 181 7 Philadelphia 1820 Philadelphia (special) 182 1 Philadelphia 1823 Philadelphia 1826 Philadelphia 1829 Minneapolis PLACE OF MEETING. DATE. New York 1832 Philadelphia 1835 Philadelphia 1838 New York 1841 Philadelphia 1844 New York 1847 Cincinnati 1850 New York 1853 Philadelphia 1856 Richmond, Va 1859 ' New York 1862 Philadelphia 1865 New York 1868 Baltimore 1871 New York 1874 Boston 1877 New York 1880 Philadelphia 1883 Chicago 1886 New York 1889 Baltimore 1892 1895 PRESIDING BISHOPS OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 1. William White, Pennsylvania 1789 2. Samuel Seabury, Connecticut 1 789-1 792 3. Samuel Provoost, New York 1 792-1 795 4. William White, Pennsylvania 1 795-1836 5. Alexander Viets Griswold, the Eastern Diocese . . . 1836-1843 6. Philander Chase, Ohio 1843-1852 7. Thomas Church Brownell, Connecticut 1 852-1 865 8. John Henry Hopkins, Vermont 1865-1868 g. Benjamin Bosworth Smith, Kentucky 1868-1884 10. Alfred Lee, Delaware 18S4-1887 1 1. John Williams, Connecticut 1887-1895 582 APPENDIX. SECRETARIES OF THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS. 1789. Rev. 1792. Rev. 1795. Rev. 1799. Rev. 1 80 1. Rev. 1804. Rev. 1808. Rev. 1811. Rev. 1 8 14. Rev. Joseph Clarkson. Samuel Keene. Josepli Turner. John Henry Hobart. Henry Waddell. Cave Jones. James Whitehead. Philo Shelton. Jackson Kemper. 1892- 18 1 7. Rev. Benjamin T. Onderdonk. 1820-21. Rev. William Augustus Muh- lenberg. 1823-26. Rev. William H. De Lancey. 1829-38. Rev. Bird Wilson. 1841-53. Rev. Jonathan M. Wainwright. 1853-65. Rev. Lewis P. Balch. 1868-83. Rev. Henry C. Potter. 1883-92. Rev. William Tatlock. Rev. Samuel Hart. APPENDIX G. PRESIDENTS AND SECRETARIES OF THE HOUSE OF DEPUTIES. 1784. 1785- 1786. 1786, 1789. 1792. 1795- 1801. 1804- 181I. 1S14. 1817- 1823. 1826. 1S29. 1832- 1844- 1850. 1853- 1862- 1868- 1877. 1880. 188.^- PRESIDENTS. Rev. William Smith, D.D. Rev. William White, D. D. Rev. David Griffith. October 10. Rev. Daniel Provoost. Bishop White. Rev. William Smith, D.D. 99. Rev. Abraham Beach. 08. Rev. Isaac Wilkins. Rev. John Croes. 21. Rev. W. H. Wilmer. SECRETARIES. Rev. 41. 47- William E. Wyatt. 59. Rev. Dr. Creighton. 65. Rev. Dr. Craik. 74- Rev. Alexander Burgess. Rev. E. Edwards Beardsley. 95. Rev. Morgan Dix. Rev. David Griffith. Hon. Francis Hopkinson. Rev. John Bisset. Rev. James Abercrombie. Rev. Ashbel Baldwin. Rev. John Henry Hobart. Rev. Ashbel Baldwin. Rev. John C. Rudd. Rev. B. T. Onderdonk. Rev. Henry Anthon. Rev. William Cooper Mead. Rev. M. A. De W. Howe. Rev. G. M. Randall. Rev. William Stevens Perry. Rev. C. L. Hutchins. APPENDIX. 583 APPENDIX H. COLLEGES AND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. KO. NAME. PLACE. PRESIDENT OR HEAD. 1. Columbia New York, N. Y Hon. Seth Low. 2. Trinity Hartford, Conn Rev. Dr. G. Williamson Smith. 3. Hobart Geneva, N. Y Rev. Dr. E. N. Potter. 4. Racine Racine, Wis Rev. Dr. Arthur Piper. 5. Griswold Davenport, la Bishop Perry. 6. Kenyon Gambler, O Dr. T. S. Sterling. 7. St. Stephen's Annandale, N. Y Rev. Dr. Fairbairn. 8. University of the South Sewanee, Tenn \ ^^^^P^^l ^^C^^l g. Lehigh University South Bethlehem, Pa 1. General Theol. Seminary. . . New York, N. Y Rev. Dr. Hoffman. 2. Episcopal Theol. School.... Cambridge, Mass Rev. Dr. Hodges. 3. Divinity School West Philadelphia, Pa Rev. Dr. Bartlett. 4. Theol. Seminary of Virginia. Theol. Seminary Va Rev. Dr. Packard. 5. Berkeley Div. School Middletown, Conn Bishop Williams. 6. Theol. Dept. U. of South. . . Sewanee, Tenn Rev. Dr. Du Bose. 7. Nashotah House Nashotah, Wis Rev. Dr. Gardner. 8. Be.xley Hall Gambler, O Rev. H. D. Jones. g. Western Theol. Seminary. . . Chicago, 111 Bishop McLaren. 10. Lee Hall Davenport, la Bishop Perry. 11. St. Andrew's Div. School. . . Syracuse, N. Y Bishop Huntington. 12. Seabury Div. School Faribault, Minn Rev. Dr. Wells. 13. De Lancey Div. School Geneva, N. Y Rev. Dr. Rankine. 14. Denver Theol. School Denver, Colo Bishop Spalding. 15. Pacific Div. School San Mateo Bishop Nichols. GENERAL SUMMARY OF STATISTICS. Dioceses in the United States 53 Missionary districts in the United States 18 Missionary jurisdictions in foreign lands 7 Clergy (bishops, 81 ; priests and deacons, 4,493) 4>574 Parishes and missions 6,037 Candidates for holy orders 55^ Ordinations, deacons 221 Ordinations, priests 156 Baptisms 61,815 Confirmations , 43,711 Communicants 596,031 Marriages 36, 1 78 Burials 30»'^S7 Sunday-school teachers 45,461 Sunday-school scholars 417,592 Grand total of contributions $12,281, 126.50 INDEX. Abbot, Bishop, 15. " Act for establishing Religious Free- dom," Virginia, 51; Maryland, 59. " Act of Association of the Clergy and Congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Pennsylva- nia," 338. " Act of the Clergy of Massachusetts and New Hampshire," 370. Adams, John, 351, 361. Address to the English bishops, 349- 352; answer, 354. Africa, missions to, 517. Albemarle settlement, 222, 235. Allen, Professor Alexander V. G., 506. Allen, Thomas, 94. American Church Building Fund Commission, 549. American Church Congress, 537. American Church Missionary Society, 459, 517- Andrews, Joseph R., 446. Andrews, Robert, 51. Andrews, William, 175. Andros, Governor, 35, 94, 105, 164. Anglo-Catholic party, 534. Annapolis, Convention of, 304, 306, 307- Anne, Queen, 169, 190, 214, 269. Anthon, Dr. Henry, 474. " Apostle to the Indians," 514. Apthorp, Mr., 104, 150. Archdeaconry system, 525. Argall, Governor 20. Armada, Spanish, 7. Arnold, Jonathan, 146, Asbury, Francis, 335, 405, 407. Ashley River Colony, 223, 224. Aspinwall, William H., 441. Athanasian Creed, 360, 362, 368. Auchmuthy, Dr., 182, 184, 187, 273. Bacon, Francis, 15. Bailey, Mr., 118, 120. Baltimore, Lord, 27, 57, 61. 62, 72, 77- Bancroft, Archbishop, 12. Baptists, 44, 51. Barclay, Henry, 176, 182. Barclay, Thomas, 175, 176. Bargrave, Thomas, 22. Bass, Edward, 370, 373, 398. Bass, Jeremiah, 194. Bastow, J., 174. Beach, Abraham, 327, 328. Beach, John, 138, 139, 150, 155, 159. Berkeley, Dean George, 106, 130, 282, 284, 285, 317, 319, 320. Berkeley, Lord John, 190. Berkeley, Sir William, 29, 30 ; report, 32, 222. Berkeley Divinity School, 443, 508, Bernon, Gabriel, 112. Bethesda College, 260. Bexley Hall, 459, 509. Biddle, Charles, 351. Bingham, Solomon, 446. Blair, James, ^;^, 35. Blaxton, William, 86. Blinn, Peter, 244. Blount, Nathaniel, 244. Board of Missions, 448, 517, 523. Boone, Bishop, 447, 460, 514. Bosomworth, Thomas, 262. Boucher, Jonathan, 46, 80, 324, 342. Bowden, John, 184. 585 586 INDEX. Boyd, John, 24I. Bray, Thomas, 35, 65, 66, 69, 96, 225, 270, 278. Breck, James Lloyd, 493. Bridge, Christopher, 95, 97. Broad-churchmen, 537; characteris- tics, 539. Brooke, John, 199. Brooks, Bishop Phillips, 104, 506, 537, 541, 544- Brown, Isaac, 138. Brown, John, 88. Brown, Marmaduke, 1 16. Brown, Samuel, 88, 126, 131. Brownell, Bishop, 433, 439, 441, 442, 500. Bucknell, Charles, 120. Buenos Ayres, 446. Bull, William Treadwell, 230; "A Short Memorial," 231. Burgess, Bishop George, 361, 480, 487, 493- Burke, Master, 16, 18. Burlington College, 480. Butler's, Bishop, statement, 269. Byles, Dr. Mather, 102, 116. Cabot, 3. Calvert, Charles, 73, 75. Calvert, Leonard, 58. Calvert, Philip, 61. Campbell, Dugald, 269. Caner, Henry, 136. Canon on Ritual, 533. Canon on Vestments, 532. Carey, Arthur, 474. Carleton, Sir Guy, 290. Carolina, 222 ; constitution, 223. Carteret, Sir John, 190. " Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered," 289 ; analysis, 291 ; not the Church of England in America, but the Amer- ican Church, 295. Cathay, 3. Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 527. Cathedral system, 526, 529. Cecil, Robert, 15. Chambers, John, 180. Chandler, Dr. Thomas Bradley, 153, 154, 200, 315, 356; "Appeal to the Public," 201, 202, 273; letter to S. P. G., 273. Charles I., 29, 222. Charles IL, 31, 61, 62, 122, 163, 222. Charleston, characteristics of, 229, 339. Chase, Bishop Philander, 494; dio- ceses of Ohio and Illinois, 436, 487. Chauncy, Dr., 126, 152, 154. Checkley, John, 98 ; polemics, 99, ill. Cheney, Dr. C. E., 536. Childs, George W., 4. China, 447; missions to, 515; trans- lation of the Bible, 516. Chittenden, Bethuel, 420. Chowans, 239. Christ Church, Boston, 100, 104. Church architecture, 458. Church newspapers, 458. Church of England, 10, 12, 20, 23, 26, 30, 41 ; separation from, 48, 74, 98, IIS, 223. Church preparatory schools, 512; for girls, 513- Church Temperance Society, 549- Churches and chapels on the continent of Europe, 521. " Churchman," 459, 479- Claggett, Bishop T. J., 390, 392, 397, 472. Clap, President, 108, 135, 145. Clarendon settlement, 222, 223. Clark, Bishop, 506, 533, 537. Clay, Henry, 436. Clayborne, 60. Clayton, Thomas, 207. Clinton, George, 351. Clinton, Sir Henry, 161, 313. Cobb, Bishop, 477. Cod, Cape, 8. Coit, Dr. Henry Augustus, 512. Coke, Dr., 405, 406, 408. Cole, Samuel, 117. Colebatch, Mr., 76, 273. Colonial church, summary, 266; the S. P. G., 266; state patronage and the clergy, 267; propagation by mutilation, no bishop, theological education, 267 ; attempts to obtain bishops, 268 ; donations, 269 ; in- est in America, 270; opposition, 274 ; union of non-Episcopal churches, 275 ; imperfect estimate of a bishop's office, 278. Colored clergy, 518. INDEX. 587 Columbia College, 443, 509. Commissioners for Maryland, 72. Commissioners of Foreign Planta- tions, 32. Common Prayer, Book of, 4, 30, 54, 67, 86, 88, 92, 108, 134, 165, 170, 213, 346, 348' 357> 362, Z^Z, 401, 533. 552- Compton, Bishop, t,1. Congregational church, first, 87. Congregational missionaries, 29, 387. Connecticut, 122; first building for the Church of England, 132; con- versions, polemics, 139; appeal to the legislature, 140; Whitefield, 141 ; action for the nationalization of the church, 312, 337. Consecration of the first American bishop, 323. _ " Constitution, General Ecclesiasti- cal," 347, 349; Sections V. and VIII., 356; Section VIII., 358, 360. Convention at Elizabeth, 276. Convention- of Charleston, 339. Convention of New Brunswick, 340. Convention of the Protestant Episco- pal Church, first, 51. Coombe, Thomas, 217. Cooper, Dr. Myles, 320, 324. Copeland, Rev. Mr., 22. Copley, Sir Lionel, 63. Copp, Jonathan, 263. Cornbury, Lord, 172, 190, 199, 208. " Corporation for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of the Clergy," 327- Cossit, Mr., 117. Crashaw, William, 15. Croes, Bishop John, 433. Cross, largest in the world, 4. Cummings, Archibald, 21 1, 212, 214. Cummins, Bishop, 535. Cutler, Timothy, loo, 124; life, 125; influence in Yale College, 126-129, 131- Cuttyhunk, 8. Dale, Sir Thomas, 18. Danish ordination, 52, 53, 351. Dare, Virginia, 7- Daughters of the King, 548. Davenport, John, 123. Davies, Samuel, 41. Davies, Thomas F., 215. De Lancey, Bishop William H., 215, 453> 472- Deaconesses, 524; "St. Faith's," 525- Declaration Concerning Unity, 552. " Declaration of Certain Fundamental Rights and Liberties," 304, 305. Dehon, Bishop Theodore, 392, 433, 438- , , Dennis, Richard, 328. Diocesan system, 524. Dix, Morgan, 499. Doane, G. W., 438, 452, 472; trial, 480, 487, 526, 554. Domestic Missionary Relief Associa- tion, 522. Dougan, Thomas, 164. Drake, Sir Francis, 4, 6. Drummond, William, 222. Duche, Jacob, 213, 216, 325, 354, 363. Dudley, Bishop, 506. Dudley, Joseph, 93. Duffield, chaplain to the Continental Congress, 298. Dutch, 162, 173, 204, 205. Earl, Daniel, 245. East India Company, li. Eastburn, Manton, 423, 438. Eden, Governor, 79, 80. Educational institutions, 507-515. Edward VI., 3, 318. Edwards, Jonathan, 125. Eigenbrodt, Dr., 440. Eliot, Dr. Samuel, 442. Elizabeth, Queen, 4, 92. Ellington, Edward, 264. Elliott, Bishop, 492, 506. Endicott, John, 87. Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia, 524- Episcopal Theological School, Cam- bridge, 507. Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Va., 438. Evans, Evan, 191, 207, 210. Faneuil, Peter, 103. Fayerweather, Mr., 107. Ferrar, John, 15. Ferrar, Nicholas, 15, 22. 588 INDEX. Fletcher, Francis, 4. Fletcher, Governor, 165, 170. P'orrester, Henry, 520. Franklin, Benjamin, 213, 215, 307, 342. Freeman, James, 368. Frink, Samuel, 264. Frobisher, 4. Fuller, Captain, 60. "Fundamental Principles," 343; Section IV., 343 ; Section VI., 344. Galleher, Bishop, 506. Garden, Alexander, 232, 233, 234. Gardiner, Dr., 119, 121. Gates, Sir Thomas, 11, 16, 18. Gates, Thomas, 304. General Association of Congrega- tional Ministers, 145. General Convention of 1785, 342; "Fundamental Principles," 343; ' ' Proposed Book, ' ' 346, 35 7 ; ' ' Gen- eral Ecclesiastical Constitution," 347 ; Address to the English bish- ops, 351 General Convention of 1789, 371; presentation of " Act of the Clergy of Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire," and resolutions, 372 ; adop- tion of the constitution, 374; ad- journed, 375; reopened, 376; committees on Prayer-book, 379; their reports adopted, 380. General Convention of 1844, 475. General Theological Seminary of New York, 437, 438, 439, 447, 472, 507. George I., 268. George II., 250. Georgia, benevolent character of the foundation of tlie colony, 249. Germans, 36, 78, 205, 219. Gibson, Richard, 89. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 4, 5. Girls' Friendly Societies, 522. Glebes, selling of the, for the benefit of the State, 389. Glover, missionary, 18. Godwin, Morgan, letter to Berkeley, 32; "Virginia's Cure," 33. Gordon, John, 164. Gordon, Patrick, 174, 212. Gordon, William B., 520. Gorges, Sir Fernando, 9, 12, 86, 89. Gorges, Robert, 86. Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, 8. Grace Church, New York, 458, 522, 525- Graham, Robert, 549. Graves, John, iii. Greece, 446. Greene Foundation, 103. Grenville, Sir Richard, 6. Griffin, Cyrus, 55, 355. Griffith, Dr., 53, 55, 359, 361. Griswold, Alexander V., 410; life, 417-423; "Autobiography," 422, 446. Griswold College, 459. Guilford, Lord, 72. Haiti, missions to, 516. Hakluyt, Richard, 11, 12, 15. Hall, Clement, 242 ; summary, 243, 245. 273- Hansen, Francis R., 447. Hare, Hobart, 514. Hariot, Master, 6. Harris, Henry, loo, 131. Harris, Bishop S. S., 506. Harrison, Peter, 104. Hart, Governor, 72, 73. Harwood, Dr. Edwin, 537. Hastings, Lady Elizabeth, 269. Hawks, C. S., 477. Hawks, Francis L., 448, 477. Heathcote, Caleb, 103, 175. Henderson, Jacob, 72, 76. Henrico, College of, 18, 22, 26. Henry, Sir John, 27, 28. Henry, Patrick, 44, 46, 48, 351. Henry VII., 3. Herbert, Henry, 250. High Court of Commissioners, 27. Hill, John R., 446. Hobart, John Henry, 183; life, 410- 417; Indians, 416; General l^heo- logical Seminary, 417, 438, 439, 445. 458. Hodges, John, 235. Hoffman, Dr. Charles F., 508. Hoffman, Dr. E. A., 440. Holly, James T., 516. Honeyman, James, 106, 272. Hopkins, Henry, 452; "Letters on the Novelties which Disturb our Peace," 474, 478, 501, 502, 531. INDEX. 589 Hopkins, Dr. John Henry, 529; " Life" of his father, 529. Houghteling, James, 548. House of Bishops, 434, 445, 460, 534, 535- Hoyt, Colonel, 328. Hubbard, Bela, 376. Huguenots, 35, 112, 173, 177, 222, 224, 237. Hunt, Robert, 12. Hunter, Governor, 193, 194, 271. Huntington, Dr. William R., 506. Hurdy, Samuel, 182. Hymnody, 458, 556. Illinois, diocese of, 436. Incarnation, Church of the, Garden City, L. I., 526. Inglis, Charles, 183, 186; "Sons of Liberty," 187; resignation, 188, 273,315, 325, 354- Inness, Alexander, 191. Ives, Levi Silliman, 451, 481. Jackson, Reginald, 224. James I., 8, 11, 26, 92. James II., 31, 62, 164, 190, 318. Jamestown Colony, 19. Japan, missions to, 515; statistics, 516. Jarratt, Rev. Mr., 45, 46. Jarvis, Dr. Abraham, 292, 312, 316, 365, 377, 39^- Jarvis, Samuel F., 438. Jay treaty, 386. Jefferson, 51. Jenkins, Edward, 392. Jenny, Robert, 214, 216, 218. Jesuits, 58, 170. Johnson, Samuel, 127, 131, 134, 137, 139; letter to London, 143; death, 156, 181, 272. Johnson, William Samuel, 151, 153. Johnstop, Gideon, 227, 230. Jones, Lot, 446. Jones, " Present State of Virginia," 38. Jordan, Robert, 90. Kelile's " Christian Year," 473. Keene, Samuel, %t,. Keith, George, 96 ; "Journal of Trav- els," 97, 123, 191, 192, 208, 210, 236, 279. Keith, Sir William, 211. Kemp, James, 433, 472. Kemper, Bishop, 448, 493. Kendrick, Dr., 474. Kenyon College, 436, 509. Kerfoot, Bishop, 531. Key, Francis S., 442. " Kick for the Whipper, A," 274. King, Bishop, 22, 23. King's Chapel, Boston, 95, 97, lOO, 104, 136, 145, 167, 191, 368. King's Chapel, Providence, iii, 112. King's College, New York, 147, 169, 181, 285; Columbia College, 443, 509-. Kip, Bishop, 493. Knights of Temperance, 549. Koven, Dr. James De, 534, 536, 550. La Pierre, 229, 231. Lane, Ralph, 6. Laud, Archbishop, 28. " Lawes, diuine, morall and mar- tiall," 19. Le Jean, Dr., 227, 228. Learning, Jeremiah, 312, 315, 316, 365- Lechford, Thomas, 88. Lee, Bishop, 508, 531. Lehigh University, 509. Leslie, Jacob, 164. Liljeria, 446, 508. Littlejohn, Bishop, 281. Locke, John, " The Fundamental Constitution of Carolina," 223. Lockwood, Henry, 447. Loe, Thomas, 204. London Colony, 11. Ludlum, Richard, 228, 230. Lutherans, 394. Lyford, John, 85. Macclenaghan, William, 118, 219. Mackintosh, Sir John, 125. Madison, Bishop, 46, 51, 388, 404. Magraw, Dr., 328. Mahan, Milo, 472. Maine, 118. Malborn, Godfrey, 155. Manateo, 7. Manning, President, 342. Mansfield, Dr., 158, 365. Markham, William, 205. M.irshall, John R., 332. Marshall, Samuel, 225. 590 INDEX. Marston, Edward, 225. Martin, David, 215. Mary, Queen, 4. Maryland, 56; proprietary rule, 57; Act of Religious Freedom, 59 ; the "Protestant Revolution," 62; royal government, 63 ; Act of Es- tablishment, 67; Act of Toleration, 68; dissenters, 71; commissioners, 72 ; royal province, 75 ! action for the nationalization of the church, 303- Mason, John, 89. Mather, Cotton, 94. Mather, Increase, 94, 95. Maverick, Samuel, 86. Mayhew, Jonathan, 104, 150. McCoskry, Bishop, 453. Mcllvaine, Bishop, 431, 448, 452, 4S0, 500. McSparran, Dr. James, 65, 107, 108, no, 112, 137. Meade, William, 389, 480, 495, 497. Meath, Robert, 222. Memorial Movement, 485 ; prelimi- nary report, 488. Mennonites, 205. Methodists, 47, 50, 78, 82, 337, 387, 388, 404, 408. Mexico, missions to, 519. Mill Creek Church, 42. Missionary Society, Domestic and Foreign, 444. Missions, 515-523. Mohawks, 176, 179. Moir, James, 242. Montgomery, General Richard, 183. Moor, Thoroughgood, 199. Moore, Benjamin, 184, 189, 315, 328, 394. Moore, Clement C, 438. Moore, Sir Henry, 183. Moore, Richard Channing, 410 ; life, 424-433 ; opposition, 429 ; Morn- ing Prayer, 430; "Tracts for the Times," 431. Morell, William, 86. Morgan, Morgan, 42. Morning Prayer, 430. Morris, Colonel Lewis, 191. Morris, Samuel, 41. Morton, Andrew, 246. Morton, Thomas, 85. Muhlenberg, Dr., 458; character and life, 483 ; the Memorial Movement, 485, 512, 524, 542, 555. Muirson, George, 124, 174. Murray, Dr. Alexander, t^Ji^ 269, 342, 354- Myles, Samuel, 167. Narragansett Church, 107. Narragansett County, life in, 108. Nashotah, 459, 493, 508. Neau, Elias, 177. New English Canaan, 86. New Hampshire, 114. New Lights and Old Lights, 144. New York, 162; "religions of all sorts," 164; act of 1693, 165; problem of the church, 171; In- dians, 176; Convention of, 331. Nichols, Bishop, 4. Nichols, Henry, 208. Nicholson, Sir PVancis, 62, 64, 66, 105, 207, 231, 271. " No king, no bishop," 45. " lYcti silii, sed aliis,'''' 249. Odenheimer, Bishop W. H., 215, 531- Ogden, Uzal, 396. Ogle, Samuel, 77. Oglethorpe, James Edward, 249. Ohio, diocese of, 436. Onderdonk, B. T., 474; trial, 478; suspension, 479. Onderdonk, Henry U., 451 ; trial, 475 ; revocation of sentence, 476. Orson, Jacob, 446. Orton, Christopher, 262. Otey, Bishop, 487, 495, 555. Oxford Movement, 460, 46.1, 473, 474, 475, 482. Paca, Governor, 304. Palmer, Solomon, 149, 1 50. Papists, 31, 60, 250. Parker, James, 355. Parker, Samuel, 332, 366. Parochial Mission Society, 547. Parties, the two, Evangelical and High-churchmen, 461 ; character- ization, 462 ; leaders, 467; analysis, 469 ; development, 472. Pastorius, 205. Payne, Bishop, 460. INDEX. 591 Penn, William, 204. Pennsylvania, action for the national- ization of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 289, 338. Peters, Richard, 216, 218, 307. Peters, Samuel, 157, 402. Petre, Father, 62. Pettigrew, Charles, 391. Philadelphia, Provincial Convention of, 329 ; resolutions, 330 ; General Convention, 343, 371. Philadelphia Divinity School, 507. Phillips, Francis, 210. Pierson, John, 138. Pigot, George, iii, 124. Pilgrims, 9, 10, 85. Pilmore, Joseph, 405. Pitkin, William, 122. Plant, Matthias, 131. Plymouth, 9; colony, II, 84. Pocahontas, 18, 20. Polk, Bishop, 510. Popham, Captain George, 10, 11. Popham, Sir John, 9, 10, 12. Porlock, Edward, 207. Potato, first knowledge of, 6. Potter, Alonzo, 459, 476, 487 ; life and character, 489, 502, 507, 524. Potter, Bishop Henry C, 522, 527. Potter, Bishop Horatio, 508, 524. Powhatan, 20. Presbyterians, 41, 173, 237, 387. Price Lectures, 103. Pring, Martin, 9, 10. " Proposed Book," 346, 357, 358, 360, 362, 379. " Protestant Churchman," 459, 479. Protestant Episcopal Church, 48 ; or- ganization in Virginia, 49, 52, 53; union, 54; Maryland, 57; Rhode Island, 105, etc. ; transformation from provincial to national exist- ence, 287; name, 303, 338, 550. Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States, 496. " Protestant Revolution," 62. Provoost, Dr. Samuel, 176, 184, 188, 343. 353. 359; consecration, 363, 390. 394- Punderson, Ebenezer, 138, 145, 147, 150. Furcell, Henry, 339, 401. Puritans, 9; in Virginia, 25, 27, 28; Council of Six, 60, 84, 91, 133. Puttock, Edward, 19 1. Quakers, the, 30, 61, 64, 66, 68, 78, 82, 191, 204, 206, 237, 279. Quarry, Colonel, 208, 209. Queen's Chapel, Portsmouth, 114. Quincy, Samuel, 250. Quintard, Dr., 510. Quo warranto, 62. Racine College, 459, 508. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 5, 7, 8, 9. Randolph, Peyton, 41. Ratcliffe, Robert, 94. Ravenscroft, John Stark, 449, 451. Reedman, Andrew, 209. Reformed Episcopal Church, 534. Rhode Island, 105, 108; characteris- tics of the church, 1 13. Richebourg, Philippe De, 229. Ritualism, 529 ; controversy, 53° ! "The Law of Ritualism," 530; canon, 533. Roanoke, 6. Robertson, J. J., 446. Robinson and Roan, 41. Rolfe, John, 20. Roman Catholics, 64, 66, 69, 78. Rush, Dr., 342. Russell, Thomas, 235. Saltonstall, Gurdon, 103. Sandys, 15, 22. Schereschewsky, Bishop, translation of the Bible into the Mandarin lan- guage, 516. Seabury, Samuel, 137, 138, 182. Seabury, Samuel, Jr., 181, 182, 185, 299, 312; consecration prepared, 314, 315, 316, 320; consecration fulfilled, 322, 336, 340, 349; pol- icy, 367.. 373. 390, 397- Seabury Divinity School, 508. Sewall, Richard, 207. Seymour, Colonel, 70- Seymour, Dr. G. F., 537. Sharpe, Dr., Archbishop of York, 269. Sharpe, Granville, 342, 350, Shattuck, Dr., 512. Shelton, Daniel, 133. Sherred, Jacob, 439. Shirley, Governor, 103. Sisterhoods, 523. 592 INDEX. Skinner, Bishop, 316; reply to Berke- ley, 319. 342, 365- Slavery, 20 ; introduction in Virginia, 23, 32; statistics, 40; in New York, 177, 224, 250. Smallpox, 39. Smith, Benjamin Bosworth, 452, 535. Smith, Dr. Hugh, 474. Smith, Captain John, 12 ; " Virginia," 13; "Advertisements for Unex- perienced Planters," 13, 16, 26. Smith, John Cotton, 537, 547. Smith, Dr. Payne, 535. Smith, Robert, 234, 339, 356, 391. Smith, Sir Thomas, 8. Smith, William, 107, 213; " Present Situation of American Affairs," 214, 216, 299, 303; life, 307; char- acter, 308; " A Sermon on the Present Situation of American Affairs," 309; opposition, 311 ; ob- jection, 321, 341, 345, 348, 359. Smith, Dr. Williamson, 442. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 66, 279. Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 66, 84, 95, 104, no, 122, 133, 206, 235, 266; ex- penses for the church in America, 280. Society for the Promotion of Evan- gelical Knowledge, 460. Somers, Sir George, 16. Southgate, Horatio, 460. Sparrow, Dr., 459, 544. Spergell, L. C, 214. Spotswood, Alexander, 36. St. Andrew's Brotherhood, 548. St. Luke's Hospital, 484, 525. St. Paul's School, Concord, 512. St. Stephen's College, 508. Standish, Captain Miles, 86. " Star-spangled Banner," 442. State idea and diocesan principle, 456. Stewart, Alexander, 244. Stockham, Jonas, 26. Storer, William, 59, 60. Storer, William Murray, 451. Stoughton, Colonel, 165. Sturgeon, William, 216. Stuyvesant, Peter, 162. Swedes, 204, 205, 209, 219, 221. Swift, Dean, 283. Talbot, John, 191; life, 192; alleged consecration, 195; Urmston, 197, 199, 202, 208, 210, 239. Tawborough, Convention of, 391. Taylor, Ebenezer, 240. Tenison, Archbishop, 269, 279. Theological literature, 506. Thirty-nine Articles, 41, 292, 399, ,474- Thomas, J., 174. Thomas, John, 208. Thomas, Samuel, 226, 231. Thompson, Thomas, 203. Thorp, George, 22, 25. Tobacco, first knowledge of, 6 ; sys- tematic cultivation, 20 ; minister's salary, 21; fine, 30, 34; relief act, 43. 56, 79- Toleration Act, 42. Tozer, Bishop, 535, " Tract 90," 474. " Tracts for the Times," 431. Trinity Church, Boston, 103. Trinity Church, New York, 166; building and endowment, 169; parish, 393, 458. Trinity College, Hartford, 438, 442. Troup, Alexander, 180. Tryon, Governor, 158, 187, 245, 246, 247, 309. Turner, Samuel N., 438. Tyng, Dr., 448, 459, 475. Unitarians, 369. University of Pennsylvania, 215, 216. University of the South, 510. Urmston, John, 210, 239, 240. Usher, John, no. Vaughan, Dr., 200. Vesey, William, 166, 168, 170, 172, 174, 176, 178. Vestry Act of 1779, 303. Vicary, John, 210. Vinegar Bibles, 102. Vinton, Alexander H., 487, 538, 544. Vinton, Francis, 487. Virginia, 6 ; first charter, 1 1 ; first history, 13; second charter, 14; tobacco, 20 ; third charter, 20 ; spiritual jurisdiction, 23 ; introduc- tion of slavery, 23 ; constitution, 24; Puritans, 25; Indian massacre. INDEX. 593 25 ; the charter annulled, 26 ; the Bishop of London, 37; Jones's de- scription, 2)^ ; Baptists, Methodists, 45 ; war statistics, 47 ; organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 49. Virginia Theological Seminary, 431, 441, 447, 508. Wainwright, Dr. Jonathan M., 103, 446. Wallingford, Convention of, 316. Walpole, Sir Robert, 283. Walton, Richard, 21 1. Warr, Lord De la, 15, 17. Washburn, Dr. E. A., 506, 537, 541- Way mouth, George, 9, 10. Wentworth, Benning, 116, 420. Wesley, Charles, 325, 405, 406. Wesley, John, 45, 82, 249, 252; Wesley in America and Wesley in England, 254, 265, 309, 335. West, Dr., 405. Western Theological Seminary, Chi- cago, 507. Weymouth, Lord, 236. Wharton, Dr., 392, 445. " Whip for the American Whig," 274. Whipple, Bishop, " Apostle to the Indians," 492, 514, 538. Whipple, Joseph, 112. Whitaker, Alexander, 18; "Good Newes from Virginia," 19. Whitaker, Bishop, 514. White, John, 6. White, William, 217; "The Case," 289; characteristic, 294; life, 296; patriot, 297 ; chaplain to the Con- tinental Congress, 298 ; ecclesias- tical statesman, 299; doctrines, 300, Z2>^^ 337. 340. 345. 359; consecra- tion, 363, ni, 392, 405; death, 453- Whitefield, George, 40, 141, 214, 233, 255; orphan house, 256; Bethesda College, 260; will, 261, 265. Whitehouse, Bishop, 526, 551. Wilde, Dr. George, 537. Wilkinson, Christopher, 72. Willard, Samuel, 94. William IIL, 318. William and Mary, 31 ; College of, 34. 38. 42. 388, 441- Williams, Bishop John, 506. Williamson, Atkin, 224. Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 3. Wilmer, James Jones, 303. Wingfield, Edmund, II, 12. Winslow, Edward, 148. Winthrop, Governor, 122. Wolcott, Governor Oliver, 442. Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions, 522. Wood, John, 62. Wyatt, Sir Francis, 24. Yale College, 125 ; address to the trustees, 126; debate, 128, 145. Yammonsee prince, 227. Yeamans, John, 222. Yeardley, Sir George, 20, 22. Yeo, John, 61, 220. Zouberbuhler, Mr., 263. Ube Bmerican CburcF) Ibistor^ Series. By Subscription, IN Twelve Volumes, at 82.50 per Volume Vol. I. Vol. II. Vol. 111. Vol. IV. Vol. V. Vol. VI. Vol. VII. Vol. VIII.- Baptists, . Congregationalists, Lutherans, Methodists, Rev. Rev. Presbyterians, . Protestant Episcopal, Reformed Church, Dutcii, Rev. Reformed Church Moravian, . Vol. IX. Roman Catholics, Vol. X.- Vol. XI. Vol. XII.- The Religious Forces of the United States, H. K. Carroll, LL.D., Editor of The Independent, Supt. Church Statistics, U. S. Census, etc. Rev. a. H. Newman, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History, McMaster University of Toronto, Ont. Rev. Williston Walker, Ph.D., Professor of Modern Church History, Theological Seminary, Hartford, Conn, Rev. H. E. Jacobs, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in the Ev. Lutheran Seminary, Phila., Pa. Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D., LL.D., Editor of the Nev^ York Christian Advocate. Robert Ellis Thompson, D.D., Philadelphia. Pa. C. C. Tiffany, D.D., New York. E. T. CoRwiN, D.D., Rector Hertzog Hall, New Brunswick, N.J. German, Rfv. J. H. Dubbs, D.D., Professor of History, Franklyn and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. Rev. J. T. Hamilton, D.D., Professor of Church History, Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pa. Rev. T. O'Gorman, D.D., Professor of Church History, Catholic ^University, Washington, D. C. Rev. J. H. Allen, D.D., Late Lecturer on Ecclesiastical History, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Rev. Richard Eddy, D.D., Providence, R. I, Rev. Gross Alexander, D.D., Professor Greek and N. T. Exegesis, Nashville, Tenn. Rev. Thomas C. Johnson, D.D., Professor Ecclesiastical History and Polity, Hampden-Sidney, Va. Rev. James B. Scouller, D.D., Newville, Pa. Rev. R. V. Foster, D.D., Professor Biblical Exegesis, Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn. Rev. R. B. Tyler, D.D., New York. Prof. A. C. Thomas, M.A., Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. R. H. Thomas, M.D., Baltimore, Md. Rev. D. Berger, D.D., Dayton, Ohio. Rev. S. p. Spreng, Editor Evangelical Messenger, Cleve- land, Ohio. Rev. Samuel Macauley Jackson, New York. Unitarians, Universalists, M. E. Church, So, Presbyterians, So., . United Presbyterians, Cumb. Presbyterians, Disciples, . Friends, United Brethren, . Ev. Association, Bibliography, . Date Due \: 't j$.^. 0'J25Tc rkc*}^'^'' ^^^«««4L *!<* r -_i5!*— e- i*'^ f) BX5880 .T56 A history of the Protestant Episcopal Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Librar 1 1012 00020 5387 ;, ) ■••ri WW':